In the Mess

Well, we're going to be talking today about how we come together as a body.

And we're going to be talking about what it means to be the body of Christ together with one another.

We were created by the hand of God and in the image of God.

And one of our windows tells this story.

If I could have it up and just leave it up, that picture of the stained glass window we have, the potter's hand.

And we often talk about that of how we want to be like that clay, molded by God, shaped by him.

But it also reminds us that we are created by God.

Something that people miss is that little pot that's in the upper part of that picture.

Do you see it there?

What's in the pot?

A person.

You know why?

Because in Genesis, when it talks about how we're created by God, it uses pottery imagery, how he made from the ground, right?

And the idea is that we are created by God, shaped by God, in the image of God by the hand of God.

Now, that's enough for that picture.

That's good, thank you.

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?

You know, theologians have argued about this for ages, but certainly it means some things.

Some people say it means intelligence, a certain ability to understand and know about things.

Others say, well, it's our ability to communicate with God and with others, just like God does.

And others say, well, it's our moral sense, our ability to tell right from wrong.

Probably all the above and much more.

But we do know this.

We are created in the image of God, a good creation, indeed, the Bible says very good.

But it also says then that sin entered the picture, and that image of God that we were created with became blurred, marred, destroyed to some extent.

And when sin enters the picture, we become what we were not created to be.

Different definitions of sin, right?

Some people say it's a rebellion against God, some people say it's an ignoring of God, some people say it's a centering on the self, and I'm sure there are many other definitions.

But one thing I want us to be clear on the individual sins that we commit are not sin itself, those are the symptoms.

So the real disease is sin, is the disease, and the individual things we do wrong are the symptoms of that.

In the New Testament, the word for sin is amartia, which means to miss the mark.

And we've got there a little picture there showing you that.

You see all these arrows missing.

They could even hit the target but not get the bullseye, right?

And we all come from different places in our lives.

Maybe we're doing things that were basically right with our lives anyway, but kind of by accident or not for God purposes.

But we are now, you know, going to change and move because the word for living in a different way is metanoia, repent.

Jesus said, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Now, I showed you that missing the mark, but I have one other picture I wanted you to see and hear what this message has to say.

Defining sin as missing the mark still misses the mark if we misdefine the mark as moral perfection rather than loving God wholeheartedly and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Really, it's about love rather than about rule following.

We'll talk more about that as we go here.

When Jesus began his ministry, in the Gospel of Matthew at least, he began it with these words.

He said, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Okay?

That kingdom of God, of course, we enter it when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and he becomes the ruler over our lives.

But repent is an interesting word.

It means to go in a new direction and a new way.

It means to move Godward.

Now, I found pictures of people sinning, and they were showing a picture of a bowman and the target's behind him, and he's shooting this way.

Some of us are missing the target like that.

Others have been shooting and they've been aiming at the target and actually getting close, but for the wrong reasons and the wrong purpose.

The idea here is that as we repent, we are being changed.

We receive the grace that has been given us and we go in a new direction, a Godward way.

And that new direction is what salvation is all about.

You know, we receive the Holy Spirit, God's grace in our lives, and then God's working in us to bring salvation about.

I am saved, I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved.

Salvation is this ongoing process that we sometimes call holiness or sanctification.

The idea that God is at work in our lives as Christians, helping us to become changed and different.

It's really not about moral perfection so much as it is, though, about communion with God and with others.

And when we have God at work, the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are then have that blurred image, that marred image of God that we were created in, is being restored, brought to life, and we're becoming different people.

Today's scripture lesson is from 1 Peter, which is a book really all about holiness and sanctification.

It's written to a group of Christians, a wide number, who had been Christians for a while, and he wants them to be to be encouraged, to hold fast to the faith, to allow God's Spirit to continue to be at work in their lives, changing and transforming them.

Our scripture lesson begins with this word in 1 Peter 1, 13, therefore, with minds that are alert.

And I always tell people when you see the word therefore, you should see what it's there for.

Okay?

It's there to help us connect what went before with what's to come.

And the picture here is last week, as Pastor Ryan was sharing with us, uh it was talking all about how the great gifts we had received in Jesus Christ.

Christ gave us great gifts so that uh we could find newness of life, we could die to our sins and our past and our old way and be resurrected to a new way of life, and we could receive an inheritance that was undefilable, uh unperishable, and unfading.

And he says there's more grace to come.

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober.

That is a mistranslation because nobody knows how to translate the phrase that comes here.

It's actually literally a command, and it says, Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind.

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

In the ancient world, people wore long flowing robes and they had belts that would go around them made out of leather or girdles.

And they would wear these things, and uh, when they had important work to do, that long robe would get in the way.

So what they do is they'd tuck it up, they'd pull it up and they tuck it around their belt.

That's called girding your loins.

Okay?

That's the equivalent of, for us in English, you know, take off your coat, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.

That's what it means.

So therefore, gird up the loins of your mind.

He says, get ready to work, and it begins up here with your brain.

You're gonna be changing the way you think and look at things.

And he says, with m gird up the loins of your mind and be fully sober.

That doesn't mean, of course, it does mean in a sense, don't drinking, but what it really means is take this seriously.

This is important stuff that you should be paying attention to.

And then he goes on to say, set your hope.

And by the way, it says your hope.

One of the problems when we read things in in the Bible is that we often mishear them because there's two reasons in our culture that help us miss this.

This is actually a you plural.

Your.

And you notice earlier it says with minds, plural, that are fully alert.

And later on it's going to be talking about children.

This is actually you plural all the way through this.

We live in a very individualistic culture that tends to hear things of you as about me, or you as an individual.

The Bible is almost always talking you plural about us as a community.

Okay, and that's what it's doing here.

This is written to community.

It's also a problem with the English language in that we don't have a second-person plural separate from a second-person singular.

When I was uh in high school, you know, my family lived in, moved to Germany, and I went to an international school.

There were almost 40 different countries represented there, and less than a third of the people spoke English as their first language.

The weirdest thing was, though, that everybody there, because there were some Southerners in our group that did speak English, everybody learned y'all.

So we had all these Japanese and Italians and, you know, people from all over the world going, Y'all.

Because English doesn't have a U plural, and it should, right?

It's a handicap for us, and we don't understand and hear this here.

This is written to us as a group.

Uh anyhow, it goes on.

Set your hope, your hope plural, on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.

So there's a goal that our life and world is marching to.

We want to focus on that because the end is in Jesus.

We want to be living our lives in appropriate ways for that end.

It goes on, verse 14, as obedient children.

Okay, we're to be obedient.

That's not a word we like very much, but if we accept Christ as our Lord, that means the one in charge of our lives.

If we enter into his kingdom, he's our king and ruler.

Therefore, we should be obedient.

Children.

Well, he's our heavenly father, so we're children together.

And the Bible does that all the time.

We're in a part of a new family.

We have new brothers and sisters in the Lord.

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

So before you became a Christian, you were living in a certain way, and you had certain reasons and motivations behind it.

Get rid of those.

Have a new motivation because of the great things you've received in Jesus and the more that is to come.

Alright?

And before you lived in ignorance, now you know better.

Verse 15.

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.

God is holy.

What does holy mean?

It means other, different.

God is holy because he's not like everything else in the world.

Okay, we're called then to be different from the world as well, to live in a different way.

And he says, For it is written, be holy because I am holy.

And he's quoting there Leviticus chapter 11.

Leviticus 11 · chapter mention

In fact, in this short passage we're looking at today, he makes several quotes and other references.

That should tell you how important the scriptures and knowing them is for us if we're really going to grow in the Lord.

Verse 17.

Since you call on a father, notice again that family relationship going on here, who judges each person's work impartially.

So God looks at us and he judges us impartially.

He sees what's really going on.

He judges honestly and truthfully.

Live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.

That word foreigner, we're going to look at it again.

But the idea here is when we become Christians, we become part of God's kingdom.

That's where our citizenship ultimately lies.

So, yeah, we may be Americans, but first and foremost, we're Christians.

We have this connection with Christ that comes first.

That's why the Bible often talks about we're citizens of the new kingdom.

In fact, it talks about us our names being written in the book of life.

Did you know that the small cities of the ancient world used to have a book in which all the citizens' names were listed?

That was the book of citizens, and they rename it the book of life in the book of Revelation to let us know that that's where life really lies.

Live out your life, a time here as foreigners, pilgrims here on this journey, here in reverent fear.

We recognize God's in charge, He's the ultimate judge.

For you know it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed.

To be redeemed means to be bought back.

All right?

We weren't bought with silver or gold.

I think it says they're perishable.

I don't usually think of silver and gold being perishable, but they are in one sense for sure.

They come and go, don't they?

At least at my house.

You know, you get money and then it goes.

And sometimes Joy and I are going, wow, we have this money's flowing in and then this money's flowing out.

It's just amazing how that all works so fast in our lives.

Okay.

You redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors.

So without God in our lives, our purpose here is vague and unsure.

It's empty.

You know, that's the way we got.

We have something now that gives meaning and purpose.

Verse 20.

He was chosen before the creation of oh, excuse me, I left out a verse.

Verse 19.

Uh uh But with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

We were redeemed with that precious blood.

And that's important to hear, not with things that come and go, but with something that lasts and has significance.

The sacrifice of Jesus, which reveals his love.

And by the way, when it talks about a lamb, we actually have another stained glass window that shows that.

Let's have that picture up.

And that picture is to show us Jesus there.

You see that thing around the lamb's head?

That's called a nimbus.

You might think it's a halo.

It's not.

It's a nimbus because it has three different things that come down and connect up.

That's to let us know it's one of the Trinity, one of the three.

Okay, so it's just a symbol there to remind us that He is the Lamb, the sacrifice that was made without blemish, without sin, without fault, for our sake's the gift given for us.

Okay, going on, verse 20.

He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

So God's plan of redemption was there all along.

Uh it was there from the very beginning.

Our need for a savior isn't a mistake.

It's built into the whole plan that God has.

And it goes on through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

So Jesus has given us this connection to God that will last.

And he goes on, verse 22.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, notice again, yourselves, uh, by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for each other.

Okay?

By obeying Christ, you learn to love other people.

Now that's a challenge for us.

You know, Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's Travels and other things, talked about this a lot.

He says, I don't have trouble loving certain individuals, but the humanity as a whole, I really have trouble loving.

Sometimes I feel that way, and sometimes I feel the opposite way, like it's easier for me to love in the abstract than it is the individuals.

What does that poem go?

To be above with saints we love, all that will be a glory.

But to be below with saints we know, that's another story.

Right?

It's difficult, and yet we're called to be in love with one another.

That's what he's saying here.

Uh and then he says, uh, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply.

You know, grow in that love from the heart.

Now, heart means emotions for us, but in the ancient world, uh they usually when they talked about emotions, they talked about the gut, because they thought that's where they were.

The heart was a symbol of will, of the purpose and decision.

Uh and then he goes on to say, for you have been born again, uh, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.

So we've been born again, we've been given this new start, this new beginning, and it's one that can last forever through the living and enduring word of God.

And then it says, For all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

In other words, so much of our life is just transient, including our lives themselves.

We're just here for a moment, and then we're gone.

Uh the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

All right, so we're here for just a time.

Make the most of the opportunities you have.

And this is the word that was preached to you.

So he's really saying, live out your faith, learn to love one another.

Uh that's what this passage says.

And if you're born again, if you're part of the new family, if you're citizens of the new kingdom, then we need to learn how to live into that reality and to lean into it so that it becomes our total reality.

Our faith should be transforming us and changing the way that we live.

Now that's important to hear.

Uh, one of my favorite stories is about a uh a young man who became a Christian just because he was finishing up his senior year of high school, and he was going to go off to college the next year, and he had a job that he really needed, a really high-paying job in a lumber camp.

And he went to his church and he says, You know, I need this job.

I have to earn enough money to pay for my school next year.

But wow, this lumber camp I'm going to is kind of notorious for its wild way of living.

You know, everybody cusses and drinks and carries on uh with women, and you know, there's all kinds of things that go on there.

And everybody goes, Yeah, we all know.

We'll pray for you, right?

And and so they all pray for him, and then he goes off to the lumber camp and he comes back after a month, and everybody's curious, you know, how he's done, you know, if he's been able to live the kind of life he should.

And they said, So what has it been like there?

Has it been hard for you to be a Christian in them?

And he says, Thank goodness, I've been there a month and nobody knows I'm a Christian.

That's not what you want to hear, is it?

It should make a difference in our lives and change us.

Uh, and we hope and pray that it does.

I have been saved, I am being saved, I will be saved.

As we work out our salvation and grow in holiness, we are fitted for the kingdom and will grow in the Holy Spirit.

And that begins with learning to love.

Now, we've been talking about the Holy Spirit here.

We actually have one more window, and this is the last one, I guarantee you.

We're not gonna look at windows all day, but our Holy Spirit window or our olive window.

And you say, why is it Holy Spirit and olive?

That's a cruet there that holds olive oil.

Why?

Because in the ancient world, when they were gonna make something set apart for holy purposes, other purposes, they would consecrate it by using olive oil, and they would pour some out and put it on things.

And the the idea there was that you were setting aside for holy purpose and that the oil represented the Holy Spirit.

When someone was anointed, they called that person a Messiah.

That means anointed one.

Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, but he was anointed not with olive oil, but with the Holy Spirit.

That's why we have at the top of that window that dove coming down.

Because it reminds us of Jesus' baptism.

And we have a picture of that as well.

Jesus' baptism, you see?

Remember, he's baptized and the Holy Spirit comes upon him in the form of a dove.

Obviously, that's a metaphor.

It just means the Holy Spirit's there.

I mention this because Christ, when we become his followers, gives us his spirit, that Holy Spirit to dwell in our lives, to change and transform us.

We are to grow in the Holy Spirit.

Now, that growth in the Holy Spirit is just key to understanding what it means to be sanctified by Jesus.

Uh we have a holy God who wants us to be different.

And many Christians think of this holiness as learning or becoming a better person.

I'm going to grow and get better as an individual.

Well, that's certainly a part of it, but it's much bigger than that.

In fact, it's not primarily about becoming more moral, it's primarily about learning to be in communion with God and with others.

Genuine, real communion.

That means spending time with God and learning about what it means to be His follower.

It means that the image of God is restored in us and we become fully alive, fully surrendered to God.

Sanctification is relational before it is moral.

And I'll say that again.

Sanctification, that process of becoming holy, is m is relational before it is moral.

It's about that communion with God and others.

Christ entered our world.

And that's something we need to really understand.

He entered into the world and was participating in it.

He touched lepers, he washed feet, he broke bread, he suffered on a cross.

Sanctification is not an escape from life, it is the redemption and transformation of life.

God makes things different.

He blesses and makes holy things like bread and juice, and he can also make things holy like you and me.

We live in a world where people are spiritually starving, right?

They're hungry for something more, a greater truth, a real truth, a life-transforming truth.

But we live in this consumer society that yet we're taking in all this data all the time, people are always on their phones seeing things, and yet they're malnourished because the stuff they're watching and receiving is mostly junk.

And have you ever done that?

I do this almost every time I go to the movies.

I go and we get this big thing of popcorn, and I eat popcorn.

And I'm one of those, if there's anything left in the bag, I'm still eating, right?

And then I'm done and I'm going, oh, now I don't feel so good because I ate all this junk, right?

And it's there, right?

We we don't want that.

We want something that has meaning and purpose.

And yet our society is always, give us this thing now, fast, hurry.

I often say we're we're into microwaving, God's into marinating.

He wants to be transforming us over time, and he's at work shaping and molding us into what he wants us to be.

That's why things like daily prayer, Bible study, worship are so significant.

And it also means finding opportunities for service and mission are so significant for us.

Personal faith is important, but Christianity is profoundly communal.

Love requires other people, right?

I can't just love without other folks that are there.

So community gives us a chance to do that, it exposes.

Our selfishness and it is a place where we grow and transform.

And church is important, therefore, because it's not a community shaped by outrage or competition or fear or tribalism, like so many of the other groups we're a part of, but by grace, forgiveness, and love.

Spiritual improvement is really relational.

And I want us to take us there and think about two of the phrases that were used in today's scripture lesson, and one that I'm going to add, because you know I can add on to the scripture.

No, uh, because it's the same idea.

The first was it talked about foreigners, right?

And I was sharing with you that we are really strangers in a strange land, as the Bible tells us.

Pilgrims on a journey, citizens of the heavenly kingdom, and our names are written in the book of life.

I love this metaphor that when you become a Christian, you become a part of a new country, a new way of living.

And again, for some folks, that's a radical change, and others it's minor.

You may have grown up here in the United States and you're moving to Canada.

Well, they speak our language, they drive like we do, they have a lot of our culture, but there's some things that are different.

Some of them speak French.

Who does that?

Right?

Some of them, uh uh, you know, they know a different national anthem, they have a different history.

There's other things that are different flavors, and they they add uh to some of their words, right?

Others, maybe you're moving from the United States to England.

Well, they speak the same language, kinda, but they drive on the wrong side of the road, right?

And they have a radically different history, right?

And maybe for others, becoming a Christian is kind of like moving to Japan.

Everything's different, right?

And you you you really almost have to just stop and think about everything.

I share that because, you know, when we become citizens of the kingdom, we have to change the way we're thinking.

And that's why he said, gird up the loins of your mind.

Be ready to think differently about the world and about how we relate and connect up to people.

But I also want to say you really grow as a new citizen when you get out there in the community.

Have you ever known people who move to a new country and then just spend their time living exactly as they did before?

And you wonder why they're here or why they're wherever they've moved to.

You know, if you're gonna only speak your native tongue instead of learning the new language, if you're only gonna communicate with other people from the same place you were from originally, are you really a part of the kingdom, a part of that new country?

You know, we're supposed to get out there in the world and experience things that are different.

And it talked about new family.

It says we have God as our Father.

It says we are children of the Lord.

We are brothers and sisters, therefore, with one another.

When Joey and I had children, I remember being kind of shocked at parenting in this sense.

I would say things and do things with my children that I realized my parents had done that I had completely forgotten about, and all of a sudden they're coming out of me.

Did any of you experience that?

I often said, gee, that's my mom and dad.

I'm just uh like I'm channeling them from an, you know, not that I'm new agey, but channeling them kind of in a sense, right?

And most of that was good because I had good parents who were really trying, and they were Christians, and they really made a giant effort at it.

But every once in a while I'd say something too that just wasn't good because they were impatient, and maybe I was even more impatient.

The worst thing that still haunts me today is that when uh my son Paul would I'd tell him something, and then he'd seem like he'd do the opposite, and I would say, Are you deaf?

Didn't you hear me?

And then I discovered when he was about five that in fact he had a significant hearing problem and he wasn't hearing me.

Oh my gosh, did I feel terrible?

All right, but there I am, I'm following the pattern that I've learned, you know, and mostly functional, but some dysfunction and learning.

I work with guys in prison.

You know what universally, you know, if you wanted to pick one universal thing about guys in prison, the biggest problem they have is that they had terrible fathers.

I mean, almost universally.

And they have shared with me when they're trying to parent how hard it is for them because every template they go to is wrong.

They've got to learn from other people about how to parent.

And they really have to bring it up in prayer all the time.

But shouldn't I be doing that too?

Not just counting on having the right thing.

When we enter into God's family, we're moving from a family, however functional, still dysfunctional, into one that should be functional and yet isn't always, okay?

Because it's full of people like you and me.

We're trying to learn how to function as a family together and to live into that.

And that means being involved.

And the last metaphor I want to use is one of teams.

You know, being a Christian means you're part of a church family, you're part of a team, and you're also part of individual teams within that, and you get to experience what that's like.

And hopefully the Holy Spirit is at work in those teams, making them what they should be.

I'm gonna just lift up real quickly a couple things that have happened to me recently in the teams I've been with and why this is important.

I hope you'll see.

So, you know, when I retired, I had more time to do some things that I like to do.

One of them is I like to cook.

And so we have a cookie team.

My gosh, that's right up my alley.

Get to set aside, make cookies, and get all these ready, and it's kind of fun.

You get down, get to show off, get to, you know, it's it's just an enjoyable thing for me to do.

I get to try new recipes out because, you know, heaven knows what am I gonna do with?

I think last week it was uh last time I made it was like 36 strawberry cheesecake bars.

Well, I'm not eating 36 cheesecake bars.

Uh that'd take us a year.

So, anyhow, we bring them here and you get to feed them to you guys.

All good for me.

I sign up one time, and uh, you know, usually other people sign up, but this time I sign up, nobody else signs up.

Okay, that's all right, I can handle that.

So I made all this treats for the last time.

And uh uh uh the day of I'm there getting all the things ready in the kitchen, and and in comes Sharon and Peggy, and they say, We saw, we've been away out of town for a couple weeks, and we saw that you were the only one doing that, so we thought we'd help.

And they bring in all this other stuff.

And I'm looking at them going, Oh my gosh, I made 350 treats.

I do not want to take home a hundred cheesecake bars.

And then I'm thinking, but I know where they're coming from.

They're not being, this is not being mean at all.

It's coming from their hearts.

They saw that I was by myself and they were worried about me.

And out of kindness and goodness, they created all this stuff and they brought it in.

And now I'm going, I don't know what we do now.

And and I'm trying to be kind, and I can see them going, well, Pastor John doesn't want our treats, he doesn't want our help.

What's going on here?

We thought we were being helpful.

And I can see you see what I mean, how frustrating it can be sometimes to work together in a team.

You know, when uh uh our daughter Amanda was assigned in high school to be on a team with some other kids to do a project, and she says, I hate this because the other kids won't do the work and I'll end up doing all their work for them and they'll mess it all up.

And I was thinking, that is me.

I am so like that, and yet we can't do things together.

Do I want to be the only cookie person?

Do I want to do it every week?

No.

Right?

You hear where we're coming from.

Coming together.

Why is it important to do things like this, though?

Yeah, it can be a little frustrating, but we're learning about grace and love and patience and working together because we are called to be a team, the body of Christ, in a place.

I'll share one other example.

And I hope these are not being negative about anybody.

It's much mine, easily.

Uh because I remember going, oh.

Well, anyhow, here's another one.

Carol Humphries is out of town.

She always does the food for the blood drive.

She said, Hey, Pastor John, could you fill in for me?

And I said, I'd be happy to do that.

Uh and so she says, I'll get it all ready for you, and uh uh then you can do it.

So uh not only did she get it all ready for me, she gave me a list of what it's I'm supposed to do.

It's five pages long with pictures.

And then I had a meeting with her to go over it.

Now, a part of me is it's kind of funny, but it's also helpful, right?

I I really don't know what I'm doing.

It's all written out for me.

I won't mess it up.

And thank goodness she did that in such a careful way.

But it's also kind of like, wow, okay, a little bit on the overkill side, can we say that?

But that's Carol, and I'm more of a fly by your seats kind of guy.

You know?

That's okay.

We're learning how to live and to work with other people.

Now, I'm giving you examples when it all is everybody's intentions are good and going the right way, right?

But there are times in the church when that doesn't happen.

How do we live as a team in grace?

Well, that's what Paul is saying.

You have to live it out because that's how you learn about love.

And yeah, it's frustrating sometimes to be working with other people in whatever aspect we are, but we're called on to be this community so that we can learn to grow in faith.

Paul's really just saying that.

It's about relations, it's about growth.

It's really back to the biscuits salt, the flour, the buttermilk, lard, all coming together to become something better than we were apart.

All coming together to become the bot not biscuits, but the body of Christ.

Right?

Let's have a word of prayer.

Lord Jesus, we just thank you for the way you are at work in our lives together, and how you are shaping and molding us.

Help us, we pray, Lord, to commit to acts of service and mission so that we can interact with others and be about your work and have your Holy Spirit at work in us to change and transform.

Bless us in this as we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.