God on Mission [Jesus Loves CA]

Good morning, church family.

Good to be together and worship together.

My name is Bill, and our scripture this morning is from several passages out of the Gospel of John.

I think they're up on the screen.

And it may, if you'd like to look at it, maybe in the church Bible, in the pew in front of you, or also on your screen, but uh feel free to kind of walk along as these words are on the screen.

As I read these words of Jesus.

And these first words of Jesus are words familiar to many of us.

In John 3, 16 and 17, Jesus says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

In verse chapter 3, verse 34, Jesus says, For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

In 1426, Jesus continues, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

In 1526, Jesus says, 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.

John 16, 7.

Jesus says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

And in John 17, 3, Jesus says, And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, in Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you, Bill.

I also really appreciated that you said the Bibles are located in the pews in front of you.

I would pews are awesome.

Remember that?

How many of you grew up in a church with pews?

Yeah, those were the good old days.

If you're a guest with us, my name is Sam, and I'm one of the pastors here.

It's my great privilege to welcome you into church this morning as we launch a new series and really a whole new campaign called Jesus Loves California.

But before we do that, just a couple housekeeping notes.

The first is just to share with you, many of you gave to a project that we had here at the church.

We got new projectors, and we also just this past week got our new sound system installed.

So a new soundboard and some new equipment here up on stage.

And so for those of you who gave to that project, I just want to say thank you for your incredible generosity.

In a little over six weeks, we raised over$60,000 to be able to contribute towards these projects.

And so I was just so blessed to see this church's response to the need.

So thank you again for that.

And um this the uh as we begin, I I I want to talk about our lovely state of California.

Yes.

California has gotten some hate lately.

Anyone know about this?

Yeah, I maybe I think it kind of like picked up steam in particular during the COVID era, and I think it's this story of the kind of the hatred and hating on California has become a very popular sport in the social media world as people bag on and trash California.

Um even Christians have kind of joined into this movement.

Uh it's been described by some Christian pastors as, quote, enemy territory, hostile to the Christian faith.

And there's started even a movement called the Flea California movement.

But for me, the real turning point was when In N Out decided to move its headquarters out of California.

And I thought to myself, this has to stop.

And so we're launching a campaign, and really it's just to bring California or to bring In N Out back to California.

I know their restaurants aren't leaving, but it just feels like In N Out is synonymous with California for some reason.

This isn't to indict anybody, obviously, you have we have challenging conditions here in the state of California, and this isn't to indict anybody who's moved out or left.

Many have done so for very legitimate reasons, but I think uh the the the the motivation behind this campaign is uh first a reminder to us as Christians and as those who belong to the church that whatever the challenges and opposition we might face in a state like California, it won't undo Jesus' love for it.

Can I get an amen to that?

That it could be a challenging state, and there can be real opposition, and there can be real hardships even in raising families here and the cost of living and all the things that we get talked about about the state of California.

Those things are all may be true, but that doesn't undo Jesus' own motivation and own commitment to the souls that live in this state.

And so this is kind of what's behind the backdrop of this campaign that we're launching this morning.

The second is just to tell this state, the state that we live in, the state that we love, that Jesus loves them.

That's what we're going to do over the next year.

And so we'll be talking more about this in a few moments.

But as I was praying over launching this campaign, one particular story in the scriptures has continued to come up for me.

And I think it's a great parable for where we find ourselves as Christians and as members of the church here in a state like California.

And the story is the story of Jonah.

And in this story, it tells the story of an ancient city called Nineveh.

Nineveh was a powerful city, it was a prosperous city, it was a populous city.

It was also a city that God described as, quote, not knowing its right hand from its left.

It was a morally bankrupt city, it was a lost city, it was a city careening toward destruction.

This was the reality of the city of Nineveh.

And so, because of this condition, God has gonna is gonna respond to the condition of this city of Nineveh.

And that there's a kind of a reality that, uh, a pattern that that shows up throughout history and in all great civilizations and empires.

Uh, it was really well depicted.

Shannon, can we go?

I left my slide poker there.

Um, anybody ever seen these paintings by Thomas Cole?

They're called The Course of Empire.

I got to see them in person in New York City.

It was an amazing experience.

I got to go uh with uh an art historian who described the backdrop of these, but they're all paintings by a famous American painter named Thomas Cole, and it tells the story in five scenes of the basic pattern of all empires.

You you start in a kind of pastoral setting.

Uh, it's very raw, it's very wild, and then slowly you get some developing civilization, and then you reach the peak, the golden age of that civilization.

But slowly, because of that golden age and the prosperity, it collapses into ruin and despair and decadence and immorality, and there's war, and that the the civilization gets torn apart and finally it falls into disrepair.

This is the basic pattern.

And this is what's going on in Nineveh.

They're moving from the golden age into this place.

And God is motivated, he sees what's about to happen in Nineveh, and he's motivated to respond to it.

God knows this basic pattern.

It's a pattern that's set up in response to him.

Ultimately, if a city or a nation or an empire or a civilization rejects him, walks away from him, embraces immorality, this is where things inevitably go.

It's a very fundamental pattern of reality.

If you reject God, this is what happens.

But amazingly, God's response to this is not indifference or callousness, but God's response is actually grief.

We have this passage, Jonah chapter 4, verse 11.

Jonah 4:11

This is what the Lord says.

He says, Should I not pity or grieve over Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, that God's response to this condition is a response here of pity, of mercy, of heartache.

We see the same reality expressed by the Lord Jesus when he sees the region around Galilee, all the people who are lost, they're called the harassed and helpless.

And we're told that Jesus actually feels compassion for them.

That he's motivated, God is motivated out of compassion for the condition of this great city of Nineveh.

And because of that, because of his compassion, he's gonna move toward the city of Nineveh.

And he's gonna do that by sending his prophet Jonah.

And he's gonna send Jonah, and he's the purpose for which he's sending Jonah is to warn Nineveh, this is where things are going.

Destruction is coming, ruin is on its way.

But Jonah, having had firsthand experience of the wickedness of this great city, what does he do?

He runs away! He preferred, in other words, in the callousness of his heart, that this great city be forsaken and destroyed.

I think you know the rest of the story.

It involves a great fish and getting thrown up on a beach and all kinds of fun stuff.

But here's what I want to hear us to hear as we begin this morning: that a lack of compassion and grief for a godless state is never the divine side of the equation.

We cannot outcompassion God.

Calousness, resentment, abandonment, these are human traits that forsake what God loves.

And the story of Jonah maybe is a is a bit of a foil to us.

And the question as we begin this campaign, as we turn our attention as a church family out towards our community, is are we going to embrace the way of Jonah?

Or are we going to embrace the way of the Lord?

The story of Jonah actually amazingly ends with Jonah still boiling in his resentment.

He is bitter that God has shown so much compassion, that God loves this wicked and godless nation, that God has compassion for the people of Nineveh.

It bothers him.

Will we embrace God's compassion and love?

Or we will we embrace Jonah's callousness and hardness of heart.

Now, to be clear, God's love and compassion for Nineveh and his love and compassion for the state of California, it doesn't ignore or affirm immorality.

That's certainly not what it does.

It calls for repentance and change.

This is what Jesus said in Luke chapter 5, verse 32.

Luke 5:32

Jesus answered them, There are those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but what?

Sinners to repentance.

That God's love is motivated to call people to change, to adopt a different way.

And this is what happens in Nineveh.

They hear of their coming destruction, and the entire city repents.

It turns.

This is God's motivation.

His loving motivation is that people would turn from their immorality and sin and turn toward him in repentance.

So as we begin, I and we think about this campaign that we have as a church family out to the state of California.

I want this story to kind of sit in the backdrop of your mind.

Because I think as Christians, some of us perhaps can adopt this kind of callousness of heart and frustration towards the place that we live.

It can be difficult, it can be challenging.

Things about the state of California, things about our local environment can drive us crazy, it can frustrate us.

But if we let that sink in and become resentment and hardness of heart, we know which direction that leads, whose way that is, and it certainly isn't the Lord's.

Alright.

So with this campaign, let me just, I'm gonna kind of outline what we're gonna be doing as a church family for the next year.

It's a year-long commitment that we're making as a church family.

This is something that uh for some time our elders have been praying about over the last 12 to 18 months.

Our elders have been seeking the Lord and praying and asking him, God, what would you have us do?

Where would you have us be oriented as a church family?

What would you have us be about?

And the clear and resounding theme throughout all of the elders, this is a unanimous conviction of our board, is that we as a church family need to begin to turn our eyes out towards the place that we live.

We've spent years kind of uh strengthening the church body and building up the church body, but now we believe God has equipped us and enabled us as a family to begin turning our attention out towards our community.

And so this Jesus Loves California campaign, it's gonna be a sort of Acts 1.8 campaign.

And if you know Acts 1.8, it says this that the Jesus' campaign of the kingdom, it says, he says we'll begin in Jerusalem and then we'll extend from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

And so we're gonna adopt that same basic principle here as a church family.

We're just gonna start here locally and be committed to the place that we're in right now with our neighbors and our community and families and places of work, that this is the place where this campaign is going to begin.

And we're gonna have three basic ministry emphases over the next year.

Three things that are kind of the primary principles and motivating factors and ministry expressions that we will be committed to as a church family.

Those three are intentional praying, sacrificial serving, and gospel sharing.

It's a basic expression of the reality that we do two things.

We share the love of Christ in both word and deed.

Matthew chapter 9 tells us that Jesus tells us that we are called as Christians to pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he would send out workers into the harvest.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

For the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, Jesus said.

So we need to be committed to praying.

We need to be committed to serving our community.

We need to be committed to sharing the gospel with our community.

Uh, this is gonna show up in lots of different ways.

We're gonna have a six-week sermon series that's launching this campaign.

If you're in life groups, we're gonna be studying this together and what it means for us individually as Christians to be committed to our community in these three ways.

Uh, we're also gonna be having events every month throughout the year, events that represent each of these commitments.

And so, as Ashley shared just this morning, uh next Saturday, the 26th, we're gonna be having our first event, which is a prayer event, which we're gonna be praying for our community.

We'd love for you to come out and join us in prayer for our community.

We're gonna be walking around Hollandia Park.

It's a place I walk very often, and it's a great vantage point that you can see most of our community as you walk the trails.

And so we're gonna take some time as a church family to walk and to pray for our community.

That's where the campaign begins, is by asking the Lord to move and to act on behalf of a people that he loves.

So we're gonna be doing that.

Um, in in October, we're gonna be having a gospel sharing event on October 30th.

Uh, it's we're calling it a fall festival.

Um, we're gonna be having line dancing.

There you go.

Pretty cool, huh?

Yeah, so those of you who are not coordinated, it's gonna be your favorite event of the year.

Um, but it's gonna be a great event where it's gonna be uh candy and snacks and games and all kinds of activities that are gonna be happening here on campus.

And we're gonna be inviting our community onto our campus and we're gonna be sharing the gospel with them, doing some having some fun together.

We're gonna be having a service event, uh, an all-church service day in the month of November.

So we as a church family, even this quarter, are gonna be heading out and committing to our community in all kinds of ways that we're really excited about, and we're praying that you would join us.

Also, you saw some cool shirts, didn't you?

Yeah, look at those shirts.

Um, when we designed them, we decided we start, we decided to start with generational design.

So some of you that were born in the 60s, that's our brown shirts.

Kind of an endless summer theme there.

Some of you that were a little more, you know, um, I don't know, did the 70s even count?

Did they?

But there's your shirt.

You got a 70s, and then you have an 80s design.

I have some models up here.

So um maybe Margie, are you in here right now?

Margie, would you go ahead?

Will you give Margie a warm welcome?

She's got our 70s shirt on.

Aaron, Aaron, you're here, right?

And you got your come on up, Aaron.

And then is Nate Prosser in here?

Oh, Ashley.

Ashley, where are you, Ashley?

Are you here?

Oh, come on up, Ashley.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's the deal.

Come on up.

I'm just showing these shirts off for a brief moment and explaining it to you.

Aren't they just beautiful people that dress so well?

We want, these are a way for you to participate very simply in this campaign.

And so uh the 60s, 70s, 80s.

I didn't forget about the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s, but do those even have designs anymore?

I don't even know what that is.

We'll get to that.

We'll get to you all.

Um, but we want to encourage you to buy a shirt.

You can do that online.

You can go to our app or to our website and you can buy and you can order a shirt.

You can also connect with Margie out in the courtyard after service to put a written order in.

But we would encourage you if you want to buy a shirt, you can also get this one.

Um, so thank you guys so much.

Aren't they beautiful models?

So, there's lots of ways that you can participate and join in, being in our groups, we can come to the events, you can get shirts, there's lots of different ways to be engaged.

But as we continue, I just want to say a little bit about what this campaign isn't.

What it isn't.

First, it is not a political campaign.

This is not an we're not here to change our government, our schools, or our economy.

We're not changing, attempting to change the politics of the state.

Second, what this campaign isn't, it's not a church growth campaign.

It's not, we're not aiming to get more people to come to Mission Hills Church.

If they come, wonderful.

But that's an outcome that is not up to us, but up to the Lord.

We are not doing this to serve ourselves, but to serve the community that God has called us to.

We are not here to promote the name of Mission Hills Church.

That's why in all the church you won't see any Mission Hills Church logos.

It is about promoting the name of Christ in our community.

Third, this is not a revival campaign, and some of you this might bother you.

I know I'm gonna step on some toes here because some of you are like, revival.

Just give me a second here.

Give me a second here.

We can't manufacture revival.

Nothing that we can do will make that kind of a thing happen.

And we definitely don't do this so that we can feel a part of something significant or important when big things are happening.

You know the truest mark of a revival?

It's not big tent meetings, it's not great crowds, but the greatest mark of a revival is humility and repentance.

And that's what God is after.

So we're not trying to make some big thing happen, we're not trying to grow the church, we're not trying to change the politics.

We are actually praying and trusting that God, what God is after is changing human hearts.

The deeper thing is not conformity of the body.

But the transformation of the human heart through the hearing of the good news of the gospel.

We know that no change is meaningful change unless it's change that happens in the heart.

Okay.

So that's what our campaign isn't.

Today, in the last little bit of time, we're going to turn our attention to these texts that Bill read for us this morning.

Texts from the Gospel of John.

And what I want to lay out as we begin this and launch this campaign and launch this series is the first principle of outreach.

And the first principle of outreach is very simple.

All outreach begins and ends with God.

All outreach begins and ends with God.

The Christian story is not primarily a story about man reaching out to God, but about God reaching out to rescue humanity.

It's not about religiously inclined people seeking God, but about a loving God seeking godless men and women.

It is a story, not primarily, of our pursuit of God, our longings for God, our hunger for God, whatever those may be.

It is primarily a story about God's pursuit of us.

That's what the Christian story at its very essence is about.

It is a story that begins with God and it ends with God.

This is the first principle of all Christian outreach.

And the way that the Gospel of John expresses this is through one word that I'm going to draw our attention to.

It was in all the texts that we read.

It was repeated over and over, and it's actually repeated in the Gospel of John 59 times.

In a book that is 21 chapters long, this word shows up 59 times.

Almost every scholar of the Gospel of John agrees that this is one of the major theological themes in the Gospel of John, which is the word send.

The word send.

This word send, what it communicates is that God is a sending God.

God is a missionary God.

God is an outreach-oriented God.

His orientation toward the world is not just love, but love that is demonstrated in action in which he sends first his son and then his spirit to the world that he loves.

God is oriented outward in this way.

All outreach in this way begins with God.

Father, son, sending Son, the Father and Son sending the Spirit.

And in this way, what we come to see is that outreach is a Trinitarian work.

Father, Son, and Spirit all engaged in reaching the world that God loves.

And so our text this morning, the first one that we read in John chapter 3, verse 16, we get rooted in the motivation, why God is oriented toward the world in the way he is, why God sends his son, why God sends his spirit.

John 3:16

We read there in verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Love is the ground of God's sending.

It's the motivation of God's sending.

And then John says this, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Did you hear the word send there?

For God did not send his son in the world to condemn it, but to save it.

Love is the motivation, sending is the action.

The way God expresses that love is through his sending activity.

This is who God is, this is how he works.

John 15 verses 14, verse 26, the story continues, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will what?

John 15:14

Send in my name.

The sending not only of the Son, but also of the Spirit.

The sending of the Son and His works throughout his entire career and ministry, ultimately culminating in his cross, are ways God is expressing his love through sending his son.

The actions of the Son bear witness to the Father.

Over and over and over, this theme is repeated.

And then when the Son's work of redemption is complete, he sends the Holy Spirit now to extend and to apply that work to every human heart in the world.

Jesus saying this in John 15, verse 26, 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.

John 15:26

The simplest way to think about this as a Christian, the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit in their sending, and some of you have heard me say this before, is that Jesus' work of redemption on the cross, his death on the cross for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead would be lost as a historical event if it weren't for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is what takes that achievement that Christ accomplished on the cross and applies it across time and across space, so that you and I are gathered here and we can say things like the Apostle Paul says, that the Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me.

It's not that just that Jesus died back then for the world or that Jesus died back then on a cross.

That's true.

It's that that happened for you.

And you have, if you're a Christian, you've come to believe that truth, that that action over 2,000 years ago was for you.

We know that you believe that because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

He is the one that makes that message come alive in the human heart, convicts you of its truth.

So all outreach begins with God.

God is the one acting, the Father sending the Son, the Son sending the Spirit in a commitment of outreach.

It's critical for us to note here outreach and mission is not first a work of the church.

It's not first a work of Christians.

It's a divine work.

It's something that God is already doing.

And as with all of God's works, it's a work of love.

This is God's commitment, God's action, God's work.

It's what he's up to right now in our world.

It's what he's up to right now in our state.

It's what he's up to right now in our community.

That God is a God who has sent his son and is now in continuing to send his spirit.

It's not something that we've come up with.

It's not a great idea.

It's not a really cool thing that we, as Christians, because we're bored, we think we should do.

It's something that God is doing.

So all outreach begins with God and all outreach ends with God.

God is not just the initiator or agent of outreach, but he is the goal and purpose of outreach.

In other words, God is not a used car salesman.

Now, my deep apologies to the used car salesmans here.

In other words, but what God isn't trying to sell us is some other thing out there.

Some object.

Whether that thing is a blessed life, a happy life, a joyful life, he's not even trying to sell you heaven.

Just believe in me so you can get to heaven.

That's not what God is up to.

What God is doing in his sending of his son and of his spirit is to bring people back to himself.

What God is offering is not something outside of himself, but he is offering his very self.

He's not selling something, he's calling people into relationship with him.

John 17, 3.

Jesus makes this incredibly clear.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

The reason why God has sent his son, the reason why God has sent his spirit is that they would what?

Know you.

God is the purpose and the end of outreach.

The reason why he sent his son, the reason why he sent his spirit is so that people would know him, that they would be called back into relationship with him.

We call this redemption and salvation and eternal life.

Eternal life is not life in heaven in some blissful place.

Eternal life is life with God that never comes to an end.

God is the great purpose and end of outreach.

The point, the whole point of Jesus' work is to reveal, to explain, to make known the Father to us.

John 12, 44 and 45 says this.

And Jesus cried out and said, Whoever believes in me believes not in me, but him who sent me.

And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

The whole point of Jesus, Jesus' mission to the world, the whole point of the Father sending the Son is so that we as human beings who have all kinds of crazy, ridiculous, broken ideas about God, who are prone to misinterpret God in all kinds of ways.

God sends his son to explain himself to us so that we would know what God is really like.

John said it this way in John 1.18.

He says, No one has ever seen the Father.

And this is why we get all kinds of messed up ideas about God.

No one has ever seen the Father.

But the only God who is at the Father's side, some translations say in the bosom of the Father.

It's this image of relational closeness and nearness, that there's God the Father, and there's then there's God who's in the bosom of the Father, the Son.

He who is at the Father's side, John continues, has explained him.

The Son's mission to the world is to explain the Father to us.

That's why God sent his son.

So that you and I would have a clear picture of exactly what God is like in his character and in his nature.

And the picture reaches its culminating moment in the Gospel of John.

Throughout John's Gospel, we keep learning about the hour that's not yet here, and that hour finally comes as Jesus hangs on the cross.

And the cross is the example par excellence of the Father's love for us.

That there at the cross we see what God is most clearly like.

And Jesus does that, as John 17, 3 says, so that you would know him.

And that word no, it's not the English word no that we tend to think of like have correct information about God.

It's a Greek idea and even rooted further back in a Hebrew idea.

Knowing here is a knowing that is intimate and relational knowing.

That you would know God in a relational way.

You would have a you'd be brought into the Father's love for you.

God reaching out in his son and by his spirit to bring us into fellowship with him.

God is the beginning of outreach.

And God is the end of outreach.

And so we as a church, whatever part we have to play, and whatever this campaign is, it exists between that beginning and that end.

We exist in God's own movement towards the world.

We exist and live and move and have our being in God's loving action towards this world.

And in particular, we exist here in God's loving action, in the His movement, in the sending of His Son, and the sending of His Spirit to this state, to our community, to the neighbors that we have, to the people we share cubicles with, to the umpires that we shout at at our kids' volleyball games.

I don't know anybody who's done that, by the way.

These we exist within God's movement to the world and God's commitment and God's sending action.

And we exist in God's movement to call people to Himself.

So whatever we may do this coming year, it happens between that beginning and that end.

Let me just close one note here.

Um, if you're here with us this morning and you are um maybe distant from God, maybe you've you know run away from God, maybe um maybe you you have no relationship with God at all.

Um I what I want you to hear this morning is that God is pursuing you.

God is moving toward you.

You being here right now is because God has been moving and acting in your life to get you here this morning so that you would hear that he loves you, that he sent his son to die on a cross for you, and that he is calling you into fellowship with himself.

And the opportunity you have this morning as you come here is to respond to that call and to enter into that relationship with God by faith, by trusting in what Jesus has accomplished for you.

All right, let's pray, Mission Hells Church.

Father, we take a moment here to hold what we've heard this morning, to hold these passages in the Gospel of John, the story of Jonah.

Maybe for some here they've noticed a kind of callousness grow on their heart, a kind of resentment towards the place that they live and the state that they live in.

Maybe for others you felt like you're the one that's doing all the seeking, all the looking for God, and you can't seem to find him.

Maybe yet for others this call to reaching out is it feels somewhat uncomfortable.

Wherever these words may land and hit us, Father, we offer the truth of our hearts to you.

We confess hardness and callousness of heart.

We ask that you would convict us in our hearts and reveal to us in our hearts that you are a God who has pursued us, that has moved toward us.

Maybe some here it's a moment to respond to the gospel, that God is calling you to into fellowship and relationship with Him.

And right now where you sit is the moment that beginning, that journey begins, that relationship begins.

I believe that Jesus died for me.

That he rose again.

And through that, that I can have relationship with you.

Father, my prayer for us here at Mission Hills Church is that we would share in your motivation.

We would share in your love for the world, we would share in your love for the state of California, for our communities, for our neighbors, for our co-workers, for friends and family members, for the people that we stand beside on sports fields and rehearsals and at schools and waiting to pick up kids or grocery stores, that what you would begin to do inside of our hearts is to convict us of your great love, and that you would bring this love deep into our hearts.

And that out of that love we would be committed as a church family to reaching out to this community and proclaiming Jesus' great love.

And we pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.