The Christian Sabbath

You can remain standing, and you want to turn in your Bibles,

you can turn with me to Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 20, and we'll be reading verses 1 through 16.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 20, verses 1 through 16.

Acts 20:1–16

All right, what I'm about to read is God's holy and inspired word,

so do give it appropriate attention.

After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging

them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.

When he had gone through those regions and given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.

There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews

as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to return to Macedonia.

Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him, and of the Thessalonians,

Aristarchus and Segundus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and the Asians.

Tychicus, Trophimus, they went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas.

But we sailed away from Philippi after the day of unleavened bread.

And in five days, we came to them at Troas where we stayed for seven days.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,

Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day.

And he prolonged his speech until midnight.

And there were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.

And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep

as Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.

But Paul went down, bent over him, and taking him up by his arms said,

Do not be afraid, for his life is in him.

And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with

them a long while until daybreak, and so he departed.

And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Asos, intending to take Paul abroad,

for there he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.

And when he met us at Asos, he went on board and went to Metile.

And sailing from there, he came the following day opposite Chios.

And the next day we touched at Samos. And the day after that,

we went to Miletus, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not,

have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem,

if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

You can be seated let's pray together,

father in heaven be with us now as we attend to your word as we listen to it

as we think about it and we pray lord that by your spirit you might call us

to jesus christ in whose name we pray amen,

So I'm going to focus on just one verse today.

It's down in verse 7, where it says, On the first day of the week,

when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, etc.

So sometimes people say, well, why don't you preach topical sermons instead

of just preaching through books or the Bible?

And my answer is usually, I always preach topical sermons. Whatever topic comes

up from that particular passage, I try to address it.

I do get to pick and choose because I'm the pastor and preacher so I can choose

which verses to settle down on which not to And it occurred to me that verse

7 is an important verse for framing What's what's happening in the book of acts

and what happens to us in terms of worship?

And the day of worship for instance, why are we here today?

You might say well, we're here today because we're at worship. Yeah, but why today?

Why do we meet on sunday? You might think well, that's irrelevant all christians

in the world meet on sunday not all I don't know about you, but I've been confronted

by these group of people called Seventh-day Adventists.

If you've ever met a Seventh-day Adventist, they hold pretty tightly to the

idea that worship is on the Sabbath day, and the Sabbath day is Saturday.

It's obvious to them. Sabbath is the Saturday. And where, after all,

in the New Testament does it change that?

That's one of the big questions that you'll get asked. Where in the Bible,

particularly in the New Testament, does it say that the day of worship,

the day of rest, the Sabbath day has shifted from Saturday to Sunday?

So why do we meet on Sunday? And this is a verse, even though it's a small one,

it says, on the first day of the week, when we gather together to break bread, and then it goes on.

It's almost in passing that it's mentioned. But I want to hunker down here a

bit because I don't think it's in passing that it's mentioned.

We'll see it again in Acts, and you see it again in the writings of the apostles themselves.

This day, often we refer to it as the Lord's day, the Lord's day.

And that's what the Bible refers to it. In fact, in Revelation,

it says, I was in the spirit on the day of the Lord or the Lord's day.

And there I heard behind me a loud voice, Revelation.

So why do we call this Sunday the Lord's day, the day of the Lord? Why do we meet on Sunday?

First of all, let me just remind you of how I'm going about interpreting the

Bible. Sometimes you call that hermeneutics, how you interpret the Bible.

We don't look for, we don't look for something new in the New Testament to give

us something we already know. That makes sense.

So that's what I have to prove, of course. I'm going to try to prove that.

So I don't need a specific verse in the New Testament that says, thou shalt, right?

When you have a verse, we just read it from the Ten Commandments.

You shall remember the Lord's day, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Six days the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, but the seventh day he

rested and he therefore made that day holy.

So we have clear evidence that the seventh day in the Old Testament was the

Sabbath day. So why do we look in the New Testament and say,

well, it's changed, even though we don't have a similar sort of thou shalt.

The reason we do that is because we do that in Bible doctrine all the time,

by the way. Our confession says this. It's interesting.

I think it is. I think you will, too. It says.

By good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.

Where does it say in the Bible that God is three persons, equal in power and

glory, the same in essence? Where does it say that? There's no single verse for that.

But we do have verses that say clearly there's only one God.

Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, there is one God.

And yet we also see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit referred to as God with the attributes of God.

There are persons of the Trinity. So where is the verse?

There is no verse. But when you look at the entirety of Scripture and you see

what it says about God being one, but also existing eternally in three persons, then you say Trinity.

Where's the word Trinity in the Bible? It's not in the Bible, by the way. It's not.

But the doctrine, by good and necessary consequence, is there,

and we must believe it because that's what it teaches.

The same thing's true about the Lord's Day, the way it changes from the Old

Testament to the New Testament from Saturday to Sunday.

Just as a sort of a context here, this is what has been practiced as far as

I can tell through all of church history, from the days of the apostles to the

early church all the way throughout church history.

As early as 150 to 155 AD, there was an apostolic, or excuse me, an apologetic.

You divide the early church fathers usually into apostolic and then apologetic.

So he's an apologetic. He's only about a generation away from the days of the apostles, 150, 155.

And he writes in what's called his apology, his first apology about Sunday.

So in other words, very, very early on in church history, we find evidence from

practice of the church beyond the apostles. I'll go back to them in a moment.

But beyond the apostles, we find that Justin Martyr is saying this.

He says, on the day called Sunday, there's a gathering together in the same

place of all who are in a given city or rural district.

Then he describes what they do, similar to what we saw here in Acts.

He says, then the memoirs, the writings of the apostles or the writings of the

prophets are read as long as time permits.

And then when the reader ceases, the president in discourse admonishes and urges

a limitation of these good things. There's a sermon.

And next, we all rise together and send up prayers. When we cease from our prayers,

bread is presented and water and wine. And the president in the same manner

offers up prayers of thanksgiving.

And it goes on. And then they take up an offering, it says, and right then and

there, distribute it to the needy and the poor.

And he says this, those who have means are willing, each accommodating to his

own choice, gives what he wills, et cetera, et cetera.

So he describes a worship service, and you might think, well, so what?

He just describes what they're doing. There's no theological reason why we have to do it as well.

But he also describes Sunday as the common day of assembly because he says,

listen, he says, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a

change in the darkness and matter, made the world.

And Jesus Christ, our Savior, in the same day rose from the dead,

for he was crucified on the day before the Saturn, or Saturday,

and on the day after Saturn, which is the day of the sun, having appeared to

his apostles and disciples, he taught them these things.

In other words, very early, Justin Martyr and other church fathers are saying,

Sunday is the day of resurrection.

And you'll notice the comparison that he's making. First creation,

God made the heavens and the earth.

Second creation or new creation, Jesus Christ, through his work, remakes everything.

And thus the whole of the world and history is shifted and changed to him,

to his new work of creation.

So it's just mentioned in Justin Martyr. I'm gonna try to tease that out so

that all of you are thoroughly convinced by the time it's over.

I can't tell how convincing it is yet, but I want you, in other words,

first creation. First creation.

Second creation in Jesus Christ.

The early church fathers were seeing it immediately, and so will they.

It wasn't until Constantine and an edict in 321 made the Christian Sabbath or

the Lord's Day or Sunday an actual day of rest throughout the empire.

And that actually began to shift the way many people thought about Sunday.

Before this time, as we see here, it looks like they are worshiping later in the day.

So late, Paul preaches till midnight, and a poor kid falls out of a window and

dies. So the time frame you see there is not a Sunday morning 1030 service because they couldn't.

So in other words, before Constantine came along, it looks like Christians were

setting aside a day for worship.

This is also testified to in Pliny the Younger, who was a governor of Bithynia,

who wrote a letter to Trajan the emperor and said, these Christians meet on a fixed day, Sunday.

Ignatius of Antioch, the Didache, which is another document talks about how

Christians met at a certain day for an assembly, Justin Martyr,

and there was a handful of others.

You say, well, that's just church history. And you're right,

but I wanted to give you the context that as early as we find record,

as early as we find record, and the records between the first and fourth centuries are scattered.

There's just tidbits here, a little bit from Turkey, a little bit from North

Africa, a little bit from what we would call Western Europe.

And so it's a bit uncertain.

As early as we can tell, church history records that Sunday,

the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection, was the day that all

Christians met for worship.

Aside from that, and I hope that's a bit convincing, aside from that,

apostolic example is why the early church practiced this Sunday.

Why do we meet on the first day of the week? Well, right here in our passage,

this is our first encounter with it in Acts.

It says, now on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to

break bread. You might say, well, it just happens to be Sunday.

It just happens. So in other words, the question you ask yourself when you read

Acts a lot, is this a prescription or just a description? Is it just describing something randomly?

Well, Luke literally says on the first day of the week,

having come together to break bread. In other words, that's the day they came

together for worship and breaking bread. He's not just saying it just happens

to be Sunday, and they just happened to be breaking bread that day,

or it happened to be Sunday, and that's when they worshiped.

He's saying on the first day of the week, having come together to break bread.

It's not incidentally, it is the day of worship.

It's not just a description of some random practice.

It also has within it a particular theological idea, and inextricably linked

between the togetherness of the church and the meeting of that togetherness or the,

gathering of that church on the first day of the week.

Not everything the apostles do is prescriptive, right? We don't believe in miracles

and signs and wonders because the age has come to a close.

But other practices that the apostles teach us are prescriptive and they're

fixed and they continue for us.

Now, I want to also talk about this gathering or this, the word in Greek is synagogue.

That's why we call Jewish meetings of worship synagogues. In the early church,

they would synagogue or gather together. This was an official meeting, an official assembly.

And you'll notice, by the way, it says this in Hebrews 10, you're not supposed

to skip this, if you can help it.

It says, Hebrews 10, 24, let us consider one another in order to stir up each

other to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling.

And this Greek word is episunagoge. It's a gathering of ourselves together,

as is the manner of some by exhorting one another, and so much more when you

see the day approaching.

So the church gathered or synagogued or assembled for worship,

and you were not supposed to miss it.

You're not supposed to just not go to church for worship.

And we also noticed that this began, the practice began among the apostles to

appoint, not to just randomly, but to appoint the first day of the week.

As a change for the New Testament. Here it says in 1 Corinthians 16,

1, now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the

churches of Galatia, you must do this also.

On the first day of the week, this is a little more clear than the earlier passage

where Luke says the same thing, but Paul is making it very clear.

On the first day of the week, let each of you lay something aside,

storing up as he may prosper, that there may be collections.

So this is a command. This is when you meet.

On the first day of the week, meet together, and as you meet together, take up a collection.

They don't offer a lot of instruction about it. They simply assert that this is the day.

And again, the day of the Lord. I prefer personally to call this the Lord's

Day rather than the Christian Sabbath because it seems to be more fitting for

the New Testament. This is the day the Lord has set aside.

But then you say, well, what about that whole fourth commandment thing?

That's what the seventh day Adventist would say to you as well.

Well, yeah, but that's all well and good. Jesus rose from the dead, yay, resurrection day.

Yeah, the apostles did it, but there's still this whole huge commandment that

says the seventh day is the Sabbath day.

What I want to draw your attention to you is that even in the giving of the

Sabbath day commandment, there is what we would call messianic teachings,

or we might even use the fancy word, ready?

Eschatology, right? There are later things coming in this commandment that are

wrapped up in the commandment. If you pay careful attention to it, you'll see it.

For instance, what is the rest on the Sabbath day?

You asked your question, well, because it says, for the six days,

the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, and then he rested.

What on earth does God need to rest for?

It's like, whoa, hard six days of creation. I'm definitely going to need a nap this Sunday.

I mean, God doesn't rest. It says clearly he neither slumbers nor sleeps.

He doesn't need time to catch up from all the work of creation. So what is the rest?

That's an important question. Why did he choose six days and then rest?

He did it for us. And that is wrapped up in exactly what Jesus said when he came.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

God rested on the seventh day so that we might have a pattern,

a way to live our lives according to the pattern that is going to draw us forward

historically from here to the future. That's the eschatology.

There's something in the Sabbath day.

There's something in the hope of that rest that goes beyond mere physical rest.

It's not just that you need to sleep on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day it

was, because God didn't.

He is pointing his people to a hope in this Sabbath day, a hope of what? A hope of rest.

And this was to remind them of their ultimate hope in the future.

Even at creation, God is weaving into the pattern of creation,

the hope of the coming of ultimate rest.

You see that? Ultimate rest. Now you see it a little more clearly when you look at Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy in Exodus 20, it says, for in six days, the Lord God made the heavens and the earth.

So creation, but you'll notice in Deuteronomy, it's different.

It says, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is holy.

It goes on, and then the reason that's clipped to this is different than Exodus

20. We have to pay attention to these things because the way Scripture progresses,

it unfolds progressively towards something, and we might even say someone.

So in Deuteronomy 5, it doesn't say the reason you do it is because creation.

It says this, and you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,

and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.

Therefore, the Lord commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. This is about salvation.

This is about rescue from Egypt and redemption and the whole Passover scene

and all that they'd have experienced.

God said, yes, I created the world and I did it as a pattern.

And now he's reminding us that this pattern is also for the hope of rest in the future.

You were saved and you were redeemed. That's why you're set to set this day

aside. It's not a mere moral commandment.

When Jesus came and started teaching on the Sabbath day, you'll notice it was

surrounded by all these rabbis and Pharisees and Sadducees that said,

you can't do this and you can't do that.

You can only walk so far on the Sabbath day. You have so many meters that you can walk.

And some rabbis would say, well, so many meters. And if you rest so long,

you can walk another. So they would know they had to go from A to B,

but they had to walk in segments in order to honor the Sabbath day.

You couldn't eat an egg from a chicken that laid it on the Sabbath day because

the chicken was working on Sabbath day.

So all these rules and all these regulations couldn't do this or couldn't do

that, but you could have your slave person do it, all these other things,

even though it says clearly, neither you nor your manservant nor maidservant,

everybody's supposed to rest.

Nevertheless, they created a labyrinth of laws and regulation and rules and

commandments, which the Sabbath day was never about.

It was never about moral keeping of a day of rest.

It was about salvation and it was about the hope that we're going to have and

the rest that God himself would bring and the rest that you can't bring about by endlessly working.

Isn't that amazing? God loves us so much. He wants us to be reminded,

you're never going to work your way to rest. It can't be done.

So I've actually made a day where I can remind you, take everything,

rest, stop working, stop thinking about everything else and come to me and worship me.

Even in the Old Testament, even though it had been perverted,

in the Old Testament, that was the purpose.

And so when Jesus comes, by the way, when Jesus comes, you'll notice that there's

a lot of discussion about the Sabbath day and rest.

Listen to what the author of Hebrews says. He says, therefore,

since a promise remains of entering

his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.

For indeed, the gospel was preached to us as well as to them.

But the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

For we who have believed do enter that rest. Rest is he talking about?

He's talking about the seventh commandment. He's talking about the Sabbath day.

He's talking about the purpose for which the Sabbath day was even given.

Therefore, he says, if you don't, you shall not enter my rest,

although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, reference to creation.

For he has spoken in a certain place of a seventh day in this way,

and God rested on the seventh day. Verse 10, Hebrews 4, verse 10.

Hebrews 4:10

For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did for him.

Jesus Christ, the new creator of a new creation, is now ascended into heaven and rests there.

That was the reason the fourth commandment was given in the first place.

It was for rest and for hope in someone who could give us rest from this endless

cycle of toil on this earth, and it was Jesus Christ himself.

That's why in Romans it says, chapter 10, verse four, Christ is the end of the

law for righteousness to everyone who believes. In English, it sounds like Christ,

ended it, did away with it.

But the Greek word there, I think you've heard it before, is telos.

Christ is the purpose for which the law itself was given.

And everything in the Old Testament has to be understood as pushing,

pointing, teaching, driving, taking us to Jesus Christ.

Are we together now? Yes. Am I convincing you?

I hope so. The first day of the week wasn't randomly chosen.

It wasn't even just because of the resurrection, although the resurrection points

to the rest that we now have, to the hope we have and to the hope everyone has

and to the hope everyone should have been looking for in the Sabbath commandment itself.

It was never about a day.

It was about Jesus Christ. Christ is the purpose for which the Sabbath was given.

That's why it's so glorious to say the day of the Lord. This is Jesus' day.

This is the day of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ. And he's given us a whole

day to rest from our labors.

And you'll notice, by the way, the new orientation. The Jewish people were to work and to rest.

The Christians now from this day of resurrection, rest unto the future glory

of Jesus Christ and his coming. Everything has shifted in our lives now.

It was working to rest. Now it's rest, worship. Now we move forward into the

hope of the future and the coming of the kingdom of God.

It's a complete different structure of everything historically speaking.

It's a great day, by the way. This is the day the Lord has made.

I will be glad and rejoice in this day. Amen?

Ooh, not very convincing. This is the day the Lord has made.

We should rejoice and be glad in it. Amen?

The day of the Lord. The Bible teaches us that the new covenant and new covenant

worship is no longer afar off.

It was in the old covenant, but it takes place in heaven itself.

Now, the author of Hebrews tells us that when we enter into Mount Zion,

we enter into the heavenlies themselves through Jesus Christ.

And furthermore, through the power of the Spirit, Christ himself comes down

to earth to meet with us on this day.

What a great day. We should all look forward to this day. We should all be excited

about the day of the Lord and the coming of the Lord.

We should also be excited that the day of the Lord is no longer dangerous for us.

Usually in the Old Testament, particularly when they said the day of the Lord

is coming, you'll be like, ooh, let's get, let's leave.

Because it usually meant God coming down in judgment. Nobody wanted to be there.

That's why Adam and Eve ran away in the garden.

When God came down in his thunder, I know the verse says he was walking in the

garden and it sounds like he's crunching leaves softly, but the word,

the kol yave is the phrase, the voice of the Lord came down to the garden and

the trees were shaking and the glory of the Lord was blasting and Adam and Eve hid.

As we all would on the day of the Lord, when the Lord comes down in all of his

holiness and all of his might, and meets with sinners, it's a fearful day,

unless it's the Lord's day and you're in Christ.

Then it's a glorious day. Then it's a great day where we get to come where we

always want to come anyway, to be free from the troubles of this world,

to put away the sins and the entanglements.

Yes, we might even say the burdens from which we need rest.

We come to this day, the day of the Lord.

We can approach him And he comes here, it says Where two or three are gathered

That's that word synagogue,

Where God says where two or three are gathered I will come down,

there I am in the midst of them The Lord comes down on the Lord's day To meet

with his people And it's full of glory and praise and honor And worship and singing,

Because the Lord has come in mercy Through the cross of Jesus Christ,

And it's through the cross that this Lord's day has come You and I,

if we find joy in the Lord's day And you should.

You should. Nobody looks that excited, but we should think about the Lord's

Day as structuring our entire existence.

And we should look forward to it just like we should look forward to heaven,

because the Lord's Day is a taste of heaven.

It's a taste of the hope that we have when we finally won't be burdened down

with sin and we won't be burdened down with sickness.

Think of the prayer announcements that we're announcing Cancer,

sickness, brokenness, disease, darkness We have to confess our sins because

we're sinners All of that are burdens,

All of those things are frustrations Without the Lord's Day,

without the work of salvation to Christ on this day We would have no hope of

release from those burdens,

They would just be on us forever And it would be as if we were burdened with

endless toil and no reward.

Endless frustration that comes through everything else except through Jesus Christ.

And he's given us this day to celebrate that.

We honor the Lord's day. We love the Lord's day. It reminds us of our own destiny,

and the destiny of the world.

It reminds us of the future. Do you honor the Lord's day?

I'm not going to go. I'm not going to shift gears all of a sudden,

by the way, and go to my 100 rules for Sunday and no NFL or something like that.

I'm not going to. We're going to go that direction.

Just ask yourself, do you honor the Lord's day? Do you look forward?

Do you love the Lord's day? Do you structure your life around it?

Getting a good night's sleep, even on a Saturday night, preparing,

looking forward, praying, thinking.

We're going to the book of Acts. Now, I know I've only gone on one verse, but read chapter 20.

Read it. You know, I'm not going to ever surprise you, by the way.

You know the next chapter. So read the next chapter. Think about what's happening.

Think about what has happened.

Praise the Lord. Encourage one another. That's what Hebrews says.

Think about ways to stir one another up to love and good works when you meet

together on the Lord's day.

We should love it. We should teach our children to love it.

Again, not so much with rules, regulations. I can remember when I was younger,

I was a strict Puritan Sabbath keeper myself.

And I saw the Sabbath more like, what am I gonna be able to do?

What am I gonna let my kids do? And it was actually through working with my

children that I thought, man, I'm thinking of this more like the Jews than like the Lord's day.

One of my kids, bless his heart, came up and said, daddy, is this a Sabbath toy?

And I was like, I'm a Pharisee. Let's see, how am I going to answer this?

I had designated which toys to play with and which things to do.

Certain Bible games were Sabbath games. And I was always, what time does the

Sabbath end? By the way, when they get older, they're really good at this too.

You know, if you say when the sun goes down, you're like, well,

it's fall. Sun goes down earlier.

NFL is still playing. Football is still on the table. So I realized I was approaching

the Sabbath in terms of rules and regulations and commandments and what to do

and frightened if your child would go out and play a certain game with another child. What?

No, this is a day of liberation from all of that. Freedom in Christ,

glory and joy in this day.

Not more burdens, but joy in the Lord's day. And most particularly this worship

service is the focus of that Lord's day.

It's when we synagogue, it's when we gather, it's when we sing.

When you're singing together, I know we're missing our cursing chair up here,

so we're not, the singing is a little low here, But when you sing,

you're supposed to sing to encourage one another.

Sing loud, sing strong, sing powerfully as part of your duty to honor the Sabbath

day, to honor the Lord's day.

Gather together, praying for one another, encouraging one another.

This is the day that marks your new life and your new creation in Christ.

This is the day that we're looking forward to coming at the final resurrection

when all will be made right.

The Lord's day reminds us of what is sprinkled throughout the letters of the old covenant prophets.

About the destiny of the world. One day the yoke and the burden of sin will

be taken off this world completely. And God has given us a slice of that on

this Sunday morning, on this Lord's Day, where we can rejoice and be glad in this day.

And praise God, praise the Lord for Jesus Christ and the rest we have in him.

If you will come to Jesus Christ, cast off your burdens and come to him,

he's promised you'll find what?

Rest, rest for the weary. So come to Jesus Christ now and this morning with

a renewed sense of thankfulness for this day. And as we come to the Lord's table, praise the Lord.

Thank the Lord. Give praise to God for all that he's done through his body and

blood to liberate you and to free you and to give you hope and to have a future

full of hope through the Lord's day and through Jesus Christ.

Amen. Let's pray together.

Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, so much for your love. Thank you for this day,

This day that you've given us That we can worship you Is a gift of love from

you Lord It reminds us how much you love us That you sent your son to die for us,

To reorient the whole of earth And the whole of the calendar And the whole of

our schedules And the whole of history Around your son Jesus Christ Help us

oh Lord To also take joy and pleasure And remind us of our destiny And the destiny of the whole world,

That we will have eternal rest and the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

In whose name we pray, amen.