I have to tell you, not too long ago there was an individual visiting our church and the person, I went up to them and said, I don't think I've met you before.
! And the individual said, well, no, actually I was here two years ago.
Well, my memory, short-term memory of what it is, it's like, yeah, okay.
The individual said, the truth of the matter is, is when I came here about two years ago and you were preaching and you got emotional, I thought it was pure drama.
And I just thought you were putting it on.
And it was pretty disgusting.
The person said, you know what?
I don't think it is.
I have to tell you that because my heart is full.
And we are going to get to John chapter 1.
But I want to start somewhere to kind of help you understand the glory of the passage that we're going to be in.
Turn in the book of Revelation to chapter 5.
And listen as I read it to you.
And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals.
And no one in the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.
And one of the elders said to me, weep no more.
Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered so that he can open the scroll and the seven seals.
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw the Lamb.
Standing as though one who had been slain with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.
And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and a golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song.
The reason we have Revelation chapter 5 is because we have John chapter 1.
And I want you to understand the connection between the two.
And as I take up this passage in John chapter 1, verse 14 through 18, I have to tell you that as a shepherd and a sower of the seed, there is a part of me that as I have studied this week and as I've prayed for our time together in the Word of God today,
there has been a portion of my heart that has been conflicted a little bit.
Because I realize that in the sowing of the seed, and that's what preaching is.
In the sowing of the seed, there will be some seed that falls on hard and stony ground.
And there's some of you going to walk out of here just as bitter, just as unforgiving, just as stubborn, just as unrelenting in your sinfulness as when you came in.
And there's some of you that are going to respond for a moment.
And perhaps by just the effect of our time together and the prompting and plotting work of the Spirit of God, you're going to have a moment of softening.
And there will be a little bit of fruit spring up, but it will soon be stifled and squashed by the life that you live.
But there will also be some that will fall upon good soil that's been prepared by the Spirit of God.
And as you behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are going to be changed from glory to glory by the Spirit.
Now listen to me.
I want you to hear me.
The God who sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to be the Savior of lost mankind,
once in particular that believers, those who know the Lord Jesus Christ,
do not spend the remainder of their time here on this earth as grumpy, unhappy, broken, disconsolate, discouraged individuals.
And being other than we are by nature is not something that happens merely because we take a pill or we decide to change.
If salvation is of the Lord, so also is transformation.
And if there's anything that changes the heart of a believer, it's seeing Jesus.
Do you understand that?
And so if you're sitting here and the truth of the matter is, is that the Spirit of God is already prompting you and saying,
stop, stop, I have the perfect remedy.
And it is you, by the work of the Spirit, with all humility, pleading with Him, saying,
hey, Jesus, I know you saved me.
I don't want to stay this way.
You asking that He would open up His word and that you, by His grace, would behold wondrous truths out of His law.
Well, as we look at John chapter 1, beginning there in verse 14, it says,
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And so let me begin this morning by just kind of reminding you that in this passage,
and we're going to take from 14 and work our way through to 18,
that what we are really dealing with is the Bible statement, the Word of God that tells us,
Christ Jesus chose to become man.
I want you to recognize, as you look at that passage,
that these nine verses that we have here at the very beginning of verse 14
are really, in some ways, the most profound words that we've heard so far.
It is true that Christ is the creator of the universe.
It is true that He is the light and He is the life.
And it is true that coming into this world, many rejected Him.
But overarching and superior to all of that is the reality that at the very heart of His coming
is the fact that He came to be our Savior and He came to reveal the Father to us.
And so what we find in this text is that the Word tells us the second person of the Trinity,
Christ, took on for all eternity the flesh and nature of His fallen creature, mankind.
I want you to understand that there is no other religion in the world
that rests its faith on the complete humiliation of its God.
I remember a number of years ago as I was on West Broad in H.H. Gregg.
It used to be Sun TV before that and H.H. Gregg after that.
And now I don't know what it is.
But I was in there, I think, getting speakers for a stereo or something.
That tells you how long ago it was.
And ended up being serviced by a very likable Somali salesman.
And he was the most affable, congenial man.
And guess what we ended up talking about besides speakers?
What would you think?
I mean, I got a Gospel of John in my pocket.
It's like, hey, while we're doing this, if I'm going to buy something from you, just listen to me.
And so we're talking about our religions, you know, and we're getting into it.
And he's being respectful.
I mean, after all, he wants to sell me something.
And he's, you know, how many of you have been involved in conversations where you're really not tracking?
It's like, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you're completely there.
You're somewhere else, you know.
And he was going through the routine.
And I remember getting down to the point of explaining that God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, here to the earth.
And God became flesh.
You know what he did?
He laughed in my face.
Salesman, hoping to sell some product, just began, I can't believe, you can't believe that.
God doesn't do that.
I said, yes, he does.
Yes, he does.
In fact, the reason that I know I have complete forgiveness for all of my sins is because God sent his son to make complete payment for my sins.
Do you know how the Muslim, Islamic person pays for his sins?
It's kind of on a basis of, hey, you do a little bit of good, you kind of pay off a little bit of bad, right?
It's kind of on the installment plan.
A lot like the idea that Catholics have about purgatory.
I think I shared with you, my sister, Michelle, lives in Egypt.
And one day she was working in the kitchen and cut her finger.
And in ran her Muslim helper.
And she said, hold your finger towards heaven.
Hold it up.
God will see the blood and he'll wipe out an extra sin.
Well, I'm a diabetic and I prick myself four times a day.
It's like...
You know, it's like...
I want to tell you something.
I don't make fun of the fact that Jesus is the one who satisfied the debt of my sins.
But the world doesn't understand that God, seeing our complete inability,
sent his son into the world to become flesh and to die for us.
And so in using this name, the word, in verse 14,
he is kind of calling back into mind all that we saw in those opening verses
where he announced the deity and the glory of Christ
and recognized the absolute majesty, the supremacy of the second person of the divine Godhead.
And as we think about the fact that Christ came into the world and became man,
I want you to understand that our faith rests completely on the fact that Christ became completely man for all eternity.
He is 100% God and he is 100% man.
Now, can you tell me how that works mathematically?
The answer is, it's a matter of faith.
And I don't make that to be overly simplistic.
It's just a fact.
The Bible tells us that Jesus is all man and all God, and he's not 50-50.
It's not just in John that we find this doctrinal truth.
And I'm going to have you track with me.
We're going to look at several different paces where it is true.
Turn into Philippians.
Go to Philippians 2, verse 7 and 8.
And let me track with you there what we read.
It says,
Now, there's another passage that I want to reference here in 1 Timothy 3, verse 16,
as the apostle is kind of putting together the mystery.
And in the scriptures, a mystery is different in terms of what the Bible means by a mystery and what we mean by a mystery.
A mystery, in our sense of thinking, is something that's a secret that we're trying to figure out before the TV show ends.
Whodunit.
In the Bible, a mystery is something that God reveals to us that we would never figure out apart from that.
And so when Paul says what he does, there in verse 16,
Indeed, great, we confess, is the mystery of godliness.
In other words, it is just beyond our capacity to understand the unbelievable revelation of the truth.
Speaking about God,
He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up into glory.
The Savior that I worship is all mankind, entirely human.
He understands my frame and my frailty and yours as well.
And He took on for all eternity the clear character and person and nature of man.
Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things that through death.
Why did He take on flesh and blood?
He took on flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death.
That is the devil.
Do you know why I have victory over death?
It's because Jesus died in my place.
And He's gained victory over death.
Well, let us go a little further into the text in John chapter 1.
We look there in verse 14.
It says,
The word became flesh.
And in telling us that it became flesh, it's telling us what we've talked about here, that Jesus is entirely man.
I want us to take a little bit of time to think about this little word dwelt.
Some of you may have the word tabernacled.
And I have to say that I understand the word tabernacle here to not refer to what many have commonly thought is a reference to the tabernacle in the Old Testament where the glory of God was revealed.
You see, when John chose to use the word tabernacle in the Old Testament.
That was at the very center of the camp of the nation of Israel does not really communicate accurately the imagery that this verse tells us.
You see, the word became flesh and set His tent up with us.
Now, I know one of the things that happens in the summertime is some of you go camping.
And I happen to like camping.
It took me probably about 40 years of marriage to persuade my wife that it was something that was a good idea.
You guys, when you go camping, and Judith and I, when we go camping, we do it a little differently than some.
We go camping most of the time down at Old Man's Cave.
And we go, listen to me, we go after Labor Day and we go before Memorial Day.
That's because all the natives have cleared out between those times.
Last winter, Judith and I camped in Old Man's Cave in December.
And besides the squirrels and the deer and the raccoons, we were pretty much on our own.
Camping, for some of you, is a pop-up with a propane stove.
And you better have A.C.
And God bless you.
Have a good time.
But that's not camping what this passage is telling us about.
Listen to me.
Camping is gritty business.
It really is.
Growing up in India, and that's why I was fully persuaded that my wife should love camping,
we would go.
We had three-day vacations and ten-day vacations.
And we thought that camping was the best way to get away from that hovel that was our boarding school.
And we would pack and we would be gone the minute we were legally allowed to leave the property.
And we'd go.
One place was about a 15-mile hike and the other was about 26.
We'd set up a tent and we'd stay.
One case was three days and the other was ten days.
Now let me tell you something about tenting together when you've been ten days together
and it took you 26 miles to get there walking, carrying a 45-pound pack.
Guess what you smell like?
A goat.
And not only that, but after you sat around the campfire,
we didn't have propane stoves.
We didn't have kerosene stoves.
It was just plain old ordinary wood smoke.
Do you follow that?
And about the third afternoon, as we were beginning to cook supper,
there began to have this little conversational rift running through the camp of,
hey, you're not sleeping in my tent.
And you're not sleeping in my tent.
And so everybody would go down to the cold mountain stream.
Let me tell you something.
Himalayan mountains, 8,000 feet.
Even in July, the streams were not tolerable.
But the choice of sleeping outside or inside, we would dip temporarily,
lather up generously, and then dip temporarily.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Here's my point.
Now, when this passage tells us that the Word became flesh and set its tent up among us,
what it's telling us is that he was willing to leave the glory of heaven for us
and set his tent where we are
and to do it forever.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
In order to be slain as the Lamb, he had to be willing to come and tent where we are.
And I've got to tell you that the gritty reality of tenting in this world doesn't compare
to what happened when the Father sent his Son down here for us.
Allow me just to speculate just for a moment,
but I want you to kind of think about the angels kind of sitting around
as they're watching Jesus leave heaven.
Now, this is not, I'm not going to write a book, okay,
since I taught Sunday school like I did, you know,
but I want you to just imagine one of them says to the other one,
where's he going?
He's going down there.
What?
To visit?
No.
He's going to live there forever.
He's, you know what it says in Peter,
it says that the angels kind of look at this business of Christ's relationship with us
and it says that they try to pull the curtain back
so they understand and they can't figure it out.
He came here to be completely man,
to be subject to hunger and to thirst and humiliation
and endure the extreme suffering of the cross.
And as it says there in this passage,
it says,
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
There's a reason
that so much of our singing
magnifies the wonder of the incarnation.
As I was studying this week,
I found myself repeating the words to the song
that we actually sang last week,
how deep the Father's love for us,
how vast beyond all measure,
that he should give his only son.
Why?
To make a wretch his treasure.
Do you follow that?
Why was God willing to send his son to this earth to tent with us?
It's because we need that.
And so I want you to understand that John then goes on in verse 14,
not only to explain the fact that Jesus came here,
but also to announce that Christ came not only to take on flesh,
but to show us the full glory of the Father.
Look at the second part of verse 14.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory.
Glory as the only son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
Now, I'm going to beg your indulgence,
because of the focus of this passage,
to not spend time dealing with the uniqueness of the sonship of Christ,
only begotten son.
I want you to understand that it is a foundational theological truth,
but in the flow of the passage that we're looking at,
as I'm going to lay it out for you here with the focus on his coming,
we're not going to deal with that, which is a very important truth.
But I want you to understand that Christ came to reveal the full glory of the Father.
Why did Jesus come?
It's so we can see God.
So we can see God.
And so the second point that I want you to understand this morning,
as we look at this text,
is that Jesus fully reveals the invisible God.
Now, I'm going to kind of step on the pedal here,
and put together,
we took quite a bit of time on the first part of 14,
and we're going to press the rest of it together,
and explain it in simple parts this way.
Jesus came to fully reveal the glory of the Father,
who is our God.
And in the last part of 14,
what we find is that it explains to us
that John wants us to clearly understand
that Jesus is the glory,
and we can see it.
We can handle it.
If you were to go at another point into 1 John,
as 1 John kind of begins to lay out the argument
about the Lord Jesus Christ being God the Son,
he talks about the fact that our hands have handled,
and our ears have heard,
and our eyes have seen,
talking about Christ.
I want you to look at what it says here,
in essence,
that John wants us to grasp,
is that Jesus lets man see the fullness of God's grace and truth.
Because of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we have everything that is needed for us to comprehend
just how gracious and just how truthful Christ is.
As we look here in the passage,
pick up now, if you will,
in verse 14 or 15,
it says,
John bore witness about him and cried out,
this was he of whom I said,
he who is coming after me ranks before me
because he was before me.
In essence,
that passage tells us that John the Baptist's ministry
was to be a formal announcer of Christ's coming.
How many of you remember last week
when Aaron Holopeter played Hail to the Chief?
The purpose of that was to remind you
that John's ministry was this formal task
of letting people know,
hey, he's coming,
he's coming,
he's coming.
That's what John the Baptist did.
And John the Baptist's ministry
is stunning
for the tremendous impact that he had,
and he never did
the kind of miracles
that we find Moses or Elijah
or Jesus doing.
The miracle of John the Baptist's ministry
was the power of the Holy Spirit
taking his preaching
and using it
to hammer at the issue
of a need for repentance.
And people were drawn by that.
And so here,
what we find is that
John the Apostle
wants us to understand
that John the Baptist's ministry,
verse 15,
was to bear witness to Jesus,
and when John the Baptist
saw Jesus,
guess how he responded?
John the Baptist announced the truth.
This is him.
He'd been saying,
he is coming,
and when John the Baptist
saw with his eyes
for the first time
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
do you know what he said?
behold,
the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins
of the world.
I mean to tell you,
can you imagine
that kind of statement
being made
among those Jews
who were expecting
the Messiah to come
and who had been listening?
They'd been hanging on
every word
of John the Baptist,
and then he stands back
and he says,
that's him
pointing to Jesus.
There's no wonder
that some of his disciples
packed up and left that time.
Bye, John.
That's him.
I'm gone.
And by the way,
when some of the other
little small-minded disciples
came to John and said,
do you realize
we're losing the crowd?
And what did he say?
He says,
well, let's get this right.
He must increase,
imperative.
It's an absolute necessity
that he increase
and I decrease.
Well, as you look at
verses 16 through 18,
we find that John the apostle
lays out three remaining truths
about Jesus.
Number one,
Jesus is the full revelation
of the glory of God.
Verse 16,
and from his fullness
we have received grace
upon grace.
Jesus is the full revelation
of God.
The word full that is used here
is the word pleroma,
which is talking about
having it packed into the point
that nothing else will fit.
Full.
And when you stop
and think about that statement
of his fullness,
he then goes on
because he just doesn't want us.
He's not satisfied
with just,
it's the full deal.
He goes on and says,
and grace for grace.
And when he uses
that little phrase
in verse 16,
grace upon grace,
he is talking about grace
that is packed
on top of grace.
Let me remind you
a little bit
of the fact
that in the scriptures
before the time
of highlighting
or bolding,
what was used
and particularly
was used
in auditory communication
is that when you
wanted to make a point,
you repeated it
immediately.
Such as
Isaiah chapter 6,
holy,
holy.
Oh.
Or Jesus,
one of the things
that he would say
occasionally,
if he said it
in King James,
it would be
verily, verily.
If he said it
in ESV,
it was truly,
truly.
And what he was saying,
it was kind of
a double tap,
you know,
bang, bang.
This is really
right.
And so here
is John
using that same
principle
of emphasis
to say
grace
upon grace.
Second thing
we see there
in verse 17,
it says,
for the law
was given
through Moses,
grace and truth
came through
Jesus Christ.
And what we
understand that
to mean is that
Jesus is better
than the law.
We will see
later that Jesus
didn't come to
replace the law,
that's not what
he came.
He fulfilled
the law.
But we understand
that the purpose
of the law
was principally
to expose
several very
important key
features
in our
understanding.
One is
the holiness
of God.
What does
the law
tell us?
It tells us
that there
is a God
who has
holy standards.
And standards
don't change.
I was getting
ready to go
visit my mom
and dad
and Pastor
Saul told
me in advance,
he says,
by the way,
I want you
to know
there's a
semi-truck
that tipped
over here
on the
on-ramp
going on
to 270
off of
Roberts.
Do you
know why
semi-trucks
tip over?
Huh?
There's a
little lesson
in physics
in case you're
wondering.
It's when you
have too big
of a load
and you're
going too
fast and
guess what
happens?
And it's a
sharp dug,
am I right?
You've never
tipped one
over, right?
Praise God.
But there
it was,
sprawled all
over the
road.
And I
thought to
myself,
I'm going
to be smart,
I'm going
to avoid
this,
and then I
got on the
phone and
guess what
I did?
I'm just
following
habit and
the next
thing I
know is
I didn't
come back
and tell
Pastor Saul
immediately.
I was like
but here's
the truth.
There's a
reason why
when you're
driving on
those on
ramps,
they have
these little
pictures of
trucks tipped
over.
Do you
know why
they put
those there?
It's not
to let
trucks know
that that's
the right
place to
do it.
It's
to say
to truck
drivers,
please don't
do this.
And so
Jesus came
to make
clear the
sinfulness of
our hearts,
but he's
better than
that.
And what I
don't mean
like the law
is bad,
but there's
more to
the glory
of God
in his
care for
us than
the law.
In
addition
sin is
grace and
truth.
And Jesus
came and
he opened
up so
that all
of us
could see
that despite
the reality
of the fact
that the
law condemns
us as
sinners who
have every
reason to
expect eternity
in hell,
God in
his undeserved
kindness sent
the Lord
Jesus to be
our Savior
and deliver
us from the
ugliness and
the bitterness
and the
darkness of
our soul.
Furthermore,
as we see
here in
verse 18,
it says,
no one has
ever seen
God.
I remember
while we're
on the
heaven is for
real deal,
I remember
a friend who
came to me
once and
had a picture.
He was a
truck driver,
Doug,
I want you
to know
that.
And he
came to me
and said,
you have to
see this,
it was a
Polaroid.
How many
of you
remember
Polaroids?
If you're
old enough
to remember
Polaroids,
it's like you
also remember
horse-drawn
carriages,
close together.
And I
remember this
guy said,
no,
I've seen
God.
And he
had a
Polaroid,
he'd been
driving somewhere
about their
Pilot Mountain
in North
Carolina,
and he'd
seen this
cloud formation
and he was
convinced it
was God.
God was in
the cloud.
Do you
follow that?
God,
and he,
I mean,
heaven help
me.
I stared at
that thing
for I didn't
want to
disrespect the
guy.
He was
quite a bit
bigger than
me.
And it was
like,
that's God?
God,
no,
I don't
see it.
Okay?
Here's what
the Bible
says,
it says,
no one
has ever
seen God.
And I'm
of the
private opinion
that we
will never
see God,
the Father.
But we
will see
Jesus and
we will be
satisfied in
seeing him.
God.
And so as
we look at
this majestic
declaration of
the reality of
the coming of
the Lord Jesus
Christ, it
tells us that
Jesus makes
the invisible
God fully
known.
And what's
the value of
that?
What's the
benefit that we
receive by
understanding that
Christ is the
one who
completely satisfies
the longing of
our heart to
know the
Father?
Father,
there is
something in
our heart that
desires to
know, and
Christ satisfies
that.
So let me
get intensely
practical as we
bring things here
to a close.
If you're a
sinner here this
morning and you
are under the
terrifying burden
of your sin,
I have no doubt
that some of the
things that are
happening to you
today, your
thinking are just
kind of strictly
the outstakes
outcome of
mistreatment or
consequences, and
you may be
sitting here and
just not getting
the memo that
God in His
holy judgment
will eventually
deal with sin.
I want you to
know that Christ
Jesus came into
the world to
give you hope and
to draw you to
the light.
He came to
die in your
place and to
satisfy the debt
of your sin.
sin.
And I just
cannot understand
how you could
turn away from
a loving God
who willingly
would sacrifice
His own son
for you.
I don't want
you to be bad
soil.
There are some
of you here that
are believers,
and there was a
point in your
life where you
were under that
pall and under
the burden of
your sin, and
you were
convicted of
the absolute
misery and
the certainty
of judgment, and
you came to the
Lord Jesus, and
you had all your
sins forgiven, and
do you know what
that felt like?
It was like, the
burden's been
lifted.
But as it says in
the book of
Revelation, you've
forgotten your
first love.
Can I tell you
that as we read
through the book
of John, John's
gospel is, for
one, profoundly
evangelistic, because
it will say over
and over and
over again, God
sent His Son to
save lost, broken,
ruined sinners.
John's gospel is
also profoundly
edifying, because
as we see in
the gospel of
John, the
heart of
Christ, and
the love of
Christ, and
the wisdom of
Christ, the
believer's heart
that is not
sour-sucking on
self-centered
thinking, how's
that, is going
to find comfort
and hope
love and
affection,
patience,
joy in the
Holy Spirit.
God.
I'll close with
one other
passage.
You know, if
there's anything
that I am
persuaded that
God is doing in
the lives of
those who are
truly believers,
that He is
changing us.
Would you
agree with
me?
Huh?
If you're a
child of God, you
can't stay the way
you are.
Everybody say
yes!
Okay.
Hey, if you're a
child of God, you
can't stay the way
you are.
You can come
easy or you can
come hard, but
He's going to
take you there.
Now, listen to
me.
2 Corinthians
chapter 3,
verse 18.
And we all,
with unveiled
face, beholding
the glory of the
Lord.
That's what we've
seen this morning.
The Word became
flesh and dwelt
among us.
And we have
seen His glory.
You follow that?
It says,
beholding the
glory of the
Lord are being
transformed into
the same image.
If you're sick and
tired of staying
where you are,
then you put your
eyes on Jesus a
little harder and
keep locked on,
because here's what
happens.
As you stay focused
on Christ, the
truth of who He is
begins to change
you.
And as it says,
transformed into
the same image
from one degree
of glory to
another.
For this
comes from
the Lord who
is the Spirit.
I like that.
Let's close in
prayer.
Father God,
your prophet
Zechariah penned
under your
direction, these
words,
not by might
nor by power,
but by my
Spirit,
saith the Lord.
And it has
been my desire
this morning that
people would see
the glory of the
Lord Jesus
Christ.
That those who
are here today
and are under the
burden and the
despair of their
sin would cry
out and say,
I need Jesus to
save me.
And those who
are here who are
believers,
believers whose
lives are
complicated by
unforgiveness and
bitterness,
by an
unrelenting
bout with
self-focus and
depression,
that are
consumed with
anxiety,
would be
resolute this
morning to set
their eyes upon
the Lord Jesus
that seeing
Him,
they would be
changed from
glory to glory.
glory to
the Spirit.
And so we
understand that
you put us on
the spot this
morning of
responding in
some way.
Some of us are
going to be bad
soil.
Others of us,
by the grace of
God and the power
of the Spirit,
are going to
produce fruit.
And we plead
with you to be
gracious in your
precious name.
Amen.
Let's stand
together as we
close.