Let's stand together for the reading of God's Word, turning to Exodus chapter 3, and then to John chapter 14. First to Exodus chapter 3, and we'll read the first 15 verses of this chapter. You'll remember this Old Testament narrative of Moses at the burning bush, his encounter with the living God. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? So he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. And now we turn to John chapter 14 to find out who our Lord Jesus Christ is, truly the I am, the I am the way, the truth, and the life. In fact, back in chapter 13 with verse 36, to help us understand the context of our Savior's teaching. John 13, verse 36, then on through verse 7 of chapter 14. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake. Jesus answered him, will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am. the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever." We turn for the preaching of the word today to John, John's gospel, chapter 14. And we'll particularly study the first seven verses together of this chapter. The Heidelberg Catechism, a catechism that came to us from the time of the Reformation, almost 500 years ago, the catechism was written. The Heidelberg Catechism begins in this profound way with this question. What is your only comfort in life and in death? the answer to this profound question, that I am not my own but belong with body and soul both in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my Heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, All things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him." Words of comfort and assurance. I want to focus your attention particularly on that question as it was framed. What is your only comfort in life and in death? You see, there's ultimately for you and me as the children of God, there's only one way of comfort. And it is the comfort that John sets before us. In the statement of Christ, that I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Really the capstone of the text that we're looking at this morning. That there is one way to the Father. That there's ultimately for you and me in a troubled world, There's only one comfort, only way to know the comfort of God, through the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, you and I live in days in which we need comfort, do we not? We live in uncertain and unsettled times. It seems as if every week we hear or read something even more unsettling than the previous week. Our own lives, do they not testify to our own need of this comfort? That our lives are full of sin and the misery that sin inevitably brings. That for you and me, even as the children of God brought from death to life, enjoying the salvation of Christ, yet we live in a miserable world and we need comfort. We encounter death and sorrow and loss. and we need comfort. We battle with indwelling sin and remaining corruption. We're often discouraged by lack of progress. You today may be ashamed of that lack of progress, and we need comfort in life and in death. And it is words of profound comfort that our Savior gives to us, that he gave to his disciples in the upper room, but words of profound comfort that he ministers to us from John chapter 14 this morning. Words of profound comfort to troubled disciples. These words come to us, words of comfort come really in four truths that the text sets before us. Here, Jesus ministers comfort to his disciples, calling them, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. First, he points them afresh to his own identity, who he is, the God-man, the Redeemer. The second, comfort, is the fact that he is going to prepare a place for his disciples, an eternal home and glory. The third comfort, that he not only is going to prepare a place for his people, but he's coming again to receive them to himself. And then the last comfort, and really the capstone and the summary of it all, is that he is the exclusive way to the Father, the one mediator. No one comes to the Father except through him. His identity or his person, the home that he prepares for his disciples in heaven, the fact that he's coming again on the clouds from glory, and the fact that he alone is the way, the revealer of the Father. Let's meditate on these truths together for a few moments. First, the fact that our Lord Jesus comforts his disciples first with who he is, his person, his identity. Let not your heart be troubled as he ministers to his disciples in the upper room. You believe in God, believe also in me. Before we seek to unpack these words, we need to know something of the context here in the upper room and the farewell discourse. These are chapters that minister to us in such a profound way as it were the last words of our Savior to his disciples before the hour of his glory. And what's so profound here is he ministers to his disciples is the fact that His own heart, His own spirit has been troubled as the God-man looking ahead to the hour of His glory, but the hour that would come through suffering, through bearing the wrath of God against our sin and the cross of Calvary. His own spirit, His own heart has been troubled. Back in chapter 12, verse 27, Jesus says this, now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. His own soul is troubled as he looks ahead to the hour. What is that hour again? The hour of his own suffering, the hour of bringing glory to the Father, of crushing sin and darkness, of bearing the wrath and the curse that you and I should have borne, and opening the way glory. The hour of his glory has come, and his own soul is troubled." Same word is used in verse 21 of chapter 13, when Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit. And now as he lets his disciples know that he must go away, that he must go to the Father through the crucible of suffering of the cross, of the resurrection and the ascension, He ministers comfort to his disciples. His own soul troubled, but yet, verse one, let not your heart be troubled. Do we not see here the selflessness of our Savior? one who looked to his own agony and his own suffering, who could have, as it were, if there was ever a time in which our Savior in his full humanity could have asked for the assistance and help of others, for others to minister to him, his heart, for his disciples, to minister the grace and the comfort of the gospel to them. Let not your hearts be troubled. As he, just a few moments before, taking the place of humility and washed the feet of the disciples, giving them that commandment, that as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. Now he ministers to the hearts of troubled disciples. And there's more here. This trouble is intense. It's profound. There's pressure and intensity in the room that is hard to... It's hard for us to imagine. We should seek to understand what's going on here in the upper room. Here our Savior is ministering to 12 men who have left everything to follow Him, forsaken the world and taken up their cross to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing His name. They've been with Him over the course of what seems to be about three years. But now He lets them know that one of them will betray Him. And the disciples wonder at this statement. How can it be? How can it be? Who will commit this great treachery against our King? And not only that, this shocking bombshell revelation that one of the disciples will betray him, but another revelation soon follows that the Lord Jesus himself must go away to the Father. And then at the very end of chapter 13, that Simon Peter himself, one of the boldest of the disciples, the one who you would have thought would have remained faithful, he himself will deny the Lord Jesus three times. Perhaps you've been in a room when hard news has been received, A shocking report has been made known, a time of intense grief or intense surprise, and you don't know really how to respond. You're reeling, as it were, reeling internally from the news that you've received. Well, this is something of what's going on in the upper room as our Savior now looks at his disciples. In the hour of their trouble and their distress, their confusion, He tells them this, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Our Savior first points the disciples to his person, who he is. You believe in God, believe also in me. Here the Lord Jesus very clearly presents to the disciples his own person. Who He is, the God-man. You believe in God? Yes. You believe also in Me. The Word of the Father. The One who was sent from the bosom of the Father. The One to whom the Father has given all judgment. Jesus says, believe in Me. Sinclair Ferguson says that in this hour of trouble, this hour of distress, dealing with the disciples, the Lord Jesus, as the heavenly physician, knows best what medicine to minister to the disciples. He ministers the medicine simply of his own person, of who he is. The medicine that they need is Jesus Christ himself. To be reminded of First, who he is, the God-man sent from the Father, the one who is equal with God in every way, yet humbled himself to come for sinners. And the necessity here that our Savior places upon his disciples of faith, believe in me. And this is something you and I need to hear time and time and time again. The object of our faith is not something vague, out in the ether. It's not as if you and I are to have faith in faith, or faith in a vague concept or an idea. Our faith is in a person, the God-man. John Calvin said that as long as Christ remains outside of us and separate from us, All that He has suffered and done for the salvation of His people, of the human race, is of no effect and of no use to us. Calvin's not saying that what Christ did was of no use. He's saying that as long as what Christ has done, and who He is, and what He's suffered, His victories, His conquests, His sufferings, and His obedience, if it's outside of you, it's of no effect, of no use. You must believe. you must receive the glorious tidings of salvation through Jesus Christ. Believe, not as something vague, not in the ideas of the opinions of men, you believe in me, Jesus says. The first ground of our comfort is to be reminded over and over again who our Savior is. The one sent from the bosom of the Father, the Son of His love, the God-man, the Word made flesh and dwelled among us. Believe in me. I'm echoing here the the refrain that Pastor Peter preached last Lord's Day morning, that so often in our Christian life and in our experience, we go wrong first when we're not thinking and believing correctly about our King and Savior Jesus Christ. To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering is where the Christian life begins. Faith. in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. And there's a second ground of this comfort that our Savior ministers to his disciples. Certainly it begins with who he is, the one sent from the Father. But a second ground of comfort is where he's going. Yes, I'm leaving you, but I go, verse two, I go to prepare a place for you. It's actually, as we understand this whole chapter, it's actually for the benefit of the disciples that he goes away. First, to prepare a place for them. But also, even in the midst of preparing a place and going ahead, he sends the Spirit. He doesn't leave the disciples as orphans, but he sends the Spirit of truth to them. But directly in the context here, in verse two, What is the reason that Jesus is going away? He's going to prepare a home for his disciples. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. The idea of the Father's house is one that the image is rich throughout the scriptures. Remember the familiar words of Psalm 23 6, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David in Psalm 27 prayed that, one thing have I desired of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to be in the house of the Lord. Psalm 122.1, the idea of the house of the Lord. I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord was signified to the Old Testament saints in the tabernacle, and then in the temple, this place of God's dwelling with men. The Lord Jesus Christ himself is the Word made flesh who tabernacles, who dwells among men. And then, as he tells the disciples of the Father's house, he points us ahead, points the disciples and us through them ahead to that future day that we read of in Revelation 21, where that holy city, that new Jerusalem, the new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells, that place in which God will dwell with us, that He will be our people, that we will be His people, He will be our God, that we will enjoy life and everlasting communion in His presence. In my Father's house are many mansions," or could be translated, many rooms, many dwelling places. It's not as common in our in our culture, but in many, many places it is common for an extended family to all live in the same large home. When a son gets married, to build on in addition to the family house and then to bring his bride into that place. practice may seem unusual to many of us and may not be something that we would be interested in. But yet the reality, that's the picture that our Savior is portraying for His disciples, that the Son is going to the Father's house to make a place for His bride, that He goes to prepare a dwelling, a place for all those given to Him of the Father. And these are words of comforting grace for troubled disciples who are confused or perplexed, not knowing in their sinfulness and their confusion what comes next. A place prepared for them. I prepare a place for you. It's a question that we ought to consider. How would our Savior Christ prepare a place for His disciples. Our minds should immediately run to His cross and His resurrection, to all that He accomplished in His death on the cross of Calvary for our sins, bearing the hell that we deserved, bearing our waywardness and our foolishness, bearing your sins, believer, in His own body on the tree. In His resurrection, powerfully triumphing over death, over all of his enemies, and ascending to the right hand of the Father. I go to prepare a place for you, a sure home preserved for us in the heavens, a place where our Savior has gone before and to which we will surely come. He prepares a place. His disciples. These are words of infinite grace, infinite grace to all those who profess, who rest in Christ and who belong to Him. A place prepared in the Father's house for you. But there's more. There's a third comfort here for the disciples that logically follows. Our Savior would go ahead and prepare a place for His disciples he would come again to receive them to himself. Verse three, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. The coming, the second coming of our Savior logically follows that if he goes to prepare a place for his disciples, for all those united to him, he certainly would come again and receive them to himself that where I am there you may be also." And in this we see the vital importance of the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, this is one of the most clear texts in the New Testament that sets before us the return, the bodily triumphant personal return of our Savior Jesus Christ. I will come again, that where I am, there you may be also. The Heidelberg Catechism, again, puts it well in describing the ascension, this work of preparation that our Savior does and is coming again. Heidelberg Catechism asks this question, how does Christ's ascension to heaven benefit us? What's the benefit that Christ has gone before us, ascending to the right hand of the Father? Well, first, He is our advocate in heaven in the presence of His Father. Second, we have our own flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that Christ, our Head, will also take us, His members, up to Himself. You see the link there that the catechism is explaining? That it surely is the God-man, the one clothed in In our flesh, the true man of true man, the true God of true God, the one who's triumphant over sin and over darkness, the one who's borne the wrath of God in our place, as surely as He has gone to the right hand of the Father, as surely as He has ascended to the Father's house, He will bring all those united to Him, to that place. This is the truth of our union with Christ. that Christ is our head, and that we are His members, and that the head will not exist, will not be without His members, that we must, in due course, all those united to Christ by faith, be united to Him, be with Him in the glory of the Father forever and ever. The union that we have with Christ, it's an inviolable inseparable union. In the next chapter, Jesus will say, I'm the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me. Throughout the New Testament, we read of this union that we have with Christ, that he is the head, we are the body, he is the foundation, we are his building, united to him by faith. This is why Paul could say that nothing death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's also why Paul could say that when Christ who is our life appears, then will we also appear with Him in glory. This truth of the personal triumphant return of our Savior, the Son of Man on the clouds from glory. It's intimately connected to our union with Christ, it's intimately connected to the gospel, all that he has done, all that he has suffered, all that he has won for us. Deny this, deny the truth that Jesus is returning on the clouds from glory, and you've denied the gospel itself. You cannot deny the personal return of our Savior and lose and maintain the truth of Scripture. Scriptures are profound, that there is coming a day when the Son of Man, our glorious King, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, will return, will take all those united to Him into the presence of the Father. every eye will see him." Acts chapter 1, some scriptures to reinforce this truth, to remind us of the certain second coming of our Savior to receive his troubled disciples to himself. Acts 1, 11, men of Galilee angels said to the disciples after the ascension of Christ, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. A real personal or triumphant return of our Savior. Revelation chapter 1 verse 8, verse 7 rather, behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him. all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. Even so, amen." And more scriptures that we could multiply, but our Christ, who has gone to prepare a place for us, will come again to receive us to himself. And what comfort this ought to minister, what comfort is certainly ministered to the disciples there in the upper room, and what comfort for you and me, a place prepared for us in heaven, united to Christ so that one day we will be in His presence, the right hand of the Father, in everlasting joy. What hope this gives us in unsettled and uncertain times. What hope this gives you when you grieve the passing away, the death of a spouse and the Lord, the loss of a child, the hard things, the times of grief and times of sorrow. This is the comfort that the Apostle Paul admonished the Thessalonian believers to continually bring to one another. 1 Thessalonians 4. I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. At the end of the passage, the Apostle Paul in verse 18 of 1 Thessalonians 4 calls us to comfort one another with these words, the sure and certain return of Jesus Christ. All those united to him by faith, even those who have gone before and have died yet rest in him. Their bodies still united to him as we read in our Catechism, the sure comfort of the return of our Savior Jesus Christ. So Christ ministers to the troubled hearts of His disciples, first calling them, reminding them of who He is, calling for their faith. Reminding them, teaching them that He has gone to prepare a place for them in the Father's house. Comforting them with the truth that if He goes to prepare a place for them, He will come again to receive them to Himself. And there's a fourth comfort in the text. Christ Jesus alone reveals the Father, that He alone is the way to the Father, really the capstone or the summary of all that has gone before. But between here and there, between that last comfort and the initial three, we have this question from Thomas, and Thomas interrupts the teaching, the comforting words of our Savior, In his usual way, if you're familiar with Thomas and the Gospels, you know that this is really in accord with his personality, as it were, of one given to doubts and misapprehensions, one who is often wondering, doubting, not knowing the assurance of Christ's comfort. Thomas asks in verse 5, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? This is the same disciple who, when Lazarus died, John chapter 11, who said, when Christ said that he would go to minister to Mary and Martha to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas said, let us also go that we may die with him. sort of hopeless or dour statement a one who in John chapter 20 when the rest of the disciples have seen the the risen Christ Thomas is the one who who confesses that unless I see him unless I press my hands into Into the nail prints in his side unless I I thrust my hand into his side. I will not believe the one who finally believed it when Jesus appeared bodily to him. A doubting disciple, one full of fear and doubt, anxiety. Lord, we don't know where you're going and how can we know the way? Perhaps that's your question today. I don't know. where you're going and how can, how possibly can we know the way. Perhaps you're a young person who, you wonder, you wonder about the truth of what the church of the Lord Jesus Christ teaches and You wonder about what your parents have instructed you. Perhaps you wonder, you're plagued by doubts, and you wonder, can I really know God? Can I really know the Father? Can I know that my sins are forgiven? Can I know the assurance that I belong to Christ and that I have the promise of everlasting life? Perhaps that describes, Thomas' question actually describes your own attitude. Perhaps you wonder if there's even a way at all and you're despondent and fearful and full of doubt, full of questions. Our Savior does not leave us in our doubts. He did not leave Thomas in his confusion and in his doubting. We have the capstone, the central promise of the text, this comfort that Christ indeed is the exclusive, the only way to the Father, Jesus said to him, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. To doubting, confused, troubled disciples, Christ proclaims clearly who He is and what He has come to do. To reveal the Father, to display the glory of the Father. And this is something that's all over the text here, all through the farewell discourse, the truth of the Trinity that stands behind the statements and the teaching of our Savior Christ, that He indeed is the one sent from the Father, that He is sent to bring glory to the Father, to save His people, to go back to the Father, then to send the Spirit who would make our hearts a home for the Father and the Son. And Christ here comforts Thomas with the assurance, I am, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. These words are so easy to read in our English versions. Verse six, I am, when Jesus proclaims, I am, ego eimi, he identifies himself clearly with Jehovah from Exodus chapter three, the I am that I am. Jesus here proclaims, I am true God of true God, the eternal Son of the Father. I am the one who has life in myself. I am the self-sufficient one. I am not less than the Father in any way. I am the eternal Son of the Father. Just as he does in all the rest of the I am statements of John. I am the door and I am the good shepherd and all the rest. testimony to the person of our Savior, true God of true God, the eternal Son of the Father. But we read that this one who is one with the Father, equal to the Father in every way, is the one who is a perfect and a complete and a sufficient Savior. I am the way, the truth, and the life. A perfect Savior, the These words convey something of the perfection of our salvation, the way to the Father, the way to life everlasting, to be reconciled to God, sinners brought into communion again with the Father, the one who is the truth, the one who is himself the truth, who proclaims not merely benefits apart from himself, but proclaims himself. I am the truth, the one who reveals the Father, the one who who teaches you the only way of salvation. I am the life. I'm the resurrection and the life. I'm the one who rescues you from sin and misery and brings you to the Father. And this is an exclusive message. The scriptures are clear. Jesus Christ alone is the way to the Father. There is no other mediator between God and men. There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2, Acts 4.12. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Isaiah 45.22 echoes this from the shadows of the Old Testament. Look unto me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. And here is Jesus Christ, the one sent from the eternal bosom of the Father to bring deliverance from sin and misery, to bring the life everlasting to disciples with troubled hearts. And he is the exclusive way to the Father. There are no other ways. There are no other paths, John Calvin said. It is a foolish and pernicious curiosity when men not satisfied with him attempt to go to God by indirect and crooked paths. No other way to the Father. A century ago, J. Gresham Machen, so instrumental in the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, wrote this in his book Christianity and Liberalism, a cry for maintaining the truth of Scripture. Regarding the exclusiveness of the Christian gospel, he says this, without its exclusiveness, the fact that Jesus Christ alone is the way to the Father, without its exclusiveness, the Christian message would seem to be perfectly inoffensive, but it would be entirely futile. The offense of the cross is done away, but so is the glory and the power. You want to empty the cross of its offense. The fact that Christ alone is the way to the Father, that He alone reveals the Father, that He alone brings everlasting life, deliverance from sin and misery, you might do away with the offense, but you would lose the glory and the power of the Christian gospel. By faith in Christ alone, the way to the Father. And this is blessed news for troubled hearts. I am the way to the Father. There is a way, and I am he. Jesus proclaims, you come through me. Believe in me. You believe in God, believe also in me. Trust me. Receive and rest upon me alone as I'm offered to you in the gospel. Bring, and even to Thomas, He says, come to me. I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. And for those of you with doubts, like Thomas's, take them to Jesus. Pray to him, his strong name. Read the word in its clear testimony to his power, his kingdom, and his glory. Submit yourself to the word of God. There is a way for doubts and questions to be resolved through Jesus Christ, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, the one who gives assurance to us that we may know Him. For this He came into the world, that we might have everlasting life, that we may know the one living and true God, and Jesus Christ to me is sent. In fact, this is the very purpose of John's Gospel, These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name and in his name alone. So believe in him, trust him, repent of your sins and cling to him. For those who have heard this over and over again, do not grow tired of hearing the gospel. Run to Christ afresh, cling to Him and to Him alone. Set your hope on the home reserved for you in heaven, a place prepared, a dwelling place for the bride in the Father's house, all through the merit of Christ. Trust His promise and confess His name that He will one day split the skies, returning on the clouds from glory, to receive you to Himself. And make this your aim, to know Him, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, who brings you to the Father. This, indeed, is your only comfort in life and in death. Let's all pray. O Lord, our God, we praise you for the clarity of your word. We lift high your name, Lord Jesus, confessing again that there is salvation in no other. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. We ask for the grace of your spirit to bring those who are yet outside of Christ, to bring them to bow their knee in humble faith. And help us all to set our hope on your coming, to rest in your promises. and to labor for the home reserved for us in glory. We thank you for the assurance of these words for our troubled hearts and grant us the sure comfort of the gospel. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Dear congregation, the Lord lift up your heads and your hearts and depart with the Lord's blessing upon you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.