If you're sitting back a ways, you probably can't see that. And if you'd like to move up, feel free. We are going to get started on question three. But prior to that, this is my little way to get people to move forward. Use really tiny print and make it. So, anyways, we are looking at question three, but let's start off and just think about it. When we were looking at question one, what we're really talking about, if we were to put it in some modern parlance, is we're looking at the priorities and purpose of life. Right? What is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And enjoying Him forever is not necessarily sitting down and having a party. It's talking about our worship and service and life with God, the Christian life. Well, if that's our chief end, then how do we know how to do that? And so we go to the second question, right? And what's the second question? What rule hath God given to direct us, how we may glorify and enjoy him? And having looked at the scripture, the answers that we saw is that it is the word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, which is the only rule to direct us, how we may glorify and enjoy him. And now we've come, starting last week, to question number three. And question number three is, okay, well, If it's the scripture that tells us this, then, kind of like, what, this is the cliff note time, what should I get out of this? Or the outline time, you know, sometimes somebody's gonna give you a class or whatever, and like I will in membership class, I'll say, so, here's what we're gonna cover this week and this week and this week and this week. And in question three, in one sense, in a very simple way, the shorter catechism is giving us an outline for the rest of the shorter catechism. Because when we take a look at, well, what do the scriptures principally teach? Well, what they principally teach, two things, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. So we have questions one through, let's try to remember, 32, is it? No, 38, and then questions 39 through 107, what duty does God require of man? Now, we started looking at that last week, and it's an excellent outline for us to consider, but there's this interesting way it's stated, just like we had some interesting phraseology, and we can expect that to be the case when we're looking at something that was written, you know, like 400 years ago. So, we say, what do the scriptures principally teach? Why are we asking that? Why don't we just say, what do the scriptures teach? What's the difference between those two? Yeah, I saw your hand halfway up. Okay, Paul's saying it's said in different places, different ways. Well, that's true. If something's principally being taught, we might expect to hear it more than just once, right? All right. What do we mean when we say, what do the scriptures principally teach? Why don't we just say, question number three, what do the scriptures teach? What would be the difference between those two? Hand sign. I can't, they can't hear that on the recording. It's too general. Yeah. Very good point. So she said, well, the Bible teaches many things. It's too broad. If you were going to do a research paper, you know, we're just working on some of this for the seminary, what things do you have to do if you're going to do a master's thesis, things like that? Well, one of the big things in a thesis or a dissertation is narrowing down your topic. Because if you just say, write about Presbyterianism, you're going to be dead before you exhaust the topic. So what in particular do you want to know about that? That would be the thing. So you're going to use a teaching tool, the Shorter Catechism, and if the teaching tool is going to be effective, what we're saying to people is, the scripture teaches many things, but What is it that it's principally teaching? What are the important things that we need to learn from that? And when we're talking about that, there are many things we've said at times that people have used the Bible for that's not necessarily what it's principally teaching. Can you think of anything like that? Yeah. One of the best aids to people who do archaeology in the Middle East is the Bible. They look at it, and all the world tells them that nothing's ever been here, and then from that they go, oh, you know, and they dig, and lo and behold, the Bible's proved right again and again and again. So that would be one area. Another area, for example, there's a great curriculum to teach English as a second language, an evangelistic tool, using the Bible as a curriculum. Well, the Bible wasn't really written to teach English as a second language. Believe me, the Bible wasn't written for English at all, right? That wasn't the main intent, but you could use it for that. There are a lot of things for which you could use the Bible, and that may not be it. I hate it when people use it as punishment. Write out three hours, write out pages from the Bible, maybe not the best way to inculcate the scripture into the hearts of young people. There are other things that you might, that the Bible certainly obviously, I would think, doesn't teach. When you want to become a mechanical engineer, you don't go to seminary. Not going to work. By the way, I don't want to take his classes, and he probably didn't want to take mine. I mean, they're just very different along the way. I don't know about you, but if you liked a recipe at the Harvest Dinner, you probably didn't start scurrying through the Bible to try and find the recipe. That wouldn't be there. That's ridiculous. But there's other things. We constantly find people wanting to go through the Bible and go, I really want to know, I really want to know, I really want to know. And the Bible doesn't teach that. There are many people who I mentioned before would love to know all the life history of Jesus from the time he was born. You know, we go like, birth, 12 years old, beginning of his ministry, right? What happened in all the rest of that time? Moms in particular, a lot of people go like, well, what was he like when he was a little boy? They decided not to put it in there, right? And they say they intentionally didn't tell you that. So what does that tell you? God really doesn't care. That's not one of the things he principally wants you to know. You can find books that are supposedly written by authors of scripture, they're called pseudepigraphal books I mentioned, and there you'll find in them little stories about Jesus, you know, making little clay animals and birds and then breathing life into them and they flew away and amazing all his friends. None of that's true, but I mean, if you want fantasy, that's what people come up with, because there's many things people want to know. Was the witch at Endor, did she really call it? Was that Saul? Was that a demon? Was that a whatever? I mean, I've had people think, we're going to figure this out in our Sunday school class. I say, no, you're not. He's like, there's been enough ink spilled on that page forever. You can make arguments on all sides if you want. There's things you might want to know and the Bible may not tell you that. But these are the things that we're finding that are ultimately important for us in our life as a whole, as Christians in this world. And it divides down into two areas. And the two areas that we see are doctrine and duty. I put another D in there, but what you're to believe concerning God, that's doctrine. So this first half of the Shorter Catechism is focusing on those things that are considered, in our world, we would use the word doctrine. So doctrine, we wanna look at that. The importance, according to the Bible, of doctrine. We're gonna get some help. Now let's just take a look at some passages of Scripture. 2 John 9, that's not chapter nine, obviously, that's verse nine. I'm just gonna ask for volunteers to look some of these up. So whoever gets that first, feel free to read that for us, if you would. 2 John 9. Okay, so we got an issue here, right? You want to say, is doctrine important? From this passage, how important is good and right doctrine? Yeah, that's kind of the safe answer, right? It's very important. You know, now it's talking about, actually, we're gonna get to the duty, which is actually implied in this, but you see a tight connection between doctrine and duty already. How do we know what the right duty is? We know that from the word of God. So doctrine is one of those areas that's ultimately important. Let's take a look at another one, whoever gets it. John 4, verses 22 to 24. You can just read that part out. John 4, verses 22 to 24. All right, we're taking a look at the text here. And the word doctrine doesn't necessarily appear in here, does it? But there's a doctrinal question at the base. Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well. And I love the way some people address this. They talk about speaking to the woman at the well and he just goes on and he deals with it. No, let's be real clear. He does something that a lot of people today wouldn't do. She says, our ancestors taught this, you Jews teach that. You notice Jesus doesn't say, well, that's not important. He just says, no, the Jews are right. And then he moves on to the heart issue that's there. So he answers the question and then he begins to move on from there. And then what he's telling us about our life is, you know, you can't just worship anything you want. You can't worship, and you'll find this all over the place, you can't worship images and saints and idols and other things of your own imagining. And quite honestly, often when it comes to worshiping, and people claim they're worshiping Christ, the one they're worshiping is not the Christ of the Bible. It's the Christ of their own imagining. So doctrine is important for us in this area as well. Matthew 7, 18. Who ever gets that? So the thrust here, and this is one of the texts that's used with this catechism question is this, when we're thinking about the doctrine being the root of this, here's the tree. You're not going to do, when it comes to the duty God requires of us, you're not gonna do what God requires the way God requires it if the tree is bad. You're not going to, and if the tree is good, then you will do what God calls you to do. It'll just show up in your life. Not all at once, not perfectly, not consistently always, but it's there, it's a part of it. And then one more, let's look at 2 Timothy 3.5. Okay. Having a form of godliness. This is one of the times the word form is used in a little different way. What do you think this is a reference to? To have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. Rituals, okay. Rituals would be a part of it. When you say rituals, we have a tendency to think of very formal rituals, right? Some of the stuff that's just plain good stuff can become nothing more than a ritual, can't it? I mean, you can sit down in church and sing a hymn without ever thinking about what the words are. You know, I still remember when I first started doing the morning pastoral prayers, I had a young person come up and they said to me, you preach a long time, or pray a long time. It's like, I'm guessing they weren't real tuned in to what I was praying about at that moment. But the thing about little children is they're at least honest. Okay, so I'm gonna guess that they're probably he was not the only person in the sanctuary who's thinking you pray a long time and that might not have included Thinking about and really entering into those prayers with the pastor along the way we could just go through that again And again, can't we there are people who read their Bible every morning? Because they brought up been brought up with the habit of reading the Bible every morning and really all they're kind of doing is checking off a list and moving a verse ahead and or a bookmark ahead in the Bible. Not that any of those things are wrong, they're all part of what's right to do. But without a proper understanding of and relationship to God, then they're going to be faulty along the way. I think of the age in which we live, and I'll never forget, somebody might think I'm beating a dead horse, but I still, there's one very clear example in a particular ministry where somebody says, in a Christian institution, they're going like, we don't teach doctrine here. You've heard me say that many times. So, I'm not going to tell you that. I'm going to ask you to say, what does that mean when a Christian is saying, we don't teach doctrine here? Yes? We don't want to teach our truths. Nope, can't do that. And by the way, under the heading of what are hard truths, what would some of those truths might be for the average evangelical? God's anger with the wicked? Sure. What else? Yes. There is a hell. Yeah, we've got evangelical preachers who are actually writing sermons on why there's no hell because can't ever tell anybody that. Why else? What else? Kinds of things that fall into that category. Repentance. Yeah. Sin. No. No judgment ever made. OK. What else? Oh, yeah, yeah. I just read the verse in Ephesians once at a church, and an elder in the church came up to me and said, I wasn't even preaching on it, I didn't get that far. He read the verse on election, he says, isn't that one of those damnable heresies of Satan? I read Paul. You got a problem, I don't want to be real nasty about it, but if you got a problem, it's with Paul. Where did you get that idea? He says, well, I heard it in his TV preacher, and he was preaching, and it's a common theme. Let me give you another one that's really rebelled against today. You'll know it. You'll probably regret not having said it yourself. The sovereignty of God. How popular is that doctrine? Every Christian has to believe that God is sovereign, or I once made the case, you either believe in the sovereignty of God, or you're an atheist. because the God of the Bible declares himself to be sovereign. And every Christian group, pretty much, will claim they believe in the sovereignty. You've got Roman Catholics claim it, Armenians would even claim it in most cases, but then they just backpedal and they just start excluding, well, sovereign but not this, sovereign but not that, sovereign but not this. And it's not just a theological debate. You walk into a place where someone has just been struck by tragedy. Let me give you one that we can probably all relate to. It's 9-11. Four planes have just flown into two towers. 3,000 people are dying in the cities in turmoil. The Pentagon is hit, and then the people on a plane crash another plane into Hillside. Ministers were falling all over themselves to get in front of a camera. And the message that they gave repeatedly from all corners of the evangelical world was this, God had nothing to do with that event. Why would you say that in an environment like that? Forget truth or error for a minute. Just what would motivate someone to say something like that? Solomon? Sure. You want to give God an excuse out of that. What else? What other reasons would motivate people to say that? OK, well, I'm going to suggest that another question for you then. What do you take away from people when you say something like that? Jim? Well, you're letting him keep that if you say that. But OK, yes, Paul? Okay. Well, so we know if you're, if you're, if you're taking that, if you're making that statement, yes, you're somebody who wants people to think they're more in control of stuff. You don't want to think the world's out of control. You, you are probably not getting that doctrine from scripture, but probably from a Bible study at your church. I don't know. What are you taking away from the person to whom you say that? Yes. Will. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Now at that point, you're saying the world is out of control. All this stuff happened to you just randomly? Your loved ones died and there is no purpose in that? You're suffering and there's no real guarantee of any remedy in that or justice for you? You rob people of so many, many things. So knowing, when we talk about doctrine, somebody says, we're not going to teach doctrine here. problem. Another popular way of saying that is, no creed but Christ. People like to say that. No creed but Christ. Interesting idea. What does it mean when we say there's no creed but Christ? Well, I mean, I really have two problems with that. I think I mentioned one Sunday morning last week, that is that people don't understand that if you call Jesus Christ, you're already into a creed, okay? Because Jesus, there was not a, like I think I said the other day, there's no mailbox in Palestine with J period Christ on it. Jesus was the name, Christ was what? A title. And you are attributing to Jesus a title. which says that he is the anointed of God, the Messiah of God, the Savior who has come to bring in his kingdom. That's a doctrinal statement. Now, is that a fully adequate doctrinal statement? Here's another one. This was a very popular doctrinal statement, supposedly doctrinal statement, with a group that doesn't want to get into it. The World Council of Churches had for their doctrinal statement, you had to affirm that you believed Jesus is Lord. Is that good? Sufficient? What do you think? That's not a trick question, actually. Go ahead. It does. And interestingly enough, they don't allow you to further define the word Lord. So if you're one of those groups that says, I do not believe Jesus is God, I don't believe he was born of a virgin, I don't believe he did miracles, I don't believe he rose from the dead, but he's a really good man, well there's one definition, you know, you could go like Lord just means sir or master. So I can let you in. Creeds are important. We go through a few of them here as part of our worship service because, you know, when we come and say we're here to worship God, it's important to identify who is this God that we worship and it's important to remind ourselves of who that God is and what he looks for in our lives. So the creeds that we see in life, the doctrine that we have, is an important part of our life. Like the World Council of Churches, the American Council of Churches that was here, first it was the Federal Council, then it was the American Council, it was in Buffalo, and then it was just the Council of Churches, began to talk about diversity and unity, and diversity and unity was more important than anything else. That was their doctrine. So it's not just do you have a creed and you have a doctrinal statement, but Is your creed a biblical creed? And is it an adequate creed along the way that's important as well? Because when we're looking at this, it's reminding us that when we come to the scripture, one of the things we need to walk away with is good teaching, sound teaching, biblical teaching. And that's what the Shorter Catechism is going to highlight for us, the importance of doctrine. And in these first sections, we're going to be looking at doctrine, in fact, things like theology proper. Question number four, the next one, as soon as we get to that, begins to delve into that. And we're not going to be talking about the format anymore. We're going to be talking about, so what is God? a simple statement that is filled with enough theology to keep you pondering, if you really think about it deeply, for the rest of your life. So it's a worthwhile study as we run through all of these things. Well, it doesn't end with doctrine, does it? So we move on and the next thing we see, it is to principally teach what we're to believe concerning God, doctrine. And my friends, that is extremely important. But beyond that, duty, the deeds, the things that we're going to do. Now, how important is that? I mean, like the thief on the cross died without living a life, doing a whole bunch of stuff. How important for anybody who gets more life than just an hour or two as you suffer on a cross, how important are our deeds in your life? Let's take a look at some verses once again. These are all from James. James deals with the practical aspects of the Christian life, and here's what he's gonna tell us in chapter two, verse 14. What does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can faith save him? Let me just take a quick shot in the dark. Probably if you're cutting your teeth on the apostle Paul, you might go like, well, yes, but if you're reading James the way it's written, the construction, it has an expected answer, and the expected answer is what? These two guys both had the same faith. What is James talking about? Well, all of James is about how to grow and mature as a Christian. And so we're talking about not the point of justification, how do we come to Christ, that's Paul's main concern in most cases. Here, we're talking about how do you grow in your faith, how do you mature in your faith? What James is saying is if you have genuine faith, then it's going to show, and how's it gonna show? It'll show in the things you do. Later on in chapter two, verse 17, he says this, So, thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Faith without works is dead. Belief without works is dead. Verse 26, he says, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. Now, for sometimes, almost in some reformed circles today, that might sound like you're kind of missing the boat, you've mistaken yourself somewhere, but this is what the Apostle James is saying, that saving faith, it will always be accompanied by works. Calvin, I think, was the one who put it this way, that saving faith is never alone. I could be wrong on the quote, but that's a pretty well common theme through the reformed faith. And it might come as a surprise to modern Christians that God requires anything, that God looks for anything other than just a profession or an identification with certain doctrines. Because they've been given to think on and on again that you say these things. I went forward when I was 14. I knelt down. I prayed a prayer. I said, I wanted Jesus to be my savior. Now I can get up and live however I want. And it really doesn't matter. And as they're booking me for crimes, I can turn around and say, but I prayed a prayer. Well, James is saying maybe a little more than that, isn't he? He's looking for those actions in our lives that are the fruit of our faith in Christ. One past president of Princeton put it this way, he said, I came to know Christ as a young man, and all my life since then has been a postscript. Thank you, Lord, for what you did for me then. Do these works that James is talking about that comes after our faith have any merit to earn our salvation? Everybody's saying no. How do you know? How would you demonstrate from the scripture that these works cannot add to your salvation, do not add to your salvation? Solomon. For the tape, I'm sure my wife's gonna want me to repeat some of that, I won't get it all, but essentially all the times that Jesus deals with somebody and he says, you know, you're forgiven, and all of it was related to faith, not an action, all right? Okay, how else would you know from the scripture? Yes, Pat? Up to. Up to and including the thief on the cross, okay. How's about Titus 3.5, does anybody remember what that says? Do a Bible drill on that. What's Titus 3, 5 say? Not by works of righteousness, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Yes. Right. That's right. And he goes on and says, then it's the gift of God. And then he says, and the works are what I've created you for. Right. 2, 8 through 10. Very good. All right, so when we look at that, I guess I wanna just challenge the way we tend to think about the Christian walk today. Probably today, I think we would agree that in most evangelical circles, the number one way of describing a Christian, the Christian life is, we tend to call them believers, right? Right? Sure, sure. There's probably a term that has fallen way out of favor, religion. Do you ever talk about your religion, your Christian religion? No, I see you going, why not? Relationship, okay. Yep, let me be clear, so has believer. So has Christian. Let me suggest to you that to think of the institutes of the Christian religion, what is the implication that's the difference between these two? Belief and religion. Belief, we have that, we understand it, it's what we know, and salvation by faith is good. James is talking about your religion. He's talking about your life. Religion refers to those things that because you believe them, this is how you regularly, consistently, religiously, we would say today, live your life. And we have ceased to think about that. But there is this great tie between the two. When you talk about belief and religion, I could almost say you're talking about the two parts of the Shorter Catechism. What are we to believe concerning God? Doctrine. What duty does God require of man? Our religion. How does that show up in our life? How do we live for Christ? And so I know the bad connotations that exist. I know the challenges that people may have with them. But I want to encourage you to think in terms of following Christ. That's what it means to be a Christian, doesn't it? You're a follower of Christ. You believe in him and you try to live the way he lives. Doctrine and duty, belief and religion, they're all part of what we have. The Old Testament put it this way and summarize, Micah summarizes this for us when he says, he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. That's Old Testament, yep. Anything in there that isn't true for us today? Walk humbly with your God, that's the relationship, right Mary Ellen, there we go, the relationship with God. What else is in there? To love mercy, to reflect God's character, and to do justly, do what's just, do what's right. And the Bible's gonna tell us a lot about what's just and right and good that we should do. So, we wanna search the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament to discover what duties that we owe to God. And the duty that God requires of us is opposed to just what we see often today, dead orthodoxy. When I say dead orthodoxy, I'm describing people who may have great pride in knowing the right doctrines. You know, you'll find people who have memorized the Bible when they were growing up in church, who have maybe even gone to seminary and started a pastor and dropped out and they know what's true. But there is no vital relationship with Jesus Christ. You realize that's possible, right? I mean, you could be sitting here this morning and you can be in church and you could know all the right answers to stuff. You can grow up in the church and know all the right answers to things and not know Christ. And so the thrust of what I want to indicate is this, that when we're looking at belief and religion, duty and doctrine, just to know all the doctrine is not the same thing as having a maturing relationship with Christ. And if I was gonna go out on a limb and say, across the whole, we'll leave out Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic and other places. If we're gonna go across the evangelical spectrum and say, who might be most likely to fall into dead Orthodoxy? People in reformed churches. We're the ones who talk about doctrine, right? And that doctrine, we can get out and have, believe me, visitors come to church here, and they will hear you talking about the things that you're studying and reading and thinking about, and they go like, I've not run into that before. I mean, many of you are functioning, you don't realize it, but you're functioning on a level that's a whole lot higher than my average person who's sitting in a pew somewhere today. I still remember, many of you remember Frances Wollner. I had some seminary graduates who were complaining because my English Bible exam was too hard, and I happened to have her type it up for me once. because I was just using chicken scratchings, and so she typed it up, and they were studying for a year to get there after seminary, and they were really complaining, and Frances said, I decided to answer the questions as I was typing it up. I got about a 95, and I said to some of the guys, you gotta go back and study your English Bible, because there's no way you can pastor a church when the people get 95 on a test you can't pass about the Bible. People are functioning on a great level here, and that can be a matter of pride. Okay, here's, as somebody put it once, I like the way he, you know, he might have some problems, but I like the way he shares the gospel better than the way I don't share the gospel. You know, I like the fact that somebody who may not have a perfect 100% grade on a quiz on the shorter catechism, nonetheless, may love Christ as he knows him and serve him to the best of his knowledge. Sincerity's not enough. the call of scriptures and say, be satisfied with that. But it's a sad testament if we fall into that area of dead orthodoxy. And by the way, I'm not picking on my friends and brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. They just got the worst name out of the whole court proceedings years ago. So we were really happy with Bible. I still talk to some of the founders in that day, and they were like, you got the name. I said, yeah, we got the name. That's right, yeah. I'm not making any reference to that. That's just a bad joke at the end. Casual Christianity is also being spoken against here, isn't it? And by casual Christianity, I mean people who say that they do know Jesus, but then, once again, their life, they're not really focused on doctrine and orthodoxy, but their whole attitude about the Christian walk is that it's all about me. It's all about what I'm gonna learn. I talk to friends that I knew, judges and others, it's like, man, I really like going to that church because I went to the Catholic church, I didn't learn anything, I go there and I'm getting lots of great lessons about family and marriage, and I go like, well, that's good, but are you learning about Christ? Well, are you learning how to live in a different way? Not really. So we have that. We want to avoid that as well. So in this section, and I'm going to just kind of finish it up here. Just bear with me a bit. We're going to take it for some time. The duty and decalogue. When we start to take a look at the rest of that second half of the Shorter Catechism, We're gonna focus a lot on the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by the Book of the Covenant, which are the applications of the Ten Commandments to civil life. And when we look at the purposes, and there are really three, but I'll just mention this morning, because we're not studying the law as a whole, what we're looking at is that the Old Testament focuses on the law, and certainly this is going to be, as Paul would say, a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. How can anyone understand their need of a savior if they don't understand that they're lost and they don't understand sin? In fact, many of the Bible translators have begun to realize that almost before they, you know, if they translate a gospel like John or Mark first, the very next thing they'll translate if they don't do it first is Genesis and the Old Testament. Because until you understand that there's a God, you have sinned against him and you are in rebellion against him, but he has reached out to save you, the gospel things don't always make sense. It's just like the society we live in today. There is no God. The world just evolved the way it is. I'm living now. This is it. There's nothing else after. And you say, I have good news for you. Christ died for your sins. And they go, what? What are you talking about? We have kids who come into vacation Bible school. We find out as they come in from the community and their parents are sending them to a church that they have no idea what the word sin is. Not because they're young, because they've never been taught it. They may go to church every week somewhere and they still haven't heard what that word means. So the Savior, by the way, the order that we get this is that first we learn about Christ and later we learn about the law. And while it is necessary to know the law in order to see that we need a Savior, we don't want people to focus on the law and somehow leave Christ out. So really we're talking about the doctrine of who God is. That's gonna come first as the focus of the catechism. It's mentioned to keep this as a first priority to avoid the notion that we don't need the law of God after we're saved. That's another use of the law. for our sanctification. How do we know what we should be like? Well, what do the scriptures principally teach? What the scriptures principally teach is what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, right. And now, Lord willing, in two weeks, we're gonna get together and start on question number four. What is God? One of the most beautiful questions and answers in the catechism. So you can take a look at that if you'd like in advance and we'll come back to that. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that you've given us to take a look into your word, to be reminded of the tremendous priorities of your word for life, to be reminded of what you look for in the life of your children. And so, Father, we pray that you might cause us to be maturing and growing in that life by your grace and the work of your Spirit in us. So encourage us with our appetites for serving you and living for you. For after all, that is the duty and the purpose for our existence, to glorify you and to enjoy you forever. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.