Well, I almost said we are about to continue in our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew, but the truth is that we have finally come to what should be, unless God intervenes miraculously between now and next week, the final message in our series of messages from this gospel according to Matthew. You can find the text this morning on page 993 of your Pew Bibles. If that's what you're using, I would encourage you to use that or your own scriptures to follow along. And if you're able, would you stand with me as we read from Matthew chapter 28 and looking particularly at verses 16 through 20 as our text for this morning. Please pay careful, prayerful attention to the reading of God's word. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. but some doubt it. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. This is the reading of God's Word. May he bless our hearts with it in Christ's name. Please be seated. So last week in the passage we looked at, we were given the proof that Jesus was not, as the chief priests claimed, an imposter, a fraud, a deceiver who just claimed he would rise from the dead. but we found that he actually did rise from the dead. A glorious angel confirmed that truth to the women at the tomb, but then a far more glorious risen Jesus Christ confirmed it as he appeared to them, and we were told that they worshiped him. You see, his resurrection was the proof from God that he truly was the son of man and the son of God. that he truly was the one sent by God to do as John the Baptist had prophesied, to be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. He reminded these women to let his brothers know that he was going to meet them in Galilee, just as he had promised that he was going to go before them. So as we come to the text today, I'm going to follow William Hendrickson's lead from his commentary on this, I want to look at this passage under three basic headings. The Great Claim, The Great Commission, and The Great Comfort. First, The Great Claim. The disciples, see, didn't immediately leave for Galilee the day of the resurrection when they received that message from the women. Matthew doesn't tell us this, but the other gospels all let us know that Jesus actually appeared to them and others a number of times in and around Jerusalem for at least a week or so following the resurrection. And so we understand with the input of those other gospels that this is not the same group of discouraged, terrified, desperate men who are hiding, huddled in a room, not knowing what to do next or where things are going to go. This is a much different group of men, no longer dejected, depressed, but rather joyful and full of expectation as they head north from Jerusalem into their home territory of Galilee. And they feel that way now because they are coming to meet once again with Jesus, their teacher, but their Lord. their savior. And they're coming to meet him at a mountain or at least a high hilly kind of place where he has specifically directed them to come to. Now, you might wonder if you're familiar with sort of the gospels and even the beginning of the book of Acts, you might wonder why is it that Jesus wants them to come back to Galilee? After all, if you move into the first chapter of the book of Acts, chapter one in the first four verses, we find that by that time they are back in Jerusalem again. Jesus specifically tells them, don't leave Jerusalem until you receive power from on high. So why does Jesus have them come back north to Galilee? Well, there are a number of potential reasons. It is the home territory for all of them. It is the place where his ministry with them began. It is the place where his ministry received the most willing reception from people. It is the place where the prophets acknowledged the great eternal light would burst upon a people that had long sat in darkness. Also another possibility might be that Jesus has actually maybe brought them back to the very mountain where in Mark 3, he had gone early in his ministry to sit down with all of his disciples. And out of all of those disciples had specifically selected, chosen 12 men to be those who would follow him in his earthly ministry. It could be that he's reminding them, I called you to ministry and the call is not finished yet. Matthew tells us that as they arrived there, they saw Jesus. And he says, first of all, that they worshiped him. You would assume that would mean the 11. And yet he also says, but some doubted. The word can mean hesitated, wavered in their thinking. The question many have asked is, how should we understand this? Because worship here, the word can just mean to bow down and pay respect to someone. But in this sense, in this context, with Jesus being the one who has claimed all that he has claimed, has been crucified, buried, and has now risen from the dead, this word here can't mean anything other than its fullest sense of absolute religious worship of Christ as God. And yet, he tells us that some doubted, some hesitated. Again, a lot of speculation. Some think this is because some of them are still doubting that he actually has been resurrected. That seems unlikely among the 11 since he has appeared to them as a group at least a couple of times. And you remember one of those was the second time to come when Thomas would be there because Thomas had doubted. And Jesus says to him, go ahead, touch all the wounds I have. You will see, I truly am flesh and blood human. This is my body. He's eaten with them. There are some who think that maybe the simplest explanation is that as they came there, they saw Jesus, but they saw him at a distance. Notice that the next verse tells us that he came to them, and that perhaps some of them just weren't sure at that moment whether it was Jesus or not, and didn't maybe join in the worshiping immediately. I think that's also possible. I also think it's possible for us to allow the fact, knowing these disciples as well as we do by now, I think it's also possible that what's happened here is that although they all recognize him and they all know that he's been risen from the dead, there may be some of them who are still just a little hesitant about giving worship, which belongs to God, to this man who is in front of them. There's something still seems not certain about whether that's right or not, maybe. But notice this in that very moment of hesitation and uncertainty, for whatever reason it is, that Jesus comes to them. And again, Maybe I just read things into Scripture, but when I heard Jesus come to them, it reminded me of another time when Jesus came to them. You remember when he had sent them across the Sea of Galilee in the boat late in the evening as it's turning dark, and he had gone up on the mountain to pray, and they are in the boat struggling to get to the other shore, and they can't get there because the wind is against them, and they're laboring with all their might, and they're, again, frightened and discouraged and uncertain what's going to happen. until Matthew tells us that Jesus came to them, walking on the water. Jesus comes to his people. He comes to them in comfort. He comes to them in assurance. He comes to give them revelation and truth. And he does that here. He doesn't just come to them and stand there. He comes and speaks to them. And again, you can connect this with the previous example with, with the boat, when he walks them on the water, because as he comes and they are uncertain, is this a ghost? What is this? Jesus says, it is I, or ego eimi, I am, the name of God. Don't be afraid. Keep that in mind because we're going to consider what Jesus tells them now, what he says to them now as he approaches them. Remember when he came into the boat that time after saying who he was, and they received him in the boat and the storm stilled instantly, these men were impressed to the point that they worshiped him then, and they cried out, truly, you are the son of God. They had a lot to learn about what that meant yet at that early point. But look at what Jesus says to them now as he comes to them here on this mountain in Galilee. And remember that as he speaks to them, what he's doing is he is making a claim here, a claim that is an incredible one for any mere man to make. and particularly for any man who truly believes that there is a sovereign almighty God that we all must bow to and worship. He comes to them and he says to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. What? Think about what that means. Notice his first use here of the word all. It's going to be used four times in one way or another in this short text. All here means that there is none that is left out. That means that there is no authority that is necessary or existent in heaven or on earth that has not been given to him. Who do we normally understand to have that authority? It's only God, right? And that takes us to another word that's important for us to notice, the word given. This authority has been given to him. Authority can only be given by one who possesses it, right? You can't give away something you don't have. The triune God is the one who possesses this authority by right, just by who they are, by who he is, God. So as we hear Jesus make this statement, it's time for us to step back for just a minute and remember, based on everything Matthew's been telling us, who this Jesus really is by virtue of the miracle of the incarnation. He is one person, but he is one person with two natures. As Paul described in that passage of Philippians, he is the divine son in one of his natures, but that divine son has taken a truly human nature and body to himself, joined it to himself, so that this one person of Jesus has both a human nature and a divine nature. He is God and man at the same time. Now, understand that in terms of his divine nature, he has eternally possessed by right all authority in heaven and on earth. That's by definition who God is. But you have to remember that his human nature, which only came into existence at his conception by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, that human nature has not had that authority. In fact, his entire human existence, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago, his entire human existence has been one of humiliation. Just being born as a human, humiliation for the creator. Born in low circumstances, living under all the miseries in this world, having to keep the law perfectly in every point. And that humiliation we found led up to his suffering and death on the cross, the curse that that pointed to, the curse of God on the sin that he carried for us. And then it continued as his body after death was placed in the grave to continue under the power of death for a time. Humiliation. But remember the passage we just read together earlier from Philippians chapter two, verses six through 11, where the apostle Paul told us that because of Christ's perfect obedience throughout all of that humiliation in his life, God had done something very particular and special for him. Verses 9 to 11 in that second chapter of Philippians, Paul says, because of his obedience, therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him, notice not a name, but the name, the name. What name would that be? We'll look at that in a minute. The name that is above every name. Why did he do that? So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven, and on earth, and even under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You remember back when Satan met with Jesus in the wilderness? Chapter 4 tempted him and said, you don't have to go through all this crazy suffering your father's going to make you go through. All you have to do is bow down and worship me and I'll give you, see all these kingdoms? I'll give them to you. They're yours. Just, just worship me. Jesus told him to depart from him. And what does Jesus have now because of his obedience to the father? He has far more than Satan ever promised him, because in Satan's scheme, he would have been under Satan. Now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. It's his, and it's his now. Now there are some who insist that Jesus never claimed to be God. I asked you to consider that in light of the passage we're looking at today. The one who has all authority in an area, whatever area that is, is the king or lord of that area. In this case, the area is all of heaven and earth. Jesus has just claimed to have that absolute complete authority. In fact, let me remind you, back in chapter 11, verse 25, Jesus is praying to his heavenly father and thanking him for revealing things to babes and withholding them from those who thought they were wise and so on. And as he calls on his father in praise in that prayer, he calls him the Lord of heaven and earth. He's right. But do you realize that Jesus has just now said that he himself is the King, the Lord of heaven and earth? He's just now said, I am what my father is, Lord of heaven and earth. Now you might ask, is that what the apostles heard him saying? Or are we just reading that into it because we're so far down the road and people have trained us to think of him as that? Well, I grant that knowing these apostles as well as we do by this point, it may not have totally hit them at this very moment in time, but it is absolutely what they heard and understood. That is why Paul, for instance, in that passage in Philippians says that Jesus has been given the name. What name is that? It's the only name that is above every name. That's God. And it is given to him so that everyone and everything in creation will bow before him and acknowledge that he is Lord. You also have Paul in Titus chapter two and verse 13 and Peter in second Peter chapter one, verse one, who talking about Jesus, call him our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. They don't mince any words. They know what Jesus was claiming and they know it was true. Why? Because he was raised from the dead by God. He is the true one. He is the truth itself. And that, by the way, is the reason why some of them did not need to doubt whether it was appropriate to worship him or not. There is a sense in which Jesus is answering their uncertainty if that's what the issue is. All authority has been given to me. I am God. Go ahead and bow. Notice he doesn't reject their worship at all as he did not reject the worship of the women. You see John and other men in the gospels who, when they are in the presence of an angel, are so overawed at that presence of a heavenly being that they bow down in worship before them. And the angels say, get up. What are you doing? I'm a creature like you are. You don't worship me. You only worship God. Jesus is saying, go ahead. It's okay because I'm God. It's appropriate because I'm God. See, this is the culmination of all of the, what we might think of as the kingship themes that Matthew has been showing us in this gospel. You remember in the very beginning of the gospel, the genealogy that he gave us from Abraham through David, the king, to prove that he was indeed of the line of David to be the right king of Israel, of God's people. You remember the Magi who came looking for who? The newborn king of the Jews. You remember Herod who was, furious and terrified at the same time because there was this now newborn king who needed to be eliminated so he wouldn't be a threat to his throne. You remember the triumphal entry into Jerusalem that Zechariah had prophesied. Behold, your king is coming to you lowly and riding on a colt the full of a donkey. And then perhaps you remember the sign that was hanging above him on the cross. Jesus King of the Jews. All of this is wrapped together now in Jesus' statement to them. All authority, heaven and earth. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. The great claim. So now let's look at the Great Commission. The granting of this divine authority to Jesus is, we need to recognize the fulfillment of the vision that Daniel was given back in Daniel 7, 14, when he saw the vision of one like the son of man coming on the clouds, by the way, God rise the clouds, coming on the clouds and being brought before the ancient of days, God himself. And when he is brought before the ancient of days, he is given by God a dominion, and glory and a kingdom for the purpose that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away." Now, am I making up that connection? No, I pointed out to you as we've gone through this gospel that at least three different times in this gospel, chapter 16, verse 28, chapter 24, verses 30 to 34, and chapter 26, 64, when he's before the Sanhedrin, Jesus points back to this very vision that Daniel had to claim the status of the Son of Man who is going to be given that authority and that dominion. Well, guess what? He now has it. It's been given to him. It's been fulfilled in him. But perhaps a question comes to mind. Jesus is here in Israel. His disciples are here in Israel. He has been crucified, has been raised again, and he's already told them that he's going to be going back to his father in heaven. So how is it going to be that all peoples, nations, and languages of the whole world are going to come to serve him. Well, that is exactly the point of what we call the Great Commission. Notice how he uses the word therefore, go therefore. On the basis of the fact that I've made this great claim, that I am God himself now, on the basis of that, I now have all authority in heaven and earth. And so your evangelistic mission that I gave you early on in our ministry together, remember I told you that you were only to go to who? The lost sheep of the house of Israel. But you see, I am now the Lord of heaven and earth, and I am expanding your evangelistic mission now. It still includes the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but you are now being sent to all peoples, languages, and nations around the world. You're to go into, notice again the use of that word, all, all the world, none left out. You see, this has to be done because God's promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12.3 has to be kept. God promised Abraham that through your seed, all peoples, all nations on the earth will be blessed. So Jesus is talking to his disciples here and he's telling them, so you can't just stay here in Israel now. Instead, you must go, therefore. And as you go, you need to do something. You need to make disciples. Disciples of all nations. But notice something really critical here. It isn't going to be enough for these men to just go out to all the nations and all the peoples and just preach and proclaim the gospel of Christ and his kingdom. and then just keep going and keep preaching. He doesn't tell them you have to go out and preach. That's part of it. He tells them you've got to go out and make disciples. What has Jesus been doing in the whole three years he's been with these men? He's been making disciples of them. Now they are the ones who must make disciples, not for themselves, not disciples of them, disciples of Christ in his place. See, this is one of those major themes Jesus focused on in this gospel as well, the making of disciples. He has taught us that to be a disciple requires a response of total commitment to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Remember when the one man came to him and wanted to follow him and Jesus said to him, foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. You understand the commitment you're going to have to make if you follow me. You may have to give up everything except me. You remember the rich young ruler who came to him claiming to have kept every commandment God ever gave from his youth perfectly. What else do I have to do to get into the kingdom of Jesus? Well, that's pretty easy. All you have to do is take everything you have, all your great riches, give it all away to the poor. and then come and follow me." Absolute, total commitment. You remember Jesus' constant teaching of these disciples, stop wanting to be the greatest. If you want to be a disciple in the kingdom of heaven, you need to learn to be humble. You need to learn to be the servant of everyone if you want to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So how are these men going to go out and make disciples? Well, notice Jesus gives them a pattern that they have to follow. As they proclaim the good news of Christ and his kingdom, and as people hear it, accept it, and believe in it, they are first to baptize these people. Notice Jesus doesn't offer, by the way, any explanation about baptism here. He doesn't say, by the way, I'm going to institute this and here's what it means. Here's what it's for. Here's how you do it. It's as if it's an accepted thing by them. Remember, they had been involved in supporting the baptistic ministry of John the Baptist before Jesus began his own official ministry. Is it possible they have continued that throughout as people have come to express faith in Christ? It's possible. But whether they have continued it or not, that baptism of John represented to the people a need for repentance of your sin and to be cleansed from that sin, right? That's what John preached to everybody. Repent, repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so baptism certainly represents that to us, but notice that Jesus adds something else to this. When you baptize people now, you will baptize them in or into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You should notice, first of all, that the word he uses, name, is singular. There's only one name here because there's only one God here. That God exists in three persons, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but he's one God. You baptize them into the name of that one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's also interesting in light of what Jesus just said to them and the fact that he had been declared to be the Son of God by the Father, that he is in effect placing himself as the Son directly alongside the Father and the Holy Spirit without any hesitation at all here. But we want to make sure we understand why this baptism is important. Along with being a sign and seal that represents repentance and the need for cleansing, baptism is also the covenant sign of initiation into the covenant community, into the body of Christ. It's a sign of identification with and union with Christ himself. You may remember Paul at one point in his letters talks about how the Israelites when they went through the Red Sea were baptized into Moses. It meant that as they went through that experience with Moses leading them with the rods, parting the waters by God's power and leading them through to safety and bringing judgment on their enemies, they were now fully identified, connected to, united with Moses as the God-given mediator for that people. When people hear the gospel message and believe it and accept it, they are brought into the church It is the initiation ceremony, the sacrament of initiation into the church, because they are identifying with Christ, being brought into union with him. That's why we are baptized into the name. You see, baptism represents the identification of those who profess faith in Christ and their children, their identification with Christ. that they are his, and because they are his, they are God's. They are set apart for God. Understand, I always try to emphasize this when I talk about baptism, because I think we misunderstand it so badly. Baptism is God placing his name on us. It is not us doing anything for God or toward God. God is literally saying, mine. when we are baptized or when we have our children baptized. It doesn't bring salvation in and of itself. It is the promise of God's covenant purpose with his people. I also think that the order Jesus gives here is significant. Notice they are to baptize first and then they are to teach. Now obviously there has to be a little bit of teaching or preaching that goes ahead of that because you have to tell people about Christ and his kingdom and their sin and their need of him. But notice as people come to faith in Christ or as they're born to believing parents in the church, they are first baptized because of what it signs and seals to them and about God's purpose and plan for them. That's the beginning of discipleship, which is a process. Following baptism, they are to be taught the rest of their lives. It's also worth noting that up to this point in Matthew, Jesus has been the teacher and these men have been the disciples. That's now changing. Jesus is going to be with his father in heaven. They are going to be the teachers who will be making disciples for Christ. And by the way, the implication that Jesus gives here in talking about this going on to the end of the age is that those disciples will also eventually become teachers who will make disciples and that that process will continue throughout the church age until Christ returns again. What is it that they're to teach? This is important because so many people today don't understand this or absolutely reject this. Jesus says that you are to teach them not just some interesting things that I have to say that they might want to consider implementing in their lives that they want to live better lives. That's not what he says. What Jesus says here is that they are going to have to be disciples, those who have a wholehearted commitment to him. And so the disciples are to teach them to observe. That word means to live according to, live in submission to. And notice again, the use of the word all, all that I've commanded you. Not just part of my teaching that you like, maybe the so-called golden rule and other things like that, but everything that I've taught. But notice he doesn't say everything that I've taught you. Notice the word he uses, that I've commanded you. First of all, we've already seen from his great claim that he is in a position to command. It's also interesting to note that that word command up to this point in Matthew has been used by Jesus to talk about the law that God gave to the people through Moses, the first mediator of the old covenant. Jesus is now saying that's what the people were to live by under that covenant. Now Jesus is saying that when you are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you must observe all that I have commanded you. He isn't replacing the Old Testament law. Remember he said, I haven't come to do away with it. I've come to fulfill it. And he has fulfilled much of it and he has clarified much of it and taught us what it really meant. He hasn't done away with any of it, and we are, as his people, to observe, live according to everything that he has commanded us. No, you can't just say, I believe Jesus and live any way you want. You live as a disciple, one who is committed to observing all that he has commanded. Our lives are to be structured by it, ordered by everything he has commanded us to do and to be. Not optional. And so we have the Great Commission along with the Great Claim, but now the Great Comfort. At this point, I kind of want to start out by saying, let's face it though. These 11 men that are standing before Jesus as he says this have not been exactly shining examples of faithful discipleship in all the ways Jesus has been talking about, right? They haven't shown a great understanding of Jesus' teaching all the time either. They haven't shown the humility that is essential to being true disciples of Jesus at all times. They haven't shown the courage that they claim, but have not been able to muster for the kingdom and for him. So you have to ask yourself, how will they and the disciples who will be made through them, who will then go on to make other disciples, how will they, we, ever be able to take the glorious message of Jesus Christ, the King and Lord, and the kingdom of heaven to all the nations of the earth, and lead them to him? How is that going to be possible? How are we going to have the ability then to actually faithfully observe all that Jesus has commanded as his disciples? Understand for these men, they've seen a fair amount so far. They understand the task he'd given them so far has been daunting in the extreme for them just here in Israel. And they have seen Christ crucified for it. How can, how will they or we do what Jesus has just commissioned them and us to do? To take this to all peoples and all nations, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And that's precisely, I believe, why Matthew is inspired by the Holy Spirit to choose to close his gospel with these words of the greatest comfort God's people, Christ's disciples, can ever know. In a very real sense, these words of final comfort can be seen as, forgive me for getting theological on you, but they can be seen in a sense as what theologians call an inclusio. An inclusio is a literary type, a way of doing things when you're writing, that you take the same key words or phrase or idea and you put it at the beginning of a passage and at the end of a passage in order to stress to people, when you read this passage, this is the big important thing you need to understand if you want to get this right. And I would argue that what we find here in these words of comfort from Jesus is an inclusio The problem is, well not the problem, but the issue is that the text that it's an inclusio of, comprises the whole Gospel of Matthew. The whole Gospel of Matthew. So what is this truth that is so essential to understanding as we're preparing to close our time in it, this Gospel according to Matthew? After making this great claim and then giving his disciples this great commission, notice that Jesus lovingly reassures them with these words of great comfort, that they and we are never to forget, that we are never to fail to find encouragement from comfort in and be able to rest in. And behold, pay attention, I am with you. And for the fourth time now, that word, always, to the end of the age. This is certainly Jesus telling them, if you're concerned about how you're going to be able to do this and how people are going to be able to live faithfully to me, don't worry about that because I'm going to be with you to empower that. I am going to be the power and strength behind all of that. This isn't going to be the... Again, words to Zechariah through his visions, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. We know Jesus is going to be in heaven. We also know he's going to give them his spirit, his spirit, who's going to empower all of this, empowers us each day to live for him. But I also want you to consider as we come to our close in this gospel, how this gospel began as Matthew was writing it. You remember that he began by giving us Jesus' genealogy from Abraham through David up to his birth. And he did that to show us that Jesus is both the son of Abraham and the son of David. Why those two men? Because both of those men received the promise from God that the seed of the woman that had been promised would come through them in order to bless all people and nations. But he went on to tell us and teach us that that lineage from Abraham through David through all those men to eventually come to him was not all there was to his lineage. You remember Joseph is troubled because he has just found out that the woman he's going to marry is expecting a baby and she hasn't been with him. That means to him something very bad and wrong has happened. And an angel of the Lord comes to him in a dream and says, don't be afraid, Joseph. Why? Because that child that had been conceived in her womb has been conceived by who? The Holy Spirit. God. He is God's son truly. God is his father, the one who brought about his conception. He goes on to say that you will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. But Matthew goes on then and says all of this happened in order to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called what? Emmanuel. And Matthew goes on to say, that means God with us. Jesus has just told his disciples, I am God. I'm going to send you out to accomplish God's purpose. And as I do so, you need to remember that I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. Not just the fulfillment of a particular prophecy from the Old Testament. As I said earlier in our service, this is the great covenant promise that God made to his people. There's a sense in which this statement of Jesus here is an inclusio that goes all the way back to the beginning of scripture, to the Garden of Eden. Because what was the Garden of Eden before the fall? It was the place where God dwelt with man in perfect fellowship with him. Man rejected that by the fall and ran away from God. God did not reject his people. He has fulfilled his entire purpose in creating us through his son in the incarnation, causing him to truly be with us. Not just to the end of the age, by the way. Read the book of Revelation and the other epistles and you find that he's going to be with us not just at the end of the age, but eternally. He is going to dwell among us and be our God, and we will be his people. What a way for Matthew to end this gospel that has taught us so much about Christ. Let's pray. Father, we come to you and we come almost stunned by the perfection of this redemptive story that you have accomplished in Christ. We thank you for so patiently teaching us through this gospel all these things that we need to know and understand and believe and rest on. But let us especially remember that He is our great God and Savior, and that He is with us Not only until the end of our time here and the end of the age when human history will end, but throughout all eternity. He is here with us now by his spirit who indwells us, by his omniscient presence as God. But one day when we move into that new earth, new creation, John sees a revelation of the church coming down from heaven, and following that we're told that God and the Lamb dwell among them, and they will be their God, and we will be their people. How we long for the day when that promise is fulfilled. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.