to open your Bibles to the first chapter of Philippians. Philippians 1. I'll be picking up in v. 3, and I will read through v. 11, though our text will just be a small portion of this passage. This is the living, active, sharp, powerful Word of God. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart. For you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent. And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." Our focus will be more narrow this morning on verses 7 and 8. I will repeat this as our primary focus. Paul to the church at Philippi. I hold you in my heart, verse 7. Verse 8, for God is my witness. How I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. I want to speak to you, dear church family, about affectionate Christianity. Let's pray. And ask the Lord to give us ears to hear. Father, this time is Yours. Ultimately, we are channels only. And Father, I pray that You would own this time and use it to do good to Your people. that you would give each of us ears to hear and eyes to see. that we could behold something of Christ this morning that revolutionizes an area of our lives. Give help, umption, grace, every needed blessing in heavenly places that we might leave here as those more loving Christ and more loving each other. Bless this time for Your own sake. In Jesus' name, Amen. The last song we sung together this morning that I think many of us have come to really appreciate. It's a needed song. It's titled, Yet Not I, But Through Christ in Me. And it's quite biblical, isn't it? The opening verse reads this way, What gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer? There is no more for heaven now to give. He is my joy, my righteousness and freedom, my steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace. Those lyrics are both accurate, biblically speaking, and simply awesome. Truly, there is no more for heaven now to give. You could just meditate on that line all week long and find great benefit. Because the believer is united to Christ, the saint, the Christian, has all things in Christ. Ephesians 1-3 states this so clearly. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. There's the summary from the pen of the Apostle Paul in that letter to the Ephesian church. Because Jesus died, I have died to sin. I'm going to make some practical statements now because Jesus crushed the power of sin and Satan. So today the Christian stands as free man and victor because Jesus lives. We live. Just as He rose from the grave three days after being buried there, we have risen to newness of life. This is how this plays out, and thus, heaven has no more to give. All that is Christ's is mine. Think about that. With Him, I am a joint heir. So all that Christ did and does, we do because we have been united to Him. Maybe these aren't things you think of often, but I want to state them in a very plain way. We need to latch on to this kind of thinking this morning. Now, I'm very thankful for the recent resurgence of Reformed theology. And I mean recent. It stretches back before I was born. I admit I'm 43. And really, the resurgence probably started halfway through the 20th century, a few decades before I was born. But I am so thankful for the resurgence of Reformed theology and a more biblical gospel. Because of this resurgence, we are really good, I think, in our day of exalting the truth of what Christ has done for me and to me. Are you with me? I think we're really good at that. I think we see that with far more clarity than the church did even a century ago. I understand there's a rise and fall in biblical thinking over church history. Yet sadly, here's where we've done good. Yet sadly, I am increasingly convinced that we aren't so good at exalting and embracing the truth of what Christ can and will and is doing through me. Did you see the distinction there? We're really good. At understanding, embracing, believing what Christ has done for me to me. But we're weak. When it comes to what Christ wants to do through me. Today. I feel compelled to restate this a couple of times in a couple of different ways, because I really want you to hear me this morning. We so appreciate what Christ has done for us. we so often under-appreciate what Christ can and will do through us. So, we exercise faith in embracing Christ's finished work for us, and then we often fail to believe Christ's ongoing work in and through us. I'm saying the same thing in a variety of ways to connect the dots with Max sermon last week. We are eager to believe all the ways Christ has so tremendously blessed us in saving us. We are slow to believe all the ways Christ then makes us a blessing. I'll circle back to this theme a couple of times throughout the message in unpacking this. I'm trying to put my finger on a problem that needs to be confronted this morning, and here it is. To varying degrees among us all. Some of you I know really well. Some of you I'm just getting to know some of you I haven't even met yet, but to varying degrees among us all. I have confidence when I say this. You believe that the gospel is powerful enough to resurrect you. We heard that in the children's sermon this morning. To liberate you, to cleanse you, to save you. But you frequently fail to believe that this same powerful gospel is big enough to make you a loving, affectionate, selfless Christian. That's the problem. that I've identified and want to speak to this morning. It's as though we're saying the gospel is big. But I'm not sure it's that big. Lord, as we heard a couple of weeks ago, increase our faith. I've broken the remainder of the message up into three parts this morning. First, the expression of affection. Second, the origin of affection. And third, the call to affection. Pretty straightforward, I hope. The expression of affection, I believe that'll become very evident in the text. The origin of affection may be a little less evident, but I hope to rectify that soon, and then this call to affection. Let's begin then where the text begins. Look with me again at Philippians 1, verses 7 and 8, the expression of affection. Again, in verse 7, Paul makes this statement. It's very deep. It's emotionally saturated. I hold you in my heart. He says to the church at Philippi verse 8, for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. Now this this is just one of many, many expressions of Paul's love for the church. This isn't really a unique moment in his epistles to the church at Corinth. He said things like this. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart, and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know about the abundant love I have for you." Y'all remember Paul saying that? He said something else to the church at Corinth. He said, I will most gladly spend and be spent for your sakes. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? He said again to the church at Corinth, you are in my heart to die together and to live together. It's quite a statement, isn't it? To the church at Thessalonica. Paul said this, so being affectionately desirous of you, kind of sounds like what he said in Philippians 1 yearning, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. And again, to the church at Philippi, a little later on in the epistle, in addition to our text, Paul says in the fourth chapter, the opening verse, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. This is affectionate language, isn't it? Far from the stereotypical stiff theologian, far from the rough and rugged missionary, the Apostle Paul was full of love and affection for the people of Jesus Christ. He loved the church. He laid his life down for the church. He was an affectionate man then who was even willing to go so far as to express this affection in a vulnerable way in letters. Think about that. Letters. Letters, mind you, that were to be delivered to a church and the church then would gather and these letters would be read aloud. Not just a one-on-one private letter, man-to-man, pastor-to-pastor, Christian-to-Christian. No, these are letters that were inspired by God and in God's providence preserved for the church to read for the remainder of human history. Talk about vulnerability. I'm not sure you and I would write these things and word these affectionate expressions this way if we knew that this was going to be read abroad in churches all over the world for the rest of time. This is heart language. These are deep feelings. Paul was a man who felt things. But with so many examples, Why did I land where I landed in Philippians 1, verses 7 and 8? Well, that's a good question. I'm glad you asked. You didn't really ask, did you? The reason I landed here is because this verse, particularly verse 8, it gets to the matter at hand. Indeed, this verse, I believe, gives us a key to understanding how affectionate Christianity actually works. This expression of affection from Paul, preserved for us by God's providence, thankfully, is very revealing. More than just an affectionate remark, it bleeds with Paul's high Christology. I'm going to open this up as we move on. One commentator put it this way, Paul's deeply emotional expression of Christian affection is not primarily the sign of a gushing temperament. but of a gushing Christology. And I like the way he put that it's a. It's a read between the lines exaltation of both the heart of Jesus Christ and the believers union with Christ. Now Paul's love to us. And to the church. It's a true example, no doubt about it. That man loved Christians, what an example. It's brotherly affection, which Paul talked about in Romans 12 verse 9. It's affection worthy of imitation. It's a great example, even worthy of imitation, a great example, pointing us to the greatest example of Jesus Christ. All of these things are true. And and yet Paul's not alone in this, is he? I mean, how many examples of this kind of sacrificial, loving, affectionate, selfless service on behalf of the church do we see throughout her history. It reminds me of a more recent example I came across in my reading. I'm working through a book together with one of the young men in the church. And recently we came across the story of a man by the name of Lawrence Dow. You likely have never heard of Lawrence Dow. I had never heard of him either, so we don't know this man who fell asleep in Christ some four decades ago, but many people did know him, love him and appreciate him. His life is just another example of what it looks like to love people well. This is his story as told by Richard Phillips. The author of the book, here's what Pastor Richard Phillips says, quote, I first met Lawrence Dow on the night of my conversion. He was a deacon at the 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and that day he was greeting folks at the door as they entered the evening service. I remember how this joyful, loving man made me feel accepted and welcome. During the years that followed, I got to know Lawrence pretty well, and his picture now sits on a bookshelf across from my desk. He reminds me of what one humble, loving man can do to reveal the glory and grace of God. To tell about Lawrence, I only have to describe his funeral. following his death after a long struggle with cancer. Well before the service was scheduled to begin, our church sanctuary was jam-packed, and there were parking problems throughout the entire downtown Philadelphia neighborhood. People must have wondered whether the president was in town or whether some important man, you know, a politician or a CEO, had died or was being buried, no? It was just Lawrence, a lively, elderly, African-American man who never had a good formal education, who worked as a doorman in a downtown hotel, and lived with his family in what other people call a ghetto. Lawrence's funeral service was not only packed, it was long. Person after person after person came to bear testimony of how Lawrence had been used by God in their lives. Some had come to faith in Christ through Lawrence and were then mentored by them in their early years of Christian growth. In fact, three different ministers spoke about how Lawrence had led them to Christ and encouraged them on in their service to the Lord. Lawrence's children and grandchildren spoke of his legacy of faith and love in their lives. The whole service was simply overwhelming. Afterward, Richard Phillips says, I was sitting in the office of one of my fellow ministers at the church. We were both dazed by what we had just seen. Even though we both knew Lawrence well, the funeral had been a glorious experience and we were awestruck. After several minutes of silence, my ministerial friends said to me, It just goes to show what God can do in the life of any man who yields himself unreservedly to Jesus. That is exactly what Lawrence's life of loving, godly service shows us today. So whether it's Paul's expression of affection or the loving life of a deacon, Dow, these examples point us to the greatest example, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who loved like him. Who ever had affection like His affection? Think of some of these marvelous statements from the Gospels. Matthew 9, 36. You'll be familiar with some of these. When He, Jesus, saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Or again, in Matthew's gospel, chapter 20, verse 34, and Jesus in pity touched their eyes and immediately they recovered their sight and followed Him. Both the word in chapter 9, compassion, And the word in Chapter 20, pity, are rooted in this same Greek word in our text, which is translated in the ESV as affection. It is as though this deep affection welled up in the heart of Christ and it moved him in pity to heal these blind men. It moved him in compassion to teach and feed the hungry. And the sick. Or we see the heart of God in Christ in the parable of the lost son in Luke 15, where we read and he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion again. Same word and ran and embraced him and kissed him. You know, we are naturally turned off by the filthy and their failures. But the supernatural affection of Christ has a completely different response to stinking sons. When we would naturally draw black back, the affection of Christ in us moves us toward the person. This is seen again and again in the life of Christ, moving toward the blind, moving toward the sick, moving toward the leper. So much more, of course, could be said about the affection of our Christ. In truth, our Lord was love incarnate. Love, gospel love clothed in flesh. This is what we're talking about as we think about the expression of affection. Now let's transition from the expressions of affection to its origin, its source. We need to get somewhere this morning. The origin of affection. Textually speaking, it would be inadequate for me just to talk to you this morning about Paul's loving heart. It would be inadequate. I believe that would be a failure on my part in looking at this text with you. That approach would miss something really big in the text. You see, Paul's affection has its origin in Christ's affection. Christ's affection then is the original affection. Christ's affection, to put it in the language of John 7, where Jesus stood up on the great day of the feast and said, if any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Christ's affection is the supernatural drink. that once you drink it down, it causes rivers of affection to flow out of your heart. This is the fruit and the overflow of the gospel of Jesus Christ saints. Now I plan to move quickly here. We've got a little bit of ground to cover. The very Greek word, translated affection, here in Philippians 1.8, is also translated, as I've mentioned, compassion, pity, also tender mercy elsewhere in the New Testament. And not surprisingly, not surprisingly, it so often speaks of the affectionate heart of Christ. But let's consider briefly this Greek word for a moment, the more literal translations. Maybe you have a King James Bible in your hand this morning. The more literal translations render it bowels, not affection, but the bowels of Christ Jesus. Literally, then the word is speaking of internal organs or intestines. The Greeks, would often refer to the bowels as the seat of the more turbulent passions like love and hatred or jealousy. The Hebrews, however, saw bowels as the very center of the most tender affections like kindness and compassion. We in our day have a similar practice, I think. We use the word heart like this. I've already done so several times in the sermon this morning, and you hear it, and it's just very normal. We're not talking about the organ that pumps blood through our body. We're talking about the seat of affections. when we use the word heart in this way. So it's a word that has a true literal meaning and that is used as vowels in the New Testament, but there is this metaphorical meaning attached to it. Paul then isn't saying that his bowels produce affection and love, but rather that these tender feelings of affection and love flow out of the very center of his person. That's what he's saying. OK, now we really need to hone in on what he says at the end of verse 8. So let's briefly recapture the flow of these two verses 7 and 8, starting with verse 7. Then Paul expresses the fact that he holds them in his heart. The them is the saints that make up the church at Philippi. This love that Paul speaks to is evidenced, it's backed up by something he had said previously in verses 3 and 4 where we read, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you, all making my prayer with joy. Only genuine love, only true affection can compel an apostle anyone for that matter, but in this case, an apostle, busy guy doing the work of several men in Christ's kingdom. Only true affection can compel one to constantly keep a people front and center in his prayers. So he's before he even expresses, I hold you in my heart. It's evident by his prayer life that he does. His love is the real deal kind of love, not the flimsy, sloppy mess, the nonsense that's so prevalent in our culture today. This is the real deal. But then he goes on. He's not content to stop there with this expression of, I hold you in my heart, as if that's not enough. He says, for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all. Now we really know he's telling the truth. As if we were second-guessing the apostle, now we really know he's telling the truth. He basically says here, if you don't believe me, talk to God about it. He knows my heart. Before God, then. With a clean conscience, Paul says he yearns for the body of believers at Philippi. He yearns for them. His affection is running out in their direction. That is strong, loving language. When was the last time you or I talked like that? Or even included language like that in a letter we wrote? Husbands. But this last statement. Is the gym that I want to hold up to you this morning? For God is my witness. How I yearn for you all? With. The affection of Jesus Christ. It's not just a prepositional phrase we need to gloss over. There's something special here. Without getting overly technical, The Greek case here is the genitive. And I believe that it's pointing to the source. I think the verse then could read in this way. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the very affection that Christ has for you all. That's how I think it could technically be rendered. He holds them in his heart Because Christ holds them in His heart. Paul's yearning affection is the overflow of Christ's yearning affection for the Philippian saints. Just stay with me. This has not been a love inherent in the person of Paul. Something that comes naturally to him. This is not Paul in Paul. This is supernatural love flowing out from Christ to and through Paul. This is Jesus Christ in Paul. In summary, Paul loves the church for Christ, through Christ, and by Christ. Do you see this? J.B. Lightfoot, Old commentator, deceased a long time, said it this way. The believer has no yearnings apart from his Lord. His pulse beats with the pulse of Christ. His heart throbs with the heart of Christ. This is an important key that you and I need to hold on to dear ones. I hope to make that even more plain. So let's begin to wrap this up then and look at some closing encouragements. Towards brotherly love. That's that's really what I hope to promote this morning among us. Real brotherly sisterly. Love that there are times where I will go into grandmas bedroom. Maybe to do a puzzle with her to bring her something right right to the right of her door on the inside of a room. Was a puzzle that was gifted to her, but it's a photograph. I think of you all maybe 2018. I can't remember the year 2019. If you remember, we take the big photos outdoors and it was then turned into a puzzle that she made and then glued and it hangs on the wall and I'll just sometimes stop. And look at that photo. There are yearnings in that moment. You ought to feel this. Saints, yearnings, love, affection, tenderness, desires, prayers. This is what I'm wanting to promote among us. This is not just for pastors, for church officials, for leadership. This is for Christians. who have been united to Jesus Christ. The call to affection, the third and last part. Now, beloved, you already know the two greatest commandments. We don't need to spend a lot of time here. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second, of course, is to what? Love your neighbor as yourself. Furthermore, Talking more about the primacy of love here, the preeminence of love, the first of the nine fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is what? That was a genuine question. Love. Thank you, Stephen. And others that I didn't hear. When Paul begins in Romans 12 to work through the true marks of a converted man, a Christian, he begins with this statement. Let your love. Be genuine. That's the beginning point. As a matter of fact, just just a verse later, almost by way of repetition, he says, love one another with brotherly affection. I mean, two out of the first three statements that Paul makes in that extended passage involve love, loving one another, affection for one another within the church. Jesus, of course, told his disciples that it was through them expressing love to one another that the world, even the world, would be able to identify them and know them as Christians. You remember that. You see, then, the centrality of love, dear ones. I often ask this question in preaching. I'll do it again. How is it with you? How how is it with you? I felt like in preparing this sermon this week, if there was ever a moment in your life. To where you you had, and maybe you've had this moment 1000 times. Thinking to yourself, I wish I was more loving. Probably not many Christians. Could stand and in honesty say I haven't thought that felt that prayed that before. I feel like this sermon is for you. The centrality of love. How is it with you? Are you marked by the world, even the world? As another one of those odd but loving Christians. Do those closest to you? Know this about you. That you're an affectionate, loving person. What would those in your home say? Write those geographically in proximity closest to you. Likely those relationally closest to you. What would they say? Providence House guys? What would your roommates say? About you. What would your church family see? And you? The fact is. We all have a lot of ground to gain here. None of us are just experts on brotherly affection and love. None of us, the most loving, the most affectionate, the most selfless servants among us still have lots of room for growth. Whether you've been walking with the Lord for five days, five years, 65 years, there's room for growth still. But the reality. Is that if? Brotherly affection, affectionate church life is something like concentric circles, you know, a little circle surrounded by a bigger circle surrounded by a bigger circle and on and on. That's concentric circles. The fact is many of us. Are on the outskirts. We're we're content to be in the outer layers of those circles. We're content thus far to not press into those inner layers of circles. Dear ones, the call of God to you this morning is come in. Press in. Press in. In affection and brotherly love, press in. Move towards the center circle. Make it the trajectory of your days, your life, to come in. The closer you get to the center circle, The closer you get to a vibrant fullness of body life and the actual heartbeat of New Testament one another's, even what Jeff spoke of this morning, New Testament Christian fellowship. I want your hearts. to be stretched beyond the love of stuff, beyond the love of leisure. I want you, like never before, to love people, to love the saints, to love one another. I cannot tell you the number of times that I heard Mary Ann Ray's husband, my grandfather-in-law, Carl Ray, pray this simple prayer, Lord, teach me to love sinners like you do. I want you to be a people that look down the aisles to the right and to the left and you see faces and you long to do good to them. To lay down your life for them. Not in metaphorical ways like good movies do, but real, everyday, ordinary ways. Your shepherds want you to hurt when your brothers and sisters hurt. We want you to rejoice when they rejoice. God calls you To be with one another, all the more so in a dangerous day, Hebrews 10, to celebrate with one another, to pray with one another, to serve alongside one another, to cry with one another, to evangelize and fight this evil world alongside one another. This is what the Bible calls us to say. We are members. one of another, according to Romans 12, 4 and 5, Ephesians 4, 25. As those united to Christ, we have been mystically made members of His body. The affection that we have for our hands, the way we protect our hands and don't reach into the oven without some sort of glove or cloth, the way we care for our eyes, Pour out that same kind of care on the members of this body, the very body where God has sovereignly placed you for His glory. Live as those, dear saints, who've been liberated from selfishness and self-centeredness, whose lives have really been turned inside out. Live in joyous abandonment unto Jesus Christ. Live for His loved ones. Because this is a day, maybe more than ever before, where we need to be closer to each other than ever before. To the dumpster then with arm-length Christianity. Let this be the day of affectionate Christianity here at Providence Chapel. Here's how you get there, Saints. And with this, I'll close two things, reliance and recognition, reliance. and recognition. First, you must wholeheartedly lean into, rely upon Jesus Christ. As much as you have embraced the forgiveness of sins, listen to me now, as much as you have, Christian, embraced the fact that your sins are forgiven, meaning that you really believe Christ's work on the cross was finished in John 19 31 when he makes that grand pronouncement. As much as you believe that, and if you're a Christian, you believe that. That's a necessary thing. As much as you believe that, believe also that Christ is in you exceedingly, abundantly powerful so that He can transform you into a more loving, affectionate, selfless saint. Believe that. You do not know all the ins and the outs of how your sins are forgiven, how you're a resurrected man or woman or child here today. You know the theology of it, but you can't tell me exactly how all that worked, can you? So don't doubt. What is also mystical and maybe not perfectly clear in that Christ so powerfully is in his people to accomplish the very things we're talking about this morning through his people. Why, why do we joyfully embrace what Christ has done for us and not with equal joy and zeal embrace what Christ wants to do through us? You see how I'm circling back to where we began. Why do we look back to Calvary's completed work and even look forward to heaven's reward but often ignore the power of Christ at work in us today? Rely on Christ. Right now. Dear Saints. This moment. And every moment. Draw from the well of his great sufficiency. He has everything you need. As the Lord continued to teach me over the years. and still needs to do so. What this kind of reliance looks like. I recall a significant moment in my life that by all appearances did not look significant, but it was a moment when I really gained some ground here. Mac and I were in the car together headed to a pastoral visit. This would have been within the first two years of my pastoring here, probably close to eight years ago now. It was a delicate situation. We were early, so we decided to pull into a parking lot in front of this particular neighborhood and pray together for a time. Knowing something of the difficult situation that we were getting into, I was strongly feeling my neediness and insufficiency. Sometimes I'll go into a home and I don't really have any idea how I could be any help at all in that moment. But I wasn't mature enough to confess this to my brother, so I stayed silent. We talked for a moment, and then Mac began to pray. While in prayer, my dear brother began to confess his own insufficiency, and then proceeded to ask God for wisdom and ability that we needed in the moment. And I was immediately humbled and encouraged all at the same time. It was through this single moment that the Lord was teaching me all his people are insufficient. Not just the newbies in pastoral ministry, but even the seasoned ones, even the mature ones, even the ones I most admire. Mac's humility and transparency in that moment, I would be surprised if my brother even remembers this moment, has stuck to the walls and corners of my mind and heart all these years, some eight years ago. So the question is asked, who is sufficient for these things? In unison, saints, we can and should say only Christ. Only Christ. And based on our union with Him. You and I have all that we need today to love one another well. We need to rely on him. Secondly, briefly, we need to recognize something we need to recognize beloved that this gospel is really powerful. Really powerful. So often I think we're reluctant to put ourselves out there, to go out on a limb, people say, to be affectionate, to be loving, to be vulnerable, to be transparent, especially when it's potentially costly if we do so. Well, I'm here to tell you that reluctance is born out of unbelief. Confess it and repent. It's born out of unbelief. We look to the flesh in those moments to do what can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit. But because our union with Christ, we actually have the power of the Holy Spirit. Beloved, it is the power of Christ, the power of the gospel that produces this kind of supernatural affection and brotherly love. It's the power of the gospel. Not you. It's not us, it's Christ. Not just brotherly affection in Christ, love in Christ, but it's actually Christ. He is love. It is him and you are his and he is yours, so much so that he is in you, so much so that you're united to him. Live in light of this union, dear ones. Live in light of this union. Live as though you are what God says you are. You're united to Him. Members of Christ's body. Members of one another. Recognize that Christ's affection is yours right now. Pick up the phone this week. Get in your car this week. Open up your home this week. Sacrifice your comforts this week. Serve a needy saint this week. Lay down your lives, beloved. Lay them down. This is the power of Christ in you. Pray with me. You know what we need. You know what you gave to Jeff this week and what you gave to me. Independently of one another. Oh Father. Help these your children to hear your voice. To respond. with hope and faith and love. Blessed be Your name. Amen.