Well, again, if you have your Bible, I want to encourage you to turn with me to John chapter 6, we're looking at verses 22 through 71 this morning. It is a big passage. So John chapter 6 verses 22 through 71. I believe that's page 891 in your Pew Bible. This is a long passage and it is a passage that Jesus is essentially entering into a sermon to these people that he is just fed on the side of the hill. These 5,000 people. And what he's doing is he's explaining what that miracle meant, what that was all about. He's explaining that that miracle, that sign was intended to put his glory and his grace and his truth and his light. And the fact that in him is no darkness at all is meant to put all of that on full display. And you need to remember that when you read John's Gospel. You need to remember that when you read the entire Bible. But especially when you read John's Gospel, you need to remember that what we discovered in John chapter 1 that Jesus is the glory of the Father. Full of grace and truth and in him is light and there's no darkness at all. That needs to be the interpretive grid by which you read John's Gospel. It needs to be undergirding everything that you discover from that. And that's what he's trying to get these people to see about him. He's trying to get these people to see who he actually is and that he is not just someone who provides a lunch on the side of the hill to provide sustenance for our physical bodies. But that sign was intended to show that he himself is the bread of life. That he himself is the bread of life. That he is the one who has come to provide nourishment and satisfaction and health and redemption for our souls. So that's what all those signs are pointing towards. They're not an end in and of themselves. They're pointing to who Jesus is and what he has done and accomplished for his people in the Gospel. So because this is such a long passage, I'm not going to read all of it. We're just going to look at various tidbits and that Jesus wants us to see that are particularly poignant for us in this passage. And I just want to highlight a few specific points as we plumb the depths of this passage today. So here's the first thing that I think that we need to see. The first thing that we need to see is that Jesus offers something that we are not naturally inclined to be looking for. That makes sense. Jesus offers something to his people that we are not just by nature inclined to be looking for. At least five times in this passage, Jesus talks about the fact that he has come to provide eternal life for his people, to write eternal life for them. And that is not fundamentally what these people were looking for. Jesus offers eternal life. These people were looking for a better life. There's a world of difference between the two. And so they're coming to him and they're asking the wrong question. In verse 25, they just want to know how Jesus ended up in cavernum. This one know how in the world he got there. And that question is completely irrelevant to Jesus. He answers the question in a way in which the question was never intended to be answered. When you look in verse 26, this is how he answers it. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. What's he mean by that? What he means by that? He's saying, you guys are following after me because you want a happier, healthier, more prosperous life now. And you think that I can provide that for you. That's why you want me. You want the gifts more than you want the giver of the gifts. And that's what he's trying to bring to bear to highlight for these people who just don't see it. They're seeing the feeding of the 5,000 as an end in and of itself. That's why they want to go out and they want to make him a political king so they can have a better life and get rid of those Romans who are making their life miserable. They wanted to crown him the head of politics, the king of Israel, and they didn't see that sign as pointing to the fact that Jesus is the one that has come to provide life for our souls, which are by nature dead in their trespasses and sins. And so he goes on in verse 27 and he says this, do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal. There is something abundantly practical in that verse and what Jesus is saying here. And what he's saying is that you and I have this deeply rooted tendency, it's just ingrained in us from birth as part of the fabric of our lives, to devote our time and our energy and our affections towards things that are eternally worthless. To get all been out of shape and all geared up about things that have no eternal value to them at all. That's what is part and parcel of our lives. And so that's why Jesus says back in Matthew 6, that famous saying where he says to the people, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourself treasures in heaven. And why does he say that? He says that because where your treasure is, your heart will be also. That's what he's trying to get you to see. And what he's trying to get us to understand is that our treasure is so much, so often, upon things that are of no eternal value whatsoever. And so he's trying to get you to see where your heart is. What is it that moves you? What is it that has captured your heart that takes your affections and has your heart and that you would almost feel as if life were in many ways worthless and completely in some cases not worth living at all if you were to lose that thing. That's what he's trying to get you to see. He's not saying that we shouldn't enjoy so many of the gifts that he gives us in life. He's saying enjoy that. He's given us all good things to enjoy. So enjoy it. But what he's saying is your tendency is to go way overboard, way overboard. Your tendency is to turn those things into gods for you, to turn them into things that define your existence, that define your contentment, that define your value in this life. And he's saying that's not worship of me. That's worship of something completely different. That's worship of something else. And it's defining you. It's defining you. And so he wants us to ask, do I measure my value? Do I measure the value of life on the basis of what I achieve or what resources I'm able to stockpile for myself? Or what experiences that I'm able to accumulate in my life? Because if your life is all about those things, what Jesus wants you to see is that you have received your reward and full. You've received it in full. Everybody is working for the weekend. How was your weekend? Because if it's all about that, then you've received your reward in full. I hope you enjoy it because that's as good as it gets. Y'all, let me ask you a question. If that's the main thing that you're working for, if the main thing that you're working for is just accumulating comforts in this life, then why are you still so unhappy? The famous author, Jack Higgins, reached the peak of the world of author dumb, whatever that is. Millions and millions. He's accumulated a huge fortune, tremendous fame. He was interviewed and was asked, what do you wish someone would have told you when you were younger? And he answered by saying, I wish someone would have told me that when you get to the top, there's nothing there. We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world. Even in this garbage economy, we're doing better than almost every single person in the history of the world in the past and in the present today. And so much of our feeling of lack stems from looking at the 1% of the world that has more than what we have and it breeds discontent and makes us feel uncomfortable. We are stuffed to the brim. You and me, we are stuffed to the brim with so much stuff. We're just stuffed at the top of it and we're still discontent in so many ways. And so we're constantly chasing for something more and something better and something new or something shiny or something bigger and something more comfortable and something more exciting. And we just get into this rat race that that becomes what life is all about. And we're full of that. And when you're full, you don't even have an appetite at all for God anymore. He stands out on the periphery of your life. He's not the defining reality of it. He's an accessory to it. We're stuffed with our entertainment and our laziness and our leisure and chasing the ego massage that we can get from our neighbors or our colleagues at work. And we've feasted upon the steady diet of French fries and chocolate cake, brings us so much, so much satisfaction in the year and now. It does it. It accomplishes it for you. And in the long term, it will kill you. Well, absolutely destroy your life. And that's why Jesus is saying what he says here in verse 27. He's saying don't work for that food. He's not saying quit your job. He's saying don't build your identity upon that. Don't build your whole life upon chasing after those things. Don't make that your treasure. Don't build your life upon it because it parishes. It rots. It becomes full of mold and it will kill you. Don't labor for that food. Labor for the food that endures for eternal life. D.A. Carson, one of my favorite theologians, he said if you chase pleasure, you won't find it. But if you chase Christ, you'll find pleasure. If you chase joy, you won't find it. But if you chase Christ, you will find joy. If you chase contentment, you will not find it. But if you chase Christ, you will find contentment. And that is what Jesus is trying to get you to see here. That's what he's trying to get me to see here. Skip down a few verses and take a look at what Jesus has to say in beginning in verse 53. This is what he says. Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on that last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the Father's ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Do you know what Jesus is doing there? He is exposing himself. He's revealing who he is. He's revealing what that feeding of the 5,000 was all about. He's putting it on display, full display right in front of these people and he's also showing them something about themselves. He's exposing himself and he's exposing himself and he's exposing us. He's shining light on it and that's what happens when you encounter Jesus. When you encounter Jesus, he's going to expose you and he's going to show you and me that there's something within us. There's something deep within our souls. It's part of our nature that tells us that we're full when we're really starving. There's something about us. We think that we're full. We think that we're satisfied in so many ways. But we're by nature starving. Our bellies are protruding and our ribcages are showing. That's why Jesus says that it's easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle. Do you remember that passage? Do you know why he says that? It's easier for a rich man to go through the eye of an old woman's little needle than it is for him to enter into the kingdom of God. It's because his joy and his satisfaction and his identity lie in worldly treasures. He can't see his hunger because he's so stuffed to the brim with his stuff. It's how we are, just naturally. That's just how we are. So what he's doing is he's confronting you and he's confronting me. He's confronting us for his prayers. He's trying to show us something about ourselves. What is the source of our sustenance? What moves you? What drives you? What is the ground and the foundation of your identity and the source of your joy and contentment? That's what he wants you to see. And he wants you to see that by nature you're inclined towards the stuff. And only he is the bread of life. Only he is the one who can give you that imperishable bread that will feed your soul and bring you eternal life forever. So what he wants you to see? Look at verse 35. This is what he's pointing out to us here. He's saying, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall not thirst. And in verse 54 this is what he says as well. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And here's the point. This is the second thing. If you want to write it down, write this down. Here's the second point. Jesus cares about his people having eternal life more than he cares about anything in the world. It may not be the most important thing to you but it is the most important thing to him. Because when he is coming to bring eternal life that means that he has fought to the point of death for your eternal joy. That's what he's come to do. He's come to put his glory on full display so that by us seeing his glory and his grace and building our lives upon that so that we could be forgiven and so that we could be reconciled to God, he accomplishes our joy forever. That's what he wants you to see that his glory and our joy go hand in hand. You cannot separate the two. He came to fight for that. He came to endure the wrath of the Father for that, the condemnation of sin for that. And the Apostles Creed, we say he descended into hell for that in order that he might rise again and in order that he might bring us to eternal joy forever to give us an inheritance that will never perish or spoil or fade. That's what Jesus is come to do. Do you believe that? Is that in any way grabbed your soul lately forever? That's what he wants you to see. And that's what the feeding of the 5,000 was all about. The feeding of the 5,000 was all about him showing that what he provides for the body by virtue of a sign he's providing for the soul. When he raises a man from the dead, he's not just providing physical life. He's pointing that he's the only one that has the power to raise a man from the dead, but he's also the only one that has the power to raise a soul from the dead. When he makes a person who is blind able to see, he's telling you that he's not only the person who can heal physical blindness simply by the snap of his fingers, by the word of his power. He's the one who can take the veil off of our eyes who can take the scales off of our eyes and enable us to see him, to see the ugliness of our heart and to see the grace that he provides for us in the gospel and how desperately we need that. Because that's just not how we are by nature. That's what Jesus is come to do when he comes and he feeds the 5,000. He's saying that he not only provides food for the body which we need to survive, but he is the food for the soul which we need in order to live eternally. And so what he's telling you is that you are what you eat. If you eat the food of this life that parishes, you will perish and you will perish in your sin and you will experience something of what Jesus experienced on the cross and that experience will never end. There's no way to sugarcoat it. I'm sorry if there was a way to do it, I would. There's no way to sugarcoat it. Jesus doesn't sugarcoat that reality there. In verse 57, he says that whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. That's good news, but it's only good news if you believe it because it has an opposite side to it. If you don't feed upon him, you'll die in your sin and you'll never be able to live it down. You'll never be able to live it down. And that is why it is the definition of irrational and utterly foolish to just try to ride the fence with Jesus to just treat him casually as an accessory to your life. The type of cultural Christianity where people follow Jesus for the sake of social acceptance or to help them provide some family values and raise their kids a little bit better and find five steps to a happier life. It's completely foreign to any idea of what faith in Jesus Christ actually looks like. That is just not faith in any manifestation because Jesus, what he could have done, is he could have started a church of 20,000 people out there on the side of that hill. Do you see that? Is the feeding of the 5,000. When you add them all up, it was probably about 20,000. He could have started a church and a following of about 20,000 people if all he would have done was preached that he came to make their life more comfortable. If he could have gone to someone and hit them on the head and had them flop on the floor like a dead fish and they were healed. If he could have just said, I've come to provide you five steps to have the happiest life that you can have and to help you become a better you. And if that's what he would have been about and if that's the message that he would have preached, all of them would have gone to hell. Because that is not fundamentally what they needed. They needed the grace that only he could provide. And they needed to come to terms with their own sin and their own lack and their own hunger if they were ever going to be able to see that grace. And so that's what he preached. And they weren't interested in that message. They just weren't interested in that message. That was something that was too personal for them. It struck right at the core of what was beating their identity. And that's what Jesus does. When you come to see him as he is, when you come face to face with who he is, he doesn't leave you with just a bunch of fascinating information about himself. That you can say, hmm, that was interesting. No, he confronts you at the level of your soul, at the level of your identity and he's exposing the source of your security, the source of your affections, the source of your hopes and your desires. And when he does that, there are a few different ways in which you can respond. And we see him here in this passage. We see what's happening. That's the first thing that you see happening. If you look at verse 61, what do the people do? They start to grumble. They get agitated. They're frustrated with this message that Jesus is speaking to them. They say that it's hard for them to hear. It wasn't hard for them to understand. It was hard for them to accept. Because Jesus was striking at their pride. And he starts preaching that eternal hope in an eternal life and their only hope in life and death comes from him and him alone, from building their life upon him, from turning to him in faith. And then to add to the gumbo, he starts going off on this mini sermon about election and predestination and God's sovereignty and our salvation and our responsibility and the tension between those two things. And he strikes at the core of their pride. Look at what he says here in verse 37, beginning in verse 37. He says, all that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me but raise it up on that last day. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. And then when you skip down to verse 43, look at this. He says, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Part of me wants to say to Jesus, are you completely insane? Are you crazy or preaching about grandiose doctrines like election? And sovereign to you over our salvation and you are saying that you are telling these people that they can't in their own power come to you and they can in their own power in any way merit eternal life and actually the only way in which they are ever going to be able to come to you in the first place is if you come and take the initiative to bring him. That is crazy. You are never going to build a church of 20,000 people preaching some crazy message like that. Obviously this is more than what we can go into today. Obviously it is. There is a lot that Jesus will drill into our hearts over the course of the rest of this gospel. We are going to see it almost on every page from here on out that he is saying that he is the one who comes and brings life and breath life into a soul that is dead and is trespasses and sins and it is the only way in which we can come to him. So he will talk more about that later but I want to just say this, what Jesus is getting at is that he is in complete control. He is in complete control over who receives him and who does not and at the same time we are fully responsible to believe him. It is a mystery. It is a wild mystery. It is intention but in the mystery of God he allows some people to chase whatever they want to do as they please to chase after whatever it is that drives them. They may have a superficial interest in Jesus and they may like some of the moral teachings that he has but at the end of the day they never bow down and profess Jesus Christ as the only redeemer their souls and the only Savior for them as their only Lord. So when you turn forward to Romans 1 you see that what God does is that he allows them to go their own way. He gives people over to their own desires and allows them to do exactly what they would like to do and they die and their trespasses and sins as a result. And then there are other people for a reason known only to God that he comes and he encroaches upon their lives. They are no different from the other people. They are no different in any way except for the fact that Jesus has come and he has removed the scales from their eyes and he has come and he has breathed his life into a soul that was dead. And he has resurrected that soul and he has enabled us to see the glory and the grace and the beauty of Christ and he illuminates the darkness of our sin and he points that light to him as the source of grace and he leads us there. We can't even resist it. We just follow after it because he's intervened into our life. He has jumped into our boat and he has exposed himself and ourselves and he's led us to him and he's redeemed our souls. That's what he's come to do and because that's the case we don't have any caused a boast because the only way which we're able to stand before him is purely by his grace. We have nothing to bring to that. How could it be any other way? How could it be any other way when you look at verse 44 he says that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. How could God actually be gracious at all unless he is the one that draws us to himself? How could he be gracious if it was half his good sales pitch and half our ability to believe in the good sales pitch? In verse 63 he says it is the spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no avail. Our ability to come to him and believe in him and turn from our self dependence to God dependence is purely because of his grace. It couldn't be any other way. How could grace be gracious if it was all about us being able to muster up enough faith on our own? Our salvation, our way to stand before God is purely by his grace and on a practical level for how it affects your life when you leave this building this morning, how would it make a huge difference in the way in which you understand yourself? And the way in which you understand God and the way in which you relate to people if you understood that God just for a reason known only to him, not because of any good that he found in you but purely because he is gracious, comes and he comes to you in your darkness and in your deadness and in your obstinacy and he redeems you. There's no room for pride in that. There's absolutely no room for pride or for arrogance whatsoever when you believe that that is the reality, that that is what Jesus has come to do. You can't be an arrogant meathead that way. All you can do is look at what Jesus has done for you and say amazing love. How can it be that now my God should die for me? That becomes the heartbeat of your life. So often when we go through hard times, when we go through the storms that we saw last week, we ask what did I do to deserve this?
But have you ever or lately asked yourself, what did I do to deserve this when you considered your salvation? When you considered that while you were yet a sinner, not because you got your act together, but while you were yet a sinner Christ died specifically for you. His death did not go in vain. It was specifically for you, for his people. That has got to humble you down to the core of your very being. It changes the way in which we interact with each other in the local church. It changes how a husband and wife engage with each other. It changes how a child relates to her parent and how a parent loves his or her child. It changes the way you work. It changes what you expect that you deserve in this life. See, Jesus is trying to get you to see that. And he's trying to get you to see that all of the things that glitter and sparkle and shine in this life, that your prone to build your identity upon are completely peripheral and become a little or no value when you see that your ability to stand before him is purely because of his grace. And people didn't want to hear that, so they grumbled. Another thing that they can do is leave. They not only grumbled, but they left. You get to the end of the story. And we go from 20,000 people down to 12. And even one of the 12 disciples turns out to be a bozo, Judas Iscariot. He's going to leave as well. I don't know any pastor anywhere in the world that could take a church of 20,000 people and dwindle it down to 12 who wouldn't be living in a van down by the river faster than he could snap his fingers. I mean, he would be totally unemployed. You can't do that. That's what Jesus did. But Jesus didn't come to run their agenda. That's not what Jesus came to do. That's what they wanted him to do, but that's not what he came to do. He came to put his glory on display. He came to be the answer of their sin, to expose it, to provide the answer to it, to provide the hope of eternal life and to compel belief in him. They didn't want anything of that. That was secondary to their greatest desires. And they grumbled and they left. And they grumbled and they left because they were never God's people to begin with. They tried to have a superficial attraction to Jesus for a while. And as soon as he pierced the level of their pride, they took off. They didn't want to have anything to do with him. And I have to tell you something. I respect that. I actually respect that because they sat at the feet of Jesus. They listened to what he had to say. They considered it. And they either believed that it was a bunch of nonsense. Or they believed that they just wanted to go their own way. And that it wasn't particularly meaningful for their life. Or they were offended by Jesus. But at least they considered what he had to say. And they rejected him on the basis of knowing what Jesus had to say. Not on the basis of saying, well, Jesus didn't really mean that. Or he didn't really say that. They took him at his word. They believed the Bible literally. And they just rejected it. And I can respect that because that's what Jesus does. Jesus exposes you. And he will not let you ride the fence when you come face to face with him. He's not going to allow you to buy into a Christianity that's all fuzz and no beer. That's just completely fake. He's not going to allow you to do that. He has not come to bring you to a Christianity that's all about keeping up social appearances. So you can grumble and you can leave. Or you can look at what Peter says in verse 68. Jesus says after all these people leave to the 12 disciples, are you going to leave to? Are you all ready to take off with him? And this is what Peter says. This is his bright and shining moment because he's going to have a lot of other uglier ones. This is his bright and shining moment. He says, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Friends, that's what a Christian says. That's what faith looks like. There were going to be times in Peter's life where his faith was probably not even that of a mustard seed. He failed all the time. But at the end of the day, he saw Jesus. He saw what the world had to offer him. And he came to see what Jesus had to offer him. And he came to see the corruption of his heart. And he came to see what Jesus was all about. And he said, where else can I turn? But Jesus, that's what a Christian says. A Christian says, where else can I turn? But Jesus, a Christian says, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. That's what's woven into the fabric of the Christian. Jesus kills your pride. And when Jesus kills your pride, it's the single most liberating thing in the world because your pride will ultimately destroy you. It will tear you down and chew you up into a million pieces. And it will get you to fill up your life with anything and everything but Jesus. And it will give you a false sense of security that at the end of the day will give you hell to pay. But the grace of Jesus Christ set you free. It cuts you loose from that bondage of pride. The bread that he provides pierces at your pride. And it enables you to live with tenderness and compassion and love and service where you lay down your life for someone because you understand that that is exactly what Jesus has come to do for you. It becomes just part and parcel of who you are despite how much you fail at it. And it pierces at your insecurity and it pierces at your pride. If Jesus has come to accomplish an inheritance for you that can never perish or spoil or fade, then why are you still insecure? Take a look at the fact that he's provided eternal life for you. You would not be insecure if Bill Gates deposited his fortune into your account. That's what Jesus has done for you infinitely beyond that. That's what he's come to provide. He's come to bring you all of that joy. It's yours. You already have it. Take hold of it and let it define you through the storms of this life. There's no coincidence that the disciples went through a storm like we saw last week in the midst of this whole discourse on the feeding of the 5,000. Because Jesus is trying to get you to say that he is gracious and he is there and he jumps into your boat in the midst of that. Some people still don't believe. And God allows them to go as they choose. They're responsible to believe and they don't. In the mystery of God, that's just the case. I don't know who he's chosen and who he hasn't. But what I do know is that this offer of eternal life is available to whoever will believe. That's the kind of gracious God that Jesus is. It's available to whoever will believe. He says, in this passage alone, whoever comes to me will never hunger. Whoever believes in me will never thirst. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Whoever believes in me has eternal life. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks in my blood has eternal life. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks in my blood abides in me and I in him. Everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life. Whoever feeds on me will live because of me. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. That's just in this passage. He's saying, whoever this offer of eternal life and of grace is available to whoever will see what Jesus is exposing in their lives and see that it separates them from God and see that there's this wall of hostility there. But that he provides grace, that he breaks down that wall of hostility and establishes peace and it's available for whoever will believe. Some of you have been at this church for a long time. You've heard this message a million times over. And then some of you, maybe it's your first time here. Maybe you're not all that acquainted with this gospel message. And the message to you is the same. Stop trusting in yourself. Stop building your identity on the things that can feed your appetite that can tell you your full but you're actually still empty. Turn from that and turn to Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can provide that eternal life for you. And if you're someone who has believed that, you don't need to live like an orphan anymore. You don't need to go about the course of your life living as though your father has retired. Your father has taken off to Florida and bought a beach property there. That your father is checked out. That your father is a cosmic cop who's come to taser you every time you screw up. That's not who this God is. This is a God who is merciful and compassionate and has secured your eternal life. And so you live this life with security and hope and confidence. Not in yourself, but confidence in him. That's what he's come to bring you and it allows you to be open to people. It allows you to take risks to serve him. It allows you to be sacrificial. That's what a life that believes that it's a life. It gives that eternal life as his or hers looks like. This is a hard saying. But it is hope and it is balm to your soul if you believe it. Don't leave here without believing it today. Father, your words in this passage are hard to hear but they're healing to hear. They're words that cut us to our bone marrow and expose what's in there, but they're also words that put hundreds and thousands of spotlights on you and your beauty and your glory and your grace. And you say, here I am. I'm available for all who will believe. And in your grace, you have chosen many of us here this morning. Oh, would that just transform our lives so that we wouldn't be conformed any longer to the lusts and desires of this world and prone to build our identity and our sustenance and our value and life upon those things. But to build it upon you, God do that in our lives. And if there are some here who yet to believe, show them the darkness of their heart and show them the light of your grace and lead them to it. We pray this all in the name of him who came such a distance for us. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.