Do you want to draw your first of all welcome we're really glad y'all are here this morning I want to draw your attention to a few announcements and when I say few I mean a lot But they're all important and I want to claim your attention for a few minutes because while we are worshipers of Jesus Christ That's not just a Sunday event. We also do missions and discipleship So I want to give you a little information about what's going on here in the church First of all we are going to have officer training it begins February 19th And it will actually happen during the Sunday school hour. So if you have thought about or considering Being a deacon or elder in this church If you've been nominated in past elections or if you just feel the Lord's spurring your heart that direction Or if you're a deacon or an elder who's rotating off And would like to rotate back on we ask that you go through this class once every five years And so we're offering that officer training class beginning February 19th during the Sunday school hour Please let April Gordon here at the church know that you're going to be attending that so that we can Make the right amount of materials for that class Speaking of materials. How's that for a transition? We move into a balanced budget year next year We are looking more and more to move many of our print documents to electronic things such as glad tidings and Normal communications many of you are already received emails from the church We know that many of you don't have computer access or for whatever reason need a hard copy and we're going to continue to provide that But we also want to make a real effort to save in those printing costs and So we're going to ask you if you would to Let us know your updated email information to begin checking our website for those publications such as glad tidings That this spring more and more will become more electronically distributed and less paper distributed If you need a hard copy on those please don't hesitate to call and let us know Many of you will be contacting you as well to make sure we don't leave people out of the loop But at the same time we want to reduce those costs Also Speaking of reducing costs your charitable tax statements are available out in the lobby We would ask that you pick those up save the church a stamp those are your charitable tax statements from last year I don't have a good transition for this one. So fill in your own transitional moment and Now that I have you're undivided the tension because it was such an awesome transition We have been given this incredible opportunity We were approached by the chaplain at Walker state prison in rock spring, Georgia It's about half an hour from here and we have been asked and I say we are church amongst all the other churches that they could have approached Have been asked to take the lead in raising mentors to disciple inmates This prison is moving toward a faith and character-based prison It'll be the first one like that in Georgia where prisoners Have to ask and they get moved there because it is a faith-based prison So it is an open door for us particular as men of this church To go and do one to one mentoring other men who were open and hungry For what the Lord would do in their life In fact, this is such a monumental discipleship opportunity The Presbyterian church in America's director of prison ministry the guy in our denomination overseas all prison ministry Is actually considering relocating his family to Chattanooga to be with us when we start this We want to start this and incubate it here in our church. So we're asking you men to consider prayerfully what you could do to participate in this opportunity Minimally, we're asking all of you to pray This is such a phenomenal Phenomenal opportunity for us as a church to do missions But also to do discipleship and it is in its infancy Some of you are entrepreneurial and you can't wait to jump into something that is still getting organized That opportunity is there others of you We encourage you wait more details will come and you'll kind of see here's the programs I could jump into and we know you're going to be the backbone of some of those mentoring relationships If you have interest in that contact Alan Bondaro that announcement is in your bulletin as well If you'd say Jerry, I want to do discipleship now though Well, let me just encourage you that on Wednesday on Monday at lunch We are continuing our men's study with Pastor Tim Tinsley and this semester We're looking at how to study scripture What a great opportunity for you to invite the men of your business your area to that men's study luncheon On Wednesday nights we're doing a parenting class and a couple's class would encourage you to come and be part of that as well As well as many other opportunities that are in your bulletin And I'd encourage you to look at those and to seek the places where the Lord is calling you to be active But now the Lord is calling us to be receptive to his mercy and grace as we worship him So take a moment now to prepare your hearts and minds for that
All the worship God has faithfully brought us here to worship him Those who failed to worship the Lord are consigned to a life of spasms and jerks as they are continually seduced by this The whims of the world that Those who are with our worship of Christ Live a manipulated and a manipulating life Lord has called us here to worship him To set our sail toward heaven That the wind of the spirit would blow and carry us home In our call to worship we'll focus on the mercies of God as well as our worship I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God
Do not be conformed to this world But be transformed by the renewal of your mind
Father we turn this morning to worship you And your son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit We pray that you would manifest the glory of Christ in our hearts That even at this moment Lord you would call us That you would pour the warm water of your spirit over us even Welling up within us That we would Be aware And that we would worship the Lord Jesus Christ for who he is And for what he's done So Lord it is with a prayer of adoration we make our morning prayer For we do adore you For you have loved us first and so we love you Now Lord may the beauty of Christ Spring out of us as we Open our heart and our mouth to sing praises to you in the name of Jesus we make our prayer amen grace of God We are here to focus on the work of Christ How marvelous that he has worked in our hearts in such a way that we would be here to worship him Our great high king who's worthy of our lives I would ask you Christian What is it that you believe I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ is only Son our Lord He was conceived by the Holy Ghost Born of the Virgin Mary Suffered under Pontius Pilate Was crucified dead and buried He descended into hell The third day he rose again from the dead He ascended into heaven And sit it on the right hand of God the Father Almighty From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead I believe in the Holy Ghost The Holy Gottly Church The communion of saints The forgiveness of sins The resurrection of the body And the life everlasting Amen you may be seated As we've walked our way through our order of worship we found That we have a thanksgiving to the Lord for his faithfulness We found that the renewal of our mind is critical for our lives to change And so many of us are here this morning and hopes that our life would be changed In our affirmation of faith we've We've recognized and sought to identify the work of the triumphant God in our salvation The work of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit And as a result of this we come to an opportunity to confess our sin It's my prayer that your heart is prepared to confess your sin This particular passage from Hebrews isn't really leading you in a confession of sin It's warning you It's an admonition to those who do not confess their sin But then immediately following this We'll have an opportunity to silently confess our sin It's my prayer that your heart has been softened by the Holy Spirit And that you will indeed along with me be prepared to confess your sin Say together Take care brothers Lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin For we have come to share in Christ If indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end As it is said today if you hear his voice Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion
Father even as We're struck by the words from scripture Lord we do not believe those words go out Empty that they they resonate in our hearts And strike us to the core and even as we see those words take care brother lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart Leading you to fall away from the living God And father we recognize as we come to a moment of silence perhaps one of the few silent moments of our week Where we look at our life and say where are the areas I need to confess
My unbelieving heart has drifted But Lord thank you That in your scriptures Your message of redemption is always attached To your diagnostic Of our hearts So while Hebrews 3 says caution Hebrews 4 proclaims To us in a manner that is so compelling since then we have a great high priest Who has passed through the heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our confession For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet he is without sin Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy And find grace to help in time of need and father I pray for my heart and the hearts of your people here That as we have a time of confession And there's something in us that says if this is part of worship I'm moving away from the Lord and yet because of the Lord's Plan of redemption through Jesus Christ we can in fact move to prayer and move to a praise of glory And move into the scripture Confident Because of the work of Jesus and that's why it's his prayer that we so often use to finish our prayer Because we are redeemed by the word the word made flesh who dwelt among us and that is why father We say collectively together the words Jesus taught us Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen Would encourage you to take a moment greet those around you in the name of the Lord if you have children heading to children's church It'll be right through this door take that moment now
And your seats let me encourage you to continue those conversations with those you know and those you just met after the service But right now, let's prayer for Christ people Father we are we come to you and We recognize that our need To seek you in all things And father even as we sing this morning we long to see your churches full That all the chosen race may with one voice and heart and soul Seeing your redeeming grace and Lord we would pray that you would use this church And this city to bring revival to a land that is so thirsty for meaning and hope And father that you would help us recognize where your spirit is moving That we might cooperate or rate and be codabers That we might see revival And Lord we know you're the God who can do it And father even as we do that we recognize that doesn't happen in a vacuum It happens in the way that we love one another and the way we care for those who are unemployed For the way we care for those who are over-employed For those the way we care for those who are bearing the burdens of medical diagnosis It's the way we care for loved ones like Jim Wilson who is so suffering It's the way we care for loved ones who are now widows or orphans It's the way we proclaim you and the testimony of those who have gone this last year and the years before to be with you in heaven And father it is the way that we live as a church And even now as we collect these tides and offerings I would ask that you bless that which is given to the good Stewardship and usage for kingdom work Lord That you bless that which is kept back That it would be a blessing to the individuals and families to whom you have provided it That they might use it in your service and in the upkeep of their own life That most of all you bless us in the giving We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ where there is no other name under heaven and earth by which man can be saved
Would you please stand for the reading of God's word
Our scripture lesson today is found in the book of Ephesians chapter four Beginning in verse 17 We've worked our way through these chapters to this point recognizing The beauty of Christ and who he is and what he's done And now we're moving on into action to doing Sometimes the most active doers are those Who are not thinking clearly Sometimes those who spend all their time thinking never move to action Paul is telling us that the best thinkers are also the best doers And so here the word of the Lord Beautiful passage that will unfold together begin in in verse 17 of Ephesians four
Now this I say and testify in the Lord That you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds They are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them Due to their hardness of heart They've become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity But that is not the way you learned Christ Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus To put off your old self Which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds And to put on the new self Created after the lightness of God In true righteousness and holiness This is the word of the Lord You may be seated While traveling this past year in Germany, we spent some time in Berlin and Berlin is a city that has been rebuilt over and over and over you can just imagine If possible the mass destruction that is taking place there and then the rebuilding projects Our world missions committee sent Laura and I too Berlin as part of this church's work as I went to train Church planters and continue to deepen our relationship with the men and women who are serving the Lord there And while we were passing through the city I would see a brand new building just magnificent It's gone up after either the destruction of the wall or or after World War II And while we would see a beautiful building we would step around the corner and part of the building would be completely covered with graffiti And we'd go a little farther and we'd see another new building and sure enough it was covered with graffiti It actually created a bit of a feeling of insecurity in me when I see buildings covered with graffiti I think of danger. I think that something's not right. There's insurrections in the air But our host in Germany told us that this was quite normal But this was the way the young people expressed the desire of their heart that they wanted to have changed they wanted Things to be different. I thought about that. I thought about this beautiful building DeFace the owner of the building to spend all this time all this capital these plans they place their dreams on this building And then someone comes along with a can of spray paint and DeFaces it changes the face of it. Of course that's what happened to us in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned They were in a beautiful new relationship with the Lord and they sinned against the Lord And the image of God within them was defaced They became a people who were Broken a people who in their mind they fell Now you'll notice as we look at the text that the the mind is the battlefield of the soul
That a person's heart is changed through the work of the spirit as he enters their mind as he enters their thinking Paul often says in his writings
Now you know He's he's speaking to them about what they know he's appealing to their knowledge implying that they should live differently I want us to recognize that we have been defaced and that God in his kindness has come and he is sought to restore that which was lost to restore his image and mankind In fact over the years I'm amazed at how committed God is to this restoration project and my life And in the life of men and women and boys and girls around the world He seeks to allow us to know him rightly And annoying him rightly he pours grace and stability into our lives But in order to know God properly We have to recognize something a JC Ryle says Anyone who wishes to have right views of Christian holiness Must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin It was sin that defaced the image of God in humanity I want to draw your attention to our text And notice that Paul lays out eight characteristics of the corruption of the old man Now in our sermon today we're going to compare and contrast the old man And the new man If we're to take off the old man and put on the new man what what does that mean? Well the old man is is mankind underneath the curse of Adam's sin We're united with Adam in that we are under sin We are underneath the weight and the authority of sin And the new man is we're identified with Christ and Christ has lifted off of us the weight of sin And has given birth within us so that we would have a new heart And so that's the the road map of this text that Paul sets before us And I would like to talk about the eight characteristics of somebody who's a corrupted old man this picture that Paul draws force first of all it says that the we're not supposed to walk as the Gentiles do I believe that that when he says Gentiles he means Unconverted men and women We're not to walk the way the nations do those pagans who don't know the Lord He's and and then he begins to describe what they're like he first of all says they're they have a futility in their mind And when you might think the word futility what does it mean? It means all your efforts come to nothing futility means they they labor for something and they get nothing It's like laboring in a vineyard and you produce absolutely no fruit There's this sense of falseness and emptiness This all of your efforts are wasted and without fruit. That's what it means to be futile or have futility of their minds He goes on and says they're darkened in their understanding. They're darkened due to wrong thinking They they lack understanding because they lack the facts There's this Darkness and they stumble around in the darkness now this description This description describes us before we knew the Lord And it describes our world I remember as a young preacher I would come to a text like this And I would I would take advantage of it To speak condescendingly and judgmentally toward the flock and toward the world But over the years as my own sin Has reared its head in my life I've come to a place of recognizing that it is with a broken heart That we present truths that speak of humanity Deface humanity who are futile in their minds They're understanding this darkened thirdly. They're alienated from the life of God In other words, they're alienated from the life that proceeds from God They have this life that completely lacks intimacy with God They have lost the nearness that mankind had in the garden It goes on and says because of the ignorance that is in them They leave they live in the darkness of their ignorance Now when you think of the word ignorance I want you to think of it in two ways. I want you to think first of all the sense that they don't know But I believe the sense of this word in in this particular scripture means they Nord what they knew to be true When you think of ignorance I want you to think of ignoring In order to illustrate this if you have your scripture turn over to Romans chapter 1 Romans chapter 1 and verse 18 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all Ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who buy their unrighteousness suppress the truth For what can be known about God is plain to them do you hear this he's addressing humanity Saying what can be known about God is plain to them because God shown it to them For his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature Have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made So they are without excuse So this isn't an ignorant people in the sense that they don't know there's a God This is an ignoring people in that they ignore God listen to what happens Verse 21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened You're going to see a parallel between Romans 1 and Ephesians 4 their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools And exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man Birds and animals and reptiles therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie And worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever Amen you see the parallel here is Paul is describing this Mind that is futile. It's dark They're alienated from God. They are ignoring God. They're not worshiping him And this is due to the dullness or the hardness of their heart. This word means to be insensitive Their life has now been shaped by the passionate pursuit of sinful desires They've become callous Now you don't develop a callous immediately developing a callous Is a process Just like developing a callous heart is a process. I remember each spring We would go out for baseball practice and we'd show up and we would start Stretching and running and playing catch and warming up our arms and then we would start batting practice And as batting practice would continue we would slowly develop these sore spots on our hands And they hurt and they would sting but you just kept swinging through it You just kept swinging through it and eventually you developed blisters and then they would pop and it would be a mess But you know you didn't come up to the coach the next day and say well coach my hands are kind of hurting Could I skip batting practice right and the coach will say you know what why don't you just skip the whole deal And so you kept pushing through it even though it hurt and you pushed through it until you eventually developed callous You had these big calluses on your hands so that you were impervious to pain you were tough That's the heart That's the heart of a sinful, unregenerate, non-believing, pagan person It's a callous heart. It came through a process maybe maybe at first They recognized there was a god even as a child they would think oh this is magnificent. How was this created over time? They ignored him And then they began to live a life that was sinful and their conscience would be pricked by the Holy Spirit And then they would realize you know I I It's painful but I'm going to push through it I know I'm doing the wrong thing But I'm just going to push through it I want my autonomy. I want to live my own life I don't need some god telling me what to do and what not to do and they push through and they push through and they develop calluses Except rather than calluses on their hands. They have a callous heart And I want you to listen to the description of the people who have a callous heart They give themselves over to sensuality In other words, there's when it says they've given themselves. It means they've chosen They've chosen to give up They had a responsibility to worship god and they've ignored him And then they've pushed through the pain of their sin to the point to where now they're callous and because they're callous toward god They've become those who choose sensuality. They choose to try to find something That would satisfy their soul and of course in pursuing this they become more and more mired in their sin and in their confusion and it says Lastly, they're greedy to practice every kind of impurity They're greedy in other words, they're covetous to practice every kind of impurity They this idea of impurity is to seek an unfair advantage In other words, they're looking for people to abuse They're looking for people to abuse. There was a situation in a pizza parlor recently where a grandmother was there celebrating her grandchild's Birthday and while they were at the pizza parlor the a group next to them were using vile vulgar language And the grandmother simply said would you please refrain from speaking so with such vulgar language And they beat that woman up They beat her and sent her to the hospital They're callous they're greedy They're seeking opportunity to abuse other people That's Paul's description of of the old self This old self united under Adam grasping for spiritual and moral autonomy Look at verse 22 Paul wants us to To take that off He's like take that off That's not you any longer Christ have you learned Christ If you've learned Christ that's not you what does he mean when he says you learned Christ It means that you heard and you were taught You were heard and you were taught hearing Is not being taught That's why you can come to a sermon and hear God's word expounded and walk away with basically nothing Walk away trying to think what is the NFL playoff schedule
It as if you didn't hear will you heard but you weren't taught it didn't mean anything to you It's like when you go hunting or fishing You can go hunting or you can go fishing and come back with nothing Well, did you hunt or you fish? Well, I tried to hunt and are at fished, but you didn't bring anything back That's that's what that's what Paul is getting at here Have you been listening to the word of God your whole life and yet it really hasn't changed your life You still live like the world You still live like those who have darkened understanding You still pursue sexual immorality You still pursue self-medication through drinking Through prescription medication that you abuse You see this is the heart of a person who doesn't know the Lord This is a heart of a person who's being controlled by sin The most miserable person on the planet earth is not the person who's being controlled by sin The most miserable person on the planet earth is the person who has been redeemed by Christ And yet continues to live with our old life of sin That's the most miserable person Because the Holy Spirit rests heavily upon them You see the Holy Spirit must come into our lives with even more force than sin Sin is an insatiable force that is seeking to master you even now Sin is relentless It's powerful. It's like an untamed horse that runs headlong into fences Fearless Ignoring the truth Darkened in their understanding The Lord is saying Take that coat off Paul is literally saying Take the garment of your old man off and put on the garment of the new man Take off that old filthy stinking garment And many of you Many of you Are still wearing the old garment You're wearing shame You're wearing shame because of a mistake you made You're wearing shame because of what someone else has done to you Maybe you've you've made a mistake in your life and there are grave consequences to it That's why Christ came To deliver you from To deliver you from yourself some of us in this room are divorced And we wear the shame of that divorce As if it's the unpardonable sin
Some of you need to take that That garment off Some of you live under the shame of Mistakes that you've made into business world Maybe you live under the shame of someone who had a lot of potential and And you just never quite achieved that potential and so you live quietly in shame Take that coat off Take that coat off you're not the old man any longer Christ has made you a new man Christ has made you a new woman Christ is indwelling you and has overcome this power of sin This power of sin that draws its energy from outside of us And from the devil and and even draws energy from the temptation as As sin woozes us But I want you to know that Christ has come to break that headlong charge of sin That relentless enemy who pursues you constantly Christ has broken sins grip in your life
And so yes You were sinful and you were guilty But in Christ you no longer are sinful And guilty the power of sin has been broken over you oh surely we still sin But we're no longer under the grip of sin How do you learn that pastor how do I learn Christ how am I how can I know that What's this to renew your mind? It's clear in the passage it says very clearly that there's this renewing that's taking place. There's this There's this work of the Lord that Continuently incessantly relentlessly pursues us In the power of the spirit to to make us new So that we could learn more about Christ That we could walk away from this former manner of life that was controlled by deceitful desires That we can be renewed in the spirit of our minds Literally the spirit works in our spirit to renew our minds to make us new To remove us from being conformed and pressured by sin To be this darkened person who ignores the call of God to be in a person who hears God's voice
Who's no longer callous In fact if right now you are mired in the middle of a sin and you are Overwhelmed you're overwhelmed with it you just are overwhelmingly Struggling with a sin that's on you and you just feel guilt about it I want you to know you're you're in a good place And you might think what are you talking about? I'm not condoning your sin What I am saying is you can still feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in you You can still Have that sensitivity in the feeling of your heart so that you're not gallest repent Turn from that sin and Live Live the life of the person God made you to be Move on move forward now in Texas We've been in a big drought and a few years ago. We had a deluge of rain It just was overwhelming to the point where it even rained in west Texas And we were out in west Texas and the grass was high There was golden and there were flowers. I'd never seen before and one old rancher said I haven't seen those flowers since I was a little boy
It just needed more rain I want you to know that some of you are not growing Because you are not Putting yourself underneath the word of God You're not pouring God's word into your heart You should pour it until you're satisfied and then pour some more And then pour some more and then pour some more To the point where your life is saturated by the word of God That's how your mind is renewed That's how you move away from being conformed to the world to understanding who you are in Christ The word of God poured out in your heart and life As a as a church we're reading through the New Testament Psalms and Proverbs I encourage you to do that To pour God's word into your life that new fruit might come from you Now another perspective on this is a perspective that I find very encouraging There's a story that was written and published in 1843 by Hans Christian Anderson It's a story called the ugly duckling You may be familiar with this story A friend of mine, Sinclair Ferguson, used it in his book called The Christian Life If you haven't picked up a good book to read I would encourage you to read Sinclair's work called The Christian Life It's very encouraging He uses his illustration to speak about how we're made new in Christ He was listening to the BBC radio as a child Sinclair's from Scotland And he heard a song called the ugly duckling That was sung by Danny Kay Take you down memory lane Sinclair says it told the story of a rather self-conscious little duckling mixing with the other birds and feeling very sorry for himself Because of his feathers were all stubby and brown He was rather despised by his fellow birds and felt something of a failure Especially when he cast a side-long glance at their beauty Then one day the ugly duckling looked down and saw something marvelous He no longer had brown ugly feathers But was a raid in the splendid white feathers of a swan And off he went shouting, I'm a swan, I'm a swan Although he had thought he was a duckling He had never been a duckling He'd been a swan all the time But the real difference came when he saw what he really was The recognition of his true identity was the beginning of a new joy And that's precisely what Paul is speaking of Your new identity in Christ You're a swan You're made pure in him You're made right in him This is a religion of grace Not of shame This is a place where you rest in the work of Christ You don't try to earn your way to heaven You see who Christ is And you see who he's made you And you think differently And as a man thinks in his heart So he is May we live As the people of God Saved by the Lord Jesus Christ This is an ongoing process It's not something you get once And then walk away It's something that goes over in your mind day After day after day Renewing is a present active verb It's ongoing Renewing We are to be renewing our minds By submitting ourselves to the Word of God Pouring his Word into our lives so that we think differently And therefore live differently And one day realizing, oh my I was made new by Christ I am a Christian I am a new creation The oldest past The new has come Let's pray Father, you're very patient with us You're very patient Lord some in this congregation Are in the process of rebelling against you They're living a lie I pray Holy Spirit that you would draw them to the work of Christ Lord some of us are living under the weight of shame We have made mistakes And Lord there are consequences to our mistakes And so often we feel beaten down by those And we feel judged by others But we thank you Lord Christ That we don't have shame from you We have grace from you May we May we tear off these old garments Of shame and despair And may we place the garment That you have given us The garment of righteousness O Lord God fill us with your spirit That we might see the beauty of Christ He is He is everything to us Lord if there be some who are here This morning and they realize that Paul's words in verses 17 to 19 Was an adequate and accurate description of their life They are darkened They ignore God
They're confused in their understanding They pursue Evil gain They abuse themselves and others O Holy Spirit Follow them And bring them to a point of repentance and salvation Through the work of your spirit O God do so for your glory As you remove the graffiti As you restructure and reface That which was defaced at the garden Make us new in Christ we pray In Jesus' name, Amen Would you please stand for the benediction
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you May the Lord cause us face to shine upon you and be gracious to you May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now And in the life everlasting, Amen