No Longer Strangers

 Ephesians 2:13-22 

13) But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14) For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15) by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16) and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. 17) And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; 18) for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, 20) having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21) in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; 22) in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity                                      6/29/25

No Longer Strangers

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our epistle lesson this morning is nestled in the context of the early Christian church's sharp division between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  In the verses just before our text, Saint Paul is writing about the distinction between the "Circumcision" as he calls the Jews And the "Uncircumcision" as he refers to the Gentiles in the Church.  He describes the Gentiles as "Separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." 

Paul then begins to describe the power of Christ's death and resurrection.  Now, He says, in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far off had been brought near by the blood of Christ for He Himself is our Peace. The Jews in the Gentiles had been traditionally enemies of a sort, religiously, even when not politically.  They were separated by the laws of the Jews what Paul called "the law of Commandments contained in Ordinances."  Jewish Law kept the Jews at a distance requiring their separation from Gentiles. The death of Jesus Christ ended that. Verse 19 of our text says quote "You are no longer strangers and aliens."   

Our theme this morning is, "No Longer Strangers."  

We are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.  For the Gentiles in the early Christian church that was a striking message of inclusion in something they had been kept out of throughout the history of Israel.  For us it is a description of the Christian church. It tells us what Christ has accomplished for us. We are no longer strangers and aliens from the grace and love of God, separated by the law of works and sin and guilt.  We are now fellow citizens with the Saints.  That means everybody in Heaven is our brother or sister.  And every single member of the Christian Church on earth is also our brother and sister.   

The big problem we face on Earth with that declaration is that we cannot see who is and who is not a Christian and therefore a true member of the Christian church. We can look at the doctrines taught by the various churches and cults in our world and identify by Scripture what is and what is not faithful, what is and what is not true, what is and what is not Christian.  So we cannot go about saying that this individual or that individual is or is not Christian.  We hope all our fellow Lutherans are Christians, at least our faithful MO Synod Lutherans.  But we know that's not even true.  Some who call themselves Christians do not trust in God.  Some who call themselves Christians and faithful Lutherans have no hope in the grace of God, but rather in their own works. So we treat those who call themselves Christian as Christian, until they definitively prove that they are not. And when we wrestle with the idea of proving themselves definitively not Christians, we have to consider our own sins, our own shortcomings, our own bad opinions and bad actions. If we are still Christians in the light of our sins, and I believe we are, then they might be also.  

We need to work together to maintain our fellowship. And that fellowship is primarily around Word and Sacrament.  If we make the mistake of judging good times good feelings and that bonhomie of social fellowship to be Fellowship of the Christian Church, we err. True fellowship happens at the altar.  Receiving the Lord's Supper here is a confession.  When you receive the Lord's Supper you receive the forgiveness of sins. You received that with Christ's true Body and blood.   

But receiving the Lord's Supper standing shoulder to shoulder is also a confession, a confession of our faith as to what we receive, and a confession about the people we receive it with. We confess by our reception that this church is the Christian church that here we receive the truth of Christ body and blood, and that we stand together united in faith – which is to say united in our doctrine. 

 When you go to another church of a different faith and concession – that is to say, of a different doctrine – if you should, mindlessly, step forward and receive the Lord's Supper at that church you actually join that church. You become a member there by your communion. You tell the world that here, wherever here is, the truth is taught and all Christians should be gathered about that altar.  If it is another Missouri Synod Lutheran Church you may justify yourself by saying they confess the same confession that we confess. And that's true. But even then you should be careful to listen to how and what the pastor preaches. If he begins to speak strange ideas if he talks about faith and feelings being important elements to your salvation, then he is leading you astray.  A false confession pouring out of the pulpit of even a Missouri Synod Church should warn you against reception of the Lord's Supper, lest you connect yourself to a false confession.  

Even more significant would be receiving at a non-Lutheran Church. When you stand before that altar with those who confess that confession, you join that church and confess the faith they confess whether you know what it is or not. That's how powerful the confession of the Lord's Supper is.  It is the powerful nature of that confession upon which I base my comments about those who have departed from our number and now attend another church regularly.  When they receive the Lord's Supper at another altar regularly – not on a vacation, not out of town to visit mom or Grandchild, but when they regularly receive Holy Communion from another church, even another congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, their participation in the Lord's Supper makes them a member of that congregation, for good or for ill. Withholding themselves over time from our communion also marks them as having withdrawn from our fellowship.  

Our text tells us that we are no longer strangers, but fellow citizens with the Saints founded upon the Apostles doctrine with Jesus Christ as our Cornerstone, being built up into a household of faith, a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling of God in the spirit.  We should never allow ourselves to be strangers to the altar, strangers to the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is the blood of Jesus Christ which makes us family And brings us forgiveness and salvation. Every Sunday should be a time of fellowship together with our family in Christ around the Word and Sacrament.  After all, in Jesus Christ we are No Longer Strangers. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

How to Love God

 1 John 4:16-21

And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.  God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love, because He first loved us.  If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity                                      6/22/25

How to Love God

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The bookstore shelves are filled with volumes about how to be a good husband or how to be a good wife, or what true love is all about.  You wouldn't think we would need help with that, since we all feel that love – or nearly all of us.  The problem people have with finding the love of their lives, and then keeping the love of their lives satisfied in that state of being loved, is that we have been taught false doctrine by our culture and our public media.  This isn't religious false doctrine, but it is false doctrine none-the-less.  We oftentimes don't know what real love is.

Some people fancy that their hormonal response to another human body is love.  That is correctly identified as "lust", and while it can be entertaining for a while, it does not last for long - at least as the response to that particular body.  Young people frequently, and older ones occasionally, confuse infatuation with love.  Infatuation is delightful for a time, but it, too, fades over time.  True love is, at its weakest, a deep affection, which when it is coupled with the will to serve the welfare of the beloved, is the sort of love that can last life-long.  But even then, it takes deliberate work, thought, planning, and action.  It is not necessarily romantic at every moment.  It is not necessarily fun or even pleasurable at every moment.  Those characteristics surface now and again, and for some of us, frequently, but the dependance on the continual sense of romance or pure delight in love is fostered only by our enjoyment of those nice feelings, and the false doctrine of our society that says that love is supposed to be that way. 

Now, all of that is about love for a fellow human being, particularly one of the opposite sex.  And still, people get that all confused.  Our text, this morning, speaks of loving God, which is an entirely different sort of thing.  It is no wonder that people get confused about how to go about that sort of loving.  Our text points us in the right direction to understanding how to love God, and so that is our theme today, How to Love God.

First of all, the love of which John writes is agape – the spiritual, self-sacrificing sort of love, such as God has for us.  It is not the love of friendship.  God is not our friend in the sense of being our "buddy".  His love may be likened to the love of friendship because His will toward us is faithfully good, but philia – friendship love – is notoriously fickle. 

The love which are to we have for God is also not the erotic sort.  God loves us, but talking about God as a lover is often more confusing than helpful.  I have to admit that God uses the image of a lover in Scripture, as in the Song of Solomon, but it seems to best suited to illustrate the intensity of the love which God has for us, and which we might have for Him, not so much the quality of it.  Erotic love is most commonly not about the one we love as much as about our response - our love and our joy or pleasure, and so it is self-absorbed.  God's love for us is not self-absorbed, but focused on us, and He would have us love Him for Him, not for what we can get out of Him.

The best illustration, and the primary fact of the love of God for us is Christ Jesus.  His love is what brought Him to become one of us.  His love for the Father, and His love for us.  John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world . . .".  He saw our need from eternity, planned our salvation, which required of Him accomplishing what is, by human reason, impossible.  He became man - fully human, and yet also true God.  Many theologians will say that God cannot be contained in finite human flesh, it is impossible, and yet God says, Colossians 2:9, "For in Him dwells the fulness of the Deity in bodily form."  He kept the whole law and will of God without exception or sin.  He took the burden of our guilt and sin and died in our place, paying the penalty for our sins.  God, who cannot die, found a way to die for us.

He saw our need, He planned our rescue, and He put that plan into action at great personal cost.  That is agape love.  That is the love with which we are to love God.  The one hitch in this plan, however, is that God needs nothing from us, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things."  God doesn't want us just feeling warmly about Him.  He doesn't want us feeling sexy about Him.  He wants us to love Him with the same sort of love with which He loves us.  He tells us that our love for Him flows out of His love for us – We love because He first loved us!

The secret of how to love God is by loving those God has given you to love – those He has placed around you to love by seeing their needs, planning for their rescue and welfare, and then putting that plan into action, even if it costs you something.  Even if it costs you everything.  Our love for our neighbor is also motivated and powered by God's love for us.  We love those who have no claim on us because God loved those who had no rightful claim against Him – us, sinners, now forgiven by God, and rescued for eternal life.

This love comes from being loved ourselves.  It isn't the product of fear, or terror, as so many of the sacrifices of old toward the false gods of the idols were.  We don't kill our children, or our livestock, to show God our love - or to assuage His anger, as pagans in the past did.  

In ancient Israel, they offered their flocks and cattle and grain in sacrifices as part of their faith, demonstrating their trust in God to supply their needs in a world that often lived on the razor's edge of disaster and need.  Even then, the true power of their sacrifices came from the one sacrifice of His Son, promised but not yet accomplished, as they showed their faith and love for God by obedience and by spending their substance on worship.

We don't worship God, in our modern world, from the same precipice of daily need as the ancients did.  We are abundantly rich in that regard!  The sacrificial system for forgiveness of sins has been done away with by Jesus' death on our behalf.  The resurrection proclaims the love of God and the fulness of forgiveness and salvation to us.  The truth of it is witnessed to us by the Word, and supplied for us in the holy Sacrament, as we receive His true body and blood for our forgiveness and spiritual refreshment.  Our acts of love, and our spending of our substance on the welfare of one another - and our other neighbors - is our sacrificial giving to God, just as in the ancient days, demonstrating our belief in His love for us, and our trust in His guidance and provision for our needs.

John tells us in our text how that love effects us.  It gives us confidence in life and in the face of death, comforting us.  We say that God loves us.  Do we believe it?  Can we trust that love?

We say that God will provide.  Do we trust Him?  Could it be that our surplus is how God would provide for others, working His love through us?

We confess that in Jesus Christ we have everything we need.  Luther confessed it.  I preach it.  Do you confess it?  If you do, how does that confession work out in your life?  

If you do not confess it, why not?

We say we love God.  God says, love Me in those I give you to love.  Serve Me by serving those I place around you in need.  Give to Me by giving to those in need around you, starting at home, and in the congregation, and working out from there.  This giving is not supposed to be just money either.  That is what stewardship is about - managing all that God has given you wisely, for His purposes and not merely your own.  That it comes from a heart of love for God is what we express in our stewardship principle, stated in the words of 2 Corinthians 9:7, "God loves a cheerful giver".

That this love for the neighbor is how we love God is pointed to by John in our text,   If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.   

Of course, God views love and hate in far more black and white terms than we like to look at it.  Either you love, or you hate.  Indifference is hate according to the standard of God's Word.  But in this text, I think God is talking about hatred in terms we understand.  If we cannot love those we can see, who are real and tangible and right there before us, but actually hate them and are hostile to them - we then are not able to actually love God, whom we cannot see or touch or hear according to His natural voice.  Our brothers, fellow saints and members of the body of Christ right here with us, are our first field of service and love to be given to God.  If we cannot love them, we cannot really love God either.

We kind of see that in the religious cons we see in the world.  On religious TV, we see them taking, begging, crying, hustling - but we don't see them serving, helping, or giving.  They want to reach out and touch us, but the part of us they want to touch I keep in my back pocket, ordinarily.  And they are willing to falsify the Word of God and teach false doctrine to do it, to manipulate me and you.  If my money is worth more to them than the Word of God and truth (and remember, Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life") they prove the saying of John, * * they say they love God, but hate their brother - by teaching him something of a counterfeit gospel, and in doing so, they really hate God, too.

Now, I know that this teaching isn't going to make me or you popular.  John reminds us also that we are as Jesus was in this world.  He was welcomed for what they could get out of Him, but despised for who He was, and hated for His holiness.  The world looks at us the same way.  Give them your money, or your time and effort, and they will love you.  Give them the Gospel, and they will tell you to keep your religion to yourself - and, as is happening in our public media with increasing frequency, they will malign you and call you and extremist and say that your religion is the cause of war and division and hatred and intolerance.  Because as He is, so also are we in this world.

As uncomfortable as that is, it should comfort you by demonstrating for you the truth of the Word of God, and by reminding you that you belong to Him, because Jesus said they would hate you if you were His.  The comfort is not, of course, due to the hatred of the world.  It is due to the love of God and the salvation which He has poured out on us.  The hatred of the world just confirms that we are recognizably part of the body of Christ.  The other thing that would confirm our participation in Christ is the love for God which we see in the Lord's Supper.

So, how do you love God?  By taking Him at His Word, and trusting Him to keep you, and to save you, and by loving Him by loving those He has given you to love.  This love is an act as much of the will as of the emotions.  Only those moved by the Holy Spirit, can do it willingly. That is how to love God.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

How to Face the End

 1 Peter 4:7-11

The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.  Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaint.  As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon for Exaudi Sunday                                                   6/01/25

How to Face the End

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our topic this morning is how to live by faith.  That is how Christians live.  Some who call themselves Christians do not live by faith – they live out their unbelief, and call it Christian living.  Christians live by what they believe, more or less consistently.  No one does it perfectly, but it is part of believing in Christ and trusting the Word of God that we measure reality around us by the Word of God first, and our sense impressions second, and that we make our choices in life with the Gospel in mind, and placing our hopes and trust in God and in our redemption and forgiveness.  Again, no one on earth does this perfectly, but it is part of the life of a Christian to be consciously living in the light of the truths God has revealed to us.

One of the truths that God has revealed to us is that we are living in the final days of this creation.  Peter tells us in the first words of the verse of our text that "the end of all things is at hand."  Many English translations translate this phrase to mean that the end is coming soon, or is nearby.  Peter actually used a word that Jesus frequently used about the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus said "The kingdom of God is at hand," He meant that it was there already, among the people, with Him, by virtue of His presence.  So, when I read Peter saying that "the end of all things is at hand", I read Peter saying that it is already here, and we are involved in the end.  And if they were involved back then, how much more are we?  Our sermon theme this morning, then, is "How to Face the End".

Peter wrote probably 1,970-some years ago.  If they were caught up in the end of all things that long ago, we would figure it should be over by now!  Some have jumped to the conclusion that Peter didn't know what he was talking about, or that his ‘eschatological expectations' were misinformed and in error.  In other words, Peter was wrong.  The end was not near – and they were surely not wrapped up in the very end times.

If Peter was wrong, then so are we, if we take Peter seriously.  But Peter was writing by inspiration, according to our faith, and so he could not be wrong.   We must be living in the very end of time.  The end of all things is very near, and we are, in fact, living in the midst of them.  Think about it.  What is the Last Day, according to Scriptures?  It is Judgment Day.  But Judgment Day was the day that God judged and punished our sins, and condemned us to hell for our rebellion.  And that day was Good Friday.  That was the day sentence was pronounced and the wrath of God was poured out on our sins.

Only we didn't bear it.  Jesus did.  He was the One on whom the wrath was poured, the sentence pronounced.  He took our sins – He became sin for us who knew no sin of His own, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  He was punished and died in awful agony.  Because He is true God, His suffering was not limited to that six hours on the cross – as awful as that six hours was – but as God lives outside of time and in eternity, Jesus suffered in eternity for our sins, as well.

Since the Day of Judgment has passed, we are living in the very midst of the end of all things.  That final day, which everyone kind of thinks of as "Judgment Day" is the day that the judgment of God is made public.  On that Day, the Day of the Resurrection of All Flesh, God will proclaim to all of mankind  – and, indeed, all of creation  – just exactly who are His children and who are His enemies.   I dare say, there will be some surprises – but everyone will recognize by God's power that the Judgment of God is right.  And we who believe will finally witness with joy and great glory the end of all things of this creation completed.  

But we are in the middle of that end of all things even now, although nothing seems to have changed.  The truth is that the change is like melting butter in your microwave.  Have you ever watched it?  It sits there, seemingly unaffected by the microwaves for most of the time you are ‘nuking' it.  Then, all of a sudden, it just collapses into a puddle of melted butter.  The end of all things is like that, in some sense.

First of all, things have changed.  Everything has changed!  We live in the midst of the changing, so we don't notice as it changes.

Secondly, it is not the things around that are supposed to change at this particular moment in history.  We are supposed to change.  God makes it happen by His Word preached, and by the Holy Spirit at work through the Word.  He changes us – and then He exhorts us to recognize that change and to deliberately live it out and live in the light of what it means for all of creation.  In other words, Peter is giving us direction as to how to face the end.

Peter writes, "therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.  Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaint."

Since we are living in the midst of the end of all things, we should live deliberately, fully aware of that truth, and we should be living like we know what is real and what is not, what is important and what is not.  We should not be blinded by the world's values or agendas, but we should be of sound judgment.  We are asked to live out the reality of the end of all things by facing the truth that these thing are about to end, and we can only use them as temporary and highly disposable things.  Our treasures are not treasures – they are cheap baubles, soon to cease to exist altogether.  Our wealth is a deceit of the world, good only for using in the passing world for God's purposes.  Our time is a phantom.  We think we have years of it ahead, but we only have now.  Our concern is rightly what needs to be done now?

And if you knew that you were to die tonight – no doubts, and no questions asked – what would you do?  If this was your last day on earth – because there was going to be no earth – Where would you begin?  I hope to think that it would be with prayer.  Partying and having a good time would surely take a back seat to humbling yourself before God, asking God to forgive you, asking God to guide you, asking God to bless and save all of those around you.  Peter tells you to face the truth, the sobering reality that we are in the midst of the end of all things, so that you will keep your wits about you, face the reality of the situation, and pray.

If you knew that it was the end for everyone else, you would desperately try to rescue your loved ones.  You might reach out for your friends.  I hope you would want to gather with God's people here and encourage one another as we awaited welcoming our Lord.  Well, that very reasonable behavior is what Peter encourages in our text.  We don't panic, as all of the ‘end-of-the-world', doomsday movies predict everyone would do.  We know what is happening, and what is coming, and how we are going to deal with it, survive it, and come out on the other end.  We have no reason for panic.

But we do have reason to prepare, and encourage one another as we see the end approach, and use the time remaining to give it one last great effort to accomplish what God has given us to do, love one another and share the good news of the hope of salvation within us with those who are also facing the end, however unknowingly.

Again, Peter writes, "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins."  That is the exhortation both because of the human nature's trouble with holding on to love, and because we all need it.  Anger and hatred are so natural and easy.  But we are commanded to "love one another".  Love teaches us to forgive, just as you put up with things from your family that you would never tolerate in a stranger.  If you love someone, you are patient, kind, forgiving.  Surely you would not let some irritation of the moment be the cause of the destruction of someone you love.  You would forgive them, and help them.

God encourages us, through Peter, to "keep fervent in our love for one another".  "Keep fervent", Peter says, "because love covers a multitude of sins."  It covers my sins, when for the sake of love, you overlook my casual weaknesses and occasional blunders and forgive me, when you think I need forgiveness.  It works just like how the love of Jesus Christ covers your sins.  He counts you as holy and perfect, in spite of your many obvious imperfections, and without regard for the sins you commit daily.

Then, part of that sound judgment includes this "hospitality" Peter speaks about, "Be hospitable to one another without complaint."  In the ancient world, hospitality meant more than simply "making nice" with someone.  When someone came into your home, or under your hospitality, their comfort, their well-being, even their protection from evil befalling them became your duty.  That is why Lot offered His daughters to the men of Sodom rather than allow them to disgrace or abuse the angelic visitors.  As much as he loved his daughters, he could not allow those under his hospitality to suffer shame or worse.

We are to "be hospitable to one another without complaint".  We are to take one another in, shelter one another, protect one another.  We are family, and the world out there, however it may appear at the moment, is the servant of our mortal enemy.  We need one another to watch our backs in these last and dangerous days.

And because it is almost the end of time, Peter exhorts us to do what God gives us to do by His power – and to do everything we do as though we are doing it for God and as though time were running out very quickly.  "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Our goal is that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.  He has purchased us at a tremendous price.  He has sought us out and called each one of us by name.  He has made us to be His people, and forgiven us all of our sins.  We are His glory, and we show that glory forth when we live as His people, talk as His people, pray as His people, and love as His people – that is, when we love as He loved us.  These things are all part of that sound judgment and sober spirit  Peter mentioned at first.  We live as those who know that the end is not just near, but happening around us.

What God gives you – time, talents, gifts and abilities, or wealth – He gives you for the purpose of serving your neighbor in these last and perilous days.  Serving one another, and serving those who are our neighbors, is how we serve God.  We speak His truth as though it was the very Word of God entrusted to us - because it is!  We serve one another as though that was the purpose for our strength and our talents - because it is!  We use what God has entrusted to us as stewards of God's things, God's talents – "Talent on loan from God," as Rush Limbaugh used to say – not as though our talents and our wealth were things we have created in and of ourselves for our personal enrichment and influence, but as though it were something entrusted to us to earn a profit for our Master - because it is!  We are made Christ's people by God and gifted with all that we have and all that we can do to serve God by helping one another make it to the finish line, to be faithful into death so that we may receive that crown of life and to give God the profit of souls won by hearing the good news of His love and grace and salvation. 

There is an urgency about all of this because "the end of all things is at hand".  We are living as the world is ending.  What we leave undone will be unfinished when it over.  If we believe God's Word, we cannot live otherwise than to live in the light of this truth.  This text is all about living the life appointed for Christ's people - in other words, it is about how to face the end.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)