Setting Yourself Aside

Transcript

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[0:00] Thank you, George. And now we go to our sermon. Our sermon text is from 1 Corinthians chapter 9. And before we start a little bit of introduction, this is actually, I'm going to preach, last week we preached from the Old Testament. Pretty sure, you know, I honestly can't remember, that's sad. But this, and we read this, the preceding chapter to this as the reading. But this week we're going to read this follow-up as the sermon. And so we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. And just a little bit of background on 1 Corinthians. It's kind of a letter to a dysfunctional church. The church has problems. There's a lot of things going on within the body of the church that aren't working right. And Paul has heard the word about that, and he's sending a letter of correction to them, a very strong letter of correction. And also there are people kind of trash-talking Paul. A little bit in that church, comparing him to other apostles who are better speakers than him. And he says, I admit that other people are much more eloquent than me. That's great, but I'm preaching the gospel. You know, that's kind of Paul's deal. Some of them are also saying, he's collecting all this money. I wonder if he's putting some of it in his own pocket.

[1:15] You know, so there's a little bit of, you know, the stuff, his reputation is being sullied a little bit about by some of the people in this church. And what's actually happening, at least in this stage of his life, of his ministry, is he is collecting money, but he's taking it to give to the poor in Jerusalem. He's not keeping any of it himself. But what he's going to tell them is that actually he does have the right to some of that money, because this is his job. He chooses not to keep that money because he wants to serve the gospel. So we're going to get into that later. That's really a big part of this.

[1:48] And in a way, this is about him setting aside his privilege. He has the privilege or the right to keep money for himself, to pay for his expenses, but he sets aside his privilege. So that he doesn't be a burden. He's not a burden to them.

[2:02] And we'll get into why later. Now, a few topics I want you to think about while we're reading. How is this related to the previous chapter from last week where it talked about eating food that was sacrificed to idols? And how he tells some people, if you're strong in the faith, you should probably not eat that food, that sacrifice to idols, if you're in the presence of somebody whose faith might be compromised by God. And that's a young person, somebody who's been a believer for less time than you, right? Another question to think about, should a leader correct the record if their integrity is called into question? It's a good question. Should a leader correct the record if their integrity is called into question? And finally, think about this. When should we assert our identity and privilege? And when should we let our identity and privilege fade into the background? And we're going to answer these questions with our readings and our discussion of that. But keep those questions in mind. How is this related to the question of eating meat? Should a leader correct the record? And when should we assert or not assert our identity and privilege? Okay, let's go to our reading, 1 Corinthians 9. Start in verse 3 and then skip ahead to a different section.

[3:14] Paul writes this, This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be a company? Are we not accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

[3:39] Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk? If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting. For an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel. For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this, that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

[4:23] For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law, so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. Let's pray.

[5:21] Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word. And we ask that you would add your name to it. In Jesus' name, Amen. So I want to tell you a story about myself, and this is part of my identity. Two things, actually. One was that when I was in high school, I threw the discus. It was a fun sport. It was a very old sport. It was in the Olympics way back in the time of the Greeks. It looks like a frisbee, but it's much heavier. It's not the same thing as throwing a frisbee. If you throw a frisbee like this, you throw a discus. It's like this.

[5:57] And I had a knack for it. I didn't know. My brother did it. And when you're a younger brother, you just do what your big brother does, because your big brother walks on water. So he did it. And then I did it. And to my delight, and if you're a younger sibling, you're going to love this, it turns out I was better at it than him.

[6:19] And so there wasn't, in my senior year, there wasn't a track meet that I lost. It was great in all of Tucson. And every week I would go to the paper and there would be a list. There's a tiny little section of the paper that had the results of the track meet, and I would clip them out and Hans-Erik Nelson number one. That year we went to the state track meet, my whole team, amphitheater high school. Look it up. Anyway, 1987. And we won the whole state track meet. Now I took sixth place in the entire state, which is okay.

[6:50] It's all right. Tucson's a smaller town. There's kids from Phoenix that were much better than me. Now the reason we won the state track meet is that we had a future Olympian sprinter on our team. And he won four races, which is the maximum anyone could enroll in. So you get ten points for first place, so he got 40 points. And then it kind of grades down, and for sixth place you get one point. Now the team won by more than one point. So my contribution to the win was nothing. Okay, so just remember that.

[7:19] Now fast forward to about a year ago, and there's this sports columnist in Tucson that I recently met. He's probably the Tucson newspaper from time to time. Wrote a story about the 100 top sports teams in Tucson history. And he wrote down, you know, that the 1987 track team won the state meet. And he listed the name of the Olympian. His name is Michael Bates. And he also played football, but he won, I think, silver in Barcelona. He was really fast. I mean, he was just like lightning. And then it said, and in discus, Kurt Nelson.

[7:56] There was another guy named Kurt on the team. I don't know what happened there. So that's my fame. You know, it's like there it is. And if you want to clip that one, you got. And I wrote him a note, you know, hey, Greg, my name is Hans-Erik Nelson. Oh, he wrote back, oh, we'll fix it. He hasn't fixed it. It's okay.

[8:15] So that, but, you know, it was, you know, glory days. They pass you by, right? And some of you remember I told the story about how I used to work for IBM. And even after I had stopped working for IBM, I used to tell people, oh, I used to work for IBM, which now means nothing, you know. Because back then, IBM was a very respected company. And one day I was with, this is in Norway, I was with one of the people in the church. And she had heard me say, you know, that I used to work for IBM. So once she introduced me to somebody else and she said, this is Hans-Erik. He used to work for IBM. And I was like, oh, that sounds so lame when you do it like that. So that cured me right there. Yeah. That cured me. So those are, this is a little bit of background. This will come in handy later. But think about how we construe or understand our own identity. Is it what we've accomplished? Is it what we do? Is it what we tell other people about? How do we understand ourselves in our background? Are we from a certain country or even an ethnicity in this country? I definitely like am very probably proud to be a Norwegian-American. I grew up in a Norwegian dance group. And we had Norwegian traditions around Christmas. My children still say Norwegian prayers at dinner and at bedtime.

[9:30] And that's still something that's gone on. But the question is, is that, how important is that? And we're going to get to that. How important is my identity that I carry around with me? The answer is, just real quick, is that it's very important because it's how God made you. But there's going to be times, as we'll see, when we, that fades into the distance. And there's some good reasons for that. Oh, thank you, Erik. That actually helps. I can see a little bit better. I sometimes turn that one down because it leaves a big shadow up there. But thank you, Erik. That's good. All right. So let's, I want you to think back now to last week's reading from 1 Corinthians. This is a famous passage about whether or not a believer should eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol. Okay? Paul tells the mature believers that they have an absolute right to eat this meat. You can eat that meat because it's just meat. The idol isn't real. So the fact that it was sacrificed to an idol and then sold to a butcher and then, and then sold to a butcher. And then prepared at a restaurant. It's still meat. God made it. The idol isn't real. So it's consecration to that idol doesn't make it evil to eat. It's still good because God looked at all of creation and said, it is good.

[10:34] Right? But he says, there are younger believers or more or less mature believers in your midst who maybe a month ago when they ate that same meat, they saw it as a sign of worship to that false God. Right? Do you get that? So, so somebody who doesn't know as much as you, they would go, that's a false God. That's a false form of worship to this other God, this Greek Pantheon of gods or the Roman Pantheon of gods. Why is my fellow Christian brother or sister eating this, have doing worshiping this other God? I thought we were now monotheistic. I thought that I thought this was the monotheistic club. You know, that's what they came in. I thought, I thought you told us to stop worshiping other gods. And actually in that time, especially among pagan people, they would just stack up gods. You know, they're like, oh, there's a God from over there. Let's worship that one too. You can't hurt. They're not super jealous of each other. You know, we can worship this God, worship that God, if it's going to help me in some way. So then when the emperor said, you know, you can also, why don't you just make a sacrifice to the emperor and, and pray to him as a God, then people are like, most people are like, that's fine. You know, we can get along.

[11:36] But Christians and Jews couldn't do that because they were monotheistic. We absolutely can't do it. So the, the younger believers, their faith would be compromised by the freedom that you have as a more mature believer to eat that meat. So Paul, what does Paul say? He says for the sake of their faith so that they don't stumble. Why don't you just not eat that meat, even though you're completely free to, and you're smart and you know everything about this, just don't do it because what's more important that you fill your belly with some good, you know, delicious lamb or whatever it is, or is it that your, your fellow believer whom you're in community with doesn't get compromised in their faith? And maybe later in time, as they get older and wiser, they'll go, oh, okay, we could eat that. We could go eat that together. There's a sort of a modern counterpart to that, that I see. And that would be around the question of alcohol, drinking alcohol for Christians. You have the freedom to drink alcohol. Guess what? Jesus not only drank alcohol, he made his own. Remember that? You know, he did drink. There's some Christians who think he didn't, or that it was that whenever the word wine shows up, it's really grape juice.

[12:40] And you know, like translation wise, that's not accurate. So Jesus did drink. That's the fact. But as believers, we can't do that. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? challenge and it may send them into a spiral. And so we have the freedom to drink, but we choose not to drink because other people in our midst could be hurt by it. It's not a question of faith, maybe it's just more of not falling back into an addiction.

[13:34] So drinking around people who have a problem can bring their problems back. And so they're responsible, of course, but if we don't have a problem with it, we can set aside our desire or our need or our freedom to drink when we're in their midst. And I would actually say that if we can't set aside that privilege of drinking in front of somebody else, then maybe it's us who has the problem with alcohol. You know what I mean? Like if we can't not do it, then yeah, let's think about that, right? We might have a problem.

[14:11] So we hear, you know, I'm using this word privilege and I think this is accurate. Paul has a privilege, you know, he's telling people, you have the privilege to eat meat. Christians now have a privilege to drink alcohol. Paul has the privilege of receiving compensation for his work in the gospel, okay?

[14:31] And so, but I think it's current because we're talking a lot about privilege now in the context of racial justice. And I think that's important. We talk about privilege, people who are of a certain ethnicity have more privilege. Definitely if they're of a certain class, they have more privilege.

[14:48] And the challenge for those with more privilege is to set aside their privilege for the sake of making a more equitable society in a sense, right? And it kind of has to be voluntary because if you pull somebody's privilege away from them, that's something different. But you set aside your privilege and it's a sign of love. And here's the great thing about that. Like it's almost like the world has in the last 20 or 30 years has discovered this concept of having a privilege. And setting aside the privilege for the sake of others. But this is what Christians have been doing for 2000 years. Okay, so we're way, we're way ahead of the curve, but unfortunately now we're way behind the curve because we're not practicing what is preached to us in the scripture. So I'll give you one example. Paul talks about setting aside privilege about eating and drinking. I can set aside my privilege to drink. Jesus sets aside his privilege. This is massive. You think of Philippians. This is something we should all memorize. I keep saying that. Philippians 2 reads like this. Paul writes this. Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.

[16:07] Now just look at that motion there. From being the son of God and in heaven with God to taking the form of a slave. That's like a, that's dropping all the levels at once. It's not just a stair step. It's just like, shoo, straight to the basement. Taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And so this is what we call the kenosis. That's the Greek word for it, is the emptying. The kenosis is the emptying himself. He emptied himself, right? Taking the form of a slave. It's the setting aside of his divine power to become flesh. And you always have to think about not just that it was done, but why it was done. And we're getting into this a little bit in just a minute. Why did Jesus do that? Emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. Why did he do that? So that he could save us. This was so important to God that Jesus set aside his privilege, and he set aside his privilege so that he can be in human flesh, experience what we experience as humans, and go to the cross in obedience and die and save us. So the reason for Jesus to set aside his privilege is directed towards our salvation.

[17:25] That's super important. He doesn't just do it to show off that he can do it or something like that. He does it so that he can save us, right? So here's the privilege that Paul sets aside. And this is our passage today. We're finally kind of getting back to it now, is he could be paid for the preaching of the gospel. He says this, a shepherd can help himself to some of the mill. Right? A worker in the vineyard can eat some of the grapes.

[17:50] Jesus, in Luke chapter 10, he sends the apostles out to preach in all these villages, and he tells them to receive food and lodging if it's offered to them. Take it. If it's offered to you, take it. If it's not offered to you, shake the dust off your feet and leave the town. But if someone is going to give you food, someone's going to give you a bed to sleep on, that's wages, right? That's free stuff. Take it. By all means, take it. And what does Jesus say in Luke 10? He says, the laborer deserves to be paid. That's Jesus's words right there, right? We're talking Jesus now. So a preacher of the gospel can pay himself out of some of the offering that he collects. So if Paul actually was collecting a lot of money and he said, some of this is for the poor people back in Jerusalem, but some of it's going to go in my pocket so I can eat and sleep and et cetera. As long as you're upfront about it, I think that's fine. And he says, I have absolutely have that privilege. But what does Paul say? He says, I'm actually not taking money from my work. I'm not doing it. Okay?

[18:52] We read in Acts that while Paul was living among these very people in Corinth, he paid his own expenses by having a side hustle. You know this word side hustle? I like it. You should all have a side hustle, you know, on Etsy or something like that, right? He had a side hustle. He was sewing tents together. He did that, I don't know, I don't know what his hours, his days were like. I don't know if he spent eight hours, I don't know, I don't know if he spent eight hours, working on tents and then in the four hours of the evening he went to a synagogue and preached. I don't know. I assume he just did just enough tent work to pay the bills and he spent the rest of his time evangelizing the city of Corinth. And he lived there for quite some time. So he had a side hustle. He was sewing tents together. So he could even say, when I was living among you guys, these very people, didn't you ever see me down at the market putting tents together and selling tents? You know, like I, he was a bivocational man. He was a bivocational missionary by all means, okay? So, and I think it's fascinating because here's somebody, as we understand Paul, he grew up in a literate household. He was a Roman citizen. He kind of was, all that marks him as an upper class person,

[20:03] somebody with a little bit of means because poor people don't learn how to read and write. They just, back then they didn't. You know, there was no mandatory education. Being able to read and write and even the materials to read and write, they were incredibly expensive. So here Paul was a very, probably a well-to-do person. Somewhere along the line, learned how to do manual labor like a blue collar person. I mean, just think about Paul. This kind of puts a new spin on it. Is that he had to set aside a lot of the privilege of the class that he even grew up in and work with his hands, you know, be a common laborer and a merchant of some sort. Either he worked for somebody or he made the tents himself and sold them. Doesn't tell us.

[20:45] But he had the privilege he has of getting paid to be an evangelist. And now we get to the question, why? Right? Why does Jesus set aside his privilege? Why does Paul set aside his privilege? Paul answers it in verse 12. We didn't read it here, but I'll read it to you here. In verse 12 of this very chapter, Paul says this, We have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of God. I'm going to read that again because this is where it all comes together, right? We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

[21:27] So this is the standard for when we give up privileges. This is the standard for when we, when Paul gives up his privileges. And that is to not make it harder for someone to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean, we really want to get this one home, right? What's important to Paul? That you hear the gospel. Is anything in the way of the gospel? Is that in the way of you hearing the gospel? Me collecting some of the money? Is that in the way of you hearing the gospel? Then I'm not going to collect any money, right? I'll just put my hands behind my back. All I want you to do is to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. When Paul, how he begins the letter, My purpose when I came among you was to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's what he says. This is all I'm about. So if money is going to get in the way of this relationship between you and Jesus, if my money is going to get in the way of your relationship with Jesus, let's put the money off the table. I'll make tents. I'll find my own way, even though I have the right to it. And as we read further, and this is the standard for us, we give up privilege if that privilege will make it harder for or be an obstacle to someone else receiving the gospel.

[22:37] So that's, if you're going to ask the question, how does this apply to us? It does. It absolutely does. What is it? If we're talking to somebody about Jesus, what is it that's getting in the way of them hearing about Jesus, just actually meeting Jesus, right? And it's sometimes the answer is the self.

[22:57] As important as it is, the identity that we've built, the privilege that we have of asserting that identity and displaying that identity, that may need to fade in those conversations about Jesus so people can see Jesus. Now, this is all tricky. We'll get into a little bit why that's a bit tricky. But so Paul gives an example, right? The self shrink for Paul, the self shrinks. When he's sharing the gospel with a Jew, he becomes like a Jew, which isn't hard for him because he is Jewish to win the Jews. That is to bring them to Jesus. That's what he says, right? And when he's with those who are under the law, he's like one under the law or not under the law, right? Just depends. Or when he's with the weak, he's like the weak.

[23:39] And the weak could there mean either the powerless or the poor, people who don't have power. They're poor in society, right? He says, I've become all things to all people so that by all means I might win some for the gospel. That's what he really cares about. He's like, all I care about is people hearing the gospel and meeting Jesus when they meet me. And if me being more like them and my Jewishness helps, then I'll be more like them like a Jew. Or if me not being like a Jew, not under the law helps, then I'll be as I'll kind of act like not act like. But I won't make that as important when I'm talking to them. This is just good evangelism, right? So if we go to evangelism training, they'll bring up this verse a lot. They'll say, you know, when you're talking to somebody, you know, it doesn't have to be all about you. It has to be all about Jesus. And if it's all about Jesus, the you part kind of melts into the background. Doesn't mean it's not important though, right?

[24:34] Now, this is, like I said, a little problematic because I tell my kids is that they have rights. They should be proud of who they are, their personality, their individuality. All of that is important. And it really is, right? And the self, in some cases, it shouldn't shrink, right? We don't trade away who we are because then we don't respect who we are and then nobody else will respect us. Do you see? So it's important to be ourselves. It's important to be the people that God made. Absolutely.

[24:59] All of that's true. We have the right to our own self. We have the right to our own identity. However, we may understand it or construe it or build it and present it to other people. That's all super important, right? And I think especially if your identity is an identity that's been marginalized in our society or somewhere in history, then it is important for you to at some point in your life assert your identity and say, I'm proud of this. This is how God made me. This is who I am.

[25:29] Paul is saying, yes, I'm a Jewish. I'm a Jew. You know, what is Paul? He says, if you look at Philippians chapter three, he says, I'm a member of the people of Israel. He's got his list. He's got his list of things that he's, it would seem like he's proud of. He says, I'm a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. You know, like he's staking out all of his credentials, right? A Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee. You see all the little check marks, you know, all the little boxes he's checking. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameness, right?

[26:08] But what does he say about that in the next sentence? All of that is as nothing compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus as my savior. So yes, my identity is important, but there's something else that has to be on the throne of a disciple's life, and that's Jesus. And that has an identity of its own. That's the identity that has to show when there's an evangelistic conversation. So he could look at me and say, you're Norwegian? Great. You used to work for IBM? Well, that's amazing, Hans-Erik. You took sixth place in the discus in the state track meet? Wow. It's a little bit of sarcasm, right? Paul's not above sarcasm. He's just there, you know.

[26:49] When I'm sharing the gospel with someone, it's them that matters. It's them that matters. There's nobody more important, right, than that person. Not me, right? I want to know them. I want to know what makes them tick. I want to understand the God-shaped void in their heart. I think everybody has a God-shaped void in their heart, but I think it's a different shape. I want to know what the shape of that God-void is in their heart so that I can present Jesus to them in a way that will actually satisfy them and fill them, right?

[27:20] Right now, their needs are all that matter. I can set aside who I am for the time it takes to talk to them. It won't kill me. You know what I mean? It will not kill me. It's not literal genocide. It's not. It won't kill me.

[27:35] So that's kind of an evangelistic sort of principle. Right? And I think that's a very powerful principle that Paul gives us. I think it's very powerful. As we set aside the self for as long as it takes, maybe even longer, to have these conversations. But I think we also say, well, who's on the throne? Christ is on the throne. When people meet us, we want them to meet Jesus. And we want them to meet the person we are as we've been shaped by Jesus. And that's our identity, too. So let's not lose track of the idea that as a disciple, we grow and change. And those ways in which we become more Christ-like, that's our identity, too. And it's beautiful. And you know what's funny is it's different for every person. The Christ-likeness I've seen in other people is different from person to person to person. Praise God for that. I mean, there's this great variety in how God makes people grow.

[28:27] Now, oh, man. You know, I'm just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Sorry. I hope this is good stuff. I'm trying to bring some energy to it so that you don't fall asleep. What about the question of should a leader correct himself? Should a leader protect the record if their integrity is questioned? Right? Can a leader set aside the privilege of protecting their reputation? What do you all think? Should a leader set the record straight if their integrity is in question?

[28:51] Yes? Depends? Not necessarily? Good. I like these answers. These are good. Sometimes when we defend ourselves, it seems self-serving. But that might be okay because we might need to serve the self. So it does depend. I don't know exactly.

[29:07] It depends on the case basis. Here's the key that we have in this passage, all right? Paul does defend himself. Paul does defend his reputation. He says, I am not taking money for myself. Let's set the record straight. Whoever is kind of whispering about my integrity, let's set the record straight. I'm not pocketing any of this money. It's all going to Jerusalem.

[29:29] I am allowed to have this money. But for your sake, for the sake of the gospel, for not having an obstacle to you hearing the gospel, I'm not taking any of it. I'm setting aside my privilege. So Paul does defend himself. But why? Because the gospel is at stake. The gospel is at stake. That's why he's defending himself. If the gospel weren't at stake, I'm not sure he would defend himself. He might just let it roll off his back like water off a duck. You know, he might just go, it's not even worth talking about. But since it matters to them understanding the gospel, since it removes an obstacle that they might have in hearing the gospel from him, he does set the record straight. So maybe the test is, does defending my reputation advance myself or does it advance the gospel?

[30:14] That's maybe how you could think about it, at least in Christian service. When you're in your office, when you're in your work at other places, that might be a different question. But I think at least I like some of these answers. Yes, no, and it depends. Those are all good answers, actually. You know what I mean? But it's a time. It's so. Finally.

[30:36] I want to bring this into Lent. Lent starts pretty soon, a week from Wednesday. And for some people, it's a time of giving things up for six weeks or longer. So I want to suggest mindfulness in this next Lent. Be willing to give up who you are from time to time. Instead of giving up chocolate, which I can't. Why would I do that? Chocolate is too good. I could give up the privilege of the self being first and set that aside. And let Christ be first in conversations and in my presentation to other people. For the sake of someone meeting Jesus in me and hearing the gospel from me. But I want you to do that safely. If you do it, do it safely. You are who you are. God loves how you are and how you are made. It matters to God and is extremely important. But it can be set aside for a time and it can be taken up again. So it's a little bit complex. Thank you all for hanging in there with me this one. I think this is, this is, we're not afraid of some of these more advanced topics. Because we're being called into deeper discipleship. And there's some thinking that goes into this. Paul really cared about the Corinthians. He wanted them to grow and understand and learn. And so we present this in that way too. This is something where we can all grow.

[31:47] Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for this example of Paul who sets aside his own privilege for the sake of the gospel. Father, put it in our hearts today and in this Lent. That we set aside all the privileges that aren't really ours. And that we're not really that necessary in the moment. So that you and your son Jesus can shine through in what we are and what we do and what we say. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.