Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 12:4-12
As you're seated, you can take a Bible, find the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, Luke 12. Last week we looked at the first three verses in Luke 12. This morning we're going to look at Luke 12 verse 4 to verse 12. There's an outline in the bulletin if you'd like to follow along on the outline. This morning we're going to talk about something that most of us would probably rather not even think about, much less spend a morning talking about, but we're going to talk about persecution. And maybe we should just begin the discussion by admitting that as people who live in the Bible Belt of the United States of America, this is something that I'm just going to speak for the group. Maybe not you as an individual, but for the group. This is something we know nothing about. This is something that we have not experienced in a real genuine way, most of us. If you want to talk about persecution, you could talk about ISIS who kills Christians and really anybody who disagrees with their narrow view of Islam, but they definitely persecute believers. You could talk about places like North Korea, where you can be sent to a labor camp for owning a copy of the Bible, could talk about places like Iran, where pastors are routinely jailed for preaching and for leading their congregations. You could even talk about places like the Northeast portion of Africa, places like Somalia, where a couple of years ago I know the average life expectancy of an adult convert to Christianity was not measured in years or months but weeks. We could talk about persecution around the world, but we also should just admit that our country is changing. We're not to a point yet where I think most of us go throughout our daily lives fearful of persecution, but I think we're at a point now where you can look down the road and maybe we don't have a timeline and maybe you can't put it on the calendar and say this is when it's going to happen, but you can look down the road and you could foresee circumstances and situations where you and I might have real decisions to make when it comes to persecution for our faith. Luke 12 is a helpful passage. In this passage, I understand Jesus is not only talking about being persecuted, he is actually being persecuted. We left off last week and the scribes, the Pharisees, the lawyers, Luke 11, 53 and 54 are trying to trap Jesus, they're trying to provoke him, they're trying to catch him in a situation where then they can get rid of him and they can dispose of him. Eventually, they got him, they charged him with blasphemy which was not a crime for the Romans but was a crime to the Jews and they convinced the Romans to put Jesus to death on their behalf, they convinced him that this would be best for the empire as a whole and they killed him, he was persecuted, he was put to death. We understand that he knew it was coming, he was not surprised, you can go back and just jot down Luke 9 and you can go back and read in Luke 9. Several chapters earlier, Jesus looked at his friends and he said, "Look, they're going to kill me, I'm going to die, here's how it's going to happen." Three days later, I'm going to come back from the dead, none of this was a surprise to Jesus, he knew it was coming, he was prepared for it and he also knew this. He also knew that his followers should expect the same treatment he deserved or he received and he wanted you not to be caught off guard by it, not surprised by it but to be prepared for it and so even though we live in a place in a time where because of things like Memorial Day, we have amazing freedoms, we need to prepare ourselves and say things could change. It could be different next year than it is this year, it could be different in ten years than it is now, it could be different for my kids or my grandkids than it was for me and for my parents and so this passage is Jesus getting us ready. Here's the big idea of the passage, really simple, God used the persecution of his son to seek and save the lost. Use the persecution of Jesus to seek and to save the lost and now never does God promise his people would be spared from the same earthly experience. He used the persecution of the Son of Man to seek and to save the lost and now for you and me, for followers of the Son of Man, just understand that never does God promise that we will be spared from the same type of treatment. By now you know Luke 19 10 says the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, you know that that happened at the cross where wicked men put Jesus to death, they killed him, God used that as Jesus took our place and he took our punishment, he sought us, he saved us, it really, really happened. You also understand that the same Luke that wrote, Luke wrote Acts and in Acts 2 23 and 4 27 to 28 you can look those passages up, Luke says that what happened to Jesus when those wicked men put him on the cross was exactly the eternal plan that God had predestined to take place, that's what Luke says. Do not make the mistake of thinking of the cross as some sort of tragedy, some sort of plan B that God called an audible at the last minute and made good out of a bad situation. That's not the deal, Luke says in Acts 2 and 4 this was the plan from before the foundation of the world. God predestined it to take place, these wicked men did it and they're responsible but this is exactly what God planned to take place. Today we understand that as followers of Jesus we're not immune from this sort of treatment. We're grateful to live in a place where we don't experience it day in and day out but we don't deserve to not face persecution more than our brothers and sisters in Christ who live on the other side of the world and face it on a daily basis. We also understand that it could happen here, things could change, we could go on a mission trip and it could happen to us on other places on planet earth and so Jesus is saying to us be ready, know that it's coming and be ready. Look at Luke 12 and let's read these few verses beginning in verse 4. Jesus speaking he says, "I tell you my friends, do not fear those who killed the body and after that have nothing more they can do, but I will warn you whom to fear, fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell." Yes, I tell you fear him. They're not five sparrows sold for two pennies and not one of them is forgotten before God. Why even the hairs of your head are all numbered, fear not you are of more value than many sparrows. And I tell you everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven and when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your word. We're grateful that Jesus speaks truth into our lives and that he tells us things that are sometimes difficult to hear and so we pray that we would have ears to hear, hearts to receive, what Jesus is saying to us this morning, that your spirit would apply these things to our hearts. Father, that we would be ready for whatever we may face in this life, even persecution. We ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen. One of the interesting things about this passage when you read verse 4 to 12 is that a lot of the things that Jesus says here can be find elsewhere, particularly in Matthew and in Mark and when you find them in these other places in the Gospels, they're in totally different contexts. Jesus is talking about different things in the Gospel of Matthew when he talks about sparrows and the value of sparrows and God knows the hairs on your head. He's talking about something different and you can find the same thing for most of what Jesus says here. He's talking about the same sorts of things in different contexts and you read these verses and it almost looks like it's not the case but it almost looks like Luke just sort of pulled a bunch of verses from Matthew and Mark and mashed them all together and said this is what Jesus has to say about persecution. That's not what happened. You understand that Jesus taught these men, his disciples, for several years and he didn't just talk about prayer once, he didn't just talk about worry once, he didn't just talk about persecution once and as he talked about all of these different topics like most teachers like all teachers, he repeated phrases, he repeated illustrations, he repeated comments and things sounded very, very similar as he talked about different topics in different situations and so we understand from the context Jesus is now facing direct and intense persecution that will lead to his death and he's trying to get his disciples ready to face the exact same thing and so how do we prepare for persecution, just a few ideas from Luke chapter 12. The first one is this, very simple, fear God, not man. If you want to be ready to face persecution, fear God, not man. You look at verse 4 and Jesus addresses his disciples as friends. It's the first time in the gospel of Luke that Jesus called these guys friends. In fact, when you read the gospel side by side, this is that we know of the first time that Jesus looked at his disciples and called them friends. I am assuming that most of you in this room today would like to be a friend of Jesus. You're here on a Sunday morning, on a holiday weekend, you could be a million other places, you're here at church and most of us if we did a show of hands would say, "Yeah, I would like to be friends with Jesus." Just note how Jesus defines friendship. He defines it different ways in other passages, but here he says, "My friends, there will be some people who will kill your body." You understand that being a friend of Jesus does not mean that you will somehow be immune from persecution or from any sort of suffering. He's saying to his friends right up front, there's some difficult things that you could face in life. Don't be afraid of those who can only kill your body, fear the one who after he kills can cast you into hell. I wondered this week, what do we fear in Odessa, Texas? What do we fear? Maybe we fear crime, so most of us have alarm systems on our homes. Maybe we fear economic downturn, maybe we fear low oil prices. Maybe if you're like me, your biggest fear is driving through 42nd and grandview. You just sort of get up there and say a prayer and close your eyes and here we go, I hope I may get through it. What do we fear as Christians in Odessa, Texas? What are we afraid of? Not fears that would be unique to anyone in Odessa, but fears that would be unique and specific to believers here. I'm going to tell you one thing I think a lot of Christians fear in this part of the world, is they fear what other people think about us as Christians. Here's what I mean. I bet most of you are not at all ashamed to claim the name of Jesus Christ or to have other people that you go to school with or you work with, to have them know or to understand that you're a Christian. I don't think that you're afraid of that, but I think a lot of us are afraid of being crazy. I want to be a follower of Jesus, but I don't want to be a crazy follower of Jesus. I mean, I don't want to be like a fanatic or a lunatic about it, and I don't want people to think I'm just over the top nuts. I think a lot of people in the Bible about wrestle with that. I want to be bold in my faith. I want people to know, but if I'm too bold, what would they think of me? If I'm too pushy, what might they think of me then? So maybe that's a fear for some of us. Maybe we fear in our day and age taking a stand on the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, meaning that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, that he's the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through him that there is no other name given among men under heaven by which we may be saved. Maybe we fear taking a stand on that because we're afraid that people will look at us and think of us as narrow-minded, maybe, maybe not. Maybe we are afraid of taking a biblical stand publicly on the issues of gender and sexuality and marriage and family. And maybe it's not that we don't have certain convictions, but we just fear taking a stand on those convictions because we don't want people to think that we're bigoted. And we've seen other Christians take a stand, and maybe we think, "You didn't do that very wisely. You didn't do that very tactfully. You could have done that better, and we don't want to be lumped in with those people." So maybe we're afraid to take a stand on those issues. Jesus says there is one person you should fear, and only one. And it is the one who has the power to give life and to take it, and then to throw you into hell. We read through the Gospel of Luke, "This is the only time Luke uses the word hell." And Jesus talks a lot about hell, but in the Gospel of Luke, this is the one time that this word hell is used. And some of this is on your outline if you're following along on the notes. The Greek word here is "gehenna." The Hebrew word is "henam," and what Jesus is referring to, and what the Jews at this time were referring to when they used this word, was the valley of "henam," just south of Jerusalem. And so this is sort of a map of maybe what the ancient city of Jerusalem looked like, how it was laid out. And you can see the temple precincts over sort of on the northeast corner of the map. And then Kidron Valley runs down the side, and the "henam valley" down here on the bottom. You see, what was so bad about the "henam valley," about "gehenna." Well, in the Old Testament, this was one of the places that some of the wicked kings of Israel used to sacrifice their children, burning them alive in fire to the God-molek. They did that in this valley. You can read about that in the verses I put on your outline in Jeremiah. You can read about a good king, later named Josiah who came along and went to this valley and abolished all of that, just desecrated the area and said, "We will never do this again." But that happened. Some of the kings of Israel took their children to this valley and burned them alive in the fire, offering them as sacrifice to the God-molek. In Jesus' day, nobody was offering human sacrifice there, but they were dumping their trash there, this was the dump, and it just sort of burned and smoldered and festered and smelled. But that's where all of the refuse went into this valley. And the Jews took the name of this valley, "henam" or "gehenna," and they used it. They used it to describe the place of eternal punishment. Hell, you want to know what it's like? It's kind of like that is what they were trying to say. You can fill in the details of what that means, but that was their image, that was their point of reference. It's something like this, and Jesus says, "You should fear the one who, after taking physical life, not only stops there but has the power to take life eternal and to send you into this place." Read this week about a man named John Hooper. And John Hooper was a Protestant Christian, that's him on the left. He lived in England, about the 1500s, and England in the 1500s ish was a rocky place. It was rocky because the Protestant Reformation was sort of underway, and they sort of went back and forth between Protestant monarchs and Catholic monarchs. And they took their job as monarchs seriously. And when a Protestant monarch was on the throne, they did their best to make sure England was a Protestant nation. And then if a Catholic monarch took the throne, they did their best to make sure England was a Catholic nation. And back and forth they went, and John Hooper happened to live during the reign of Mary, the first queen of England. You don't know her as Mary, the first you know her as Bloody Mary, named because she did her best to make sure that England was a Catholic country, not a Protestant country. And you can get online, you can find books that list out all of the martyrs who died under Mary. One of the people arrested was John Hooper. And John Hooper had a decision to make. The decision is, would you like to have your head remain attached to your body, or would you like to recant? Those are the options. Either recant and join the Catholic church, or we chop your head off. Here's what Hooper said in response, "Life is sweet and death is bitter, but eternal life is more sweet, and eternal death more bitter." Nobody's pretending like they want to die now. Nobody's pretending like life is not good, and there's not things that you would want to continue enjoying with your head on your shoulders in this life. Hooper understood that, but he also understood what Jesus is talking about. There's a sense in which I fear having my head removed from my body. That sounds bitter. Let me tell you what sounds more bitter, dealing with the one who has the authority to cast into hell. So number one, preparing for persecution, fear God, not man. Number two, never question the Father's love. Never question the Father's love. Here's the balance to the passage where we say fear God. Jesus turns around and he says to his friends, "You've now been brought into God's family. He cares about you. He's concerned about you. You look in these verses, verse 6 and 7, he says, "God takes care of the sparrows. You're more valuable than birds. He'll take care of you." He says, "God knows the number of hairs on your head." I read this week that the average redhead has 90,000 hairs on their head. Any redheads? Redheads? None? Bailey, you're not raising your hand. I'm looking right at you. 90,000, there you go. There's one in the back, there you go, 90,000. Average brunette, 120,000, so brunettes you have taken the lead and blondes, bless your hearts, 145,000. Now, that doesn't count if you're not a real blonde, if you're a brunette or a silver or something else. I wish it worked that way. I wish you just die blonde and boom, 145,000, there they are. I'm one of the guys pulling those averages down. You understand the point of what Jesus is saying is not how amazing is it that God can count to 90,000 or 120,000 or 145,000. He's saying God cares about you and he knows you as an individual. Billions of people on this earth and he knows you down to the number of hairs on your head, whether they be 90,000 or 90,000 in one or 90,000 in two, he knows. Not just averages, he knows you and he's concerned about you. Never question the father's love. You understand that in the moment of persecution people do that sometimes. Why would God let us experience something like this? Does God not care about us and Jesus is saying, look, there will be people who want to take your life. Don't be afraid of them and remember that God cares about you. You don't evaluate whether or not God cares for you on your circumstances. You evaluate it on Luke 19, 10. The Son of Man came to seek you and to save you. Of course he cares for you. So he never questioned the father's love. Number three, refuse to take the easy way out. Refuse to take the easy way out. Verse eight and nine, Jesus talks about acknowledging him and denying him. I'll tell you a little story and then you can figure out how this applies to your life because I think the application ought to be fairly easy. In the early church, after Jesus died on the cross, sent it back to heaven, Rome was still in charge and things for Christians were sometimes okay in the Roman Empire and sometimes not so okay in the Roman Empire. And there was a little practice in Rome about this time, sort of like the ancient Roman pledge of allegiance, if you will, where they expected Roman citizens to say the words, Caesar is Lord and to take a pinch of incense and to toss it into a fire standing or burning below a statue of Caesar, right? We say the pledge of allegiance. We do that in school. We train our kids to do that. That's sort of what they did in Rome, right? No pledge of allegiance, but you're going to say Caesar is Lord. You're going to take the incense. You're going to throw it in. But Christians found themselves in a tricky spot. They believed Jesus was Lord. They didn't want to say Caesar is Lord. They didn't want to burn incense to a statue. They wanted to worship God in spirit and in truth, not to worship idols. And sometimes just to be honest with you, I don't want to make it sound worse than it was. Sometimes that was not a big deal and Rome just sort of looked the other way and okay, you don't want to do it fine, you're a conscientious objector. At other times, depending on who was Caesar, they took it really seriously. And Christians had a decision to make, just like John Hooper. Do you want your head removed from your shoulders, or do you want to say the words and burn the incense? Those are the two options, die or do it? And so Christians started debating, what should we do? And they tried to get tricky with coming up with moral dilemmas and situations. What if you're a single mom and your kids depend on you and you're the sole hope for these children and keeping them alive and sustaining them. And they put you on the spot and you have to do it. What should you do? And some people said, you know what? What you should do is to just say it and toss the incense and God knows you don't mean it. So you just do it. You go through the ritual. It's meaningless to you. You don't really believe that Caesar is this statue and it's incense and prayers. God knows it's a bunch of whole of blue and you can go home and take care of your family. Don't you care about taking care of your family? Wouldn't God want you to take care of your family? God won't care. Just do it. Other Christian leaders came up with this idea and they said, look, you get put in that spot. That's a tough spot. You probably should just go ahead and do it and save your neck and then as soon as you do it, repent and God's going to forgive you. So he is going to be upset that you do it but we know he's loving and forgiving and gracious. So just do it and then as soon as they turn around you repent and you say, God, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that and you live to see another day. And they argued about this and here's where it really became difficult. It became a point of contention when they said, who can be part of the church? But if you've said the words and burned the incense, can you be brought in? Does that cut you off? And they wrestled with this and they struggled with this. And listen, you can come up with all sorts of moral dilemmas and difficult circumstances and what would you do? What would you do? Here's what Jesus is saying, don't take the easy way out. I'm calling you not to take the easy way out. You confess me before men, I'll confess you before the angels, before my father. You deny me before men and the same will happen to you. Refuse to take the easy way out. That leads us to the controversial part of the passage. Number four, understand the consequences of falling away. Luke 1210, scripture says this, everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Lots of debate about this passage, a lot of question about what is the unforgivable sin. I'm always amazed to meet people and to come across people who think that the unforgivable sin is suicide, no biblical support for that whatsoever, really comes down to our society and people think that from a Catholic background and the idea of mortal sins, not a biblical shred of evidence for that. Met a few people in my life. They lean towards the charismatic spectrum of Christianity who say, look, this is what the Spirit is doing amongst us and our church through our church and if you question that or you say that it's not real or it's phony or it's fake, you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit and you're done for and that sort of puts you on your heels. Oh, I don't want to question anything that happens. I don't think that's what Jesus is talking about here at all. One of the things you do as you study God's word when you come to passages that are kind of tough to understand is you use something called the analogy of faith and that's sort of a weird phrase. It comes from Latin theologians many, many moons ago. But basically the analogy of faith says this, use the Bible to interpret the Bible. If one passage is a little bit unclear, go to other passages that are more clear and fit them together and try to figure it out by using God's word. Don't just sit down with a difficult passage and scratch your head and try to come up with something creative, listen and see if God's word is clear in other places. And so on your outline, I've given you a bunch of verses. We're not going to look them up. We're not going to talk about all the specifics in those verses. But I listed them out for you so that you can look them up and you can read. Each of those verses seem to talk about a sin that will not be forgiven, that is quote unquote unforgivable. And using the analogy of faith, you read all those together and you say they seem to be talking about a sin that won't be forgiven and so they're probably talking about all the same thing and you fit it together like that. Here's the definition that I have come up with and that I've put on your outline. The unforgivable sin is rejecting Jesus in the face of clear evidence, divine revelation in the testimony of the Holy Spirit. That's what it is. And Jesus takes it very, very seriously. One of the things people begin to fear when they talk about the unforgivable sin is whether or not they've done it. Have I done it? You don't know what I've done. You don't know how many times I've done it. Maybe I've crossed this line that you can't cross back. If you're worried about doing it, you haven't done it. That's why I put the passage about Romans chapter 1 in your list. You can read it later. Romans 1 talks about people pursuing sin for so long and with such intensity that eventually God gives them what they want. He just gives them over to it. Those people are not remorseful. Those people are not worried. Those people are not fretting about have I done this or have I not? Their hearts are hard and they've been given over to it. They got exactly what they wanted. God says, "You want me to leave you alone? I'll leave you alone." You want to pursue this sin? Pursue it to your end. He gives them over. So if you're concerned about committing it, then you haven't committed it. And if you sit here this morning and you say, "You know what, I acknowledge my sin is sin." Not like the Romans 1 man who says, "My sin is really good." But you say, "My sin is disgusting. It's horrible." You have no idea how bad it is. I feel sorry for it. I feel pain because it's brought terrible consequences into my life. I hate it. If that's you, you're not worried about this unforgivable sin, about crossing this line. And if that's you, you repent of it. You confess it to God and you trust in Jesus Christ who came to seek you and to save you. And if you want an example of how it plays out in real life, I listed this on your outline. You can look at Peter and Judas. Two men who both turned their backs on Jesus and had very, very different outcomes. One commits this sin, hardens his heart. He's given over to it. He goes out. He commits the sin. He feels terrible about it, but he never repents. There's no forgiveness. The other goes out, hardens his heart, cowers in fear, betrays Jesus, does a very similar thing to what Judas did, but he goes out and he's broken and he's crushed and he repents and he seeks forgiveness and he's brought back into the fold. Two examples of how that plays out in real life. But the big idea here is that you understand the consequences of falling away. You understand that in the moment of persecution, when you're tempted to take the easy way out, you remind yourself, there could be no coming back from this. I could harden my heart in this moment to save my neck and live another day and God just could give me over to a hard heart. So you understand the consequences. Number five, believe that God will always be with you. Not a prepare, you believe that God will always be with you. Jesus talks about this in verse 11 and 12. He says, "The Holy Spirit will be with you." He says, "The Holy Spirit will give you words to speak when you need to speak them." Not before you need to speak them, but when you need to speak them. I think about a funeral I preached with a guy, is that an assembly of God church in Oklahoma? And I was sort of the guest on their turf and I was talking with this pastor, we're about to preach the sermon. I was going to do the eulogy, he was going to preach the message and I said, "So what are you going to talk about? What are you going to share with the people?" He said, "Oh, I don't ever prepare a message. I just sort of go where the Spirit leads me." Come on. You got something in mind, you're going to talk about Lazarus, you're going to talk about John. What are you going to talk about? I don't know. I don't ever prepare. I just trust that the Holy Spirit will give me words to say. You understand, that's not what Jesus is saying here, Sunday school teachers. What are you teaching on this morning? "Oh, I don't know. We'll see where the Spirit leads." Just going to kind of go with the flow. You look at what Paul said to Timothy, he said, "Timothy, you need to rightly divide the Word of God. You need to study your tale off." You look at what Peter said to Christians, he said, "You need to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. Be prepared." Jesus isn't saying the Spirit's just going to sort of download a set of words for you to spit out in the moment of crisis. He's saying in the moment of crisis, don't be afraid that you're not going to recall what you need to recall. Don't be afraid that you're not going to remember what you've studied. Don't be afraid that you're not going to say what you're supposed to say. The Spirit will be with you and he'll help you and he'll bring to mind the things that you've studied and the passages that you've memorized. He will give you the words to speak even in the midst of persecution. I hope you understand and see how all of this fits under Luke 19, 10. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He didn't just sit up in heaven and sort of snap his fingers or give a command. He didn't just kick back and give an order for something to be done. He came to be with us. When you read in the Old Testament about all the passages about they built the tabernacle, then this is how God told them to do it. This is how they did it. This is how it ended up in the temple over and over these instructions. Sometimes you say, "Why are we repeating this? It's because God was coming to be with his people." It was monumental. They were sinners and he was holy and he was making a way for himself to dwell among them. It was huge. God missed that aspect of Luke 19, 10, that the Son of Man came to be with us, to walk among us, yes, to seek us and to save us, but to be with us. And even when he left, when he told his disciples, "The time is up, I'm leaving." He said, "I'll never leave you." He said, "What? You just said you're going away. I'll never leave you. I will be with you always, even to the end of the age." You need that hope to face life. You need that hope to face illness. You need that hope to face persecution. God will be with you. You've repented of your sins. You've trusted in Jesus. You believe and you rejoice that the Son of Man came to seek and to save you. He's with you. Let's pray. We're grateful, again, for truth in your word. We're grateful for Jesus, who prepares us for the things that we may face, the things that we will face. And we are grateful to live in a time, in a country, where we don't worry about this very much. But we know that that could change. We know that generations down the road could be different, and so we want to be prepared. We want to be ready. And if we're honest, Father, we just need to confess to you that far too often we fall short at far less than persecution. So we admit that and we confess it and we know that we not only need your help to endure through persecution and sickness and illness and suffering, but we need your help and your grace to endure through today. So we're comforted by the promises that Jesus gives us, that you care for us, and that you're with us. And we pray that we would hear the warnings as well, that we should not fear man, that we should understand the consequences of falling away and taking the easy way out. And we pray that as we take these things to heart and as your spirit applies your word to our hearts and our minds, we pray that you would keep us, we pray that you would continue to walk with us. We love you. We thank you that the Son of Man came to be with us and to seek us and to save us, and We pray in His name. Amen.