Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our Exodus series with a selection of texts from Exodus 28-29 on the importance of the priestly garments.
I don't know if you all saw it. She took a deep breath. Once she put that microphone back, she said whew, you know this is. So for those of you who may not know, and it's a reminder to some, we're in a sermon series going through the entire book of Exodus. So we'll actually finish it this semester. We'll go all the way through Advent, and it's one of those deals where, when we think of Exodus, we tend to think of the first 15 chapters and that's really it. We think of all of the you know, the burning bush, and we think of the rescuing the slaves from Egypt. We may think of the Ten Commandments, which is in chapter 20, but we forget that the whole end of Exodus is like this. And so I'm just going on a limb and say most of your life verses don't come from the second half of Exodus. And so you hear things like this and you think wait a minute, what's happening? Well, my hope is that, while, of course, we can't dive into everything in detail, that we will, as we walk through these portions of scripture, see the power and the importance of these texts for our life and for our story.
Damein:Last week, if you were here, ben preached a terrific sermon on tabernacle, so this idea of God promising to bring His presence and to dwell among His people, it's where our passage today just ended. God promised that all of this is a preparation for Him to come dwell in the midst of His people, and one of the ways that Ben framed last week sermon was that there is an existential gap in our hearts between what we desire and what we have, and he walked through ways in which that's true in many segments of our life. One of them in marketing, they call it, or in business development, they call it the want got gap. And so Ben helped us see that all of us desire. We desire a reality that we don't quite experience. Our reach exceeds our grasp, and so what we see in this section of Exodus is that God is coming to fill that gap. Last week, ben said whatever we do with that gap, when we experience it, that thing is our God, that thing is our religion, and so really, we're building on that theme from last week's sermon, which is that God has promised to fill the gap that His people long for. Essentially, at this point in Exodus, what we've seen is that Israel, from now on, will always know God Yahweh, the one who rescued us from Israel a historical fact and who will dwell among us. An ongoing fact. That's where we are, but now that God has promised to move into the neighborhood, so to speak, there's another gap.
Damein:There's another problem that presents itself, and that's what we're talking about today. We need God to bridge a very specific new gap that is brought about by His presence, and that is this. The Bible is very clear when God's manifest presence is among his people, he has to make provision so that they don't die. In other words, when God shows up to sinful people because of his holiness, he will burn them up. They will die. That's why everyone's terrified when they meet God. Have you ever wondered why, until Revelation, nobody runs up and hugs who they think God is? They just fall flat on their face. It's because of this gap that happens when God moves in. He has to make a provision for his people. So think about this.
Damein:It's a severely limited illustration, but when we moved in, we've only owned one house, and we bought it in 2019, and we moved into that house I recognized and realized oh, for the first time, I'm gonna have to learn some skills that I don't have Now I have a lot more learning to do, but YouTube has helped. But there is one particular reality in house ownership that I still won't go near and I know many of you will share this, and that is anything to do with electricity. If I can't unplug it and it's over, I'm not dealing with it. If I have to go out to the box and switch the power off to that at the circuit breaker, I think I'm gonna hire a professional or ask someone else who knows what they're doing to come over. Why? Because electricity is an amazing thing. It's a privilege. It'd be hard to imagine life without it.
Damein:But the reality is is that there's a lot of provision and protection in our house to protect us from that power. There's the GFI switches. Is that a real thing? I think that's what they're called GFI, so they pop and you have to turn them back on. You can test them. There's circuit breakers. There's all these realities. All of these things are provisioned so that the power of electricity in your house, when you engage it, you don't die.
Damein:Okay, so there's something similar here. When God, who is not electricity, who is not a thing that we can manage, but rather as a person, how much more when the holiness of God comes in your midst. Do we need provision so that we don't die? This is the gap, this is the problem that happens, and what we learn is that the way that God is going to deal with this gap, his provision is the priesthood. His provision between his holiness and our sinfulness and his promise to be with us, that provision that keeps us from dying, is the priesthood, and in chapter 28 and 29, we're introduced more fully to this provision in its detail.
Damein:So, largely speaking, chapter 28 is about the garments or the clothing of the priesthood, what they're supposed to wear when they do this task. Chapter 29 is about the consecration how does God prepare them in order to do this task? And then throughout, there are these, the tasks that are given to the priest, and so we're actually gonna take that general outline as our outline today. The first point is gonna be about the clothing of the priest, the second about the consecration of the priest, and the third is about the commission of the priest, or you could just say the tasks of the priest, and then we'll end with what does this have to do with us as priests? We saw in our assurance today that we are called to be priests. All right, so this is what we're gonna do today. Here we go. First point clothed what we actually see as the portrait of a priest in 28. So let me show you what I mean.
Damein:But before we go to the text, chapter 28 is filled with the exact details of the garments that Aaron is to wear. In fact, the text is so filled with rich detail that we can recreate this in real life. So you can Google images or photos of what this would look like, and it's actually kind of helpful. It's helpful if you look at it, especially if you're a visual person. If you look at that and you go back to the text, things are illuminated a little more. But before I point out only two specific things about the garments themselves, I just wanna reflect for a minute on how clothing works as it relates to tasks. So this could seem really foreign to us. We get a list of the specific clothing and we don't have a priesthood in the same way, and we could start to check out. But I just wanna remind you that at the heart of this there's something that we understand, there's something that we recognize. So I'm gonna start at the most basic and I'm gonna get to the most specialized in order to help us think about this.
Damein:So if you walk into Target or Trader Joe's or Publix or any grocery store, department store, what do people wear? They wear uniforms and they could be really simple, like at Target we've all probably experienced if you wear a red shirt into Target and you're at the shelf, someone might come up, tap you on the shoulder and ask you a question because they've mistaken you as they've scanned the store for someone who works there. Why? Because you're dressed in such a way where that might lead to that. Now, that's happened to me before. We understand that. That's awkward.
Damein:But if we go to a more specialized reality, you think about a police officer, a police officer or a firefighter. When you're on public, their uniform, their garments, are meant to set them apart in even a different way. Like a uniform police officer in public, there's no way you could mistake them for someone else. It's clear what they're there to do and what their task is. Now, if they're not in uniform, they just sort of blend in. But that's the point of their uniform Is so that they don't blend in. Same thing with a firefighter. Now let's go one more specialized uniform and it's actually probably more closely related to what we're getting at here and I thought about this and I thought about that of a surgeon and scrubs, particularly a surgeon.
Damein:So this week, as I was thinking about that, I swapped voice messages with a friend of mine who is a surgeon, and so I sent my friend this voice message and I said, hey, I'm preaching on the priestly garments this week at New City. Here's a little bit of what I'm thinking. I thought of scrubs and a surgeon. I don't know what I'm talking about, so can you tell me whatever comes to your mind after everything I've said and send it back to me? And so my friend kindly took the time to send me a message and they started off by saying that they find it interesting that surgery is one of the last professions that still has a type of purification ritual. They perform their duties, but before they do that, they scrub in.
Damein:Now, I don't know what I'm saying, but I think they scrub in I've seen it on TV which really helps. So they scrub in and then, after they've washed their hands, they walk in and they are gowned, and then they have their gloves put on and they have a mask on right and then they proceed to do the task. But it's this ritual, right? And so, as my friend was talking, my friend described the importance of a hospital guarding the operating room from outside contamination, and they told me that all the hospitals they've worked in haven't taken this as seriously as others, which frustrates them. But what was baked into this friend of mine in residency is that there was a guard that was placed at the exit of the hospital, on the parking bridge that goes into the parking garage where the residents park, and my friend was telling me that the job of that guard was to make sure that people in green operating room scrubs did not wear those scrubs out of the hospital.
Damein:So my friend told me, like hey, there's this reality in which you'd come in street clothes, you'd go in, you would change, you would remember, ah, I forgot something in my car. Let's say, you get to the door and you can see your car, but you're not going anywhere because there's a guard sitting right there that makes you turn around, put street clothes back on before you go out to your car, get what you need and come back in. Why? Because they're protecting the sanctity of the operating room. That's what they're doing you scrub, you gown, you glove, then you enter in to do your duty. How much more for the priests of God, who are preparing to bring the people of God into the presence of God, to pray on their behalf, to bear the burden on their behalf. This is what we're talking about. This is not strange. This is not weird. We understand this reality.
Damein:And so when we look at chapter 28 and 29, the order, there's actually something different. That happens, though, in the illustration I just shared. This is what makes sense to us the surgeon scrubs in, then goes into the operating room to put the gown on, but here in Exodus, they actually receive the gown first and then they're consecrated by the blood in the washing. What's happening here? Well, there are at least two things that are happening that I wanna point out today.
Damein:The first is that, in the Bible, clothing is often used as a symbol to express outwardly what the wearer should be. Inwardly, it doesn't mean it's what they are inwardly, but it's to display what they ought to be. So the fact that these gowns that were skillfully made were to bestow glory and beauty, which is what we see here honor and beauty. You could translate that glory to translate, to put on glory and beauty onto Aaron. That had nothing to do with his own honor and beauty. In fact, god was to bestow this on him. We have to get this order right, that God chooses to bestow honor and beauty on his priests first. So what we see is that the garments were not communicating what Aaron was in himself. We'll read in a couple of weeks the golden calf situation. Yeah, aaron doesn't look good in that, okay. So again, the garments were not communicating what Aaron was in himself, but what he was meant to be, what he represented.
Damein:So, in a very specific way, the ideal high priest. What we learn here is a man of heaven who walks in all the beauty and glory in the presence of God. You know how else we know this? Because the materials and color of the gown are the exact same materials and color of the tabernacle and who lives in the tabernacle God. So in a sense, what we have in the high priest is they are a living, walking, breathing tabernacle. This gets exactly back to what Ben was talking about last week that disciple making, we know, is tabernacle making, to make people disciples that the Holy Spirit, we know, dwells in. So we're getting a little glimpse of that here with Aaron. So the first thing again that we see here in him being clothed, first is that it's a symbol. It's a sign pointing to what the ideal high priest should be. But the other thing is that it tells us about the task of the high priest, and this is what I wanna zoom in to, just a couple of the specifics of this clothing, as some of it washed over us, particularly.
Damein:If you have your Bible, look with me now in chapter 28. We're gonna read verses nine through 12, verse 15 and verse 21. So I'll call it out as we read it, but go ahead and get, if you have it, exodus 28,. Starting in verse nine, you shall take two Onnok stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth. As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel. You shall enclose them in settings of gold filigree and you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the Ephod as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel, and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance, verse 15,.
Damein:You shall make a breastplate of judgment in skilled work In the style of the Ephod. You shall make it of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twine linen. Shall you make it? There shall be 12 stones with their names, according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name for the 12 tribes. Picture there is a square piece of this gown that is made, that's connected to the shoulders by these braided metal. They look like little chains, okay, and on this breastplate that goes right over the chest and the heart of the priest are to be 12 stones. Each stone is engraved with you guessed it the 12 tribes of Israel. But it's not just on the heart, also on the shoulder. On this shoulder, there's a stone engraved with six of the names. On this shoulder, a stone engraved with six of the names. And so what picture do we have?
Damein:This is the task of the high priest. The high priest walks into the presence of God. This is a dangerous bit, by the way. We didn't read this, but there are some bells at the bottom of the uniform. Do you know why? It's so that from the outside, people can always hear where they are in the tent, so that if they die, they know they walk and they hear the bells. They hear the bells and all of a sudden they don't, and they hear a thump. They know that the priest is dead, which is why they have a rope on them and they pull them out Because nobody's gonna go in after them. All right, so everything matters.
Damein:So what about this? So the priest is walking into the presence of God and he's bearing the names of the people, and the two particular places really matter. He's, in a sense, carrying the people on his shoulders and he's bearing their names over his heart. This is the role of the priest. There are probably several layers of significance to this, but most obviously is that in this action, the high priest is representing, virtually becoming or embodying the people before God. You see, the people can't go before God, but the priest can, and his job is to take the people before God.
Damein:Now there's something else. That's really amazing here is that a priest does two things. One, he represents the people before God, but then, when he comes out, he represents God before the people. So imagine this when he walks in, he has all 12 tribes on his heart and on his shoulders, representing the people before God. But when he walks out after he has done his duty, what do the people see? When he comes out representing God on their behalf, they see that their names are on the shoulders of God and on his heart. Do you see this? Do you see the power of this picture? You see there was a sense in which these precious stones were to speak of where their covenant God kept his covenant people carrying them and loving them.
Damein:Listen, the reality is that it's hard not to immediately see how Jesus, who is our great high priest, frees our conscience and speaks peace to our burdens, right here in this picture. You see, we see the portrait of the high priest here. The whole message of the gospel is that Jesus, the real high priest, carries us as people on his shoulders and he keeps us forever on his heart. This is amazing. So, wherever you are today, whether you're weary or you're hurting or you're confused, know this that Jesus bears you up on his shoulders as your great high priest, that he carries you forever on his heart. This is amazing. This is powerful. Christ himself is our high priest. We see that Christ was the Holy One of Israel incarnate. He was the great priest. So all of the gowns that Aaron and his sons wear are meant not to point us to Aaron, but rather to point us to Jesus, the true priest, who carries us on his shoulders and who puts us ever before his heart.
Damein:Now we'll come back to some of this in a minute, but let's move on to the second thing. It's not just we see the clothing of the priest and the portrait then of a priest, but rather we see, in 29, the consecration of the priest and this is the provisions for a priest. So if chapter 28 was answering the question what is the ideal priest? What are their tasks, what are their character, chapter 29 is saying, hey, we're not far enough in redemptive history where Jesus has come, so the only options we have for priests are sinners. So chapter 29, in essence, is answering the question how do sinners take up their tasks as priests? So this is the main subject of chapter 29. Ordinary, sinful people, in this case Aaron and his sons, how can they enter the priesthood? Because, you see, they are ministers who are sinners, that are ministering to other sinners. So chapter 29 is answering this question for us. It gives us four elements that contributed to making Aaron and his sons priests of the Lord.
Damein:Chapter 29,. Verse four you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meaning and wash them with water. So the first thing is that they must be washed. Second, verses five through six and verse nine they are to be robed with a gown, they are to be given clothing. Verse seven of chapter 29, they are to be anointed. And then 10 through 25 talks of this threefold divinely appointed sacrifice. So these are all of the realities that have to go in to making it possible for a sinner to step into a priesthood.
Damein:So it's really important for us to see that the high status as the high priest had nothing to do with Aaron's worthiness, had nothing to do with anything inside of him. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that he was a Levite. So it didn't have anything to do with the family he came from. It didn't have anything to do with him being Moses and Miriam's brother. Rather, it was only by being clothed in these God-ordained vestments, in this God-ordained washing and anointing, that he could be set apart and made holy. This is what chapter 29 is all about. Holiness was not talking about Aaron's inner moral state, but something that God had given him, that he had clothed him with, was his holiness.
Damein:So, again, what I wanna say is that in this chapter we see a fantastic picture of the gospel. We see a fantastic picture of how you and I, of our sinners, are actually called into this priesthood that Peter picks up on in the New Testament. You see, you and I oftentimes can experience all of the gap that I named, which is what God calls us to be and what we are, and we can live our life getting no traction there, just spinning our wheels, trying to prove ourselves to ourself and to prove ourselves to God and others. Our minds and hearts are immediately filled with all the ways that we fall short. They're filled with all of the things we've left undone. They're filled with all of the things that we did and we knew they were wrong. This is what fills our hearts and minds, and so whether that can lead us is despair or disengagement. We think that, well, I haven't earned my way to be used by God, but the reality is is that that's impossible? Do you think Aaron earned his way to be used by God as a high priest? No 28, verse one, then bring near to you Aaron, your brother and his sons with him, from the people of Israel to serve me as priests. You see, god named them and then gave them the provision of how they become holy, how they become priests. And what I love about this is Ben quoted Hebrews last week. I'm gonna quote it again this week.
Damein:Hebrews is the book to help us understand this. It's the book to really help us understand the Old Testament and particularly this priestly system, this priestly provision for how this gap between a holy God and sinful people can be breached. Now you and I say correctly well, jesus, his blood was spilled for us, he took our place. That's true, but there's so much richness here that's offered to us. So I wanna take us just to two quick places. In Hebrews, five Well, hebrews five, then Hebrews 10. So in Hebrews, five verses, one through four.
Damein:What we read is for every high priest chosen from among men. There it is again. Aaron didn't choose become the high priest, he was chosen for. Every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. So love that Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people, and no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. No one takes this honor for themselves. Listen, you and I are tempted to reject the honor because we're so aware of how far short we fall, but it wasn't our idea to take it on. We don't have the option of being priests in the world.
Damein:If we're in Jesus Christ, we were called to be priests. We have obligations, we have responsibilities. You see, the reality is that we also know what it's like to sin. We also know what it's like to be ignorant and wayward, since we ourselves are beset with this weakness. One of the things I love that Ryan said earlier is that those of us who are weary and in need of a savior he didn't just say savior, he said in need of a sympathetic savior.
Damein:See, this is the beauty of the gospel here too, that Jesus knew no weakness and yet he took on weakness. He knew no sin, but he took on temptation. You see, jesus moves toward us. The thing that he calls us to do. He provides for you. See, how are you and I consecrated? How do you and I become priests of the living God? It's because of the provision made by God himself. Whatever God calls us to, he will provide. We are made priests to God.
Damein:You know all four of these elements actually, the New Testament speaks of for us. We've been washed from our sins by his blood 1 Corinthians 6. We've been clothed in his righteousness alone and we too have our anointing as its double significance of being set apart but also given a particular task. We see this in 2 Corinthians 1,. We see this in 1 John 2. And, above all, we come within the scope of the all-sufficient saving work of Christ. He has shed his blood for us and he has taken our place.
Damein:So how do sinners become priests? The high priest made the provision. All this is gonna matter when we land the plane in a moment, but I wanna read this beautiful passage from Hebrews 10 that sums up what I've been saying. This is Hebrews 10, verses 19 through 23. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through His flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. You see, what we see in the priestly garments is the portrait of the great high priest. What we see in the consecration of the priest is the provision of the great high priest on behalf of the priest. And the next. What we see is what do we do to take part in this task given to us? We see the commissioning and the task of a priest.
Damein:Researchers point out that chapter 29 informs us of our priesthood and that Peter almost certainly had this chapter primarily in others in mind when he writes of the New Testament people as a holy priesthood. So it's clear that you and I now are in that priesthood. All believers in Jesus Christ have the role of bringing people before God and bringing God before people in all of our life. The New Testament speaks about this in four ways. I'll name quickly and then I'll apply this and we'll be done.
Damein:There are four ways in which we are priests. One, we are to reflect the holiness of God, particularly displayed by our high priest. So what does this mean? You and I, as we grow in our faith, are actually to look more and more like Jesus, and then, as we look more and more like Jesus, we're to be like mirrors that display Him to others in all of life. That's the role of a priest. Second, we offer spiritual sacrifices, as Paul said in Romans 12, 1. That is to say, we offer everything we have our gifts, our resources, our heart, our mind, our time. We offer them as sacrifices to the Lord on behalf of others.
Damein:The third thing is we are called to intercede before God for others. This is one reason why we want to be a praying church. This is why the pastors on Monday pray for every member of this church every week by name. We pray for you and we pray for your families, because it's part of what it means to be a priest, to do the intercessory work. And if you've ever prayed for that many people and in our time we split it up it is work Like you have to sort of like gird up your loins and you just got to go for it. You know what it's like to spend time in intercessory prayer for family or friends, sometimes over decade and years. It's a very particular type of work and prayer intercession. This is the role of priests. This is the role that we're all called to on behalf of our neighbors, our coworkers, our family, our friends, our children, our spouses, our roommates. We're called to bear up this work of intercessory prayer as a priest, and the final thing is that we are to represent God to others.
Damein:Now I'm going to summarize this in two points. To be a priest, in two words, is presence and prayer. That's how you and I are to live, as a kingdom of priests in the world around us. Actually, the bookends of chapter 28 and 29 tell us that. In chapter 27, right before the garments, we hear of the lampstand. You know what the lampstand is? The lampstand is just that of lampstand, good guess. And in a lampstand are candles. And they are instructed never let these candles go out night and day. Why? Because they show the presence of God among them. And so you and I now are to bear the light of God. We are as Jesus said. He is the light of the world. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, and then you and I are to be light in the world, lampstand light presence.
Damein:We are to take God's presence as his anointed priests into every domain of life that we go. And that's actually kind of intimidating, right. Everywhere you go you are not anonymous, only to the other people, but everywhere you go there's no hiding. Everywhere you go there's no checking out. It's not like, well, when I'm in these situations I'm very aware and willing to be a priest, I'm very aware and willing to reflect the light of God and to be judged by that fact.
Damein:But some of us say, when I'm in this particular place maybe not work in general, but when I'm in a negotiation room, it's just business and I just take that light and I just cover it up because it's just business and I just do what business people do. Yeah, I might have to cheat a little bit there, I might have to get a little rough here, but what we do is we don't recognize that in that space we are to be a light, always burning, carrying the presence of God to those people, reflecting his goodness. So that's on chapter 27. Chapter 30, we get this picture of incense is always to be burning. Don't let the light go out and don't let the incense stop burning. What is incense? What we see in the Psalms, we see in Revelation. The incense represents the prayers of God's people, and so we are to bring the presence of God before people and offer prayers continually and again Ben spoke to this last week.
Damein:Disciple making is tabernacle making, and where we're going to do this is inconsistent daily work. Now I want everyone to pay attention. If you're not paying attention, come back to me just for a second. Okay, we did a lot of very particular things. This is a lot of Bible nerd stuff, okay, but I want you to hear me If you are in Jesus Christ, you are a priest.
Damein:If you are a priest, no matter where you go, you bear the presence of God in you and you are called in a unique role to intercede for others. But I want you to know that you don't have to be special or attain a certain status in order to feel confident in that role. Listen, most of the most meaningful things you and I will do in our life will be in very ordinary situations. They'll be in day after day, praying with our kids. They'll be, week after week, praying for our neighbors, engaging them and serving them Year after year, walking into a workplace and pursuing peacemaking and good leadership and management, where we take on as some have called a redemptive frame that we move beyond I win, you win. It's all good right, and we actually move in a redemptive gospel frame and say I sacrifice, we win. This is the role of priests ordinarily, year after year, over an entire arc of a life, over the entire arc of a career, to take the presence of God everywhere we go.
Damein:I want to end with this. Sometimes, you and I, we're not satisfied with the ordinary. You and I aren't satisfied with that. We want excellence, which isn't always bad, but really we want to be special. I mean, that's really what we want, and it's one thing to say. Jesus Christ has made me special, and one day Ryan and I were talking about this before the sermon today.
Damein:In Revelation there are some stones that show up, and one of the stones that shows up as a gift is that this church in Revelation is going to get a stone. These people are with their name on it. Someday, god is going to give you and I a name that we never could have named ourself with, but it fits us perfectly Because we are special, we are called, we are treasured in Him. But you know what I think you and I would have done this, what I would have done, because I really want to be special, I want to be seen as competent, I want to be seen as outstanding and I want it to look easy. You know what I would have done. I would have said Jesus, can you teach me how to do these miracles? Can you teach me how to do this? Can you teach me how to heal the blind man? Can you teach me how to raise people from the dead?
Damein:But even as disciples, did they ever ask Jesus teach me To do the miracles like you? What did they ask Him? Teach us to pray like you pray. Teach us to come into communion with a father like you model coming into communion with a father, because, ultimately, what they know is that that's where the power comes from anyway. And so the call to be priests is to be in communion with God, moment by moment, day by day, as ordinary representatives of God before people and taking people before God. This is the good call of the Christian life, and we're all invited to rest in that and to take joy in that. Let's pray, father, we thank you for your goodness to us, your kindness. A lot of words today, as every sermon, and so, holy Spirit, I ask, even now, that you would prepare us for this time Ben's about to lead us through, that you would call to mind the very particular ways in which we need to hear that you carry us on your shoulders and you keep us ever before your heart, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.