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John 15:1-17
15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,1 for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
[1] 15:15
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Phil would open her Bibles to John chapter 15. John chapter 15. I'll actually be preaching on about that stained glass window up there in the corner. I was looking at the building with new eyes since we now own it, and the imagery that they have here and they're of the vine cluster. As we look how Jesus is the vine.
Joel Brooks:John 15, we'll begin reading in verse 1. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you were clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you.
Joel Brooks:As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, and he is thrown in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Joel Brooks:If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.
Joel Brooks:Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Joel Brooks:No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.
Joel Brooks:This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Our father, we ask through your spirit, you would open up our hearts and our minds to receive what you would have for us. Lord, we all come in here from different places this week, carrying different baggage, And we don't try to hide that from you, but we wanna bring that to you. Lay it at your feet and say, this is this is me.
Joel Brooks:Do with me as you will. Lord, we desperately wanna hear from you, from your word this morning. I pray that my words or this evening, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen.
Joel Brooks:There are a lot, a lot of things that you could say about this passage. It's jam packed full of theology and so I can't address everything. So what I wanna do is simply walk through the three images that Jesus brings up here. We have a vine, we have branches, and we have a vine dresser, and I just want us to walk through each one of these three images. Jesus says, I am the true vine.
Joel Brooks:Now this is the last of the 7 I ams in this gospel. So for Jesus, he has said I am the bread of life, I'm the door of the sheep, I'm the good shepherd, I'm the resurrection, and the life, I am the light of the world. Before Abraham was, I am. And now He says, I am the true vine. He's not just any vine.
Joel Brooks:He's the true one. Now, when we read a statement like this, it doesn't really mean much to us modern readers, but but to his disciples, they would instantly understood what he was talking about, and this would have been an astonishing claim for them. You see, the vineyard was one of the most common metaphors that we have in the Old Testament of Israel. Over and over again, as you read through the Old Testament, you will see God describing Israel as the vine that he has planted. And so you're gonna come across passages like Psalm 80, which says, you brought a vine out of Egypt.
Joel Brooks:You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river.
Joel Brooks:In Isaiah 27, the Lord says this, a pleasant vineyard sing of it. I, the Lord, am its keeper. Every moment I water it. In days to come, Jacob shall take root. Israel shall blossom, and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit.
Joel Brooks:This vine imagery was such a common metaphor for Israel that when they built the temple, they had an engraved vine that wrapped around it, and the clusters of this vine were made of sparkling jewels. All the people who had heard Jesus say that would have instantly known what he was talking about. Israel was planted to be a vine. To be a vine that wasn't just for Palestine, but it was to cover the entire world, bringing life, bringing fruit to the whole world. This was Israel's design purpose.
Joel Brooks:It's why God made a covenant with Abraham and he said that the whole that the whole all the nations, the whole world will be blessed through you. This is why God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, so that they would bring life to all of the world. The one problem, just a just a tiny problem that you have with this imagery as you go through the old testament, is that every reference though, is that every reference though to the vine and Israel being the vine, every reference turns out to be negative. Every single time the Vine is degenerative. It withers and it dies.
Joel Brooks:Most of the Vine references that we have end with God having to come in and to judge Israel because of its sin. So Israel could could never fulfill what what Isaiah had prophesied about when he dreamed that the whole world, that the whole world will be covered with this vine, he says Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit. That was never realized. But then comes Jesus. He comes in and he he steps right into this narrative of the vine, and he says, I am the true vine.
Joel Brooks:I'm not like those those pretender vines, those false vines. I'm I'm the real vine that all the old testament has been talking about. And he steps right into this old testament narrative, just like he's been doing over and over again, all throughout the gospel of John, in which he would say things like, the stairway to heaven. Well, that's me. Jacob's dream was about me.
Joel Brooks:The rock that Moses struck and water came out. Well, that is about me. The true manna coming down from heaven, that's about me. Over and over again, Jesus, he would take these old testament narratives, and he would step right into them, and he would say, you wanna know what they were really about? They all find their fulfillment in me, and now he steps into this metaphor of the vine.
Joel Brooks:He says, this has been all about me all along. I'm the true representative of Israel. But where Israel failed, I will not. I will bless the entire world. I will bring life and I will bring fruit to everyone.
Joel Brooks:This is what Jesus is saying here is that he is going to step into our failure, and he's gonna do the task for us. So this is what Jesus means when he says that he is the true vine. He is now going to be the one who brings life and who brings fruit to the whole world and do what Israel can never do. So what about these branches? Jesus is the vine, but then he goes on to say that we are the branches.
Joel Brooks:And this is defining our relationship with the Lord. It's a very intimate relationship, a a connected relationship. It's it goes against a lot of our common imagery that we might have for our relationship with God. God is not the boss and we are His employee. He's not the leader and we are the follower.
Joel Brooks:He's not just a master and us a mere servant. No, this vine imagery with Jesus being the vine and we are the branches means that we are intimately, intimately acquainted with him, connected to him. We're those little shoots that come off the stem. And all of our life, all of our hopes, all of our dreams, everything we hope to be, it comes from our connection to Jesus. And this is what it means when you read throughout the Bible and you find that phrase, in Christ, over and over and over that we are found to be in Christ, that's what is being talked about here.
Joel Brooks:We are in Christ, we are connected to the vine. The life that Jesus has, he gives to us. Everything that he is becomes ours, and it flows to us. And our job is to just suck that in and to suck that in in order that we might be transformed and that we might have life. Verse 5 says, Apart from me you can do nothing.
Joel Brooks:I'll be honest, at first when I read this I'm just like, well that's just not true. Apart from apart from you, we could do nothing. I mean, we could do a lot of things apart from Christ. You could get married, you could have children, you could get a somewhat rewarding job. You can go on vacations.
Joel Brooks:You can have, some relative joy. You can do a, you could do a quite a number of things apart from Christ, but what Jesus is saying here is no, that's just spinning your wheels. You're not actually doing anything. Nothing of substance. You cannot do anything of substance apart from me.
Joel Brooks:You cannot do what you were designed to do apart from me. Because this is what you were designed to do. You were designed to bear fruit. 7 times in this chapter alone, Jesus is going to say that our purpose is to bear fruit. That's why we were made.
Joel Brooks:So whatever you are contemplating as the purpose of your life, as you're thinking of the who you're supposed to be with, the where you're supposed to to go, or or when you're supposed to do these things, as you're thinking through your the big purpose of your life, know that the overriding purpose is this, that you are to bear fruit. Wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing, your purpose, your overriding purpose is that you should bear fruit. And the fruit that we are to bear, we read about in Galatians. It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. Any of y'all learned that song growing up?
Joel Brooks:Now I've got fruit. I won't do the motions for you. I spent 20 something years trying to get it out of my head and didn't you have kids and it all comes back. The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. This is the fruit of the Spirit.
Joel Brooks:Now we are modern go get them Americans, so we like to focus on what we can do, what we can accomplish, not who we are or who we are becoming. That's why, you know, if you're meeting people at a party, you always ask what do you do. You never ask who you are because if you just ask who are you, people just gonna they don't know how to answer that. We define ourselves by what we're doing, not who we are or what we hope to become, but this is an identity issue here. This is a character issue here.
Joel Brooks:Are you becoming a more loving person, a more joyful person? Are you becoming a person who is filled with patience and kindness? What Jesus is describing here is character, character change, character transformation. Life is coming into the areas that you were dead, and it's bringing in this life and this new fruit. And it's not just so you become an easier person to live with.
Joel Brooks:That's a byproduct of character transformation is that you become an easier person to live with. The reason that we are to bear fruit is it's all for the glory of the Father. Because if we are loving, it reflects the Father's love. If we are kind, it reflects the Father's kindness. If we are patient, it reflects the Father's patience.
Joel Brooks:And so when we bear this fruit, we become better image bearers of the Father, reflecting his glory. That's why we are to bear fruit, not just to make us better people, but so we would will reflect the glory of God. And so that when the people rub up against us, your neighbors or your coworkers, and they taste you, they're tasting of the fruit of God, and they're seeing his character. So whatever you think your purpose is, know that your overriding purpose is to bear fruit. As Christians, don't expect it to be instant.
Joel Brooks:Bearing fruit takes time, but you need to always be progressing in this area. If you're attached to Jesus, you're gonna be sucking in His life and the inevitable outcome is bearing fruit. You cannot be a Christian and not bear fruit. This is a fruit that cannot be counterfeited. Notice in Galatians, it's there in your worship guide.
Joel Brooks:Notice in Galatians when Paul is describing the fruit of the spirit, he says fruit, not fruits. He says fruit singular. There is only one fruit and that fruit of being in Christ is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. That one fruit is all of those things. It's not just joy.
Joel Brooks:It's not just patience. It's not just gentleness. It is all of these things. Now apart from Christ, you might be able to fake 1 or 2 of those things, but you can't fake them all. And if you are a Christian and you are only growing in 1 or 2 of those things and not growing in all, what Jesus is saying is you need to ask yourself, are you really abiding in me?
Joel Brooks:Because if you're abiding in me, you get the fruit of of all of this. All of these qualities begin to come into your life. You can't just always be hanging your hat on that one thing. Well, I have the joy, and you're always saying, well, I've got joy, I've got joy, therefore I'm a Christian. So what if I'm not good at self control?
Joel Brooks:If the fruit of the spirit is growing in you, all of these areas will begin growing and developing in you, some more than others, but you will always be progressing. This is the fruit of the Christian life. And Jesus says here that the key to bearing this fruit is to abide in Him. Look at verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches.
Joel Brooks:Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. To abide simply means to make your home with, to make your home with. This verse is actually very similar to Revelation 3:20 in which Jesus says behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and I will eat with him and he with me. It's a very similar verse that Jesus is there, he's knocking on the door, he's saying can I come into your home and can we be together?
Joel Brooks:When he says he wants to abide with us, he's simply saying this, I really would like for us to live together. Can we do that? Can we live together? That's the intimacy that Jesus is after. I don't have time to to really land here, but I do want to just at least state this.
Joel Brooks:One of the reasons or one of the ways we abide in Christ is by abiding in His word. Look at verse 7. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. That life giving sap flowing from the vine is the word of God, And we're to always be sucking in that word. And sometimes that word you might be convinced is gonna lead to your destruction or to your death.
Joel Brooks:You have no idea how that word can help you, but it's for your joy and it's for your life and you need to suck it in. That's how we abide in Christ. Alright, so we've looked at the vine, We've looked at the branches. Now let's look at this vine dresser. Look at verses 1 and 2.
Joel Brooks:I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Not every branch that is connected to the vine is alive. There's actually a really scary verse here when you when you read it and think about it, because Jesus is saying that there are people out there who look like Christians. They're they look connected.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps they go to church, or perhaps they read the Bible, they hang around with the Christian friends, they look very connected, but they actually have no life. They're not bearing any fruit. And once again, let me be as clear as I possibly can be about this. You cannot be a Christian and not bear fruit. It is the inevitable outcome of abiding with Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Jesus warns us that we could look Christian, but we can actually be dead inside, and if we are dead inside, He is going to cut us off. And then in the most graphic terms, He said you'll be cut off and you'll be thrown into the fire because there really is no other purpose for a dead vine than to be thrown into the fire. It's worthless. But the shears, the loppers, if you will, that the vinedresser is using is not just reserved for dead branches, it is also reserved for the green ones. Live branches are also going to get cut.
Joel Brooks:Jesus says that every branch that bears fruit, He prunes that it might bear more fruit. Now can I just say that I really, really wish that this verse said something different here? I would love for it to have said something different, maybe something like this, if I was writing the Bible. Every branch that does bear fruit, the Lord blesses. Wouldn't you like that?
Joel Brooks:I mean, that would that would be, you know, a really good version there. Every branch that does bear fruit, The The vine dresser is always cutting. He's always cutting. If he's dead, he cuts you off and he throws you into the fire. But if you are alive, he's going to cut you as well, but this time so you might bear more fruit.
Joel Brooks:I know very little about pruning. Springtime I like to just hack away at our rose bushes, do a decent enough job. You just kind of cut away 2 thirds of them and they they bloom each spring. I know hardly anything about pruning grapevines. Thankfully, there is Google and so I was able to read a whole lot about it.
Joel Brooks:I'm not an expert, but according to the many Google articles that are out there, I can at least give you a general knowledge about what the vine dresser does and how the vine dresser prunes grapes, and it was fairly interesting because I didn't know that pruning was that important, but over and over these vine dressers, as they're talking about pruning, they would say it is the most important thing that they do, and the reason it's the most important thing they do is because they cannot control any of the other things. That's why we cannot control how much rain our vines get. We cannot control the soil that they are in, and all the different ingredients that they will that they will suck in, and that you will then taste in the flavor of the wine. We can't control that. We cannot control how much sunshine these grapes are going to get.
Joel Brooks:But the one thing we can control is the pruning. And so we have to put great thought, and we have to carefully cut away to maximize the potential of each one of these vines. What does pruning look like? Well for those of us who have never seen a vineyard being pruned, I think we would all be shocked by it because it would look like butchery. The the vine dresser is gonna get his shears.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna go and he's gonna just start cutting away at what looks to be a perfectly healthy vine. And he's going to cut away green branches and they're going to fall down, and you're going to see them oozing out sap. He's even going to cut away some of the smaller clusters of fruit, and they'll come falling down as well, and He's just gonna keep cutting and cutting, and when He's finished, the vine is gonna look completely ruined. You're gonna see all that sap oozing, all of these green branches, even some of the fruit, and it's gonna look like a butcher came in and just destroyed it. That's what it would look like to me, and it would probably look like to you, but but to a trained eye, that's not at all what it looks like.
Joel Brooks:The train eye will notice that not a single branch was cut off that wasn't actually a gain to lose and would have been a loss if it had been kept. The vinedresser did not cut at random, but with great care, looking over, meticulously over all of the branches, cutting off only the areas where he saw this was a waste of energy. This was a waste of resources, cutting away at maybe some of the limbs that were growing inward instead of towards the light. And if it was not bearing much fruit or only just a little bit of fruit, it was cut off as to not waste the resources of the ground. This is what God does with us for those who are abiding in his son.
Joel Brooks:He prunes us. Can I just say pruning hurts? Dead branches don't feel the knife, but the live ones do. And Jesus is saying that he is going to bring pain into our lives in order for us to bear even more fruit, and for the untrained eye, it's gonna look like God is just hurting us for no reason, and that all of the pain that's coming into our life is completely random. But that is not the case.
Joel Brooks:God, our Father, is only cutting the things off that would have been a loss for us to keep, And He will cut off the places in our lives where we are wasting energy, where we are being unproductive. He's even gonna cut off some of the areas where we are bearing a little bit of fruit, but only so that we might bear more fruit. It's gonna hurt, but God's gonna do this in order that we might have more fruit, that we might have more joy. Let me just say, and if we didn't know better, if we didn't know that this was God's plan and what he he was doing, we would be convinced he was punishing us, not pruning us. We'd be convinced of that.
Joel Brooks:If you are a parent, you already understand this because your kids, let's say they, you know, they would just love to eat junk food all the time, they would love to just watch TV all of the time, and so perhaps they're watching TV and you just come in and you just turn it off and say, get outside. Alright? The sun is shining. I want you outside. Your child looks at you and says, why do you hate me?
Joel Brooks:Why do you hate me? Or they might say, what? What? What did I do wrong? Thinking you're punishing them.
Joel Brooks:You're not punishing, you're pruning. You're cutting away what is a waste of their resources. You don't want their brain to turn to mush. They're like, get outside, be productive, bear fruit. It's pruning, not punishment.
Joel Brooks:But from the child's perspective, it's punishment. But from the parent's perspective, it's pruning. Let me ask you, how many of you when I was reading through, the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, So I was going through that list, you thought, I crushed that this week. I mean, I just nailed it. I crushed it.
Joel Brooks:Know, I'm going through, I'm like, you know, the fruits of the spirit is love. You're like, check. Joy, check. Peace, check, check. After last week's sermon, got that nailed down.
Joel Brooks:Patience. So like, you're like, man, I just I crushed that this way. How many of you? Any of you? No.
Joel Brooks:We're we're we're all like Israel. We've all failed at this. We have failed to be the vine, and we have failed to to bear the fruit that God has called us to bear. And so what the father does is he now comes in and he prunes. He prunes it so that we might actually bear more fruit.
Joel Brooks:And so he's gonna bring pain into our lives to teach us and to make us a people that reflect his character, to make us a people who have some depth to them. You know Lauren and I, we have people over to our house all the time for dinner. Probably a lot of you have come over at least once to our house for dinner. Well I want you to know that when you leave, we talk about you. Okay?
Joel Brooks:That's what we do. We just we talk about you. We, sometimes I'll look you up on Facebook afterwards. I usually give warning and say you have 5, 10 minutes. Remove any images.
Joel Brooks:You don't want to, but by the time you get home, I might just look up some things on Facebook. But my wife and I were always talking about the people who came over for dinner and, and what they were like, which ones that we want to stay at the church, which ones that we hope to leave. No, we don't do that. But just trying to remember all of our different conversations and often we'll be talking about somebody and and a certain characteristic or certain quality just stood out to both of us, and we'll say something like, could you just there was just such a gentleness to that person. Do you notice that?
Joel Brooks:It's like, yeah. There's just a gentleness and a kindness. There was just joy behind their eyes. And we'll both notice that, and then later as we get to know this person, what we realize is that usually they have had a terrible season of pain, or they've gone through a terrible tragedy. And that tragedy has softened them.
Joel Brooks:That tragedy has has made them a person of depth and of character in a way they would have never been before. God pruned them, And without even knowing that, we could just look, and at brief encounters, we could see the fruit, the fruit that came with that pruning that I'm sure hurt. This is what the vinedresser does. I love the the many stories we have of this throughout scripture. Perhaps one of the most vivid ones is the life of Joseph.
Joel Brooks:And Joseph was on his way to being a sociopath. Alright? He was. He was just a youth who thought, you know, everything was his, the world was his. He could go up to his brothers and be like, God likes me best and just, and he would say it to their face because he didn't really care about their feelings.
Joel Brooks:He was on his way to becoming a sociopath, and so you know what God did? God loved Joseph, and he said, I want him to bear fruit. And so God has his robe stripped from him, his fancy clothes ripped off him, has him sold as a slave. It's a massive pruning. And then God begins to restore him and he begins to bear fruit and he rises up and he becomes the head of Potiphar's household.
Joel Brooks:So then God looks at him again and inspects fruit and he's like, I can make this person even more fruitful. And so he prunes him again. And Joseph is now arrested and then he is thrown in jail. A massive pruning. And then God begins to raise him again and and bring even more fruit into his life, so much fruit that the entire nation is fed by him.
Joel Brooks:That's how much fruit Joseph bore. But it all came at a cost. He had to go under the knife. But the more God loves, the more he cuts because he is trying to bring out our fruitfulness. You know, even Jesus had to undergo the cutting of the vine dresser.
Joel Brooks:Hebrews 5, which is just a monumental chapter in Hebrews, but in Hebrews 5 you will read that Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. It's a remarkable verse. Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. Jesus was cut more than any other vine has ever been cut, But oh, the fruit. Oh, the fruit.
Joel Brooks:When you look at the cross, your first instinct is to look at Jesus on the cross and think, that is just a butchering. That is just random violence. That is just evil at its worse, and you will be partly right. It is evil. But to the trained eye who's gonna look there, you're also gonna see the careful hand of the father.
Joel Brooks:And when you see this blood flowing down, don't think, what a waste. Think, oh, what pruning and what fruit will come. A fruit that indeed fulfills the purpose that Israel was supposed to always have that will bring life and joy to the entire world. This is the truth that we're gonna celebrate as we partake in communion this evening. As we partake in this table, we are gonna celebrate the fact that we are in Christ.
Joel Brooks:That as we partake of His body and we partake of His blood, that we are reminding ourselves, just as those elements are going in us, we are reminding ourselves that we are sucking in all that Christ has for us. That we come here not because of any righteousness of our own, not any goodness of our own, but we are sucking in what belongs to Jesus, and everything that He has comes to us and gives us life that we might bear fruit. As we come to this table, we remember that apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. And we remember that how he was pruned in order that we might go and bear fruit. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, thank you for undergoing the knife. Thank you for bleeding on that cross. And we rejoice in the fruit that came from that. All of us here in this room are here because of that. And father, I pray for all the people that are here.
Joel Brooks:I don't know what season of life they're in. I don't know if they're coming out of pain or if they're about to go into pain, but no matter what season they're in, may they be reminded that this is a pruning and not a punishment, and that you're making them a person of character and of life. And ultimately this will be for their good and for their joy, and most importantly for your glory. Spirit, you're welcome in this place at this time to move in our midst and to lift up high the name of Jesus. We pray this in his name.
Joel Brooks:Amen.