A, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Titus 2:11-14 "SOS: Message of the Bible"

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14, ESV)

Grace mercy and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ, who has appeared and will appear again at the time our Father in heaven has designated. Amen.

It’s no easy thing for us to wait. Waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for it to go, perhaps? Waiting for the glory of God to appear once again as it did some two thousand years ago! Waiting for the salvation of God to be finished, fulfilled, taking all our fears and tears away once and for all.

What kind of Christmas have we made for ourselves? One might ask, “What kind of salvation are we really looking for? What are we actually waiting for? Is Jesus really the reason for the season of Christmas 2016?”

One thing for sure, our whole world, our local community is tired. Tired of what we have made Christmas as we wait for it to come. And wait for it to leave as the hangover of Boxing Day sets in amongst the flotsam and jetsam of gifts that continue us in the tiredness of this age, with all the wrapping and rubbish in which we garb ourselves for a bit of self serve salvation.

Like me; you, your family, your friends, the community, and the world is tired. This tiredness is the result of a world sailing further and further away from that which promises to give us true rest. Not just from waiting, but from having waited for, and received, what we’ve wanted.

And so desire has given us its gift and now we’re tired; tired of living with what we truly love. But perhaps to those whom God has appeared this tiredness is not such a bad thing. Our tiredness has made us aware of our sin! We’ve been awakened! The gifts we seek no longer satisfy. We’ve come to realise the worldly self help we’ve sought to enlist is really dragging us under.

It’s right here in our tiredness and in the realisation of failed worldly salvation that the all-encompassing graciousness and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father comes to the fore, and shines, despite our continual faithlessness. For those who have been baptised into Christ Jesus, the message of Christmas, and the whole message of Jesus Christ, is still alive and well, despite our human desires, good and bad!

In amongst the noise and distraction of today, just as in the days the star shone over Bethlehem, God appears. Humbly, quietly, lowly, and graciously God was with humanity; and is still with humanity today! In amongst all the things we want, but tires us to despair, God sends salvation. Even today in our tired world and our tired hearts he sends salvation.

But we are called to hear something very unexpected in the Christmas message, and the whole gospel message. Something subtle and counter cultural which is often over looked or taken for granted!

The unexpected is this: God himself saves.

When we realise we’re castaways, that there’s no more life in us; not even enough energy, or sense, to send a message in a bottle that may never be found, God himself sends the SOS. Waiting till we can wait no longer wait, tired beyond exhaustion, swamped in the self and shipwrecked; we no long have to worry, “Will God get my SOS; will someone get my message in a bottle?”

Human nature thinks it has to save itself, like a castaway putting a message in a bottle, or scratching out an SOS on the beach. But good news for those who are tired and exhausted on brink of despair; God sends the SOS, God is the SOS.

But when God sending us his SOS, our human natures respond in a very strange way! This is you and I still try to live like we’re on a deserted island, keep our wrecked reality hidden and therefore alive, not realising we all struggle with the same sin of separation as every other person God rescues. Yes! For whatever reason human nature seeks to hang onto the sin that keeps us in separation from each other and eventually leads back into separation from God. Even within each of us who know of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ, there’s the temptation to fight the SOS of God.

Now we add to our tiredness more tiredness by hiding our sin like it’s a treasure buried in the sand. But it’s a vulgar treasure we return to when we think no one’s watch, like a dog that returns to its vomit. We become tired from redigesting the very thing that made us tired in the first place.

And if we’re not exhausted enough already, we make ourselves even more tired with the charade of keeping up appearances, pretending not to be toters and touters of the very treasures that tire.

So that’s a trilogy of tiredness: Tired from sin, tired from trying to keep our sins hidden, and tired from pretending that sin doesn’t exist in our lives.

But let the reality be clear. See what the singer sees...

Walked out this morning

Don't believe what I saw

A hundred billion bottles

Washed up on the shore

Seems I'm not alone at being alone

A hundred billion castaways

Looking for a home

And we continue to send and seek our own SOS, as Sting from the Police once sung...

I'll send an SOS to the world

I'll send an SOS to the world

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

Message in a bottle

However, the gift of the Immanuel infant, the SOS Christ child, gives us a new home. He’s given to fight the very cause of our tiredness and trouble, he is given training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. He is given to gather us for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Good Works when where tired! So what are these good works? Well the good work that precedes all good works is that of believing. In Jesus ministry he was asked...

“What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28–29, ESV)

In fact when we work at believing, by hearing God’s word, studying it, allowing ourselves to be immersed in it we are allowing the Holy Spirit to bring to fruition all the good works God has prepared for us in advance to do.

Right here the SOS is continued, not by us, but in the same way God the Father sent Jesus to be our SOS. Both God the Father and the risen Jesus send the Holy Spirit to continue the work of salvation. The SOS continues! Not from what we do! But because we allow God access into ourselves; into the castaway!

And so the Holy Spirit brings us to the Father and the Son as a people, his people, gathered and redeemed from all lawlessness, and is actively purifying us as his own eternal possession. Our gift of salvation, God’s SOS, becomes one of life welling up in us to eternal life, even in the weariness of our age and the struggles of our day to day lives.

This leads us to the second work of God, the work of confessing our sin. We now no longer have to weary ourselves keeping up false impressions. Rather we can confess that which tires.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8–10, ESV)

See how the cycle of God works? Grace leads to grace, God’s good work leads to God’s good work in us, and through us. We are a bunch of castaways in communion, in community, and in fellowship tired from the same sinful natures, tired from the same sin in the world. Tired from the trilogy of sin that drags us under!

We believe we are sinners, we believe we are sinners being saved. It is peculiar to the human nature that God brings us into fellowship with each other, and does not separate us because of our sin. Yet even more than being brought into fellowship with each other, we are brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ, son of Mary, but also Son of God. A fellowship not born out of a baby’s cuteness but born for the fellowship of rescued sinners borne on the cross!

So the third good work is the Holy Spirit’s work of fellowship, allowing us to serve each other. Jesus Christ extends his great work through us to each other, so we might shine Christ to each other; hearing confession, praying and bearing the weakness and tiredness which Jesus bore as well.

The power of our fellowship is not us appearing powerful, but in allowing God to be powerful in his continual conquering of our weakness as a fellowship, and as individual sinners too. Hear the word of God from James 5...

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:13–16, 19-20, ESV)

So in summary, we all suffer at the hand of our own sin. The noise of it makes us tired. However, Jesus is sent from God the Father to be our SOS, and the Holy Spirit continues the SOS by gathering us together with each other with Jesus Christ.

This SOS is not something we throw out as a message in a bottle with the hope of maybe being rescued. No! This SOS comes as the message of the bible, pointing us to God and what he does and continues to do.

Calling us out of doubt and the tiredness of our lives into the living promises of true salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection!

The beginning of the story is wonderful and greatBut it's the ending that can save you and that's why we celebrate
It's about the cross it's about my sinIt's about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again
It's about God's love nailed to a treeIt's about every drop of blood that flowed from
Him when it should have been me
It's about the stone That was rolled away
So that you and I could have real life somedayIt's about the cross (Ball Brothers, It’s about the cross)

C, Advent 2 – Malachi 3:1-4 “My Messenger”

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The notice in the local paper read, "Jesus Christ appearing this Sunday morning at such and such a place and at such and such a time."

Would you be surprised God might use such a message to announce the coming of his Son to a spot near you? The advertisement is nothing grand; its text does not stand out from the other ads in the classifieds. What if God chose to send a messenger or a message in this way, how might you react on hearing or reading of his coming?

For the purpose of this exercise let's say the message is not false, but entirely true and Jesus Christ is coming to a venue near you. The words of the ad are the preparation for his coming and the way he comes is to your church this Sunday.

Excited? Scared? Perplexed? Thrilled? Perhaps you're just a bit apprehensive that he's coming, "Why's he coming to my church?" you ask yourself. "Where's he comin' from and how's he gettin' here anyway?"

Malachi receives an oracle from the Lord. He is a prophet and this oracle is a word from God; a word of burden on Malachi's heart if he doesn't pass it onto the people. It's a word or an utterance which has overcome his heart and mind. Put there by God himself to glorify God and raise the attention of those called to hear it. This word was given to lift up, stir up, sit up, shape up but also to ease, to exalt, to forgive, and help.

Malachi spoke in a time after some of the exiles returned to rebuild the temple in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra. However, the messianic age did not occur with the reconstruction of the temple. What they built was a building which stood in the shadows of the former temple of King David's and King Solomon's time.

This temple lacked the physical appearance of the former temple, and also noted was a spiritual vacancy. It seemed God no longer spoke as he had in previous times prior to their exile into the custody of the Babylonians. The Israelite's looked back to the days when God spoke through the Judges, the Priests like Samuel and Nathan, the prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. God had spoken, and no one listen, and now God had stopped speaking.

Malachi was the last prophet to speak some 430 years before Christ was born. He was the last to speak on God's behalf against the perversions of popular practice. He was a lone voice echoing from the silence of God before God went completely silent for some 400 years.

Malachi's name literally means "my messenger", he was a messenger and we hear him herald the coming of two messengers, the last prophet, and then a great messenger, who himself would be the message.

"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. (Malachi 3:1–4 ESV)

Malachi's message is harsh and sharp. They have not been treating the Lord as their God; their righteousness was not acceptable as righteousness before the Lord. They were not following God in the way he had willed them; in righteousness "to" the Lord. Their worship of the Lord was a show which God was going to test as a blacksmith would refine metals, and as a fuller would cleanse and whiten fibre for fabric.

To be clear what the washing agent was for a fuller in their day, was human urine. Not the fresh stuff, but that which was left to sit for a while so the ammonia content was stronger and better for cleaning and bleaching the fabric.

So the show was going to be refined by fire, and stood on like fibre worked in ankle deep urine. But this is only a picture of who is to come. To whom is the refiner's and the fuller's image referring?

The one to come came some 400 years after the fact. John the Baptist came to prepare the way of the refiner, the fuller.

…during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:2–3 ESV)

But whom was he preparing and of whom did he proclaim? He was calling the Jews and the Israelites to repentance for their sins against the Lord. A preparation for the cleansing which was to come! This was preparation to make the people ready for the refiner, for the fuller.

John answered them all, saying, "I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16 ESV)

So Malachi left his fellow Jews with a picture of one coming to wash in the widdle of one's own waste fluid and made pure with fire to remove the impurities.

And this one is the One and Only Son of God, Jesus Christ. He has come once and he is coming again. Yet he has already put the refinement and washing process into place. And he is coming again to finish what he has started. He is coming to gather the gold and the fabric gleaming in God's glory.

Now depending on how one might look at this we might see the ammonia of urine and the fire of refinement as something to be feared. We might regret the trials and tribulations into which we're subjected and in which we suffer. But if we fall into this temptation we are like those who love wearing dross rather than silver or gold; who seek to swim in the proverbial piddle and poop that comes our way in this life rather than those who wear the white garments to come out of the process.

On the other hand, Christ encourages his children, those who trust him, those who look forward in faith, enduring and persevering under the refiners and fullers of this life as a preparation of that which is to come. An eternity of silver and gold, wearing robes of righteousness as white and as bright as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

For we are told… when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (Titus 3:4–8 ESV)

Therefore the refiner's fire and the fuller's soap, no matter how crude they may seem are only agents of cleansing and hope for those focused on Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus has been submerged into the fuller's fluid and fired with the refiner's fires in the place of all those who trust in him.

The message may not be written in the paper, that Jesus is coming to such and such a place at such and such at time. But it is written on paper, in the Word of God. He has been coming and has come amongst us when we gather in the Triune name, and in his word to hear this teaching and promise of salvation and refinement. Therefore, those who take their garments soiled in sin can make them as white as snow by washing them in the blood of Jesus.

You see Jesus has been baptised by the Holy Spirit into his ministry of the cross and with fires of hell itself on Good Friday, so that the trials and temptations in your life might test us so we trust all the more the putrid and pungent plight of Christ being washed and refined for you, cleansing you this Sunday and every time the Holy Spirit calls and gathers us into Jesus' presence.

Jesus is my messenger and he is the message, I pray he is yours too. Amen.

A, Christmas Day - Titus 2:11-14 "Goodwill & Favour"

In these days many are having a wet or white Christmas. And with this comes separation from where they might want to be. In parts of the world you can bet there will be people who can’t be where they want to be, and with it comes sadness, frustration, and perhaps even anger. Even with climactic chaos, there will be folk who seek to blame someone else for their inability to be where they want to be.

Christmas exposes inner belief! Is it about the right to be with family, the demand to control the climate to satisfy the desires of the self, or the requirement to have things just the way we think they should be?

These things are close to what they should be but the motivation the wells up from with us moves us away from what God wants for us. Yes! We do have a right to be with family, we should desire a climate of peace and joy, and there is a necessity for things to be a certain way.

Saint Paul explains, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14)

Every person on this earth has a right to desire the grace of God; but not because they have earned it. It’s not a case of being good because Santa’s coming to town. In fact, it’s nothing like it. Nevertheless, we can expect grace because God promises it, because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. Calling all into the family of God!

But what is this grace all people can expect? It’s God’s generosity, his loving kindness, his mercy, his gift to you and me, his goodwill and favour, his acceptance, and his pleasure despite what we do and think exposing us for who we really are.

So who are we? We are people who need salvation. We need a Saviour because in reality Santa’s never coming to town if it is on account of us. We need a Saviour because of sin – my sin and your sin; the sin of all people. Grace is offered to all people because all people need it to be saved from sin and death.

In these days do many of us seek out the appearance of grace? Do we seek the Saviour? We all seek a saviour but is it one in which we wait for our blessed hope, the appearing again of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ?

Just imagine if Jesus appeared in all his glory right now, and said enough is enough, it’s time to take you out of all this. Most of us would be stunned at the change of plans. Hang on, I hoped to go home and have lunch, or go on holidays, or unwrap a few presents. In these days many of us hope in anything but the appearance of our blessed hope, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

But yet he comes into the lawlessness of this world — your heart — and implants salvation. Every time you hear the Christmas story, every time you see a manger in the shop window, every time you hear the proclamation of salvation in the carols, and most of all when you hear the word of God.

This word of salvation which comes to humanity, to you and me by the power of the Holy Spirit, trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in this present age. And this word of salvation has to because we’re ungodly towards God, and seek favour and goodwill for ourselves at other’s expense. We are passionate for what’s in the world rather than he who has made it and seeks to redeem it for himself.

Nevertheless, God still seeks to purify for himself a people as his own possession, he seeks to save; to bless and keep, and let his face shine upon those who receive and abide in his graciousness. The Lord of love and grace wants nothing more than to look upon you with favour and goodwill, so you live in peace — purified — despite whatever worldly strife seeks to disrupt you.

As we wait, frequently repenting from our impurity, turning towards our blessed hope, imagine what it will be like when we see the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

We have heard how the glory of God shone around the shepherds the first time when Jesus Christ dwelt with unclean, lawless, and ungodly people on earth. Picture what it will be like when he returns to purify those who believe they need a Saviour, to those who long and trust God to cleanse them of their sinful passions forever.

Unlike the shepherds who were unclean but privileged to see and hear the glory of God in the field and in the manger, we will be glorified, purified, having received the full measure of what our faith has hoped for. We will shine with Christ, greater than the angelic hosts of heaven. We will be glorified children of God for all eternity.

Do you want this? I want it! No more uncertainty that comes from my heart. No more conflict rising out of an over-abundance of my passion and from others misunderstanding it. No more pressures of time, there will be timeless eternity to be in awe of God and his glory. No more tiredness, no more pain, no more dishonesty, no more superficiality, everything will be real, everyone will be trustworthy. Do you want this? I want it, because here in this world I continually lose sight of the glorified child of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, have made and are continually making me to be.

The God of love; the true Father of Christmas, and his Son Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, want this eternal reality for you too. Amen.

Heavenly Father, lead us from the temptation to believe your kingdom is not coming to us. But move us to believe and receive the true gift of Christmas into our hearts, your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

B, Christmas Day - Titus 3:4-7 "Your Kingdom Comes"

Your kingdom come. God's kingdom comes indeed without our praying for it, but we ask in this prayer that it may come also to us. Amen.

God's kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy Word and live a godly life on earth now and in heaven for ever.

Christmas is all about God’s kingdom coming! But unlike the hullabaloo from advertisers over the last couple of months, it seems as though God could have advertised his kingdom’s coming just a little bit better. In all the gifts one will get, does the gift of Jesus Christ even register on your wish list, let alone make it to the top of the list as number one gift this Christmas? Do you meditate on God’s kingdom coming or on the coming of many Christmas presents?

On the surface the lacklustre advertising of God’s coming kingdom might not seem to be right. After all, John the Baptist was sent before to broadcast Christ’s coming. And “Hark!” didn’t the herald angel sing — Glory to the newborn king — before the shepherds at Bethlehem? Also, what about the wise men rolling into Jerusalem, parading before Herod and the Sanhedrin; looking for the King of Israel, advertised by the biggest star the heavens had ever held?

However, as extraordinary as these events are, they were all suppressed in some way. In the temple, Archangel Gabriel told Zechariah he was to have a son to prepare the way of the Lord and bring many back to Christ. But on hearing the news Zechariah lost his voice! And then when John began his ministry, his appearance would have left something to be desired, as he came eating locusts dressed in camel’s hair calling for repentance. Not much of an advert!

Then the shepherds didn’t help the cause either! They saw the host of heavenly angels proclaim glory to Christ, and they did go and report the event. But they were smelly characters! They probably hadn’t bathed for a long time and would have smelt more like sheep than people. Besides, they were ritually unclean, and like Zechariah couldn’t proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom in the temple!

And the wise men, magi, astrologers, star gazing their way to the Christ-child! They went home a different way not telling Jerusalem having been warned to do so in a dream.

It seems that just as Christ is buried under the wrappings off cheap Chinese Christmas claptrap, God allowed the Christ-child to be hidden under the accidents and muck of the day when Jesus Christ first came into the world at Bethlehem.

It all seems just a little bit weak and substandard for the entry of a kingdom as holy and almighty as God’s. Added to this, Jesus had what seemed to be misfit parents; he was conceived out of wedlock, enough to raise the eyebrows of even the most compassionate person! There he was hidden out back of a highway house of sinners in a manger. That’s no way to advertise and announce the coming of God’s kingdom!

But God’s kingdom comes indeed without our praying for it, but we ask that it may come also to us. And it did, it does, and it continues to do so, even though it rarely — if ever — appears on our Christmas present wish list.

In fact our meditation on just about everything other than God and his gift reveals that, it’s not the coming of our Father’s kingdom that’s weak, but in its seemingly weak appearance, it reveals our hidden weaknesses and failure to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Where we revel in the things that seem to come with authority and power, the kingdom of God seems to be anything but coming by the authority of God’s right hand and the power of his almighty arm. The herald angels have been drowned out by the harking of Harvey Norman and Super Amart’s 48 month interest free Christmas sales. The question has to be asked of ourselves: How am I contributing to the “cover-up” of the true Christmas gift?

God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy Word and live a godly life on earth now and in heaven for ever.

God’s kingdom comes hidden in weakness, and as it does it reveals our weakness. The weakness of the manger and all the events that surrounded it herald our weakness. But it’s because of our weakness that Christmas came and Christ continues to come.

Our entry into the kingdom often fails to appear as a dazzling gift. But when God takes us in our weakness and gives us faith to see his gift, all the other Christmas gifts suddenly seem gaudy and trite compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.

Saint Paul tells Titus what this gift is:

But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

Hark! Our weakness and the seemingly poorly advertised advent of our new born King, is taken to the cross, where the gift of grace is unfolded for all, and the apparent weakness of God in the death of his Son, reveals the almighty arm and powerful right hand of God. Christ was lifted up, advertising to all our sin, and declaring to the devil and his entourage of evil that he is doomed to eternal death.

In the weakness of human flesh the Kingdom of God came at Bethlehem! It comes to us in our sinfulness as the gift of kindness, love, and mercy. The kingdom comes to you and Jesus justifies you by his grace; the grace veiled in the weakness of the manger, the curse of the cross, and in his resurrection into all righteousness.

And so as we hack our way through wads of wrapping paper this year, God calls us not to be led into temptation by our weakness. He calls us to see the gift of grace, and in it see the kingdom of heaven hidden in the manger and the cross. And in our hope of being heirs of the kingdom, we pray… that God would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful self may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so tempted we may still win the final victory. Amen.

So we pray: Our Holy Father in heaven; your kingdom comes; therefore, lead us not into temptation; but forgive us and feed us on the bread of your Word born at Bethlehem; for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever, Amen.