In his sermon titled 'Hospitality,' Jonathan Sides discusses the profound significance of hospitality within the Christian faith, framing it as a reflection of the Gospel itself. He begins by referencing Julian the Apostate, a Roman Emperor who, despite persecuting Christians, recognized the church's benevolence as a key factor in its growth. This benevolence was characterized by acts of hospitality, including care for the poor, sick, and marginalized. Sides emphasizes that hospitality is not merely a historical practice but a fundamental Christian duty that must be actively pursued. He traces the roots of hospitality back to the divine fellowship within the Trinity and the peace in God's creation before the fall, explaining that hospitality serves as a means to restore fellowship broken by sin. Through biblical examples, such as those found in Genesis, Acts, and the letters of Paul, Sides illustrates how hospitality was practiced and its importance in the early church. He stresses that hospitality is an expression of love, not merely a social obligation or a means to gain favor. It requires intentionality, resources, and a heart aligned with God's love. Hospitality is also presented as a tool for evangelism, offering a controlled environment to share the Gospel. Sides concludes by urging believers to imitate God's ultimate act of hospitality, where He invites us into His presence through the sacrifice of His Son, and to reflect this divine love in their own acts of hospitality.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that you would continue to watch over our day of rest, our day of rest, and worship of you. We pray that you would be glorified by the thoughts that we have this afternoon. In Jesus' name, Amen. Julian, the Roman Emperor, was known as the Apostate.

He was a nephew of Constantine. And he hated everything that had happened with the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. He was a great persecutor of Christians. But there was one sense, at least, in which he admired them. He was complaining that the spread of Christianity was the result of the church's benevolence to strangers.

He said, it is disgraceful that no Jew has to beg, and impious Galileans support not only their own poor, but ours as well. And all men see that our people lack aid from us. This church that he's talking about had set up various forms of hospitality, various institutional forms of hospitality. These churches had hospitals, further rejected the marginalized, the sick, and the weak. But even with these kinds of institutions as part of the church, the church fathers said that individual believers were supposed to show the same hospitality.

Christostom said, even if a needy person could be fed from the common funds, how can that benefit you? If another man prays, Does it follow that you are not bound to pray? And he urged his parishioners to make a guest chamber in their own homes, what he called a place set apart for Christ, a place within which to welcome the maimed, the beggars, and the homeless. This church cared for about 3, 000 widows and virgins daily. And in addition to that, cared for those in prison, the sick, the disabled, and those away from their homes.

They provided food and clothing for those who came casually every day. And they built a number of hospitals in Constantinople. They provided care for strangers and orphans, for those who were sick, for the chronic invalids, the old, the poor, the destitute, travelers and strangers. So the question I have from this story is do the wicked rulers of the world look at our church today and do they marvel at our hospitality? Does it scare them?

Do they compare our hospitality with what they have to offer and see that we have something better? Hospitality is a hard thing. It is a very hard thing. But have you ever really wondered why? There's some very deep history to it.

There's some very fundamental reasons why hospitality is hard. You see, before creation, I mean deep history, before creation, before there really was a thing called history, There was God in His three persons, and God in His three persons was in perfect fellowship with Himself. There's no conflict anywhere in the world. There's not really even a world. There's just God in His existence.

And God in His existence is perfectly at peace with Himself. And then God makes creation. And nothing's wrong yet. God creates a man and He realizes it's not good for man to be alone. He's going to make a woman to keep fellowship with Him.

And this man and this woman, God keeps fellowship with in the garden. And they walk in the pool of the evening. But man broke this fellowship. And not only is man sent out of the garden as a result of this. But this breaking of fellowship introduces conflict.

It introduces conflict between God and man. It introduces conflict between man and the earth. It introduces conflict between men. The world's very first son killed the world's very first younger brother in the next chapter. Mankind is no longer naturally friendly, And there is no hope.

There is no hope that is aside from Christ. Because what happens through Christ's life, death, and resurrection is that there is now a mediator who has renewed fellowship between God and man. And having renewed fellowship between God and man means that there can be renewed fellowship between men. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and that the second is like it. And Christ makes this possible.

This renewed fellowship with the God is the origin of many, many, many other blessings that we have. And one of those blessings we have is we are now able to get along. But we still have to wrestle with sin. We still have to wrestle with this sin nature that's very deep. One of the ways that we fulfill the second greatest commandment of loving our neighbors is through hospitality.

In a sense, in a very strong sense, showing hospitality to people is showing them a picture of the Gospel. You know what the Gospel is. The Gospel is coming into God's house. How do you get into God's house? What is the doorway?

Well, Jason was telling us these things right before we ate God's food. When you come into God's house, the first act that you have is you're baptized. You're washed. And when you've been washed by the Holy Spirit and by baptism, you now eat of God's food. And you enjoy fellowship with God's people.

This is what the Gospel is. You are now no longer alienated from God. You are no longer strangers in the world, according to Ephesians. So you're washed, you eat, and you fellowship. This sounds a lot like hospitality.

Someone comes into your home, The bathroom's over there, dinner will be ready in 15 minutes, and then afterward we'll sit and talk and have dessert. Or maybe they come into your home for longer than that. They're spending the night, they're spending the week, they're spending indefinite periods of time. These things are a picture of the gospel. When you bring someone into your home by that very act, you are showing them what it is like to come into the house of God.

Not only is hospitality a picture of the Gospel, it is one of the first fruits of the Gospel. You know Acts 2. You know what happened after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is poured out on the people. And what did they do next?

They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

So you see, all the way, what happened back in the garden with Adam has been reversed. It's reversed in Acts 2. This is not a story of brothers killing themselves anymore. This is a story of breaking bread from house to house. This is what happens with our Gospel.

At Pentecost, God began expanding his church. And one of the very first things that God decided he would do, one of the first fruits of expanding his church, is he's going to put everybody in each other's homes. Healthy churches are those where the people are continually devoted to this kind of fellowship. And you are a young church. You have the chance to start off on the right foot.

The practice of hospitality spans the entire Bible. In the Bible, a characteristic of godly men and godly communities is that they practice hospitality. Consider Abraham and Lot in Genesis, or the various civil laws that Israel had regarding the treatment of strangers in the land. Just take the life of David. The life of David is filled with examples of good and bad hospitality.

Consider the way David is treated by Nabal, or consider the way that Saul treats David, or consider the way that David treats Mephibosheth. We could probably do a whole talk on the names that get listed at the end of Paul's letters, where Paul is commending people for being hospitable. Hospitality was so important to Paul that he was going to make it public in letters that would be read in a setting like this and then have been recorded for all time. There are people in the Bible that we know nothing else about except that they were hospitable. And that will stand for all eternity, for all the world to see.

1 Timothy 3, 2 and Titus 1, 7 both indicate that the qualification of an elder is that he be hospitable. Think about this for a moment. When you think about the kinds of things that qualify a man to stand up before you, have authority over your soul and stand before God, Many of the things that our modern church thinks are important don't make it on the list. Many of the things we might even think are important don't make it on the list. On the list of important qualities of an elder, the size of his library is not there.

But whether or not an elder is hospitable is a qualification. Hospitality is not some peripheral Christian virtue. It is central to the life of a Christian and the growth of a Christian community. You cannot be growing as a Christian without practicing hospitality. I'd like to look in depth at three particular passages on hospitality.

If you're taking notes, we're going to start in Romans 12, verses 9 to 13. There are many other passages. There's a little book by Alexander Strouk called The Hospitality Commands, which I recommend that you pick up if you haven't. It's a very short book. It's shorter than any of his other books.

And all he does, just like with any of the other books Strouk writes, is he says, look, here's what the Bible says, and we're not doing it. We should be. One of these places where the Bible commands us to be hospitable is in Romans 12. Start at verse 9. Let love be without hypocrisy.

Abort what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the states given to hospitality. This passage starts with a very important, yet somewhat abstract concept, Let love be without hypocrisy. And then it builds on itself.

And it builds on itself and it keeps getting more and more and more specific. How do you let love be without hypocrisy? Well, first thing you do is you abhor the bad stuff, cling to the good stuff. Well, how do you abhor bad stuff and cling to good stuff? Be affectionate to one another.

How do you be affectionate to one another? Well, among other things, you distribute to the needs of the saints and you be given over to hospitality. If Acts 2 shows us that the early church was devoted to fellowship with one another, in Romans 12, Paul is instructing us to be devoted to each other in love. All three of the passages that we're going to look at today are in the context of love. Love is the central theme in which all these passages are dropping out of.

And that's the way that the Bible talks about hospitality. Reflect on it for a moment. It is an error to suppose that members of a church can be continually showing love for each other if they are not actively practicing hospitality. It is an error to suppose that members of a church are loving each other if they are not actively practicing hospitality. One cannot decide to live a Christian life and never practice hospitality.

Do you have a house? Do you have some spare food? Practice hospitality. Furthermore, the passage says that they are to be given to hospitality. In the New King James, the NASB says practicing hospitality.

The ESV says seek to show hospitality. Everybody here agrees that the verb means to pursue hospitality. I believe that the verb here is even the same verb that Paul uses elsewhere to mean the word persecute. So Paul talks about himself being persecuted for the sake of the gospel. And here he's using a verb that is so strong, you need to be pursuing hospitality like it's persecution with a zeal.

It has to be chased down. Hospitality will not just happen. It is easy to say that you want to be hospitable, or that when circumstances change, you'll then be hospitable, but that just doesn't happen. Consider the parable of the great supper in Luke 14. A certain man decides to give a big supper, but everybody he invites turns him down.

So what does he do? He doesn't just say, oh, I tried. He goes out and he pursues everybody else. He pursues those in the streets. And he brings them in and he puts garments on them and he feeds them.

That's how we should practice hospitality. Another passage I'd like to look at is 1 Peter 4 verses 8 to 10. Above all things have fervent love for one another. For love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.

As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." First thing to note, again, the context here is love. Above all things, above all things, be fervent, have fervent love for one another. And then what's he say? What's the very next thing that comes out? Be hospitable.

Paul is looking for an active kind of love. He's not looking for nice feelings. He's not looking for sweet thoughts toward your neighbor. Be hospitable, he says. It says to practice hospitality without grumbling.

Now, yes, there's a book out there that says the hospitality commands. Hospitality is a duty. But if you just go through the motions, if you just do hospitality because I have to, you're not doing the hospitality that's being asked of. In a sense, you could think of this as, hospitality is something like tithing. It's something that we are asked to do, we're required to do, we are required to give of these resources.

But if it's done with grumbling, it's not what God asks for. It's not what's required. Hospitality is an act of love. It is a ministry, and though often hard work, It's not supposed to be thought of as a chore. Remember Mary and Martha.

Look at verse 10. This verse is about far more than hospitality, when it says that as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another. But it does tell us about our standards for hospitality in our homes. When you look through your church, you will see people practicing hospitality in different ways. And that is because God has measured out His gifts in different ways.

Not everybody's hospitality will look the same, because not everybody is called to be hospitable in the same way, and because not everybody is given the talents to be hospitable in the same way. But it does say, as each one has received a gift, so minister. In what ways, really ask yourselves, in what ways has God made you a steward of His grace? Minister in those ways. Be not covetous of the things that God has given you, but be generous.

Remember Luke 12, 15, Jesus says, take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Hospitality takes resources. It takes food, it takes space, it takes money, it takes time. And in the measure that God has given these things to you, measure them back in your hospitality. And one last passage.

Hebrews 13, 1-2. This is one of my favorite. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Well, First note, if you look at this verse in the New King James, the word hospitality is not in there.

The word hospitable is not in there. In the Greek it's the same thing where it talks about entertaining strangers. It's the same word. Talk about the word for a moment. The word entertains strangers, the word hospitality is a compound of two Greek words.

One of them is phileo, the other is zinniah. Phileo is the word for brotherly love. It's the word we get Philadelphia from. Zinniah means stranger. So hospitality, as it's translated in the Bible, literally means kindly affection towards strangers, brotherly love towards strangers.

And so the author of Hebrews is saying, let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to show brotherly love to strangers. It's in a verb form, if you want a verb form of hospitality, it's do not forget to hospitalityize. And again note that the context here is love. And this is what you find all through scripture.

Hospitality occurs in the context of love. If you think of hospitality as a chore, If you think of it as something that is not an act of love, you've missed the boat. You don't understand what hospitality is. Let love continue. How will be hospitable?

Sometimes it's useful to note what the Bible does not command. We should definitely pay attention to the things that it explicitly says to do, but Sometimes it's useful to note what the Bible does not command. We should definitely pay attention to the things that it explicitly says to do. But sometimes it's useful to note what it's not saying. The writers of scripture, including this passage here, they never feel compelled to command us like this.

Whenever commanded, be hospitable to our very best friends. It's not be hospitable to those people who are just like you, or Be hospitable to those people who are just like you. Or be hospitable to those people who like you. Or be hospitable to those people whose children are the same age as my children. That's not what this passage says.

Paul doesn't command us these things because we don't need to be commanded to be hospitable to our very best friends. We're going to do that on our own. It does say to be hospitable to strangers. Remember what Jesus says in Luke 14. Then He also said to him who invited him, when you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for You shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Do you have these kind of people in your church? Do you have poor, maimed, lame, and blind here? If so, be hospitable to them. If not, why are they not here?

Invite them. Be hospitable to them. Who are the kind of people that you invite to your church? Do you invite the kind of people you think might repay you in some way, that will like you for inviting them? So even though Jesus says that we should not be doing hospitality with an eye towards being repaid, recognize that there are great benefits from being hospitable.

There are great benefits from all the fruits of the gospel. And this passage is emphasizing that. Do not forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some of unwittingly entertained angels. We know from scripture that Abraham and Lot had angels in their homes. History is full of examples of people who are blessed by giving hospitality to pastors or missionaries.

And on a historical note, writing in the first century like this wouldn't have struck a pagan crowd as being very odd. You think of the Christian virtues. There's some Christian virtues that the pagans understand, and they appreciate and they approve of. There's some they don't get. So in the first century, the pagans understood loyalty and courage.

They liked those. Chastity they didn't get very much. That one boggled them. But hospitality they understood. Whoever was writing Hebrews is writing in a context of A broad culture that thought very, very highly of hospitality.

There were very strict rules governing how to be hospitable. Someone would come into your home, and you had to feed them, you had to entertain them, You had to make sure their needs were cared for. They would ask requests of you. You were supposed to fulfill those. And then you gave them a gift as they parted.

And there were rules for how to be a good guest in one's home. It's said that the whole Trojan War was started over a failure of being a good guest in someone's home. When it's typically not a good thing to take a man's wife when you're a guest in his home. But the point being is that that war started because somebody said, this is a violation of our rules of hospitality. They thought very highly of hospitality.

So highly, they have all this mythology built up where the gods and the goddesses would disguise themselves as men and they would come and they would ask of human beings for their hospitality. And they would either reward or punish based on the hospitality they were shown. And you know what Hebrews is doing. Hebrews is coming into that pagan culture with that kind of background, and Hebrews is saying, it's real. It's real.

Some have entertained angels doing this. We skipped over a phrase, a very important phrase. The verse says, do not forget. Do not forget. It says that because that's what we're prone to do.

We're prone to forget to show hospitality. The tyranny of the urgent, the needs of the moment, the things that are happening in our lives are the things that prevent us from showing hospitality. Most of us probably do not wake up and think, I'm going to make an active effort not to show hospitality today. We don't choose to sin that way. What happens is we forget.

We forget to show hospitality. And finally on this passage, asking to whom should I show hospitality is a lot like asking who is my neighbor. The Bible does explicitly forbid Christians from showing hospitality to two groups of people and only two groups. It explicitly forbids us from showing hospitality to false teachers And it explicitly forbids us from showing hospitality to unrepentant sinners after they've undergone church discipline. But everybody else is fair game.

Everybody else is either a brother in the church or they're a stranger, and these passages that we've looked at cover them. You should be showing hospitality to all these people. Several applications from this. And really, when you think about it, hospitality is all about applications. It's all about applications.

First, hospitality is a picture of the gospel. It is a fruit of the gospel and it is also a means of the gospel. Having people in your homes is a wonderful way to do controlled evangelism. You don't know what's going to happen out there in the street corner. You can control what happens in your home a little more.

One of the primary ways that we can lead people to Christ is to have them around our table. Do you practice Deuteronomy 6 in your home? When people aren't around, are you practicing Deuteronomy 6 in the sense of, have you taken the things of God and made them part of your normal daily activities? Have you made the things of God the part of your normal conversation, your prayers before meals, your family worship? If you're doing these kinds of things, when you bring somebody into your home, and you keep doing them, they're going to see the Gospel.

They can't help but see it. When you bring somebody into your home, you're making a division between your home and the rest of the world. And you say, when you come here, this is a place of God. This is a place where God is exalted and worshiped. And I want you to see that.

That's why I'm bringing you into my home. Secondly, and related to that, ask, who needs to see this? Who needs to see a picture of the Gospel? Do you have neighbors? Do you have new neighbors that need to see this picture?

Have them in your homes. Does Youngsville need to see this picture? Have them in your homes. Does Youngsville need to see this picture? Have them in your homes.

Does your pastor need to see a picture of the gospel? I know he saved. Could he benefit from a reminder? Do your other brothers and sisters in the church, do new members need to see a picture of the Gospel? Do your children need to see a picture of the Gospel when you bring people into your homes?

Do you need to see it? Be hospitable. Third, the things that we've talked about today are not supposed to be ammunition or fodder to judge the perceived failings of other families in their efforts at hospitality. There are no commands in scripture that say, complain about the lack of hospitality in your church. There are no commands in scripture to say, be upset that you don't get invited over as often as you like.

Realize this is a very common complaint. It's a common complaint because it's true. When you go out in the world and you look at other churches, You see that people are complaining that their churches are not friendly, that they're lonely, that they don't have any friends, and it's because hospitality is not a virtue that is practiced in our world. But there are no commands to complain. If your church, if you are here at Sovereign Redeemer and you think, wow, our church is not hospitable enough, there's something you can do about that.

Your household can be hospitable. Your household can show the other households how to be hospitable. And you start inviting people over, and you start inviting people in. If you notice that your church is lacking in hospitality, then do your part to fix it. God sees.

Fourthly, biblical hospitality is not modern, what we call entertaining. In the sense that you bring people into your home to entertain them in order that you might get some kind of benefit. You invite your boss over so that you might be able to ask him for a promotion. This is not what the Bible has in mind with hospitality. Hospitality in scripture is an act of love.

It is an act of grace. It is something where you open your hand freely and you give it the resources that you have in your household to those who might need them, to those who might benefit from them. You have a man up here talking about hospitality and because of that we've been talking big ideas, esoteric. We haven't been talking about the nitty-gritty of things. We haven't been talking about how to do hospitality very much.

One of the things that you can do, though, is you can get your whole family involved. And as you get your whole family involved, make sure that your whole family understands what's going on. When your children are sharing toys with the other children in the home, make sure that they understand that this is an act of the gospel, that they are showing Jesus' love towards these other little children. When They're helping you set the table and they're putting out the silverware. They are doing these things as unto Christ.

Make sure that they understand this. Talk to your families about hospitality before your guests arrive. Talk to your family about hospitality after your guests leave. Yes, it's a picture of the hospital, but it's not always an obvious picture. Make sure you make it obvious.

I want to emphasize again that hospitality must be pursued. Hospitality doesn't just happen. For some families, this is going to mean that you have to plan the logistics of having an open door house and you just have hospitality whenever people come and you make sure that people are coming. For other families this means planning ahead, doing things weekly or monthly. But whatever it is with your family, given the resources, given the grace that God has given you, you have to pursue this hospitality.

Children, listen very carefully. Those of you who are older, young men who are thinking of starting your own homes. Start this as soon as you leave. Be hospitable as soon as possible. Because hospitality really is a habit.

It's a habit that your family will form. And if you never start the habit, you never do it. So don't think that hospitality is just something for the old established families. There is no ceiling to hospitality. Hospitality is not a virtue that you can do and you can work out really hard and someday you can say, yes, I have done it.

I have completed my quota of hospitality and it's over. It doesn't work that way. You can never check it off the list. It's something that you are always pursuing. You are always going after hospitality.

You are always trying to be hospitable. When you catch hospitality after pursuing it, go catch it again. What this means, and this is really important, I don't want anyone to go away from this discourage, it means hospitality is not measured by attainment. It's not like you get to a level and you can say, oh, I get this now. Hospitality is a process.

It's a process of continual maturity. And as you practice hospitality, as you partake of those other people who are showing hospitality to you, realize that there are going to be differing levels of maturity. But that it is maturity that's happening. That you have families that are striving and struggling and working hard in order to be mature in this area, including your own family. I'm sure you can look around your church and you can say, there are people here who have been hospitable to me.

I know you can because there are people here who have been hospitable to me and my family. We've seen it. We know that there are people in this church that are very successful at being hospitable. Look at those families and imitate them. What this also means is that we should devote ourselves to studying how to be better at hospitality.

But it doesn't mean going out and buying big fat books. Hospitality is something that you learn by practice. Hospitality is something that you learn by relating with people. Thinking that you are not any good at hospitality is not a good reason to refrain from having people in your home. Of course, we all go through seasons that make it easier or harder to be hospitable.

We understand that right after you've had a baby, it's hard to host prayer night. But the Bible commands us to be hospitable, and these commands are given to all believers. And they're given to all believers to fulfill according to the grace that God has given them. So insofar as God has given you grace, you should be devoting yourself to learn how to be hospitable with those resources. With those resources.

And a final note. Yes, my family has been in many, most, all of your houses. You've shown us great hospitality. We miss you being over at Hope very much. We miss partaking of your hospitality, seeing you week after week.

So I know that many of the things that we've said today, you already know, You're good at. The question is, how are things going lately? We haven't seen you for a while. How are you doing? How are you doing in your attainment of hospitality?

How are you doing in your attainment of hospitality? How are you doing in your maturing in these areas? How are you doing in taking over Youngsville? I've read Jason's blog. I know what his goals are for this church.

You're not going to accomplish any of those goals if you're not hospitable. So how's it going? If you've been fervent, God bless you for that. If you've been lagging, look at this as a chance to be refreshed, to start at it again. And one concluding point.

Why should we be hospitable? Really why? Yes, the Bible commands it. Why does it command it so strongly and so often? Why is it that we need to be hospitable?

Deuteronomy 10, 14 says that, Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth and all that is in it. Do you realize that when we are hospitable to others, we are reflecting God's love towards us? In a very real sense, we are God's guests. This morning, we were God's guests in His house of worship. We were God's guests at His table.

His invited guests. We're not imposing. He wants us here. But we are His guests. God invites His people into His house each Sabbath.

He feeds them His food. And you know what this food cost. This is not grocery store food. This food cost God his son. That's what it took for us to be guests.

That's what it took for God to bring us into his house, was his son had to shed his blood and die for us. If that's what God did to be hospitable for us, what lengths should we go to be hospitable to those around us? To those in our church, to those in our community, to those who are the lame, the blind, the unsaved. So therefore, we ought to imitate our Father in how we show our hospitality. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we do express our gratitude to you that you gathered us here today, that you gathered us and that You showed us the utmost hospitality and that you brought us into your home as guests and you made us permanent guests by calling us your children and adopting us. We pray that you would equip us in these manners that you have commanded us, that you would show us how we can be hospitable, that you would give us the resources that are required for it, and that your church might be built up in your name glorified through having people in our homes. In Jesus' name, Amen.