The sermon 'When in Doubt…' by Peter Allison, based on Luke 7, explores the theme of doubt in the life of believers, exemplified by John the Baptist's question to Jesus: 'Are you the coming one, or do we look for another?' Despite John's significant role as a prophet, he experienced doubt while imprisoned, as his expectations of the Messiah were unmet. Jesus responded not with rebuke but with evidence of His works, fulfilling prophecies and indicating His identity through miracles. The sermon emphasizes that doubt is part of human frailty and is distinct from unbelief; doubt seeks answers and returns to Jesus, while unbelief rejects Him. Biblical examples, including Abraham, Elijah, and Sarah, show God's patient and gentle response to doubt. Believers are encouraged to address doubts by turning to scripture, being patient for answers, and strengthening faith. The sermon also addresses the concept of judgment, highlighting that Christ judges based on the prevailing direction and fruit of one's life, as seen in His affirmation of John the Baptist's greatness. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to trust in God's grace and seek His wisdom when faced with doubt.

Luke chapter 7. I'd like to begin reading at verse 18. Then the messengers of John reported to him concerning all these things, and John calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus saying, Are you the coming one, or do we look for another? And when the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, Are you the coming one, or do we look for another? And that very hour he cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits, and gave and to many blind he gave sight.

And Jesus answered and said to them, Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard, that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of me." And when the messengers of John had departed, he began to speak to the multitudes concerning John, What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments?

Indeed, those who are gorgeously appareled and live in luxury in king's courts. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet, this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." And when all the people heard him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John.

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves not having been baptized by him. And the Lord said to what then shall I liken the men of this generation and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another saying, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We mourned to you and you did not weep. For John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking wine and you say He has a demon.

The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by all her children." May God bless the reading and the hearing of His Word. His law is truth. Gracious Father in heaven, your Word is true and it is truth. And you have preserved it to us and written it down and sent it by your messengers.

We thank you for it. We ask that we may highly prize it, that we might receive your word as it comes to us this morning, with meekness. May it reach deep into our hearts. May it sanctify us. May it convict where we are wrong, comfort where we are troubled, instruct where we are ignorant, and enlighten us, and teach us more of you, that we may know you in the power of your resurrection.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Have you ever had a question about something in your life? Or about where God has put you? Or the circumstances in your life? Or maybe even something in the scriptures.

Something that you've read. Something about God. And the more you think about it, the more You wonder about it. It might not make sense. Maybe it begins to bother you.

That's what happened to John the Baptist here. He was sent by God to prepare the way. He was God's herald. His birth was prophesied to His Father and even in the Old Testament. He came to both announce the coming of Christ and to call the people there to repentance.

His message, Matthew gives to us in the parallel account, Matthew gives to us a little more detail than Luke does here, of the message that John came with. He said it was a message of God's imminent judgment. The axe is laid to the root of the tree. He said, Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Indeed, John said, I baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing hand is in his hand and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." That was John's message. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He's going to gather the wheat into the barn and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. John came.

He proclaimed that message. He was aesthetic out in the wilderness. He lived in harsh conditions. He dressed as someone who lives in the desert does, camel skins and a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild honey, not exactly gourmet food.

He lived an ascetic life. He lived a hard life. He was God's herald. He was expecting that the Messiah would come with a winnowing fork, gather the wheat into the barn and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. That's what he preached day after day in his short ministry.

Because he was, because of his faithfulness as a preacher of the word, because he was bold and was willing to speak the things that need to be said when Herod took his brother's wife, adultery and incest, he confronted him on it and told him that he shouldn't have that woman. That it was his brother's wife. And as you might imagine, he gets put in jail. Herod didn't like that idea of some preacher in camel skins pointing out his sin. So John is now in prison.

He's been in prison a while. And Jesus has come and has been preaching now, teaching. And Things weren't happening exactly the way he thought they were. The way he thought they were supposed to happen. And so he begins to have a question in his mind.

He begins to have a doubt. Is Jesus the Messiah or not? Is there somebody else that we should be waiting for? John the Baptist. This one that Jesus said that there isn't someone greater who is born of woman, this John the Baptist had a doubt.

The best of saints have doubts and weaknesses and sins, even significant sins. You think of David or Noah had significant sins. But doubts also. Abraham is held up in the scriptures as the model of faith. He is the one that Paul talks about in Romans, who believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Abraham had doubts. His faith had doubts. Remember in Genesis 12, God called Abraham to leave Heron where he was and go to Canaan. God said to Abraham, God spoke to Abraham, Get out of your country from your family, from your father's house, to a land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you will be a blessing, and I will bless all who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." And so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he departed, according to the word of God, as God had promised to him.

And he went to Canaan, and He was a sojourner in that land and the years began to go by he's 75 Sarah would have been 65 and God said I'm gonna make a great nation out of you And Abraham starts looking around and there aren't he doesn't have any children yet Sarah's not pregnant Month after month the years go by Sarah's not pregnant He has no children. God has said he's gonna make a great nation. Abraham begins to wonder, he has questions, he has doubts. Is God really going to do what He said He would do? God came to Abraham and said, Don't be afraid Abraham, I am your shield, your exceeding great reward.

And Abraham said, but Lord, what will you give me seeing I don't have any children? And the heir of my house is this guy from Damascus, Eliezer. Abraham said, look, you have given me no offspring. Indeed one born in my house is my heir." David was asking, Abraham is asking here, because he has some doubts. What does God do?

God brings to him his word. The word, behold the word of the Lord came to Abraham, saying, this one that's born in your house, that's not going to be your heir, but one who will come from your own body will be your heir." Then God took Abraham outside and had him look up at the heavens, so it must have been night. He asked him if he could count the stars, and He was able to number them. Of course, we've been counting the stars ever since and we still can't count them. Every year there's more and more.

The number just keeps growing. All my life it's been growing. God said, that's how many of your descendants will be as many as the stars so Abraham Abraham believed God But a little later God visited Abraham and he reaffirmed that promise because years, more than 10 years now have gone by, 75, 85, there's no child. They think that they need to help God, so Sarah gives Abraham her maid as to be his wife, Hagar. Abraham has a son by Hagar, Ishmael.

And God said to Abraham, As for Sarah your wife, in chapter 17 of Genesis, You shall not call her name Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and give you a son by her, and I will bless her and give. And she shall be a mother of nations, of kings, of people, shall be from her. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, Shall a child be born to one who is 100 years old and Sarah is 90? So she bear a child?

And Abraham in his doubt said to God, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. God said no, no not Ishmael, Sarah your wife will have a son. God is very patient. God is very patient with Abraham. He answers his questions.

As Abraham comes to him and says, but, but, but, but, God gives him his word. God gives him promises. God gives him signs to strengthen his faith, to answer his doubts. Sarah doubted when God came and again announced that she would have a son. She laughed in her heart and said, How can I have a son in my age at 90 years old or 89 years old?

And God said, Well, why did why did Sarah laugh? It's only when Sarah denied that she laughed in her heart that she is chided. She's not chided for her doubt. She's chided because when the angel asked, why did you laugh, she denied that she laughed. She said no, but she did laugh.

God affirmed her doubts. God affirmed her faith in her doubts. Or Elijah, another great prophet. In fact, John the Baptist is compared to Elijah. He's called Elijah in Malachi.

Remember when Elijah went up so fearlessly onto Mount Carmel and confronted the nation of Israel and the thousand prophets of Baal and Ashtar there and there was that big showdown. And Elijah challenged them with these two altars to offer two sacrifices, and whichever God answered by fire and consumed the sacrifice, then that would be God. That was a challenge of great faith on Elijah's part. And the prophets of Baal went first. You remember they went all day, all morning, crying out to their idol for Baal to send down fire and take the sacrifice.

And Elijah is mocking them in their idolatry and their stupidity, saying, well, maybe your God has to go to the bathroom, Maybe he's sleeping, maybe he's on a vacation. Maybe that's why he's not answering you. And after a whole day of this, Elijah says, well, now stand by and see what the Lord will do. And God, he had them cover the altar with water, douse it with barrel after barrel of water and then Elijah prayed and asked that the Lord would accept that sacrifice. And God sent down fire from heaven that licked up everything.

The stones, the water, everything. And everybody was amazed. And in that moment, they killed the false prophets of Baal. And Elijah won a great victory on Mount Carmel. He demonstrated great faith in God and yet immediately after that Ahab went and told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had executed all the prophets.

Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow, about this time. And Elijah doubted. This great prophet of faith doubted. He was afraid, and he ran for his life. How did God respond to him?

Did God rebuke him for his doubt? For his faith faltering, growing weak? No, as he's running away, God sent an angel to strengthen him. And he runs all the way to Mount Horeb, which I believe is probably in the southern Saudi Arabia today. It's where God gave the Ten Commandments.

It's across the Red Sea. And God simply asked him, Elijah, what are you doing here? And Elijah gives him this answer, Lord, I've been very zealous for you. I've been very zealous for the Lord of hosts. The children of Israel, they've forsaken your covenant, they've broken down your altars, they've killed your prophets, and I'm the only one left.

And God didn't rebuke him. God just said, go stand on the mountain. God demonstrated His power to Elijah. There was a great wind that broke the rocks in pieces. There was a great earthquake.

And then there was a great fire. And then there was a still small voice that asked Elijah, Elijah, what are you doing here? And Elijah gave the exact same answer, Lord, I've been very zealous for your name, for your glory, for your kingdom, but the children of Israel, they've forsaken your covenant. They've killed your prophets and now they want to kill me too. And I'm the only one left." And God didn't even then rebuke Elijah.

He was very gracious and gentle with him. He gave him a job to do, and then he said, and by the way, there are still 7, 000 people in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You see, God recognizes that we are but dust, that we are frail, that we are weak, that we are human. And when we come, when we have doubts about our faith. He's gentle.

And so we shouldn't be then surprised. We shouldn't be discouraged if we have doubt. We shouldn't worry about our doubt. We should take our doubts to Jesus. We should come to His Word.

We shouldn't let the presence of doubt create more doubt in us about our salvation or about our acceptance with God or about the faithfulness of God or the truth of His Word. We have to remember we can't trust our senses. They're very, very unreliable. I love that video by Erwin Moon that he did some 60 or 70 years ago about how unreliable our senses are. He was a scientist, a pilot, And he just demonstrates just exactly how unreliable our eyes are.

That our eyes deceive us. They fool us. Our ears, they trick us. We can't trust them. We have to live by faith in the Word of God.

So we shouldn't be discouraged when doubts come, when our eyes trick us or our ears deceive us. But We need to remember that God is gracious and that God will answer us. Now there's a difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is a weak faith. Doubt is a faith that has uncertainties or fears, a hesitating faith, maybe a pessimistic faith.

Doubt says, Lord, I believe, help my Unbelief. Unbelief, on the other hand, is the absence of faith. Unbelief rejects Jesus. It rejects His word. It runs from His commandments.

It says, I don't believe and I don't need you. I don't need your help. I don't need your word. Doubt. A doubting faith turns to Jesus.

In this case, this doubt came because John had unmet expectations. He had certain expectations of what Jesus was going to do, what the Messiah would do, based on the message that had been given to him. And he didn't see that happening in the time that he expected it to happen. Jesus has been ministering now for over a year, closer to two. He didn't see things happening like he expected.

It's taking longer. He's languishing in jail, in prison. This judgment, this winnowing fork, He didn't see it happening. He saw the ascendancy of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and things continued as they had before. So he began to wonder if Jesus was the Messiah.

Sometimes doubts can come from an immature faith. We lack knowledge. You know where to Peter talks about where to add to our faith knowledge. Because faith comes from hearing the Word of God. It comes, it's based on knowledge.

It's not a blind leap in the dark. So, immature faith, a faith that lacks knowledge, can lead to doubt. A saint can lay a doubt on our doorstep. He can throw our sin back at us. He can accuse us.

And he's good at it because we're all sinners. We all sin. And he's very good at magnifying our sin to us and leading us to doubt. Just like he came to Eve and said, has God really said this? And he put doubt in her mind about the Word of God.

In this case, I believe John's doubt arises from his unmet expectations about what he thought the Messiah would do. So what does John do? How does John overcome his doubt? The first thing he does is go to Jesus. He didn't run away from Jesus.

He didn't say, I've wasted my life. I'm heralding somebody who turned out to be a fraud. It's not happening. I must be all wrong. He turned to Jesus and because he couldn't go himself, he sent two messengers.

He said, go to Jesus and ask, Are you the coming one or do we look for another? Go to Jesus with your doubts. The answers to your questions are not found anywhere else. They are found in the Word of God. Those who fall away, I have classmates from college that were professing Christians, and you probably do too, that have over the years turned away.

They say they've moved beyond Christianity. They had these doubts. Things didn't add up. They weren't treated right. They had unmet expectations.

And they didn't run to Christ with their doubts and their questions. They ran away from Christ. They ran away from His church and His people. If you have doubts, you need to come to church to gather with His saints. That's where your doubts will be resolved.

That's where your questions can be answered. Remember that's what happened with Asaph in Psalm 73. He describes these doubts that he has as he looks around and things aren't the way he's expecting them Because the wicked seem to be prospering and he doesn't seem to be prospering. And it's when he goes to the house of God that then he sees what he didn't see before. So John goes to Jesus.

John sends these messengers and when they come Jesus, they deliver their question, Jesus doesn't answer them immediately. But it wasn't because he was ignoring them. The text says Jesus continued healing. He cured that very hour. The hour that these messengers came, Jesus cured many of infirmities, of afflictions, and evil spirits, cast out demons.

And to many blind, He gave sight. And remember the thing that had prompted this question, the disciples of John had reported to him concerning all these things. What were these things? Well Jesus had just raised this widow of Nain's son. So Jesus continues these signs that authenticated him as the Messiah and the message.

And then, after he's done these things, then He gives them the answer. And so secondly, in overcoming our doubts, we need to be patient in waiting for Christ's answer. We walk by faith, not by sight. We need to trust that what God is doing is good, that He is sovereign, and that what He's working is for our own good as well as His glory, especially in tribulation. Because tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and Character Paul tells us in Romans 5 produces hope Tribulation persecution a tribulation perseverance character hope Hope and Hope does not disappoint.

Hope does not disappoint. So Paul says, therefore we glory, Therefore we boast in tribulation. Patience then, in waiting for God to resolve our doubts. Thirdly then, listening to his word. Jesus answered and said, Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard.

The things that you have seen and heard. And Jesus took John, or his messengers, to the Scriptures. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead here, the deaf here, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. You see, this is what the Scriptures said the Messiah would do. This is what Isaiah said in Isaiah 61.

Let me turn there and read it. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes." Jesus took this very text of himself. Remember we looked at this a few weeks ago, or maybe it's months, when he was in the synagogue. This was the text that he read.

He said, this day this text is fulfilled in your presence. The Jehovah had sent the Messiah to preach the gospel to the poor. That's what Isaiah said. In chapter, a little bit earlier in his prophecy, chapter 35, Say to those who are fearful hearted, Be strong and do not fear, behold your God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be open, And the ears of the deaf unstopped, And the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing, and the waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty lands springs of water, and the inhabitants of jackals where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

The blind would see, the deaf would hear, the lame would walk, leap like a deer, it says. That's what Jesus points John's messengers to. Go and tell John the things that you see and what do you see well the exact things that the scripture said the Messiah would do the poor would have the gospel preached to them the lame would walk the blind would see the deaf would hear and Jesus added and blessed is he who is not offended because of me. Jesus took John to the scriptures He pointed him to the Word of God just as he did with Abraham giving him his promises Don't And then he said blessed is he who is not offended because of me See that was something Isaiah had also said, that the Lord of hosts would be a rock of offense and a stone of stumbling. And Jesus counsels John.

He says, Blessed are those who are not offended, not offended by me. The Pharisees were offended by Jesus. The Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves. He was A stone of stumbling to them. He wasn't what they were expecting.

He wasn't the prince who would defeat the Roman army the way they thought. Christ's kingdom defeated the Roman army inside of 300 years. It just wasn't how they thought or when they thought. They were offended at him. They were offended at his message.

They were offended that he was just like one of them. They despised him. Isn't he just the son of Joseph the carpenter? And aren't these his brothers and sisters? Who is he to claim to be the Messiah?

Now after the messengers had left, Jesus affirmed the greatness of John the Baptist. He didn't talk about how John was such a weak Christian. He didn't point out the faults of John. He rather affirmed John. John, he rather affirmed John.

He said That there is no one born of woman who is greater than John the Baptist. No one born of woman who is greater than John the Baptist. That is very, very high praise. Who is, How is greatness judged? What's the standard?

Well, Jesus is the judge. Jesus is the judge of greatness. Jesus is the one who will judge the world. He will judge the living and the dead, the righteous and the wicked. They will all come before God's judgment throne.

He's the judge. John may not have had a successful ministry by some standards. If you measure his building program or the people that he gathered to himself He lived as an ascetic in the desert. He ate locusts and wild honey. He offended those who were in authority, he was sent to jail and he died there.

You might be tempted to think, well he tried but didn't succeed. But Jesus says otherwise. Jesus says he was the greatest. And Jesus is the judge. It's he that will judge us.

He will judge us according to our works. According to the deeds that we have done. Jesus is saying That we need to judge here, not by the weakest low point in somebody's life, not by the time that they fell or the day that they doubted, but rather we have to judge by the prevailing direction and fruit in their life, the prevailing direction of their life over the sum total of the years that they've lived, and over the fruit that is in their life. You see there are really two judgments we might say. There are two judgments.

There are two aspects to this judgment. Because the Bible talks about we're going to be judged according to our works, but it also says that our works are not any good. And so we can differentiate these two judgments this way. One is our failure under the covenant of works that all men have sinned. There is none who does good, no not one.

And for that judgment, only Christ's righteousness is adequate. And so we are, our judgment then is through Christ. God looks at Christ's righteousness that's been imputed to our account and our sin that's been imputed to Christ. And we receive that righteousness of Christ by faith. But then there's also another judgment.

We've been given, God promises to us, grace and sanctification. And that He will work in us what is well pleasing in His sight. And so there are, God expects fruit. Where there is saving faith, there will be fruit. And so that's why Peter can say, And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, then conduct yourselves in the time of your stay here in fear.

Or in Revelation 20, the great white throne judgment, we read very similar words that John sees the dead small and great standing before God. The books are opened. And another book was opened which is a book of life and the dead were judged according to their works And by the things which were written in the books and the sea gave up the dead who were in it and death in Hades Delivered up the death who were in them and they were judged each one according to his works See this is the this is the judgment as well, according to, are we a fruitless professor? Is there, has saving faith produced works? If it is saving faith, it will.

So we might say the one is a forensic judgment, the other is a declarative judgment, That our works, as James says, demonstrate that we have saving faith. But of course, they're not our works. They're works that God has done in us. And they are, as Ephesians says, they are the works that God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So Jesus then gives us this measure of judgment that he proclaims that John, right at this moment when John has had a doubt about his faith, Jesus said this is the greatest man born of women.

There isn't anyone greater. Jesus is judging John by the prevailing direction of his life, that of a faithful prophet. John was great because he was the last Old Testament prophet. He had the duty and the privilege of identifying the Messiah, something no other prophet did. They spoke of Christ, they pointed to Him, they prophesied about Him, but John the Baptist was called to identify Christ.

And John the Baptist was also the only prophet whom other prophets prophesied about. He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He was the Elijah that would come according to Malachi. So Jesus then affirms John the Baptist. How often do we do that?

If we see somebody fall, do we look at that fall, that thing? Does that define them for us? Or do we look at, as Jesus does here with John, do we look at the prevailing direction of their life? Do we look at the overall fruit in their life? Or lack of fruit?

We do need to make judgments, but we need to judge righteously. We need to judge as Jesus judges. God's servants are often misjudged in human courts. They're often misjudged, as John the Baptist was, and Jesus points that out. John the Baptist didn't come eating and drinking wine and they said he had a demon.

Jesus came eating and drinking and they said, a wine-bibber, a glutton, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by all her children. You can look at the fruit of someone's life. Have they been faithful in what God has called them to do? Whatever that might be, have they been faithful in that?

And if so, that's the grace of God in their life, and we can rightly commend them for that. We can rightly judge them to be faithful, to be great. He who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist. See, actually, people's judgments about other people or people's judgments about the messengers of God often say more about that person making the judgment than about the saint they are judging. And that's Jesus' point here when he talks to the people who were trying to judge John the Baptist and say that he had a demon.

He said, you're like kids who are playing. And to say they're like kids is not commending them. He's saying they're immature. They lack discernment. They're petty, they're not seeing things properly.

You're like little children, he said, playing a game, who say, well we played the flute and you didn't dance. We mourned you and you didn't weep. Well, so what? Why should they dance just because you played the flute? Those are the types of petty little things that children do say.

And it says really more about us than about the person that we are judging. Wisdom is justified by all of her children. Wisdom is justified by all of her children. The fruit, The fruit of that wisdom justifies that wisdom. The fruit of a person's life shows, demonstrates whether they are great or not.

Whether the Lord and His Holy Spirit is working in them and through them or not. Jesus recognizes our human weakness. He recognizes our doubts and He's ready to answer them. He's ready to restore our faith when we come to Him and when we ask Him. May God give us a faith that turns to Him in our doubts.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good Father, that you know all that we need, and that you provide it to us. You feed us, you nurture us, you strengthen our faith, you sustain our faith. And by your grace, Lord, you enable us to persevere. And we praise, Lord, your grace, your favor. We praise your Holy Spirit who lives and dwells with us.

We ask that we may be more and more filled with your Spirit, that we may add to our faith knowledge and to knowledge virtue and to virtue self-control and to self-control godliness and to godliness perseverance and brotherly kindness and love. That we might not be barren or unprofitable in the knowledge of God. Lord, we Ask this by your grace and through your Spirit. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.