Christmas Without Christ

00:03 I'd like to give praise to the Lord this morning, just a few comments. Thank you for your patience the last two weekends having ordinations at Lamb of God. Lamar Koblins was ordained at Lamb of God two weeks ago. And a young man... well, not super young, 00:21 but him and his wife have five children from the ages of small to about 12, five boys. And so pray for Lamar. Hopefully you'll get to know him as part of our BMA region of churches. 00:36 And then last Sunday evening, Jonathan Zimmerman was selected as the new lead pastor/bishop at Pleasant Grove. So we rejoice that God's work is going forward. And we thank the Lord for His power and His divine ability to meet our needs, whatever those needs look like, in His way, in His time. 00:58 Then of course, with Marianne's passing, we're saddened by that. I told the family a number of times yesterday that their loss is our loss on a different level, of course. But I don't remember when Marianne first moved up here to be a part of and joined our congregation, but it was probably in the mid-2000s, 2006, 01:19 2007, 2008, somewhere in there. And it has just been a real blessing to our church and a servant, an example of serving, untired, untiring, tireless serving, and selfless serving. So she will be missed. 01:37 Invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning back to Luke chapter 2. And I want to share with you some thoughts about Christmas without Christ. We have an interesting thing that happens in our day. And it's happened throughout the years in different places that have celebrated Christmas, 01:57 that there has always been this strange mix of three combinations of people groups. 02:08 One group would be those who want to eliminate and ruthlessly blot out Christmas as a reality. And then there's the group that are religious and will... you know, somewhat religious. They like Christmas, 02:27 kind of makes you feel good, but no real heart relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then there are those of us who Jesus Christ is our life. We have our relationship with Him, and that is the most important thing in our lives. And we want to think about that this morning, 02:45 about Christmas without Christ, the Bible without Christ, the church without Christ, and people without Christ. And then contrast that with Christmas with Christ, the Bible with Christ as its center, the church with Christ as its life, and people with Christ as our object of our worship. 03:06 And so we see a lot of... in our text this morning in Matthew chapter 2, you see all three aspects of those groups. You see Herod, who wants to ruthlessly destroy, destroy Christmas, destroy Christ, destroy the Son of God, 03:25 and will stop at nothing to do so. Then you have these scribes. These scribes, they're religious, and they know where to go to look for some of the things that they would look for in the Scriptures, where Christ would come. And of course, He came in Bethlehem. But why weren't the scribes... 03:46 why weren't the scribes on their donkeys and their high horse or on their 03:55 trip to Bethlehem, not very far away? Why weren't they following the star if they were really looking for Messiah? But the Bible says that all Jerusalem was troubled at what was happening. And so the scribes and Pharisees, they didn't really desire a relationship with Christ. 04:14 And then you have these wise men and the shepherds in chapter 2 of the book of Luke, who God gave that special revelation of who Jesus is, who this baby is, and the significance and traveling from lands of the East, wherever that was, probably a long ways away, 04:34 to bring forth a gift for this newborn King. Peter Marshall, who was a former chaplain of the Senate, U.S. Senate, a number of years ago, said this: "I must confess that modern Christmas cards leave me cold. I cannot appreciate the dogs and cats and galloping horses, 04:55 the ships in full sail, or any of the designs that leave out the traditional symbols of the star, the manger, the wise men, and their camels." And so even we've noticed this, that there's this group of people that, yes, a winter holiday is fine. 05:17 Winter holiday is fine. Wonderful winter holiday. And yet you have those who do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. But then you have those of us who... Jesus is our life. He is the reason for existence. Without Christ, there would be no reason to go on. Without Christ, there would be no Bible. 05:38 There'd be no purpose in life. There would be no church worth going to. There would be no life worth living. And there certainly would not be any reason for Christmas. 05:51 And I'm going to illustrate this this morning a little bit by being a bit absurd and taking our text in Matthew chapter 2 and leaving Christ out of it. And what would it look like? What would it read like if this was just a nice little story without Jesus? 06:10 It would read something like this: "Now in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, 'We have seen a star in the East.' When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And when he gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, 06:31 he inquired of them. So they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, 'For thus it is written by the prophet. But you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah.' Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. 06:51 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, 'Go and search carefully. Bring back word to me that I may come.' When they heard the King, they departed. Behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them till it came and stood. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 07:10 When they had come into the house, they saw and fell down... they saw Mary and fell down. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way." Absurd, isn't it? 07:29 Absurd to try to take Christ out of the Christmas story. And yet that's what people do. 07:36 I was intrigued a number of years ago in the Concord School District how that there was this uproar when the courts said that there could be no more live nativity scenes at the Concord Christmas program. 07:52 And I don't know how many of you remember that, but they had outlawed that and said it's not worth the lawsuit. ACLU says it can't do it. And so no more live Christmas scenes and nativity scenes at the Christmas program. So the next year came along, and everybody was kind of wondering, well, what are they going to do? 08:11 Are they going to break the law? Are they going to go and take on a lawsuit? Or what's going to happen? And so if you remember right, that at the last scene, they pulled the curtain back, and there was no live nativity scene, but there were mannequins that were in that nativity scene. 08:32 And I thought, "Oh, good, good. They got one over on the Antichrist Lawyers Union, ACLU." And yet how many people in that audience... and the audience cheered. The audience thought, "Oh yes, we've got one over on them." And yet how many people in that audience really had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? 08:53 Or was it just a cultural thing? What is it like to have Christmas without Christ? It's just another day. Oh, it's a winter holiday. But we need to remember that one day when heaven was filled with His praises, one day when sin was as black as could be, Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, 09:15 dwelt among men. My example is He. Living He loved me. Dying He saved me. Buried He carried my sins far away. Rising He justified freely forever. One day He's coming. Oh, glorious day. What a wonderful thing that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. 09:37 And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The songwriter says, "Oh, Word of God incarnate. Oh, wisdom from on high. Oh, truth unchanged, unchanging. Oh, light of our dark sky. We praise Thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page, 09:57 a lantern to our footsteps shines on from age to age." Christmas without Christ is bizarre. The Bible without Christ is empty. The churches without Christ are meaningless. And people without Christ are hopeless. Let's think about this a little bit more. What Christmas would be like without Christ? 10:16 Just a winter holiday. And there would just be on the same level as any other day, any other religious holiday. You've got Hanukkah. You've got Kwanzaa. You've got Boxing Day. You've got all these days of winter solstice. And yet without Christ, 10:35 it's just like Herod would have just taken the Son of God and ruthlessly exterminated Him. Oh, we've had that happen in many countries of the world, in the Muslim world, in the communist world. Any vestiges, any appearance of religion must be snuffed out. 10:53 And yet what is the difference between that and the scribes and priests and Pharisees who searched the Scripture to find Him, but then did nothing with Him, did nothing with Him? But oh, the shepherds and the wise men understood that He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. 11:14 For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together. 11:31 Hebrews says, "Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." Christmas is not just about a baby coming. 11:49 It's not just about a nice little story and nice little decorations and nice little trees and nice little lights, although all of those can have some spiritual significance. It is about one day when they led Him up Calvary's mountain. The songwriter goes on to say, "One day they nailed Him to die on the tree, 12:11 suffering, anguished, despised, and rejected, bearing our sins. My Redeemer is He. One day they left Him alone in the garden. One day He rested from suffering free. Angels came down or His tomb to keep vigil. Home of the hopeless, my Savior is He. 12:31 One day the grave could conceal Him no longer. One day the stone rolled away from the door. Then He arose over death He had conquered. Now He has ascended, my Lord, evermore. One day the trumpet will sound for His coming. One day the skies with His glory will shine. Wonderful day my beloved one's bringing. 12:52 Glorious Savior, this Jesus is mine. Living He loved me. Dying He saved me. Buried He carried my sins far away. Rising He justified freely forever. One day He's coming. 13:07 Oh, glorious day." So Christmas without Christ makes us think of Bibles without Christ. If Christ is not important, then the Bible is not important. And there would be the Herods, the ruthless, who would try to snuff out the Bible, who would try to render it illegal, 13:28 who would be ruthless in their opposition to the Bible. We remember in communist countries... I remember in 1974, I think it was, my grandparents gave us all as little tiny thin pocket New Testaments. And I still have that New Testament. 13:49 Treasure it. And that was for the point. And the point was that you can hide these New Testaments when the communists come and take over America. And that was a big thing back in the '70s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, and even into the '80s. Well, we may not have that exact threat today from the communists, but different parts of the world do. 14:10 If you live in China, the attitude toward the Bible is very different. It's ruthless. Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate. They're of the spirit of Herod. But how different from that is the person who may be like the scribes and the priests, who has a Bible but never reads it, 14:32 who has many copies of the Scriptures but doesn't live by it, doesn't memorize it. It doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't guide their heart. It doesn't guide their life. Many of them are like liberals who... liberal theology that says, "Oh yes, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. 14:50 But it's just a book of stories and allegories. 14:54 And it's just something for for for scholars to study and and and to explain away." Liberalism back in the late 1800s, early 1900s redefined the gospel, that the gospel was not a personal salvation gospel, a gospel of personal salvation. 15:15 But it was a gospel of of of social action, social action. It wasn't that Jesus came and did anything miraculous. They didn't believe in miracles. It wasn't that Jesus came to die on the cross to pay the price for our sins. No, He came to die as a martyr to show us how to die. 15:34 He showed us how to live. He showed us how to die. Did He do that? Yes. But it was so much more. And today we have others that are trying to redefine the gospel. The gospel is about being set free from oppressive structures, oppressive social structures, to deliver people that are oppressed. 15:54 And is that part of the gospel? To deliver oppressed people? Yes. But it's not our call to overthrow the structures of the world around us to set people free from physical limitations. It's our job to set them free from spiritual oppression. And so they want to redefine the Bible. 16:14 They want to redefine what is truly the gospel. But oh, then there are those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ, who believe that the gospel and the Bible is about the person and finished work of Christ on the cross, who He was, who He is, who He shall ever be, 16:34 how to be reconciled with God the Father, and have a relationship with the eternal God in heaven for eternity. You see, Jesus to us is the reason for the Bible. He is the presence in every book of the Bible. In Genesis, He is the seed of the woman. 16:56 In Exodus, He is the Passover Lamb. In Leviticus, He is a high priest, our high priest. In Numbers, He is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. In Deuteronomy, He is the prophet likened to Moses. In Joshua, He is the commander of the Lord's army. In Judges, He is our judge and lawgiver. 17:16 In Ruth, He is our kinsman redeemer. In First and Second Samuel, He is the seed of David. In Kings and Chronicles, He is our reigning king. In Ezra, He is our faithful scribe. Nehemiah, He is the rebuilder of everything that is broken. In Esther, He is our Mordecai, our advocate. 17:36 In Job, He is our ever-living redeemer. In Psalm, He is our shepherd. In Proverbs, He is our wisdom. In Ecclesiastes, He is our meaning for life. In the Song of Solomon, He is our loving bridegroom. And in Isaiah, He is the prince of peace. In Proverbs... excuse me... 17:54 in Jeremiah and Lamentations, He is our weeping prophet. In Ezekiel, He is our glorious Lord. In Daniel, He is the fourth man in the fiery furnace. In Hosea, He is the faithful husband. In Joel, He is the outpourer of the Holy Spirit. In Amos, He is our burden bearer. 18:15 In Obadiah, He is our judge and savior. In Jonah, He is our risen prophet. In Micah, He is the ruler of the world from Bethlehem. In Nahum, He is our stronghold. In Habakkuk, He is the watchman. In Zephaniah, He is the mighty to save. In Haggai, He is the restorer. 18:35 In Zechariah, He is the branch of David, the one pierced for us. And in Malachi, He is the Son of righteousness. Jesus is in every book of the Bible. You take Jesus and His divinity and His humanity and His personhood and His provision for our salvation out of the Bible, you have nothing more than a nice book. 18:58 In Matthew, He is King of the Jews, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. In Mark, He is the servant, miracle worker. In Luke, He is the baby in the manger, the Son of Man. In John, He is the Son of God, the living Word, the way, the truth, the life. In Acts, He is the Savior of the world, the ascended Lord. 19:20 In Romans, He is the justifier. In First Corinthians, He is the resurrection. In Second Corinthians, He is our comfort. In Galatians, He is our liberty. In Ephesians, He is head of the church. In Philippians, He is our joy. In Colossians, He is our completeness and the glue that holds our world together. 19:41 In First and Second Thessalonians, He is the coming King. In First and Second Timothy, He is our mediator. In Philemon, He is our benefactor. In Titus, He is our blessed hope. In Hebrews, He is our perfection. In James, He is the power behind our faith. In Peter, First and Second, He is our chief shepherd and chief cornerstone. 20:03 In First, Second, Third John, He is our truth and everlasting life. In Jude, He is the foundation of our faith, our security. And in Revelation, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the reason for Christmas. He's the reason for the Bible. 20:24 And He's the reason for the church. Again, you have three types of people when it comes to the church. You have the ruthless, who would stamp Christ out of the church completely, who would stamp out the church, who would eliminate the church. 20:43 Again, you go into other parts of the world where people are persecuted. 20:49 You go into the Middle Eastern countries. You go into the communist countries. You go into some of the Buddhist and Hindu countries. And there's an opposition to the church. You go into the cults. And there's an opposition to the true church. 21:11 You have people that have false doctrine that have the core of our faith denied. They deny the person and work of Christ. They deny the virgin birth. They deny the gospel plan of salvation. They preach another Jesus, 21:31 the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, and all kinds of of of of cults. He can't withdraw from them because He was never part of them. But is that any worse than those who think the church should exist? But it doesn't mean anything to us. 21:52 It doesn't mean anything to them. We just substitute programs and ministries and committees and organizations. And this has happened in many churches where the Lord Himself has withdrawn Himself from their presence because He is no longer preeminent. They no longer preach the cross. They no longer preach the resurrection. 22:12 They no longer preach the exclusivity of Christ, that He is the only way, the truth, and the life. And people are leaving churches by the droves, by the thousands, by the millions because the church in many times and places has ceased to be the body of Christ as He had called it to be. 22:35 I think we'll just stand for a moment here and wake you up a little bit. You may be seated. Poke the one beside you that didn't stand. And yet there are those of us that the church as the living representation of Christ is a vibrant part of our spiritual existence. 22:57 It's a vibrant part of our faith. It's a vibrant part of our relationship with Christ that we come to know Christ not only in a personal individual way, but we come to know Christ in the community of faith and of brotherhood and of discipleship, discipling one another. There are churches where Christ is the head of the body. 23:20 He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in all things He might have the preeminence. There are churches where God has never been. There are churches where God has been and has left. 23:34 There are churches then, and I trust that we would be one where God and Christ is preeminent and is present in every meeting, in every conversation, in every activity of the congregation, that if He were to withdraw Himself, the church would die. 23:54 Unfortunately, when the Lord withdraws Himself from many churches, they just plug in some more programs and some more music and some more this and that, a little bit more of the other thing, and kind of reformat the mix and keep right on going. We're a little bit sometimes like the Old Testament Jews when the veil in the temple was rent. 24:16 Tradition and history says that when the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, exposing the nakedness of the Ark of the Covenant... Well, I guess the Ark of the Covenant wasn't there at that time, or was it? I'm getting ahead of myself. But exposing the way into the presence of God, 24:36 that they just sewed up that curtain and went right on as if nothing had ever happened. So Christmas without Christ is a terrible thing. The Bible without Christ is an empty thing. The church without Christ is a meaningless thing. 24:57 And people without Christ are a hopeless thing. So here you have Herod in our text this morning. He looked the part. He probably wasn't this evil, sinister-looking, snarling character that you see in the depictions of the Nativity. 25:19 He was probably a nice-looking fella. He was probably... To the undiscerning, probably thought that he was just very interested in what these wise men had to say, very interested in worship, very interested in finding this newborn King. 25:39 And yet deep in his heart was the sinister lie of the enemy that you could destroy the Son of God. Herod basically saying, "I don't need God. I am King. I am King. I don't need God. I'm not interested in any other King. I'm not interested in any other God. 25:57 I'm not interested in what the God of the universe has to say." And in that sense, Herod was a fool. Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Psalm 10:4, "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. 26:15 God is not in all his thoughts." First John 2 says, "Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." And yet how different is that? To actually flat out deny the Lord, 26:35 how different is that from what we would call Christian atheists? That term has been coined by some, Christian atheists, who may have a belief that God is God and Christ is Christ, but they're atheists in the sense that in their practical living, 26:57 it makes no difference at all. They may as well be atheists because it doesn't impact their life one bit. They're like the scribes and the priests, enough religion to keep them away from Jesus. That seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it? 27:17 But that's what they had. They had enough religion to keep them away from the Son of God, to keep them from from from pursuing the Christ child. And their way of thinking, this Messiah was no different than Muhammad, Allah, Rajneesh, or whatever other God would happen to come along as far as their practical life and living. 27:39 It made no difference at all. 27:40 And yet there is that third group still that looks to Jesus Christ as the answer to every need, who looks to a relationship with Jesus Christ, not a religion, but a relationship with Christ as the wise men and 27:59 the shepherds that realize without Jesus in our lives, there is no hope. John 6 says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Song of Solomon gives us a glimpse of trying to find God and not being able to find Him. When the Shulamite woman says, 28:18 "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer." Similar to the cry of Christ on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 28:37 Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" And if Jesus is not part of our lives, those of us who have a relationship with Him, 28:56 who desire a relationship with Him, are hopeless. We're hopeless. However, Jesus Christ is our source of life and power. He is the living Son of God. He did come. He was preserved. 29:15 If you go on throughout the book of Matthew 2, you'll find their flight into Egypt. You find the massacre of the innocent babies. You find their home in Nazareth. You find Jesus then growing and maturing and increasing His favor with growing in wisdom and stature and and increasing in favor with God and man. 29:35 You find Him becoming what He really was, developing into the great master teacher, learning obedience, Hebrews says, by the things that He suffered. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. 29:54 He grew up in another obscure village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled more than 200 miles. From the place where he was born, 30:14 he did none of the things usually associated with greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only 33. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. 30:33 He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. 19 centuries have come and gone. 30:55 And today, Jesus is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress. Now, this may be the part that you're most familiar with. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever set sail, all the parliaments that have ever sat, all the kings that have ever reigned, 31:16 put together have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as this one solitary life. The other day, we had the privilege of going once again to the Elkhart County Jail. 31:35 Spend at Gospel Echoes an interesting year. Many of you have been wondering about cookies. By the way, if you want to bake some yet this week and next week, we need more. It was a frustrating fall because we kept appealing to the prisons and to the state, "Can we do it? Can we do it? 31:53 Can we do it? Can we do it?" And finally, after about a month of that, they came back about a week and a half ago and said, "No, no, you can't do it. 32:03 No homemade cookies in the prisons." Elkhart County said, "You can come there, but it's a county, not a state facility." And so we appealed to the state, said, "We have quality control. We inspect the bags when they come. We have this and this and this. 32:23 We've done this for 30 some years. Never had a problem. Would you let us at least bring the cookies even if no volunteers can come and pass them out?" And so this past Tuesday, we got the green light. I think it was Tuesday. Some churches had been baking, 32:44 bringing the cookies by faith. We were receiving them by faith. Now we're needing more because we got that green light. But why would you do such a thing? Why would you do such a thing? Why would you reach out to those less fortunate, to those who are locked up? 33:05 Anyway, where I was going with that was we were in the Elkhart County Jail Thursday morning. And to see their faces, to see their tears... Of course, the men, you don't see the tears there, but you can see them kind of choked up, some of them. But the ladies, 33:25 they were crying and so hurting on one hand and yet filled with joy on another, hurting that they're separated from their families and from their loved ones and in prison not knowing what will happen to them and yet experiencing some sort of touch of God on their heart by the songs and the carols and the gift. 33:47 And I reminded them as we shared just about five minutes head prayer, several songs, shared just a few minutes verbally and have prayer and hand out the cookies and be on to the next ward. I said, "Somehow this Christmas, make room in your heart for God. 34:07 Make room in your mind for God. Make some room in your life for God. Make some room in your schedule for God." And that seems like something you would tell an unbeliever, rightly so. But I think it's something that we also need to tell each other. 34:27 Make room in your heart for God. Don't be... Well, none of us here would be the ruthless kind to eliminate Christmas, the Bible, the church, and Christ. No. We would be more apt to slip into the kind of religious syndrome where, 34:49 yes, we want to see it happen. We will want to experience it, but we'll substitute something else besides Christ as the focus of our attention. Make room in your heart for God this Christmas season. Take some time. Read not only the Christmas story, but read through the Gospels. 35:10 Read through some of the Gospels. Read through some of the prophecies and pray that God would find room in your heart. Oh, may we be like the children's song where it says, "Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus. There is room in my heart for Thee." Let's pray. Lord, we thank You that we are not, 35:31 um, in this country bombarded with just ruthlessness. We are free to express our love for Christ. We're free to celebrate Christmas. We're free to proclaim the Word of God. We're free to go to church. We're free to have a faith that's built around Christian doctrine and teaching. 35:53 But more than that, Lord, let us not settle just to be free to exercise a religion. 36:02 Let us not be satisfied until we experience the relationship with Jesus Christ and God the Father through the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the three in one, the Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit, 36:22 living and abiding and resting and dwelling us. Lord, we ask that You would make us aware of the impact of Christ in our lives. Without Him, we have no hope. 36:43 Without Him, we have no future. Without Him, we have no Word. Without Him, we have no meaning. But with Him, we have all of those things. We have eternal life, life to the fullest extent that it could possibly live, 37:02 be lived, not only in the future, but today. 37:08 Let us take advantage of that, Lord. I'm preaching to myself this morning. Let us not be practical atheists, Christian atheists, but let us be Christian not only in name, but in reality of being disciples of Jesus Christ who is our life. 37:29 And when He who is our life shall appear, we shall receive Him with joy and be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. We pray a blessing upon this congregation, upon each one in divine presence this morning. We pray, O God, that You would keep us from falling, 37:51 that You would present us faultless before and blameless before the presence of Your throne with exceeding joy to the only wise God, our Father. Be dominion and power both now and forever. Amen.