Thank you, Pastor Drew for asking me to pinch hint.
Yes, I do have had a few Christmas sermons.
So but I did spend a lot of time yesterday praying and preparing
for this. So we're talking about miracle
in the margins, the shepherds today and we're in Luke chapter
2 verses 8 through 20. You know, the last six months
I've had the opportunity to be a lot of different pulpits and a
lot of different places, but it's good to preach right from
this pulpit as well. Luke chapter 2, Let's stand
together as we as I read and you follow along.
Luke chapter 2, verse 8 through 14.
And in the same reason there were shepherds out in the field
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And the Angel of and glory and Angel said that fear not, for
the good news of great joy it will be for all the people is
born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ
the Lord. And this will be a sign for you.
You will find a baby wrapped in swallowing claws and lying in a
Manger. And suddenly there was with the
Angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and
saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace
among those with whom he is pleased.
And when the angels went away from them into heaven, the
shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and
see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has
made known to us. Verse 16.
And they went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and
the baby lying in a Manger. And when they saw it, they made
known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
Verse 19 is very interesting. But Mary treasured up all these
things, pondering them in their heart.
And the shepherd's return, glorifying and praising God for
all they had heard and seen as it had been told them.
You may be seated, and May God, it is blessing at the reading of
His word. And let's pray together.
Father, we come to you in the second week of Advent, and we
pause. And we just thank you for this
beautiful season. May we see Jesus in a fresh and
new way as we go through for some of us, eighty 7550 years of
Christmas seasons. May it not be stale.
May it be fresh to us. And Lord, help us, help us to
make our hearts and our lives available for you to have room
in our hearts to do what you want and Your will and Your way.
Help us to be open to what You have for us today as we open
Your word and be able to receive it.
We pray and ask in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, God loves to put the extra into the word ordinary who?
Who the world thinks are significant or don't fit into
the mold of extraordinary. God grins and continually proves
the world wrong. There are no little people in
God's eyes. He loves to take the underdog
and use him or her for His glory.
Think on these verses. In first Corinthians chapter one
verse 26, Paul said For consider your calling brothers.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God chose what is low and despising the world, even things
that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that
no human being might boast in the presence of God.
It's counterintuitive how God does His Kingdom work.
God is continually looking for the available humble hearts, not
people with tremendous human ability.
Think about some of the people that God used in the Bible.
I was reading for my devotions this week in Genesis where it
talked about Hagar. And of course Hagar and Abraham
had a son, Ishmael. And we know that Sarah begin to
despise Hagar because she was waiting for the promised one and
she couldn't have it. But she forced the situation
with Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael was born.
And so Sarah gets Hagar and Ishmael to leave, to go away.
And they go out into the desert and their water dries up and
she's weeping in the little baby is a distance of way.
And God comes and provides water for her, meets her at her point
of need. And she's uses the word God who
sees God saw me and saw my need. Rahab was a Gentile prostitute
who decided to place her faith in the God of Israel.
God then used her to help the Israelites capture Jericho.
She later became part of the lineage of Jesus.
Read Matthew 1, you'll see her name in there.
Gideon was an insignificant man from the humble tribe of
Manasseh and yet God used him to defeat the Midianite army with
300 men. He eventually became a judge of
the nation of Israel. And we know David, he was young,
he was a very insignificant shepherd boy.
When Samuel came and talked to Jesse, went through all the
brothers to see who he thought God wanted to be the next king
and ended up being the youngest 1 David, who was out in the
field taking care of the sheep. He would go on to slay Goliath
and rule as king of Israel and had a significant role in the
lineage of Jesus. Think about those disciples.
They were just young men, maybe late in their teenage years,
early 20s, seemingly insignificant.
They were a ragtag group of ordinary men.
And yet God used them to share his love with others and
ultimately they changed the course of history.
And the other one that's really amazing is the Apostle Paul, who
referred to himself in First Timothy 115 as the worst, the
chiefest of all sinners. He went on to proclaim the
gospel around the ancient world and wrote nearly half of the
books in the New Testament. It's absolutely incredible how
God uses the least of us to accomplish his plans for his
glory. How about you?
Have you ever felt just ordinary?
Have you felt like your days have just been mundane routines?
You feel like you're maybe insignificant sometimes it's so
great. That means you're in the place
where God wants to use you, where you're humble, you're
open, you're faithful, you're doing what He wants, and He may
choose you to do great things. So as we begin, we think about
the story here of the shepherds and the background of the
shepherds. Many of you know you've studied
it or you've heard it and other sermons as well.
They were nomads who lived in caves.
They were, in most cases, social illiterates.
They were mangy. They rarely took showers, so
nobody wanted to be around them. They're removed from human
relationships. I mean, they were the poor of
society and their profession was deemed the lowest of the low.
Can you imagine? They wouldn't even take their
money for taxes? Wow, that's pretty low.
And then you think about the priests wouldn't let them into
the temple in Jerusalem because he considered them ceremonial,
ceremonially unclean. They were Wanderers,
marginalized by the society they lived in.
They lived on the outer edges of civilization.
In fact, Randy Alcorn in his article shepherd status, he said
in Christ day shepherds stood on the bottom rung of the
Palestinian social ladder. They shared the same an enviable
status as tax collectors and dung sweepers.
So they were the most improbable people to have the message of
Christ birth given to them by an Angel.
But nonetheless, the first point on your outline, the shepherds
were at the right place at the right time.
They were in the right place at the right time.
And it says in verse 8 and in the same region, there were
shepherds out in the field keeping watch of their flock by
night. And even though these shepherds
were ignored by society, they were obedient.
They were responsible and caring for their sheep.
We don't know for sure, but it appears it's kind of assumed.
The shepherds may have been faithful followers of the Lord,
but it might be a fair assumption.
And the shepherds were simply fulfilling their
responsibilities. Think about they were doing what
they had been doing for 100 days before.
They were about the business of what they believed was their
purpose in life, to be a successful and profitable
sheepherder. They were out there day and
night looking after the best interests of the sheep they were
tending and taking care of their assets of investment.
The sheep they've been tending were sheep who may eventually be
used for sacrifice in the temple, which was merely 3 miles
away. There was nothing special about
the shepherd's lives and the world.
And that night we're going on as 100 nights before and more than
just before, but just at the right moment in God's timetable.
The unimaginable happened in Galatians 4, it says.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
Son, born of a woman under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts, crying ABBA Father, so you're no longer a
slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir
through God. So you imagine that God sent
Jesus at the precise time on his timetable into the world so that
you and I could be children of God, that we could be heirs with
Christ. What an amazing thought from our
human perspective. We don't know why God sent Jesus
to earth when he did, but he arrived right on time.
God's schedule, God's timing is never, is never.
I don't know what I wrote here. God's timing because he's in a
hurry. He's never late God's time, He's
never hurry in a hurry, but he's never late.
And second Peter 3/8 it says. But do not overlook this one
fact, beloved with the Lord, one day is is 1000 years and 1000
years, as is one day. So God sees the beginning of the
world to the end of the world. God sees the beginning of your
life to the end of your life. He knows what we will be facing,
and He's gone ahead of us to prepare the way for us.
So God doesn't fill us in on what he's about to do in
advance. We have to take it one day at a
time. I look at it like on rolling the
scroll one section at a time, God reveals his plan for our
lives. But we as humans, we want to
know what the future is. We want to know way down the
road, don't we? And Ecclesiastes 311 says God
has given them a desire to know the future.
He does everything just right and on time, but people can
never completely understand what He is doing.
So we have to keep listening to His word, listening to the Holy
Spirit, stay dependent on Him. We must continue to wait and
trust His timing. How many of you struggle with
waiting? I can't raise my hand high
enough. Man.
It seems like I picked. I could go in a store and there
could be 3 lines and I could pick the shortest line, but I'll
be the last one out. It doesn't matter, you know.
And so patience and perseverance are so important as we wait on
God and if we are faithful with our daily responsibilities in
doing what we know God wants us to do, even if we're unnoticed,
there are times that God will take the ordinary and make it
extraordinary when we least expect it.
Dan Dirks is not here today. He was supposed to be here.
I don't think he's here, but I was sitting in his room at the
Lutheran home on Monday and I was recounting about he was
telling me stories about all the people he had shared Christ with
at Argo. Argo Corners.
How many been to Argo Corners? Very few people know that place
exists, but Dan is the missionary.
He is the missionary when he walks in.
They know what he believes and he shares the gospel and so he
just does the normal routine things in his life.
And I believe when you do that, God puts the extraordinary end
to your life. So as a result, the shepherd's
faithfulness to the Lord God chose to reveal his most
precious revelation to the lowliest of mankind, the
shepherds. And it's humbling to think that
the King of Kings grand entrance was in a stable, not in with the
King of Kings or in great shepherds.
I'm sorry, not with religious leaders or with the kings or
governmental authorities, but he was there for the humblest
people in society. And so are we faithfully
fulfilling the duties and the roles of our lives.
The application here is be faithful.
Be faithful in the normal rhythms of your life.
And if you do that, God will do some amazing things and bless
you for your faithfulness. Only eternity will reveal how
our faithfulness has impacted other people.
Well, the second point on your outline is the shepherds
received. They received the heavenly
message. It was given to them and they
received it. Look at verse 9 of Luke 2.
And an Angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory
of the Lord shown around them, and they were filled with great
fear. And the Angel said to them, Fear
not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will
be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord, the Messiah.
And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in
swaddling claws and lying in a Manger.
And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praising God and saying Glory to God in the
highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is well
pleased. Notice how the shepherds
received the message from God with great fear, with reverence,
with awe, with humility, and also with great distress.
It came from an Angel. An Angel literally means a
messenger from God. And you think about where he
says in this, in this verse, verse 10, the Angel says, I
bring this message came from the very throne room of God, from
God himself. And the Angel said, fear not,
listen to what I'm about to say. What do you and I do when God
speaks to us? How do we respond?
Do we take time to ask God for things and then wait for him to
respond? Are we listening for His voice
throughout our daily lives? How good are we at active
listening skills with God and people?
James 119 said this. Know this my beloved brothers,
let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to
anger. You've heard me talk about this
verse before. I think that God has a sense of
humor. He gives us 2 ears and one
mouth, right? He's emphasizing the listening.
We need to be good listeners. We need to be active listeners.
And how do we do that when it comes to God?
It's through meditating on God's Word.
And I've been listening to Carl Clawson from Moody Radio, and
he's talked about this word, meditation.
I never heard this before, but it not only means to continue to
bring it up in your mind, but it means to say it back to God, to
put it on your lips, to repeat it to God.
Meditate. Meditate on God's word.
We also can listen through prayer.
You know, I spent a lot of time talking about adoration,
confession, Thanksgiving, supplication.
But do I take time to sit and listen to what God wants to say
to me through the Holy Spirit? Do we take time to ask God to
reveal through His Holy Spirit an affirmation of a decision
that we need to make, or wait till we have peace in our heart,
or obeying God when He says no? Or wait and just do the things
that are in front of us do? Are we good listeners waiting
for God's still small voice? How about when it comes to
people's interactions with us, either directly when we go to
someone and we ask for advice or we want counsel, or indirectly
when we have a conversation and God brings something into your
heart and your mind through that conversation?
Are you listening for what God wants to say to you?
Toby Mac has a great song that I love.
It's called Edge of My Seat. Are we leaning forward in our
seats, figuratively speaking, when God or godly counsel is
coming our way? Or two, we try to do it on our
own, and if all else fails, then we go to God.
President Franklin D Roosevelt got tired of smiling that big
smile and saying the usual things at those White House
receptions. So one evening he decided to see
whether anyone was paying attention to what he was saying.
So as each person came up to him with an extended hand, he
flashed his big smile. And he says, I murdered my
grandmother this morning. And people would automatically
respond with comments. Well, that's just lovely.
Nobody listened to what he was saying except one foreign
diplomat. When the president said I
murdered my grandmother this morning, the diplomat responded
softly. I'm sure she had it coming to
her. The problem today is not the God
is not speaking, but rather we are not listening for him.
It's not the Lord who is not speaking, but it's us who are
not hearing what he has to say. So our application is be
receptive to God's voice, be in God's word, pray, ask the Holy
Spirit to put impressions on your heart.
Do you and I take the time to pray 1st and then go out and do?
Do you and I take the time to listen for God's still small
voice as we wait on him and His timing?
Good things to reflect on for that point.
And then thirdly, the shepherd's belief is measured by their
reaction. The shepherd's belief is
measured by their reaction. Look at verse 15 of chapter 2
and Luke, when the angels went away from them into heaven, the
shepherd said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and
see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to
us. The shepherds took what they
believed and put it into action. Your actions reveal what you
believe and what faith you have. Let me say that again.
Your actions reveal what you believe and what faith you have,
James. 1A familiar section of Scripture to most of us, James
says in verse 22. But be doers of the word and not
hearers only deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a
man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
Frazee looks at himself and goes away, and it once forgets what
he was like. But the one who looks into the
perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer
who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his
doing. When my I was growing up I was
just a young guy and my grandfather was electrical
engineer for union switch and signal.
He used to design signals that you would see that we see on the
side of the railroad tracks for all over the country.
And I remember him telling me one day that he got up and took
a shower and looked in the mirror and shaved and everything
and put on his clothes and he went to work.
And then he realized he spun his pajamas on under his clothes.
He looked in the mirror, but he didn't do anything to adapt or
change. He just put his clothes over his
pajamas. When you and I, when we look
into the law of liberty, the Word of God, we're to see what
things are out of line in our life and where to measure up to
the Word of God, to adjust, to adapt, to make changes.
That's what being a doer of the Word is all about.
Well, the shepherds acted on their faith.
There's an illustration someone shared about a wooden well
bucket that he came upon, and he thought it was worthless because
it was sitting next to a barn in the sun.
They'd been there for years. It was unused for a long time.
He could see daylight between the wooden slats of the bucket.
Certainly this thing couldn't hold water again, could it?
But an older man who was wise tied the bucket to the well rope
and let it drop into the water below.
In a couple days they came back and turned the crank to draw the
bucket up and it was full of clear cool well water and was
not leaking a drop. The water had rehydrated the
wooden slats until they fit together as originally designed
and the bucket was useful again. God wants to use you, even if
you think maybe you're like that bucket, you're useless, that you
don't have anything to offer to God, that you've done these
things and God can't take and make a new bucket and re
establish it and use it for His glory.
The shepherds acted on their faith.
They saw how little they were in society, but they went out and
did what God told them to do. The shepherds went and they
observed that baby first hand. They hiked into town.
I assume they left their sheep behind them.
They were led by the supernatural after God invaded
their ordinary lives. The application?
Be willing to act on what God tells you to do.
Be willing to act when God tells you what to do.
Be obedience is doing immediately what you're asked to
do with the right heart attitude.
That's something I've always worked at in my life.
It's a challenge, but being willing to do immediately what
you're told to do with the right heart attitude.
And remember that God is at work all around you.
Just ask Him how you can help join Him in the Kingdom.
Work right where you work, or live with your neighbors.
And then the shepherds recognized the Christ, and the
shepherds recognized the Christ. Look at verse 16.
And they went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and
the baby lying in a Manger. The shepherds saw the Savior
with their own eyes. They saw along with Mary and
Joseph, the very face of God. I like that song, You know, Mark
Lowry talks about Mary. Did you know?
And in it she's it says you kissed the very face of God.
Can you imagine that in Isaiah 9 it says in verse 2, the people
who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwelt
in the land of deep darkness, On them His light has shown in
verse 6. For to us a child is born, to us
a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulder, and his name shall be called.
Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. The shepherd saw a human baby.
He was God, but he was mad. And so as a baby he cried when
he was hungry. Mary and Joseph had to change
his diapers. I bet when he was a young boy he
ran and skinned his knee. He had to go to school.
He did all the things that a normal boy would do in that
society. He was much a man as he was God.
In Philippians 2 it says who though he, God Jesus was in the
form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
Being born in the likeness of man and being found in human
form, he humbled himself, but become obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly
exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every
name. Jesus was 100% God, 100% man.
The God man was born a virgin. In our Adult Connect group,
we've been looking at different heresies, different false
teachings. One of them we talked about was
Gnosticism, and the early Gnostics tried to say that
anything material, even your body, was evil.
So Jesus could not have had a human body.
But Jesus had to be human because he had to be the
substitute for our sin to take our place on the cross.
So debunking the Gnostics thoughts.
So our application be willing this Christmas to reflect on who
the child in the Manger is. Take some time to sit and
reflect on all the attributes of Christ of God of God in in
Christ. You know they're one in the same
and who they are. I think it's great to ponder
that, especially this Christmas season.
So if you have a biblical view of who Christ is, the way you
view yourself in Christ will be accurate and give you confidence
in following Him. The last point today is the
shepherds responded to what they witnessed.
The shepherds responded to what they witnessed.
Let's finish out the chapter, chapter 2, verse 17 through 20.
And when the shepherds saw the baby Jesus, they made known to
say that he had been told them concerning the child, and all
who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her
heart. And the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as
it had been told them, the shepherds were changed in an
instant. They were filled with joy.
I don't know about you, but I've never gotten over the night that
I became a believer in Christ. Have you ever gotten over your
salvation? I hope not because it literally
transformed my life. I was a 14 year old, very
rebellious child toward my parents.
I had a foul mouth and when I became a believer in Christ, I
began to read this word like it was going out of style.
I began sharing Christ with my friends.
The foul language cleaned up pretty quickly.
The Holy Spirit convicted me of that and it transformed my life
and I can look back. And God reached down and saved
our family. There was nobody in our
immediate family who was a Christian until my dad became a
believer in Christ. And so I never get over that.
And I never get tired of spreading the good news of what
it is of the gospel as I have opportunities.
Since I've been retired, I've had time to share Christ in the
gospel with large crowds and individuals.
It's what gets me up in the morning.
And I ask God each morning give me an opportunity to have a
spiritual conversation with someone.
And most of the days he answers that prayer.
But these shepherds, they spread the good news.
They couldn't wait to tell everyone what God had done in
their midst. They returned to their sheep.
It says rejoicing and worshiping.
It says glorifying and praising God.
They were filled with awe. How could this happen?
How could this be in such an obscure place?
The natural response to God revealing himself to you is
worship is worship. Several years ago I read an
article about Queen Mary, who made a practice to visit
Scotland every year. She was loved by the people
there and she often mingled with them freely, even stepping away
from her protective escort. One afternoon she was just
walking down the street in Scotland with some children.
Her escort wasn't around and she went out further than she
planned and the clouds darkened and she saw a storm coming in
the horizon. So she went to this house and
knocked on the door and she asked this lady for an umbrella
and she says I'll bring it back tomorrow.
Well, the woman didn't recognize the queen and was reluctant to
give the stranger her best umbrella, so she handed her one
that she intended to throw away. The fabric was torn in several
places and one of the ribs was broken.
The next day, another knock was heard at the door, and when the
lady opened it, she was greeted by a royal guard who was holding
in his hand her old tattered umbrella.
The queen sent me, he said. She asked me to thank you for
loaning her this. And for a moment, the woman was
stunned. Then she burst into tears.
Oh, what an opportunity I missed.
I didn't give the queen my very best.
Are we giving God our very best when we come to worship, to come
and worship Him? Not the leftovers, but to come
prepared and giving of ourselves.
These shepherds went away glorifying and praising God
because they had seen the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
We worship and then we share what we experienced in worship
and the joy of being with our Creator, the love of our lives.
We see a pattern through these verses that we should emulate.
God was doing a work in the midst of the people of
Bethlehem. God revealed the Messiah first
to the humblest of people in society at that time, the
shepherds. They acted on faith-based on
what was told to them. The shepherds went out and they
found the baby in a Manger. They worshipped and found true
joy. And then what did they do?
Because that joy overflowed. They went out and told as many
as we believe and listen that Jesus had come and he was the
Messiah. The application is be passionate
in the spreading of the good news of Christmas.
Be passionate in sharing and spreading the good news of
Christmas. May you and I be so filled with
joy that it overflows into the lives of others by how we live
and by what we say. Here's our key thought,
Something to take away. May we always be reminded that
God chooses people not by their ability, but by their
availability. Not by their ability, but by
their availability. Are we making ourselves
available to God, giving him a blank check on our life, to
saying, Lord, whatever you want, fill me with your spirit and
help me to do what you want me to do?
There's a few questions there to ponder for you this week.
I hope you'll think about those. But I want to close with this
illustration. The late Peter Marshall was an
eloquent preacher, and for several years he was the
chaplain of the United States Senate.
He loved to tell this one story called the Keeper of the Spring,
a quiet forest dweller who lived to himself, who lived high above
an Austrian village along the eastern slopes of the Alps.
The old gentleman. He'd been hired many years ago
by a young town council to clear away the debris from the pools
of water up on the top of the mountain where the crevices
were. But they fed into the lovely
spring down in their town, and so with faithful, silent
regularity, he patrolled the hills and removed the leaves and
branches and wiped away the silt that would otherwise choke and
contaminate the fresh flow of water.
By and by the village became a popular attraction for
vacationers. Graceful Swans floated along the
crystal clear spring. The mill wheels of various
businesses located near the water turned day and night.
Farm lands were naturally irrigated, making this view from
restaurants picturesque beyond description.
Years passed and one evening the town council met for their semi
annual meeting and someone looked over the budget and they
saw this budget line item for this gentleman who is lipping up
on the top of the hill. And nobody hardly ever saw him
and nobody knew what he did and so he got the council to vote
and take out his salary. For several weeks nothing
changed. By early autumn the trees began
to shed their leaves. Small branches snapped off and
fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of sparkling
water. One afternoon someone noticed a
slight yellowish brown tint in the spring.
A couple days later that water was much darker, and within
another week a slimy film covered sections of the water
along the banks and a foul odor was soon detected.
The mill wheels move more slowly and some ground to a halt.
Swans left, as did the tourists, and clammy fingers of disease
and sickness reach deep into the village.
They caught a quick business meeting with the City Council
and realizing their gross Aaron judgment, they hired back this
lowly little man up at the top of the mountain.
And all of a sudden, within a few weeks, the river of life
began to clear up, the wheels start to turn, and new life
returned to the hamlet and the Alps once again.
What the keeper of the spring meant to the village, Christmas
means to the world. Jesus called you and I to be
salt, which is to say that we're to be the preservers of what is
good and true in the world. Just like the old man in the
mountain, we are called to serve.
And in a very real sense, the well-being of the whole world is
dependent upon us. We do make a difference.
There are no little people, There are no little jobs.
There are no little responsibilities.
Everything we do is significant and interlinks with what others
do. That's why the story of that
great Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life.
It's so important. Each life touches another life.
Let us share the good news, as the shepherds did so very long
ago, to people in our sphere of influence.
This Christmas season, let's pray.
Father, as we come before you, Lord, help us to ponder the
little baby in the Manger that we celebrate during the season
and think about all the things of who he is and what he does,
but ultimately going to the cross for us.
So we asked Lord that you would work in our lives.
Help us make ourselves available available to You Lord, so that
we can be used as your servant and however you deem possible.
And we pray and ask in Jesus name, Amen.