When you need a miracle No.4 Faithfulness in a foreign land

Ephesians 2, verse 8 through to 10. If you've got the NIV, join me, and even if it's a different version, you might like to read in an undertone. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared to advance for us to do. This is not planned, and I'll be fairly brief, because that the dust is still settling, as we heard we got back this afternoon.

And India is a overwhelming place on your initial visit. Some of you may have experienced that, and arriving in a big city in India early on a Tuesday morning was indeed quite an overwhelming experience, so much so that I thought, I think I made a mistake. I'm not sure I should be here.

There was just a sea of humanity. It was rush hour in Bombay, and people hanging off ancient double-decker buses, and the streets crowded with street sellers, and tents, and shacks, and thousands of people living in pretty dreadful conditions, and the whole thing is mesmerizing. And there is a lot of darkness there, and I must admit it overwhelmed me initially, and just seeing all that need around.

But we've been singing about the light shining in the darkness, and I think it's true that the darker a place is, the darker the environment is, the greater the light of Jesus can shine. And later that same day, actually in the evening, we were in a slum district of Bombay with a small gathering of believers, and my spirits were certainly lifted at that point, because there was joy, and there was light, just as we sat in a practically demolished building lit by one or two fluorescent tubes, looking out on faces that had come to know the Lord in the midst of all that darkness and oppression. There were many other experiences which I won't go into this evening.

As I said, I will be brief, but the spirit of Jesus is shining through so many people there who are proclaiming the gospel through really practical ways. They're not handing out tracts, they're getting involved helping the street children of cities like Bombay and Calcutta, providing day centers. They're getting amongst the drug addicts, they're providing schools, education, they're providing food for the starving.

And many are coming to the Lord as a result of that, and that is the way to lift up Jesus as we were singing earlier this evening as well. He really is lifted up in the eyes of those people through the practical outworking of faithful brothers and sisters in that place. So despite my initial forebodings, it did turn out to be a wonderful experience.

I'm grateful to Tony for the opportunity of accompanying him, and it is good to go along with somebody with a lot of experience in that place. And he did look after me, cups of tea in the morning and carrying my luggage and so forth. It was, yeah, it was a wonderful experience.

I think perhaps, I'll stop, there is so much I could say, but I would certainly recommend a visit to India. I think Tony's always willing for people to accompany him, and it's one of those experiences that does impact on your life, not just in a temporary way, I'm sure I think it would have a long-lasting impression upon me. And I hope I'll be going back, Anne asked me this afternoon, do you want to go back? And I said yes, I reckon that's probably a good, a good sign that it was, it was a trip worthwhile.

I think we'll take the songs a little later, so keep your Bibles open at that passage. And let me remind you of a verse that we had earlier that you helped me to read from Ephesians 2. I always have problems quoting the NIV by heart, having been reared on my mother's milk in the authorized version. So let me read it to you carefully.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, but not by works so that no one can boast. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. There's a soldier who once when contemplating the possibility of his death during the last world war wrote back home and said to his mom that should he die abroad and she never see him again, she would know that there would be some little place in another country which would be forever England.

In other words, his body, his British body would obviously deteriorate, return to dust, and in his sentimental and yet fairly reasonable conclusions, he was able to say to his mom, that little patch of ground, that will be for forever England. More of that in just a moment or two. I think it might help us to see something later of what happens towards the end of this particular account that's just been read to us from the Old Testament.

I mean here you've got three or four, certainly three very important people. The spotlight falls on them at least in some measure. There is a king who is quite a moody man.

You could call him a moody monarch. There's a prophet and he's very authoritative. You could call him a powerful prophet.

And you have also a sick soldier. Now these three, you can work out what the names are, if not directly from this chapter, by reading comparable chapters, comparative chapters, in the book of Chronicles. I mean the sick soldier, well you've got his name, that was that was Naaman.

The moody monarch, the king of Israel, his name was Joram. And then you've also got the king of Syria, whose name was Ben-Hadad. So you have these three people, and I mentioned the other, the powerful prophet, his name is Elisha.

And yet, quite frankly, you never really understand this story without centering your attention on someone who is described, but she's not named. I refer to what in fact is the pivotal verse in this incident, the third verse, where you read of a lass who says to her mistress, if only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy. Interesting, isn't it, sometimes, in some ways perhaps a little bit annoying, that in the Bible the key in a particular incident, the key player is anonymous.

I mean, wouldn't we like to know who the lady was who tossed a mite into the coffers of the temple offering in Jerusalem? Wouldn't we like to be absolutely sure who the woman was who broke a box of alabaster and out of the out of the box poured perfume on the on the feet of our Lord? Wouldn't it be nice to know who that little lad was? Wouldn't it have been good to have had a camera with you as he gave half a dozen loaves and fishes to to Jesus and and our Lord divinely multiplied them? My, what must he have said to his mum when he went back home? Hey, what did you put in the bread? And to his dad, those fish that you caught, my, it was amazing, amazing what that man Jesus was able to do. Dad, have you got the secret? Well, you don't know the name of these people and neither do you know the name of this of this young young woman. And maybe one says that's good, because the Bible tells us in Corinthians, as I was trying to explain to some mainly Indian pastors and students just a few days ago, the Bible tells us in Corinthians that God takes the foolish things.

God takes the unknown, the anonymous people in this world and and and he does remarkable things with them. It's more often than not the case in church history that the cobblers become the great. And when the Ben-Hadad's have been forgotten and the Joram's have been forgotten, it's the people like that little boy who was anonymous in the gospel story who actually impacts the world for the Lord Jesus.

And that's helpful for everyone. The back rows of our lovely sanctuary, whether upstairs or downstairs, folks who feel themselves a little nondescript that there's no contribution that you can make. Now that is, that is untrue.

I mean here's this, here's this girl and what follows is just as a result of what she did in terms of her faithfulness. You can subdivide immediately from that third verse your thinking into two categories, her memory and her ministry. Her memory was good.

Now I know all of you don't know the story, so let me remind those of you who do and tell it afresh to those of you who don't. I was going to call her an au pair but I don't, don't think that that really fits because an au pair who comes to serve a family here with the objective of getting into the English language, maybe comes in from from Sweden or one of the European countries, well they're looked after, they're given pocket money, they become one of the household. This lass, it wasn't quite like that.

She was in, she was in Israel. It seems as though she was minding her own business and suddenly a horde of soldiers came in from, from Syria, from Iran and they carted off a number of folk including herself. Now you imagine just what the reactions would have been of her mum and dad.

Do you know on the, on the streets of Calcutta tonight, and pardon the emotion that sometimes comes into my voice but some things you can't share as though you've just come out of a refrigerator, but if you walk the streets of Calcutta tonight you would find lots of girls whose parents don't know where they are. They've been actually taken from their own homes and they're exploited and they're put on the streets just as, just as prostitutes. Now this lass wasn't in that condition but she had been taken away from her family and she finds herself in, in Syria and she's on her own and as I say we wonder what her mum and dad's reaction would be.

Imagine if your kid suddenly found that, you suddenly discover that he or she never came home. Very, very difficult for you wouldn't it as, as parents. Well, well here is this lass and, and her memory is good.

She finds herself in this household. Her, her master, his name is Naaman, her mistress, well we haven't got the information as to what they called her but it seems as though she served her mistress faithfully and has quite a concern for her master who has developed leprosy. Now, now quite frankly she has every reason to say well it serves him right.

I mean why should he have stolen me? Why should I be his slave? But it seems as far as this girl is concerned that she was a girl of grace and not of grudge. Life's experiences, even the difficult ones, are not allowed by God with the intention of making you bitter but rather with the intention of making you better. It's amazing what God can do with someone who has been badly treated, particularly in the early years of their life.

I met two people like that just ten days back. One, let me tell you about her. Her name is Esther.

I guess she must be around 30. She was in a religious order but left that. Her face is quite dark.

She is an Indian. She has lovely even teeth. When she smiles the whiteness of her teeth are set off over against the blackness of her skin.

When she smiles her whole face goes into operation. She only earns 30 pounds a month and her occupation, what she feels she should be doing, is ministering to those pavement kids who just live on the streets of Calcutta. She told me a little bit about her life.

I must have spent an hour with her. I wished I'd spent several. I hope it might be possible actually because she's unsupported that perhaps our world, our Thrift Cabin might be able to help her because one of the reasons for that Thrift Cabin is to produce money so that we can sponsor work, as Ian has been saying, where although we want to communicate the gospel, we want to communicate the gospel in terms of also meeting the needs of boys and girls and others like the prostitutes violated on the streets of Calcutta.

I wonder if I can introduce the second person to you. Her name, well you'll know, her name is Teresa. To be in her company was quite some experience.

It was just a fluke of circumstances at the human level, perhaps not at the divine. Mother Teresa is internationally known for her work of relief. I was almost on my knees talking to her, not because of saintliness, though I think that she is a very remarkable woman, but simply because she's so small and being so big it wasn't so easy to actually look down to her eyes, sit alongside her and talk to her for ten minutes or so and find that most of the time all she's doing is just holding her hand and rubbing her skin and telling her, telling you a little bit about life on the streets of Calcutta and life as it was in Albania and what she'd been trying to do and had I seen Princess Diana recently and would I take a, would I take Diana a message from her? I didn't like to point out that I don't generally go in the palace every time I go to London, but being a nondescript little woman, she can't be much more than four foot six and yet with a veritable army of ladies helping in 180 people, in 180 countries to meet the needs of the poor, the poorest of the poor, well this last here in our Bible story, she had a good memory and she was a girl of grace and not grudge.

She didn't allow her experiences to make her bitter, she molded her experiences so that in God's grace they made her better and her memory prompted her to engage in a ministry. What was the ministry? Well it was to meet the need of this master of hers who she is told has leprosy. If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.

There's only one person to whom you can turn, those who are sick and those who are poor, who is going to meet their needs at both the levels. Now in this girl's day it was the man of God, Elisha. In our day we want to turn them to the Lord Jesus who ministers to people practically through His church today and whose grace is sufficient that it is available to meet the needs of their sins, to bring absolution and freedom and restore dignity, restore self-respect.

Now this little lady or at least this young woman, I don't know whether she was little or not, but she was certainly young, she makes a supposition which is full of faith. If only, if only Naaman and Elisha could be connected. And isn't that what in effect you're saying? It's certainly what Esther is saying about those street boys and girls in Calcutta.

If only they could be connected to Jesus. Now I don't know too much about the mystical theology of Mother Teresa, but all I can say is that when I was talking to her about the Lord she certainly spoke to me as though she knew the Lord through faith, through expressing faith in His death on the cross as being a means whereby her sins were forgiven. We had a good conversation, all the folks who were with me about this.

So here's another example and surely this is something that you're working for isn't it? I mean if only, if only my mother, if only my father, if only my children could be linked into Jesus. I mean it's a simple theology that this lass has. If only Naaman could be told.

Now let's get this into context. I mean Naaman's just not, he's not an ordinary soldier. He's not a private.

He's not a sergeant. He's not, he's not just mediocre. I mean this guy's been running the whole battalion, or the battalions of the armies of the king of Syria.

Naaman was, was commander. In other words he was one of the top generals, one of the top military men of his day as Mount, Mount Batten was to India, so it would seem Naaman was to Syria. And yet this is just a slip of a Hebrew girl.

If only, if only he could be introduced to the Prophet, Elisha. Now how is it that this, this lass gets such influence that her mistress, the wife of Naaman, conveys this girl's sentiments to him and he in turn conveys this to the king? You know I've come to the conclusion in this world that there are other things that operate besides the fame that perhaps the media give you. I think that there is an authority, I think there is an integrity which is recognized in ordinary people and by ordinary people.

You see this, this, this girl, she's, she's away from home but she's not away from the Lord. She could have a grudge but she shows grace. She should be, she could be bitter but instead of that her circumstances have made her better.

She's, she's away from the country where she was brought up but she's still near to the Lord that she loves. She's like Joseph who can convince Pharaoh, I mean can you, have you ever thought the logic of this one through? Here's, here's Joseph sprung from, from jail because Pharaoh's having rather absurd dreams and when he switches from one channel to another it gets worse. And when his wise men come and have a go at interpreting them then he's even more confused.

So they, they get this Hebrew out of jail, give him a wash, a shower, a change of clothing, a bit of a night, of a perfume and he's standing before Pharaoh and he's telling him what to do and, and Pharaoh is saying there's never been anyone in his hearing quite like this man before. The spirit of the gods is obviously with him. How did he know? I mean he, he acted on what Joseph told him.

You know there's gonna be seven good years and then there's gonna be seven bad years and eight years would have to go by scientifically, empirically before, before Pharaoh could test what Joseph had to say was true. But he acted on what Joseph said when he had no portfolio at all which would convince any reasonable employer that Joseph should be taken on board let alone be Prime Minister of, of, of Egypt. Now you've got the similar situation.

Think this through. Do bring your brain to the Bible and, and, and work through, sift through what is being said here. Here is just a teenage lass and, and she has a simple solution to Naaman's leprosy.

Let him go to Elisha. And how long? The king's involved. This girl's influence counts for something.

She makes a simple suggestion and it triggers a reaction. The wife goes to the husband, the husband goes to the king, and then the king decides to write a letter to the king of Israel. We've got to do this properly.

It's amazing how we mess things up which God wants us to look at in terms of simplicity. We make it so complicated. I mean this, this girl, all she says is, is, is let Naaman go to Elisha.

But, but no, we've got to get the, the wife, we've got to get the, the two kings involved. And when the king of Syria writes a letter to the king of Israel, the king of Israel gets the goose bumps. I mean all the king of Syria is trying to do is to get some, another pretext to invade Israel.

Israel is weak. And Israel has been pasted by Syria for so, for so long on so many trumped up charges. And here is another one.

I mean what does this king expect of me that he can send one leper, he'll soon be sending colonies through to me to heal. Who does he think I am, God? Mercifully Elisha gets to know of the king of Israel's problem. Now Elisha and the girl, they're on the same spiritual wavelength.

When Elisha, verse 8, the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message. Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know. There is a prophet in Israel, which is exactly what this lass had said.

Get Naaman to Elisha. The most important thing is for you to get to Jesus. Not to go rigmarole around, oh I don't know where, see this person, the other person, read that book and the other book.

The important thing is just to have your plug into the socket of Jesus. Remember the Greeks who said as they pushed their way through the the ranks of the disciples, we would see Jesus. Remember the man who was paralyzed and his friends tore up the flat roof and dropped the guy right in the middle of the room where Jesus was.

Even Jesus had to stop preaching then. Even the Son of God, there were limits as to him continuing to preach. He's got this bed being slowly lowered down from the roof.

Can you imagine the reactions of the people as they're looking up and wondering what on earth is happening? But you can congratulate these friends of the paralytic. They've got the sort of girl's theology from from 2nd Kings 5. Take him to Jesus. So we find Naaman eventually in the presence of Elisha.

But unfortunately he still doesn't have the same sort of simplicity as the lass who's been helping his wife even though he had no real right to have her in his household. He's got worked out what this man will do. After all, I mean Naaman is, as I've mentioned, one of the great military men of his day.

And he goes with his chariots. He's got his entourage. He's got his servants.

Can you imagine them all piling up outside Elisha's house? And he expects red-carpet treatment. I mean this is precisely what would happen, generally speaking, whenever this man was having an encounter, having an interview with someone else. But he's got to learn a thing or two, because you have to learn a thing or two.

But when you're desperately in need of God to intervene in your life, you have to realize that the only way in which your problems can be resolved are as a result of God's grace. Not what you do. Not what you can pay.

It's not your bank balance. It's not your military clout. It's not your physical health and strength.

Everything that will be for you spiritually is as a result of the kindness of God. There are things money cannot buy. So Elisha doesn't come out.

Just sends the man a little note and says, have you ever thought of having a bath in the River Jordan? Well no, he hadn't thought of it. If you had a little look at the River Jordan at times, you would understand why he hadn't thought of it. I mean he's a nationalist.

Aren't our rivers as good? Barna and Farpo? Why do I want this muddy pool in the River Jordan? Naaman's servant girl, however, would have put him right. The reason for the Jordan has got nothing to do with the Jordan in and of itself, the water of the Jordan. The reason for the Jordan is that wrapped up in the direction is the instruction of God.

And when God tells you to do something, you do it. When God says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, then that's what you do if you are going to be saved. Now it's interesting isn't it, that it both in the Old Testament and to some degree in the New Testament, leprosy is seen as a sort of physical illustration of sin.

So there is a sense in which we can all identify with Naaman, because every man has sinned and come short of the glory of God. And there is only one solution for your sin, and that is to come to Jesus Christ, to ask him to cleanse you from your sins. Now in some cases this is just a little bit too simple, as it was for Naaman.

The way that we react, we moderns in the 20th century, is a reflection of Naaman's stubbornness here. No, in temper it's going to go back to Syria. He's been insulted.

Never incidentally underestimate the goodness that there can be in someone who doesn't know the Lord. Think that one through. I've had some great kindness shown me by Hindu people and Muslim people over the years, simply because a person is not a Christian, it doesn't mean to say that there isn't a degree of goodness in them.

It seems to me that Naaman was a good man. It seems to me that this is the reason why this lass from Israel didn't bear a grudge against him or against his wife. And here is Naaman, and he's going to go back home.

He's got his servants with him, and his servants realize the desperate state of this man's physical condition, and that he wouldn't be risking much for him to comply to the to the Prophet's instructions, even though they seem to have been delivered in such a rude fashion. My father, verse 13, if the Prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more than when he tells you wash and be cleansed? And it's these men who prevail upon him, who are responsible at the human level for getting him in the Jordan. And then he dips once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times.

Was it simply their cries, their urgings that made him go all the way? Why seven times? Well if you read Leviticus, you'll find that seven times was specified by Moses as being the number of sprinklings that a priest was to show a leper, give to a leper who claimed to be cleansed. And as a result of that sevenfold sprinkling, he would then be reintroduced into the Hebrew community seven times. And on the seventh time, as he gets up, he looks at his skin, and it's completely whole.

Not partially, because we're not dealing with sanctification. We're dealing with someone who is going to illustrate what it means to be saved. And you're saved like that.

If you confess your sins, then God is faithful and just to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you from all your unrighteousness. This is what Naaman experiences at the physical level. His leprosy has gone.

His skin is just like the little baby who was sitting next to me on the, on the, on the plane during the hours of last evening. Skin, white, soft, without crinkles. None of the wrinkles that Sister Teresa, Mother Teresa's face has.

But then she's an elderly woman. Here is Naaman. Can you, can you understand something of his reaction? Well I say you can understand it if you have known yourself at the New Testament level, what all this prefigures if you've confessed your sins, and if you have known salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

What do you do when you have a Naaman experience? Well, if you're not too theologically educated, you try to show in some way that you want to make a contribution towards what you have received. And this is what Naaman does. He, he, he wants to show to Elisha, and he returns to Elisha's home.

He wants to show to Elisha his, his gratitude for, for what has happened. And the Prophet says, verse 16, as surely as the Lord lives whom I serve, I will not accept a thing. And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.

Why not? Why wouldn't he accept anything? Well Elisha doesn't want Naaman to go back to Syria and say anything more than this. The only thing the God of Israel took from Naaman was his leprosy. You see, you can't buy this salvation.

Not by faith, not by works. It is the gift of God. The gift of God.

It's what, what God makes over to you. Not because you deserve it, but because some little girl, some medium of communication gave you the intelligence that there is in Jesus Christ a person who can deal with your foulest sins and make you whole. There's tremendous generosity in the heart of God towards people like you and me.

Do you know the Pentecostal Church in Calcutta feeds 20,000 people every day? Assemblies of God. A work as remarkable, though perhaps not as well known, as that of Mother Teresa. And they work in tandem.

Amazing how the love of God is being demonstrated through the church in many, many areas. Halfway House I was visiting, very much like Jackie Pullinger's ministry in Hong Kong, linked into that in some way in its method, run by a retired Indian colonel, Colonel Solomon, who has boys by the hundreds through his home, gets them off alcohol, gets them off drugs, and his only therapy is spiritual therapy. Remarkable man.

Remarkable work that's been doing. Remarkable the grace of God that is being manifested through his church today, impacting the lives of people in India and elsewhere. And this is our God.

He deals with us out of his grace. You can't buy it. You accept it because of who he is.

No, the only thing Naaman can contribute towards this God is his leprosy. The only thing you can contribute towards your forgiveness is your sin. And when you're really, really forgiven and enthusiastic about it, then you do a similar sort of thing to Naaman.

Now remember he's in the Old Testament era. He's not got all the sophistication of the New Testament. He's a long way to go and serve you incidentally, though you've got the Old Testament and the New Testament.

He says, look Elisha, I'm so grateful for what's happened, and I realize that the only God that there is is the God of Israel. Now he says, let me take some soil, some soil from the Holy Land, and let me take it back to Syria so that I can pour out this soil, and you know there'll be a bit of Israel where I am. Remember my opening illustration about a bit of England? Well, let there be a bit of Israel, and let me worship God on Israel's soil, even though I will be in Syria.

You see, when you've been cleansed of your leprosy, when you've been made anew, when you've been freed from your drugs, when you've been coaxed from your prostitution from the streets of Calcutta or Bombay, when God has dealt with you at that level, then you want to worship him for all his many, many goodnesses. And this is precisely what this man was doing. Oh yes, he's got things to learn, but then we don't graduate with a high degree, do we, overnight.

We learn, we grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. So Elisha says, okay, go ahead. And you see how Naaman's whole attitude has changed.

He doesn't say, I want to buy this. He doesn't want to say, well, it's mine in any case, or else we'll come and take it from you, because, well, the Syrian army is so great. He says, Elisha, let me have it.

Will you give it in the name of your God? Will you give me this soil? And Elisha says, well, go ahead. Go in peace and go worship God in Syria. And then the servant, Gehazi, mucks everything up or tries to.

There's always someone who are in for a fast buck, even in the church. God forgive us. God forgive any who take money under false pretenses from the church.

It does happen. Sometimes money that's given for a cause is deflected. You can't always blame the organization, because the organizations working in third world countries, they work on a basis of trust.

But God help the person who takes money that has been given for a specific cause and is wrongly deflected. And so Gehazi, he stands to lose in all this. His greed is avarice.

He chases after Naaman and he does some double dealing. He wants to filter some of the money away for his own benefit. And of course, as a result of that, he's a blot on Israel, on Israel's reputation, and that the very leprosy that was Naaman's is transferred to Gehazi.

Because remember, though God is a God of love, he's also a God of judgment. I think one of the most powerful incidents I remember in my life, I will remember in my life, was just a few days ago, preaching in the heart of Calcutta on behold the goodness and the severity of God. When we were dealing with the thought of the severity of God, it was just one of those experiences when the whole place just became electric.

It was almost indescribable in this ill-lit church of cathedral proportions. It's a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It's a dangerous thing to take what God wants to use in another way and to turn it for your own advantage, which is what Gehazi was was guilty of.

But I've gone on too long. Here is, in the Old Testament, a lesson from a young girl who speaks in faith about the God she knows, even though she's away from home. A girl who could have borne a grudge, but instead showed grace.

A girl who could have been bitter, but instead grew better. And God used her, as he's using Esther, as he uses Teresa, as he uses a thousand and one unknown people. God uses them today, as he can use you, to help people to plug into Jesus.

If only he would go and see Jesus, the Lord Jesus would meet his needs and take away the leprosy of sin. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for all that you do for us.

We are undeserving, and we praise you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, Lord, that you take weak things and use them for your glory.

I think of that young man in his 30s, now heading up a relief work, who too was a street boy on drugs, and some Christian took him in and taught him about Jesus. Thank you for the simplicity of his faith and the tenacity of his courage. Lord, we bring everyone here.

Help no one to go from this church feeling that they're nondescript, that they lack potential. Help us all to realize, whether we're 80 or 18, that there is something for you that we can do. Help us to be faithful, as this Hebrew lass was faithful.

And those of us who suffer from the leprosy of sin and have not gone to Jesus, help us to go to him and to do what he says, to confess our sins and know that his blood will cleanse us from all our sins, and thus we will gain absolution. Hear us, blessed God, in his name. Amen.