Tag Archives: Slave

Slaves & Sons – Sermon on John 8:31-36 for Reformation Sunday

John 8:31–36

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus says, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Those words of our Lord have been rolling around in my mind this past month. What Jesus says there has a lot of implications both for individuals and, by extension, for congregations. To be a disciple of Jesus – in other words to be a Christian – means abiding, remaining, and staying in Jesus’ Word. Those who are saved love to hear their Savior’s words. And that does not only refer to the red-letter words in our Bibles. It’s the whole thing. From the words, “In the beginning,” in Gen. 1:1 through the final, “Amen,” of Rev. 22:21 are all Jesus’ Words.

And notice to whom Jesus says this – this is so important. Jesus is speaking to “the Jews who had believed in Him.” In other words, Christ is speaking to Christians (Ro. 10:17) – people who believe His words. So, what Jesus is calling them to do is to continue abiding and remaining in His Words because if they do notremain in Jesus’ Words, they will not be His disciples, they will not know the truth, and they will not be free. Dear saints, your life as a Christian is to continue to learn and grow in your knowledge and understanding of the Bible. To be a Christian is to be a student of the Scriptures.

Now, all of that is important to ponder and consider, but there is something even more profound here that I want us to consider today. Again, as Jesus speaks to people who believe in Him, He calls them to abide in His Word so that they will (future tense) be set free. In other words, those who believe in Jesus are waiting for a freedom that is still to come. That freedom is promised, and that freedom is the hope of every Christian, but it is still in the future.

Today, as Jesus’ disciples, let’s abide in these words of Jesus here for a moment because many other passages in Scripture say that we are free when we believe. Romans 6:22 says that you, believer, have been set free from sin. A little later in Romans 8:2, Scripture says that the Spirit of Life has set you free in Christ Jesus. Galatians 5:1 says that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Just like the people in this reading did, we might want to ask Jesus, “How is it that You say, ‘You will become free’? Aren’t we free already?” Well, Jesus is clear. “Truly, truly. Amen, amen, I say to you everyone who practices,” probably a better way to translate this would be ‘does,’ “everyone who does sin is a slave to sin.” To do sin is to be a slave to sin.

So, dear saints, consider this: Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe His Word? Yes. Then Scripture is clear, you are free – right now.

But also consider this: Are you perfect? Do you do things that God forbids? Do you not do things that God demands? In other words, do you sin? Yes. Then, your Lord is also clear – you are a slave to sin. And you can’t wiggle out of this. It isn’t just that you make mistakes or that you are programmed to do things that aren’t quite right. No. All of us deliberately sin. We sin on purpose, with full knowledge, and repeatedly. And by sinning, we place ourselves under slavery to sin and put our faith in danger. Repent.

Jesus knows when He says that those who do sin are slaves to sin is a devastating judgment. That’s why He continues speaking and offers us hope saying that even though, “the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Jesus doesn’t just leave you in slavery to sin. He is the Son who sets you free – both now and in the future. Romans 6 says that you have been joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection in your Baptism, and it goes on to say, “our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin may be brought to nothing, so that,” and listen carefully here, “so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Ro. 6:6-7). 

Jesus tells us the truth. The one who does sin is a slave to sin, and He sets us free from the evil master of sin. These two clear truths from Scripture have to be one of the most difficult tensions in all the world. You are, for a time, both slaves (because you sin) and sons (because you believe and are redeemed). You are free, and at the same time you are a slave to sin. You aren’t one or the other or bounce back and forth. At the same time, you are sons of God and still slaves to sin. The last half of Romans 7 talks about this tension (Ro. 7:14-25).

You are simultaneously saint and sinner, or, as Jesus puts it here, simultaneously slaves and sons. The tension between those two teachings isn’t understandable or comprehensible. But that’s ok. The Bible teaches all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding like the Trinity; the two natures of Jesus, that He is both God and man; etc. We don’t hesitate to believe those things because Scripture clearly teaches them. Well, Scripture also teaches that you are a slave to sin and a redeemed son of God. 

This tension is what keeps you running back to Jesus. It isn’t your obedience or your consistency or the fact that you feel bad about being a sinner that sets you free. Yes, you should feel bad about being a sinner, but that isn’t what sets you free from your slavery to sin. It’s Jesus, the Son, and Him alone who sets you free now and will make you free forever.

Dear saints, when – not ‘if’ but ‘when’ – when you feel the weight of your slavery, when the shackles of your iniquities rub your wrists and ankles raw, when the whip of your transgressions has shredded your back, remember Jesus came for you. He came – not for the righteous because there aren’t any righteous – He came to call you, sinner, to repentance and faith (Mt. 9:13; Mk. 2:17; Lk. 5:32). Jesus sets you free, and if He sets you free, then you are free indeed.

Child of God, abide in Jesus’ Word, and you will remain in the house forever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Worst Economy – Sermon on Romans 6:19-23 for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity

Romans 6:19-23

19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Romans 6:23 might be the most familiar verse in the whole book of Romans. Almost every evangelism class and tract you come across probably has this verse or, at least, a portion of it. “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It’s a good verse to point to, but the danger of that verse being so familiar is that, when it is taken out of its context, it becomes little more than a slogan. It has a lot more force when we see it in its context.

When we understand this verse apart from its context – especially the phrase, “the wages of sin is death” – we most often take it to mean that when we do sinful work, the check we cash or the payment we get is death. In other words, we do sinful works and get paid with death. Now, I want to be clear. That interpretation is true, but it can lead to some serious and dangerous drawbacks. It can feed the false notion that some sins aren’t as bad as others. “Well, I only did this little sin, so I won’t get paid as much death as that other guy who did that big sin.”

The idea that sin is the work we do and the payment we get is death doesn’t actually fit the context. Consider your job. You have a boss. You have work and tasks. And a couple times each month your boss pays you for doing the work. When we think that sin is the work we do and death is the payment we get, we lose sight of who our boss is. 

What Paul is doing here puts the focus back on the boss. Sin is not just the works we do; instead, sin is the master, the employer, the boss we serve. And your boss pays with the currency of death. Talk about a bad economy. All humanity, all of us sinners, live in the worst economy where the employer is sin, and sin pays with the currency of death.

Sin is our master until Christ redeems us, buys us, and becomes our new master. Verse 22 of this text makes this clear. “Now… you,” you, Christian, “you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.” That means that sin used to own you, and when sin owned you, the wages Master Sin paid were death. But now Jesus is your master.

Now, we might wonder, why would anyone work under such a master as sin? Why not unionize and chose a better master with better benefits? Well, it is because Master Sin is so deceptive, sneaky, and insidious. Master Sin seems harmless, but he is entirely treacherous. Master Sin makes demand after demand after demand, but all of these demands seem so pleasant. Master Sin makes working for him appear to be so appealing and satisfying, but it is all a façade.

When we are working for Master Sin, we feel free. It seems nice and natural. It doesn’t feel like work. Nobody sins out of duty. You don’t sin because you feel like you have to. Serving Master Sin means you just do what comes naturally. You gladly work for Master Sin because it feels good and seems to make life easier. For those outside of Christ, serving Master Sin feels like freedom. And it doesn’t seem like the wages we will be paid matter all that much. We might wrongly think we can simply make a quick change in our lives before payday rolls around and everything will be fine. Beware. That is not the picture that Scripture gives here. Sin is not simply the type of work you do. Sin is your employer, your boss, your master, your owner.

Every moment, Master Sin is sucking the life from you, but while he does that, Master Sin likes to inject good feelings and energy into you every time he takes more blood. Master Sin is sucking your life away while you are enjoying it. But eventually, Master Sin will leave you dead at his feet, sucked completely dry and eternally lifeless and condemned. Repent.

Christian, you ought to hate Master Sin and his slave wages. But remember, as you heard in our Epistle lesson last week, you have been Baptized. You don’t belong to Master Sin anymore. You are no longer his slave. “You must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Ro. 6: 11).

Christian, know Master Sin for who he is and hate him. You have been bought and freed by the death and resurrection of Christ. So now, every time Master Sin calls to you from across the plantation lines, you ought to loathe him, his wages, his chains, and his whip more and more. Plug your ears to him, and run back to your new Master, your true Master, Christ Jesus, your Savior.

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. Yes, the slave wages of Master Sin is death, but the free gift, the free gift, of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro. 6:22-23). Consider Jesus, your new Master, and how He is toward you. What does He pay? He doesn’t. He doesn’t pay anything.

God doesn’t pay you. Only those who need you and your work pay you, and God doesn’t need anything you could ever give Him. God Himself says, “Who has first given to Me, that I should repay him?” (Job 41:11). God can’t pay you wages, but He can and does give you gifts. And the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus your Lord. With Christ as your master, you leave the worst economy and enter a radically new economy. Ephesians 2:6-7 says, “[God] raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” You think you like God’s grace now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. None of us have. 

Throughout all eternity, God will show you the immeasurable riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. And these riches are incalculable. In this life, riches are always measurable. Even if you owned the whole world, your account would have a certain amount in it. Your net worth would always have a limit. But God’s gifts and riches are immeasurable because they are new every morning (Lam. 3:22). That is true now, and it is true through all eternity.

Think of that! For all eternity God will never have to show you a treasure of His grace and mercy a second time. Every one of them is new and one that you haven’t seen before. It will take an eternity of eternities for God to show you the riches of His love and kindness toward you. In our current economy in this country, it is easy to see the balance sinking lower and lower. But in God’s economy of gifts, He can show you the treasures of His mercy for trillions of trillions of years and all eternity is still before you, and nothing is diminished. There is just as much left as when you started. That is your life now in Christ Jesus, and that is your future.

So, when Master Sin comes knocking on your door whispering to you about his slave wages, send him away; tell him he can take his wages of death and shove them. And rejoice and hope in the gifts God has for you.

Your God desires to give you an infinity of riches and mercies delivered to you on account of the death and resurrection of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and all of it is His free gift for you. And Jesus, your God and Savior, wants to continue to show you the treasures of His mercies now. He invites you now to His table to receive the gifts of His holy and precious Body and Blood given to you for the forgiveness of your sins. Come and receive. Amen.[1]

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[1] Reworked from 2020.

Slave Wages & Gifts – Sermon on Romans 6:19-23 for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity

Listen here.

Romans 6:19-23

19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The wages of sin is death. Scripture teaches that sin pays when you work for it, and the wages it pays is death. Probably, many of you have that passage memorized. After John 3:16, this is probably on the second tier of passages that most Christians have stored in their noggins, and most of the time we understand it in a certain way. Normally, the way we interpret this verse is that the payment we earn for committing a sin is death. And that is true. When I go out and do sin-type work, the payment I get for that is death.

But that interpretation can have some serious and even dangerous drawbacks. It can easily lead us to the wrong notion that certain sins are more serious and pay more than other, less significant sins. When people say that they are basically a good person, they make that claim because they figure their sins aren’t as bad as the sins of others. In the end, this kind of interpretation ends up with us making distinctions between this sin and that sin in an effort to self-justify ourselves. “I’m not as bad as that guy over there.”

Here, in this context, Paul is saying something more devastating than that the payment you get for doing the work of sin is death. Instead, Paul is saying that sin is not just the type of work you do, rather sin is your slave master whom you submit yourself to. The picture Paul is giving us is that your employer, your boss, your master is sin. And with Master Sin as your as your master, employer, boss, there is a particular currency that he uses to pay you and that is the currency of death.

So, let’s try this analogy: Let’s say you are looking for your first job, and you are going to be flipping burgers. It’s a respectable first job. You go to Burger King, and they will pay you $8.00/hour. During your interview at Dairy Queen, you learn that they will pay you $8.15/hour. Then you go check at McDonald’s, and they will pay you $8.50/hour. You go to Five Guys, and they will pay you $9.50/hour. (At this point, you can probably tell where I prefer to get burgers if I’m not making them myself.)

But let’s say you go to one more burger establishment, and it’s probably safest for me to make up an imaginary restaurant for this. Let’s say you go apply at Sin Burger. Sin Burger is a nice establishment. They have a clean restaurant and friendly employees. Your responsibilities are going to be the same as at any of the other locations, and the hours are just as flexible. At the end of the interview, the manager says, “If you work here, you will be killed. Your wages will be paid out with death.” The manager notices the shocked look on your face, and says, “Yes, here at Sin Burger, we don’t deal with dollars or pounds or rubles or pesos. Sin Burger only pays with the currency of death. It doesn’t matter the type of work you do – you could be a burger flipper, a fry fryer, the head of accounting, or the CEO – Sin Burger still pays only with death.”

So, would you take the job at Sin Burger? Of course not! And yet, that is what we all do. But why? Why do all humans work for a master who pays out with the currency of death?

It’s because Master Sin is so deceptive, so insidious. When sin is your master, it makes demand after demand after demand. But all of these demands seem so pleasant. Master Sin makes working for him appear to be so appealing, so satisfying. When we are obeying Master Sin, it feels free. It seems nice and natural. It doesn’t feel like work. And it doesn’t seem like the wages we will be paid with really matter all that much.

Nobody sins out of duty. You don’t sin because you feel like you have to. Serving Master Sin means you just do what comes naturally, and what is convenient. You do it because it feels good or because it seems to make your life easier. For those outside of Christ, serving Master Sin feels like freedom.

We hear, “the wages of sin is death,” but, when we think of sin as the type of work we do, we think we can simply make a change in our lives before payday rolls around. But that is not the picture that Scripture is giving here. Sin is not simply the type of work you do. Sin is your employer, your boss, your master, and even your owner.

Every moment, Master Sin is draining your blood, sucking the life from you. But while he does that, Master Sin likes to inject good feelings and energy into you every time he takes more blood. He’s sucking your life away while you are enjoying it. But eventually, Master Sin will leave you dead at his feet, sucked completely dry and eternally lifeless. You see the difference?

Repent.

Christian, we ought to hate Master Sin and his slave wages. But remember, as you heard last week, you have been Baptized. You don’t belong to Master Sin anymore; you are no longer a slave to Master Sin (Ro. 6:1-11). Identify Master Sin for who he is and hate him. You have been bought and freed by the death and resurrection of Christ. So now, every time Master Sin calls to you from across the plantation lines, you ought to hate him and his wages and his chains and his whip even more. Plug your ears to him, and run back to your new Master, your true Master, Christ your Savior.

Look at v. 22, but “now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.” Yes, the slave wages of Master Sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Consider your new Master and how Christ is toward you. What does He pay?

He doesn’t. God doesn’t pay you. Only those who need you and your work pay you, and God doesn’t need anything you could ever give Him. God Himself says, “Who has first given to Me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine” (Job 41:11).

So, God can’t pay you wages, but He can and does give you gifts. And the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus your Lord. Consider Eph. 2:6-7 (it’s in your insert), “[Christ] raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Think about this for a minute. God has endured the death of His Own Son to remove you from your slavery to Master Sin. And He has done that for a reason – to demonstrate and show you something. He wants to show you for all eternity the immeasurable riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. God wants to show you His riches, and these riches are incalculable. They are infinite.

In this life, riches are always measurable. Even if you owned the whole world, you could count the number of mansions you have. Your account would have a certain amount in it. Your net worth would still be finite. It might take several lifetimes to account for it all, but it would still have a limit. But God’s gifts and riches are immeasurable. His mercies are new and fresh every morning.

Think of that! For all eternity God would never have to show you a mercy or a treasure that He freely gives to you a second time. Every one of them is new and one that you haven’t seen before. God is infinite, and his mercies are infinite. it will take an eternity of eternity’s for God to show you His love and mercy toward you.

That’s what ‘infinite’ means. It means you could go on for trillions of trillions of years and yet there is still all of infinity before you and nothing is exhausted. There is as much left as when you started. God’s gifts for you are infinite. That is your life now in Christ Jesus, and that is your future.

So, when Master Sin comes and knocks on your door whispering to you about his slave wages, he wants to take away from you the gifts that Jesus would freely give to you. Send Master Sin away and rejoice and hope in the gifts God has for you.

Your God desires to give you an Infinity of riches and mercies delivered to you on account of the death and resurrection of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and all of it is His free gift for you. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Liberated – Sermon on John 8:31-36 Remembering the Reformation

Listen here.

John 8:31-36

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The parable of the prodigal son was just that – a parable. It was a story Jesus told to teach the people that He had come to save, restore, and free sinners from their slavery to sin, death, and the devil. It was a parable. But that parable tells a story about two – not just one, but two – who are lost. The younger one was obviously lost. But the older brother had wandered farther away from his father even though he never left home.

Remember the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:11-32)? He didn’t do all the wrong things his younger brother did.He didn’t tell his father to drop dead. He didn’t demand his inheritance be given to him so he could move away and blow it all. He didn’t end up in the pig-pen. He didn’t have to come crawling home begging for daddy to make him a servant. No, the older brother hadn’t done anything wrong.

Instead, that older brother insists that he did all the right things. He was dutifully working in his father’s field when his despicable brother returned. And when his father came outside to compel him to come in to the party celebrating his brother’s restoration, he answered his father, “I’ve served,” notice that, “I’ve servedyou my whole life. I’ve never disobeyed your command. I’ve never wasted your money. But when this son of yours comes home, you go and kill the fattened calf for him.”

And the parable ends with the father pleading for his older son to come inside the house and join his party.

Now, bring this picture of the older brother stubbornly standing outside the party with his father pleading him to come in. Bring that picture to the text before us now. Jesus says, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.”

Jesus is speaking to people who believed in Him. Please note that, these people believed in Him. But when Jesus tells them that the truth will set them free, they aren’t interested in the freedom that Jesus offers because they figured they haven’t ever been slaves to anyone (which is ironic because they are basically slaves to Rome and Caesar). But they honestly thought they were already free.

Their belief in their freedom was a lie. And they had a more demanding master than Caesar. They were enslaved to their sin. They figured they had done all the right things, and they denied ever doing anything wrong.

So, when Jesus tells them, “The truth will set you free,”they balk at the idea. They honestly don’t think they needed the freedom that Jesus offers.

As the Gospel of John will continue to play out, the people following Jesus will dwindle. In just a handful of chapters, Jesus’ followers will be few enough that they will fit around a table in the upper room. And the people Jesus is speaking to here in our text, again people who had believed in Him, will be found crying, “Crucify Him.”

Jesus says, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Freedom, liberation comes from the truth. The truth must be learned. You must be discipled. And the only place that learning, that discipling, happens is in the Word. And not just any ‘word,’ but the Word of Jesus. If you want to be free, if you want to be liberated, you must learn the truth of Jesus’ Word.

Listen to what the Scriptures teach. Listen to what Jesus teaches in His Word. Jesus teaches in His Word that you cannot set yourself free from sin. Sin is stronger than you are. You cannot simply choose the good and avoid the evil. You do not have free will. It sounds nice, but it’s not true. Your flesh is totally and completely corrupted by sin.

How do you know this? Because that’s what God’s Word teaches, and God cannot lie. We heard in our epistle lesson (Ro. 3:19-28) that God’s Law finds all of us guilty so that every mouth is stopped, and we are all held accountable to God.

You are a sinner. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” ‘All’ means ‘all.’ ‘All’ includes you. You have sinned. You have fallen short of the glory of God. You practice sin. You are a slave.

Learn this. God demands that you obey His commands. But you demand your own way. God says, “Do this,” and you don’t. God says, “Don’t do that,” and there you are doing what was forbidden.

But here also is the truth of God’s Word. Here is the truth that sets you free, sinner.

God has sent His Son, Jesus. Jesus has redeemed you. His obedience, His righteousness, His perfection, His life, His shed blood, His death, His resurrection was and is all for you. Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Yes, “all have sinned.” But for you who abide by faith in Christ Jesus, “there is no condemnation.” None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothin’. No condemnation.

It doesn’t matter what the world thinks. It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t even matter what you think. There is no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus.

Christian, you don’t ever get beyond this truth of God’s Word in this life. Learn it. Abide in it. Because in it is freedom. In the truth of Jesus’ Word that you are a sinner liberated by Jesus, there is freedom. In that truth, Jesus sets you free, and you are free indeed.

We celebrate it as a congregation today, but Wednesday will mark the 501stAnniversary of Martin Luther walking from his dwelling to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg Germany to nail his 95 Theses. The events that followed changed history.

But we would be wrong to look only at Luther as the one who caused the things that followed. Luther even said so. He described himself as a rotting bag of flesh who did nothing but preach and teach the Word of God. The Word of God did everything.

May we cling faithfully to that Word of God, and may it change us from slaves and captives to sin to liberated sons and daughters of our heavenly Father so that we may dwell with Jesus in God’s house forever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.