The Pitfalls of Rotting Riches

There is a little epistle near
the end of the New Testament that we know of as the Epistle
of James. Do you remember that epistle?
Would you turn there? It’s been a while since we’ve
been in James. It’s kind of, I think it’s a
little bit interesting. I think the first time that years
ago when I preached the book of James, We spent almost three
and a half months in that book. We started to re-preach James
more than a year ago now, and it just seems to have blossomed
before us. Having spent five years in the
book of Romans, I’m contemplating re-preaching that, but I don’t
know if I have enough years left. The book of James, we find ourselves
in chapter 5, James chapter 5. If you recall, having been away
from this book for several weeks, in the previous chapter, chapter
4, James was zeroed in on worldliness and its effects, not just on
the world, but on the church as well. James focused on the
pride that is born out of a worldly mentality, that issues forth
in kind of a selfishness and arrogance, putting down of others,
depreciating others, only to elevate self. James has not entirely
abandoned his concern about worldliness, But here in this chapter, as
he really begins to close this epistle, he zeroes in on something
that is outside of the church. Much of what he has dealt with
already, not just worldliness, but sinful attitudes and habits,
even which he at one point referred to as spiritual adultery. Those things were in the church. But now he wants to address something
that is outside the church, vexing and troubling the church that
could become a temptation. It could become a temptation
even for those in Christ in the church. The temptation is what
to do with our money. How do we handle wealth? How
do we handle earthly blessing There’s a lot
more in chapter 5 we want to take it at least initially in
its entirety chapter 5 beginning in verse 1 Come now you rich weep and howl
for your miseries which are coming upon you. I Your riches have
rotted, your garments have become moth-eaten, your gold and your
silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against
you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in these last
days that you have stored up your treasure. Behold, the pay
of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been withheld
by you cries out against you. The outcry of those who did the
harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have
lived luxuriously on the earth and have led a life of wanton
pleasure. You have fattened your hearts
in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to
death the righteous man. He does not resist you. Be patient,
therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the
farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient
about it until it gets the early and late rains. You to be patient,
strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not complain, brethren, against
one another, that you yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the
judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren
of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the
name of the Lord. Behold, we count those blessed
who endured. You have heard of the endurance
of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that
the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. But above all,
my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with
any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no,
so that you may not fall under judgment. Is anyone among you
suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is any
among you sick? Let him call for the elders of
the church. and let them pray over him, anointing
him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered
in faith will restore the one who is sick and the Lord will
raise him up. And if he has committed sins,
they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins
to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah
was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly
that it might not rain. And it did not rain on the earth
for three years and six months. And he prayed again and the sky
poured forth rain and the earth produced its fruit. My brethren,
if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back.
Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his
way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of
sins. James was well acquainted with
this church. He was well acquainted not only
with this particular church in Jerusalem, but with the churches
in the region, all of whom were affected by the people that lived
in Jerusalem, namely the Jews, especially those who had great
means. They were blessed with worldly
wealth and they were troubling and vexing the very church of
God. And it is about them and to them
that James speaks this message. No doubt. would have trickled
out beyond the church, that there would have been a clarion call
to repentance to all who were engaged in the things that we’ll
consider this morning. What I want to look at in this
title, the pitfalls of rotting riches, it’s all riches really
that are rotting. It’s not just that the wealth
of some of these people was inherently evil. And therefore, rotting,
all wealth is passing away. All wealth is temporary. All
wealth is fleeting. But as we consider the pitfalls
of rotting riches, there is a misdirected wealth. There is a mishandled
wealth that must be considered. And as I speak to you, you might already be trying to
figure out whether I’m talking to you or not. And I would say
that by international standards, you’re all wealthy. You’re all
wealthy beyond measure, comparatively speaking. When you think of what
those in other countries have and possess, or even are allowed
to have and possess. But the question comes, these
strong words in verses one through six, are they spoken to a Christian? Much of the language of James
has shocked us at times. As I said a moment ago, he even
referred to his very congregation as adulterers, would-be adulterers,
those who would quite possibly abandon even the Lord that they
loved. But here, the language is of
a completely different kind. I don’t believe that he’s talking
to believers here. Look at verse one. He speaks
of miseries that are coming upon them. That is not something that
a believer will ever experience in glory. Verse three speaks
of this rust that is going to consume your flesh like fire. That’s not what a Christian looks
forward to. Verse five speaks of a heart
that is fattened for the day of slaughter. Hardly the imagery
that a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Knows of as his own. Look at verse six. This man is the very antithesis
of the righteous man. Whom he troubles, whom he has
condemned and put to death. This message is spoken to the
ungodly rich who are likely absent for this message. It’s an exhortation
and an admonition and an encouragement to those Christians who are present
to not become jealous of such. James proclaims their sin And
he tells them the miseries that are coming upon those miserable,
ungodly, rich people. It’s shocking language, just
like so much of James, right? So much of this epistle just
puts us on our heels. Johnstone said, here the apostles’
language is fitted to arouse and alarm those Christians who,
forgetting that friendship with the world is enmity with God,
had been drawn away to sympathy with these worldlings. to imitate
their practices. In other words, what James is
doing is saying, don’t be like them. Don’t envy them. Don’t
yearn for the wealth that they have. Don’t yearn for their lifestyle. The whole thing is a call to
repentance. This essentially declaration
of judgment, not unlike so much of the prophets, is designed
to call sinners to repentance. That is God’s great purpose in
sending his prophets Indeed, it was to pronounce judgment,
but even that pronunciation was designed to call them to repentance. Even Jesus Christ’s own words. In Matthew 23, woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Even those words were designed
to call them to repentance. Sometimes strong language must
be used. One said the most delicate denunciations
have an undertone of a yearning appeal to repent. And so do those
strong words, strong words like the words before us, there are
a call to sinners to repent. It’s the same admonition essentially
given by our Savior, with the same intent, mind you. Matthew
chapter six, you know it well. Do not store up for yourselves
treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves
break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven. where neither moth nor rust destroys,
where thieves do not break in or steal, for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. And so James sets the tone. This is a very serious subject.
He has their attention. Ultimately, he has in reference
unbelieving wealthy people who are vexing the church, but who
are also an allure. their lifestyle, their independence. It’s alluring to those in the
church. And so James speaks with great
clarity here. In strong language. But in doing
so, he gives us the perils of misdirected wealth. The things
that are so easily Troublesome to those who fall into these
things. First of all, the first peril
of misdirected wealth, wealth that is mismanaged, wealth that
misses the mark of the setting our affections for heavenly treasure. Wealth that seeks only to feed
self desire. The first peril is unprofitable
hoarding. Unprofitable hoarding. Look at
verses one through three. Come now, you rich, weep and
howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. James points to the fact that
each one of us will answer to God. Each one of us will give
an account for what we have done in the flesh. There’s a passage about the wealthy
earlier in this epistle that really embraces not just the
rich and the poor, but he’s really addressing their humility. Flip back to chapter one, look
at verse nine just briefly, This passage is not about evaluating
and measuring bank accounts. It’s about evaluating and measuring
humility. And both brothers, and I believe
both examples in this passage are brothers in Christ, both
brothers experience humility. Look at verse 9, the brother
of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position. The
point that he makes is that for somebody who doesn’t have means,
he has an inbuilt opportunity to be and to live humbly. The fact that he lacks means,
but he is to glory in the fact that he knows the Lord Jesus
Christ and to set his affections and his attention on eternal
glory. But he also speaks of another
brother in the midst. The rich man is to glory in his
humiliation. He is to humble himself. He is
to remember that he is like the withering grass that fades away. But here, his attention on riches,
his attention on wealth and how it is handled, or in this case,
mishandled, is about those who are sinfully rich. They do not handle their wealth
humbly. They are not humble. And as a
result, one day they will weep and howl. And I take it to mean
in this particular context, these are not tears of repentance.
These are tears. This is a cry of misery under
judgment. This same word used more than
a half a dozen different times in Isaiah, just to pronounce
so often, wail. It’s the wailing of facing judgment
that is in view here. Ecclesiastes tells us why. There
is a grievous evil, which I have seen under the sun, riches being
hoarded by their owner to his herd. What this reminds us of
is Nabal refusing to give David what he needed. It’s always the
more grievous when we know that God is able to make all grace
abound to us. When we are givers, we’re supposed
to be cheerful givers because God can and will bless in accordance. To hear this hoarding This hoarding
is seen as keeping God completely out of the equation. God can’t
possibly help us. God can’t possibly replenish
our storehouse. This is exactly why Jesus said
in Matthew chapter six, which verse we just read, do not store
up for yourselves treasures on earth. It’s the same connection In Jesus
words, it’s the day of judgment. Look to heaven, look to glory,
look to setting eternal treasure. Rather than trying to maintain
and cultivate earthly treasure. One faithful Puritan said here
that the great judgment at the close, the great day that our
apostle would plainly carry forward the thoughts of his readers,
a day when there shall come indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish
upon every soul of man that does evil to the Jew first and also
to the Gentile. He tells you, look to the future.
Look to your coming judgment. See, the problem is that God
gives us these things. God gives us wealth to manage,
and every one of us in the room has a relative measure of this
wealth that we are called to be stewards. We are called to
manage. And to give God an account. He desires that we would honor
Him in that. He desires that we would serve
others and care for others instead of hoarding these things up for
our own benefit. I want to take a moment this morning
and have you turn to the book of Amos. This isn’t the first
time that God expressed his concerns for the way that we manage our
wealth and the way that we Set our treasures if you’re looking
for Amos, it’s the third of the minor prophets Hosea Joel then
Amos God has always been concerned about this whole thing social
justice it better start within the church and But in the case
of Israel and Judah, they so often looked askance at their
own flesh and blood, their own brothers in their community.
And God rebuked them because of it. Look at Amos chapter three,
verse 10, where he basically starts by saying, they don’t
even know how to do what is right. It’s gotten so bad that they
don’t even know what heavenly treasure is. Jump over to chapter
five as we begin to hear explanation of what was taking place in their
midst. Amos chapter five, look at verse
11. Therefore, because you impose
heavy rent on the poor and exact a tribute of grain from them,
though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, Yet you will
not live in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards,
yet you will not drink their wine. This is a pronunciation
of judgment. They’ve robbed other people of
their wealth. They’ve hoarded it for their
own personal gain. Turn to chapter eight. It gets
much worse. In Amos chapter eight, look at
verse four. Start there. Listen to this rebuke. Hear this, you who trample the
needy, to do away with the humble of the land, saying, when will
the new moon be over, so that we may sell grain in the Sabbath,
that we may open the wheat market, to make the bushel smaller and
the shekel bigger, and to cheat with dishonest scales. This is
a rotten business. So as to buy the helpless for
money and the needy for a pair of sandals and that we may sell
the refuse of the wheat, the Lord has sworn by the pride of
Jacob. Indeed, I will never forget any
of their deeds. This is the nation that was supposed
to be the light on the hill, the example to all to call others
to God. And instead, they were repelling
them at every turn. Look at verse eight. Because
of this, will not the land quake and everyone who dwells in it
mourn? Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile. It will
be tossed about and subside like the Nile of Egypt. It will come
about on that day, declares the Lord, that I will make the sun
go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight. Then it will turn your festivals
into mourning and your songs into lamentation. sackcloth on
everyone’s loins and baldness on every head, I will make it
a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be
like a bitter day.” God puts a premium on what is now known
as social justice, caring for one another out of the great
means that he’s given to each of us. Proverbs 11, 28 says it
much more succinctly. Listen to this, he who trusts
in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish
like the green leaf. But it’s not just that evil wealth
is rotting, all wealth is fleeting and vaporous as we’ve already
talked about. But look at verse 2. Back to James chapter 5. Verse two, your riches have rotted,
your garments have become moth-eaten. What a graphic image this is.
You go to reach in your pocket for a coin and it literally vaporizes
in your hand. It’s a graphic image. But I know
this other one. When I was a young pastor, outside
of the city of Chicago. We went up one day to the south
side of Chicago, and we hit all of the secondhand shops, because
I needed some new duds, right? And I bought, I had never owned
one of these, and when I saw it on the rack and it fit, I
couldn’t wait to get it home and wear it. It was a camel hair
jacket. Nice, really nice. And it looked good, it felt good,
But you know who else liked the camel hair jacket? The moths. And the jacket hung in the closet
for some time, and we noticed these things flying around, thought
nothing of it. And the next time I went to wear
the camel hair jacket, which is not camel hair, by the way.
It’s wool. The next time I went to wear
the jacket, it was full of holes. Holes all over the place. Couldn’t
be worn. Ruined. That’s what James says, we so
often set our affections on is nothing more than treasure that
will soon be moth-eaten or rusted through completely. But the image continues in verse
three, your gold and silver have rusted. It’s not literal rust because
precious metals don’t rust, they do get tarnished. But if you
think of God, you say that gold can’t rust, that silver can’t
rust and decay. The same God that turned water
into wine, rivers into blood, brush into fire, a rock that spewed water, brought
about the earth from nothing, God could make anything decay,
even silver and gold. But the image here is probably
even metaphorical anyway. It’s going to be pointless. Your silver and your gold are
going to be worth nothing in time. Sooner or later, it’s going
to burn a hole right through your pocket. James says that the decay and
destruction of all things, all property, especially those caused
by lack of use for their God-given purpose, is gonna end up being
utterly worthless. But look at this rust. Whatever
this rust is, you wanna look at it as tarnish? I look at it
as the shameful effects of misused wealth. Your gold and your silver
have rusted. Their rust will be a witness
against you. One day it’s going to stand up
in court and speak. But it’s even worse than that.
It’s not only a witness against its mishandler, it’s the executioner
himself. as Thomas Manton said, it becomes
a poison. Look at the verse. The rust will
be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like
fire. This is the judgment brought
on by a mishandled wealth. Well, we think of many things that we would like to
take with us to glory, but we are not taking our wealth with
us. And that’s why I say all wealth is, in a sense, rotting,
putrefying. But in this man’s case, his wealth
is going to take him down with it. One faithful pastor described
this wealth. It is wealth in which you have
such pride and on which you build such lofty and far-reaching hopes. It’s about to be taken from you
utterly, your storerooms, your coffers, your wardrobes, revealing
your wickedness. When God’s children, your own
brethren, are shivering outside your gate. While you have piles of clothing
that the moths are permitted to ingest the gold and the silver
that lies unused, covered with rust. Sin generates its own punishment. The willful eye closed becomes
judicially blinded and the heart willfully inflexible becomes
judicially hardened. Do you hear what he says? He
says that Today you might notice, but there will come a day if
you don’t soften your heart, if you don’t look to eternal
treasures, there will come a day when you cannot change. The die is cast. Such is the pitfall of rotting
riches. The first peril is unprofitable
hoarding, but it does get worse. Unprofitable hoarding, look at
the second in verse four, enraging theft. And I say enraging, it’s
not just that this enrages those who are robbed, it enrages God
himself. Look at verse four, behold, the
pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been
withheld by you cries out against you. And the outcry of those
who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Please know that he isn’t saying
that all pay, that any form of employment, paying someone to
do a job, hiring employees, that isn’t bad in and of itself. That’s
not what he’s talking about here. What it’s talking about is pay
that is withheld, that was rightfully owed to the workers. Look at
the passage. Even the the verb tense here
that is used the laborers mowed. They did the job. The job is
finished. The laborers mowed, but the pay
has been withheld. That, too, is already said and
done. He has no intention of paying
those who did the work. In other words, they withheld
the just wages of those who had done good and noble work for
their own personal gain. This was over and over again
throughout the scriptures rebuked as utterly sinful. Listen to
the law, Leviticus. 1913, you shall not oppress your neighbor
or rob him. The wages of a hired man are
not to remain with you all night until morning. In other words,
he says, if the shift ends at five o’clock, you need to have
him paid. Deuteronomy chapter 24, you shall
not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he
is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in
your land, in your towns. You shall give him his wages
on his day before the sun sets. Malachi three. A rebuke against
those who oppress the wage earner in his. Wages, they keep it back
for their own personal gain. James says that this is a well-established
principle gleaned from scripture, gleaned from God’s law itself. And it cries out against you.
That stolen pay, that withheld remuneration that was due the
worker who did the work, finished the work, It cries. It cries out for justice. It cries out to God himself,
and the Lord hears it. We even saying in one of our
lyrics today about the Lord Saba off this rather unfamiliar phrase
to some of us, just speaks about God as the Lord of hosts. He
is the Lord of all. He is the Lord of the heavenly
armies. He is in charge of the heavenly
host. Psalm 2410. It’s a phrase so
often used in the Old Testament. When the people of God were somewhat
defenseless, they would cry out to God and God would hear. Thomas
Manton said here, that all his creatures are ranked in such
an order that they are always ready to serve and accomplish
his will. In other words, God is in absolute
control. He is in charge of all things,
and he has at his disposal countless angels to do his bidding. The
Lord, the Lord of hosts, a commander-in-chief of all the creatures, angels,
men, thunders, lightning, storms, showers, lions, they are all
at his back, waiting for his word, angels principally. And of what power, since one
angel destroyed 185,000? such are the perils of misdirected
wealth, not only an unprofitable hoarding and enraging theft,
that it infuriates God. But thirdly, ruinous hedonism. Ruinous hedonism. Look at verse
five. You have lived luxuriously on
the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. You have fattened your
hearts in a day of slaughter. Basically, the picture here is
of one who has taken and taken and kept back wages that were
due, and he’s taken them and used them all for his own selfish
end. He stuffed his face full. He’s
surrounded himself with nothing but pleasure and treasure. What one described as this wanton
pleasure is squandering in wild revelry would have been wrung
from the poor, pardon me, wrung from the poor by tyranny and
fraud. He stole it from them. He used
it for himself. Hedonism. And he likens this
image. When he says you’ve fattened
your hearts for a day of slaughter, he likens the whole thing to
an oxen out feeding in the fields who doesn’t even know that by
the end of the day he will be offered as a sacrifice. Drunkenness, excess, selfish
indulgence. It’s one of the inherent dangers
of wealth. One Puritan said it’s hard to
possess riches without sin. It’s a hard matter to have them
and not be hindered from heaven by them. Remember, not many wealthy. It’s hard not to grow proud,
sensual, injurious, carnal, and worldly. It’s hard not to become
those things. There is not a condition in life
that begets insolence and contempt of God so much as a luxurious
fullness. In other words, when you have
a tendency to say visa is everywhere you want to be, when you have
a tendency to be insulated from the rest of the struggles of
life and the world, when riches begin to ply their effects on
the human heart, And the human heart naturally
inclines itself to pleasure, ruinous hedonism. It’s a dangerous position. No wonder in the Proverbs of
Agur, Proverbs chapter 30, he says so simply, such good counsel
Two things I’ve asked of you, do not refuse me before I die.
Keep deception and lies far from me. Good prayer request, right?
Give me neither poverty nor riches. I would say that almost nobody
prays that prayer. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is
my portion. Why? That I not be full and deny
you and say, who is the Lord? That’s the rich man. Who needs
God? I’m a self-made man. Look at
all that I have. I’m insulated from all of the
world. Or that I be in want and steal
and profane the name of God. It’s the attitude that says,
let’s eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. There is
no God. We have no one to answer to. To live in and among these
things that God has given us to manage, like we lived, like there’s no
tomorrow, is sinful, hedonistic indulgence. But there’s a fourth.
We’re looking at the pitfalls of rotting riches, the perils
of misdirected wealth. It’s not that wealth is bad.
That was the first, I think the first Bible lesson I ever learned.
Money is the root of all evil, right? No. The love of money is the root
of all evil. It’s the perils of misdirected
wealth that we’re looking at. not only unprofitable hoarding,
enraging theft, ruinous hedonism, and heartless cruelty. Look at
verse six. You have condemned and put to
death the righteous man. He does not resist you. This is just another reference
to the courts. James referred to it in chapter
two, verse six. Is it not the rich who oppress
you and personally drag you into court? I’ve heard people articulate
this very thing, that is it not the rich who oppress you and
personally drag you into court? They can bleed a lot longer than
that individual, and so they slander this poor man, drag him
into court, bring up some kind of false charge, and make him
to suffer. All the while, this righteous
man, he doesn’t lash out. He just continues to take it
on the chin. Not unlike our Lord Jesus Christ. And so what do we do? If he’s
talking to those outside the church. And even if so, that
does and can become a temptation for us. Why? Like Psalm 73. I
want to live like that guy. I want a little bit of insulation.
I want a little bit for me. How do we handle the wealth that
we’ve been given? In closing, turn to First Timothy.
First Timothy, Chapter six. First Timothy chapter 6 offers
us just a bit of a help on how we watch and utilize the wealth,
the money that we’ve been given. First of all, it affects our
attitude, the way that we treat both God and man. Look at verse
17. Instruct those who are rich in
this present world not to be conceited. You can be thankful. You can be thankful for the way
that God has blessed you. You can be thankful for there’s
nothing wrong with enjoying the fruit of your labor. You can
be thankful, but you can’t be conceited. You can’t build up
in your mind that you are somehow qualitatively better because
you’ve been blessed better than other people. Don’t be arrogant. Second of all, It affects our
heart, it affects what we love. Not only does it affect our attitude
towards God and man, but look at verse 17, the latter half
of it. Instruct those who are rich in
this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope
on the uncertainty of riches. but on God who richly supplies
us with all things to enjoy. Do you know what? The money is
God’s whether it’s in your pocket or not, right? And it’s uncertain. It’s fleeting. It’s here one day and we’re enjoying
it and we think all is well and then the next thing you know,
something comes up. And God has many of those somethings
to send our way. Our attitude, our affections. What we see with our eyes. Our
attention to others needs. Look at verse 18. Instruct them
to do good. To be rich in good works, to
be generous and ready to share. We need to do more of that, don’t
we? We need to look for opportunities. Look for ways to bless others, to be rich in good works. That’s
one of the big misnomers, misunderstandings of Christianity. We tend to think
that if we do good works, we’re going to somehow become Catholic. The scriptures call us to good
works. We’re not saved by those works,
but we’re certainly called to do them. Instruct them to be good, to
do good, be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share,
storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation
for the future. Earthly treasure. Just like that,
which Christ spoke of in Matthew six. So that they may take hold
of that which is life indeed. I love that. All this stuff,
all this goings on down here, it isn’t life. It’s not life
indeed. But eternal treasure to be with
Christ, having served him with what he entrusted us to steward,
that’s life indeed. Would you humble yourself before
him? Our merciful king, we thank you
and praise you. for this wealthy nation in which
you’ve placed us. We thank you for the labor that
you give to our hands. We thank you for the way that
you’ve blessed it so abundantly. Lord, we have so much, and you
have blessed us so plentifully. Lord, guard our hearts against
longing for those who do not have their eyes on you, that
hoard their wealth as if it truly is their own, that steal from
others. That lavish those things upon
themselves and forget God in the process. Lord, guard us from
that sin. Father, we pray. You would keep
our focus on heavenly things. You would keep our focus on our
Lord Jesus Christ. Who bled and died and paid for
our sin. And the sins of our brother.
Lord, we thank you and praise you for the forgiveness that
we have in Christ. Grant us grace that we would
live accordingly. It’s in Jesus name that we pray.
Amen.