In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the claims of Jesus Christ as stated in the Bible. Jesus claimed to be the bread of life, the light of the world, the door into the sheepfold, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, and the life, and the true vine. He also claimed to be the judge of all people. The preacher emphasizes that Jesus' humble background and lack of formal education did not diminish the validity of his claims. The sermon aims to show that Jesus Christ is Lord in every aspect of human life and encourages the audience to have faith in him and live for him.

I am commencing this morning an entirely new series under the title Jesus Christ is Lord. The ultimate purport of this series is going to be exceedingly practical. In due course we hope to be able to show how Jesus Christ is Lord of every aspect and facet of our human lives. Of our minds, our emotions, our wills, our bodies, our relationships, and every other aspect of life and living. But before we do that, we have to pause for a moment and ask ourselves the question, who is this Jesus Christ who according to the scriptures is said to be Lord? Who is he? What right have I as a preacher of the gospel to invite a congregation to bend to the sovereignty of Jesus of Nazareth, to listen to his word, to take him seriously, to obey him in every detail. Now we hope to spend maybe two or three Sunday mornings first of all looking at his lordly person. We want to examine something of what he said about himself, that's what we're going to do today. Then we're going to see something of what his followers said of him, how they addressed him, and when it comes to the epistles of the New Testament, what is there said concerning his rule over his people? How extensive should it be? How deep? How inclusive? I covet your prayers therefore as we come to this series because I trust that it will bring every solitary one of us to a positive landmark in our Christian experience and in our allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm very much aware, as you are, that we are living in a theological and philosophical climate today in which the orthodox Christian view of the person of Jesus Christ is not very popular to say the least. This along with other basic Christian tenets is being denied, vociferously denied by some people, and therefore we have to take cognizance of some of these things. A New Testament scholar in England writing the preface to a recent book, fairly recent book, poses this kind of question. It may sound strange at first hearing. How much can you remove from a car and still possess what is properly called a car? Lights may be a luxury. You can do without bodywork, at least in warm weather. Brakes may be dispensed with, at all events, on the level. But if you remove the engine or the chassis, it is unquestionable whether we are still talking about a car at all. Then he proceeds. During the past 45 years, we have seen the acceleration of the process which has been going on for over, I'm sorry, which has been going on ever since the 18th century, but is now perfectly obvious and open for all to behold. We have seen an increasing reluctance to accept traditional full-blooded Christianity, complete with an inspired Bible and an incarnate Christ, and a growing tendency to accommodate Christianity to the spirit of the age. Michael Green goes on to say that this has taken place in four stages. He starts off with the attack upon the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as the Word of God, and as Jesus thought it to be, and taught it to be. Then he speaks of the attack upon the person of God, particularly culminating in the movement referred to as the death of God, under the name of Althusser, in the United States and others known to some of us. At that point, the writer of this book says there were two other stages that had to be taken in this completely frontal attack upon biblical Christianity. The first was to attack the resurrection of Jesus. Now a whole gamut of books did this in the 60s, many of them breathing the spirit of devotion, but concluding that Jesus never rose from the dead. And in the book which he in part writes, though there are other articles there as well, he comes to the fourth and the main area of attack, namely the disbelief, particularly of modern theologians, the disbelief in the church as well as outside of the church, in the real incarnation. That the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Now that is the climate in which we live. Much of it is in the church, much more of it is in the world. I'm going to ask you in this series to try and imagine that you are hearing some of these things for the first time, and I want you to come with me this morning and we're going to just gather a few illustrations. They can only be illustrative, illustrative of a major New Testament theme, illustrative of how Jesus Christ thought of himself, Jesus' testimony to himself. Now the first thing I want us to consider are just a few of the titles that he accepted. The first is the title Son of God. Accepting this in his context, in his day, was something very, very significant. As you will have noticed from our reading this morning and elsewhere in John's Gospel and in the New Testament, today folk believe that everyone is a child of God, so there would be nothing special today if Jesus were to come here and say, I'm a son of God, or the Son of God. But in his day that was rare, and the manner in which he claimed to be the Son of God made it quite clear to the folk among whom he mingled that he was making himself equal with God. Even as a boy of 12 years old, you remember going to the temple on the first Passover visit to Jerusalem, our Lord Jesus Christ had an unusual sense of God being his Father and he being God's Son. You remember how he stayed behind in Jerusalem for some time whilst his father and mother were on their way home thinking he was in the crowd. Finally they returned to Jerusalem, found him in the temple questioning some of the teachers there and himself apparently offering some answers. And then they chided him, and he responded, why were you searching for me? Didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house? Or as the King James Version puts it, did you not know that I must be about my father's business? Now whether it's the father's house or the father's business I'm not concerned this morning, but the point is our Lord had a sense of having to be where his father would require him. And his father of course was not Joseph who wanted to go home, but his heavenly father who apparently wanted him to stay in Jerusalem. So here is a sense of belonging to God more than or at any rate equal to his physical belonging to Mary and to Joseph. Jesus saw himself as the Son of God. In that Ipico confession of Peter's at Caesarea Philippi, our Lord Jesus Christ had no hesitation whatsoever in accepting the confession of Peter which included that he was the Son of the Living God, not the Son of Pan, after which Panias was named in that district. Not the Son of a mythical deity, but the Son, says Peter, of the Living God. You're his Son. And our Lord turned and said to Simon, how pleased he was at this. Simon, Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. You wouldn't have come across this, he says, had not my Father in heaven disclosed to you the truth about me. You have noticed, I'm quite sure, that Jesus never linked himself along with his disciples when he referred to them as children of God. He didn't ask them to pray alongside of him saying, altogether our Father, but he taught them when you pray, you say our Father. Often he distinguished between God's fatherhood of himself and of them in this way. For example, when he spoke to Mary Magdalene in John chapter 20 and verse 17, after the resurrection of the dead, you remember Mary wanted to cling to him, she didn't want to lose him. And he said, don't do that. Instead, go to my brothers and tell them, I am returning to my Father and to your Father, and to my God and your God. You see what he's doing? He's distinguishing between the way God is his father and the manner in which God is the father of anybody else. This kind of testimony ultimately cost him his life or was an aspect in that which brought about his death. It became evident from his trial before the Sanhedrin. Let me read from Matthew 26. The high priest said to him, I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Yes, said Jesus, it is as you say. But I say to all of you, in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the majesty in heaven and coming on the clouds of the heaven. Our Lord firmly believed that he was the Son of God in a wholly unique way. He believed the testimony heard at his baptism in Jordan. When out of the sky, out of the blue came the message, a voice from heaven said, this is my Son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. He believed that and he practiced it. Let's take another title, Son of Man. Now, I have referred to Caesarea Philippi. You remember that our Lord's initial question to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi was this. Who do people say the Son of Man is? Referring to himself as the Son of Man. Having urged his disciples in Mark chapter 10 to become servants of one another rather than bosses as they wanted to be, he ended by saying this. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Referring to himself. What's he saying? He's suggesting this. They should learn to serve one another because he, the Son of Man, who is far, far greater than they are, he came to serve rather than to be served. Now, this seems to have been our Lord's favorite title for himself in the New Testament. He alone uses it and he does so many, many times as you very well know. The designation Messiah had overtones which our Lord did not want to assume. And so this was his favorite. He referred to himself as the Son of Man. But what did it really mean? Now, there is valid reason to believe that on some occasions when our Lord used it, it simply meant that he was stressing his humanity, that he was man, very man, very human, as very God. But it is fairly clear from the Gospels that he is using it in a far different sense generally. And it is more than probable that the background to the usage of the title Son of Man is to be found in Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14. There we read, in my vision at night, says Daniel, I looked and there before me was one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All peoples, nations, and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Did you ever hear such a thing? Now, I want to suggest to you that Jesus used the title Son of Man about himself against the background of that concept in Daniel, and I can prove it by just two or three quotes from him. For example, in Mark 8 and 38, Jesus said, If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with his holy angels. That is the concept of the Son of Man coming in glory that has been given him, as in the background there in Daniel. Take Mark, chapter 13, verses 26 and 27. At that time, says Jesus, men will see the Son of Man coming with the clouds, with great power and glory, and he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. There again, you see, is basing it on Daniel. He is the one whose kingdom rules over all, who has his subjects everywhere, and his kingdom knows no end and knows no limit, and he speaks of himself as such, the Son of Man. Let me give you one other illustration. Mark 14, verses 61, the second part of verse 61 and 62. Again, the high priest asked him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? We've referred to this before. I am, said Jesus, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming with the clouds of heaven. You see, he has taken that background from Daniel, and he thinks of himself in terms of the one who's fulfilling that. So, too, did he assume the title Messiah. This is the last one I can mention. Now, we have seen that he did not make great use of this himself because of certain overtones that he did not agree with. The Jews thought of messiahship largely in political terms, and he wouldn't assume that. His message was more spiritual, and therefore he didn't use this title, but he accepted it. He made it clear that he was the long-expected Messiah and accepted the title from others. He did so, for example, from the woman at Sychar's well. The woman said, you remember when she was cornered and she wasn't quite sure what to say, I know that Messiah is coming, she says, called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Listen to this. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am he. Here is Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary and Joseph, as it was supposed, and his brothers and his sisters were among them, and he says, I am he. He also affirmed his messiahship before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, as we've already indicated. Caiaphas's very question to him had been, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Christ. To which he replied, yes, it is as you say, and this was a major element in the case against him that led to his death. Before I move from this particular theme, let me remind you of the great I am's of our Lord in John chapter 9. The first comes in chapter 6 and verse 33. In the context of the first reference to this I am, I am the bread of life, they have been speaking about Moses, and some expositors are of the view that what our Lord Jesus is doing when he says, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world and so on, I'll refer to them all in a moment, some are of the opinion that what he's doing is this, that he's taking the title given by God to himself, in revealing himself to Moses and the burning bush, I am that I am, claiming to be the I am of the Old Testament, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and adding to that these basic fundamental necessities of life, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door into the sheepfold, not a door, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth and the life, I am the true vine. Now these titles are not exhaustive of this line of inquiry, but we have to turn from them. Let's go a step further this morning. Jesus claimed to be the subject of Scripture. Now we say that very glibly, very simply, as if there was nothing very significant to it. My dear friends, there is something most significant to it. The Jews were the proud inheritors of an inspired literature which they prized beyond measure, our Old Testament. These lively oracles of God were read and studied with the profoundest devotion by the faithful. And during the nation's halcyon days, the nation lived by the laws and by the teaching of these sacred words of Scripture. Now Jesus made the audacious claim that he was the subject of Scripture. He was the one of whom they wrote. Now they wrote many other things, he was not denying that, but nevertheless he put it in such a way that he implied that the basic subject, perhaps the fundamental subject, of Scripture was himself. And he said to them one day, you know, he says, if you believe Moses, you should believe in me because Moses wrote about me. And if you have that respect for Moses, you should respect me, the one about whom he wrote. Modern critics don't believe that Moses hardly wrote anything. Jesus did. Addressing his disciples following his resurrection from the dead, Jesus said, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalm. That same view of himself was expressed earlier in the same chapter when Jesus told the two on the Emius road, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Jesus saw himself in the scriptures and he was either deluded or he was true. I can't worship a deluded Christ. I can't even follow him. Jesus veritably believed that the scriptures spoke of him in this way and that those who studied the scriptures would discover him. Search the scriptures. He said, these are, they would testify about me. And if you want to know me and who I am and where I've come from, search the scriptures. He was there in person among them and could have told them, but he said, no, no, you search the scriptures. If you want the true perspective of my person and my ministry and my work, search the scriptures. Now is this view of Jesus true? Let me give you another quote. It's a little long. I hope you'll bear with me because it's a very important one. It can put it, it puts it far better than I can. I don't like to give long quotes, but here is one of about 20 lines or so. The first followers of Jesus being Jews had the highest regard for the old Testament. It enshrined the oracles of God, yet it was manifestly incomplete for the old Testament spoke of a day when God would judge the earth. It spoke of a King of David stock, whose dominion would be boundless. It spoke of all the families of mankind being blessed in Abraham. It spoke of one, like a son of man coming to the ancient of days and receiving a kingdom that would never be destroyed together with power, great glory, and judgment. It spoke of a prophet like Moses arising among the people whose teaching would be unparalleled. It spoke of a servant of the Lord whose death would atone for the sins of the people. It spoke of one who would forge a new covenant between God and man. One who would put the spirit of Yahweh into the hearts of men so that they could know God personally and have their sins wiped out. It spoke of God's kingly rule, which he would establish on earth. It spoke of a stone despised by the builders, which would become the keystone to the arch. It spoke of a priest like the legendary Melchizedek, whom the almighty would acclaim as Lord and welcome to his throne. The coming deliverer would fulfill the role of prophet, priest, and King forever. He would be born of David's line, but a humble, despised family. His birthplace would be Bethlehem. He would both restore the fallen Israel and be a light to lighten the Gentiles. He would be despised and rejected by the very people he came to rescue from their selfishness. He would die among wicked men and his tomb would be supplied by a rich man, but that would not be the end of him. He would live again and the Lord's program would prosper in his hand. Now here is the summary of this, of what this writer says. All this came true with Jesus, not some of it, all of it. There is no example in the literature of the world, says Cannon Green, where the prophecies made centuries beforehand in a holy book were fulfilled in a historical person in this way. Now it is more than probable that the disciples gained much of this insight with the benefit of hindsight. You see, that's what the critics say. I've no time to pursue that line, but that's what they say. Looking back on the life of Jesus in the light of the resurrection, but it is quite probable that they had a better view of things. Of course they did, in hindsight. And let's concede for the moment that some understanding of how he fulfilled these came by a hindsight. However, even if all the prophecies could be described in this way, the situation would be without parallel. Nowhere in literature do we find all the lines of historical perspective in prophecy converging in a single individual. Nowhere else do we find men claiming that every hint of future deliverance delivered by holy men over a period of 1,000 years has come true in one person of their acquaintance. But it is not possible to dismiss all the prophecies as the product of hindsight. The most impressive prophecies, which Jesus is said to have fulfilled, concerned the circumstances of his birth and of his death, and you can't organize those. There's a higher hand, there's a loftier hand, there's an omnipotent deity planning these things, promising these things, inspiring holy men to write about these things. Can you not see the unseen hand? Jesus claimed in the third place to be the exclusive revealer of the Father. I can only refer to this. It's a most important fact, but I can only refer to it. We all know and are very familiar with that delightful text which says, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. We all know that. You know the verse that goes before that. Have a good look at it when you go home. Matthew 11, 27. Listen to it. Jesus said, all things have been committed to me by my Father. Now listen to this. That is a mouthful, the first statement, but listen to this. No one knows the Son except the Father. There is a mystery to the being, to the nature, to the work, to the destiny of the Son that no man knows save the Father. But listen to this. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son reveals him. Jesus said that about himself. I am the Son of God. I am the Son of God with an exclusive knowledge of the Father. No one knows the Father but me. And anyone to whom I see fit to disclose his greatness, his glory, his grace, his mercy. Jesus accepted worship from people. I'm sorry, I just have to gloss over this. It's very important. When Peter bowed before him in sheer adoration, having seen a spectacle, a miracle of catching of fish, when the disciples had failed in Luke 5, and he confessed, depart from me, get away from me, Lord. He says, I'm a sinful man. You and I are not in the same territory. There's a chasm between us. Jesus accepted it. Not only that, he did exactly the same thing when Thomas fell at his feet following the resurrection on that week after Easter, a week after the resurrection, you remember. Jesus appeared to the disciples. Thomas wasn't there the first time, and then Thomas was there this time, and when Thomas put his hand in the wounds and in his side, my Lord, he says, and my God. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? My Jehovah and my God. Jesus accepted it. No merely good man would accept such homage. Jesus cannot be good if he is not what he claims to be. If a good man accepts such homage, he's an evil man thereby. For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Jesus knew that. He told the devil so in his temptation. Get away from me, he says. There's only one that we must worship. He knew that, but he himself accepted with the worship that was offered him. Paul didn't. Do you remember how those pagans in Lystra wanted to speak of Paul as a deity? Paul got almost, almost went out of his mind and got rid of them and said, no, no, no, no, no. It's a horrible thing. Don't try it. Why? Because he was a man, a good man who knew his limits and knew his sheer humanity and his failings. Jesus accepted worship. And don't forget, our New Testament comes to the point when it describes the future. And Jesus is in the center of the throne, receiving worship and praises from the whole creation and from the elders and those that have been redeemed out of every kindred and tribe and people and nation. And they worship him with God the father. If the critics Christ is accepted by the church, I tell you that is wrong. Jesus should not be there unless he is the son of God and God the son. And that is wrong. Jesus claimed to have power of life and of death. Just as the father raises the dead, he says, and gives life to them, even so the son gives life to whomsoever he is pleased to give it, John 5 and 21. And read that whole context and you'll find he says much more than that. He had the power of life in himself. That's what he claimed. Now, of course, you'd laugh about that. And justifiably, were it not for the fact, you see, that there were people dying from sickness, and he stopped the current of disease and turned it back. Jesus stepped on the scene and he said to disease away. More than that, he raised the dead men and women. We're not playing with a mythical deity here. If you and I are to accept the testimony of those that saw and heard and handled, we're not playing here. We're dealing with deity incarnate here. It touched the leper and the leper was healed. I hear a man cry to him, moved with compassion. He responded to the cry, if you will, you can make me clean. And the King James puts it beautifully. I will be clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. He had the power of life and death. Jesus claimed the power and authority to forgive sins. I'm not going to dwell on that. Simply, Jesus claimed to be judge of men. I'm drawing to a close. Born of a simple peasant mother, reared in an obscure village, without any special training in the recognized schools of his day. Yet this apparently humble, self-effacing Jesus of Nazareth claimed that he was the judge of men, that you and I here this morning, high and low, rich and poor, black and white and every color in between, you and I will stand before him. He claimed that. And that he will have the last word to say as whether you will be among the goats or the sheep, in heaven or in hell. He claimed that. He said in John chapter 5, verses 22 and 23, the father judges no man, but has entrusted all judgment to the son. That's himself. That all may honor the son as they honor the father. He who does not honor the son does not honor the father. There are people who believe that they can still honor God by dishonoring his son and refusing his view and his teaching and his, even his death. He has given him, he says, referring to himself, father has given to him authority to judge because he is the son of man. Or take the role he assumes in the parable of the sheep and the goats. And this must be the only other illustration I can give. Just imagine it. Jesus of Nazareth, the backwoods of the ancient society, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Listen to him. When the son of man comes in his glory, and he's talking about himself and they knew that. And all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and all, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. Now we could pursue this line of investigation far, far further than that, but I can't have time to do it this morning. Was Jesus Christ right in his view of himself? I'll be sure of this. If he wasn't, you have no guarantee that he was right in anything he said. If he was wrong in what he said about himself, you and I have no assurance that he was right about anything else he ever said. Was he right? Think carefully. He's so unlike the prophets and the apostles. They all pointed away from themselves to someone beyond. The prophets said, thus saith the Lord. And they carried authority. Jesus said, I say unto you, they spoke the word of God, the prophets and the apostles and urged men to obey God. Jesus said, come to me, learn of me, believe in me, follow me, me, me, me. He put himself in the center, not on the circumference. As we shall be thinking tonight, he said to them in John 14 one, believe in God, believe in me and go on doing it. Now there are only two alternatives before the honest person. As he reads these records, as far as I can understand, one must either conclude that Jesus was divine or that he was deluded. These claims said PT for size in a mere man would be egoism carried even to imperial megalomania. He was quite right. If Jesus was a mere man and made these claims, then he's a sheer megalomaniac. CS Lewis says the same kind of thing. When he writes the discrepancy between the depths and sanity and shrewdness of our Lord's moral teaching and the rampant megalomania, which must lie behind his theological teaching, unless he is indeed, God has never been satisfactorily got over. And here are your alternatives megalomaniac or not on merely apparent or emasculated deity left behind. When men have taken this away from him and that play and cut him down to the size acceptable to the modern man, the Christ to whom testimony is born by the only witnesses that saw him and heard him and lived with him and touched him and handled him. Now I believe, and the church has always believed that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord whom death on Calvary's cross, terrifying as it was with an ingredient that will never be in your death and mine. If we know Christ to save you, death robbed him of nothing, but the very act of death only added to his glory and added a new dimension to his power. Jesus is more alive today than he was before he died on the cross for 2000 years. He has been among men and women of every kingdom, nation, tribe, people speaking in all the languages of mankind. He has no problem of communication and everywhere men and women hear his voice and they come to know God when they obey him and trust him. Millions claim daily to be in touch with him and with God through him, for he's the one mediator between God and men. He was not deluded. Christian experience everywhere affirms that he has brought us near to God and the promises of God find their yea and amen in him. I don't often quote the great Napoleon, though I have a great respect for him. I'm going to do so in closing today. Thank you for your gracious listening. I never thought I'd get through this. Napoleon, you speak of Caesar, Alexander and their conquests of the enthusiasm that they kindled in the hearts of their soldiers. But he asks, can you conceive of a dead man making conquest with an army faithful and entirely devoted only to his memory? My army, he says, has forgotten me while I'm still alive. I have inspired multitudes so that they would die for me. But after all, my presence was necessary. The lightning of my eye, my voice, a word from me. Then the sacred fire was kindled in their hearts. Now, however, that I am in St. Helena, alone, chained upon a rock, who fights and wins my empires for me? No one, he says. What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of the Christ, who is proclaimed, loved, adored, and whose reign is extending over all the earth, whilst he himself has left the scene. Men and women, if you face the facts of the testimony of the New Testament and the writers, you have to decide whether Jesus Christ was deluded or whether he was divine. And I asked for your verdict this morning. I ask you to decide. I ask you to accept the verdict. And therefore, with a robust confidence in him, with a real faith in him, to go out into the world, to witness to him, to live for him, and to wait for him until, as King of kings and Lord of lords, he come to consummate the purposes he had in mind when he came the first time, and we shall see him as he is. Are there those here that are not yet trusting in him? He has been emasculated to you. You've never seen his glory in this way before, perhaps. You've never seriously considered this line of testimony to him. Well, you've heard it today, albeit feebly given, but you've heard it. And you're answerable for it. Think about it. May the Spirit of God bring to birth in our every heart a solemn, vital, personal, undying conviction that will brook no rival, that Jesus Christ is Lord, whom I ought to obey, whom I can trust with all my heart, whom I ought to worship, and in whose hand my very destiny rests. Let us pray. Father, we confess in your presence our sins, and in particularly, O Lord, our Father, the sins that relate to the witness given to your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We have accepted so many words without recognizing their meaning. We have used terms like empty shibboleths, and so we have called him Master and Lord, but have not obeyed, nor followed, nor worshipped. We have believed others to be more clever than he, and more authoritative, and we've bowed before other gods, despising him. Spirit of God, bend our necks as you will loom in our minds, and quicken our consciences to an allegiance to him that we owe to no one else. Hear us in his holy name. Amen.