Joshua 22
Amen, turn in your copy of God’s
word to Joshua 22. We’re on the backstretch as it
were, got just a couple more chapters, 22, 23, 24, and we’ll
be on our way into the book of Judges. So tonight, Joshua chapter
22, and we’ll read all of it. It’s a little bit lengthy, but
I think you’ll manage quite well. So this is Joshua 22, beginning
at verse one. It says, at that time, Joshua
summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of
Manasseh. And he said to them, you have
kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded you. And
you have obeyed my voice and all that I have commanded you.
You have not forsaken your brothers these many days down to this
day, but you have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord,
your God. Now the Lord your God has given
rest to your brothers as he promised them. Therefore, turn and go
to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses,
the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the
Jordan. Only be very careful to observe
the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord,
commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his
ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cling to him and to serve
him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed
them and he sent them away and they went to their tents. Now
to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh, Moses had given
a possession in Bashan, but to the other half, Joshua had given
a possession besides their brothers in the land west of the Jordan.
And when Joshua sent them away to their homes and blessed them,
he said to them, go back to your tents with much wealth and with
very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with
much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies
with your brothers.’ So the people of Reuben and the people of Gad
and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned home, parting from the
people of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to
go to the land of Gilead, their own land, of which they had possessed
themselves by the command of the Lord through Moses. And when
they came to the region of the Jordan, that is, in the land
of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the
half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan,
an altar of imposing size. and the people of Israel heard
it. And they said, behold, the people of Reuben and the people
of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built the altar
at the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region about the
Jordan on the side that belongs to the people of Israel. And
when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of
the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against
them. Then the people of Israel sent
to the people of Reuben and to the people of Gad and to the
half tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead, Phinehas, the
son of Eleazar, the priest, and with him 10 chiefs, one from
each of the tribal families of Israel. every one of them the
head of a family among the clans of Israel. And they came to the
people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of
Manasseh in the land of Gilead. And they said to them, thus says
the whole congregation of the Lord, what is this breach of
faith that you have committed against the God of Israel in
turning away this day from following the Lord by building yourselves
an altar this day in rebellion against the Lord? Have we not
had enough of the sin at Peor from which even yet we have not
cleansed ourselves, and for which there came a plague upon the
congregation of the Lord, that you too must turn away this day
from following the Lord? And if you too rebel against
the Lord today, then tomorrow He will be angry with the whole
congregation of Israel. But now, if the land of your
possession is unclean, pass over into the Lord’s land, where the
Lord’s tabernacle stands, and take for yourselves a possession
among us. Only do not rebel against the
Lord or make us as rebels by building yourselves an altar
other than the altar of the Lord our God. Did not Achan, the son
of Zerah, break faith in the matter of the devoted things?
And wrath fell upon the congregation of Israel. Did he not perish
alone for his iniquity? Then the people of Reuben, the
people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh said in answer to
the heads of the families of Israel, the Mighty One, God the
Lord, the Mighty One, God the Lord, He knows. And let Israel
itself know, if it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against
the Lord, do not spare us today. for building an altar to turn
away from following the Lord, or if we did so, to offer burnt
offerings or grant offerings or peace offerings on it. May
the Lord himself take vengeance. No, but we did it from fear that
in time to come, your children might say to our children, what
have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord
has made the Jordan a boundary between us and between you. You
people of Reuben and the people of Gad, you have no portion in
the Lord. So your children might make our
children cease to worship the Lord. Therefore, we said, let
us now build an altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice,
but to be a witness between us and you and between our generations
after us. that we do not perform the service
of the Lord and his presence with our burnt offerings, our
sacrifices and our peace offerings. So your children will not say.
I think I’ve gotten myself mixed up here. I’m gonna just keep
going. You have no portion in the Lord. We thought if this
should be said to us or to our descendants, in time to come,
we should say, behold, the copy of the altar of the Lord, which
our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, not for sacrifice,
but to be a witness between us and you. Far be it from us that
we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following
the Lord. By building an altar for burnt
offering, grain offering or sacrifice, other than the altar of the Lord
our God that stands before his tabernacle. When Phinehas the
priest and the chiefs of the congregation, the heads of the
families of Israel who are with him, heard the words that the
people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the people of Manasseh
spoke, It was good in their eyes. And Phineas, the son of Eleazar,
the priest, said to the people of Reuben, the people of Gad,
and the people of Manasseh, today we know that the Lord is in our
midst because you have not committed this breach of faith against
the Lord. Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the
hand of the Lord. Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar
the priest and the chiefs returned from the people of Reuben, the
people of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan
to the people of Israel and brought back word to them. The report
was good in their eyes to the people of Israel and they blessed
God. They spoke more, no more of making
war against them to destroy the land where the people of Reuben,
the people of Gad were settled. The people of Reuben and the
people of Gad called the altar witness, for they said, it is
a witness between us that the Lord is God. Amen. One of the reasons I had
to sing Psalm 85 just a few minutes ago is there’s a sweet phrase,
a wonderful phrase in Psalm 85. Psalm 85 is, about God restoring Israel after
they sin mightily and he chastised them. And he says to them in
this passage, righteousness and peace, kiss. Righteousness and
truth kiss together. Steadfast love, verse 10, and
faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss
one another. Sometimes we have it in our heads.
And I have to be honest, some of the commentaries I read on
this passage from Joshua went this direction. I don’t plan
to take us there, but I’m gonna mention it. Do we value truth
over relationships? That’s a very common discussion
in the church. Would we rather be right or would we rather be
friends? We hear people say that. Well,
we want both. And in Christ Jesus, both are
possible among Christians. Now, can unrighteous people and
righteous people come together in truth? No, they cannot. And
I think that’s what’s wrong with so much of the church today.
You have the church, the people of God, trying to bring in the
unrighteous and then making it work. It won’t work. But among
Christians, in the Christian church, in Christian marriage,
in the Christian family, and in Christian relationships, righteousness
and peace can come together. Steadfast love and faithfulness
can come together in God. Sometimes we say, no, you can
only have truth or you can only have love. You can only have
correctness or relationships, but you can’t have both. Well,
I beg to differ with you. There was a piece of wood stuck
in the ground on a mountain called Calvary. And there at the cross,
righteousness and truth met with love and relationships. And it’s
only in the Christian church that we can enjoy that. And so one of the things I think
we ought to learn from this passage, maybe it’s the chief thing we
ought to learn, and it’s a little bit of a mouthful, but it’s this,
the people of God must abide by the standards of God in order
to display the realities of God. Now I know in our church, we’ve
got a lot going on. We have a Sunday morning sermon,
a Sunday night sermon. We have Sunday school. We got
a new members class going on. We had church history this morning,
hearing about J. Gresham Machen in the 20th century. We’ve got
our Wednesday night study in Genesis. We’ve got a confession
of faith for the men study and for the women. And so all these
truths can blow our minds, but I think you’ll see, I think many
of you have seen this. Sometimes our studies just go
together. God, the Holy Spirit is at work
mightily. And one of the things we’ve talked
about in line with this premise I just gave you, the people of
God must abide by the standards of God in order to display the
realities of God. I think it’s very important for
a church because it was very important for Israel. And you’ve
got the Old Testament people of God. Now you’ve got the people
of God continuing in the New Testament. And how else does
the world know who God is and what he’s like? Well, in the
ancient world, it was for Israel to be a nation unlike any others.
And now for us, the Christian community, the church, to be
different than the world around us. We ought to say with the
Lord Jesus and with the people of old, zeal for your house consumes
me. And so the people of God must
abide by the standards of God in order to display the realities
of God. If the church just does what
it wants, when it wants, and it sacrifices truth for the sake
of relationships, or if it sacrifices relationships for the sake of
truth, we show not the cross. We show not the love of God,
the truth of God, the righteousness of God. So it’s important, I
think, for us as a church, a covenant community, to look at the covenant
community back in Joshua’s day and to see how this breach or
this misunderstanding showed zeal for God’s house. So about
seven years now, the Israelites have been settling in the promised
land. And you’ll remember long time
back, Reuben Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh said to
Moses, we like the land east of the Jordan, the land of Gilead. It’s a really good place to raise
sheep. Now, what did Israel do? When
they were in Egypt, you Wednesday nighters ought to know this.
What did Israel do when they landed in the promised land?
Remember our study, Jacob’s just gotten there. They brought all
the stuff from Israel on the wagons of Pharaoh and Jacob’s
people are going to be sheep herders in the land of Goshen
and they’re going to get richer and wealthier and more increase
of livestock. That seems to be a common theme
in God’s economy for his people. And so they say to Moses, Hey,
this, this, this area looks really good for us. Can we have it?
Moses says, of course, but you got to promise this, drop your
family off and then come fight the battle with us for the rest
of the promised land. And so seven years later, seven
years later, the promise they made is now kept. That’s a long
time. for having to keep your word.
That’s like a car payment, isn’t it? That’s like a mortgage. That’s
a really long time, but they made their promise. They kept
their promise. And now it’s time to go back across the Jordan. And I don’t know if you caught
the little word. I tried to emphasize it when I read it. It was a parting. It was a separation. You notice
maybe some of the language, you’re leaving the land of Israel, you’re
leaving the land of promise, you’re going across the Jordan
to Gilead, but God blessed it, God sanctioned it, Moses approved
of it, and now it’s time for them to go back and to settle
that portion of the promised land. Now this chapter, chapter
22, is obviously part of the end of the book. There’s going
to be chapter 23. There’s going to be chapter 24, but each of
these three chapters begin with Joshua summoning or Joshua gathering
the people. Here, he’s going to gather the
two and a half tribes, give them a blessing and a charge and send
them on their way with a benediction. You go to chapter 23, he’s going
to talk to the leaders of Israel. Don’t blow it. We worked hard,
don’t blow it. And then in chapter 24, he’s
going to summon the whole congregation of Israel and they’re going to
renew the covenant between themselves and God at Shechem. So this is
a final summoning. And we have to look at that in
light of what all has gone on. They’ve crossed, uh, into the,
the, the promised land. That was the first thing we looked
at first couple of chapters. Then they’ve made a conquest
of the promised land. They booted out or cleaned out
all the heights. Remember that? Now it’s time
to stay in the land. But the key to staying in the
land is to be faithful to God. It’s to love him, serve him,
walk with him, keep his commandments. More on that in a few minutes.
But fast forward to maybe the context of Psalm 85. Why were
they pleading with God to be favorable? Because they had sinned
and he had kicked them out of the promised land. The northern
tribes got dragged out by the Assyrians, 722-ish. And the Southern
tribe, Judah and Jerusalem, got dragged out by the Babylonians
and the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. And so maybe to steal
a Ronald Reagan quote, a republic is a wonderful thing if you can
keep it. A promised land is a wonderful thing if you can keep it. we
want to think about a couple of the big themes in this passage
of scripture. The first thing, and we’re gonna
zip through these quickly, verses one through four shows us that
these two and a half tribes kept their word. They kept their word. We’ll drop our little ones off.
We’ll drop our sheep and stuff off. We won’t stop and order
cable. We won’t hang pictures. We won’t
build our woodshed and our, you know, our smokehouse. We’re going
to go into the promised land with you and we’re going to help
you clear it out. So they helped their brothers.
They stayed in the fight for the promised land for the long
haul. They pressed on and now they get their reward. Now stop
there because I think some bells ought to be going off in your
head. The Christian life is a fight. The Christian life is a fight
for the kingdom of God on this earth. Our goal is to see the
glory of God spread across the entire globe. That was Adam and
Eve’s charge. They failed at it. But that’s
now the church’s charge in Christ Jesus. And so we press on in
our labors. taking the name of Christ, the
flag of the church across the world. We press on and then we
get our possession. We get our rest in heaven. And
so verses one through four show us they kept their word to Moses. They kept their word to God and
to their brothers. And the second thing we notice
is verse five. There’s a command. Actually,
it’s a command with a bunch of commands in it. If you read verse
five, it’s got a list in it. Verse five of chapter 22 says,
only when you get to the other side, be careful, be very careful,
it says. To observe, there’s one, the
commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord,
commanded you. To love, there’s the second, love the Lord your
God. The third, to walk in all his ways. The fourth, to keep
his commandments. The fifth, to cling to him. And
the sixth, to serve him, isn’t it like a preacher, Joshua, to
give you a command that has six words in it. Observe, love, walk,
keep, clean, serve. We could go each of those words
and describe what the verb means, what the action means, all its
spiritual meaning, but I think you get the idea. Don’t swerve
to the right or left. Don’t go after other gods. Don’t
follow your own ways, your own wills. Now that’s interesting
if you just hit pause for a second. Cause what’s the accusation going
to be? You’ve just broken all this. You’ve just built this
big old altar, but this is the command. And then the third thing
we see versus six through nine, he sends them away with a benediction,
a word of blessing. Verse six says, Joshua blessed
them and he sent them away and they went to their own tents. And he tells them, go take your
possession, go distribute the wealth you have received from
the plunder, from all of our wars amongst your brothers. Go take the livestock. Go take
the spoil of gold and silver and bronze and iron. Go take
all the clothing you’ve received. Now we’ve got to think through
logistics here. They didn’t just drop off the women and the children
and the goats and the sheep. They left some men and some servants
along the way that only the fighting men went. You understand it was
just a portion that went. And so there was probably some
semblance of daily work, daily life, daily worship, daily routine.
But now the fighting men are back. And don’t you imagine that
God had his host all around these people while the fighting men
were away? You know, sometimes we wear belts and suspenders,
belts and braces, they call it. Sometimes we lock the inner door,
the outer door, this bolt lock, that bolt lock. And we should
be careful and be wise. We live in a sin filled world
with dark, deadly people. but we need to remember God has
a way. And when we obey it, he looks in on us. He looks after
us. Sometimes we’re away from our families and he takes care
of us so that we might do the work of the Lord. But Joshua
sends them back with benediction and, uh, with great encouragement
to go enjoy the fruit of the land, go enjoy, your pastures,
your family, your sheep, you fought for seven years. It was
imagine a big parting. I mean, these guys had fought
together. They lived together. They served together. They worked
hard together to clear out the land. And now they’re back home
for a little rest. Well, there’s a fourth thing
that comes up in the passage and it’s really the big thing
here. Um, not just the big thing. It is a big thing. Uh, it’s the
altar. Look at verse 10, it says, and when they came to the region
of the Jordan that is in the land of Canaan, the people of
Reuben, the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built
there an altar by the Jordan, an altar. of imposing size. So we have this principle of
worship in the reformed tradition, the regulative principle of worship
is what we call it. And it simply says this, whatever
God commands in worship, we must do. Now we all like that part. We don’t mind God telling us
to worship him and how to do it. But the inventive side of
us is forbidden. Whatever is not commanded in
worship, we may not do. Now our Lutheran brethren take
the opposite view, whatever’s commanded you must do, and whatever
is not commanded, you can do that too. And so many others
today have adopted that principle. I think though the driving principle
of worship in America today is whatever is commanded, eh, we
don’t need to do that. Whatever’s not commanded, hey,
we’ll do really well at that. And so we got smoke machines
and fog machines and, you know, all the rest, and we’ve taken
away all the important things. But we believe that when God
commands something to be done in worship, we must do it and
never change. Where do we get that from? Oh,
you get that from the reformers. You get that from John Calvin,
the mean guy with the beard. No, we actually get it from a
place like this. where God says, this is how I’m to be worshiped.
I’m to be worshiped at this altar, at this tent, in Shiloh, in my
tabernacle. Now think back to another place
in the Old Testament where God was pretty particular. Remember
the ark was being carried from one place to another. David was
bringing it back to Jerusalem and it was supposed to be carried
by the Levites with these acacia poles run through the handles.
Well, they got wiser than God and they stuck it on an ox cart
and Uzzah was walking along and the oxen stumbled and he reached
out and put his hand out to say, no Ark of the Covenant, you’re
not gonna fall in the dirt. And what did God do? He struck
him dead. Or you think about Nadab and
Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord. And I don’t know how
it is we think that God is to be trifled with. I don’t know
how it is we have come to think in the American church, we can
just invent ways and God will just be so happy with us. God
will be so blessed that we showed up to do something strange and
he ought to be nothing but pleased. Well, this is a passage that
tells us, no, God desires worship to be according to his commands
and he expects us to defend it. He expects us to defend it. Remember
the little premise we said at the beginning, the people of
God must abide by the standards of God in order to display the
realities of God. What does much of American worship
today say about God? Actually not much and possibly
nothing at all. And so we ought to be very careful
to be zealous for the house of the Lord. This altar that was
built by the half tribe of Manasseh and the tribe of Reuben, tribe
of Gad, was an altar of imposing size. Now we have the privilege
of knowing the whole story. We know that it was not at Shiloh,
it was not at the tabernacle, and that it was not a breach
of faith. But what did the other Nine and
a half tribes, no, they knew none of that. They thought for
all we know, they’ve gone over there and they’ve created a big
mess. And so this big altar, as we
read on through the passage and have it explained to us, was
a breach of faith. It was a turning away from almighty
God. It was an act of rebellion. And
so the fifth thing we see from this passage is a powwow, right? The tribe’s got to come together
and knock this thing out. What’s really going on here?
And so there’s an explanation given. Look, we didn’t want our
children after us. We didn’t want the generations
after us to be told by your generations after you, hey, you people are
over there. You’re across the Jordan. You’re technically not
in the promised land. You have no right to worship
Yahweh. And so you therefore cannot worship Yahweh. And so
we wanted to keep the altar of the Lord before our generations
as a witness. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But
what is the rest of the tribe thing? What are the other half
of the other two thirds of Israel think? Well, first of all, you’re
dragging us into your sin. You catch the corporate nature
of sin. If Aiken did it, we all did it.
We lose a war. If in the Corinthian church,
there’s sexual immorality and it’s not purged from the fellowship,
then we’re all being dragged. into it. We say sometimes, oh,
church discipline, it’s just not necessary. Let’s just be
nice, let’s just be understanding, let’s just be kind. What about
truth and mercy, truth and love, kissing? Psalm 85. Well, we seem to know better
than God, and so we let stuff go on in the church, we let stuff
build up in the church, and then we go back to remember our little
principle. The people of God must abide by the standards of
God in order to display the realities of God. And so when we have these
messed up communities, these messed up churches, what does
the world see? Oh, a bunch of hypocrites. Isn’t that their
big critique? Why would I join a bunch of hypocrites?
And they’d be right because we can’t keep order and commandments. in line as we should. And so
there’s this corporate aspect. If there’s sin in the camp, it
affects the whole. And what do they appeal to? They
say, you remember the plague of Peor. Remember some of the
people of Israel yoked themselves to the bales of Peor. God was
angry, God was displeased. And did you catch the little
statement they made? It happened about 40 years ago in this timeframe. There are still remnants of that
mess not cleaned out of the camp of the saints. And so in their
mind, they say, you have committed this dastardly deed. You have
crossed a line. And so in watching for the whole
covenant community, they come over with their little delegation
and say, what’s up? We’ve come for war, but first,
can we have a peace talk? And they say, did you catch the
mercy? We’ll do whatever it takes. If this land over here, is so
defiled that it needs an altar, an unauthorized altar. You just
abandon this land and you bring all your stuff and all your people
and you come live with us. Did you catch the over, the,
the, the over. kill, if we can use that phrase,
the exuberance, the love, the desire for the people of God
to say, you come over here, we’ll help you in your obedience. That
ought to be the spirit of the church. In fact, the book of
Galatians says, if anyone is caught in a sin, you who are
spiritual should gently restore them. I think I heard it in one
of our prayers tonight. One of our tasks, one of our
biblical tasks is to speak to one another. the word of God
for encouragement. I’ll tell you one of the things
that lets me know our church is growing and maturing, it’s
I’m no longer the principal. People for all these years have
come to me and said, pastor, so-and-so’s doing this, so-and-so’s
doing that, you need to take care of it. But I think as our
church has grown and matured, and I’ve especially seen it of
late, it’s really encouraged me, is y’all are taking care
of that stuff. You’re no longer coming to me
like I’m the high school principal or the middle school principal
and tattletaling. You’re just saying, hey, I saw this and I
will speak to them. And I’m going to encourage them
to do the right thing, to cease doing the wrong thing. and to
bring holiness back to our fellowship. Remember our premise, the people
of God must abide by the standards of God in order to display the
realities of God. And so that’s why Paul admonishes
the Colossian church to speak to one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual psalms. That’s why the book of Hebrews
says we are to encourage one another as long as it is today
to cease failing to assemble together as some are in the habit
of doing. Heard a prayer tonight that said, hey, let’s figure
out why people aren’t here and let’s pray that they’ll get with
it and return to the fellowship of the saints. But we always
need to see that rescue. Vigilance pointing out our faults,
restoring us back to the fellowship and the holiness of God is a
sweet thing. We should tell our Children when
they are under our discipline. God rescues centers, and he does
it through parents. He does it through the elders
of the church, and sometimes he does it through the state.
be a police officer catches you doing something wicked. Your
parents find out your little secrets or the church comes to
you and says, you need to walk with the Lord. You need to cling
to him. You need to be very careful and
take the things of the Lord seriously. Imagine for just a moment, if
this breach was a reality, what if they had really broken faith?
What if they had built an altar to worship on and it was unauthorized
worship because it was not at Shiloh. where God appointed and
where the priest. Some of you were listening to
the J. Gresham Machen study today, and I think you heard that at
a certain point, about 100 years ago, a breach in the Presbyterian
church could have been stopped. But it wasn’t. We’ll wait till
next year and see if they’ve come around. Well, by next year, things
have gotten worse. And by next year, and by next
year, and by next year, you saw the complete liberalism, the
complete death of a mainline what had been a solid church.
And now for 100 years we have suffered with the liberalism
that’s not Christianity at all. And what Machen I think pointed
out and y’all heard this morning is you could have nipped it in
the bud. You could have put a stop to
it. And so let us take encouragement from a passage like this. Never
despise faithful people saying to unfaithful ones, hey, come
on, let’s maintain the standard. Let’s keep the peace. live by
the standards of God so that the people on the outside can
see the realities of Almighty God. Oh, we’re quick to rescue.
Oh, don’t be mean to these folks. Oh, we want them to keep coming.
They’re big givers now. Let’s don’t hurt them. We have
all these excuses in the church. But there’s a standard and God
holds it. We saw it with Akin. Akin, come out of your tent.
Akin, what have you done? Testify before the Lord. He was
put to death. That’s a rather severe thing,
you might think. No, it was a mercy because the rest of the camp
could have become infected. And then we come to the cross
and we think to ourselves, what a great mercy God has done for
us. He laid all our sins, all our
unfaithfulness, all our covenant breaking on Jesus. And Jesus,
our Savior, paid for it. And that’s the only hope we have,
isn’t it? That’s the only rest we have is knowing that Jesus
paid the price. He paid the penalty for our sin,
and now we have a standing before Almighty God. And so, dear brothers,
dear sisters, don’t think little of faithfulness to the holy standards
of Almighty God. It means everything to God, and
it should mean everything to us. He did not spare his own
son, but he gave him up for us to make us holy like himself. Let’s go to him in prayer. Lord,
we don’t like lessons like this. We don’t like a father who disciplines
us much more. We do not like a heavenly father
who chastens us, but you do it because you love us. And so Lord,
help us to always heed correction, was never to be like the horse
who will not take a bit or a bridle or take correction. But let us
be tender. Let us be meek. Let us be lowly
and learn the gentle ways of our Savior who’s gone before
us and paid the penalty and put away your wrath. Help us now
as we go in service to you out in the world. In Christ’s name
we pray. Amen. Let’s sing to God a hymn of commitment
number 538, take my life and let it be.