Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 7 | Date: August 8, 2010 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction and Scripture Reading

Before we begin, I’d like to thank 1 Corinthians chapter 7. I’m going to take the time to read a lengthy portion again this morning. In fact, I think I will take the time to read the whole chapter again so we have it set in context for us. This morning we look at the subject of marriage, divorce, and remarriage.

1 Corinthians chapter 7: “Now for the matters you wrote about. It is good for a man not to marry, but since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone, but to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that.

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say, it is good for them to stay unmarried as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this, not I, not the Lord. If any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. If a woman has a husband who is not a believer, and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. Believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? How do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you, although if you gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman. Similarly, he who was a freedman when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.

Now, about virgins. I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on, those who have wives should live as if they had none. Those who mourn as if they did not. Those who are happy as if they were not. Those who buy something as if it were not theirs to keep. Those who use the things of the world as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs, how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife. And his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord both in body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband. I’m saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. The man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but his control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin, this man also does the right thing. So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better. A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is, and I think that I, too, have the Spirit of God.”

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we need your instruction on practical matters like this, and we’re grateful that you have come to restore us, not only from our guilt in Christ, but also in restoring our lives to be lived before You in a way that is pleasing to You. You have provided for that as well. We ask that You would use this portion of Your Word to shape our minds and our lives accordingly. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, we have seen that Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is something of a troubleshooting letter. So many of Paul’s letters we’ve characterized as setting out first of all, roughly the first half of the letter, as full of doctrinal instruction of one kind or another. And then usually around halfway through, he turns the corner and says, “Now, therefore,” and he begins to exhort us how to live. There’s a sense in which that’s true of 1 Corinthians, but really 1 Corinthians is a letter in which from the get-go he is addressing one problem after another in the church—some problems and questions that were raised, some of a strictly theological nature, some of a very ethical and practical nature in that sense. And so one after the other, Paul takes up those issues to deal with.

And here we come to the question of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Last week, you remember, we looked in verses 1 through 9 at the question of physical relations in marriage. And now we turn to the question of marriage itself as it relates to the question of divorce and remarriage. God has, as I mentioned just a moment ago, set out not only to redeem us from the guilt of sin, but also to restore our lives before the Lord. And this question of divorce and remarriage is certainly part of it. It’s difficult to imagine very many families at all here, even in the church, that have not been affected in some way by the problem of divorce. It’s a sad thing. It’s a grievous thing that people have had to go through. And there have been many tears shed in that regard. And I think also there have been many tears shed in this regard because of guilt that has been imposed on believers by the church. And I think very often it’s been a false guilt. And that needs to be clarified as well. And so Paul gives us this passage here to sort out these questions for us.

Define Some Of Our Terms

First of all, while we work through the passage, I think it’s important to define some of our terms. And first of all, I want you to notice this term “unmarried.” We find it first of all in verse 8: “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say it is good for them to stay unmarried.” We find it again in verse 11: “But if she does, she must remain unmarried.” We find it again in verse 32 and in verse 34. The word “unmarried” is a word that is used only here in the New Testament. The question is, what exactly is Paul referring to when he refers to those who are unmarried?

On one level, that sounds easy enough. That is, anyone who’s not in a marriage relationship. But that’s not quite how Paul uses the term here. Notice in verse 34, “an unmarried woman or a virgin.” He seems to be making here a distinction between the two. We know what a virgin is: it’s one who’s not yet married. The unmarried is a distinct group. Whoever these unmarried are, they’re not simply people who’ve never been married. If you look back at verse 8, we find the same kind of distinction being made, only here it is “the unmarried and the widows.” That is, we know what a widow is: it’s someone who used to be married, but the marriage has been dissolved because of death. But the unmarried, then, are not virgins, and they are not widows. So what are they?

Well, verses 10 and 11 seem to fill that in for us. “To the married, I give this command, not I but the Lord, a wife must not divorce her husband or separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried.” And it seems that Paul is using this word in that regard, that the “unmarried,” in his terminology here in this passage, refers to those who are divorced.

Now what’s interesting there is that Paul in verse 8 seems to put himself in that category, and that opens up some other questions that have been asked and tried to be answered. Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin. Could he be a member of the Sanhedrin without being married? That was the rule; they had to be married. And what happened to the wife? There may have been some exceptions that were made with regard to the Sanhedrin. I don’t know. But the question is left open here, and it seems that Paul may be putting himself in that category.

But that’s not what’s important. What is important here is that I’m sure many of you have heard preachers say that when a person has been divorced—and I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase—they’re “still married in God’s eyes.” You heard that? And what is Paul’s term here? They’re unmarried. There it is. They are agamos, unmarried. So when you find this, when you hear someone saying that, however good their intentions may be, someone who’s divorced, according to Paul’s terminology here, is unmarried. They’re not still married in God’s eyes. They’re unmarried. Now, it might be the case that they have been divorced illegitimately, wrongly, without biblical justifiable grounds for divorce, in which case that divorce was sinful. But still, the resulting case is they are unmarried, not still married in God’s eyes. I don’t know where we came up with that, but it’s not a biblical notion at all. I think it’s important to clarify that as we go through.

Now it brings up the next question we should clarify before we go through. And that is: what exactly is divorce? And I think that helps. We’ve been set up for that now. And that is a divorce. Two or three different words for divorce are used through this passage. We have it in verse 10, “separate from her husband.” At the end of verse 11, “divorce his wife.” Again in verse 12, verse 13, verse 15, “leaves him.” There’s similar terminology that is used. And again, we find it in verse 27, a different Greek word used, but all to the same point: they’re divorced from their husband or from their wife.

What is divorce? Well, divorce then is a separation which breaks or dissolves the marriage union. It’s a separation that breaks or dissolves the marriage union. The result of the divorce is they are unmarried. Again, whether legitimately or illegitimately, whether it was with a justifiable cause or not, whether in violation of God’s commands or not, the result of the divorce is that they are unmarried. So again, we have in verses 10 and 11, even those who have divorced in violation of this law that Paul is laying down—”a wife must not separate from her husband”—but if she does, she still is unmarried. So divorce is a dissolution of the marriage union.

The Permanence Of Marriage

Now, in verses 10 and 11, let’s begin to work our way through the question as Paul unfolds it here. In verses 10 and 11, Paul addresses the foundational point of the permanence of marriage. Look at verses 10 and 11 again. “To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord.” That is to say, Jesus himself addressed this question, so it’s not just coming from me; this is coming from him. “To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband or divorce her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”

The underlying point here that he’s making is what we read earlier in Matthew chapter 19, and that is the rule is we are to be married for life. Marriage is a permanent union, and Paul is simply underlining that. He’s simply referring back to Jesus’ instruction, which in short is: don’t divorce. We saw that in Matthew 19, verses 1-9, where Jesus was asked the question about divorce, and Jesus says, “No, the original pattern is one man, one woman for life. They have become one. And if they have become one before God, let not man separate them.” And then Jesus makes, of course, the exception clause, “except it be for adultery or fornication,” breaking the marriage union in that respect, that it is allowed. But he says, “Don’t divorce.” Short of that, don’t divorce.

Now, Paul doesn’t repeat the exception clause here. Jesus said, “Don’t divorce.” There’s an allowance made for fornication, for sexual immorality. But short of that, Jesus says, “Don’t divorce.” That’s the rule. Paul doesn’t repeat that exception clause here, and it’s probable that he’s not repeating it simply because it’s assumed. And he’s simply referring in shorthand to Jesus’ pronouncement that marriage is for life. That is the rule, even if there are exceptions. So Christ’s law, then, is do not divorce. Stay married.

Now, Jesus did acknowledge that divorce would be a problem. He acknowledged that immorality would be a problem. And so because of that, he has given allowance for divorce. And because he’s given allowance for divorce, we can’t deny that then in Matthew chapter 19. But God did make allowance for it, and he regulated it because of human sin. Jesus said that. The reason it’s allowed is because of human sin. Make sure you don’t misunderstand that, by the way. That is not to say every person who has been divorced was sinning in that divorce. There may well be innocent parties. Remember what God says about Joseph. He thought that Mary had been unfaithful to him. Joseph, being a righteous man, sought to divorce her privately. There was not a sin on his part in that, assuming his assumptions, of course. But the law of Christ is you stay married with one exception only, and that is fornication.

Now, that’s something that we must reaffirm today. We’ve divorced today for all kinds of reasons. We don’t get along well. Didn’t find that it was as good as we had hoped for. And Paul, echoing Christ, is simply saying, “No, you don’t divorce. You stay married. You work out your problems.” But, verse 11, if she does divorce him, what then? That is, if she has, in violation of this command, if she has divorced her husband, what does Paul say? Stay unmarried. That’s it. Your options are maybe reconcile to your husband, that is be remarried to him, or stay unmarried. If you have violated this command and divorced, that is not for fornication, but for some other lesser reason, Paul says you must stay unmarried. So then, in summary, verses 10 and 11 are simply: stay married. We can assume that as Paul is referring here to Jesus’ command in Matthew 19, stay married unless fornication—that’s an exception clause. But the general rule then is stay married, and if you marry in violation of that command, that is if you divorce in violation of that command, then you must stay unmarried.

Instruction For Mixed Marriages

Now, in verse 12, Paul’s instruction takes a turn. “To the rest, I say this, I, not the Lord, if any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.” Notice then, beginning with verse 12, Paul is taking a turn. Now he’s addressing another situation. “To the rest, I say, that is not the Lord, I say this.” That is, Jesus addressed the question of fornication in marriage and gave an exception clause for that. Now I’m raising a question that Jesus did not address specifically. And so I’m saying this, not the Lord in that sense.

Some people have referred to this passage in order to say that Paul here is not speaking under inspiration. That’s not the point he’s making. The point he’s making simply is that Jesus did not address this specific question. That is, the question of a believer who finds himself or herself married to an unbeliever. What about this case? So Paul says, “All right, I will address that question for you here.” And his answer is? If a man finds himself married to an unbelieving wife, stay married. If a woman finds herself, as a believer, married to an unbelieving husband, stay married. That’s the instruction he gives.

Now you can see where some might have thought this. They’ve come to Christ. They recognize that the ideal is to be not unequally yoked. They find themselves married to an unbeliever. Maybe there’s something wrong with that. Maybe there’s something unholy about being married to an unbeliever. Paul says, “No, no, not at all. Stay married.” So Jesus made the allowance for fornication. Paul’s saying now, just because you are married to an unbeliever, that is not an exception for divorce. Stay married.

There are resources that are available for two believers. In marriage situations, they ought to work out their issues that they have. You have the Holy Spirit. You have the Word of God. You have prayer. You have God’s law written on your heart. There’s every advantage to you in your marriage between two believers. There’s every reason why you ought to be able to work this out and come to a marriage that is glorifying and honoring to God in every way. Now, you don’t have that when you’re married to an unbeliever. So what about now? Paul says, “No, you don’t divorce. You still stay married.”

Now, I’m going to leave that question for later. Your unbelieving spouse then does not want to leave you, then remain with him, remain with her. Verses 17 and following, he picks up on that discussion where he says to be content in the situation in which you were in when God called you. If you were in the situation of being married and in an unequal yoke when God saved you, then stay there. That’s the command.

Now we come to verse 14. And he gives the reason or the explanation for it. “For the unbelieving husband,” notice the explanatory conjunction, “for” or “because,” married to an unbeliever, stay married “because the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” That is to say simply, it may be by your believing presence in the home, your spouse will become converted. Don’t leave him. Don’t leave her. It might be that by your sanctifying influence and the privileges now that he or she has because of your presence there, they may come to Christ as well. If you’re married to an unbeliever, you may worry somehow that your children will become now defiled. And Paul says, “No, actually, you should think of it the other way. Because of your presence there, they are made holy.” That is, they have this sanctifying influence as well, just as your unbelieving spouse does. And so look at it as an opportunity for them, not as something that you should try to escape.

All right, that’s verse 14. And he explains that, by the way, in verse 16: “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you’ll save your wife?” So the sanctifying influence that he’s speaking of in verse 14 is in terms of salvation. So, remain married. If your unbelieving spouse is content to stay married with you, then stay married. Keep your marriage. Make it happy. Make it work. And try to make it work, by the way, in the way that Peter exhorts us in 1 Peter chapter 3. You remember where Peter exhorts the believing wife, who has an unbelieving husband, and tells her, “Don’t nag the guy. But put on the best display of Christian virtue that you can so that by your silent witness you will win him over.” So remain married even if the spouse is an unbeliever.

Permission To Divorce

But then we come to verses 15 and 16 and he gives a permission to divorce. “But if the unbeliever leaves or divorces, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances.” So, what if the unbelieving spouse does not want to make a go of it? What if he says, “Whoa, I didn’t bargain for this. I didn’t hear him become some kind of a holy roller. I don’t want any part of this stuff. I’m leaving.” What does Paul say to do? Paul says, then divorce him. You’ve tried to make it work. You’re willing to. But he’s intent on leaving. The unbeliever’s intent on leaving. Then let him go.

Now, I said that this is Paul’s permission to divorce. And I want you to notice the wording here very carefully, because really that’s not accurate to say this is Paul’s permission to divorce. Actually, this is Paul’s command to divorce. As far as I can tell, it’s the only command in the Bible that Christians should divorce. But notice how it’s worded. “If the unbeliever divorces, let him do so.” It’s an imperative move. It’s a command. Let him do so. Don’t stand in the way. Don’t feel that it’s your obligation now if your unbelieving spouse wants to divorce you. Don’t feel that it’s your responsibility now to stand in the way of that divorce and drag it out as long as possible or anything like that. No. If they want to divorce, Paul says, let them divorce. That’s the apostolic command. He doesn’t say you’re supposed to pursue divorce. He says you should pursue to stay married. Work at staying married. But if it won’t work, and after all of your efforts to make it work, they are determined to leave, then you must let them do so.

Now, one question that comes up here, and I’ll just mention this to tease it out a little bit. I don’t know of a way to finish the discussion, so I’ll just tease it just a little bit. What constitutes the “leaving” that is described in verse 15? Is he simply saying here that the unbelieving spouse is determined to divorce you, and in that case, you’re allowed to divorce? Or is he saying more? Should we understand this in context of verses 1 through 9, as we saw last week? I’ve seen this. I’m sure any pastor that’s been in pastoral work more than a few minutes has had to deal with this kind of question, where a believer is married to an unbelieving spouse, and the unbelieving spouse really isn’t pursuing divorce as such, but because the spouse has become a believer, the unbeliever has nothing to do with her, nothing to do with him. And withholding all the privileges of marriage, as described in verses 1 through 9, perhaps abuse because of it—does that constitute the allowance that Paul is making here in verses 15 and 16? I think it does. The point here then is that if the unbeliever is willing to maintain the marriage as a marriage, then Paul says you stay married. If not, then let him be divorced.

All right, the next big question that comes up is: where does this leave the believer? The believer has been divorced. Is the believer now free to remarry? What is the status of the believer who has been divorced? Notice verse 15 again. “If the unbeliever divorces, let him do so, a believing man or woman is,” there it is, “not bound in such circumstances.” Not bound in such circumstances. In other words, they’re a free person. Nor is there any obligation to be reconciled in marriage. You remember he said that in verses 10 and 11, assuming here a believing couple who divorces illegitimately, they must remain unmarried or be reconciled. But now the situation is different. It’s a non-believer who has divorced. And Paul gives the command in verse 39, at the very end of the chapter, that they are to marry only in the Lord. I don’t believe that remarriage in this case is a viable option.

But now, can they remarry? Verse 15: they’re not bound. They’re free. Verses 8 and 9: they are unmarried. They’re free. Verses 27 and 28, I think, clear it up very well. And that is, “Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not seek for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned.” Not only then is the remarriage allowable, it is proper. It is right. This is the apostle’s judgment on the matter, and I don’t know how we’ve come up with a teaching that I’m sure many of you have heard over the course of your lives where, again, well-intentioned preachers have said that once you’re divorced, for whatever reason, you can never remarry. Paul’s judgment here is that when you’re divorced under these circumstances, you’re not bound. You are free. You’re not married. You’re free to remarry.

Now, there are just an infinite number of questions that come up. Here’s the framework the apostle has given to us. And just endless questions come up. And this is one of the most frustrating points, I think, of pastoral work because inevitably someone’s going to come up: “What about this case in these circumstances?” and so on. And the variety of circumstances is just almost infinite. We can’t chase them all, but one of the questions that comes up is: what if the deserting spouse, the one who divorces the believer, what if the deserting spouse is a professing believer? What then? He’s a professing believer, but he has divorced his spouse. Where does that leave this believer who has been divorced? Well, the best answer I can find to that is an answer that Jay Adams gave in his book on divorce and remarriage. And that is, he points to the value of church discipline, and the leadership ought at that point to pursue that man who is divorcing irresponsibly, or we might say illegally, without biblical justification. He ought to be pursued by the leadership of the church. If he doesn’t respond, there ought to be church discipline, in which case he’s assumed to be an unbeliever, and the one who is divorced is free to remarry.

Now, the Apostle Paul has a reason for all of this instruction in verse 10, verses 15 and 16, and I want you to see it. “If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace.” I think this part of the verse has often been overlooked, but it’s important as to the reason for his command. God wants peace. He wants the marital issue resolved. Either there’s to be marriage in what marriage is and what it entails, or if that unbeliever won’t have it, then let him go. He does not require the believer to slug it out year after year after year, where hope after hope has been dashed and keeps slugging it out, trying to make it work, when this one is determined to leave and determined to make it miserable. No, he says, “Let them be divorced.”

He explains further in verse 16: “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” That is to say, you’re trying to keep this marriage together. When he’s determined to leave, you’re trying to keep this marriage together in hopes that you may evangelize him and see him saved. And what Paul is saying here is that not even evangelism constitutes a reason for keeping this marriage together. He’s determined to leave. Don’t stand in his way. Let the unbeliever go. You don’t know that staying with him will, in the end, bring him to Christ. Let him go. God has called us to peace.

Contentment In The Lord

Alright then, in verses 17 and following, Paul gives, as we have seen now the last two weeks as we’ve read through it, his exhortations to remain in the situation you’re in when God calls you. There are certain circumstances in which being single puts you at an advantage in serving the Lord, especially because of this present crisis that he refers to—the situation of persecution and difficulty and so on. But marriage is an option. Marriage is a good option. God has commanded it. God has sanctified it. It is a good thing. Seek your contentment in the Lord. You don’t have to find it elsewhere. But, he says, marriage still is an option for those who are virgins, those who are widows, and those who are unmarried.

All right. Let’s try to summarize all of this. First of all, to those who are married, the Lord says, “Stay at it.” You may have difficulties. You may have things that come up in your marriage that make your particular marriage difficult in this way or that. But our attitude must be: we will make this marriage honor God in every way. He has given us every resource for this to work, and we will stay at it. To those who used to be married but now are divorced, Paul says the marriage has been dissolved. You may not enjoy the privileges of it. If you are the guilty party in the divorce and the only option is to stay married, or if it’s a believer, you may remarry. If you’re the innocent party, Paul says, you are free to remarry. Bind your conscience only to the scriptures.

And if I can say one more thing here before we close, and that is to the church as a whole in regard to this question: make sure that you understand that divorce is not the unpardonable sin. And I say that because too many churches have hurt too many people needlessly by piling up guilt on them for something that was done in the past. This is not the unpardonable sin. I know one lady who was told she couldn’t—I know many churches have done this—you can’t sing in the choir if you’ve been divorced. Never mind if it was biblically justifiable or not. You can’t teach a Sunday school if you’ve been divorced or whatever. And we raise these standards that the Bible never raises, and we heap guilt on those people who have been divorced, and it’s just needless. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin, and divorcees are not secondary citizens in the kingdom of God. Even if they are the guilty party, our whole message is to say there is forgiveness in Christ, and we need to treat one another accordingly.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you for the instruction that you’ve given to us, and we ask that you would give us your Spirit to live it out accordingly. We pray that you’ll bless the homes of our church. We pray that you would enrich our marriages. We pray that you would help us not only to stay married, but to find increasingly fulfillment in one another as you’ve designed for us. Keep us faithful to one another. Keep us diligent in seeking our spouse’s good and happiness in every respect. Lord, we thank you here for the sake of those who have been divorced, for the forgiveness that is in Christ. We’re thankful that you have made these provisions. We ask in every way that you’ll give us the comfort of your spirit through your word. May we refuse wrongly imposed guilt, but we pray that you will help us evermore, increasingly, to pursue the ideals to which you’ve called us. In Christ’s name we ask. Amen.