John: Friend or Servant
Pastor Fletcher continues preaching through the Upper Room Discourse from John 15:1-17 (read for us in Mandarin). Discussion points: We may think of God like a distant CEO who we need to please, God truly enjoys us as friends instead of just tolerating us as servants, enjoying friendship with God means we can be better friends to one another.
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Scripture reader: [John 15:1-17, read in Mandarin. English translation provided in transcript] I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Preacher: They applaud her first language. I appreciate it. But it is great. I love having the scripture read in a language such as that, that is like, I don't speak any Mandarin whatsoever. And so it, it feels like if it's French or Spanish or something, it's like similar enough to English to where I can like figure out what's going on. But like, I, I have no idea, but it's just so amazing that the Lord has created the message of Jesus to be for all people, peoples of the world, right? All languages, all tribes, all tongues, something so different to where I have no idea of what's happening.
But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm actually glad we didn't have this last couple of verses because I was like, I'm just gonna sit under this and I don't know what's happening. I, I do know what's happening because I'm preaching this word in just a moment. So I have an idea of what she's reading and it's really powerful and I'm just gonna let it wash over me even though it's not in a language that I understand and see what happens.
Hey, I'm gonna start today with a, with a quote. This is the, the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool. His name is JC Ryle. He was around in the 18 hundreds. He said this and it's, it's quite a bold quote. I wanna see if you agree with it. He said the world is so the world is, is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It's a dark place. It's a lonely place. It's a disappointing place. The brightest Sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys. Does that feel like an exaggeration to anyone else? That friendship halves our sorrows but doubles our joy.
CS Lewis said to the ancients friendship seemed the happiest and most full human of all loves the crown of life and the school of virtue, the modern world in comparison ignores it. That feels more accurate to where if, if someone could think so highly of friendship that it would have our sorrows and double our joys, man. I don't know if I understand that completely in my modern mindset. But then you look at the ancients in the way that they understood friendship.
Augustin, the, the, the church father, he says two things are essential in this world life and friendship. Wow. Life and friendship. Both must be prized highly and not undervalued is what Augustine says. Now two quotes about the friendship of God to continue. The first is from Charles Spurgeon and Spurgeon says, he who would be happy here must have friends and who and he who would be happy there, hereafter must above all things, find a friend in the world to come in the person of God.
And Martin Luther, the reformer said God's friendship is more precious than that of the whole world. Seems like people of previous generations had a deeper appreciation of friendship than what I often have. And what many other modern people have. I found each of these in this little book, called Made For Friendship by Drew Hunter. The relationship that have our sorrows and doubles our joys. He took the JC Ryle quote and turned it into a subtitle. It's a great little book very short and, I, I just thought that this was great.
And when I read these, I, I do oftentimes feel like they're overs selling the idea of friendship. just it, it just feels, it, it feels like an oversell, it seems like previous generations seem to enjoy and prioritize friendship more than our current one. But is it possible that previous generations might have been on to something or is alternative true that, you know, us modern people of the 20 twenties here have finally figured it out and friendship just isn't that important after all. You know, give me Netflix and the internet and I'm good. Ok. Don't need friends over here. I can just entertain myself or maybe it's us who has the wrong perspective on friendship.
The surgeon general, Vivek Murphy. He was the surgeon general for Obama and now for Biden and he says this in the last few decades, this is just recent, came out in 2024 I believe in the last few decades. We've just lived through a dramatic pace of change. We move more, we change jobs more often. We're living with technology that has profoundly changed the how we interact with each other and how we talk with each other. And you can feel lonely even if you have a lot of people around you because loneliness is about the quality of your connections, not the quantity with rising technology.
We have more quantity of relationships than we've ever had before. But yet the quality of our relationships has dipped down to disastrous levels and I'm not using that word. exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating with that word. It actually is disastrous. What's happening, Vivek Murthy. He also says that loneliness comes with the same health risks as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It's pretty drastic that comes with such South Thrusts a compound, the the isolation that we feel because of technology and the way that we just can live our lives. Without seeing people work from home, live at home. Not, not even go to the grocery store.
I'm not, I'm not bashing these things. I'm thankful for Instacart. Ok. But it does do something to us in con, in connection with that. We have the transients and, and if you've lived in Boston for any amount of time, you've felt it already. If you've lived in the Somerville area, you've had close friends, move away and it's difficult. It is difficult. I, I always joke that, you know, Megan and I have lived here for 12 years more on like our sixth set of friends at this point. Praise the Lord. We have some friends that have stuck around and have been here for a little while and we've gotten to, to know and who seem to be continuing to, to stick around and we're, we're grateful for that.
But the reality is transience makes life joyful in some ways because you have more opportunity. But, and I love, I love Boston in, in many ways, the Somerville area because I meet interesting people from all over the world that is such a benefit to it and it comes with the consequence of such interesting people to move all over the world. And so I have friends everywhere. And so I'm trying to see the bright side of it these days.
You know, the first several years I would just cry when people moved. And now I'm like, hey, I got a friend to visit maybe one day. I'll, I'll go see them but I do also think that there's some people who move, looking for that thing in which they can only get if they were to stay in one place. You know, I think our generation will move 10 times over 20 years looking for relationships that take a lifetime to build.
And so it's very difficult. It makes us more lonely. The transients you in previous generations, you would be born in a city and then that would basically be your last name, right? It's like your, your last name is, I'm of that city. That's not the way it is anymore. But back in the day you would do that, you would marry someone in that city, your friends would be in that city, you would come up, you would have these deep friendships and it just doesn't work that way in a world like ours.
We need to hear what Jesus has to say on friendship maybe more than we've ever needed it before. He speaks particularly about friendship with God. But through our friendship with God, we learn much about friendship with one another.
We're continuing our series on the book of John at the moment. And in this series, we're, we're in the middle of what we call the upper room discourse. And this is the night before Jesus is betrayed, he's up in the upper room celebrating the Passover meal with his closest disciples. With those, he calls his Children with his closest friends and he's sharing with them kind of a farewell speech before he goes to be with the father. And here's words in verse 15, this is something that we, we didn't get to see on the screen, although we did read it.
Verse 15, he says no longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father. I have made known to you one more time. Jesus says, hear this my friends no longer. Do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends for all that I have heard from my father. I have made known to you friends. We were created to have intimate friendship with God, our father. But oftentimes we treat him as though he is a distant CEO where he's the boss. We don't really have a relationship with him. We just have to follow his rules so that he'll be happy with us and maybe we'll get a few promotions in life as disciples of Jesus.
He calls us friends and the nature of our relationship with Jesus today this morning, many of us. And this is a process for many of us. But the nature of our friendship with Jesus needs to change it needs to go from distant CEO to intimate friend. We need to make that shift in our hearts and our lives from distant CEO to intimate friend.
Now, you might be objecting at the moment. Doesn't Paul call himself a servant of Christ? Isn't it ok to be a servant? Even though Jesus says I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends, but Paul calls himself a servant. So what are we to make of that? And when Paul calls himself a servant that is less Dobby the house elf and more Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. Ok. So Sam, Lord of the Rings, closest best friend with Frodo. Frodo couldn't have completed the trip without him. But also he calls him Mr Frodo for the entire and master Frodo. He's his gardener. Ok? He just like tagged along for the thing, but he's his best friend and his servant. And Frodo couldn't have made the trip without him. And that's more the, the flavor of servant that we're thinking of here.
What comes to your mind when you think about friendship with Jesus? Do you enjoy intimate fellowship and friendship with God or do you still relate to him as a distant CEO? Here's four shifts that we have to make four shifts that we have to make to change our hearts from seeing God as a distant CEO to an intimate friend.
The first shift that we have to make is this idea. A friend is someone you enjoy. A servant is someone you tolerate a friend, is someone you enjoy. That is the most basic necessity to a friend. OK? If I don't enjoy you, we're not friends. All right. That's just kinda how, what it comes down to a friend is someone you enjoy. You enjoy being around that person. I get the privilege of standing in front of you all and telling you about my friends, often, some of whom are in this room, many of whom you're all my friends. But I also tell you about my friends from college sometimes with tears in my eyes because I just love these guys. I enjoy. I tell you about my friend, Megan, my wife, my best friend, I enjoy her.
A friend is someone you enjoy and Jesus call us friends get that. He's not saying I'll be your friend. He's saying I call you friend. How much of a change is that from the way that we think about the way that Jesus thinks about us. He's saying I enjoy you, I enjoy you. Oh, not me. I understand how I might enjoy Jesus, but how would he ever enjoy me? But that's what he's saying. He's saying I call you friend, you keep your servant around. As long as the relationship is beneficial. A servant is someone you tolerate. OK? As long as you're bringing me my coffee and it's still warm and it, you know, you poured it correctly in the V 60 pour over here, I'll keep you around.
I don't have to have a relationship with a servant. I don't have to enjoy a servant. They're just here to bring me things, but a friend is someone you enjoy. Jesus doesn't merely tolerate us. He enjoys us. I know it's hard to get your head around, but this is the character of God. He calls me friend. He enjoys me and let me, let me back this up with a few of the, the verses in this passage, the first eight verses of the passage that we read, we're doing this vine and branches thing. So he gives us this extended this extended illustration of what he's going to talk about.
So the first eight verses are, I am the vine, you are the branches and it talks about pruning and fruitful branches and all of that. And we're gonna get to that. And then the second half of it is the explanation of what that means and more of AAA did language. So, the second half he's teaching on friendship. So the first half is this illustration about friendship about him being the vine and us being the branches. And the second half is the teaching on that.
So the first half, the first verse he starts, I am the vine. You are the branches. I am the vine. My father is the vine dresser and then he tells us abide in me and I will abide in you when he says I am the true vine. This is the final. And when I say the final, I actually mean at this time on Easter, I got in front of everyone and I said that I am the resurrection is the final "I am" statement and I was so wrong. Mark, an elder here, he was like, hey Fletcher. I think there's more very, very, very gently and he was like, oh, I think it's OK. You know, I'm glad that we have elders at this church who know their Bible well enough to, to bring it up. But I just wanna admit I was wrong. And this is the final one, I think, I hope I could be wrong again.
And as he goes through here, he says, abide in me and I in you. So this idea of the vine and the branches, OK? It means that we need to stick close to Jesus. We don't use the word abide very often anymore. Do we? When do we say abide like abide with me? What it means is stick with me, stay with me, stick with me as a friend, stay with me. Verse nine as the father has loved me. So have I loved you abide in my love. Stay in my love. Stick with me. He wants you near.
He doesn't merely tolerate you. He enjoys, you stay near me. Jesus loves us and enjoys us with the same kind of love that the father loves him. Hear this verse nine as the father has loved me. So I have loved you, abide in my love. This isn't the kind of love where you say I love you. I just don't like you very much. Can you go do something over here? This is like someone who actually enjoys us. Verse 11. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. He wants us to enjoy him. He wants us to experience the joy of friendship with God. He wants us to have joy because he's our friend.
Second shift that we have to make. The second thing about friendship, shift that we have to make from servant to friend here because Jesus says he no longer calls us servants, but he calls us friends. The second point is a friend is someone you can call upon any time. I love this point. A servant is not someone you can call upon any time. A servant keeps strict hours. All right. When I'm, when I'm home, not me. My job's weird. Ok. Everybody else's job. All right. When you're off, you're off. All right.
But a friend is someone you can call any time. Isn't that good whenever you're going through a hard time or say, you know, my wife and I, we, we have three Children. And when you, when you have a newborn child, a common thing for people to say to you is let us know if you need anything. If you say that to me, I'm not letting you know if I need anything. Ok? You have to say that to me at least three times in a row for me to know that you actually mean it.
I have a friend who's, who's Korean and he says that that's like normal in Korean culture that someone might offer to help. And then you're like, oh, no, it's OK. And they're like, and if they say, OK, sounds good, then they don't actually want to help you. They, but if they offer three times and if you had to de you are like kind of bound to deny them the first two times and then the third time you can accept the help. And that's the way he's explained it to me. And I appreciate that.
And that's kind of how this works. If someone says, hey, let us know if you need anything. OK, thanks. No, really let us know if you need anything. Got it. No. Listen to me. Let me know if you need anything that might be a person, I would call if they say it that many times.
Now, when we look at this passage, Jesus has something to say to us and he doesn't say it once he doesn't say it twice. He doesn't say it three times. He says it at least five times and it's let me know if you need anything. He wants us to come to him. He gives us a blank check. Imagine what type of trust you have to have in someone because it's not just let me know if you need something specific. It's let me know if you need anything.
Listen to what Jesus says, blank check five times. John 14:13, these are all in the upper room discourse. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that. The father may be glorified in the Son. John chapter 14 verse 14. Next verse if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. He's emphatic, he's calling us friends. You can call upon me any time. I'm not keeping strict hours is what Jesus is saying. I call you friends, not servants. John 15 verse seven. In this passage today, if you abide in me and my words abide in you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
John 15 verse 16, you did not choose me the kness in here, getting real excited, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give to you John chapter 16 verse 24. Now until you have asked not now until now. You have asked nothing in my name, ask and you will receive that. Your joy may be full.
Jesus gives us a blank check five times to call upon him any time and to ask him for anything. Jesus is like, really, really, really let me know if you need anything, I'll be there, I'll be there. But we treat him as if we're his servant. I'm not asking my boss for very much. Maybe once a year. I might ask him for a little promotion. We race. That's how we treat them often times. But Jesus is like no, come to me as a friend. I call you friend.
Thomas Goodwin says it like this. Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to him for help and mercy isn't that great that he actually enjoys it when we go to him for help and mercy. Some of you have things that you're ashamed to talk to Jesus about. But he, he wants to hear it all the third shift. The third thing here, a friend does not earn your love, but a servant earns his pay. A friend does not earn love. Only a servant earns pay. Jesus says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
Now, that might sound the opposite of what I just said because he says, if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I've kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. But what He's communicating is that by keeping the commandments of God, this does not earn God's approval or God's friendship. What he's saying is if you abide in my love, you will keep my commandments. It's very different, it's very different.
It's not saying you will earn my love by keeping my commandments. It's saying if you will enjoy the love that I have for you, you will keep the commandments because you'll trust me and my commandments are you for your good. You will trust me and live in those. Everybody understands this with a friend. You know, the things that a friend has off limits. You know, the things, everybody kind of has a policy in the background with like this is what my friendship with this person looks like. And if I go and do something that's just rude and obnoxious to this person, it's going to wreck our friendship. And Jesus is like, listen, I've given you these commandments for your own good, for your own flourishing. If you love me, stay in them, stay in them.
Tim Keller puts it like this: religion says I obey, therefore, God loves me. The gospel on the other hand says, God loves me, therefore I obey you. See the difference. That's what Jesus is communicating here. We obey God's loss because we trust him as our friend and we know that his ways are the best ways to live His commands are meant to lead to my flourishing. God is not some sadistic heavenly dictator just giving you laws to suck all the fun out of your life. But he knows the best way to live because he made, he gets to write the instruction manual and he says that here are my laws live by these and it will help you to flourish in my love.
As a trusted friend, God gets the ability to speak into our lives in a way that no one else does in a way that only a trusted friend might. He gets to speak into our lives and tell us when he thinks that we're living a way that's not for us. And this is what he talks about when he says every branch in me that does not bear fruit. He takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. And so God, the God, the father of the great vinedresser gets to prune our lives.
Have you ever seen a professional plant person? A plant professional? They go through pruning looks like plant murder. Ok? You look at that thing. They, it looks like they've cut off more branches than they left on the plant. I used to work at a place where they had these plant professionals come in and they would just, I'm like, why are you murdering the plants. And then within a couple of weeks they would look so much more healthy.
My, my wife and I used to have this jade that we left outside. One summer, a jade is a plant. And, we left it outside one summer and it grew huge just like everywhere. And we brought it inside and we looked at it for a year and it just wasn't healthy, it was big, but it wasn't healthy. And so one day I came home and 4/5 of the jade is gone. I'm like, what did you do to our plant? And she's like, it just wasn't healthy. We need to help it and it's way more healthy and it will continue to be, it's gonna be this, this beautiful awesome plant and this is what God does in our lives.
He comes into our lives with his gentle touch and he looks at the things that we might like but are slowly killing us and are leading to unhealth and we give him the permission to prune and it's not always comfortable, but we trust him in those moments. I don't always love it, but it's always for my good.
Verse or the fourth point that I'm gonna make today. And, and the last one with, with this friendship, a friend as someone, you know, a servant is someone who puts on a nice face, a servant. If you have someone who's a servant, you're paying them to be there. You're paying them to smile a friend, you don't pay this file. They just know you, they just know you as a friend is someone you can be yourself around. A servant might act like a friend. They might pretend to be kind.
But a friend is someone who knows the real you sometimes better than, you know yourself. I'm convinced that there might be no better feeling and a friendship and no better indicator if someone can be a lasting friend than to feel understood. Because if you feel misunderstood, it's going to bring a, a dividing wedge with God friends, you are known, you are understood better than you might even understand yourself. He knows you all the way down. He's someone you can cry with, you can let him in because he already knows you and you don't have to put on your nice face with God. You understand you're understood and known you can be your true self.
Is that scary? In some ways that feels wonderful that God might know me, that someone might know me so well. But in other ways that feels terrifying because God knows me and I'm a riddled mess. I just like emotionally everywhere at times, temptation going wild at times. I, I know me and it's not someone I really want to let anyone know fully, but God knows me fully and it's a little terrifying and he loves me still and he still calls me friend. This is the essence of why Jesus came.
Verse 13. This is kind of the crux of this whole passage. Get this OK. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends. A friend is someone who absorbs debt. So when he says to lay down his life for a friend, he's not just saying like, hey, if you see a friend walking across the street and there's a truck coming, you'll go run and push your friend out of the way and take, take the fall. Yes, maybe that's part of it. Ok?
But what he's saying, lay down your life for a friend. He's saying a friend is someone who absorbs debts who's willing to be wronged and to take that wrong and to not pay the punishment and not to, to deal them the punishment in return, not to seek revenge to them. A friend is someone who will pay the debt for you who will take on the suffering for themselves and what a friend we have in Jesus.
I deserve so much worse than what I have from him. But yet he took on my debt on the cross, laying his life down and paying the cosmic penalty for sin, separation from the father on my behalf. He took it all. He laid down his life for me through our faith in Christ. We might have a reestablished friendship with God that sin separates it always as we were created for friendship with God. God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Just what a great image that is just walking with God hanging out with Him in the garden.
But sin separates and all of us have sinned against God. And only because of what Jesus has done and absorbing our debt, forgiving us of our sins. Do we have reestablished relationship with God? He has taken it on. We haven't paid penance to earn his love, but he paid our sin for us because he loves us. J I Packer and his and his great knowing. God says, we have great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend and desires to be my friend and has given his son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.
So let me just end with a couple of application points here. First, the distant CEO isn't so distant and he's taking calls and he's inviting, he's giving away stock, he's inviting in new partners. He's actually calling them friends now and he's waiting to hear from you and he's waiting to hear from you. We can talk to God as if he actually cares for us. We can hear from God having a relationship with him.
Dallas Willard puts it this way. We start in alienation, but we are invited to experience the shining face of God. We start as distant CEO, but we're invited to be intimate friend in his book, Drew Hunter, the one that I shared with you, he says, one of the most pressing questions of our lives and often buried deep in the sub conscience. Is this? What does God think of me and all of my feelings and all of my weaknesses? How does he feel about me? And if you trust Christ, you can answer that question. He loves you as a dear friend.
And so I encourage you if you have never experienced friendship with God in this kind of way, I invite you to experience it today. And if it's been a long time, I, I invite you to rekindle that friendship with God, we're gonna have people to pray with you after the service in the back and or during the next couple of songs in the back, people up here to pray with you, engage with Him as a friend and it will give you a couple of by-products. These things, and then I'm, I'm done here. Ok?
The by-product of friendship with God. This is the only applic this is like application. Every everything I'm saying is like be a friend of God. He's a friend of you. He likes you. He loves you here practically. It means that we can be better friends with one another when we experience the friendship of God because we understand what it really means to be a friend. And what it means to have a true friend. We can be better friends. We can be more vulnerable because we have less fear of others' opinions because our sin has been paid for.
But at the same time, we can be less needy. We can be more vulnerable and less needy because we're not dependent upon our friends to meet all of our needs. We have God to meet our needs. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I would like more friends that are more vulnerable but yet less dependent upon, on me to fix their problems. They know that Jesus does Tim Keller. I love this quote. He says, God loves friends. And so the less you want friends, the less you are like God, the less you want friends, the less you are, the less like God, you are.
Churches often have this huge emphasis on community. And I think that's right. But I think that we might, I think that we might not think about it completely accurately. Sometimes a lot of times we think about community as acquaintances that are around us. When a church talks about community, this is what they're talking about collective friendship that we call each other friends that we depend upon one another, that our relationships horizontally reflect our relationship vertically and that we love one another. We're vulnerable. We are needy, but we are ultimately dependent upon God.
So I encourage you if you're in a community group or if you are thinking about it to not just treat that community group as a group of people that you come to once a week, but to, to be friends, collective friendship. And lastly, we offer friendship with those in the world that they might not have the same kind of friends.
I am convinced that Christian friendship, like true Christian friendship is amazing and that we need more of it and that there's lots of people in my neighborhood and in our world who wish that they could experience the kind of friends that I do. I just feel so friendship rich. I just feel like social capital is like, I've got, I've got the bank. OK? I'm happy for it. But we have so much to offer. Let's just not keep it all in the bank. Let's extend that offer to the world around us, offering friendship with them. And Jesus is known as the friend of sinners. May that be our reputation as well? I hope that we can love others in the same way that we way that we've been loved by God.
On the night that he was betrayed. On this very night, Jesus shares a meal with his disciples and he takes a loaf of bread and he tears it and he says, this is my body broken for you and he takes a cup and he says this is my blood shed for you, do this in remembrance of me. And so each week we participate in this meal, remind ourselves that we are friends of God. And so, if you are a friend of God, we invite you to come and receive this. If you are a Christian, if you have trusted in Him as your life and salvation, we invite you to come and receive this meal to be reminded that his body was broken for you. His blood was shed for you. Let's stand as we prepare our hearts to receive this meal.
Jesus, you are such a friend to us. And we pray that our mind shifts would be cha changing and shifting that we might understand you more and more as a friend and not simply as a distant CEO that we might relate with you. And God would you help us to understand what that means, what it means to receive your love and your affection, What it means that you enjoy being with us. God, would you, would you shift our minds and hearts in that way? We ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.