Please turn with me tonight in your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians 2. We can get Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 13 through 17. We'll be reading this portion of God's Word in connection with the Belgic Confession, Article 9, which continues to address our confession of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we'll be reading from 2 Thessalonians 2, and then we'll be reading also from the Belgian Confession, Article 9. Article 9 is found on page 160 in your Forms and Prayers book. And 2 Thessalonians 2 is on page 1260. So reading first of all from God's Word, God's Word, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, starting there at verse 13. This is the holy and infallible Word of God. But we are always to give thanks to God for you. Brothers, be loved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. Thus ends our reading from God's Word tonight. And again, we're looking at this then in connection with Article 9 of the Belgic Confession, page 160. So here we have the scriptural witness on a trinity. where we confess that all these things concerning the Trinity we know from the testimonies of Holy Scripture, as well as from the effects of the persons, especially from those we feel within ourselves. The testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, which teach us to believe in this Holy Trinity, are written in many places of the Old Testament, which need not be enumerated, but only chosen with discretion. In the book of Genesis, God says, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. So God created man in his own image. Indeed, male and female, he created them. Behold, man has become like one of us. It appears from this that there is a plurality of persons within the deity when he says, let us make man in our image. And afterward, he indicates the unity when he says, God created. It is true that he does not say here how many persons there are, but what is somewhat obscure to us in the Old Testament is very clear in the New. For when our Lord was baptized in the Jordan, the voice of the Father was heard saying, this is my dear son. The Son was seen in the water, and the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove. So in the baptism of all believers, this form was prescribed by Christ. Baptize all people in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel according to Luke, the angel Gabriel says to Mary, the mother of our Lord, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore that Holy One to be born of you shall be called the Son of God. And in another place it says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. In all these passages, we are fully taught that there are three persons in the one and only divine essence. And although this doctrine surpasses human understanding, we nevertheless believe it now through the word, waiting to know and enjoy it fully in heaven. Furthermore, we must note the particular works and activities of these three persons in relation to us. The Father is called our Creator by reason of His power. The Son is our Savior and Redeemer by His blood. The Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier by His living in our hearts. This doctrine of the Holy Trinity has always been maintained in the true Church, from the time of the Apostles until the present, against Jews, Muslims, and certain false Christians and heretics, such as Marcion, Manny, Praxeus, Sibelius, Paul of Samosata, Arius, and others like them. who were rightly condemned by the Holy Fathers. And so, in this matter, we willingly accept the three ecumenical creeds, the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian, as well as what the ancient fathers decided in agreement with them." And that ends our reading from the Confession here tonight. Well, congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, last week we ended our time together thinking of communion with our triune God and how meaningful that can be for our lives. Since God has revealed himself in three persons, revealed himself to us in his word as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it's important for us to honor that. to honor God's revelation of himself, and at the same time it's important for us to recognize that for our own spiritual encouragement. It's spiritually enriching, isn't it? Praying, enjoying communion with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Or at least, I hope, I hope you find that to be so. Especially if you've taken the time in this past week to more intentionally seek communion with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit individually. It can be very enriching, very encouraging for our great comfort and confidence. And for that reason, even as we consider Article 9 of the Belgic Confession tonight, I thought I would follow up our sermon last week and focus on something of the same thing, but something that the article mentions near the end. Article 9 talks about the proof of the Trinity. That we confess that we know our triune God based on what the Holy Scriptures say. And at the same time, we know that God is triune from the effects of these persons, it says. especially those effects that they have upon us and we feel in ourselves. In other words, we know God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not only intellectually because we can read it in the Bible, but we know it experientially. We know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because we experience their work. in our lives. We experience the activities of these three Persons. And so the Confession mentions the Father is our Creator by reason of His power, the Son is our Savior and Redeemer by His blood, and the Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier by His living in our hearts. In other words, because He is one God in three Persons, we also relate to each of the three Persons of the Trinity in a slightly different way. We experience their love in, you might say, slightly different ways. We know the love of our God, the one God, but each person you might say, shows that love in their own distinctive way towards us. And we experience that love in that way, and that experience of God's love and care reveals to us and impress upon our hearts that God truly is one God in three persons. And so in our time here tonight, we want to focus on our experience of the love of our triune God, the glorious love of our triune God for salvation. So we experience the triune love of our triune God, and we see it, first of all, in our selection by the Father, or rather we experience it, first of all, in our selection by the Father, secondly, in our sanctification by the Spirit, and then finally, through our security in the Son. So we'll have there the selection, sanctification, and security we receive and experience from the triune God. Well, here in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul is dealing with the end times. That's really where this chapter is focused. And in particular, Paul is warning the church not to believe anybody who comes to them and says, the day of the Lord has already happened. Paul says, don't believe someone who comes to you and says, the day of the Lord has already happened, because as I explained to you before, the day of the Lord won't come until the man of lawlessness is revealed. and the impression seems to be that they'll know the lawless one when they see him. They'll very clearly, if you think of this person as the Antichrist, you'll know it's the Antichrist, you'll be able to tell it's him, and at that point you know the day of the Lord is shortly coming, but still hasn't happened yet. This lawless one will appear with power, with false signs and wonders. He will lead many people into deception. And it's a very scary picture, really, isn't it? I mean, Paul goes into it here and talks about this scary lawless one who puts himself, as it were, on the throne in the temple of God, the one who seeks to be worshiped as God. And he performs these signs and wonders, and people are flocking after him, and people even perhaps are turning away from the Word of God to chase after this person. It's very scary. And so what does Paul do? Well, he comes back to his confidence of better things for them. He comes back to his confidence that they, no matter what come, will not be led astray. And why will they not be led astray? Because they are the beloved of the Lord. They are loved by the Lord, and that's where Paul finds his confidence for them. You are loved by God. And this love of the Lord may refer particularly to Jesus, but it's still very much true of each person in the Trinity. And Paul points their minds and hearts to the love of God. You are the beloved of God, and so I am sure of better things for you. He's saying, you are fully loved by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have the full love of the triune God. And how do we know that love of God? How do we experience that love of God? Well, Paul points specifically to their selection, that God selected them, chose them as the first fruits to be saved. And what Paul speaks here of their being chosen by God, he is, of course, dealing with our election. He's dealing with the fact that God elected us to salvation in Christ. But what's interesting here is that Paul uses a somewhat different word for God's choice than he does in other cases. He uses a different sort of word, a word that is normally used of human choice, that you choose one thing as opposed to another, and the connotation is even that of preference, that you prefer this as opposed to that. And just by way of example of the use of this kind of word, you find it in Philippians 1. Philippians 1, you might recall, is where Paul talks about the fact that he is in chains, that he could be facing the end of his life, and he expresses his great confidence that even if he dies, it will be okay because he will be with his Lord. But then he goes on to say, well, but if I stay alive, it will mean fruitful work for you. And you remember, he's torn between those, right? He's torn between the possibility of dying and being with Christ and the possibility of staying in the world and be a blessing to the church. And he says this, what I shall choose, I cannot tell. In other words, I'm not sure what I prefer. I'm not sure what I would choose if it were up to me. I'm not sure if I would choose to die now to be with Jesus or to continue in the body and be a blessing to the church. I'm torn here. I don't know what to choose, what I prefer. And you see, this word is here used of God's choice of us. And I believe it stresses the remarkable love of the Father towards us. The remarkable love of the Father is shown to us in the fact that He preferred to choose us for everlasting life. That He preferred to choose us to life rather than to pass us by and leave us in our sins. You know, back in verses 11 and 12 of this chapter, Paul talks about how God sends a strong delusion so that people would believe what is false in order that they may be condemned. And here he switches gears and he says, but you have been loved by God and you have been chosen for something else. Isn't that amazing? God preferred to save you instead of destroy you. God preserved to choose you into everlasting life rather than to condemn you for all eternity. He chose you, he preferred to set you apart as the first fruits to be saved. Isn't that awesome to think about? The rest of the Bible is, of course, clear that there's nothing in us that makes us more preferable to God, nothing in us that makes Him choose us to life, nothing that distinguishes us from the rest of the sinners, the rest of those who perish in their sins. There's no reason in us for why God would prefer us for salvation, but the truth still is that God preferred to save us rather than destroy us. And this idea of God's preference to save is also reflected in the idea of being firstfruits. Now, you could look at that, and you could take Paul as saying, well, you know, you're the first people God has saved, right? That God saved you first, but then there are other people whom God will save, and, you know, they'll be coming later. You're the first ones, they're after you. You could take it that way, but the idea of firstfruits is so much bigger than that, so much richer than that. Because the first fruits were also the choice fruits. The first fruits were the best fruits. They had a different, you might say, or even if you put it that way, a better quality than the rest. They were the choice fruits. Now again, it's not to deny that there's nothing in us that leads God to choose us. There's nothing that distinguishes us from the rest of humanity that is kept in their sins. But you see, what Paul is doing is, again, stressing the glory of God's love. that when the day of judgment comes, when the day arrives and we all appear before the throne of God and we have to give an answer for what we've done while we're in the body, the glory is that God has preferred to choose you so that when you're there at the judgment, you are the firstfruits of God. You are the choicefruits of God. You are presented at the throne as the choicefruit of the living God, the ones reserved unto everlasting life. Those who will genuinely know and receive His salvation. See, and Paul is saying, you are loved by God. You are loved by the Father. And how do you see that? How do you experience it? In the very simple fact that He has chosen you. He has preferred to save you. He has preferred to set you apart as the first fruits of salvation. How do you know the Father's love? The confession reminds us of God, our creator. It is God who created us. He's the one who's, he gave us life. He gave us the parents we have. He provided us with the food and the clothing that we've needed. He's watched over our lives and so forth. But Paul especially drives our minds and hearts to this glorious truth that we have been loved by God because we've been selected by him to receive everlasting life. And you see, then every day when you get up in the morning, when you get up in the morning and you have, you know, this faith in Jesus and you're continuing in faith in Jesus, you are being reminded of God's love, the Father's love for you specifically. Because every day you believe in Jesus, every day when you wake up in the morning and there is faith in your heart for Jesus Christ, it is a reminder that God has loved you, the Father has loved you and chosen you and preferred to save you instead of destroy you. That God's preference is to sustain you and preserve you your whole life long, so that when you're brought to the judgment, you there receive the glories of everlasting life. How do you know that God is Father? You know it in His choice of you. You know it in His setting you apart in Jesus Christ, to be adopted as His Son and His daughter, to be preserved to the end of your days. It is his love, you see, that holds you fast in Christ. It is his love that leads him to continue to take pleasure in you. It's his love that leads him to provide for you and to show himself as a faithful father. You see and you experience the love of God in this way, the Father choosing you to be his own son and daughter. And every day, that's what you experience. Every day, the smile of the Father upon you, proclaiming the greatness of his love, a love that he only gives to those whom he selects. And so Paul reminds us of the love of the Father. in our being selected to everlasting life. But in addition to the love of God known from the Father, we also have it here known to us, experienced by us, in the love of the Holy Spirit. Now, we maybe don't talk about the Holy Spirit's love so often, and it may have to do a little bit with maybe even a tendency to think of the Spirit as more an impersonal force. But that couldn't be any more wrong, because the Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. He's not an impersonal force. He is a person, a person within the triune God, who Himself is bursting with infinite love toward us. And Paul reminds us of the love of the Holy Spirit. How do we see it? Well, we see it in our sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. In love the Father selected, and in love the Holy Spirit has come to sanctify us unto salvation. And that sanctifying, of course, has to do with holiness. specifically that the Holy Spirit enters our lives to make us holy. He's the one who sets us apart from the world. He's the one who makes us new creations in Jesus Christ. He's the one who progressively overcomes the sinful nature that we still have inside of us. He's the one who daily works to reorient our thoughts and our words and our actions and our feelings in the proper way. And what really struck me this past week, again, is just how true it is that we know the love of God most in seeing how He treats us while we're yet sinners. What I mean by that is, of course, we know the love of God most beautifully when we remember that He has seen us. He knows us in the depths of our being. He has seen the full extent of our evil. Right, when God predestined us, when he selected us, he did that knowing how wicked we are, how depraved we are, knowing the evil and the sins that we commit our whole life through. He knew us, and yet he chose to love us, right? And you see the glory of God's love in that. And same thing with Christ, right? Christ was willing to go all the way to the cross, right? He was willing to acquaint Himself with our grief, with our misery, to take upon Himself the judgment that we deserve. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we see the glory of His love in that, right? Against the backdrop of who we are. And it hit me then, it's the same is true when it comes to the Spirit, isn't it? Think of the Spirit. He lives in us, even though we're still sinners. He, in a way, doesn't He? The Holy Spirit acquaints Himself with us. Here is the Holy God, the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, who willingly takes up residence in you and in me, even though we're still so corrupt. Right? And what did He do? We were lost, we were dead in our sins, and yet He was still willing to enter into us, those depraved human beings, and to tear out that heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. And how beautiful that is when we also stop to consider, again, our continuing in sin. And how much reason, how much reason do you give, brothers and sisters, how much reason do you give the Holy Spirit, humanly speaking, to abandon you? to give up, to grow so disgusted with you that He finally throws in the towel and leaves and says, you're not worth it, I can't work with this, I can't abide this anymore, but to just go and leave you behind. How much reason, humanly speaking, do we, by virtue of our ongoing sin, give to the Holy Spirit to finally turn around and abandon us? And yet, what does the Holy Spirit do? He doesn't do any of that, does He? But no, in love, in love, the Holy Spirit lives within us forever. Our hearts are now His home. Even though those hearts still are so corrupt and those hearts still are inclined to all kinds of evil, even still, the Holy Spirit lives there and resides there and stays there. despite our slowness to follow His leading, despite our hardness of heart and rebelliousness, despite the countless ways we seek to quench the Holy Spirit by the way that we live, He continues to lovingly mold us and make us and fashion us more and more after the image of Christ. Isn't that awesome? Doesn't that just scream to you the love of our triune God, especially, specifically, the love of the Holy Spirit? Isn't it amazing to look back on your life and see all the ways in which you have changed to one degree or another, all the ways in which you have made progress? In the grand scheme of things, you might say, well, I haven't come very far, Pastor. I haven't really changed all that much. I still see so much evil and wickedness in my own heart. I still fall into many of the same sins. I know, that's true. You will continue to see that to the day you die. But the fact that you can see any progress at all Those little victories, those little triumphs, that little progress you see has all come, why? Because of the love of the Holy Spirit. Everything you see is your experience of the love of the Holy Spirit, the One who sanctifies you. And the same idea carries on when Paul speaks of our belief or their belief in the truth. Commentators often point out that, you know, here you have our response to the gospel, speaking of our faith, right? God doesn't believe for us, we believe. But as we find in Ephesians 2, even faith itself is a gift of God. Faith isn't something that we produce ourselves. The gospel would mean absolutely nothing to us, apart from what? Apart from the love of the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit loves us, and so comes into us, and gives us a new heart, and creates faith in us, and opens our eyes to Jesus, and leads us to Jesus, and he leads us to embrace Jesus. What is behind your faith? It is the love of God the Holy Spirit. You see, every day, every day, as you again wake up with faith in Jesus in your heart, that is what you are experiencing is the love of the Holy Spirit. Every moment, every time that you happen to turn away from temptation or to turn away from sin, you know what you're experiencing? You're experiencing the love of the Holy Spirit. Every time, every moment, the love of God, the Holy Spirit. Right? And behind even your understanding of God's Word is the love of the Holy Spirit. Behind your commitment to serve God is the love of the Holy Spirit. Behind all of these things, behind every good thing that you see in your own life, behind every little bit of sunshine or of holiness is the love of God, the Holy Spirit. It's amazing. It's because of the Spirit's love that the countless sermons you've heard through your life has actually had any kind of difference or influence in your life. It's exactly because of the love of the Holy Spirit that your Sunday school classes, or your catechism lessons, or your devotions, or your Bible reading, or your youth group meetings, or your conventions and conferences, it's all because of His love that any of that stuff has made any kind of impact on your life for the better. Can you even begin to fathom the ways in which you know and experience the love of the Holy Spirit? Apart from His love, you have nothing. Apart from His love, Jesus means nothing. Apart from His love, you have nothing from Jesus. Apart from His love, you are fully and completely lost. He and His love is our sanctifier. And Paul would remind us of the love of our one God that comes to us not just from the Father in our being selected of Him unto eternal life, but he would remind us of the love of God the Father, or rather the love of God by directing our eyes to the Spirit who is our sanctifier. And that takes us third then to consider the love of the Son of God who is our security. The Father has initiated our salvation. He's the one who chose us to be saved through the sanctification of the Spirit, who has called us through the gospel. And the goal is that we may obtain glory, but not just any glory, particularly the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are loved by God. unto the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So when Paul speaks of salvation here, he's not simply thinking about, you know, what we have right now. He's not simply thinking of, okay, I've been forgiven already in Jesus. I have everlasting life within me. But he's especially looking to the end. He's especially casting his eyes forward to the day when Christ returns and what we will have a share in forever, which is the glory of Jesus Christ. That's the end that's waiting for us. And what he is impressing upon us, what he's especially trying to highlight is that this glory is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who possesses this glory, and He is the one who secures this glory for us. Right? Notice that. We are destined to glory, but not just any glory, we're specifically destined to Christ's glory. That He's the one to whom this glory belongs, the one who earns it, the one who obtained it. It's His inheritance, but who secures it also for us. How did Jesus get His glory? How does Jesus receive this glory? Well, as you well know, we can look to His earthly life. He loved God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength. He never broke a single one of God's commands in any way. He was the perfect human, the perfect son. Everything he did brought absolute pleasure to the heart of the Father. In his high priestly prayer, what does Jesus himself say? He says, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed. Jesus is saying, Lord, I did your will. I did everything you asked of me. My entire life was one of perfect obedience to you, perfect glorifying of you, Father. And in return, then, glorify me. Jesus receives glory because of His perfect love. And so we watch then in the Bible, we watch in the Scriptures, Jesus ascends into heaven. We see Him crowned with all glory and honor and praise. As we saw in Revelation 5, Jesus is there before the throne and He approaches. He walks past the four living creatures. He approaches and He takes the scroll from God's hand and He sits on the throne next to the Father. And God the Father gives His own glory to the Son. So that Paul will say in 2 Corinthians 4 that we behold the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Where do you see God's glory? You see it in Jesus. Right? Because that's what He received. It's what He secured. It's what He gained by His obedience. But here's the greatness of Christ's love. He didn't do it just for Himself. He did it for you and for me. Jesus for the joy that was set before Him did endure the cross, but His life was not just one of perfect obedience to the Father, obeying all of His commands, but His life was also one of perfectly satisfying God's wrath and justice and anger against sin, so that those whom the Father has selected, whom the Spirit sanctifies, can receive His own Christ came into the world not simply to secure this glory for Himself, but to secure it for you and for me. Right? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, Christ was rich, yet for our sake He became poor, so that we by His poverty might become rich. He came to secure our glory. He came to secure our salvation. He came to secure our receiving of the everlasting love of God. He is the security of God's love. He is the security of all our blessings. You know, it reminds me of my wife and I's last year in college. That was always the time where it seemed like everybody was starting to get engaged, right? Last year, you know, quick, you know, we're all going to be leaving. Let's tie the knot. Let's quickly get married after we graduate. And remember, there was a time we were all gathering together as friends. And inevitably, the discussion also turns to the fact that you're graduating and you shortly will have all this debt that you have to pay back. We begin talking about all this debt that we're going to have, and in the course of the discussion as well, it turned to all the debt that would also be had, because now you're getting married, and so you have two people with debt getting married, and you have that debt compounded. Now, whatever you may think about going in debt, you can leave that to yourself because that's not the point. The point is I remember that in the course of the discussion, it was also commented that this boy must really love that girl or that girl must really love this boy because they're willing to marry them even though they're so deep in debt. Right? The depth of debt showed something of the greatness of their love. You know, that's something we experience ourselves, don't we? Something we understand, right? That true love, real love, is when you're willing to accept someone even with all the faults that they have. True love is proved when you love someone even though they sin against you, even though they hurt you. That's real love. That's what even this world has forgotten. Why do we see such terrible divorce rates and everything else going on in the world? Why is there so much brokenness? Because people forget that real love is love that accepts people even for the mess that they are. That's what love is. And you see, that's exactly what we find in Christ, isn't it? We have Christ who willingly searches us out. He knows how wretched and depraved we are. He knows how deep in debt we are because of our sins. And yet He comes and He specifically searches us out to take that debt to Himself and secure the inheritance of true glory. In love the Father selects us, in love the Holy Spirit sanctifies, and in love God the Son secures glory for us. Which means, again, that every day when we wake up, every day that takes us one step closer to glory is not because of what we do that day, is not because of how we live in that day, is not because of the work that we do for God in that day, but is only true exactly because of the love of Jesus Christ. It is only because of Christ's love that each day takes us closer to glory. It's only because of Christ's love that we will eventually come into a new heavens, a new earth, where righteousness and peace will dwell. It's only because of Christ's love that this is our inheritance, an inheritance of sharing in the glory of God. You see, brothers and sisters, Ecclesiastes 4 verse 12 tells us that a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Well, here you go. The threefold love of our triune God. The threefold love of our triune God that preserves us each and every day, that love that cannot be broken, that threefold love that is behind us, that is inside of us, with us, and that is before us. That threefold love of God That threefold love shown to us in our selection, in our sanctification, in our security, so that from whatever angle you look upon the Christian life, there is the love of our one God, the Father who is behind, the Spirit who is with us, the Christ who is ahead of us. And there is nothing like knowing this threefold love of God, nothing like knowing the love of the Lord. and that we experience it daily, this threefold love of God. We experience it daily, and that's why we worship the three Persons of the Trinity, why we adore Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, why we speak of them and we wholeheartedly join with all the saints, confessing these ancient creeds, no matter what anyone else may say, because we see on the page of Scripture that our God is one God in three Persons, and we experience this threefold love of God from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We know this truth. We experience this love. And it drives home the truth of what we read in the Scriptures. You know, and I love then how Paul ends this chapter too. He's spoken of the love of God, the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, and now how does he end? In verse 16 and 17, may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. To put it another way, knowing the threefold love of God. Knowing this glorious love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, may that comfort your hearts. May it establish your hearts in every good work and word, seeing the greatness of the love of our one God, shown to us through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. May it comfort you and encourage you. Again, this love of our triune God is so spiritually enriching. It is so comforting. It brings such peace because, again, you see that threefold cord that is not quickly broken. The love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all devoted to you and to me, sinners though we are. So what is this word from Paul? It is an invitation to think upon God's love. to think upon the love of God, and to realize there is no end to the joy you can find in His love, that it's to be our strength as we go into this life to serve Him, that it's to warm our hearts when the hearts of others seem to be cold to us, that it's to inspire us to love others the same way, and that it's to always drive us to seek Greater and greater communion with the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How do you know that God is one God in three persons? Because you read it in His Word, and because you experience the greatness of His love each and every day, a love that comes from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So may that love be your joy and your confidence, and may it drive you on. May it establish you in every good work and word that you may give all your life to the glory of our triune God. Amen. Let's pray together. O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We worship You and we praise You tonight, amazed by the greatness of Your love, that love that we experience every day in these different ways in which You love us, these different yet united ways that bring us salvation, that sustain us daily in our earthly life. O Lord our God, we humble ourselves before You. and confess that we are unworthy of such love, but we rejoice in it and we seek to know that love more deeply and more fully. And so, bless this word to our hearts. that it may give us comfort and peace, and that it may also free our own hearts to love others the same way, despite the sin, despite the evil, despite all the faults that may be found in others, Lord, to continue to love, even as we have been so richly loved by you. So help us to know you more, and help us to enjoy love with you, our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we may know joy to the end of our days. Hear us in all these things we ask, for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen.