Two Appearings: Grace and Glory

Two Appearings

Nineteenth after Trinity

October 11, 2015

Epistle: Titus 2: 1-15

Homily Text: Titus 2:11-14

11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

After St. Paul was released from his first imprisonment, he took Titus with him to the Mediterranean Island of Crete. They evangelized and established churches in several towns, and, when Paul moved on, he left Titus to care for the churches. Titus’ job was to appoint leaders of the congregations, oppose false teaching, and teach those who believed the Gospel what it means to live according to the Gospel.

Paul grounded his teaching about living of the Christian life in a past appearance of grace and a future appearance of glory.

1. Past: Appearing of Grace

1.1 Grace Saving.  Paul writes that “the grace of God has appeared.” Grace is God’s initiative to give us what we don’t deserve and to do for us what we can’t do. The context of grace is our sin. We deserve condemnation, death, and damnation. We cannot deliver or save ourselves, for we are enslaved to our sins. But God in grace intervenes, to forgive our sins, to deliver us from hell, to set us free from sin’s control.

When did this grace appear? When was it revealed? In the first coming of Christ, who reveals God to us because he is God in the flesh, and who acts in his life, death, and resurrection, to deliver us from sin. We specially remember and celebrate this appearing of grace at Christmas and Epiphany and its culmination our salvation from Palm Sunday through Ascension.  

1.2 Grace to All. The King James Version translates “the grace that brings salvation has appeared to all” but the phrase “to all” should likely be attached to “salvation” so that we read “the grace that brings salvation to all has appeared.” So we must ask the question, “Does this mean that Jesus’ coming into the world to saves all?

The phrase could mean that, except that would make it contradict the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by me.” “There is none other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Christ.

What does St. Paul mean when he writes “the grace that brings salvation to all has appeared’? He means that no one is excluded from salvation. All people, no matter how bad or self-righteous, religious or irreligious, whether a man or woman, whatever one’s race, nationality, or social status, may be saved. Jesus died for and offers salvation to all - every kind of human being in every condition of humanity. Christ is the Savior for all.  Nobody is beyond salvation. Everyone can be saved by Christ.  All who put their faith in Christ will be saved.

1.3 Grace Teaching. The grace that appeared in Christ not only saves us from sin’s consequences - condemnation and eternal punishment. It also teaches us a way of life. This way of life involves a “yes” and a “no.”

1.3.1 Grace teaches us to say “No” to the old way of life that brought condemnation - to renounce ungodliness and worldly lusts.

Ungodliness is way of life that others see that is a contradiction of our religion, of the faith we profess. That does not mean in order not to be irreligious we have to wear dark clothes, never tell or joke, or never laugh. It does mean that the clothes we wear, the jokes we tell, and the manner of life we live would not lead to someone who did not know we are Christians being surprised to find you we are, or to someone who knows we are Christians needing to figure out the contradiction.

We also renounce worldly lusts. Worldly lusts are the things that characterize life outside of Christ - the things, for instance, that Paul lists in Galatians 5: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” It’s interesting that some of these like “orgies” and “sorcery” sound like exotic sins, while others sound very much a part of everyday life - “rivalries,” “strife,” “jealousy.” To all these things we must say a decisive and settled “No.”

1.3.2 On the other hand grace teaches us to say “Yes” to living soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” To live soberly does not mean only that we avoid drunkenness but that we live lives of self-control. If you have raised children you know that one of the goals you have for your child and a sign of maturity you look for is that you do not have to control the child but he controls himself. Feelings and desires must not be our masters. By God’s grace we control sinful impulses, and we exercise self discipline over good feelings and desires.  

We live righteous or upright lives, lives that are directed by God’s will and God’s commands. We live godly lives - or religious lives in which people see a testimony to our faith and a consistency with the religion we follow.  

As Christians we swim upstream in this present age which is evil. We say “No” to the things that people who live in this present age regard as allowable or even good and we say “Yes” to things that people who live in this present evil age reject. We say “No” to the devil and sin and “Yes” to Christ and the Gospel.

2. Future: Appearing of Glory

St. Paul not only looks back to the appearing of grace in the first coming of Christ, but also forward to Christ’s coming again in glory.

2.1 Glory Appearing. He writes, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the  great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” or as another translation has it, “Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (ESV).

Our hope for the future is blessed because it is for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. When the Tabernacle was built in the wilderness the glory of God in the form of a bright shining cloud filled it. When the permanent Temple built by Solomon was dedicated the glory of God filled it and the glory was so great the priests had to stop ministering for awhile. When Jesus took his 3 closest disciples up on a mountain he was transfigured, and his face shone like the sun and his clothes were bright like light. This was an outbreaking of his heavenly glory.

But the final and full revelation of the glory of God is still to come - when our great God and Savior Jesus Christ appears at the end of the age. We now behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, but this is just a fleeting glimpse of what we will see when Christ, who is not only our Savior but also our God, who is himself fully God, equal in glory with the Father, appears. Then we will see him as he is, and we will not fear his glory, but delight in it even as now we delight in the shining of the warm spring sun on our faces after a long cold winter.

2.2 Redemption for Good Works.  Jesus Christ, who will appear in his glory, is the one who first gave himself to redeem us. In the ancient world people who were captured in wars or people who became slaves could be set free by payment of a price. Christ redeemed us from our slavery to the sin by giving himself as our ransom. He came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He redeemed us not only from condemnation, but from all iniquity or lawlessness - to save us from bondage from sin’s control. Sin still has power in our lives. Sometimes it wins the battle, but sin no longer defines our identity, no longer controls us as helpless slaves, and cannot win the war.

He gave himself to purify us so that we could be a special people who belong to him. The LORD redeemed ancient Israel “to be his treasured possession among all peoples...a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Sometimes politicians talk about “American exceptionalism.” They believe the United States is a special country in the world and enjoys special blessings and has special responsibilities. That’s a debatable idea, but St. Paul tells us that the church and its members are a special and treasured people because Christ died to redeem us.

He wants us to live to up to that privilege by being a people who are zealous for good works. Some of these good works are the things Paul writes about in the first part of Titus 2:  that older men are sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness; that older women are reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine, and teach what is good, that they train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands; that younger men are self-controlled; that bondservants are submissive to their own masters in everything, well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith.

What are you zealous about? People are enthusiastic about many things. Some will burn with zeal for politics for the next year. Others are zealous their hobbies. Others are hot with zeal for their sports teams. But the one thing that ought to characterize all Christians is that we are very zealous to do those works that please and glorify Christ.

Christianity is not moralism. It is not trying to be good to earn God’s favor and blessings. It is the life we live because Christ appeared in his world to save us from our sins and because we are eagerly looking forward to his future appearing in glory.

Your Question, My Question

Your Question, My Question

Eighteenth after Trinity

October 4, 2014

Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46 (KJV)

34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,

42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David.

43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,

44 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?

46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

Suppose I were insensitive enough to ask one of you ladies, “How old are you? “ You answer, but that entitles her to ask me a question, so you say, “How did you ever persuade your wife to marry you?”

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees ask Jesus a question about the commandments; Jesus answers but then asks them a question about the Messiah.

1. Pharisees’ Question

1.1 Controversy. The setting of Matthew 22 is Jesus’ last week. He entered Jerusalem on Sunday. Now he engages in controversies with Jewish leaders. Some disciples of Pharisees asked Jesus, “Should we pay taxes to Caesar?” Jesus said, “Yes, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Then some Sadducees, who did not believe in a future resurrection, asked, “If a married woman is widowed, the remarries, and does that seven times, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” Jesus rebuked them, “You don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

1.2 Test. When the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection, heard how Jesus shutdown down the Sadducees, they decided to ask Jesus another question to test him about the Law of God.  One Pharisee, an expert about the Law, asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?” We may think, “Everybody knows that,”  but it was a real question for them. There was a debate among the experts about whether you could take all the Old Testament Laws and rank them in importance, and, if so, how to rank them. Were some laws weightier and some lighter? They wanted to draw Jesus into this debate. Also, since Jesus said and did things that raised questions about his views on the Law, they wanted to spring a trap by getting him to say something against the Law.

Suppose someone asks you, “Who’s your favorite candidate for President?” Their purpose is not just to gain information but to test your political views, so they can put a label on you, and classify you as a good guy or bad guy. That’s what the Pharisees are trying to do. The lawyer’s question is not sincere but an attempt to trap Jesus into saying something that would form the basis of an accusation.

1.3 First Commandment. Jesus answers: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” He is pointing back to Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 6:5: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.“ Jesus and Moses both speak of loving God with you “heart and soul.” Where Moses says to love God with all your “strength,” Jesus says with all your “mind.” Putting the words of Moses and Jesus together we are to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. These are not different distinct parts of our human personalities. What both Moses and Jesus are saying is, “Love God with your whole being. Hold nothing back. Love him with everything you are.”

1.4 Love. Jesus’ answer points us to root of obedience which is love. We don’t just grit our teeth and obey. Love motivates us to obey.

How can we love God?  Our love for God is our response to God’s love for us. “We love because God first loved us.” Love for God is motivated by our grasp of what God has done for us in Christ. Totally apart from any deserving or merit in us, he did everything necessary to save us by giving his own Son to die for our sins.

When we say the word love, we tend to think of a feeling. Feeling is often where love starts. A man and woman “fall” in love; it’s a compulsion that creates an intense attachment. A mother looks at her newborn baby and loves him. She help can’t help herself. But genuine love is than feeling. Feelings are changeable. They wax and wane. Real love includes emotion, but also commitment and action. You love your husband when he is not loveable, because you vowed to love him. When you would give your right arm for sleep, you do the loving thing by getting up to care for your baby.

So with loving God, we don’t just do what we feel like doing. We do what we know pleases God. If you wake up on Sunday morning and don’t feel like going to church, do you stay home because you can’t go with the right attitude? No, because you love God you are committed to him and to doing what pleases him. You love God by worshiping and serving no god but him, by  worshiping  him purely without images, by worshiping him  sincerely, not taking his name in vain, and by preserving the day of worship as a holy day.

1.5 Second Commandment.  Jesus went beyond the man’s question to say, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Jesus goes back to Leviticus 19:18: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.”

The command assumes we naturally love ourselves. We consider ourselves, what we need and want. If we want to know how to treat others with love we can ask, “How would I would I love myself in this situation? What would I do for me?”  As long as it is not sinful, show love to your neighbor.

The Apostle Paul explained it this way:

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13: 8-10).

1.5. Summary. The Pharisees knew the commands to love God and neighbor. But Jesus linked them and showed their relationship to the whole Old Testament: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  These are the two great commandments, and all the moral commandments and exhortations of the Law and the Prophets hang on these. The Old Testament commands are not just rules. They guide us how to express love for God and neighbor. But there is also is no obedience apart from obedience that expresses love and is motivated by love.

2. Jesus’s Question

2.1 First Question. It was Jesus’s turn, and he used to draw attention to a matter of greater importance: “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?” “Christ” is the Greek word for “Messiah.” Whose son is the Messiah?

They answered without hesitation, “David’s son.” The Lord had promised David: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom...I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son…” (2 Samuel 7:12-14). They understood that promise would find its final fulfillment in the Messiah.

2.2 Second Question. Jesus followed up with a second question: “How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?’If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?”

Jesus quotes from Psalm 110, a Psalm written by David in which, the Pharisees agreed, David was speaking of the Messiah. David says, “The LORD that is the God of Israel says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” The Psalm uses two different words for Lord. The first is the God of Israel. The second is a lord or ruler. So, David says, “The Lord God said to my Lord or Ruler, ‘Sit at my right hand…’”.

So who is it that David, the greatest king of Israel, calls his Lord? If the Messiah is a son of David why does David call him his Lord? A son is not greater than his father is he? So how can he be David’s Lord?

The Pharisees have no answer: “And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”

Jesus did not ask them to show them up but to call them to consider his claims to be the Messiah and God’s Son. The reason David called the Messiah his Lord was because the Holy Spirit was saying through David that the Messiah would be not only David’s son but God’s Son.

At the Table we commune with the only one who ever perfectly loved God and his neighbor, God’s Son the Messiah. He considered us his neighbors and did for us what only he could do. He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification, and now freely offers himself to us in all the fullness of his saving grace.

He Makes a Dinner Party Awkward

Seventeenth after Trinity

September 27, 2015

Gospel: Luke 14:1-11 (KJV)

1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.

2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;

5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass* or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?

6 And they could not answer him again to these things.

7 And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them.

8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

* Verse 5. The original probably has “son” not “ass.” ESV: “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Sometimes these words may be interchangeable.

There’s that guest who makes Thanksgiving dinner awkward. The lone Republican who tells all the Democrats that Obama is the worst President ever. The lone theological liberal who tells all the believers that Jesus never claimed to be God’s Son.

You wonder, “Why did I ever invite him?” The Pharisee who invited Jesus to Sabbath dinner may have asked himself that question.

The Gospel puts before us two stories - one, an event of  Sabbath healing by Jesus, the other, a parable about a wedding banquet.

1. Sabbath Healing

1.1 Sabbath Dinner. Some families still have the custom of Sunday dinner, when they have a special meal and sometimes invite guests. The Jews had a similar custom on their Sabbath. Jesus was a guest a one of these dinners.

The host was a chief or ruler among the Pharisees, perhaps a member of the Sanhedrin that governed Jewish affairs though under the oversight of the occupying Roman government. He was an important man in his community and probably wealthy. It was an honor to get an invitation to dinner to his home.

The Pharisees and ecclesiastical lawyers watched Jesus closely.  Sometimes you keep a close eye on someone because you devoted. You may remember the way Nancy watched Ronald Reagan when he spoke. But sometimes you keep an eye on a person because you are suspicious as a store detective watches someone suspected of shoplifting. The other guests at the dinner were not devoted to Jesus. They listened carefully to his words and watched carefully what he did, because they suspected him of not following Moses and the Law.

1.2. Sabbath Issue. A man with dropsy was at this dinner. Dropsy is  edema, or an accumulation of fluid is soft tissues, especially in the legs, as happens with heart failure.  The Pharisees and lawyers may have brought him there just to see what Jesus would do. Jesus put them on the spot by asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?”

The issue was the fourth commandment: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all the work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” The Pharisees were very concerned about the Sabbath, and on a number of occasions they had conflicts with Jesus about sabbath keeping.

Jesus did not reject the fourth commandment. Jesus rested on the sabbath and went to synagogue. But the rabbis had many traditions about keeping the sabbath. One of the rules was that medical attention could be given only if the condition were life-threatening. Other conditions could wait a day.

The Pharisees and lawyers did not answer Jesus’ question. They had lost enough arguments with Jesus to be wary about how they responded. When they did not answer, Jesus took the man and healed him. The swelling went away as did its cause. The man was well, and Jesus sent him away.

This was the third time in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus faced controversy about healing on the sabbath. He healed a man with a withered hand in a synagogue on the sabbath, and the scribes and Pharisees “were filled with fury and discussed what they might do to Jesus” (6:6-10). On another sabbath a woman was bent over and could not straighten up because of demon oppression and Jesus set her free. The ruler of the synagogue became indignant and said, “There are six days when work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed” (Luke 13:10-17).

1.3. Sabbath Question. Though they did not react on this occasion, Jesus knew how they felt and so asked another question. The King James text says, “Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?” The modern translations, which are based on older manuscripts, say “a son or an ox.” Those of us with sons know the words “son” and “ass” canbe interchangeable, but here Jesus is asking a son and an ox. “If your son fell in a pit, what would you do? If you believed his life was not in danger, would you leave him there till the next day?” Of course, the answer is “no.” Jesus then asks, “Well, what about your ox?” Would you leave him there till the next day?” No, it’s not just a son they would deliver. Anyone who owns an ox is going to take a chance on losing his ox by leaving him stuck in a pit.

So the question is, “If you would get a son or an ox out of a pit on the sabbath, why would you object to a man with dropsy getting healed on the sabbath?” The real issue is mercy.

The Pharisees and lawyers don’t understand God who is merciful. They don’t understand that God gave man the sabbath in mercy for his physical and spiritual welfare - to keep him from being a slave to work and to give him a day for worship.. God the Father has sent his Son into the world on a mission of mercy to deliver us sinners from bondage to sin and all the miseries sin causes. The rabbis with their rules worked against the real purpose of the sabbath. As Jesus said on other occasions, the Pharisees and lawyers needed to learn what God meant when he said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

We as believers are called to show mercy because we have received mercy. We must guard against the harsh, legalistic, self-righteous, unmerciful spirit of the Pharisees.

2. Wedding Feast

2.1. Chief Places. Jesus had watched as people came into the Pharisee’s home for the sabbath dinner and found places to sit. He noticed that they chose the “chief rooms” or most important places to sit.  

There are protocols for formal occasions. If you have a formal meal in your home, the host sits at the head of the table, and if  you have a special guest, that person sits on the right of the host. It’s the place of honor.

The Pharisees and lawyers were very concerned about honor, respect, and recognition and very sensitive to slights. So, when they came into their host’s home, they took the most important place available. It was probably like watching a game of musical chairs, as each tried to secure the best places, or since, people ate reclining, the more important couches.

2.2. So Jesus told them a story. He said, “If you get an invitation to a wedding feast, don’t take a place of honor. Somebody more important than you may come in after you. Then the host may have to come to you, and ask you to vacate your place and give it up to the person who ranks higher than you.

Have you ever gone to a ball game or concert, seen an empty seat that is better than yours, and sat down, hoping that the person who bought the seat will not come? You think you’re safe, when an usher taps you on the shoulder, tells you you are in someone else’s seat, so you’ll have to move. So you have to get up and red-faced parade past a bunch of other patrons to your lowly seat.

Jesus warns the other guests this could happen to them at a wedding feast. So a better strategy is to  take the lowest place. Then, when the host notices where you are sitting, he may come to you and say, “Friend, move up.” The worst that can happen is that you won’t be embarrassed by being asked to move down. But you may find that you will be honored among the guests when they see the host move you to a more important place.

Is this just a piece of social strategy that Jesus dispenses about how to avoid the possibility of embarrassment and increase the likelihood of honor? No. Jesus makes clear the point of his story: “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Jesus exposes their pride for the ugly thing it is, and points them and us to the way of true honor. The way to honor is by humility.

Jesus’ own disciples, James and John, asked him that, they might sit on his right and left in his glory. When the other disciples heard what they asked, the got angry because James and John were trying to get the best seats in the kingdom. But Jesus said,

You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Our humility is grounded in Christ. The eternal Son humbled  himself, became one of us, made himself a servant, and obeyed the Father unto death. For Christ the path to glory was humility, suffering, and death.

Humility is not a strategy. It is the response of us sinners who are redeemed from sin and misery by Christ. Our identity is not based not on what others think of us but on who we are in Christ. We know we are secure in Christ and destined for eternal glory.

Those filled with pride are like the Pharisees, concerned for recognition and hardened toward others suffering the misery of fellow sinners. Those who humble themselves and take their place before God as sinners redeemed by Christ’s merits not their own merits, will be merciful and show mercy. Pride and mercy are incompatible. Humility and mercy are perfect partners.

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:5,6).