We come to our scripture readings this morning, this evening, sorry. I’m actually going to do these in reverse order. We’re going to read our New Testament reading first, because our sermon text is going to be from the Old Testament. So our New Testament reading this evening is from the gospel according to john chapter 10.
And we’ll read here verses 22 through 30. If you’re using the pew Bibles, you’ll find that on page 1039. The gospel according to john chapter 10, verses 22 through 30. As you’re finding your place there, let me just remind all of us that when the Bible is read, God is speaking to us, and it’s an extraordinary privilege that we can hear the Word of God in the language of our hearts. And so even when the words are familiar, let’s not tune out, let’s lean in. This is God’s Word, John chapter 10, verses 22 through 30.
At that time, the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe.
The works that I do in my father’s name bear witness about me. But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.
Turn with me now to the Old Testament, to the book of Psalms, to Psalm 31. That’s on page 530 of the Bibles in the pews, if you’re using one of those this evening. We’re going to read verses one through five, but our sermon text this evening is going to focus on verse five, simply verse five. Psalm 31. To the choir master, a Psalm of David.
In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear to me, rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. For you are my rock, my fortress, and for your name’s sake, you lead me and guide me. You take me out of the net they have hidden from me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s seek the Lord’s illumination on his word. Let us pray. Our God, we are thankful to you that you have breathed out every word of scripture, We thank you that you have preserved your word down through the ages of antiquity. When so many other works have been lost, not an iota, not a dot has perished from your word. You’ve preserved it by your singular care and providence, and you have provided faithful translators so that we can read the word of God in our own language, and in the common language of the world in which we live. We thank you. What a privilege that is.
And as we have read your word, we pray now that your spirit, who speaks in scripture, would speak these words and shine them into our hearts. And we pray that we would be teachable, that we would be attentive, and that you would transform us through the preaching of your word. Be with all of us who listen, be with the one who speaks. May the words of his mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing unto you. Sanctify us in the truth. Lord God, your word is truth. Do we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Words are powerful things, aren’t they? And certain words seem to carry a special longevity. Even in ordinary life, there are words, there are phrases that just seem to stick with us and echo, not just at an individual level, but even at a collective level, a social level. How many of you, for example, have ever heard the words to be or not to be? Those are words first written in a stage play more than 400 years ago. And yet we still use them. Something about them has stuck with the memory of the English speaking world.
Don’t ask me what it is. I just know it’s happened. Or a little more recently, how many of you have have seen on a bumper sticker or on a t-shirt, the phrase, not all those who wonder are lost. I’m here to tell you this evening that that was not first written to be a motto for hikers, although it’s good enough for that.
It was first written as a poem as part of a novel, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1950s. But there are words that just seem to resonate and they echo down through history. The words of Psalm 31 verse five are words like that. They are words that echo across the pages of scripture.
Into your hand I commit my spirit.” When Stephen, the evangelist in Acts chapter 7, after speaking before the Sanhedrin, was being stoned to death, being executed by the mob, as he was dying, he took these words and made them his own. We read in Acts chapter 7, verse 59, as they were stoning Stephen, He called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Paraphrasing these words.
These words echo across the Bible and they echo beyond the Bible. They even echo into our own day. I can personally testify to all of you here tonight that I know of two lives at least, two lives that were changed forever by this prayer. And as we look at it this evening, I want to ask you, what if yours could be added to that list? What if these words could change your life? What if they could help you wherever you are in the Christian life? This is a prayer of great power.
And I want to show you what I mean by that by unpacking this single verse tonight using four basic questions, the same four basic questions that you should use anytime you’re reading a passage of Scripture. But we will apply those questions to this verse tonight and we will see we’ll see the wonder and the power of these words. First thing we’re going to see is what this verse promises us, what this prayer promises us. And to see that, we’re going to ask the first question that you should ask anytime you’re reading the scriptures, and that is, what does this passage reveal to me about God and his goodness? What does it reveal to me of the goodness of God? Let’s look. Let’s look again at the words. We’re going to slow walk. through this verse. The first words in verse 5 of Psalm 31 are, into your hand.
What does that reveal to us about God and his goodness? If the psalmist, David, can pray to the Lord into your hand, I commit my spirit, that implies to us something wonderful. about our God, that our God is an open-handed God, a God who welcomes us and who invites us to come home to him. How? John chapter 10 was the huge spoiler here. John chapter 10 verse 28, Jesus says, I give them eternal life, talking about those who trust him, and they will never perish. And then he says what?
And no one will snatch them out of my hand. And then he says, my father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father’s hand. And then, just in case you might be thinking we’re talking about two separate hands, he says, I and my father are one.
When David here in Psalm 31 says, into your hand I commit my spirit, he is praying to Jesus Christ. And that is a tremendous promise that although the world may say, and perhaps even we have wrongly at times in our own lives and in our hearts and in the bitterness of our sin, thought that God was against us, the truth of the gospel, the goodness of God is that God is an open-handed God. His hands are open to welcome home and to welcome back those who trust Him for the first time or for those who come back out of sin for the 400th time, for the 400th time in the same day. Our God is an open-handed God who is always inviting sinners to return to him. The hands of God and the hands of Jesus are the same hands. And when David says, into your hand I commit my spirit, he’s committing his spirit into the hand of Christ.
What a tremendous thing it is, just even so far, to think about that. Can you imagine the reality that is behind this promise? that each and every person who believes in Jesus, whether they are the mature Christian who’s followed him for decades, or whether they are the brand new Christian, the moment they believe, we have this promise that from the moment we believe, we are held fast by the hands that hung the stars. Psalm 92 says, you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands, I sing for joy. When it speaks of the hands of God, we’re talking about the hands that made all things.
Those are the size, that is the power of the Lord who holds his people. But God is not just a maker. He’s not just the creator who winds up the world and walks away. The Bible also tells us that the hands of God are the hands that shape our story. Psalm 139, verse five.
You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. The hands of Christ are not just the hands that made the world. They’re not just the hands that hung the stars. They are the hands that hold the stars, that direct the stars. They are the hands that made you, and they are the hands that guide you every day, every moment, every hour. The hands that uphold the universe are the hands that uphold every single one of us who trust him.
From the very first moment we believe. Do we believe that? Do we actually believe that? We say, well, of course we believe that because we’re Christians. Not only are we Christians, we are Orthodox Presbyterians. My brothers and sisters, if we really believe this, then why are we so afraid day by day? Why are we ever anxious? Why are we ever afraid? We’re held fast. And yet sometimes it is hard, isn’t it? Sometimes we think, well, what if things go wrong?
My friends, I want to remind you too, that these are the hands that hold everlasting joy for us, whether the road before us is short or long. Because when scripture speaks of the hands of God, it speaks of them not just as the hands of our creator and the hands of our author, but also the hands that hold joy for us at the end of life’s road.
Psalm 16, verse 11. You make known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. You have this tremendous promise right here in the beginning of this prayer. As you ask, what does it show me about the goodness of God? It shows you that in the hands of Jesus, you are held fast.
And not just in this life, but in all eternity, it is only going to get better. Sometimes we worry, well, what will happen when I die? It will be sad for our family, but it will be the very best day of your life as a Christian, because you enter into joy. As the hymn we sang earlier, pleasures unfading. What a promise. What a promise.
And yet if we’re honest, even those of us who have believed for a while have to confess, it’s sometimes hard to believe this, isn’t it? I know Presbyterian hands don’t go above the pews, but I see a couple of head nods. I gotcha. It’s hard to believe this promise. Why is that?
Well, This text also confronts us as we ask the second question that you should always ask as you’re reading the Bible. First question, what does it reveal to me about God and His goodness? Second question, what does it reveal about us human beings as creatures and or as sinners?
Well, first thing it does is it reveals to us the awesome dignity that is born by every single human being. Into your hands I commit my spirit. Every human being has an everlasting spirit, has an everlasting soul. There is an extraordinary dignity that inheres by creation in every human being, whether they are strong, whether they are weak, whether they are good-looking or less good-looking, whether they are intelligent, whether they are ordinary, whether they are gifted, whether they are not, it doesn’t matter. You bear the image of God. There is an extraordinary dignity that comes with that.
And with that dignity comes a consequential responsibility, because it is given to each of us the responsibility to commit our spirits somewhere. Into your hand I commit my spirit. I commit. What a consequential responsibility. You have an everlasting soul, and where you commit it has eternal consequences. In the hands of Jesus, we are safe forever. But if we do not commit our souls into the hands of Jesus, we are in eternal judgment. We are lost.
And there are so many around us in the world today, even as I look out this window and just see the community stretching on. So many who are lost. so many putting their spirits in the wrong places. And in fact, even for believers, what is the reality? Most of the time, at a functional level, too often, the reality is it’s not into your hand.
I commit my spirit, it’s into my hand. I commit my spirit. Isn’t that true? We were born miscommitting our spirits. This is part of the fall of human race, the fall of man, the rebellion of Adam and Eve in Eden, taking things into their own hands. And now we miscommit our spirits. And this is not just wrong. It is wrong. It dishonors God. But you know what? What makes it especially tragic? It is his self-robbery.
Because all along God is standing there with his hands open saying, come to me, I will give you rest. I will heal you. I will forgive you. I will guide you. I will lead you into the things that not just make you happy, but holy. And we’re going our own way. We’re taking things into our own hands. Jesus says, don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart is. And too often we are saying, but I want the stuff here. It’s shiny and fun. It’s self-robbery.
And all the misery of the world, if you really think it down and think it through, all the misery of the world and all the misery in our lives and in the lives of those we love comes from this fundamental error. The essence of sin, in some sense, could be described as miscommitment of our spirits. Instead of committing them to the Lord our God, we commit them to all sorts of false gods and lesser things. Why do we do this? Why does this happen? Why is it so hard even for believers? It’s always important to ask not just what are we doing wrong, but why are we doing wrong? Why do we do this?
Because in the Garden of Eden, the devil persuaded Adam and Eve not just to sin, but to buy into the biggest lie the world has ever known. The biggest lie that the world has ever known is that you cannot trust God, that’s a lie. But that’s what he snuck into their hearts when he said to them, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of the fruit, you will be like God. In other words, he was saying, you can’t trust God, he’s holding out on you. Therefore, take the fruit and eat. That’s insane. It’s the darkest lie that’s ever been uttered. Unfortunately, sadly, Adam and Eve took the lie. They swallowed the lie.
And that lie, that suspicion of the character of God, is now something that we inherit through ordinary generation. And each and every one of us was born with some of that suspicion in our bloodstream, like a cancer, like a spiritual cancer. And it puts a frost over your faith. That’s why it’s hard to believe in the goodness of God. It puts a fog over your joy. That’s why we’re so anxious and afraid of so many things. This text is confronting us with a hard reality, isn’t it? But we won’t end there. There is a way to dispel the fog. There is a way to melt the frost.
And we see that way from this text by asking the third question that we should ask of every passage of scripture. And that third question is, how does Jesus change the narrative? How does Jesus bring celebration back to the text? How does Jesus change even the hardest text from a sentence of doom to a celebration of good news? And Jesus does this and we see this in verse 5, remembering that David is praying to Christ because the hands of God and the hands of Christ are the same. When he says, you have redeemed me. You have redeemed me. Jesus Christ is the sunrise that will melt the suspicion from our hearts. As long as you are suspicious of a person, you will never trust them.
We know that even from ordinary life. But as we see the gracious, trustworthy character of the Lord Jesus, as we dwell in the Gospels, as one of my and Pastor Steve’s professors used to say to us, as you look closely at the life of Jesus, the shining brilliance and goodness and graciousness of his character will thaw the frost, will clear the fog. The Apostle Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. He says, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from one degree to another.
It is as you behold the goodness of Christ, you begin to see you begin to see that he is trustworthy. And that that suspicion that still wants to whisper to me is a lie. And you can push out the lie with the goodness that you see in the gospels, the stories and the goodness of Christ in real life. Let me give you three examples of the goodness of Christ.
And the trick is to find the story and the life of Jesus that speaks specifically to the fear and the suspicion, the type of suspicion you’re feeling. So if you’ve sinned a pretty big sin, if you’ve done something bad, even something that’s caused scandal, and you think, well, then I must be beyond Christ. I must be beyond his love. I must be beyond his forgiveness. Go to Luke chapter 7, verses 36 through 50.
Jesus is dining at the house of a religious official, and a woman of the city comes in and she was notorious. Luke doesn’t go into the details. He doesn’t need to go into the details. She comes in. Does Jesus push her away? She starts to do something really surprising. She starts to wash his feet with her tears and wipe his feet with her hair. Now this is the first century, people aren’t wearing shoes, they’re wearing sandals. And the street sanitation is not what it is today. This is a pretty grungy visual. But she comes and she falls and she worships and she’s putting her heart in the hands of Jesus and he does not push her away. Though she is notorious, what does he say to her? Daughter, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.
The next time you feel like you’ve sinned so bad God can’t forgive you, you push out that suspicion with the goodness of that story. Or maybe you’re someone who’s experienced doubts. I know a little bit about that too. Sometimes it’s easy to think, well, if my faith isn’t good enough, God won’t accept me.
Whenever you feel that way or if you know somebody who does, take them to the story of Thomas, the apostle after the resurrection in John chapter 20. Of course, you know the story, it’s infamous, poor Thomas. The first time Jesus appears to the apostles after the resurrection, Thomas isn’t there. They say, we’ve seen the Lord. Thomas is so heartbroken. You get the sense, we don’t know a lot about Thomas, but you get the sense he was a guy that felt deeply. And so his disappointments were really deep. And when Jesus was crucified, he was crushed. Then he said, unless I see the holes, unless I put my hand in the side, the Greek is really strong. I will certainly never believe.
Next week, Thomas is there with the rest, guess who walks through the door, literally through the door. Doors are locked, Jesus comes in. You can imagine how Thomas is feeling at this point, right? Red-faced, ashamed, maybe even afraid that Jesus is going to kick him out. Is that what Jesus does?
Does he say, you idiot, get out? Doesn’t. He says, look, see the holes in my hands? Look, push your hand in my side. He doesn’t leave him in his sin. He does confront him and he says, stop disbelieving, believe. but he’s so gracious. He’s so kind. The next time you find your faith flickering and you think maybe God won’t be gracious, you remember, and you push it out with the story of Thomas. Do you see this? This is the trick. You push out suspicion with specific instances of the goodness of Jesus Christ. One more example, another one that I love. I’ve already given you two of my favorites. I’ll give you my other favorite.
The way that our Lord Jesus sees your deepest need. Sometimes we think no one understands what’s really going on. Nobody understands what I really need. The Lord does. And there’s this great example from the beginning of Mark’s gospel. Mark chapter two, Jesus is teaching in this house in Capernaum. It’s so full, you can’t even get in. Like there’s not even room at the door. And four guys come along, you know the story, and they bring a paralytic on a bed and they can’t get in.
So what do they do? They go up on the roof. And the Greek text says they literally, they unroof the roof. You imagine Jesus is standing there and you’re sitting there trying to listen, and all of a sudden dust starts shaking from the rafters. And you know it’s not an earthquake because you’re not in Southern California, you’re in Capernaum. So you say, what is going on? And the man comes down through the hole in the roof.
And at that point, everybody thinks they know what this man wants and what he needs. He probably even thinks he knows his greatest need, right? Wants to walk. And Jesus is going to heal him, spoiler alert. But before he does that, he looks at the man and he sees that this man has a deeper need. He needs his sins to be forgiven. And so the first thing Jesus says is not get up and take your bed and walk. He says, son, your sins are forgiven.
That’s the God we have, the God who sees our deepest needs, the God who understands us better than we do. And so the next time you or somebody you love says, nobody understands, nobody could possibly understand. I don’t even understand. Remind yourself, you remind them that there is a God who understands better than we do all that we need at the very deepest level. And he’s not an unknown God. His name is Jesus and he can be trusted.
Not just because he lived an amazing life either, but because he loved us and he lived for us unto death. In fact, that’s what the word suggests there in verse five, you have redeemed me, oh Lord, faithful God. That idea of redemption in the Bible means to buy back by paying the price. Jesus, not just the one whose hands hung the stars, but he’s the one whose hands hung on the cross to buy us back from the wrath of God that we deserved. I hope you see by now the strategy. As we see Jesus truly, suspicion melts away, little by little, day by day. And as we see Jesus truly, this verse itself, these very words can become the pathway to him. whether back to him or even to him for the very first time. I told you at the beginning that I knew two lives personally that were changed by this verse.
One of them was a friend of mine who lived up in Pasadena and was dying of cancer, a man I used to work for. When he was dying of cancer, there’s a long story, it’s in New Horizons, I’m just gonna give you the Reader’s Digest version. I had an opportunity after we came back from overseas to go and visit with him. I had given him some books to read, or given him a book to read about Christ. And he had been reading it. And we were talking one day in his hotel. And I was talking to him about the nature of faith.
I said, to really trust in Jesus is not just to, it’s like looking at a chair. It’s not enough to just simply say, okay, that’s a chair. Oh, I think it could probably hold me. I said, you actually have to sit on it. You have to commit yourself to it.
Have you done that?” And he said, no, I haven’t done that. I haven’t done that yet. Now, at this point, he didn’t have any doubts about the resurrection of Christ, but he hadn’t yet made the commitment. And I can’t remember the exact words. This is inspired memory, inspired summary. With respect, my response was essentially, with respect, What’s holding you back? Like, why not? You’re not exactly flush with time. He was very, very sick. He said, I don’t know. It just hasn’t happened yet.
And I said, okay, well, I was leaving the next day. I said, I can’t make you believe, but if you come to the point where you’re ready, you can say to Jesus, these words, Jesus into your hand, I commit my spirit. And before I left the next day, he said, he still hadn’t done it.
He said, but you’ve given me the words. A couple days later, I was back in Pennsylvania, and he sent me a text message. And I’ve kept his contact in my phone, even seven years later, so that I wouldn’t lose this text message. And this is what he said. I’m reading off my notes, not off my phone, by the way, not scrolling in the pulpit. This is what he said. He said, I’ve been praying all weekend, using the words you gave me.
I’ve grabbed the branch, I’ve given my spirit, accepted the gift. I thought I had made my peace before, but this is totally different for sure. I thought I was unafraid to face it, but now I know I am not afraid.” About three weeks after he sent that text message, he died.
Here was a man who had spent his whole life unprepared, but because of the words of this verse, he had the words that led him home to Jesus Christ. Isn’t that a glorious thing? These words are life-changing. It’s a prayer of great power. And my friends, it’s not just a prayer for Christians. The most extraordinary thing about this prayer is that it was also prayed by our Lord himself.
How many of you knew that was coming? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you already knew. But there’s something here that maybe you haven’t thought about before. In Luke’s gospel, the last words of Jesus before he died were the exact words of this verse, modified slightly because he was praying to God the Father. Right before he died, Jesus said, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Now, you need to think about that. Why did he do that?
Jesus had no sin. This was the darkest hour any human being had ever faced, for sure. God’s wrath was coming. He was going to bear God’s wrath for us. But Jesus was perfect. Jesus had never sinned, ever. Why then did Jesus pray a prayer of faith? He didn’t need to be forgiven. We did, but he didn’t. Why did Jesus include in his last act, according to Luke’s gospel, right before he died, what was the last act, was an act of faith. Why?
The same reason he did everything else in his life for you and for me. Everything that Jesus did was an act of substitution. Everything in his life, everything in his death, he was perfect for us and he paid for us. And we’re commonly used to thinking, okay, Jesus was perfect for me in his thoughts, words, and actions. Amen? Great.
But what you also need to recognize, and what Luke was showing us, and when Jesus was doing for us when he quoted these words, is he is showing us that he was also perfect for us in his faith. By exercising a perfect act of faith in his father to raise him from the dead, He was providing a perfect commitment that covers all the times you and I commit acts of miscommitment. His perfect commitment to his Father for resurrection covers even the holes in our faith every time we miscommit our spirits. we are still covered by the perfect commitment of Christ’s spirit to his father. Do you see everything Jesus did he did for us? He didn’t leave any gaps in what we need to be saved and what a comfort that is.
And this can change your life. I told you there was a second life that I know that was changed forever when this realization struck home and it was mine. I was raised in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and one of the things that the OPC is really good at saying is that Jesus is the only way to heaven. And another thing that the OPC is really good at saying is that you only can connect to Jesus through faith. You can’t do it. You can’t earn any points. Jesus has all the points. You only need to trust him.
But I was haunted for years by the question. What if that only thing that can connect me to Jesus? What if my faith itself has holes? What if my faith itself flickers? What if it’s like the iPhone charging cable that’s been used too many times and is a little on the fritz? If the only thing that can save me is Jesus, and if the only thing that can connect to Jesus is faith, how do I know that my faith is good enough to make the connection sure?
I was haunted by that for years. And you may say, well, that sounds pretty OCD. It is. I’m OCD. Not in the funny sense, in the real sense. I was haunted by that question. And I’m not the only one. But when this verse and the connection to Luke 23, 46 finally hit home, there was freedom.
When I realized that even the holes in my faith are paid for by the holes in his hands. And that’s true, not just for OCD people, that’s true for every Christian, because whether you’ve ever worried about it or not, I promise you your faith has holes. Nothing we do is perfect in this life, brothers and sisters. But the good news of the gospel is that even the holes in our faith are paid for by the holes in the hands of Jesus.
There’s no gap in the coverage. Because even when our faith is weak, his promise is strong. And he says, no one will snatch me, snatch them out of my hands. And so we can commit our spirits into his hands. And even when our faith flickers, we can commit and we can end the verse.
You have redeemed not just others, you have redeemed me. Oh Lord, faithful God, not because I’m faithful, perfectly because you are. That changed my life. Maybe it will change yours. Let it sink in, chew on it. One of the ways that I remind myself of this is that every morning, the first thing I pray, oftentimes before I get out of the bed, is the words of verse five, Jesus into your hands. I commit my spirit. I make it personal, and I encourage you to do the same.
The fourth question we should ask of any Bible verse, and we’re almost done, any passage of Scripture. Not just what does it show me about God, not just what does it show me about humanity, not just what does it show me about Christ, but what does it show me about Christians? How should I activate this? Theology and Scripture is not just meant to inform us, but to transform us.
Maybe you don’t struggle in the same way I do, but this verse is still a verse, a prayer of great power. When things are going well in your life, And you need to guard against pride. What a great prayer to pray. Jesus, into your hands, I commit my spirit, not my own. When you’re on the edge and life is really hard, when the jagged edges of God’s providence are cutting into the flesh of your soul, when you feel like you’re near despair, when the darkness is closing in, what can you pray? Jesus, into your hands, I commit my spirit.
Because these words became the prayer of the only perfect man who ever lived at the darkest hour any human being faced. They are potent and powerful as a prayer for all of us at any day, at any hour. And I encourage you to make these words your own tonight. Because when you do, you put everything where nothing can snatch it away.
Amen. Let us pray. Our God, we’re so thankful to you for all the Bible. We thank you especially tonight for this verse, originally written by David, but ultimately taken up on the lips of our Lord himself. And for all that it promises and for all that it can do for us, we pray that you would use these words in our own lives and hearts, that we might more freely and more surely commit our spirits into the hands of our Savior, and that you might use this prayer and use that commitment and use the character of our Lord as so manifestly and clearly displayed in the Gospels to melt away all our suspicion and convince us that we are safe, not in ourselves, but in the hands of Jesus. Let us live in his hands and in his name we pray, amen.