Will you please turn to the Gospel according to Mark?
Mark 1:1:
The beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Mark 10:45:
For also the Son of Man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Mark 16:19-20:
The Lord therefore, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God.
And they, going forth, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs following.
Let us look to the Lord.
Dear Holy Father, how we do praise and thank Thee for giving us Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how we do enjoy Him, appreciate Him, love Him, and worship Him.
And now, Father, we pray that Thou wilt again, by Thy Holy Spirit, reveal Thy Son further to us, that we may know Him more, love Him more, and let Him have us more, and to Him be all the praise and glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
Every Scripture is divinely inspired. Or, literally, every Scripture is God-breathed.
The purpose of every Scripture is one: to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ. In whatever form the Scripture may be—whether biographical, historical, prophetic, poetic, or whatever it may be—it is for that one and only purpose: to reveal Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as we touch the Scripture, we must touch the Lord Jesus. If we read the Scripture and do not touch the living Word, our Lord Jesus, then we will find that we have missed the whole purpose of the Scriptures.
Now, we mentioned last time that the Gospel according to Matthew is biographical. It gives us the story of our Lord Jesus. But it is more than biographical; it is spiritual. It is not only historical; it is a revelation—a revelation to us of the Lord Jesus.
In Matthew, we find that the Lord Jesus is the King, God’s King. And how different God’s King is from man’s concept. He is King because He is humble. He is King because He died on the cross. And He is calling us into His kingdom, that we too may partake of His kingly nature.
Now, this morning, we will consider together the Gospel according to Mark. Most probably, of the four Gospels, the Gospel according to Mark is the first written. But in God’s sovereign ordering, it is put second. The Gospel according to Matthew is placed first. Why?
From God’s standpoint, He wants us to see Jesus as King, that we may give Him obedience, allegiance, and worship. Then we find in the Gospel according to Mark that the Lord Jesus is the Servant of the Lord.
In human understanding, king and servant are opposites. Now, the word servant actually is bondslave. King and bondslave stand on two opposite sides. We cannot put these two together.
When we think of a king, he is higher up, full of authority, giving orders, and obeyed by people. But when we think of a bondslave, a servant, he is way down below, having no right of his own. He is to serve; he is to obey.
But, dear brothers and sisters, according to divine understanding, these two—king and servant—are complementary. Or we may say they are one. Why? Because you remember the Lord Jesus said that in the world, those who rule exercise lordship over others and authority over other people. But the Lord said, “This is not so among you.”
If you want to be great, you must learn to be servant. If you want to be first, then you must learn to be bondslave. Because the Lord Jesus said:
For also the Son of Man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Here you find that he who serves is the king. The King serves. This is the divine concept. And, of course, we find in the life of our Lord Jesus that He is the model Servant.
When you open the Gospel according to Mark, the first sentence is, “The beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” You do not find any record of His genealogy, as you find in Matthew. You do not find any record of His birth, as you find in Luke. No genealogy, no birth mentioned. Why?
Because who cares about the genealogy and the birth of a slave? A slave is nothing; he is nobody. And that is the reason why you find in the Gospel according to Mark there is no such record.
But when you read the first sentence—“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ”—this is the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Servant of the Lord. Yet immediately it says, “Son of God.” Now that is a strange combination.
This Gospel is to reveal to us Jesus as the bondslave of God: nobody, nothing. And yet that bondslave of God is the Son of God. Of course, a slave is nobody, but the Son of God is above everybody. How can that be?
We know it is so because we read in Philippians 2 that He who is equal with God, who is in the very nature of God, because He is God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. But He emptied Himself. He made Himself nothing.
Of course, He could not pour out His deity; that is impossible, because He is God. But He poured out Himself of all the glory, the honor, the majesty, and the worship connected with deity. He emptied Himself to be nothing.
Then He took upon Himself the form of a servant, a bondslave—or, in other words, the very nature of a slave. Being found in the likeness of men, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to God even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
So, brothers and sisters, here we find the Son of God, who is equal with God, and yet, for the sake that God’s plan might be realized, He voluntarily made Himself nothing and took upon Himself the very nature of a slave. He put Himself under the rule of God His Father, and He was obedient even unto death, the death of the cross.
You know, in Mark 12 there is a parable of a man who owned a vineyard. He let out the vineyard to husbandmen. At the time of harvest, he sent servants to collect, but they drove the servants away. He sent another group of servants; they even killed them. He sent more servants, but they rejected them all.
Finally, the owner said, “I have an only begotten son. I will send him. Maybe they will respect him.” Of course, we know how the story ends. But here you find that God sent His Son into this world as His Son, because the Son is the Servant of God.
Before we go on, I would like to apply this principle of sonship and service to ourselves. Do you know, brothers and sisters? No one can serve God. No service is acceptable to God unless it is served by the life of God’s Son.
In other words, if we want to serve God, if we want to be God’s servants, we cannot serve God with our natural life, this fallen Adamic life. Even with the best of our knowledge, intention, experience, and energy, if we try to serve God from ourselves and with ourselves, we will be utterly rejected.
God will not and cannot accept such service. How many today are trying to serve God in their own wisdom and strength? They think they are doing God a service, but we know they do God a disservice.
Only when we serve God with the life of Christ in us, only when we serve God with the energy of the Holy Spirit, only when we serve God with the mind of Christ—brothers and sisters, this is the only way we can serve God, and it is the only service with which God is well pleased.
There is a basic principle here: the principle of sonship and service. It is not just a servant doing something, but you have to be a son who has the very life and the very mind to serve the God whom we serve.
The Lord Jesus, before He came into this world, was prophesied in Psalm 40. Psalm 40 is a prophecy.
Psalm 40:6-8:
Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire;
Ears hast Thou prepared for Me.
Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast Thou not demanded.
Then said I, Lo, I come;
In the volume of the book it is written of Me:
To do Thy good pleasure, My God, is My delight,
And Thy law is within My heart.
This prophesies the coming of God’s Servant, the Son. He said, “Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire.” Now, that is strange in a sense, because to the Old Testament people, sacrifice and oblation were what God required. But here you find, “Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire. Ears hast Thou prepared for Me.”
In the original, it means an ear that has been hollowed or pierced through. According to the Old Testament, a love slave did not want to go out free. So the master would take that slave to the door and pierce through his ear. That slave became a slave for life, a love slave.
God does not desire merely oblation or sacrifice. What He really desires is an ear that has been pierced through. “Lo, I come. In the volume of the book”—that is, in the Bible—“it is written of Me, to do Thy good pleasure, My God, is My delight.”
The delight of our Lord Jesus, as the Servant of God, is to do the will of God, because the law of God is within His heart. Of course, we know that this is fully fulfilled in the life of our Lord Jesus. In Hebrews 10, you find this quoted as a fulfillment in the life of our Lord.
So the Lord Jesus is the Servant of the Lord. He came to do God’s will.
Remember, brothers and sisters, when you read the Gospel, you find that our Lord Jesus, while He was on earth, was very busy. He preached, He healed, He cast out demons, He comforted people, He said many words, He did many things, and He traveled here and there. He lived a very busy life and supplied the needs of the people.
But remember one thing: even though He was busily occupied with many things, and even though He did many things and said many words, as a Servant of the Lord He did not do all these things merely because there were needs.
He did all these things in order to do the will of God. What governed His life, His movements, and His actions was not need, people, environment, or work. What really governed His action was the will of the Father.
In other words, as a Servant of the Lord, He came to do the will of His Father. That is the very nature of His service. You cannot push Him into any work. You cannot say, “Lord, here is a need. Do it.”
It is true, He is a Person of compassion, but He is not governed by need. He is governed by the will of the Father. “Lo, I come to do Your will.” This is the very nature of His service.
Now, if this is the nature of His service, what should be the nature of our service to God? In a sense, we are all saved to serve. As in 1 Thessalonians, you find that they turned away from idols to serve the living God. Every one of us is to serve God. But how do we serve? What is the nature of our service?
The Lord Jesus said:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
The Lord Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you.” He wants us to be yoked with Him.
The Lord Jesus was never under the yoke of sin. You remember in Numbers 19, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, God provided a way for purification. They were to take a red heifer that had never been under a yoke. That red heifer was to be burned completely into ashes and mingled with living water to purify those who were defiled.
Our Lord Jesus is like that red heifer. He had never been under any yoke of sin. We had all been under the iron yoke of sin, but no yoke could ever come upon our Lord Jesus. He was completely free.
Yet our Lord Jesus willingly put His neck under one yoke. He was never under the yoke of sin, but He voluntarily put His shoulder under the yoke of the Father’s will. Then He said, “Take My yoke upon you.”
In the old days, they did not have tractors, so they used oxen, horses, or donkeys. When a farmer was going to till the ground, he would take an ox or horse and put it under a yoke. The yoke represented the will of the farmer, because when an ox was under the yoke, he was under the will of his master.
Sometimes, in order to do the work more effectively, instead of one ox there would be two oxen or two horses. On one side would be an animal that had been trained, disciplined, broken, and knew the master’s will. To break in a new animal, the farmer would put the new animal under the other side of the yoke.
One animal is trained, disciplined, broken, obedient, and doing the master’s will. The other is unbroken, raw, strange, and having its own will. As the farmer directs them, the trained one follows the master’s will completely. The unbroken one wants to go its own way, but the trained one is stronger and pulls it back.
Gradually, the unbroken one learns from the broken one. That is what the Lord Jesus said: “Take My yoke upon you.” If you want to serve God, there is only one way you can serve God: you have to take the yoke of our Lord Jesus upon you. He is on one side, and you must put your neck under the other side.
In 2 Corinthians 6, we are told, “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, light with darkness, Christ with Belial, believers with unbelievers, or the temple of God with idols? There is no agreement, participation, or fellowship. So we should not be diversely yoked with unbelievers.
Unfortunately, many believers today are unequally yoked with the world. But the Lord Jesus says, “Yoke with Me. Take My yoke upon you.”
It is true: when the yoke is put upon you, you feel it. We want to be free—“Give me liberty or give me death.” But, dear brothers and sisters, if we really want to serve God, there is only one way: we have to take the yoke of Christ upon us.
The yoke of Christ is the will of God. You have to be yoked to God’s will. You are not to be yoked to a work. You are not to be yoked to a need. Yes, you will supply a need and you will do a work, but you are not yoked to the work.
Lots of God’s servants are yoked to the work. They want the work to be successful, and they will do anything to make it successful, even compromising the will of God. Why? Because they are yoked to the work; they are not yoked to the will of God.
Brothers and sisters, we have to be yoked to the will of God. As we are yoked to that will, God’s work can be done. But there is much we have to learn. Naturally, we rebel against it; naturally, we fight against it. But thank God, on the other side there is the Lord Jesus.
As we are struggling and straining, look at the Lord. Gradually, we are broken and tamed, and thus we are broken into the will of God. So, dear brothers and sisters, as to the nature of service, it is the will of God—not the work itself, but the will.
For a man to serve God in His work, there is one thing of utmost importance, and that is character.
Discipleship means, on the one hand, the making of the king. When you respond to the call of discipleship, you put yourself under the discipline of the Lord. Then you find His kingly character beginning to be built in you.
But at the same time, discipleship is the training of the servant. In discipleship, you are being trained to be a servant of the Lord, and the servant character is built into you.
In Watchman Nee’s book The Normal Christian Worker, there is a paragraph:
The daily life of a Christian worker is intimately related to his work.
To qualify for spiritual service, a man must not only have a certain amount of spiritual experience, but he must have a certain kind of character.
A worker’s character must be suited to the character of the work.
The development of a man’s character does not take place in a day.
If a worker is to possess those qualities that are necessary to make for service to the Lord, then many practical matters relating to his daily life will have to come under review.
Old habits will have to be shed, and new habits formed through a process of discipline; and fundamental adjustment will have to take place in the life to bring it into harmony with the work.
Here you find how important it is that the character of the servant must be suited to the character of the service. If we want to serve God—if the character of our service is to do the will of God—then there is a certain character that needs to be developed in our lives.
Such character is a daily matter. It has to be gradually developed. There will be many adjustments. Old habits have to be shed, new habits have to be formed, and there must be transformation going on within us in order that we may have the character needed to do the servant’s work.
In the case of our Lord Jesus, it is perfect. The servant character of our Lord Jesus suits the character of His work completely and perfectly, because He is the model Servant. This kind of servant character has to be built within us.
Can you imagine a person doing a work of God, and yet not having that servant character built within him? What will happen to the work? It is impossible.
Probably one of the important characteristics of a servant is diligence. As you read the Gospel according to Mark, you find one word repeated many times—thirty-seven times, in fact. What is that word? “Immediately,” “straightway,” or “at once,” depending on your translation.
Why is that word used thirty-seven times? Because the Gospel according to Mark reveals Christ as the Servant of God. As God’s Servant, He is diligent. He is diligently doing the work of God. He does not say, “Well, tomorrow.” Immediately. Straightway. At once.
Mark 1:10 says:
And straightway coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon Him.
Mark 1:12 says:
And immediately the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness.
Mark 1:21 says:
And they go into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath day He entered into the synagogue and taught.
Mark 5:36 says:
But Jesus, not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe.
When the servant came and said, “Do not trouble the Teacher, because your daughter has died,” the Lord immediately comforted the father and said, “Fear not, only believe.”
Mark 6:50 says:
But He straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
I am using only a few illustrations, but throughout the Gospel according to Mark, this word is repeated thirty-seven times. It shows us a diligent Servant.
God can never use a lazy person. I think D. L. Moody said, “God never saves a lazy person; he is too lazy to be saved.” Everyone who has been, or is being, used by God is a diligent person. God never uses a lazy person, because a lazy person will spoil God’s work.
Our Lord Jesus is the most diligent of all men. This character has to be developed in us. Naturally, we like to put things off: “Tomorrow, we will do it.” But tomorrow never comes.
We need to be disciplined. If it is the will of God, if God is revealing His will to you, and it is something He wants you to do, then do not put it off.
Now, perhaps you will say, “Is there a contradiction between diligence and waiting upon God? Are we not supposed to wait on God?” Of course, we should wait on God. If you do not know what God’s will is, then do not rush ahead and do it, because you do not know what you are doing.
You will be like Peter. Oftentimes, Peter did not know what he was saying, but he just said it. He did not know what he was doing, but he just did it. That was Peter, and because he did it, he was disciplined.
You need to wait. Do not go if you are not sure of God’s will. Do not make waiting an excuse, though. If you are not sure of God’s will, then wait on God. Even if it means waiting for a whole year, wait for a whole year. Do not go.
But once God’s will is made known, then do it. Immediately. Straightway. At once. Do not delay. Do not make excuses anymore, and do not try to push it off.
These two are not contradictory; they actually work together. In the life of our Lord Jesus, you can see how true this is. Think of the scene in Gethsemane. Once He knew it was the will of God, straightway there was no looking back.
So, as God’s servants, dear brothers and sisters, we need to have diligence worked into our lives: diligent in doing God’s will.
In the Gospel according to Mark, you find another characteristic of the Servant of God, and that is compassion.
As a servant, it is not just a matter of doing something or saying something. We can do something out of duty; we can say something out of obligation. But there may be no heart there, no compassion, no feeling within us.
If you are just doing that, you are a hireling. You are being hired, like hirelings. You are not a real shepherd or a real servant of God. Our Lord Jesus is full of compassion.
Whatever He says, He says out of His heart. Whatever He does, He does out of His heart. He is not just trying to fulfill a duty or an obligation. He is full of love and full of compassion.
You remember the leper coming to Him and saying, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” The Bible says that the Lord, being moved with compassion, not only said, “I will,” but stretched out His hand and touched the leper.
Anyone who touched a leper became unclean. But our Lord Jesus stretched out His hand to touch him and make him clean, because He was full of compassion. He wanted to be identified with him.
In Mark 6, the Lord Jesus came out of the boat and saw the people. He was filled with compassion because He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless. In Mark 8, the people had followed Him and listened to Him for three days, and they had nothing to eat. The disciples said, “Send them away,” but the Lord was full of compassion toward them and fed them.
How our Lord Jesus is a Person full of compassion. When He is doing God’s work, He is doing God’s will with a heart full of compassion. Oh, how we need to be filled with His compassion.
But compassion does not mean that He is blind. We think of compassion as an emotional thing, and it is. Yet compassion is more than emotion; compassion is a character.
Emotion is something that flares up or is stirred up. When you see some very pitiful scene, it stirs your compassion. That is why missionaries, when they come back to this country seeking support for their missionary work, often show the worst pictures—a child without food, dirty and neglected. It stirs your compassion.
But such compassion comes and goes. When you do not see it, you have no compassion. It is an emotion. But compassion in the Bible is a character, something deep-rooted within you. It does not depend upon outside influence; it comes from within.
Therefore, compassion is not blind. In Mark 7, you find the incident of the Syrophoenician woman. She cried to the Lord, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” because her child was demon-possessed.
The Lord Jesus went on as if He had not heard. The woman followed Him, crying, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” The disciples became troubled. It seemed as though they had more compassion than the Lord. They said, “Lord, do something. Send her away.”
The Lord said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” Why? Because the Lord was sent by God to the children of Israel. This Syrophoenician woman had no part in the commonwealth of Israel. She could not claim upon the Lord as the Son of David, because as the Son of David He came for the children of Israel.
She had called Him by the wrong title. But when the Lord spoke of dogs, He used a special word: pet dogs, domestic dogs. He gave that woman a handle of faith.
Immediately she said, “Yes, Lord; even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” The Lord said, “For this saying go thy way; the demon is gone out of thy daughter.” Her faith was great, and her child was healed.
The Lord is full of compassion, but compassion with discretion. Sometimes we are full of compassion and are not discreet. At other times, we are so discreet that we have no compassion.
If your heart is warm, your head is warm. But our Lord’s heart is warm and His head is cool. That is our Lord, because He is here to do God’s will. Dear brothers and sisters, we need to have compassion with discretion developed in us.
Thirdly, the Gospel according to Mark reveals Christ, the Servant of the Lord, as One who is absolutely selfless. Selflessness is the character of a servant.
A servant should never think of himself. If a servant is self-interested, he cannot serve his master’s interest. A servant has to be so selfless that he can be wholly occupied with his master’s concern.
This is what the Lord Jesus said:
For also the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
That is the key verse in the Gospel according to Mark. Think of the disciples. They were supposed to learn service from the Lord, yet all the time they were striving among themselves. Striving over what? Who would be greatest? Who would have the highest place?
They were full of self-concern, self-interest, and self-centeredness. No wonder the Lord had to bear with them, instruct them again and again, and tell them, “This is not the case with you. You should not do things like that.”
Even Peter, when the Lord said He was going to Jerusalem to die and be raised on the third day, took hold of the Lord and said, “No, no, not so.” The Lord Jesus said, “Thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.”
There was no self-interest in the Lord. The Lord had absolutely no selfishness. Brothers and sisters, for that kind of character to develop in us takes a long time. Oh, how the cross has to cut deep and deep and deep, because we are so self-centered.
Fourthly, gentleness. You find that our Lord is so gentle. It is prophesied of Him in Isaiah 42:
A bruised reed shall He not break,
And a dimly burning wick shall He not quench.
The gentleness of the Lord can be seen in the way He deals with children. People came with children, and the disciples said, “Our Master is a big Man. He has no time for children. Go away, go away.” But the Lord said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”
The Lord had time for children. He took them in His arms and blessed them. That is gentleness.
Think of the gentleness of the Lord after His resurrection. In Mark 16, He sent the women to the disciples, telling them that He had risen and that He was going to meet them. He said, “Tell My brethren and Peter.” So gentle with one who had denied Him.
But gentleness does not in any way mean weakness. Our own gentleness may be weakness, but divine gentleness is strength. It is because He is so strong that He is gentle.
Think of Mark 3. The Lord came into a synagogue where there was a man with a withered hand, and everybody was watching to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath. The Lord challenged them: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm?” Nobody answered.
The Lord Jesus was filled with indignation. He denounced the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes. He was not weak, but He was gentle.
In 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy that the servant of the Lord should not strive, but should be gentle. Gentleness is a character of God’s servant. It does not mean weakness. It does not mean that because you are gentle, you compromise or give in.
Finally, you find that our Lord Jesus has full confidence. As a servant, you have to have confidence in your master. If you have no confidence in your master, how can you serve him?
Our Lord Jesus had full confidence in God. In Mark 11, He said, “Have faith in God.” He walked on the water. He calmed the sea. He had full faith in God. He trusted God even unto death because He knew there would be resurrection.
Brothers and sisters, we need to have that kind of faith.
We have illustrated some of the servant characteristics. Finally, I love the way Mark concludes his Gospel. He says, “The Lord, therefore.” The Servant is now the Lord.
The Lord therefore, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God.
He came as a Servant, and He returned as the Lord of all. God has anointed Him Lord and Christ because He has served God’s purpose completely. Now He is seated at the right hand of God as King. The Servant is now King.
He has served. He has proved Himself qualified to sit upon the throne. This is the way to the throne.
Then Mark says:
And they, going forth, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs following.
The disciples went out and became servants. They began to serve, and the Lord worked with them. Think of it: even though the Lord is today seated at the right hand of the Father as Lord and King, by His Spirit He is still working with us.
His servant character and His servant life are in us. He is still working together with us and confirming the word by the signs following.
Here you find: Son, Servant; Servant, Son; Servant, King; King, Servant. These are one; they are not divided. May the Lord help us in this Gospel according to Mark, that we may see Christ as the Servant of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, we mentioned before: if there is revelation, there is bound to be transformation. If there is revelation, there has to be transformation.
We cannot see Christ as the Servant of the Lord and yet have no fellowship with Him in His servant character. We cannot say that we see the Lord as the Servant of the Lord and yet not be transformed to have the same character within us.
Put it reversely: if there is no fellowship with Christ as God’s Servant, if there is no transformation in us to have that servant character, then we have not seen Christ as the Servant of the Lord.
May the Lord have mercy upon us. Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, how we do praise and thank Thee that Thou hast revealed to us Thy perfect Son, Thy Son, the Servant of the Lord. Our Father, Thou hast called us into Thy service. We acknowledge that in ourselves we are not fit to serve.
But we do praise and thank Thee because this servant life, this Son life, is in us. We pray that by Thy Holy Spirit there will be transformation, that this life may be developed and brought out in and from us, that we too may serve Thee diligently.
May we serve Thee compassionately, unselfishly, with gentleness, and with faith. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
Lord, we do pray for that revelation. When we see, we know that we are not fit to serve in ourselves; yet that revelation will transform us.
Lord, in our hearts today, we say that we want to be yoked with You. We want to place our necks under that yoke, so that we can learn of You. We confess before You our weakness, but in our spirits we do want to see You and be like You.
Lord, we do pray that that last verse in Mark would be true in us: that we would be found to be those doing Your will, and that You would work with us.
Oh, Lord, we do pray that, if nothing else, our lives might have that mark: the will of God. Lord, not more or less, but just that we will do Your will. In Jesus’ name, amen.