In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground. Firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace. When fears are stilled, when striving ceases. My comforter, my all in all. Here in the love of Christ I stand. 

In Christ alone who took on flesh. Fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness. Scorned by the ones he came to save. Till on that cross as Jesus died. The wrath of God was satisfied. For every sin on him was laid. Here in the death of Christ I live. 

There in the ground his body lay. Light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious day. Up from the grave he rose again. And as he stands in victory. Sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am his and he is mine. Bought with the precious blood of Christ. 

No guilt in life, no fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final breath. Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man. Can ever pluck me from his hand. Till he returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand. 

Thank you for that good song. What a rich truth you were singing there. Concerning our salvation in Jesus Christ. And that's really what we want to talk about this morning. 

Good morning to everyone. Good to see you all. Be here with you this morning and we're studying in 1 John 5. A tremendous passage about the truth that those who believe Jesus have been born of God. And we've been working our way through this first epistle of John. And it's been really an encouraging, enriching time together over these months. 

John has a laser focus on Jesus. He doesn't move away from that emphasis in his writing and his teaching. His passion, his life is Jesus Christ. And that's what he wants for us as well as he writes these words. 

As we study these things, as we go over them and over them and think on them, the conclusion that John wants us to come to is that Jesus Christ is our life. He starts out in chapter 1 pointing us to Jesus. That which he had seen, which he had looked intently upon, which he had handled with his own hands. His savior, his friend. His salvation and his life. 

And Jesus is the key to our life. To our contentment, to our fruitfulness as well. In order to encourage us to look to Jesus, to abide in him, to find our life in him, John lays down some foundational truths for us to base our Christian life upon. 

And he comes back to the main truth in our text today. That is the basis for our life of love. Agape love manifest through us. Let's look at our passage this morning in 1 John 5 at verse 1. 

John writes, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who has begotten of him." By this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God. That we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God? 

I've given you three points on your outline for our text this morning. First we're going to look at the reason. Then the right. And third, the result. 

What we see in our text today that there is a reason why we love God. Why we love the brethren. Why we continue to believe Jesus. This is such an important truth for us to understand. And we need to keep going over it and over it to remind us. To renew our minds to the paramount truth of our new birth. Our regeneration. Our death, burial and resurrection with Jesus Christ. 

And to begin I'd like to take you back to Genesis chapter 11 and look at the life of Abram. The chosen vessel of God for the promise of Jesus Christ. Genesis 11 at verse 27. We're going to look at the genealogy of Terah. Who was a son of Shem. After the flood of Noah's day. 

In verse 27 of Genesis 11 it says this is the genealogy of Terah. Terah begot Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land in Ur of the Chaldeans. 

Then Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. And the name of Nahor's wife Milcah. The daughter of Haran. The father of Milcah. And the father of Ishaq. But Sarai was barren. She had no child. And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot. The son of Haran and his daughter-in-law Sarai. His son Abram's wife. And they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran and dwelt there. 

So the days of Terah were 205 years. And Terah died in Haran. Well this text follows immediately the account of the Tower of Babel. Where God came down to confuse the languages of men. So that they would scatter over the face of the earth and fill it with people. 

The men of the world had come together under Nimrod and were building a tower, a ziggurat to the heavens. That they might reach the heavens by their own works. It was a pagan worship center with a zodiac at the top. A religion of men meant to make their way all the way to God. But this was not God's sovereign will. It was not His intention for mankind. 

In Genesis 1.28, it says, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. To have dominion over the fish of the sea. Over the birds of the air. And every living thing that moves on the earth.'" 

It was God's intention that man fill the earth. And again after God destroyed the world with the flood of Noah. And Noah and his family came off the ark to a barren earth, God gave Noah this instruction in Genesis 9.1. It says, "So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply. And fill the earth.'" 

And we see in the text that we read that God's scattering of men over the earth to be fruitful and multiply included Terah and the lineage of Shem. And the son of Terah was a man named Abram. And so Abram and his family had left Ur of the Chaldeans and had traveled and settled in Haran. 

Now let's pick it up and see the sovereign plan of God, His will for men in Genesis 12. In Genesis 12.1, it says, "Now the Lord had said to Abram, 'Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" 

My brothers and sisters, there's a reason that we have been born of God. And that reason is the sovereign plan and will of God to redeem man. If you think about this, if you ponder this truth, it is profound and amazing and it is so encouraging. 

Because Adam fell, he sinned and brought death into the world, and sin now reigns in the sons of Adam. God did not abandon man at that point. He did not simply judge man and wipe him off the face of the earth at the very point when he sinned. Rather, He designed a plan to redeem man, to bring him back, to buy him back, to bring him back into a right relationship with God and walk in fellowship with Him. 

And even after the thoughts and the intents of man and his heart were only evil all the time, and God had to judge the whole world, saving only Noah and his sons and their wives, eight souls, He still intended to populate the earth with people who could believe Jesus and come back into a right relationship with Him. And He intended that they scatter and that they fill the earth. 

God is love. And His love is demonstrated in the fact that He sovereignly designed a plan of salvation by His grace. And we see that plan in the promise given to Abram in Genesis 12. We see a promise of a land, a promise of a nation. And we also see the great promise of a blessing to all nations through the seed of Abraham. God promised a Redeemer. He promised a blessing to all nations. Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham. 

And when a man believes Jesus, when he comes to faith in Christ alone, he is born of God. He is born again. He is made new. We see this fleshed out in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, describing the promise of the new birth, being born of God. 

And this includes a new heart and a new spirit and the Holy Spirit indwelling us when we believe Jesus. God designed, and we see here implemented, orchestrated, His plan to produce a Savior through the lineage of Abraham, the father of many. And this will be manifest through Isaac and Jacob, the nation of Israel. God gave us the seed of Abraham through the nation of Israel. Jesus, our Savior. 

And this great promise goes back to Genesis 12, as Paul explains to us, in a crucial chapter in Galatians 3. If you'd turn over to Galatians 3, I'd like to begin reading in verse 5. 

Galatians 3, verse 5. "So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' But that no one is justified by the law on the side of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. 

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,' that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak in the manner of men, though it is only a man's covenant. Yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. 

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, 'and to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ. And this I say, that the law, which was 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. 

For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise." 

I want you to really think about this, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Why is it that you are saved today? Why is it that you can know that you are born of God, a new creation, and you are secure in Christ forever? Remember, this is the intent of John in this first epistle, to give us assurance of our salvation, that we might know that we have eternal life. 

It is because God first loved you, and designed in His sovereign will to redeem you from sin and save you from His wrath, and place you into Christ, and take you to live in eternity with Him forever. God loved you, and He, by His will, by His grace, made it possible for you to be saved. This is the reason. 

Now next, we see the right. What is the right to become a child of God? John answers this question as well in his Gospel in the first chapter at verse 12. Listen to what John wrote. Speaking about the Jews, his own people that he came to, and they would not receive him, in verse 12 he says, "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 

God designed the plan. God chose the vessel, Abram, and the nation of Israel. God fulfilled the promise in Jesus Christ. And he tells us, he promises us, that for those who will receive him, he gives them the right to become the children of God, to be born of God. What does it mean to receive Jesus? 

We often hear that today. Preachers will say, just receive Jesus as your Savior. What does it mean? John tells us in verse 12, as many as receive Him, that is, to those who believe on His name. And we've seen through this epistle that that means all that He is, all that He's done, that He's finished the work. And if we will believe Him, if we will trust Him to have paid for our sins, as our only Savior, as our only means to righteousness, we will be saved. 

It is faith, my friends. By God's will and work, we are born again through faith. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 

Listen to verse 18, so clear in John 3. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the consistent message of John in 1 John as well. These are the new covenant commandments to believe Jesus and love one another. 

It is by faith, by believing Jesus, that God gives us the right to become children of God. We spent the last week up in Canada on a family fishing trip, and it was a good time. The kids especially enjoyed those first few hot days in the 90s there in Sioux Narrows. Sunny the whole week. They were swimming and fishing and kayaking all day long. 

And one evening, Doug was playing the guitar and we were singing some hymns, and Ashley and Sarah were teaching Jay the Father Abraham song. Some of you know that song. Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons. I am one of them and so are you, so let's just praise the Lord. 

The question we discussed, and the question for you and for me and all men is this, how do I become a child of Abraham? How can I be born of God? Let me ask you this, are all men God's children? As so many say today. Jesus said that the false teachers, the leaders of Israel, were sons of the devil, sons of Satan in John 8, 44. 

In fact, every man born is born an Adam and is born a son of Satan by nature. So how does a man become a child of Abraham? We saw it already in Galatians 3, only those who are of faith are children of Abraham, children of the promise. Only those who believe Jesus gain the right to become children of God. 

And it is true for everyone who believes they have been born of God. So we see the reason, God's sovereign will and plan, His grace brought to pass through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the nation of Israel, the promise of Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham. 

And we see the right, for those who believe Jesus receive Him by faith alone, these are born of God, become the children of believing Abraham, the children of God. And our last point from our text this morning is the result. What is the result of the sovereign work of God when we receive Christ's righteousness by faith, when we're regenerated, born again, made new? 

What is the result of God's plan and purpose of being born again through faith in Jesus Christ? Well, John lays this out in the rest of our text. Look at verse one with me again. "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who has begotten of Him." 

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. 

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is He who overcomes the world but He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 

The result of the new birth of being born of God is love, agape love, love for God and love for the brethren. This is John's consistent theme as the manifestation of our new life in Christ. Notice that John emphasizes keeping the commandments. 

This is an interesting passage because it says that keeping the commandments is not burdensome. I've heard many Bible teachers talk about the law of God, the 10 commandments being binding on the believer, that we must keep the law of Moses and that this will be the direction if not the perfection of our lives. 

And there is some truth to that because the law of God is consistent with the nature of God and we possess the divine nature and have the life of God living in and out through us and so our lives will be consistent with God's nature. We will not be murderers, we will not be thieves, we will not lie and cheat and use the Lord's name in vain if we abide in Christ. 

However, to point the believer to the law of Moses, to bind the believer with the law and demand he look to it and keep it as a rule of life is to miss the whole point of the new covenant life in Christ. And it is also to doom that believer to failure and sin. 

Paul explains this in many texts in the New Testament. Galatians certainly covers this with clarity and authority. Listen to 2.19, "For I through the law died to the law in order that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." 

Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit? Are you now being sanctified? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 

It's not as if we are saved by God's grace through faith, justified by Him and His sovereign plan and purpose, and then sanctified or made perfect by works and law keeping. That's not how it works. 

Biblical sanctification is based entirely on God's saving work in us, the new creation and His life through us by faith, my friends, one day at a time. One moment at a time by faith. 

In Romans 2, Paul writes that the law only brings wrath. It cannot bring righteousness, my friends. Now I'd like for you to turn to one more passage with me, please, in 2 Corinthians 3. I've been to this passage many times, but as I studied this, I had a bit of a fresh understanding or application of this text. 

In 2 Corinthians 3, I'm gonna read a lengthy passage beginning in verse 2. He's writing to the believers in Corinth. He says, "You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is your heart. 

And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 

But if the ministry of death written and engraved on stones was so glorious so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 

For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away, the law, was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. 

Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away in Christ. 

But even to this day, when Moses has read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. Look at this. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 

I want you to notice the tone of Paul's words. His instructions and teachings to the believers in Corinth. Now, these were not the people in Galatia. They were not struggling with legalism, but rather they were struggling with licentiousness. 

Shouldn't Paul have pointed them back to the law of Moses? Given the law to straighten them out, to bring them back into submission to what is the right way to live. Isn't the law what they really needed? I mean, we can see in Galatia, they were into the law and keeping the law and Paul needed to talk to them about their liberty. 

In Corinth, that wasn't the case. Shouldn't Paul have told them, listen, you need to straighten this out. You need to get back to the Ten Commandments. 

I mean, think about what they were doing. Involved in pagan worship, drunkenness, fornication. They were involved in this pagan temple worship and homosexuality according to 1 Corinthians 6. They were going to law against one another, fighting, being selfish to the core. 

Shouldn't Paul tell them that God's law forbids these things? That they need to get to the Ten Commandments and hang them up in their houses and look to them every day and make a checkmark every time they keep them and track their progress. But what does Paul tell them? He tells them the opposite. 

I think this is fascinating. He says the law is a ministry of death. The law is a ministry of condemnation. Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. 

And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Our sufficiency is not of ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, not of the law, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but it's the Spirit that gives life. 

It's the fruit of the Spirit that is holiness. The letter kills. The letter brings death. There's no liberty apart from the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. Not license, not liberty to sin, but liberty to love. And love does no harm. 

Paul says all of the commandments are wrapped up in this, that you love one another. John says the new covenant commands, the ones he laid out in 1 John 3, verse 23, are to believe Jesus and love one another. These commandments, my friends, are not burdensome to us. They are not a yoke of bondage. They are the very thing we long to do. 

This is what God has put into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. We believe Jesus. We long to trust Him. We long to abide in Him. To live for Him. To love. To love one another. 

So refreshing to come back here. I feel like I've been gone forever. To come into this building and to be with all of you this morning and to hug one another and to talk about Christ and to experience that fellowship. Can you imagine living without that? 

How would you live in this world without Jesus Christ and the brethren? These commandments are not burdensome to us. How could the Ten Commandments, the yoke of bondage that Peter calls them, the ministry of death, the ministry of condemnation, how could the external law binding not be burdensome? 

Peter said, "Neither we nor our forefathers could bear them." And Paul says, and John says, the only way you're going to have holiness, the only way you're going to live for Him, the only way you're going to bear fruit is by His Spirit working in you through faith. It's the very power that raised Jesus from the dead that's at work in you. He wants us to trust Him. He wants us to need Him, to look to Him every day. 

And that's what we want to do. Agape love is the manifestation of who we are because of what God has done in us. Love is the manifestation of the life of Christ in us. 

1 John 5, verse 3, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is He who overcomes the world? But He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God." 

The result of God's sovereign plan and promise in Christ and our faith in Him is new life. And that new life is different than the world. It is a life marked by love. Love for God and love for others. 

The world does not love. The world system is designed by none other than Satan himself. The whole world lies in the sway of the wicked one. Satan and his ministers are at work to deceive, to draw away, to trap men in the thinking and things of this world. 

Sometimes even believers are caught up in the trappings of the world. We become focused on the wrong things. We forget who we are in Christ. We forget what matters most and what we desire most as those who have been born of God. And we get off kilter. We go astray in our thinking and our priorities. 

And this manifests itself in selfishness. In a lack of love and a passion for the things of the world. Sin, my brothers and sisters, is always selfishness. This is the way of the world. This is the allure of the world and its system. And this is the lie of Satan. 

Continually we are taught and enticed to pursue happiness. A pursuit of fulfillment, self-fulfillment, is a sentence to destruction and misery. Because what life is really about is glorifying God. Seeking the good of others. Striving to build one another up and point men to Christ by our words and by our actions. 

Sin is always based in selfishness. And my brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so in the life of a believer. We should be loving, sacrificing ourselves as Jesus commanded us. And in this, in Him, we will find joy and peace and contentment. 

John reminds us that selfishness and sin are not consistent with who we are. They are not characteristic of the believer in Jesus Christ. The truth is, we have overcome the world. It's because of our faith, because of our new birth, that we have overcome the world. 

Who is He that overcomes the world, John asks. 

It's He who believes that Jesus is the Christ. You know, I've learned something in my short years on this planet. It's something that Pastor Krenz's dad always used to say. Everything falls down. 

This world is cursed because of sin. This world is ruled by Satan because of sin. This world is designed to entice men to pursue the wrong things, to pursue riches and fame and power of this world, to seek to achieve peace and contentment and find love. But the truth is, my brothers and sisters, peace and joy and love cannot be found in this world. 

Rather, we can only truly experience these things by overcoming the world, overcoming the thinking and the lies, the strongholds and fortresses of this world's thoughts and ideologies. And this only with the truth of the Gospel. The truth of salvation based on what Jesus accomplished on the cross in our place and only by faith in Him. 

That is what John says that we who believe Jesus, why, he says, we are overcomers. Yes, we can lose our focus. Yes, we can become discouraged with the trials and tribulations of life. But in reality, God is using these things to show us our need. 

He's using these things to show us our total inability and our desperate need for Him every day. He shows us through the fallen world. He shows us through the futility of the thinking of men, through trials and troubles, that this world is dominated by sin, that this world is ruled by Satan, and it is cursed. 

It is filled with thorns and thistles. And the strongholds of thought that fill the minds of lost men such as finding joy in the riches and fame of this world are empty promises leading to death. Not peace and joy. 

Only by faith in Jesus can we overcome the wiles of the devil. Can we overcome the world. And that because we who are in Christ are new creations. The old things, the old desires, the old ways of thinking, the things of this world are gone, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. 

And he says, now the new has come, now all things are of God. And we know, we know because we believe Jesus that we have overcome this world. With all its sufferings, all its thorns and thistles, all its empty promises and the sin that rules and controls it. In Christ, we have even overcome the power of sin, which is death. 

Our brothers and sisters, we now see things for how they are. We now see this world and the people of this world and understand why they are the way they are. We understand the importance of love, agape love. 

We can now love because of our faith in Jesus, the salvation that God has worked in us. That does not mean that we do not struggle, that we do not suffer, that we do not experience horrible pain and strife in the circumstances that come in this fallen world. 

But it does mean that we are overcomers, that we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, as Paul said. John wants us to understand that there is a reason why we have been born of God. 

And that is because of the sovereign plan of God in eternity past, brought to pass through the promise made to Abraham and the fulfillment of that promise in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He wants us to see that He gives us the right to become His children through faith. 

For those who receive Jesus, that is those who believe on His name, these are given the right to become born again children of God. And John wants us to understand the result of this salvation in Christ by faith. 

He wants us to understand what Jesus taught, that the way up is down, that the things of this world, the pursuit of the gains of this world leads to death. That going to the end of ourselves and our righteousness, turning to Him in faith alone leads to life. 

A new life of agape love, of self-sacrificial love. I encourage you, my brothers and sisters, to keep studying these truths, keep pondering them, keep coming back to them, and believe them, reckon them to be so. 

And in that, see the fruit that Jesus will produce through you. The fruit of love. Our life is a life of faith. Faith in Jesus. And our life should be one of self-sacrificial love, sharing the love of Christ with our brethren, encouraging, edifying, esteeming the needs of others above our own. Looking to minister to one another. And sharing the good news with the lost. 

And in all things, my friends, we are more than conquerors. We are overcomers because of our faith in Christ. So don't worry about the things of the world. Don't fret when wicked men succeed. Don't seek after the things of the world. Our life is a life of thankfulness to God for what He has done. 

For Jesus Christ. His death in our place and His life in us. For His sovereign plan, His Savior's Son, and His grace every day. Take John's advice. Abide in Christ. Remember who you are. Believe Jesus and trust Him one day at a time. 

And my brethren, love one another because you have been born of God. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for Your truth. Thank You that we can keep coming back to Your truth and Your Word every day. Help us to do that. Help us to have a passion. Help us by Your grace to seek after You and to be disciplined in these things. 

Forgive us when we fail so often. Father, thank You that Jesus is our salvation. That we know that we have eternal life because of Your plan, because of Your purpose, because of Your grace and Your love. And thank You that You orchestrated those details to bring our salvation to pass and brought us to faith through the preaching of the Gospel, that we might have hope. 

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.