Relationship: Righteousness by Faith & the Law

Okay, let's turn to Romans 3. Next week, Jim Poole and I will both be gone, so Mike Doyle is going to teach, and Mike is going to cover chapter 4, the first three verses. Next week is kind of a transition into an exemplification of faith versus works, and Abraham gives us a tremendous opportunity to see what that whole you know, contrast between works and faith is all about. But what I'd like to do today before we go to today's lesson, which is Romans 3 27 to 31 to end the chapter, let's go back to verse 21 and take a look at this to lead into today's passage. And I taught 21 through 23 two weeks ago and then Vern last week covered 24 through 26.

But now the righteousness of God, apart from the laws manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all of them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It's excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not only of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing it as one God who shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law.

Okay, so we'll begin today with Romans 3.27, and the New Standard Version reads, then, what becomes of our boasting? And the question is answered. It's excluded. On what principle? Now, keep in mind that King James has law here. We'll come back to that. On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith.

So this is the, if you will, the Perseus, or in other words, the great boaster, if you will. And when we think about boasting, actually, the Greek term is actually the same term used as glorifying, or glorying. So the idea of self-glory versus glory to God is the same Greek verb that's used frequently in scripture. So it has to be interpreted appropriately.

And I think what we're looking at here is Not accepted. So there's no boasting in terms of our own merit, right? That's been done away with. And we'll return to that in terms of some of the practicalities of that. So this is an aorist passive indicative. So that means it's kind of a done deal. It's been declared by God that boasting is unacceptable. An indicative tense, of course, means factual. So this is a done deal. Boasting is unacceptable. What? Well, what do you think? All right. Yeah, and that's because this glorying of boasting is on man's part.

No merit here, right? I mean, if there were merit here, ultimately the text wouldn't be so firm. So in the King James Version, In law, it's actually a principle here. I think the idea of the Mosaic law is not what's being discussed here. This is kind of a principle of boasting.

And I think that's a better way to interpret it. So in conclusion here, our boasting is removed by the principle of faith. And that's in harmony with God's love and grace. And this is an entirely new way. So I think that as we contrast that context we're looking now at the law the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death and the old way of doing things is is is the idea of boasting or taking glory for those things that are done unto ourselves so that the evidence here is that our works have nothing to do with our salvation and keep in mind we're talking here about justification we're not talking about the life we're talking about simply being saved and so here we have a good evidence that our response could only be boastful.

So could salvation be by any other mechanism other than by faith? Because if there were any other way to get to a right relationship with God, we would want to take credit for that, wouldn't we? I mean, so the contrast is so obvious, the trenches deep between these two different ways to getting to the Lord.

What do you think about when you think of other faiths? I mean, take... There's no other faith that I'm aware of where grace is the principle by which it operates, right? I mean, think of even faiths that are within our own land, like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and those kinds of people. I mean, it's all a faith-based... I mean, a works-based faith, is it not? Think of Islam and think of all the Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. They're all kind of a works-based relationship. Christianity is different.

Our works, in terms of our own ability to identify what we've done to please God, is not the principle of salvation or justification. It has nothing to do with it. And I think that really keeps a lot of people from coming to a saving knowledge. what Michael teach next week, for if Abraham were justified by works, he hath reason to glory, but not before God. So if we in fact attribute all the good things we are and do and think about, ultimately the Bible says that that's still worthless. It has no merit at all in terms of what God's rule for a justification relationship is all about.

1 Corinthians 1 29 30 that no flesh should glory in his presence we have no glory on our own but because of him are ye in Christ Jesus who from God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption okay any thoughts about verse 27 then no room for boasting unacceptable because taking glory unto ourselves is not what God has in mind when he thinks about our justification All right, I gave you the interlinear Greek for verse 28 here.

And as you know, the translation in the ILG is in the way that the Greek text is presented. So the numbers are helpful here. For we consider a man to be justified by faith apart from works of the law. So that's kind of the best original text translation.

The verb consider is present indicative, so how do we interpret that then in terms of the tense of the verb? Indicative means it's a fact. The past verse was aorist, passive indicative. In other words, passive done unto us or what God's position was. And passive means we're the recipient of that, right? where here is present tense and indicative. So it's also equally as factual.

But now we're talking about something that's constantly happening. So we consider, or we reckon, or we conclude, or we count, or maintain. Reckon's a term, by the way, you're going to see a lot again in Romans, particularly down in Romans 6 area. But reckoning is what? How would you translate reckoning, or considering, or all these terms? Yeah, count it as factual or true. Remember, indicative. So this is something that we're doing, that we're accepting, that we're believing and accounting it true.

So we're considering it to be justified by faith that it's apart from the works of law or any law system. So let's kind of take a look at justification and maybe define it a little bit more clearly. Number one, justification is the fact that sins themselves and the sin nature, which is the source of the sins, are recognized to be in violation of God's character and righteousness. And that leads to a relationship of captivity. In other words, we're separated from God, we're captives to the sin nature and the sins that we're constantly, you know, doing, thinking about, sins of omission, commission, da da da da da. The idea of justification is we have to recognize our position before there's any merit to follow.

So any thoughts about that? Sins and sin nature. Now, if we think about the ways the world falls short of the glory of God, what are the principles of separation from God in terms of what makes us separated? Three powers, right? How about Satan? I mean, for the believer, Satan becomes irrelevant. I mean, that's what today's all about, right?

It says in Hebrews 2.14 that all of Satan's power has been cancelled already. I mean, he's still alive and well, but his influence on the believer is zero because of the power of Calvary. So Satan's a done deal.

We could look at Hebrews 2.14 if you want, but anyway. So Satan's one influence that separates mankind from God. What's the second one? the flesh.

So we all have the intrinsic Adamic nature and does that, we'll jump ahead a little bit, does that nature ever change? Does our sin nature ever change? No, no, never changes. Like that or not everybody, that sin nature is equally as capable as it always has been. The value of the Holy Spirit is that he constrains us and ultimately leads us by the path of new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that sin nature is equally as capable. And sometimes I think as we grow in grace by God's great love for us, we ultimately see our sin nature even more clearly than we did before because the light gets brighter and the darkness is more revealed. I mean, that's sometimes not a good thing, but then we rejoice in our salvation, do we not? And what's the third principle falling short of God's glory and his righteousness?

The world system. Right. So Satan, the world system in which we live, and our own sin nature all separates from God. Now, when we're talking about justification, we're not talking about justifying Satan, and we're not talking about justifying the world system. We're talking about justifying the believer. And here, the sin and the sins, quote unquote, and sin nature is what we're talking about being justified.

So, the second principle is that once we've recognized the captivity in which we're in because of our sin nature and the sins that are forthcoming out of the sin nature, we have to recognize that the ransom and debt has been paid in full. Okay, so we're captive and there's a price that needs to be paid for our release. And Verne gave this to me this morning, and I think I haven't read this entirely, but I think what I'll do is I'll read this to you is perfectly appropriate for this verse. This is called A Great Debt Who Can Pay. Harry Ironside used to tell about a young Russian soldier. Because his father was a friend of Tsar Nicholas I, the young man had been made paymaster in one of the barracks.

The young man meant well, but his character was not up to his responsibility. He took to gambling and eventually gambled away a great deal of the government's money as well as all of his own. In due course, the young man received notice that a representative of the Tsar was coming to check accounts and he knew he was in trouble.

That evening, he got out the books and totaled up the funds he owed. Then he went to the safe and got out his own pitifully small amount of money. As he sat and looked at the two, he was overwhelmed at the astronomical debt versus his own small change. He was ruined. He knew he would be disgraced.

At last, the young soldier determined to take his life. He pulled out his revolver, placed it on the table before him, and wrote a summation of his misdeeds. At the bottom of the ledger, where he had totaled up his illegal borrowings, he wrote, A great debt. Who can pay? He decided at the stroke of midnight he would die. As the evening wore on, the young soldier grew drowsy and eventually fell asleep. That night, Tsar Nicholas I, as was sometimes his custom, made the rounds of the barracks. Seeing a light, he stopped, looked in, and saw the young man asleep.

He recognized him immediately, and looking over his shoulder, saw the ledger and realized all that had taken place. He was about to awaken him and put him under arrest when his eye fastened on the young man's message. A Great Debt, Who Can Pay? Suddenly, with a surge of magnanimity, he reached over, wrote one word at the bottom of the ledger, and slipped out. When the young man awoke, he glanced at the clock and saw that it was long after midnight. He reached for his revolver to shoot himself, but his eye fell upon the ledger, and he saw something that he had not seen before. There beneath his writing, A Great Debt, Who Can Pay? was written, Nicholas.

He was dumbfounded. It was the czar's signature. He said to himself, the czar must have come by when I was asleep. He has seen the book. He knows all. Still, he's willing to forgive me. The young soldier then rested on the word of the czar. And the next morning, a messenger came from the palace with exactly the amount needed to pay the deficit. Only the czar could pay. And the czar did pay. We compare God's righteousness with our own tawdry performance. And we ask the question, a great debt to God, who can pay? But then the Lord Jesus Christ steps forward and signs his name to our legend. Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can pay.

And he did. All right. I didn't anticipate that being read to you this morning, but we've now read it. I think it makes the point very well, doesn't it? So we've got this debt that's been paid in full, and forgiveness has been effected. Just like the czar forgave the soldier, we in fact, find that we're totally forgiven. Basic principles of the Christian faith, right? And the final principle is this, is not only have we been freed from our captivity and forgiven, but in fact, we've been declared righteous.

And that's really, I mean, the cake has been made, but now the icing is being put on. The best tasting part is the fact that propitiation itself is complete. I thought what we might do is just spend just a moment on propitiation. and kind of review that. I know that Vern covered this to some extent last week, but when I looked at the notes, I want to make sure that we kind of grasp this principle and how relevant it really is.

So propitiation is based not on our faith that our sins have been forgiven. Propitiation, the principle of propitiation is based on our faith in fact the relationship that was generated and ultimately established between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Heavenly Father was in fact fulfilled. So this is the eternal covenant being fulfilled and that's in fact the propitiation.

Multiple sections of the word really deal with this but perhaps most succinctly is the passage in Hebrews 9, 14, and 15. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience, each one of ours here, from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, or the New Covenant. That by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions, were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

Romans 8 3, for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and sin and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. So what we're looking at here is is the fact that ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the eternal covenant.

Galatians 2.16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, or faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So again, back to the principle that there's nothing in the flesh that justifies, but it's a fact that Christ himself ultimately met the needs of a right just and holy God. And for the believer, we're to be found in Him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.

So again, propitiation. God had a high price. And that high price related the humbling of the Lord Jesus Christ to take on an earthly body to ultimately be sin for us. And so the propitiation is really God being fully pleased with the perfection of his son in terms of representing the sin of the world from first to last.

Newell claims that this verse, by the way, verse 28 that we just looked at, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law, that this verse isn't a conclusion. Notice in some of your versions that therefore starts the beginning of the verse.

That's not in the original Greek. So what Newell claims is that this verse is there to, in fact, give us a reason why boasting is excluded. We should just mark out therefore. Therefore is not in the ILT, correct. So what do you think? Is this verse best interpreted without therefore, or do you like kind of therefore? Well, it says we conclude. Well, we can, you know, consider, reckon it to be true. While we're on Newell here a second, let me kind of give you a brief view of Newell's in terms of this whole justification process.

If God announces the gift of righteousness apart from works, why do you keep mourning over your bad works and your failures? Do you not see that it's because you still have hopes in these works of yours that you're depressed and discouraged by their failure? If you really saw and believed that God is reckoning righteous the ungodly who believe on him, you would fairly hate your struggles to be better. For you would see that your dreams of good works have not at all commended you to God, and that your bad works do not at all hinder you from believing on him that justify the ungodly. Therefore, on senior failures, you should say, I'm nothing but a failure, but God is dealing with me on another principle altogether than my works, good or bad. principle not involving my works, but based only on the work of Christ for me.

I'm anxious indeed to be pleasing to God and to be filled with the Spirit, but I'm not at all justified or accounted righteous by these things. God in justifying me acted wholly and only on Christ's blood-shedding on my behalf." Now keep in mind that again the the eternal covenant or the propitiation relates to God being fully pleased with his son and his actions. of faith. Therefore, I have this double attitude. First, I know that Christ is in heaven before God for me, and that I stand in the value before God of His finished work, that God sees me nowhere else but in His dead, buried, and risen Christ, and that His favor is towards me in Christ and is limitless and eternal. Then second, towards the work of the Holy Spirit in me, my attitude is a desire to be guided into the truth, to be obedient thereto, and to be chastened by God My Father is disobedient, to learn to pray in the Spirit, to walk by the Spirit, and to be filled with a love for the Scriptures and for the saints and for all men.

Yet none of these things justifies me." What we're talking about here is justification. I had justification from God as a sinner, not as a saint. Important principle, right? As saints, we're not justified. As sinners, we're justified. My saintliness does not increase nor, praise God, do my failures decrease it."

So good teaching, I think, here in terms of the principle of justification. Being freed from captivity, the debt paid, ultimately were declared righteous. And because of a relationship between God and the Lord Jesus Christ from time past, eternity past, to now being experienced on a day-to-day basis.

Okay, any questions at all? Any comments at all about being justified apart from our works? So let me get this straight. You're saying that our faith has nothing to do with the propitiation. That is actually a bigger picture between God and Christ, His Son, long before we were ever recognized. So, all the sins of the world are... Christ died for all the sins of the world.

Yeah, now you're called on, do you believe that or not? That's what you're called on to do. The propitiation is ultimately the satisfaction of God's, you know, request that Christ carry out the act which He in fact, had covenanted with him to do. Keep in mind a covenant is a relationship between the person who establishes the covenant and the person on the receiving end. It's a relationship. It's a deal. So both have responsibilities.

So God says, this is my standard for the righteousness of all mankind. And the son agreed and he humbled himself, right? And he came to earth and was born of Mary and walked 33 years and ultimately was sinless. in principle and character and deed, and paid the righteous price that God demanded. So that's the propitiation, the fact that God and Christ had their deal fulfilled, completed. Now, our faith is, do we believe that? Do we believe that what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord had worked out in terms of the righteousness of all mankind, is that something that we can take in and accept? They then become righteous. Declared righteous, right.

No act of their own. My question to Vern that day was... You weren't here, neither were you, Carol. My question was... It's on tape. It's on tape, yeah. My question was, no, when you're talking to non-believers, and my whole life I heard and was taught that you can say to a non-believer, your sins are forgiven.

And you just need to believe that in order to be saved. Yeah, you don't need to teach them about propitiation and the eternal covenant, right? That's not part of bringing the saving message to a believer. Okay, so that is still, that's true though. True, right.

The sins of the world were forgiven. Well, are the sins of the world forgiven, or are the sins of just the believing world forgiven? Well, but see, that was my question, because are they forgiven Or, in fact, are they just... they're not actually forgiven unless you believe. Is that semantic? Oh, no. Yeah, all sins have been paid, right?

But in the absence of belief, we're not declared righteous, right? And so you don't benefit from the fellowship, or being in Christ, or all the blessings. True. Unless you believe. You walk in darkness. and vanity and boasting and self-glory, right? Even though your sins are forgiven. So that was my question. When you're talking to unbelievers, I mean, you know, because if they weren't in fact forgiven, you could say, well, if you believe they'll be forgiven. But the fact is they are forgiven. They are. The debt is paid. What in 1st John, what chapter, verse is it? Not only my sins, but the sins of the whole world have been paid, right? I mean it's, that's scriptural.

This is not a partial propitiation or partial, I mean the propitiation is in fact the relationship between God and Christ. But yet the whole world can enter into that relationship and be declared righteous, freed from their captivity by the price that's been paid. It's our lack of belief that separates us from God. It's kind of like that example that Hal, I think, used to use. Somebody put a million dollars into a Swiss bank account, meet your name, and it's your money whether you choose to believe it or not. That's how it's done. That's up to you. You can benefit or you won't benefit. That's a good example, Dave. Yeah.

Could you say that God is satisfied regarding the whole entire issue? Jesus satisfied that for God when He sent the cross and He said it was right. And with that, I can say that's why I'm really forgiving. It's because He took care of everybody's sins.

And the only thing now that separates any of us from God for a second is the fact that we don't believe that. If that was a partial atonement, then the whole biblical principle, I think, of how people come to be saved is really quite perplexing, is it not? If we don't believe that God was ultimately satisfied, what do we do with the fact that some people are saved and some people are not saved? I mean, is he just paying the price for the people that will believe? Then God would never be satisfied, would he? A partial atonement? Yeah.

And just like, I mean I will extend this thought just a bit, in terms of our justification is us being declared righteous by our belief, to believe that God is true to his word, that Christ was the propitiation before a holy and righteous God. In fact, he was God, but I mean, God was satisfied, so that begins it. But I would equally contend that our life everlasting and our walk in these earthly bodies is equally as much by faith. Right? I mean, this doesn't stop.

I mean, for the believer, the easy part is believing your sins are forgiven and you have eternal life. more difficult challenge for each and every one of us is what's today going to bring in tomorrow, right? I mean, in terms of all the worldly issues that come along our tracks each and every day. That act on our behalf is equally as much a faith as it is that we've been justified. So that doesn't make it easy sometimes to walk that walk of faith, but nevertheless the principle is the same.

And we've been declared righteous. There's no turning that around. And Dave, good example, the million dollars in the bank account. Perfect example. Are we going to go cash in on some of that, or are we just going to leave it there? The nice thing about that million dollars is that interest continues to compound. So even if we take stuff out, it's still at a million, right?

I mean, it's really an infinite quantity is what it is in reality, but you put it in very practical principles. So justification is necessary before anything else occurs. my opinion would be a believer has to understand the basic principles of justification. We don't have to have them understand propitiation and all the things that go into it in terms of the Old Testament record, but we do need to make them understand that God is fully satisfied and their sins have been forgiven.

Okay, Romans 3.29, an amplified version, or is it God merely the God of the Jews, or is he not the God of the Gentiles only? Sounds pretty redundant. And the question I would ask the group is, can there be different paths for justification of sinful people of different races, religion, traditions? I mean, is this also the partial atonement kind of scenario?

And we've studied a few weeks ago in Romans 3.23, no, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

There's nothing special about the Jew here, about the Gentile. On the next slide, I just kind of had fun pulling off some people of different backgrounds, of a Greek woman, an Arab man, a Japanese woman, an Indian man, an African-American woman, an Eskimo, a Native American man at the bottom and at the top, a Jew. And the principle is the same for all. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all. and in all. The same principles operate worldwide, and there's nothing special about that guy in the center at the top, and nothing different about him and the Greek woman at the bottom of the right. The principle's the same.

The relationship between God and his Son equally meets the needs of everybody. Verse 30, since there's one God who'll justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, context, kind of if the whole, I mean if everybody is kind of wrapped into the same principle, then this is kind of a rhetorical politeness about things which there is no doubt.

Let's look at that more specifically. We need to, I think, in context distinguish between the circumcision being justified by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. What are your thoughts there about by faith versus through faith? Remember, prepositions carry a lot of meat with them.

Well, the idea of by is the Greek term ek, which means out of, from, by, or away from. And I think that the concept here is that the Jew is under law, not under a law system, but under the Mosaic law. And in fact, when they're circumcised by faith, if we believe that the Greek preposition means out from or away from, they're now being saved away from all the traditions of the law system. So they've been raised under law. They have all these 623 laws, or 613, I forget the exact number, in addition to the top 10, and the Jew is taken away from that as a principle of salvation and now being saved into and towards and part of the Lord Jesus Christ and everything he's done. Through really applies more to the ground or reason by which something's being done. So the non-Jew or the uncircumcised really is taking the evidence that's presented and reaching an appropriate conclusion. So they're saved through the faith, and that the faith is in the fact that God has been fully satisfied and their sins have been forgiven.

Gil says, the circumcision of the one does not forward and the uncircumcision of the other does not hinder. I think that's kind of profound. So again, the circumcision of the one does not forward. In other words, there's nothing about circumcision that brings a Jew into right relationships to the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of being justified.

And the fact that the Gentiles uncircumcised doesn't hinder his or her justification. So I think the prepositions play out nicely there. Romans 10, 12, for there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all who call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

All right, last verse very quickly. Verse 31, do we then by this faith make the law of no effect? overthrow it or make it a dead letter, God forbid, or certainly not. On the contrary, we confirm and establish and uphold the law. So this is a present active indicative, very strong verb indicating this is something we're doing day in and day out. We're confirming and establishing the law.

And I think this is going to be exemplified beginning next week when Mike teaches the first three verses of chapter four, and we're going to get into Abraham in terms of how this principle is ultimately accomplished. In the People's New Testament notes, it says, do we then make void the law? Do we make it useless through faith, that is, through the gospel? And again, the article is again found in the Greek right before faith.

Rather, we establish law. Now, note article there, kind of interesting. So the concept here is the law is confirmed and rendered sacred when it's just demands are met by the suffering of the Son of God himself. So the law has been fulfilled. Because the Lord was the author of the law, and now Christ has fully met God's demand. And when Christ walked, he said, think not that I've come to destroy the law, or the prophets I've come not to destroy, but to fulfill. So the legal demands of God were met. Yet, now that the law has been established, and the fact that we're justified and declared righteous, the freedom we have just is infinite in nature.

Galatians 2.19, for I through the law am dead to the law that I might live in the God.

Galatians 5.1, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. So this again is something that we accept by faith. The law has been fulfilled, but yet now we go beyond the law. The principle of a life lived by faith is a freedom and a liberty that did not exist under the legal system. Remember, the law was given by God to convict mankind of sin. It was there to convict, not to be fulfilled until Christ Himself fulfilled it.

So in a sense, in that relationship that we call propitiation between the Heavenly Father and the Son, the law was established and fulfilled. And now we live as free men beyond that system. We're no longer under that system. And we basically live under God and have the liberty wherewithin Christ has made us free. And that's the life, a life no longer strapped by law. Christ, the end of the law, and now we have a new law called the law of love. And that's the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that really lives out through us by faith on a day-to-day basis. And that's a whole different ballgame. The law itself never resulted in love. I mean, if you think about it. I mean, keeping the law really had very little love connected to it.

And now that that's been done, we have a whole new principle of of our walk that's really sustained by our faith and ultimately infinitely provided by God's great grace. Let's close in prayer. Father, we're thankful for the word as it bears truth and that truth is that we are now living under a new principle and that principle is based on your being fully satisfied with what has been accomplished. And as we really determine On a day-to-day basis, the importance of this truth made me recognize that being justified is just the first step, that we have a life by faith where there's great liberty to live by faith in a way that you are glorified. We're thankful for this very special day. We continue to lift up those needs that we mentioned before and many more that have not been mentioned. And we pray that we'll ultimately bring glory to you as we walk day in and day out by the faith you've given us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.