Lesson 49c & begin 12:1-2 Lesson 50

Okay, what I want to do is in question 10 on lesson 49, really it wasn't a question, it was kind of a, there's just several steps I want to go through that kind of review 9, 10, and 11. And I'll just, we'll read them and then maybe discuss them as we go.

The first one is that God has not cast off Israel. A remnant being always preserved, this remnant now, by the election of grace. We talked a lot about that. So there's a remnant now, and a remnant now, I think we decided that primarily that remnant becomes believers. Two, that all but the election were hardened. All but the election were hardened. so that the fullness of the Gentiles could come in for the purpose of provoking Israel to jealousy that they might discover Jehovah's mercy. So, you know, we look around and you don't... I can't tell you one Jewish person I've ever met that's jealous of me and my Christianity. And it's because their minds have been darkened. They don't know.

Okay? Who hardened them? Did God harden them? Yeah, isn't that interesting? What do you think? You know, we've talked about this hardening a lot, like Pharaoh's the best example. God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it says so. I think he leaves them to themselves. Well, Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

He did several times, and then what does God do? He says, well, okay, I'm not going to extend my grace towards you. I'll just let you stay in the state that you're in. But it says that God hardened his heart. Yeah. You know, and I'm thinking, that's kind of strange. Why would God harden his heart?

Or just leave it there. Or maybe allowed his heart to stay hardened. I think that's it. It's not like, you're hardened, I think. I'm going to remove my grace, which by that process, hardens your heart. I don't think it's that he, quote, hardened it. He just left him in that state and the circumstances.

You know, all of us would be in that state were it not for God's grace working on us. And we'll see it as this virus progresses, you know, those that their hearts are hardened will begin to hate God because of whatever the ramifications are of this disease as we go forward. You know, how dare he? At the same time, if you study like Pharaoh, I mean, look at what God did in terms of He told him, and then He told him again, and then He told him again. He said, well, let me give you a demonstration of who I am. And he told them. And Pharaoh said, nah, who are you anyway? Moses told Pharaoh what he's going to do. And Pharaoh said, yeah, right. And then it happened. I'm God. What are you talking about?

So it's interesting to watch in the Bible how this hardening takes place. Like we were talking about those that are under law. are under the curse. Well, it's not a specific curse that you can find. You know what happens? You put yourself under the curse of the old man because you take yourself out of being under the umbrella of grace. Well, you get out from under the umbrella of grace, there's nothing left but curse. So God isn't going, oh boy, I saw you jumped out of grace there from under the curse. No, it's not like that. It's like being under an umbrella and you step out in the rain, idiot. You're going to get wet. You're going to get cursed because you're outside the realm of grace.

And who did that? You did it! See? That's the importance of the ending of Romans 8, about we cannot be separated from His love. That's right. He is fully on 24-7, 365, loving us. It's us that steps out from underneath that. He's not the guy waiting with a big stick to pound us. That's right. We walk out of it, and like I said, out of the umbrella and get under rain. We did that. Well, he loves us as children, and he uses that to restore us. Come on back under the umbrella. It's dry under here. It's a lot drier over there.

So, although broken off from the stalk of blessing, they will be grafted back into their own olive tree. for that this will be the coming to Zion and Jerusalem of the Lord Jesus and then that then a new covenant will be made with Israel so that's a really important part when you're having a discussion with reformed theologians today because they think we're under the new covenant already and we're not we're not at all Because I don't know one of you who can recite the law to me without studying. It's not written in your hearts. That the Gentile will be cut off from the present privileged place for not continuing in God's goodness.

Yes. Now notice we made those distinctions. When he starts talking to the Gentiles, he's talking to them as a group. Gentiles. Now, we're Gentiles, but our position in Christ, we're not Gentiles anymore, because in Christ there isn't any Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female, all that kind of thing. So, the point being that the Gentiles, the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. What is that fullness of the Gentiles? What's that mean? Yeah, that's exactly right.

When the last Gentile becomes a believer, the fullness of the Gentiles is done. Well, again, if you're in the church, in the body of Christ, you're not a Gentile anymore. So the appeal is to the Gentile nation. So the last Gentile comes in the church, and all those changes happen to him, and he's the last one or she's the last one, then, you know, set your watch, because we're out of here real soon. Could be the very next blimp, you know. And we go home to be with the Lord, and then now everything goes back to a focus on Israel, you know. Tribulation, all that kind of stuff happens. So the Gentile nations will be taken out of the place of divine blessing again and then Israel will be put in the place of divine blessing again as a nation and they will begin to return from their unbelief.

6. This is the most solemn fact should warn Gentiles against individual self-confidence. and especially against the fear of delusion that Israel has been cast away forever.

They haven't been. They've been set aside. And that the Gentiles have taken their place permanently. Not true. God has made no covenant with any nation but Israel. You okay with that? That's true. He hasn't. Yeah, we have no covenant with God. You know why? Why don't we? Why aren't we under a covenant?

I've been showered with grace. That's the whole point. And you know, in any sense, what is a covenant? It's a contract. Right? It means that I'll do and you'll do. Well, in grace you don't have contracts. God says I'm doing. And you're the recipient. Even the contract wasn't made between man and God.

It was made by God alone. That's right. God made it. He fulfilled it. And that's what He's doing. That's exactly right. I've never understood in our Lord's Supper, those verses we always read, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. What does that mean? Yeah, the new covenant in my blood. That's great. What is that?

Is that Israel or is that us for the church? Or is it the eternal covenant? Or is it the eternal covenant? Well, it's called the new covenant. Yeah, the new. So how many covenants are there from going forward? There's a covenant that will be made with Israel. Hasn't been made yet, right? which in Ezekiel is talked about the New Covenant. So 2,000 years ago when the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Table, was He instituting the New Covenant that He will make with Israel? No. No, because He hasn't made it yet. So what covenant is He talking about? He's talking about the Eternal Covenant. What's the Eternal Covenant? Who are the participants in the Eternal Covenant? Father and the Son, where are you? You're not part of it.

So when he says in the Lord's Table, and Paul says in 1 Corinthians that he got this directly from the Lord, what does it say? This is a covenant, a new covenant in my blood. What does that blood represent? The total taking care of the entire sin issue between who and who. Who needed to be satisfied about sin? The Father did. God did. The Lord Jesus is a man. Does He satisfy God about the sin? Yeah. And what are we doing when we take to the Lord's table? What's the last thing He tells us to do?

Remember what I did. Remember what I did. It's what I did, not what I'm going to do. It's what I already did. I took care of the sin issue. And the covenant that we celebrate was the one that my Father and I entered into and accomplished. So that's what I think it is. Because otherwise, the eternal covenant is a transaction between the Father and the Son. If you'll do this, I'll do this, right?

You become a man and die for the sins of the world. Your part. Here's my part. I'll raise you up again. Deal. Did it happen? Yep. Did he die for the sins of the world? Become a man? Yep. Did he get raised up again? Yeah. Covenant done. So that's the new covenant. Yeah. Well, I call it the eternal covenant. Now, underneath that eternal covenant, there will be a new covenant made with the house of Israel. Law written in their hearts. The earth will be released from its vanity and that kind of stuff. But that hasn't been made yet. Because as far as I can tell, I still got weeds in my yard. And so any problems with that? You OK with that? Let's see.

That the most solemn facts should warn Gentiles against the individual's self-confidence and especially against the fearful delusions that Israel has been cast away forever and that the Gentiles will take their place. God has made no covenants with any nation but Israel. And that nation He will restore. The Gentiles becoming then dependent on blessing through Israel throughout the future. Now that's tough for us to grasp because we've been in such a prized position for 2,000 years. We don't pay a whole lot of attention to the Jews, but coming, it's all going to come through Israel. Interesting.

Last one. Then instead of being unfaithful to his promises to Israel, God has simply exercised his sovereignty. One, in cutting off Israel for the present, in calling in the fullness of the Gentiles on the principle of mercy only, in taking away from Israel whom he exalted and to whom he gave his law, all claims upon him, either by national dissent, personal righteousness, or any covenant commitment, for they rejected their promises and crucified their Messiah, thus shutting them up to one great principle, and that principle is mercy. One last thing.

It cannot be too much emphasized that chapters 9, 10, and 11 do not teach that the church as such has succeeded the Jews in the place of blessing, but do show that Gentiledom has received the place of privilege and opportunity and consequently of responsibility that Israel once had. So, does that mean we reject 9, 10, and 11 and there's nothing for us to learn in there? There's plenty to learn in there about God and His grace and His mercy and how He, Paul example after example, uses the nation of Israel to show us Hey, you don't want to reject this grace and mercy that's sent to you now.

There's a consequence for doing that. So, curtain's up. All right. Well, it's exciting, actually. After all of this talk in the last 9, 10, and 11 about the Jewish nation and Paul's kind of subset in here, it's actually nice to get back to what applies to us directly.

Back in chapter 12, we're now looking more at things that are directly related to us as believers. And as I was looking to prepare the questions on this, I was thinking, well, how many verses and all this? I got to a whopping two verses on this one before I had run out of time and space and questions and all that. So there is so much that we're going to see in these verses. Again, it's kind of nice to get it back focused on us as believers, but yeah, just in these first two verses, there's a lot to be gleaned. So, we are in Romans chapter 12, and I'll read verses 1 and 2.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. So, question one.

Paul urges, or it depends on which translation you have, urges or beseeches the brethren by the mercies of God. So, what are the mercies of God he is referring to? Let's start out with urge or beseech. The Greek word there is parakaleio, and it's to call upon someone to do something, to exhort or admonish. So first let's look at who is Paul urging or beseeching to do this? Believers. Believers? Brethren. Brethren. So who are the brethren? Us. Believers. Us. Semantics there.

So again, it's from our 9, 10, and 11 where we're focusing a lot on the Jewish nation. He's now going, I'm urging you brethren, you believers. It's not to the Jewish nation, to all people, or to whoever. He's now coming back and saying, I admonish you, I exhort you, I urge you, I beseech you. brethren. So he's talking to the believers now. So it's focused back on the believers.

So, again, chapters 9, 10, and 11, we've gone through a lot on the Jewish nation. Now he's saying, he's urging us to do something. He urges brethren by the mercies of God. So, what does that mean, or what's he referring to? how we've been justified and identified. There's a long list. We're under grace and not lost. A laundry list. And Newell got it down pretty good. I'll go through some of those, yes. So he's urging them by the mercies of God.

What I was thinking about, it's taken us, what, two years to get to this point? Over two years to get to this point? So you may have forgotten some of the things that we have learned. This was a letter. We've now taken two years to look at this letter. So if you just sit down and you read the letter as a whole, you'd see a lot of these things. But we've been so long dicing this up and looking at it. There are amazing things that we have learned over the Book of Romans. Again, as Newell points out, we'll go over several of those things.

This is the foundational book of Christianity, of believers. This is the bedrock book. And as we started two years ago, when we looked at this, at the back of Newell's book, I think it was fascinating because it isn't chronological. The Bible, the New Testament, is not chronological. If you look at it, and when they were written, it's not chronological. You'd think, okay, we're just going to lay these books out as Paul wrote them. They're not that way.

And I think it's God's direction that this is the first one, besides that, which is historical. Now we get into the foundational things of Christianity, the bedrock, identification, well, sin, justification, all these different things we're going to look at. But this is the foundational of Christianity, 101. And then as you go into the other epistles, there's more revelation about what this means, and the truths of it, or the facts of it, or the results of it, as the epistles go on. So that really opened my eyes to think that God laid this out perfectly. That it wasn't Romans was written here, or Paul wrote this one here, and we're just going to walk through it chronologically. It's very well thought out. how this is. So Romans is a book that has all these foundational truths. And so these are the mercies.

So we've talked about a couple of them. Any others that you can think of? Noah went through a bunch of them. I'll go through those. But Romans, if we just read it through, you'd be amazed at how many things are so fantastic about what we have in Christianity right now. Any other things that you can think of? The mercies of God?

Indwelling in the Spirit. Indwelling in the Spirit. You know, thinking about that from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you know, the Spirit would come upon you and leave. For us as believers, we are sealed. Fully, never to be un-indwelled with the Holy Spirit. That's amazing. You know, you have the very Spirit of Christ in you right now. Never to leave. And the Holy Spirit is the sealing. Yeah, I mean, we are sealed in Him.

So, there are a bunch of things. We'll go through them. He had a good list of them. The first one, you know, justification, including pardon, removal of sins from us, trespasses, never to be reckoned, a standing in Christ, being made the righteousness of God in Him. I mean, just ponder about those. The first thing out of the gate. I mean, trespasses, just that, trespasses, never to be reckoned. Never. What are we worried about them? That's a problem we have as we think about all these sins and we get stuck on them.

God's not stuck on them, it's God. So justification, we have a standing in Christ. Being made the righteousness of God in Him, swallow that one. I hope when we go through these lists, it's kind of like when we go through the Lewis Ferry Chafer 33 things. We've talked about this one. I've talked about it when we were teaching about it.

If the Spirit works on you on just one of those, that'll change your whole attitude and manifestation of Christ. If the Spirit gets a hold of you and convicts you of just one of these things, it's amazing what we have in the identification or all the things that are true about us from moment one of being in Him. So, next one is identification. We're taken out of Adam by death with Christ. Dead to sin and the law, and now in Christ.

Not a bad position. Under grace, we talked about, not law. How freeing is that? You know, again, when you look at the Jewish neighbors, or when we did some of those catering things, Jewish, and just trying to adhere to all these laws. I mean, that's just stifling. versus the freedom we have in Galatians 5, the liberty by which we live now. It's amazing what we have right now. No law under grace, fruit under God, under sanctification made possible. The Spirit's indwelling. And as we've learned in Romans 8, there is now no condemnation.

What are you worried about? About your sin or whatever? Is there any condemnation now? Is He going to beat you up because of the sin you did today? It's all about relationship. Well, it's all about what He did. What He did. He paid for it. We talked about it in the New Covenant, in His blood. All of that is paid for. Done. He's done with it. You know, we may have results.

I mean, you go out and you shoot somebody or, you know, there are consequences, you know, to these things. But, does that lose your salvation if you're a believer? Would that end it? No, as gross and horrible as that is, that would not end your salvation. You're still in him. You're going to suffer the consequences for it, but you are still in him no matter what. And that's why for sin, whenever you deal with a sin, it's already dealt with.

It's 1 John 1.9. Deal with it.

Say, it's not who I am. I didn't act how I am in Christ, which will look at a manifestation, a transformation, all the things you're going to look at. I'm not acting who I am in Christ. I still have the Holy Spirit indwelling me. I'm still in Christ. All those things are still true in me.

So, again, help in infirmity and in any present sufferings and on our way to share Christ's glory. How apropos is that, in infirmity, with what we're going through right now? You know, our believers, you know, we should be the strongest throughout this, you know, crazy coronavirus thing. Because it really doesn't matter.

If he takes us home, he takes us home. Who's in control of this? How is this different than a hurricane? Was God in control of the hurricane? Wind speed. Wind speed. Thank you, Nick. I did hear that one. As far as the results in that, he's in control of all those things. So really, I mean, it shouldn't make us doubt his control, his sovereignty. He's still in control of all this. So should you be worried?

No. No. If he gets you sick, did he allow it? Yeah. Yeah. Did he miss you that day? Oh, man, I didn't see you touch that doorknob and get that thing or the person next to you. Man, if I would have known I would have gotten that guy away from you. Is that how he thinks? No. So again, help in infirmity.

On our way to share Christ's glory. Ponder that one. Our final conformity to Christ's image as his brethren, which we're going to see a little bit in these verses. God's settled purpose in which believers are already glorified in God's sight. Do you understand that? You're already glorified in his sight?

Somebody was talking about this. Maybe it was last week. you know, about how God sees us. And it's, how does he see us? How does he see us? In Christ. Yeah. So, if he sees us in that, does he see us as a sinner anymore? No. So, just think about that, how he sees you right now. He sees you in Christ, that's all he sees. Since he's not living in real time, does he see us up there with him already?

Yes. What does it say? Where are we seated right now, positionally? In heaven. Yeah, right now. I mean, how do you feel about that? You're sitting here today, but guess where you're actually sitting positionally? Yeah. And we didn't have to wipe down the seats up there. No coronavirus. We're seated right there positionally. That's how he sees us right now, is positionally seated next to him in Christ.

How does that change your life? That's the amazing part, is when we start pondering what's true of us right now, these mercies. So Paul, remember, going back to this, he's urging you by the mercies of God. These are the things he's trying to remind you because he just told him about all this stuff. Remember these things. I'm urging you because of these things. Conformity to Christ's image as his brethren, God's settled purpose in which believers are already glorified in God's sight. Amazing. Coming glory beyond any comparison with present sufferings. How apropos that one is.

Present sufferings. With all of our shutdown of football games and basketball games and whatever, these horrible infirmities that we're going through, we have the light of glory. the light of glory. Is that any comparison to what we're going through right now? Not even in the same zip code. No separation possible. God loves us in Christ. What we're talking about in Romans 8 in 30s where it says we cannot be separated from His love. Impossible.

Years ago I always thought that things are really good right now. and things are great, but God's just waiting with a big stick to whack me. You know, because everything's going good, there's got to be something coming up that God's just going to thump me. Is that anywhere the right mentality? Not at all.

You know, God loves you with an eternal love. We cannot be separated from that. So, you know, when things happen to you, trials, Is it ever out of malice or anger that God does that? Never. You know, we're talking about Lamb and all this, you know, and others that go through these things. Well, I don't understand why individuals, but I rest in the fact that he does and he's using it for his purposes. And that's what I think ultimately gives us peace in any infirmity or trial, that ultimately he's the one who's controlling it. And he has a lot of those things that have been beating up in me.

God's sovereignty and we can't be separated from his love. And he realized that he's in control of all that stuff, anything, all, and yet he still loves us. So, confidence in God's faithfulness confirmed by his revealed plans for national Israel. So just what we talked about between Israel and what he has for us, he's faithful in that. Do you think he's going to change anything? He's going to suddenly say, oops, no. You guys, get out of Christ. Israel, you're kind of a pain in the rear end. You're out of here. Do you think that's going to happen?

With a lot of prayer, we can change God's mind. Oh, yeah. Yeah, prayer will change. There's a hungry heart about that, that no matter how much prayer, it's not going to change God's mind. He is settled. And I think the flip side of that is that, oh, I can't pray for anything. I think you can pray for anything. And he wants that communication. We can ask for anything. It's just our reception of the answer. Sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's maybe, sometimes it's no, sometimes it's wait. I always bring back Noah and the ark. I think I was bringing that up, that Noah and the ark is that, hey, buddy.

It hasn't rained here in a hundred years and you're building a boat. You know, think about what, you know, that was 120 years or something for him to build that. You know, you think he was getting a little, uh, you know, grief from the neighbors, you know, he had to remain, you know, Abraham, you're going to have more descendants than the sands of the beach, you know, more than the stars. And, and he's going, I'm how old? You know, I love it with Sarah and Isaac. I love the name of Isaac. It means laughter. She laughed when it's like, me? Yeah, I'm 100 years old. I was playing chicken. Yeah.

I've been struck, and we're studying Genesis on Wednesday nights, that these patriarchs and Noah and all of these folks, you know, we kind of put them up on a pedestal that they are some kind of holy folks. Not even close. Not even close. I mean, they, they, Abraham's family on down were dysfunctional, every one of them, and especially our boy Jacob.

He's always running the scam, yet these people already know ahead of time what God is going to do, like we know what God has already done. Yet we think we've got to help him. We've got to do it our way or do it in a way in which we understand it, rather than just trust him. Yeah, it's come to this. We've got to trust him.

Yeah, Sarah helped him with Hagar and look what happened with that. Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Although, you know, the thing when you look at it, Abraham was such a, you know, he had so many failures along the way, you know, it was like, you know, and then Sarah was kind of the rock on that, but then she goes, hey, I got an idea for you, you know, so she jumps over to the, you know, I can do it better than you guys. So, but yeah, these are all not, you know, sterling examples of, Isaac knew that Jacob was going to be the inheritor, but he decided he didn't like Isaac as well as he liked Esau, so he wanted to have it to Esau.

But the problem was that this wonderful wife he had was listening at the door, and she set him up and fooled him. It's kind of like what we've done, and I love the speeches to Job. We think we've got a better idea. We can do it better. And Job, you know, the speech is from God to Job.

So where were you when I created everything? Where were you? And kind of puts him in his place where it's like, you know, you got a better idea than I do. I'm the God of the universe. I created all this stuff and you think you can do it better. And we do that too. I mean, I think I can do it better. So God, I'm going to pray that I can do this because I'm better. I've got a better plan than you. But I still go back to you can pray for anything.

I fully and wholly believe that, that you can go bring the stupidest request ever, and I think he uses that for learning, yet the answer is no, and to get peace with that. But I think you can go to him with anything, as stupid as the requests you make, but it's how you accept the answer, and he uses that for conforming us in what we're going to see transforming, renewing of our mind. It's like, you really want that? Sometimes I'll give it to you and see what you got. Or no, and I'm going to pout in my corner because you didn't give it to me. I think you can go to him with anything. Remember what we've also learned in here? He uses most things? All things.

My thought was that those Old Testament patriarchs, God would appear to them occasionally, like Abraham six or seven times. They didn't have any other place to go to be encouraged. And here we are, with the completed Word of God, and dwelt by the Holy Spirit, and everything that God wants us to know is in there. And yet, we read that, here comes a circumstance, and we're going to figure it out without even making reference to what God is about. Scripture has given us all things pertaining to life.

It's all there. All things. So we don't have to sit around and wait for some sort of epiphany in the bathroom. Right. No, for all things pertaining to life, we have that. So it's not that we have to look for something different. It's there. Sure is. Not only that, the Spirit is there in us to explain to us what He meant. Yeah. You know, again, I think it goes back to our time with the Lord, which we'll get into in some of these later ones about renewing of your mind and different things like that.

How much time do you spend with it? You know, I was trying to find a verse and it's somewhere that about, it's kind of like who you're associated with. You're colored by that. There was a hungry heart that was on that. It's 1111. I know. I look back on that, but I couldn't find the verse and I'm sure there's a verse that say, and I cannot find it. So if one of that's a challenge for next week, it was a verse about something about, you know, it's kind of, you're colored by the people you, you're around. Yeah.

Well, That goes to if you're around the Lord a lot, who colors your life? I think for my own life, and this is not legalistic, I think of how much time I spend with the Lord versus how much I spend on this place, I mean the world. I think really the time with our Lord is the important one. That's the one who's going to color our lives, transform us, renew our minds. Those are the things we're going to get to in the subsequent verse here. Again, that's just time with the Lord. Especially in these times, it's critical.

Something you said a little bit earlier today really changed my life in a spiritual way. Romans 8 and 1, where there's now no condemnation with Lucifer and Christ. And then some of you guys taught me Ephesians 1, 13, 14, where we're placed into Christ. Paul tells us from Christ over a hundred times, and we cannot. It's our position that makes our security, that we know in our heart of hearts, I'm with Jesus forever. Forever. You know, like I said, that made the difference to me.

You know, I think I've told you many times that Matthew 10.28 that he can't jump out of my hand. I always thought that was my verse. I can't jump out of his hand like I could, like there was a possibility of it. Then learning the identification truths, it's like I've never doubted ever since. How do you get out of Christ? You're already dead. You're crucified with him and I'm placed in him. How do I get out of that? There's no possibility. There's no possibility. I can't jump out of his hand. I can't. My life is His life, so I've never doubted that. Ever since I've learned the identification, I've had rock solid, I've never doubted.

I think those are the things we really need to hold on to throughout all of this, is that we're in Christ, seated in the heavenlies, right now, positionally. How does that change your attitude going through the day? Again, that's knowing Him. Eternal life is to know Him. That's it. We're going to find transformed, renewing of your mind, all those things. A lot of good truths. Let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for this time. We thank you for this scripture, the book of Romans. Again, this foundational book on who we are in Christ. And again, these are the foundational truths of being in Christ and what marvelous truths they are about all the things we have right now as we are in Christ. And we thank you for that.

Great praise for that, that it was not anything we did. It's the finished work of Christ on the cross and the other is that you, that finished the covenant that you had paying for all the sins, but you graciously offer us salvation through faith in Christ. And, uh, we thank you for that offer. You didn't have to do it, but you did. And we, uh, we thank you for that, that gracious offer.

And, uh, we, uh, again, uh, thank you for this time, just to open up your word. And we, uh, pray for the next meeting again, just to prepare our hearts to receive the word. And again, that all that we say and do this day will honor and glorify you. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.