Trials and Paryer part 1

All right, so I think everybody in the class sounds like you guys have all been able to get a copy of this printout if you're at home. And if you can, there was an email sent out with this PDF. Of course, then you'd have to send it to a printer and get it printed if you're going to use it the way we're intending on this morning.

Don't worry about that. If anyone's listening to this audio afterwards, it's not going to be of a lot of help to you either. So this is a fairly interactive class this morning, but the content should still communicate through our audio. I'm going to start by reading our verses for this morning.

Now, this week and next week are both focused on the same verses, James 5, 13 through 18. And I considered splitting it up and doing three this week and three next week. But what we're actually going to end up doing is kind of doing a large contextual study this week. And then next week we're going to hit all those verses at once. It's kind of the plan here. So let me read though, starting in James 5 verse 13. He says, and I'm just reading this from the NASV as they've translated it. We'll deal with translation issues later.

But, is there anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit."

So, I don't know about you, but depending perhaps on your background, the question that comes to mind right away to me is this, is James teaching charismatic faith healing? Is that what this is about? I hear some chuckles. So, you know, but you know, I, I know people, I know a lot of people who take this very, what would, you just take those verses on their own, out of context, and the way they've typically been translated, it sounds an awful lot like what, what are charismatic folks engage in.

So, I think it's important to understand that patient, careful study under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is necessary to arrive at the truth. We need to be careful not to make hasty interpretations of the English translation. So, context is really key. I'm still learning that certain words communicate different things in different contexts.

Just an illustration that came to mind is one difference, one Canadian-American difference. If I told you, for instance, that Alberta was a blue province, you'd have to know, you'd have to understand that in Canada our political colors are exactly opposite of what you guys think in the States. I have no idea why. Now we actually don't really use the phraseology that way. We wouldn't really hear someone say Alberta is a blue province. But our conservative party colors are blue and our liberal and left-wing parties are red or orange, that color scheme.

So, you have to understand that bit of context to get the meaning out of what I'm saying. And you could be really confused. In fact, you could be exactly wrong. You could be exactly backwards if you don't understand the context. Similarly, I think with the word anointing, it typically carries a certain connotation in our minds. You know, for me, it carries some of that charismatic Christian kind of element, or my mind might jump to some of the Old Testament uses of anointing. But we're starting almost automatically to think about religious ritual. right away.

And that's not necessarily the way it's being used here. We're going to talk about that next week, though. But another word that shows up in the verses is the word sick. And when we see this word, we immediately jump to the context of physical sickness. At least, I do. I don't know if anyone doesn't. However, the Greek word behind the word sick Both times it shows up there. Both have alternate translations from the Greek. In fact, probably other more primary translations than physical sickness.

So, you know, in Bible study we often focus, especially as we're doing this verse-by-verse exegesis, you know, we tend to focus on detailed study of words and grammar in a particular verse, and that's very important, very, very important. But the most important thing for determining how a word should be interpreted is to examine the context that it's in. you really have to know the context. I mean, you could take apart my statement that Alberta is a blue province, and you could talk about what a province is, you could talk about what blue is, and all these things, but if you don't know the context, you're getting the wrong meaning. So, both grammar and context must be considered. So, we're going to deal with those two words I brought up and other specifics next week. But this morning, we're going to really spend our time examining context. So, as I kind of introduced, we're going to try to do something a little bit different.

This is a bit of a variation on something that Charlie Clough taught, maybe others have taught this over the years, to take your Bible, photocopy the passage that you're working on, this was all really new technology when Charlie was talking about this probably, and then carry that with you and you can mark it up all you want, you don't have to be worried about damaging it, and you can make all your observations, make all kinds of marginal notes and so forth. So what I've done this morning is I've made a digital copy of the book of James, which as I said is probably a copyright violation, but we're going to do it. And what I've done is I've started to do this often when I'm studying a book. I take it, put it into two columns I find really readable. It's kind of like the way most of our Bibles are set up.

Double spaced it and put wide margins on it so that there's lots of room for writing notes and connecting things in the margin. And what's actually surprising is that when I go from my typical study Bible and I move into a format like this and it just stripped away all of the footnotes and all of the marginal notes and all of the cross-references and everything, I realized it's not a massive amount of material. This all fits on three pages, double-spaced with wide margins. So the entire epistle of James is not a huge amount of material if we just were to take it and just read through start to finish. You can actually do that relatively quickly if we don't get bogged down in details. But anyway, what we're going to do this morning is we're going to work through this together.

Hopefully you've got something to write with and we're going to put some marks in the text. I'm going to kind of work through, I've got some questions here to kind of stimulate our discovery. The first question that I want to talk about, and as we do this with contextual study, we want to start kind of broad and start to narrow in. So some of these questions are probably really obvious, but worth noting. So in relation to this entire letter, where are we now? In the beginning, middle, end? This is almost the very end. There's two verses after this, right?

So that's important to note because there's kind of a follow-up question to that would be this. Would it be normal for an author to veer away from his theme in the last paragraph of his letter? That would be pretty unusual, wouldn't it? If we just change topics at the very end, it would be, at best, you could say maybe poor writing.

But what we're going to see here is that there's actually a remarkable symmetry. Maybe it shouldn't be so remarkable, but it's very clear when we study it. There's a real symmetry between the beginning and the end of James. So James has actually held very consistent to his theme throughout the letter. So another question is, what is the theme that James established at the beginning of this letter? What was the theme? Yeah, what would you, if you were to just put it in one word? What is James' theme?

Trial. Okay, perfect. Exactly. So James has a theme of trial. So let's flesh that out a little bit. What specifically about trials? Let's turn to James chapter 1 verse 2. So if you turn to the first page on that printout, or if you're just in your own personal Bible, look at James 1 verse 2. We'll do it together. And right out of the gate, Remember, this is the first written book of the New Testament.

So this is the second verse, because it didn't have verse divisions, but in the second written verse of the New Testament, we have this, I think, a shocking message. He says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Why don't you underline that phrase? So underline that in verse 2, Consider it all joy, my brethren, whenever you encounter various trials.

So why would James be writing on this theme in the first place? As I said, sorry, was someone commenting? I didn't mean to interrupt. Okay, as I said, James is probably the earliest New Testament book written, 45 to 50 AD. So why was it so important to communicate to the early church about suffering? Well, they were going through it. They were going through it. Yeah. Yeah. It was very, very real for them. Yeah. Wasn't this when Nero was persecuting the Christians and killing them? What are Nero's dates? I think Nero came a little bit later than when this was written, but there was definitely persecution from the Jewish element, the Jewish society. Because remember, these are mostly Jewish believers, and they have now become Christians. Actually, at this time, Paul, I'd have to look at the dates on that, but think of Paul in the very early church.

He was the persecutor of the church. And of course many others. And the Pharisees, boy, they really didn't like this Christian sect, you know. It was really cutting them into their profits, you know. For sure, and their popularity, yeah. I think Bob was right. A lot of the persecution came from within the Jewish community itself. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, Rob. Now, one of the other reasons that I think it's so important for James to bring this up is because this is largely a Jewish audience. It's early church.

And remember that in the Old Testament, suffering was generally the result of disobedience to God's commands. If you obey me, I will bless you. If you disobey me, I will curse you. Now, all of a sudden, these former Jews are finding themselves dead to that law, and the Lord is trying to get them adjusted to this radical new reality where suffering is not necessarily the result of something wrong that we did.

You know, in fact, trials are used by God to carry out His growth work in the Church. Therefore, suffering is, we could say, the norm for the Church. And I think the Church today really needs to learn this lesson. We still need to learn what James is teaching, that trials are for good, not our harm. And we'll look at the way James describes that through the letter. So, a little bit of context. Now, we're going to start marking up a little bit more here as we go. What does James tell us that God desires for us when we are under trial? Is God's desire that we collapse? Look at verses 3 and 4 of chapter 1.

So, just below that. And she says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So circle the word endurance in both of those instances, in verse 3 and verse 4. Circle the word endurance.

Now jump down to verse 12. This is going to be pretty, we're not stopping to, we're just going to have to really jump through and pull out these key points. Jump down to verse 12. of chapter 1. And in verse 12, James says, So, circle the word perseveres in verse 12. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial.

Now, I want you to draw an arrow, probably in your left margin, connecting the word perseveres to endurance in verse 4. So just connect those two words there. And then somewhere on that line, jot in the word, if you can, well, we'll just do it in English transliteration. H-Y-P-O-M-O-N-E. Hupomone. Hupomone. Okay? So, in verses 3 and 4, we have the noun form of hupomone, and in verse 12 we have a verb form. It's the same root word.

So, we want to have those ideas connected there in our thinking. So, James is teaching that the Lord desires for us to bear up under trials, to endure or persevere, not to collapse. Now, there is a purpose in that. So what is the result that James has in mind? I want you to underline in verse 4 where it starts with, so that. Okay? So that you may be perfect and complete. Okay? So there's purpose there.

And if you jump down now to verse 12, Underline the words, blessed is the man who perseveres. So we see the blessing is in view. And then towards the end, he will receive the crown of life. He will receive the crown of life. Now we're not stopping to talk about details in terms of what that is. We've been over these verses already. But what we want to be clear on is that there is a positive outcome in view. So is that is that we can we kind of get that thematic element that there's a there's something positive in view to our trials. Yep. Yes. Yep. All right.

Miles, it reminds us of Paul's scripture to the extent that trials lead to patience, right? And yes, patience is ultimately the catalyst that makes us more perfect, if you will, wanting nothing. I mean, it's the whole stepwise approach. But, you know, James, I don't think was steeped in identification truth. I mean, that's what really Paul's teaching, is it not? I mean, the Jew there was living under tremendous trial in his own new faith in Christianity. And so, I mean, this is hard to take into consideration when you're using the flesh to respond to these truths.

So anyway, just some thoughts. Yeah, very, very good, Bob. I'm glad you brought up the word patience, and we're going to see that connection at the end of the book here. And you're right, this is, I mean, this is the first written material to the Church. And it was Paul who was commissioned to teach about our identification. You know what James understood of that? you know, it may have been quite limited. But the principles at play here are remarkably consistent. Well, again, should it be remarkable? No, the Holy Spirit has made it consistent.

So, at the top of page one, I want to write in a kind of a tentative thematic statement. Remember, this is why I do this, where I print this out. If you change your mind on the theme later, you can cross this out and change it later. But at the top of page one, Write this, patient endurance through trials, I'm trying to do it myself so I don't race too far ahead of you, patient endurance through trials by faith produces worthwhile results in the life of the believer. So patient endurance through trials by faith, I tried to keep it as simple as I could, patient endurance through trials by faith produces worthwhile results in the life of the believer. That's what I'm kind of putting at the top as a banner in terms of theory, sorry, theme.

But let's flip now to James chapter 5 to see that James is closing his letter coming I don't know if I should say coming back around to the same theme because he's really stayed consistent with it throughout the letter. Now, this may seem like a very long way around to get to our verses, but in order to get a proper handle, I think, on chapter 5, 13 through 18, it's critical to see that James is still working on the same theme. So look at in chapter 5, look at verse 7. Chapter 5, verse 7. So that's on your last page if you've got the handout. top right kind of corner there.

Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. So there's our word patient. I want you to circle the word patient in there. And that word is macro-female, and we've dealt with that in past studies, but that's our word patient. Now, the basic concept behind that word, if we were to do a word space, is very similar to endurance or perseverance from Chapter 1. So, continue reading in 5-7, the next sentence, the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil being patient about it. So, again, circle the word patient there. the being patient about the waiting for the produce.

So notice that the farmer is waiting for something. There's a result in view. And notice that James is clear that this is a positive result. What word does he use to describe the produce? It's not just produce, it's precious produce. Underline the words precious produce there.

And if you want right in the margin that there that that is signifies a positive result Okay, so there's a positive result to this patient's now Look at verse 8 You to the word to is the Greek word Chi And that could be and so and you or you to in other words like just like the farmer and Be patient.

Circle the word patient there again. Okay. What happens as we do this kind of this thing, we're circling these connected words, all of a sudden you start to see the consistency throughout the message. I'm a very, very visual learner, so I don't know if this helps you, but this really helps me. So now he says, you too, be patient. Strengthen your hearts. Circle the word strengthen there. Okay.

Now, Look down at verse 14, chapter 5, verse 14, where he says, is anyone among you sick? Circle the word sick. Now this is going to seem a little strange, but I want you to draw a line from the word strengthen down your right hand margin, probably the best way it wrote, and connect it to the word sick.

Why would we do that? Because that is the same word, essentially. That's the same root word. Now, they both come from the same root for strength. Except that the word sick has a prefix, the negation, ah, that makes it without strength. So there's actually a very important connection there. Now, why do we strengthen our hearts? The word for, it says strengthen your hearts for, that's the Greek word hati, which gives a reason. So there's a reason that we strengthen our hearts.

For the coming of the Lord is near. Now, does that remind you of the crown of life from chapter 1, verse 12? If you think that reminds you of that, just jot beside that line one 112. Coming of the Lord is near. And that may be related to the crown of life. Now, just like a farmer who's waiting patiently for the precious produce of the soil, we as believers are to be patiently waiting for the precious results of our trials. That to me is something that I'm going to pull out of what I'm seeing here in context. Now, look at verses 10 and 11. Okay, of chapter 5, starting in verse 10. We're going to come back to verse 9 actually, but verse 10 says, So, circle the word patience again in verse 10. You're beginning to see how repetitive this is here.

And also, you can circle the word suffering as well, as an example of suffering and patience. And then, look down in verse 13, where James says, is anyone among you suffering? So, you could circle that word suffering and then connect those words in your right-hand margin. Suffering from verse 10 down to suffering in verse 13. So, we want to see that when we jump into studying verse 13, this all has connections to what he's been saying. That is the exact same Greek word there, suffering and suffering, same word.

So, go back to verse 11 and circle the word endurance in, let's see here, endured and endurance in verse 11. So, circle both those occurrences. Endured and Endurance. Okay, and here it's referring to Job. But we see very clearly in verses 10 and 11 that James connects the word Patience with Endurance. So we saw Endurance in chapter 1 of James, and Bob noted the concept of Patience, and here we see that James very much connects Patience with Endurance. So you might jot down chapter 1, verse 3, in the margin beside 5, verse 11, that there's a connection with chapter 1, verse 3.

Cruising through here and just seeing so many different things. I hope that you're not too swamped I knew this was going to be a real Exercise, but there's a lot of material to cover. So I Hopefully next week is a little more discussional and we can But if you've got a comment and I just try to barge in in here. I'm I'm not Miles you're doing fine I'll take a sip of coffee if you have to make a comment That's great. That's great. Okay. All right.

Miles, I'll just share personally, in my flesh, I'm a very impatient person. And Martin could testify in respect of me repeatedly. So, you know, I mean, so, you know, people go through lots of things we all have throughout our lives, but You know, I'm finding that only the position of truth gives me strength to think about that these trials and tribulations are not there to change my flesh, but to create in me this new life I have in Christ Jesus. Very good. And that's that's a lesson I learned every day multiple times right now.

Yeah. Amen. So I thought when you said you have a struggle with patience, I thought you're gonna say you want me to get to the point already. But we can talk privately later if you want. No, that's great. I you're right. That's exactly. As we focus on this idea of patience here, it can be so our flesh can jump right away to, um, this is something I've got to do. You know, this is something I've got to work at. I think we're going to see by the end of today's lesson that this is not something that we, we produce, right? Patience is his, his fruit. It's the fruit of his life, not ours. So, um, so let's look at the, uh, the last part of, uh, verse 11. I'm still in my right place here.

In the last part of verse 11, James says, "...and have seen," we're kind of jumping in mid-sentence, "...and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and merciful." Underline that phrase, the Lord is full of compassion and merciful. Okay? The Lord is full of compassion and merciful. That's describing something of the character of God.

Now, this is in the context of Job, and the Lord had a very compassionate and merciful result in mind for his servant Job. So it seems pretty clear that James still has the same theme in mind, patient endurance through trials by faith produces positive or wonderful results. Like we said, God does not bring us into trials in order for us to fail. He intends for our trials to produce a rich harvest, if we tie in that farmer metaphor.

Now, look at 5, verse 15. In chapter 5, verse 15, where it says, the Lord will raise him up. Find the phrase, the Lord will raise him up. draw an arrow that connects this with 5.11, the Lord is full of compassion and merciful. So the fact that the Lord is full of compassion and merciful may have a connection to the fact that the Lord will raise him up. We'll come back to that though. Let's now deal with James' repetitive comments about judgment. So look at chapter 5, verse 9. We're coming back to verse 9 now, we kind of skipped over it, but in 5 verse 9, underline the words, do not complain.

Okay? Do not complain, and then underline, so that you may not be judged. You, yourselves, may not be judged. So, underline that. so that you yourselves may not be judged. What we're doing there is we're kind of just skipping over that sort of the added information of the brethren against one another. So you can read that as one thought. Do not complain so that you yourselves may not be judged. Okay? Put a box around the word, so that, in that phrase. Put the box around there. And circle the word judged, okay? because we're going to focus now on the word judged.

So, now look down at verse 12, and in chapter 5, verse 12, underline the words, do not swear. Do not swear. And then underline the words, so that you may not fall under judgment. So that's down quite a ways. And he's got some other comments in between there in this structure. But the basic core of that sentence is, do not swear, so that you may not fall under judgment. So put a box around the words, so that. And then again, circle the word judgment.

And now you can see that that is very parallel in core thought to verse 9. So I want you to connect verse 9 with verse 12, and we'll do that on the left side in the center margin there. So between verse 9, just draw a line down and connect that in with verse 12, just to see that those are connected thoughts. Now look at 4 verse 12, and this is the beauty of getting so much content on one page, it's right in our left column over here.

So we've got, look at chapter 4 verse 12, where James says, there is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy. So circle the word judge in that verse, and underline the words judge, from Judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy. So, save that, underline that last portion. The one who is able to save and destroy. Now, in the left margin, you jot down the words, the Judge both saves and destroys. Okay? The Judge, and that's a capital J, the Judge both saves and destroys. Okay? Now, draw an arrow from 412 that tees into the line between 5-9 and 5-12, okay? So it kind of got a T intersection going on there. Okay.

Now this is getting complicated. You can see why you won't want to do this necessarily in your personal Bible. What I do is I do this kind of thing, and then I transfer the most important elements of this into my Bible that I read regularly. But this is all about fact-finding.

Now while we're here, circle the word save, okay, as well as the word destroy. So circle those two words and write in your margin as well, just jot down the reference 1 or chapter 1 verses 11 and 21. Now flip back quickly to chapter 1. And let's look at those, what James has said there. And in chapter 1 verse 11, near the end, the grass withers, the wind withers the grass and the flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. Circle the word destroyed there.

And you can write in the margin beside that, just jot down 412. 412. And then look across at chapter 1, verse 21, and it says there, save your souls, which is able to save your souls, okay? And jot down there, for 412 as well. So we've got those two things connected. You'll have to come back to that during the week to kind of make more detailed connections between these things.

But... Steve Miles. Go ahead. I'm so sorry. What was the other reference? Yeah, no problem. Sorry, I know I'm moving fast now. Besides 121, what was the first one? 111. Well, thank you. Yeah, yeah. 111 is where he talks about the destruction of something. And so... and then 121, save your souls.

Okay, let's flip back to look at 4-6, okay? I think, I know I'm trying to start to move really fast here. What we're gonna do is we are gonna pick up this next week, because we've got like four minutes left here. There's a little more contextual digging to do and that's okay. So I'll see if I can get to the end of a couple things here. Let's go back to 4-6. where the text is in all caps. Okay, so in chapter 4, verse 6, at least in this translation, it's all caps because this is a quote.

Okay, and underline the words there, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Okay, now, look at 5.9, where we've been, and finding the phrase, do not complain brethren, Draw a line from that phrase to the words, God is opposed to the proud. That's the top line in our printout of chapter 4, verse 6. Do not complain. Connect that to God is opposed to the proud. And now jumping down to 5.12, where he says, my brother, do not swear. Okay, and we had underlined the do not swear portion there. Connect that up as well to the phrase, God is opposed to the proud. So we've got both of those phrases going back to this concept of God's opposition to pride. Now, find 511, where we underlined the words, the Lord, I think we underlined, didn't we?

Yes, in the last part of verse 11, we said, the Lord is full of compassion and merciful. And I want you to draw a line from that and connect it back to the last part of that quote in 4.6, but gives grace to the humble. Okay. All right. So we're connecting that full of compassion and merciful to God's grace to the humble. So I want to put these thoughts together just a little bit in closing. Sorry, was there a question or comment? No, it's good. It's good. Okay, let's just connect this a little bit in closing.

Why does God oppose the proud? Is it because God doesn't love proud people? No. No. Right? So, here's the question. Can a proud heart accept grace? You know, pride is fundamentally the belief that that I deserve something, that I have some merit of my own. But grace, by definition, is unmerited.

Right? It reminds me of what John taught us in his first epistle, chapter two. The three big sins before John were lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And that pride really translates into change very nicely, I think. Yeah, you're right.

So if God wants to lavish grace on you, and he does, what has to happen to the pride? Now, things are starting to click, hopefully. God is opposed to the proud, not because he doesn't like you, but because he loves you. And you must be humble before you will receive God's grace. So, in the margin beside 4-6, you could write, just jot down the phrase, pride stands in the way of grace. Pride stands in the way of grace.

Now, as the last thing, look down at Chapter 4, verse 10. Chapter 4, verse 10. And he says there, Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you. Underline the whole sentence. Humble yourselves in the sight or the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Okay? And draw an arrow from 4-6 down to this verse. Now, when we see it as an imperative command like that, humble yourselves, that can activate the flesh. But ask yourself, can you humble yourself? No, no. The moment that I think I've arrived, I clearly have not, right? So there's something interesting in that expression that we're going to deal with next week. But the last, the very last thing, sorry, I think I keep saying this is the last thing.

That's okay. Connect chapter 5 verse 10. down to 5 verse 15. Okay, the part there where it says, the Lord will exalt you or he will exalt you. You want to connect that phrase to the idea that the Lord will raise him up. The Lord will raise him up. Because it's a very similar phrase there. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you.

And we see down in verse 15, which is our verses for next week, the Lord will raise him up. I know this is just tons and tons, and this is kind of contextual study in the way it goes, but I would encourage you to take this throughout this week, if you have the time, and just kind of soak your mind in some of this as we've drawn some of these things, soak in how these things are connected. And see what the Lord will teach us about that. And we'll come back next week, finish up a little bit of the contextual things, and then get right into our verses and see if we have a better understanding of them. Miles, real quick comment.

Could you also say that God resists those that are in the flesh, but gives grace to those that are in the Spirit? Yeah, I mean, the flesh just cannot receive, you know, I mean, I guess what I'm thinking is God's grace is extended to all men. God's grace is extended to all men, but pride will never receive it. Pride will always barricade and blockade that. So it's like it's extended. And that's why God does not want our pride, because it refuses to accept His grace, if that makes sense.

Also, there is the fact that people can humble themselves in the flesh, but it's not the true humility, it's actually pride. You need to be careful of that, too. Humility doesn't come naturally to us. We depend on God for humility. I was going to say, a lot of us kind of think that we're fairly humble people.

But if there's something that will show me my pride, it's a trial. It's a trial. That's why this is so connected here. So very connected. Any other comments? I know we're... That's good. Thanks for doing this. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time.

I know it's felt a little bit just rushed and crammed. And Lord, I pray that you would take these things and just just continue to work in our thinking, adjust our thinking to yours, so that we're not bringing our preconceptions to the text, but we're just really learning to understand and see the big picture here of what's going on. Lord, we thank you that your grace is unlimited, but it's also unmerited. And so long as there is pride in the way, We're just cutting ourselves off from it. And Lord, we thank you that the trials that you bring about in our lives do humble us in a very genuine way. So we pray that we continue to see that. We see that a little bit more next week and then begin to connect that with the verses that we're going to dig into next week. We just thank you for this time in Jesus' name. Amen.