Lesson 2a
Romans 1:1-18 · Courtney Hemenway · Jan 28, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926198266426

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, so, yeah everybody should, Brian I think handed it out. Alright, let me get to the top here. So this is Romans class. We're all on tape. Romans and Lesson 1, going over Chapter 1 of Romans. And to get started, just to set the context of what the verses we're going to be covering today, I want to read Romans 1, and we'll go 1 through 15, just to give us the verses that we'll be covering today. So again, Romans 1, verses 1-15.

Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, who was born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his namesake. among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.

To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayer making requests, if perhaps now, at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you. for I long to see you so that I may impact some spiritual gift to you that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.

I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." So, just a couple of things. Mike went through a couple of these things. So, basically, from the passage, who wrote this? Rome. Rome broke. Paul did.

So, just a couple of things I wanted to touch on. Small rabbit trail. He says he's a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. He touched on it a bit. So what does it mean to be a bondservant? I don't know if Mike really touched on that a lot.

What does that sound like? Slave. Slave. That's exactly. So, isn't that good? Or does that sound intimidating? Are you a slave? Yes? No? Slave to Christ? Yeah, you know, I thought about that as we kind of went through that, that you're a slave, and is that a good thing? And, you know, actually for even a further rabbit trail for 30 seconds, It's interesting, when we say about slavery, typically that's a very negative connotation, that we look to our history here in the country and slavery and all that, and that's a bad thing. In this instance, we're now a slave to Christ, and that is not a bad position. But when you say you're a bond servant, which is a slave, is that really a good position to be in?

Again, I think some people may be intimidated by that, that I'm a slave to Christ. Wow. He's beating me over the head and whipping me. That's our kind of connotation of what a slave is. That is not it from the Christian perspective or our relationship with Christ and with God. When he says he's a bondservant, I can't remember if I have them all here.

Here, even though we're a slave, he also says, which is one of my favorite verses in here, because you are sons, and this is in Galatians 4, because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So we're slaves, but we call God, Daddy. And then, therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. So even though we're slaves, we are heirs as sons, so much so that we can call God the Father, Daddy.

So again, just last week when we were going through the bond servant, again, people may be intimidated by that, that we're a slave to Christ, and we twist that into something that is negative. And that is not. I have 20 verses here about how we're a slave to righteousness, a slave to Christ, but what that means, that we are sons or heirs. I think the other element of that word is goulas, and it means that I willingly am a slave. It isn't that someone made me a slave, I'm willing to put myself in that position. Right. So again, that thought that when you tell people you're a bondservant of Christ, ooh, whips, chains, negative. It's not. It is a wonderful place to be. So anyway, small rabbit trail from last week that I wanted to touch on. Okay, so question one.

Describe the good news in chapter one. So, what do most Bible translations state is the good news? What do they usually state it as? The first one is 15304, instead of one. Well, what is the word? Gospel. Most of the translations, I think I went through about five different translations before I found one that actually said it as the Good News. It was the Amplified Living Bible or something, I don't know what it was. But all of them put it as the Gospel. Actually, if Wanda was here, it would be great. Going back to Zodiates, she always loved when I went to Zodiates.

The word gospel is actually translated bringing good news. So it is a good translation to be calling it the gospel is the good news, because that's actually the Greek translation of that word is bringing good news. So, first of all, who provided the good news? Who provided the good news?

God did. It says that in the verse. First of all, I thank God through Christ Jesus for you all, because of your faith proclaimed throughout the world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit, is in the preaching of the gospel of his son, or the good news. And I think it's up above too. Set apart for the gospel of God. So again, God is the one who provided the gospel, the good news. That's a pretty good start. It was God who loved the world. It was God who sent His Son. Note our Lord's continual insistence on this in the Gospel of John. Nineteen times He says that. Christ said constantly, I am not come of myself, but my Father sent me.

It is absolutely necessary that we keep fast in mind as we read in Romans the awful facts about ourselves, and we'll find that out a lot in the first three chapters, that it is God who is leading us up to his own good news for bad sinners. So, I think that was kind of putting it in good perspective. As we get into chapter 1 through 3, that basically paints a really nice picture of us.

We're swell people, right? We're really good. We're all good. Nothing comes out of our lips that is not perfectly holy and wonderful, right? Now, when we get into this, it paints a very good picture of who we are and why, when we get up to Chapter 6. Crucifying us was a great thing. So, what is the news? It's good news, so what is the good news? Is it that the Patriots will lose the Super Bowl? I mean, sorry, that was just a good thing. The stock market up 50% or it'll be sunny and warm. What is the news? Christ died on the cross. Christ died on the cross. And buried. And buried. And rose again. And rose again. There we go. Many times we say this at Holly Hills, about what the good news is, what the news is.

And we get that from 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4. For I delivered to you as first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. So that is the news, that's the good news. And you can also look, I also looked at Ephesians 2, 4 through 9.

But God, again where did it come from? As we noticed in the first, where the gospel came from, is from God. Here we see it again. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, that no one may boast. So again, the good news, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding.

That's the good news. Can you think of any other better news? Other than maybe the Patriots losing, I don't know. Any other news you can think of that's better than that? And that's something that's in common with that, that I think I learned recently, is that God loves Israel. And when he explains why, he says, I love Israel because they're good. I love Israel because I love Israel.

And it's the same with us. We're not good. We stumble. God loves us because he loves us. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, you know, I guess I go to, in Zodiates or any definition, I wish the definition of love was Christ. There isn't a better demonstration of it.

In the Ephesian verses that I read, even though we were dead in our transgressions, that's who we were, dead in our transgressions. And what happened? Christ came, took on the form of a man, went to the cross, died, paid for all of our sins, every single one, for the whole world, for all time. But then the gracious act was offering us salvation through faith, and that is believing in His Son. And is there a better definition of love?

I go back to this thought, which we'll get to in a minute, on when did we die, when did He know us, and all those things. Again, think about this. Before we were even created, And as we'll find out in chapters 1 through 3, just how stinky we are. Christ and the Father had already decided what they were going to do. The amazement to me is how God went ahead and created us anyway. Think about that. He didn't have to, because He knew when He created us what was going to happen. That Christ would have to come and die, separate from Him, come, take on the form of a man, die, put all the penalty of sin on him so he can have us as part of his family. Think about that. I mean, in brain, would you ever do that deal with your son? If you knew There was an action you could take that would prevent your son from having to go and pay for all those sins. Would you take that? Would you do that?

That is the definition of love. Is that he did it anyway. Knowing what was going to happen. Remember, God doesn't see time along a line. He sees it as a point. It's all, everything at one time and he knew what was going to happen. Knew what we would do. and that he'd have to give his son. That's the good news. He loved us so much that he gave us a son. Even before he created us, he loved us. Even though we're going to turn his back on us and sin and do everything we do, he still loved us enough to give us his son.

So, again, I marvel at what the definition of love should be Christ. Just think how cozy they were for an eternity together. But he had to step out of that, take all the penalty of our sin, and go to the cross. Pretty amazing, pretty amazing definition of love.

The other thing in this, and Ephesians 1, when you see all these things, which we'll come back a little bit, and when he knew us, one of the questions further down, It says, in Christ, in Christ, and I think it's like 19 times or something in chapters 1 and 2 of Ephesians. It's all about being in Christ.

And I was actually talking to Vern the other day about a lot of things. I think when we opened up this class, I talked about how sometimes Vern, it's confusing when he gives a message and he says, you know, you're crowded on the cross, when he says that to people. And if you don't know the identification, how do you take that, that the cross was crowded? I know there's a guy on my left and a guy on my right. Where was it crowded? So he called me and asked me about that and I was saying, well, that's very confusing.

Until you know is what Paul tells us in Romans 6 about how we get there and our co-crucifixion and how we're placed into him. So all these verses in Ephesians where it's in him and where we're known is, it's hard to understand if you don't understand the identification truths, our co-crucifixion with him. We'll get to that when we get to 6 and the importance of that and how important it is to understand that transaction.

The other thing was about how this logical progression goes, how the Bible is laid out and how cool it is about Romans as the foundation. And each of the different epistles after that build upon the foundation of Romans. So it's critical that we understand the things that we're talking about in this class because everything else in the epistles is based on what we're taught here in Romans. So, easy question. Question two.

Does grace come from service or service from grace? First of all, is there a distinction between the two? Is there a distinction? One's backwards. So, which statement is correct? And the infamous question, why? Somebody be brave. Grace comes before service. Anybody with service before grace? So if you serve, you get grace. Anybody on that bandwagon? Personal grace must come before true service. Remember about this, grace is not earned. Grace is the free gift, unmerited, you know, our definition of it, it's unmerited. So if grace is a result of service, does that negate grace?

If you think there's a cause and effect, yes it does. If I think the more I do, the more grace I'm going to receive, is that a proper way to approach things? Anybody? No. No. No. It should be easy. You all should be screaming no. You can't earn grace. It negates it if you try and earn grace through service. So, grace has got to come first.

You've got to understand that, and service is emanating from that position, which we all rest in. We are, I think it's in Romans 5, the end of Romans 5, where the reigning principle now is grace. That's where we reign. That's where we are. We live in grace. So out of that reigning in grace, our service is generated.

So it's not service first and then grace. It's grace first before service. Everybody good with that? Any contrarian views? through whom we have received grace as apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles. And again, just the thought of being the service end of it is that we get this grace, we get it from Christ, we get it through our being placed into Christ. And like I said, I think it's Romans 5, 28 or so, which is? Three or four. Three or four about reigning? Yeah, grace is a reigning principle now.

And again, that's where we start from, that position. and then our service is done. There was a lot in some of these, some of the Actually, some of the Hungry Heart has a lot of this, where a lot of people want to do service first before really knowing Him and knowing their position. They think that service is the way to go. That's how you earn a little bit more favor, a little bit more from God, is if I serve. I want to go out and I'm going to be a missionary to X, Y, Z. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. They're operating from, if I do this, God will be happy. That's kind of a blanket statement.

There are lots that will do it out of their heart and their love. But really, I think a lot of people will go through that transition of, if you don't know Him and you don't know grace, you're going to go through a lot of bumps and your ministry, I don't think, will grow as much. You go on the front end of it, knowing Him and understanding grace and these principles, and then going out and do the service. So again, I think it's proven out that the more you spend time with Him, knowing Him and knowing grace, knowing your position in Him, then your service emanates from that.

I think in verse 5, as J.D. pointed out, the progression through the verse demonstrates how grace works because to whom we receive I received it. For what purpose? For the obedience of faith among all nations. As a result of the grace, I obey. I believe. I think it's written in the right order to show how it functions.

Just a couple of thoughts on the study of service. I think in Christianity, there are many churches and I know believers who will join a church and within a couple of weeks they already have a service. They've found where they're supposed to serve and they've identified potentially their gift and now they have a ministry within just a few weeks of having joined a church, or a few months even.

And just to even kind of define what service is, it's obedience of faith in a certain capacity, right? We all have different obedience of faith in different ways. We're all gifted in certain ways and so when we say service, We're talking about walking by faith because of grace in a certain capacity that was designed for you. God prepared it beforehand for you to walk into it, right? But Christianity at large today has communicated service as a job within a church, right? As opposed to a walking by faith in a capacity that God has designed for you. Which is just a different way of thinking than what churches typically have believers busy about the church doing certain things.

And you'll notice that that's not the way even Holly Hills is. You may have been here for years and never been asked to do a thing. Right. Because it's what God designs you to do, not what we call you to do within the church. Well, you know, even in what you're saying, it comes to mind thinking about the qualification of being an elder, and I think even a deacon, is lay hands, you know, on no man quickly. You know, that you don't take a new believer, you don't take somebody who's new and put them in a position of elder or deacon or something like that. Very same principle. One, you grow, you know. They're growing and you have growth before you have service.

And Paul was what, three years? Yeah, three years. See, that's the best. Wouldn't that be just awesome to spend three years with the Lord? Getting all this knowledge and all this just personal related information. Three years. Six or seven years at home before he got the call. Yeah. But I mean, three years really in Arabia with the Lord. Man, where's the sign up? Wouldn't that just be incredible?

However, with that, we do have the Word and we have the indwelling of the Spirit. So in essence, we have even more than Paul actually, because he was being developed with this. Paul had some, as I said last week, If we don't have Paul's epistles, we have nothing about the body, we have nothing about identification, we have nothing about a lot of who we are in Christ. We don't know anything without those epistles. So, God really prepared him to give us all this information about who we are in Christ.

So, I don't want to discount what Paul is, but we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the Word. What I think we lack is what our last class was, faith. Do you believe what he says in here? And I think the Holy Spirit is constantly working on you to develop that faith in what he said. But we have everything we need in the Word and the Holy Spirit.

It's all we need. So, anyway, a little bit of a tangent. I think it's interesting if you just kind of boil that one verse down and the answers to these questions that we've covered so far. At a street level it says, I live in an environment of grace. I walk by faith. If I walk by faith, what do you want me to do? At the end of the day, that's what this service concept in Christianity is.

You know, that goes to almost another little tangent that I have. The more I've spent time in the Word and just getting to know Him, you know, gets his head blowing up about praising him for starting off, you know, ten plus years ago, getting me to focus on the Word, to get to know him. And this is hard to say, I guess. I look now at everything that goes on.

Is he working every day in your life? Yes. Do you see that? Do you realize that? Things that go on every day in your life, do you know He's working on you every day? Do you feel it? I don't want to say feel. Do you understand that? That when you look around and when you go through a day, there's not a day that He doesn't work on you, doesn't love you. He loves you every moment of every day and He's working on it to conform you to the image of His Son.

So when you go through a date, you look and figure out when the tire blew out on your truck or your, you know, whatever. Do you realize he knew about that? When the trial comes, when the blessings come, everything's from his hand. He, you know, in the Colossians where he holds all things together in Colossians 1, everything from the molecules to all the stars in the universe. He knows what's going on with you every single moment of every single day.

And just be aware of that. I'm trying to just be aware of more that everything that goes on, He's aware of it. And it's in allowing it. And so, in that perspective, when we're talking about with Paul in Arabia, do we have that same sense that He's working on us each and every day, each and every moment?

I mean, that's an amazing fact. And when the trials come, it's amazing how he says, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Go back to that quite a bit. You know, bring your prayers and your supplications to him. And does he say in the verse that he's going to answer everything? No. He says he's going to guard your heart with the peace that surpasses all understanding.

And that's because I think we're aware that he's working in our lives moment by moment. And that is so cool. When you start realizing, I'm not out here waiting in this cesspool of world. He knows what's going on. He's brought me to these positions. He's brought me to these places. He's using me. He's using other people on me. What a peace that is. It's not random. Anyway, sorry about that.

Okay, question three. When were the called? And this is from verse 4 and beginning in verse 4 and going through 5. Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his namesake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ. So, we are the called. When did that take place? before the foundation of the world. Anybody else? 5 o'clock last Friday? Friday? Any others? At the cross? Yeah, I looked at both of them. Mine has, the new American has is of. I did look at the other ones and it had as. So, and I think I looked up the Greek on that. I can't remember that, I think of was okay, but yeah.

So, saints are described in the words called of Jesus Christ. They were given to him by the Father. Number one, we were given by the Father, so if you look in John 17, it talks all about that, but in verse 6, I manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. So, it's the Father who gives us to Him. and connected with our earth history, if we look at Ephesians 1, 3, and 4.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. So, before the foundation of the world, He chose us.

Years ago, probably before some of you were even born, there was a, at least in the brethren realm, free will versus election. Big hoo-ha for years. Sides, churches split apart, all this kind of stuff. So, I will say that coming here and the truths that we have here was the first time I really was able to have a clear understanding, at least in my view, of the difference between election free will and what that means.

So when it says chosen before him and the foundation of the world, does that mean we have no choice? That he chose us? That's the election view. We have a part. We have a part, okay. Other thoughts? Because a lot of people look at this, and this was a lot on the election, that said, well he chose us.

And I think it was one of the, I can't remember his name, he was one of the big evangelists in London in like the 1800s. And he said if that was true, and that all the ones who were selected had a yellow stripe down their back, he'd be pulling up the coats of everybody in London trying to find who had a yellow stripe. So he could find out who was chosen. before the foundation of the earth.

So we know, I come to the, oh you're a Christian, oh you're not, you're, you know, because you're, you're not. So does this mean, and this is a really huge topic, does this mean we're, we're chosen, selected before the foundation? How is that done? So, doesn't matter which Why do we have evangelism if you're chosen before the foundation of time? This was a big argument between election and free will. If you're chosen, why do you have evangelists? If it's already pre-selected?

Because faith involves something that you have faith in and what that is is critical. And what Jesus is, matters. And without our faith in an object, we have to be taught. We are taught, and then we believe. But we're chosen before the foundation of the earth. In Christ. In Christ. That is the key. And before learning the identification throughs, you have to go through a lot of gyrations to get to free will or what this means.

And I remember when we first started talking about this, how all the gears came together for me, was that through what we're going to realize in Romans, our co-crucifixion, our placement into Christ, He's our very life. So if we have his life, where does our history go back? That's how we get chosen before the foundation of the world, is because we've been placed in him.

The biggest thing I think, and I can't remember if it was one of our Tuesday classes, when we talked about that, it was like, maybe it's not the best illustration, but it's like going through a doorway. When you know and you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, death, burial, resurrection. It's like walking through a door. Now you close the door and look back. And what do I see now? I see Christ's history. I see all the things that I walked through now are cut off. I look back and now I see all of Christ's history. And so now he can say he knew us before the foundation of the earth because he sees us in Christ.

But it still allows us, because it does make sense, why would he say in John 3.16, what does it say?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only. Well, if it's predetermined, he so loved the world but he only chose, yeah. Didn't matter if he chose, you can't get to there in many of these verses about God, if he pre-selected us, it doesn't make sense. And there are many verses that do that. So when this was going on, I'm just kind of a history of the free will and there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of misuse of verses.

But when you look at it from an identification perspective, it clarifies it. And so again, the importance of this class gets us to the point where we are placed into Christ, baptized into his death, placed into his death, and now raised with him. And now he can say, I knew you because I knew Christ. This is God the Father saying, I knew Christ from before the foundation of the world. I know Christ. I know you because you're in Christ. So that was a topic that took five years, ten years in the Brethren Church to never work itself out. So we did it in five minutes.

Is that clear? No? Yes? Muddy the water? Hard subject on sovereignty and man's responsibility. It's a really tough subject. It is. But when you bring it into perspective of identification, it makes perfect sense. Perfect sense. I would say if I don't understand identification, I'm going to gravitate towards a system of capitalism.

Likely, or the system of I mean it one of the two you're going to choose one of those without a clear understanding you will eventually gravitate towards one because you need a system you have to you have to of the chosen, which is what we're looking at here, the Calvinist needs one to be chosen first, regenerated second, and then given the gift of faith. So you can't believe if you're not already regenerated by the Calvinist system. But we don't view it that way because of identification, and it frees you from having to build a system on top of God's Word, such as Calvinism or Romanianism. And this is a big subject, like Michael was saying, like you guys have been saying, But if you stick to focusing on identification of what is in the scripture, you're less likely to build a system that constructs false thinking around chosen and election and these kinds of concepts. That's why I say Romans is the building block of everything else. If we understand what this book teaches us, it frees us. to go with all the rest of the epistles and understand them. Again, I went in the first class.

How do you understand Galatians 2.20? I'm crucified.

Second Corinthians 5.17. I'm a new creature in Christ.

How do you get through that without understanding this? How do you get through your chosen? If you don't, you have to build a system. So again, it's critically important that you're here, we're studying this word, and that Romans is very the building block of everything else. So, yeah?

With regards to number two, this is the grace stem from Solos, which sort of is from grace. I think, to me, it's the thing that's about, as you study and study and really know God understand them as complexities. When I used to be doing and doing, it was like, I'm afraid of God and I better be doing. If I don't do enough, I'm doomed. And that's what almost most faiths... There are two different things. I do this great thing and God's going to reward me. Or if I don't do something, God's going to smack me. Are both positions totally wrong? totally wrong. That's great.

There are so many systems and so many things that fail all the time. I think I go through all these programs, the purpose-driven life and the prayer of J-Biz and J.I. Packard knowing God, all these systems, they all fail because they don't get these principles. We can hopefully get through this one. Does God make known publicly great faith? On the way in, I was thinking about another question on here. Does God make known publicly great faith? Yes? No? We have a yes? No no's? Yes. If you look at verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Whoa, that's pretty cool.

Remember, I started the class in Rome. Rome didn't, this is a book to the Romans. Paul had never been there, and yet this church doesn't have a lot of issues. You don't see a lot of corrections, a lot of things like in all the other epistles trying to correct.

This one, he says, being proclaimed throughout the whole world, your faith. So, it's First point of contact with them is gratitude for their participation in Christianity. Paul is ever thanking God for any grace he found in any saint. So, we'll look at that a little bit later. He looks at all who are Christ through Christ's eyes because your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

Man, how'd you like, well, we'll get a thought. faith in Christ which was spoken of may be announced as a wonder throughout the whole Roman Empire. God sees to it that a real work of His Spirit is published abroad. So this is proclaimed throughout all the Roman Empire. So have we seen Paul praising other people or other groups in Scripture? Or is this the only time? many times.

So it's not infrequent that he praises people for their faith or their belief in Christ. Colossians 1 3-6 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all saints. because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world, as it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth." So to the Colossians, he does it later, he says in Colossians 2, 5, 4, "...even though I am absent in the body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ." We also see it in 1 Thessalonians 1, 6-8. You also became imitators of us, of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Acacia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Acacia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.

1 Thessalonians 3.6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see you, just as we also long to see you. And there's also Philemon, and I'll give you one more, 1 Peter 6, 7 and 8. And this you greatly rejoice, even though now as for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So again, Paul has praised a lot of these people. As I was coming in this morning, I thought about this.

What would Paul say about Holly Hills? What would he say? When I was driving this morning, I thought, you know, what would he say about us? What would he say about me? He's praising Colossians, praising the Roman Church, praising this. What would he say about Holly Hills? What would he say about you? A horrifying note to end on, but something to contemplate as you go through the week. What would Paul say about you? What would Paul say about Holly Hills?

Is our faith being proclaimed around? Would he be praising us because of our faith, our abilities in Christ? What most of these are praising them about is their faith, which correlates to that. So, that's from our faith class. Where is your faith? How is your faith? When you look at all these truths he's told you about you in Christ, do you believe it? Is our faith being proclaimed throughout all of Arvada?

Anyway, we need to close. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just what we learn in your Word. And we thank you again that you haven't left us alone. With just your Word, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit in us. And we realize that the Spirit is working on us 24-7, 365. And the purpose is to conform us to the image of your Son, to transform and renew our minds. So, as your Scripture says, we have the mind of Christ.

So we just thank you again for any time when we can open up your word and again just explore all the truths that you have for us, for those of us who are in Christ. Our very life is Christ. And as we have gone over that our history now, it goes back to Christ's beginning and his history because it's our life in Christ.

And we just, we thank you for that amazing truth. And we just pray for Mike as he gives us a message in the next meeting. Just pray again that he'll bring forth the word accurately and prepare our hearts to receive it. So we just thank you for this time. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.