Lesson 2d

So we are on lesson two. I thought I muted you. We're on lesson two and we covered, we answered four. What did Paul mean? What did Paul mean that he was not ashamed of the gospel? So that's where we left off and we answered the question, but I did want to read a quote that Mike shared with me on this. I just thought it was interesting before we kind of roll into question number five here. Does everybody have Lesson 2? Have we got papers? Everybody's good? That way? Alright. So, if you're in the Romans class, if you didn't know that, that's what we're doing. So, there's a quote here, and if you just follow along with me as I read this to you. This idea of philosophy, and the concept of philosophy versus the unashamed attitude of Paul towards the gospel and the truth. All philosophy is a perfect, perfect delusion.

Intellect has nothing to do with God at all. Faith is never in the intellect, and, what is more, the intellect never knows a truth. Truth is not the object of intellect, but of testimony. This is where the difference lies. You tell me something and I believe you, but the thing that receives truth, or testimony, is not intellect. Real intelligence of God is in the conscience.

The mind is incapable of forming an idea of God, and that is where the philosophers have gone wrong. And this is a word of Mr. Darby. John Nelson Darby. It's an interesting thought, because we're taught that from a philosophical Greek perspective and a Western mindset, that truth is something that can be apprehended intellectually. It can be discovered.

And while maybe certain, depending upon what aspect of truth you're discussing, what Darby is saying is that truth was never meant to be discovered out of your own intellect. It was meant to be told to you and apprehended through the conscience that he gave you. It was not meant to be looked at from the depths of the oceans to the heights of the sky.

What we see in the Book of Romans, and we're going to get to this, is that those truths that we may apprehend through what we see and discover in this universe are all meant to tell us about God. They all point us to the truths of who God is. And so the idea that God created us all with a conscience, and our conscience is what bears the right and wrong attitudes that we have towards things, right? We don't have to be taught what's right and what's wrong right out of the gate. We know when we're doing wrong and we know when we're doing the right thing, even before the law is revealed and it further defines for the Israelite in those times what was right and what was wrong. there was still sin.

There was sin at the very beginning. It's just an interesting thought that Paul, here he comes with the gospel and he's not appealing to the intellect of men to understand. He's relying on the very conscience that God created for them to apprehend the truths that God has for them. And so that's why he doesn't appeal to philosophy.

And he even says, he goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 1.18 that the word of the cross is really foolishness. Why? Why is the word of the cross foolishness to those that are perishing? What do you think?

It's spiritually discerned. That's right. It's a spiritual conscience that receives that message. And every man is created with that conscience. And is actually held guilty because of the truths that God has revealed to him in that spiritual conscience. So that leads us into question number five.

How is the gospel the power of God? What do you think? Let me read the verses again that we're covering. So we're looking at Romans 16, 17, and then we're going to get to 18 as well. So it says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why does he care that the Romans know that he's not ashamed? Why do you think he says this? I think because it's the real simple answer to why. And it is so powerful. and how it changes the outcome of a man or woman from that day forward. It's powerful.

Have you ever felt like the gospel just isn't enough? You know what I'm saying? I don't know how you might agree or disagree with that, but sometimes you're thinking, is it really that simple? Could it really just boil down to believing three parts of a single sentence? Death, burial, resurrection, and then that death was for my sins. And you want me to believe it.

Could you see how if we've got some of the great minds, according to the world, a great mind gets up and intellectually just delivers a most amazing logical presentation on why God doesn't exist. You've heard them. You know who those guys are. And here Paul comes along as an example and he says, I'm not ashamed. It's the death, burial, and resurrection that saves. He's not ashamed because he didn't get the truth second hand. That's right.

And he's seen the power of it in his own life and in other lives. He mentioned that the message had gone all across Rome. It was doing its job to save. And the intellectual perspectives of Rome and Greece and the world that he was now traveling, the pagans and the barbarians, and even, like I mentioned, the Greek, he's coming up against constant new ideas that people are sharing, and they have.

Everyone has a faith. He doesn't arrive on the scene and tell them something that fills a void that wasn't already there. They've already filled the void with some perspective in their thinking. They have a faith. They have a worldview. And Paul encounters those worldviews constantly, and he says, this is not my message. I'm an ambassador. We talked about that last week. I'm not ashamed whatsoever. This is the power of God to save, and here is exactly the content of that message.

I'm just saying that there are times when it's like, man, this is a really philosophical, deep discussion about atheism. And it sounds very deep and thoughtful. Do you understand what I'm saying? The presentations of false truths can be very eloquently placed. But none of them have the answer to life after death. Now, not only that, none of them have the necessity of... So here's oftentimes what I'll say about any other worldview. You have to assume God exists to slap Him in the face. What does that mean? You need Him to make sense of your own argument against Him. You have to assume that God exists. in order to make an argument against him.

Why is that true? That was a Cornelius Van Til quote. The reformers, many of the reformers did I think a wonderful job of developing what is called presuppositional apologetics. Now, they went off the rails in a lot of other areas, but some of the content of defending the faith that some of these guys developed has really helped me understand the nature of dealing with other worldviews that are opposed to the Christian message.

You absolutely need a right and a wrong concept in order to argue against God. Otherwise, you can't be right. Correct? And that's what this passage that we're moving into, verse 18, is the beginning of unbelief and its consequences. Paul is about to give us the content of why someone needs the Lord in order to say He doesn't exist. Does that make sense? Yes. You know, it comes down to, I think always, it comes down to faith.

You believe and know the truth. And if you do that, you're not ashamed. I mean, you can bring up your best atheist argument, but if you believe and know the truth, it doesn't matter. I mean, you're not ashamed of your opinion or your belief. Because you know it's true. And that's where, you know, all the, back to our last slide about faith, you know, it still comes down to faith. And he's not ashamed because he knew and believed in the truth. So you can spout all you want about atheism or whatever, whatever. He knew the truth and believed it. The other issue here is that all the other arguments don't have any power in them.

That's the next point. So what does this say in verse 16? This word power is actually the word dunamis. And we get our English word dynamite from it. And so, this is a unique power in and of itself. It's an inherent power. It's a great power. And it's inherent in and of itself. And this is a word used of the Gospel message, and it's unique. It's one of a kind. And I think Mike's exactly right. The answer to number five has to do with this concept of the very message itself being powerful. What is it powerful unto?

Salvation. There is no other message on the face of this earth that can bring life. Eternal life. It is the miracle. That's the miracle. It's the only message of its kind. It is unique, one of a kind. It is powerful unlike any other message. Because it has the power to save. Right?

It says in 1 Corinthians 1.18, I mentioned it a minute ago, "...the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness, but unto us who are being saved it, that is the word of the cross, is the power of God." Right? And it goes on. It's not just the cross. Romanists put the cross on top of the cathedral. Millions wear a figure of the cross around their necks, but they may have never heard the word of the cross.

As Paul says further in 1 Corinthians 1.23, we preach Christ crucified, not the cross merely, unto Jews a stumbling block, unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are saved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. It's those three things. The death, burial, and resurrection, right? We preach Christ crucified, not crossed merely. Power in the sense that this word has the power to change men's minds, change their hearts, change their views.

For those of you that were in the last class, we had which side of the cross am I on? And I think the last class we built out the complete identity of the unbeliever. And then on the other side of the cross we built out the new identity of the new man. And so all of those things that were in Adam, Because of the power of the Gospel in Christ and all the possessions that we now have in the new man, the new nature, all of our blessings are where? In heavenly places. We're not earth-minded people any longer. We're heavenly-minded people. That's where our identity is. That's where our Savior is. That's where our blessings are. That's where our mind is to be. set on things above. Right? Right? So, in talking about it that way, you should see me going, it's the power of God! I feel like I need to really get into it and preach on it, but that's what it is.

It is the one message that has the ability to bring a man to life from death. and to place him in Christ and give him an entirely new history. Something I think is true is that the salvation message is actually very simple. It takes God and the Holy Spirit to make it quick, but when you really understand the complexity of what God had to do to pull it off, I mean, it's huge. I mean, unbelievable amount of effort that God did to save us. I mean, and the gospel is simple, but if you really, as you study, study and study, it's like, man, God is doing just I can't remember where it is.

If everything had been recorded of Christ, there wouldn't be enough volumes in the world to contain it. Now, all of those works were not necessarily the work of the cross, but I often think about this, especially when we have the Lord's Table, when we talk about the bread, this bread is my body, and oftentimes what I think about are all of those things. that fulfilled the law, that were perfection, that were the God-man that we could never be.

Any man could have got up on a cross and died, but he was the sufficient substitute. And it was because of his complete and total obedience as the God-man throughout that entire 33 years that led up to that very point that made him sufficient, in addition to the fact that he was God himself. But he had to walk the paths of a man. He had to go through the temptations of man. So when I think of his life as a substitute for mine, not even volumes could contain all that could be said of him. And those are prerequisites to the cross being sufficient. So when you think about all of complexities. Our mind can't contain the ways in which the Lord has provided for us. I had a thought about this first. So many Christians get all nervous that they're going to sit down with a non-believer and what am I going to say to them? How am I going to persuade them?

And they go through gymnastics. I can remember when we were I was first to believe in the first few months running a Sunday school class out in the war and the guy says, look, if you want to be a good witness, you've got to tell your story. You've got to write it down. Oh, it's good testimony.

Yeah, all that's nonsense. And then I see this and people say, well, what am I going to say to Joe? You know, I hope he comes to Christ. So why don't you just give him a message? Because the message itself has the power. Right. It's in the words itself. That's all you need to say. And don't say anything else. There it is. There's two things that take the pressure off of I think Christianity at large has put the pressure on us. The church, especially the modern day church with all of its tactics.

I remember trying to make the perfect tract. I had 20 different tracts. I took this piece and this piece and I put it together and I was like, I think I have the perfect tract. This is going to be the one that rode to Romans or whatever it was. I dissected all that stuff and I made the perfect one. I even redid the illustrations.

I think going through Campus Crusade for Christ and some of those other ministries growing up, we were very heavily evangelical in the churches that we attended, and that's great. We were out sharing our faith through door-to-door stuff. I would go to the campus at Texas Tech, and I was Because of Crusade for Christ, we were able to go and talk to all the athletes during their off period. And so we'd go sit down with the athletes, and I was working with the chaplain, and we had this perfect I mean, we had it down.

It was good. It would have been hard to resist, I think. No, we really did work hard. So, I think things like that can put a whole lot of pressure on, and all the training that there is for teaching. And by all means, there are different approaches and different methods that can be helpful to know, right? But at the end of the day, two things I've learned to remember. A, I'm an ambassador. It's not my message.

I believe it, but it's not mine. It is God's. And thank God it is, because it's His, and by the very nature that it's His, it's powerful to save. It's the only thing that has power. Not my presentation. Not my slick track. It is His power to save, and it is found in that message alone. And so Mike's completely right. You don't have to say anything else. It's God's testimony concerning His Son. It is. And you, if you believe, it's your testimony too. Right? And I think that leads us right into this next question.

How is God's righteousness revealed in the Gospel? How is God's righteousness revealed in the Gospel? What is righteousness? Justice. Justice. What is justice? Right. Right. How do we see this? Give me justice being carried out. Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross. Why is that just? Because God made the decision to save us. So we're talking about righteousness. What's the attribute? Holiness, right? Holiness. He's holy. And because he is holy, everything he does is right. Everything he does is just. one from guiding and have him sweep something under the rug like Allah does.

You can't go die in Jihad and just get your free pass. Death is the consequence of sin and you will surely experience all three parts of death without payment. Those three parts of death that were a consequence of that sin. Spiritual death, Right? Physical death and eternal death.

That's separation. Spiritual separation from God. Physical separation from your body. Eternal separation from God. If you stay in your dead state. Right? Separated state. So, God is right in... Would God be just in allowing us to all die in our separation? Would that be just? It would be. It would be just for Him because He gave us the choice. We made the choice. The consequence is the consequence. We now are born with the consequences of that choice.

That's the sin nature. Is He just in condemning the sin nature? And the sins that it produces? Yes, absolutely. He would be just. So on the one side we have God being a just and a holy God. who would be perfectly just to let us all remain separated for eternity from Him. It's the consequence of our own sin. But God is not just just, or holy, He's also what?

Love. He's love. So, you think of it on a balance scale, He's not more holy than He is loving, and He's not more loving than He is holy. A lot of denominations, versions of Christianity, have God being either more loving than He is holy, or more holy than He is loving. But He's in perfect balance there. And the cross is the exact reason why. Yes, Eddie? Isn't He in grace too?

Okay. Grace comes out of love. Oh. Sorry. That's okay. You're thinking through it. That was perfect. Yeah. Just as justice and righteousness come out of His holiness, grace comes out of His love. His grace cannot be demonstrated unless his righteousness has been satisfied. Right. Grace requires both. You can't divide God up in this way. So when we think about Sergei Louis, for those of you who were here last year, my acronym for his sovereignty, his righteousness, his justice, So what is it? Justice? Love? Omnipotence? Omnipresence? What's the other omni? Omnipotence? Omnipresence? Omniscience? Eternality? Immutability?

You can't divide God up into all those pieces. He's all those things equally at the same time. But I think the cross really is the perfect picture of God's perfect balance of holiness and love. So when we say, how is God's righteousness revealed in the gospel, how much do you answer that now? How is His justice satisfied? How is his righteousness revealed in the death of Christ on the cross, his burial, his resurrection?

Because sin is condemned. Okay. And his holy throne is revealed as holy. Righteous. He didn't spare his own son. He what? He did not spare his own son. Believe it or not. As a judge, how does he, based on the gospel, how does he judge? You were guilty. The unguilty took your sin, and I've always allowed for a sufficient substitute to pay in your stead, right? He allowed it for the Israelites through the hand placed on what? A lamb. And the lamb died in place of the guilty sinner.

So here you see God as judge saying, I'll allow a sufficient substitute, but the only sufficient substitute to take away man's sin is me as the God-man dying on the cross. It is in my triunity that I have to satisfy this problem. and ensure that justice is completely and 100% paid for. The penalty is death. There must be a death, but it must be a perfect death to satisfy the law and the very nature of God's justice, right?

So here, Christ dies on the cross. Is that all? Because at that point, what happened? At the moment he died, what did God say? It is finished. The debt has been paid. Is it available to you? Not yet. God's justice, at the end of that cross, once that end is finished, and that last bit of blood was shed, God's justice was satisfied about sin.

But because of His love, He not only was buried, but He was raised. Which is a power, we talked about, like no other power. Greater power than what even brought the world into existence. The power of the resurrection. That's the love part. Right? He didn't remain crucified. He was resurrected. He was resurrected for us. Do you see God's righteousness revealed in that? I mean, you share the gospel and you think about all that's packed in there. You're going to spend the rest of your life learning about the gospel itself because it's connected to every other portion of the scripture.

You know what I mean? And at the end of the day, we talked about this in the last class, the same way that you came to faith is how you now live by faith. It's the exact same way. So every moment that you choose to trust God about something that's true of you because He said it is, is the same attitude that you had when you came to know Him in the first place. It's faith. Once, a lot of times people think, well, you know, the power of the gospel and, you know, I believed and I'm on this honeymoon ride, you know, and things are awesome because it is.

I'm saved now and I believe it. And then all of a sudden I got to start walking by faith and I don't know, I'm like, oh, how do I do that? And I start to, give me some spiritual growth books, you know. And we think about, what do we give new believers? What does Michelle need right now? She's a brand new baby believer. What does she need?

Patience. From a long-term standpoint, And when you know Him, you can trust Him. You learn to know Him. You start getting acquainted, right? But what can be encouraging, and what has been discouraging for probably most of us, in terms of once we became saved, we got through that honeymoon period, we're like, okay, rubber meets the road, this stuff's hard.

And I don't know how to grow spiritually very well, so I'm in there trying to find anger. I'm looking in the Accordance for Anger. I'm trying to find all the verses that will slay my anger problem. It's like, if I just say these things, or read these things, they'll fix my anger problem.

Anybody ever done that? We've done that, haven't we? Yeah, but it takes such a load off to realize that I am going to spend the rest of my life now getting to know the righteousness revealed in this gospel, and who He is. And it all is by faith. The same kind of faith that saved you in the first place. It's not a different kind of faith. It's just a different bit of content. Right? It's just new information about the same person that you believed in the first place. Now you're believing how it applies to you. You have a new history. You gotta believe you have a new history?

It's gonna take some time. And patience. Because along that whole line is you getting acquainted with you. Right? You got to see that sin nature run its course a little bit to realize it's not capable. You can't do a little half and half deal. A little bit of faith, a little bit of me.

We talk about that with the kids, don't we? That was a lot of dad today. Or that was a lot of Addie. You know what I mean? And we're like, yeah, that was our sin nature. We know exactly who those guys are and they're not welcome. I make people laugh. Yeah, you do. We have to learn every aspect.

The death salvation that I believe in. Does it cover everything? And I think the Lord tries your faith to prove to you that He does cover everything. And so that's why you have circumstances where, well I know I'm saved, but how about this issue or that issue, whatever your issue is, and you're not really sure, which means you're not trusting God by faith. the totality of His salvation, that work of the cross. So you have to learn. You have to learn that it does. It covers every possible nuance that would ever come up in your life in terms of sin. Do you believe it? That's what we end up asking ourselves the rest of our life.

I think of Hebrews 4.12.

The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the thoughts and intents of the heart. That's what truth does. It gets down deeper and it has the ability to get into a spiritual place of our life that no other message does, right? That's what it was designed to do. That's where intimacy is too. Yeah, I agree.

It was such a heartache to hear that Matt had the brain tumor that took him home. Those are hard. He's got a wife and little children. That's where the trust comes in. No matter what our circumstances are, God's faithful. It is tough. And is there a place for sorrow in a believer? Yeah. Things hurt.

When we lose, it hurts. God designed us to feel that way. Not to feel hurt, but to have the capacity to know what loss is. And it was not His intention, but He allows us to experience that loss. And it is okay to grieve and to have sorrow. On the backside of those physical and outward emotions is that relationship and intimacy with Christ over the matter. And a lot of times the first response is often pretty sin nature based. First response is, this hurts, this is wrong. And it is. When we lose someone, we're encountering something that's not just in our mind. It's not right that someone not be with us. That's how we feel.

Just as salvation, I think, goes against every grain of the sin nature, Even as believers as we grow, seeing the loss of loved ones, and seeing injustice in the world, it continues to go against the grain. This world is still under the curse of sin, right? And that pains us as believers to see those things happen. And it's wrong. It's not right.

Yeah, Christ wept even though he had the power to raise Lazarus. Yeah, but to your point, it's in those quiet moments where God's Word divides soul and spirit and settles your heart on a matter and you trust Him about it that that growth begins, right? And those opportunities to get to know Him in ways that you wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise. So, that was a long answer to Number six, let's see if we can segue some of seven into that.

On what principle is God's righteousness revealed? That's a pretty simple question. On what principle? I'll give you a hint. It's one of these four things. Faith? Yes! Good job, Addy. Alright, number eight. We did talk about that just now a lot. Let's look at number 8. Notice in verse 18 that Paul uses the word for the fourth time. Read them together. I'll read this for you.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness." That last four kind of takes us into some of the stuff we've been discussing here, but really sets us up for question nine. Has God's wrath already been revealed? So what does it mean? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Let's deal with wrath of God against ungodliness and unrighteousness.

It might help us understand the wrath of God being revealed if we first understand what is ungodliness and unrighteousness. Unbelief. Okay, absolutely. What else can you say about it? Ungodliness is directly disregarding God, what He has revealed. And they knew it, and they suppressed the knowledge, I think it says. What about unrighteousness? The core is, God calls me ungodly, so I'm not like Him.

Right. And I disregard Him. That's right. By my own choice. I'm not like Him because I choose to not be like Him. That's right. And I'm unrighteous because I am ungodly. Right. I have no relationship with God because I'm ungodly. The nature of all of my acts are unrighteous because I am ungodly. And it says because of that, God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all of it. And those two terms sum all of sinful man up. So, the cross delivers a believer from the wrath to come. How? What did he deliver on the cross? I'm going to read. Maybe we can spin off of this a little bit.

He used the law to prove man's enmity against him. It worked wrath. It caused the offenses to abound. It developed the motions of sins. It brought death. It was the strength of sin. Does that make sense? The law brought strength to sin. I never thought of it that way, but I like that. It deprived the sinner of all power. It slew him. It was condemnation. It cursed all who had to do with it. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. And all this, not because of any defect in the law, but because of man's total inability to keep it."

So that's the first part. We see the law bringing condemnation and wrath to men. Number two, Israel's distinctive calling is to earthly blessings. In other words, You do this, you get this. You don't do this, you're going to get spanked. Had they been obedient, wealth, power, fame, and prosperity would have been the tokens of God's approval of their ways, but their disobedience, their idolatry, and especially their rejection of the Savior They may have come under the inflections of God's wrath, and that wrath has been manifested against them in all the heavy temporal judgments which have overtaken them.

We refer now to God's dealings with them nationally in His providential government of the earth. As individuals they are, of course, in common with all men, amenable to eternal judgment, and if not saved by grace through faith, that judgment will result in eternal ruin." Obviously the curse of the law is a portion of God's wrath. God's wrath being poured out on the rejection of Israel because of their rejection of Him.

There were curses and so we see that in many ways having already been poured out but yet so much more to be from a future perspective still yet to be experienced. As far as this verse goes, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

That last part, what does the word suppress mean? Hold it down. That's right. So I have an illustration that I've used for you guys. Do you remember it? In class? Oh yeah. Alright, well tell us what suppress means, or to hold down the truth and unrighteousness. It's a jack in a box. Oh, like a jack in a box. Yep.

God says, I've revealed myself. He says, I've revealed myself. It goes on to tell us how he's revealed himself, so that everyone is without excuse, his divine nature and eternal attributes. But because they know those truths, and because they have God created conscious, they can spiritually understand that those are true. They at least know those things, because those are the very truths that will condemn them without faith. to salvation. So, an unbeliever suppresses the truth and righteousness. Here's the word of God, it says, I'm a... I'm... I... How does it say? I don't want to misquote.

For since creation of the world, his invisible attributes and his eternal... The jack-in-the-box pops up and says, you know about my eternal power and my divine nature. You cannot escape it. And the unbeliever says, nope. And he tries to hold the thing down. Yeah, Addie? I'll feel like an alarm clock. He just keeps snoozing it. That one works probably better than Jack in the Box.

I like the idea of this guy trying to stand on the Jack in the Box and he forgets every now and again and that thing just pops back up and he just can't get it out of his head that God exists and that he's a creation and that God is the creator. But I think that I like to remind myself that no one There's not a human being in this world that does not know God in those two ways. And just as we did, the first things that we respond to that with are, not now, no way, me, I gotta think about this. And you just keep pushing that truth aside.

But, when it is believed, what is made way for? We talk about this in mission work a lot. We've read and heard of tribes that had revelation from even the time of early creation. Times after Babel, races were split and divided and people were spread out all over. There are groups that have never encountered a single civilized man and they had oral traditions of creation stories that were exactly like the Bible, with their own names. And here, we often say, they are those that believed those, and the gospel message made it to them. When these divine attributes and eternal power, when those are accepted by a person, that doesn't save them.

They still need the gospel message, don't they? But these have to be, these are prerequisites to that, if you will. And then would you say in that instance it's God's responsibility to get the gospel to him? I believe so. I do. I also think that if a man believes that God exists and he's thankful, no matter where he is on the planet, God will get the salvation message to him somehow. And it's his responsibility to do it.

Well, I got buzzed. We better pray. Father, we're so thankful that you got the gospel message to us and that we can experience the very power of your gospel message, the truth of not only your death, burial, and resurrection, but ours. And the fact that, as we often talk, it was very crowded on the cross that we were there with you in the tomb and in your resurrection. We have been identified, given a new history. And Lord, it is our desire and our hope that we would continue to, as the Word divides soul and spirit and gets into those deep places of our heart. Lord, we pray that your word would do that for each of us and that we would continue to desire to know you and ultimately, Lord, walk by faith according to those things that you teach us so that we might experience the new life that we have. I'm just so thankful for your love for us that you're not only holy and just but you are loving and gracious and that you're perfectly those at all that you are. We just thank you for it. It's in your name we pray. Amen.