Faith Lesson 13 week 3

We are on lesson 13. I believe we made it through question 6 last week. So we are on question 7, lesson 13 of the faith class. And also hopefully you've got for next week, Mike mailed out lesson 14. So we'll have lesson 14 probably by next week, depending on how far we get this week. So, question 7, and this is kind of following in verse 9, Romans 7, 9. Is verse 9 true? And I'll read it, Romans 7, 9.

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. So, is this verse true? I thought that was a great question. Strangely enough, this is the only verse in the Bible that is not true. Is that correct? This is the only one. Sorry Mike, that question. This should be not a hard answer. Should not be hard. Anybody think this is not true? Yeah, we're real easy.

We're gullible. So, again, this is Paul talking in Romans. I was once alive apart from the law, and when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. Remember what we talked about last week, what this means, what does death mean? Separation. So Paul said he was alive, which when you look at it, he is a believer. He's going through the struggle of trying to do it on his own. Romans 7 is, I think, a classic one for us to look at as if we try to do it by ourselves, by the flesh. This is what happens, you'll see, and it's very, I think, we can all identify with that, the struggles that we go through. So, when he says, I'm alive, and then he says he died, what did we talk about last week? What did that death, that separation mean? It wasn't that he lost his salvation. What did we talk about? What did it mean?

Fellowship. Fellowship. Thank you. I thought we were going to have to go through all the questions again from last week. Need more coffee for you people. Yeah, it meant fellowship. It means he was separated from fellowship. So, I think the question was also, six was the one, no, maybe it was coming up. Maybe we got to that.

So, would that be different for us? Would it be different for us if we fall back into trying to do works, trying to do things under the law? Would it be different for us? No. No. Same for everyone. Same for us. When we try and do things in the flesh, if we try and be law-based, which is flesh-based, when we do that, we're turning away from Christ and the fellowship. And we are separated from that when we try to do things. And again, if you read Romans 7, it's very, very demonstrative of what the results will be. He tries, and we'll get to it a little bit later, about how he tries. He wants to do it. He really is trying. He'll want to do it, but he can't. And so again, it's very good.

And then the beauty of Romans 7 is you get to Romans 8 if you understand what he's talking about in Romans 7. I went on in here, if we look, so about verse 9, if you look at Romans 14.23 about sin and those things, Romans 14.23, and whatever is not from faith is what? Sin. Remember what our definition of faith is? The essence of faith? What is it? The reality of God, the things of God. Faith is not based on us, the essence of it.

When you look at the Hebrews 11.1, it's the reality of the things of God. So things apart, if we're talking about faith, faith is the things of God. So anything that's not of that, not of God, is sin.

Yeah. I was thinking today. Oh, there you go again. I'm nervous again. Here you go thinking again. About how you talk about resting in Christ and it all starts there with rest. It's like when you try and do something on your own, there isn't rest there. There's like anxiety and there's discouragement, and there's all those things.

So I can see why God would want us to start from rest, because otherwise you get like test anxiety. Test anxiety. Erica's going through that with testing out the schooling she's going through. It's test anxiety. Right, so it's kind of like, I can see how it would be so important to start from a place of rest.

It always starts with faith in the things of God. Whatever is not of faith is sin. So faith is the things of God. And that's where, you know, again, we've talked about it many times. Can you get any rest from the world? No. And I don't like metrics, because once you're in metrics, it becomes law-based or flesh-based. I think the things, though, He gives you rest when you're depending upon Him, when you have faith. you don't have rest. So, like I said, if you're in, you don't have rest, you don't have that thing, through trials, through all those things, are you depending upon Him?

And I know it gets to be very repetitious and I don't think a lot of people understand, but I think, you know, as I was saying, it begins with the intimacy with Him. If you can trust Him, Christ, you can then trust what He said. Well, if you trust what He says, Again, the two primary things that the Lord's been working on me is, in Him all things hold together. That means everything that goes on in the Colossians 1, in Him all things hold together, that means He's sovereignly in control. So if He's sovereignly in control, then everything that happens in your life, He's allowed.

Blessings and trials. But if you link that with the others in Romans 8, the end part of Romans 8, that you cannot be separated from his love. And if you read all those things, he goes through a laundry list of everything you can think of that separates you from his love. It can't be. There's no exception. There's not a clause that says, oh, but if you do this, you're going to be separated. Nothing like that. So I just think if you understand those two, it begins with intimacy, union with him, and then you trust him that he's in control and he loves you.

Then you can get to all these other verses that you have. The one that always has been in my mind, one of the few that I memorized early on, was the James one. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect result. You may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. But it's the testing of your faith. You consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter trials.

What? How do you do that? How do you do that? Well, he's in control, okay? So when you come upon a trial, can you have rest? Even though it could be tough, it could be hard, I'm not saying that you just, you know, I have some talks and I get, well, am I supposed to be just joyful during, you know, a trial? No, you don't, you know, you're not like, hey, bring it on.

But you understand that the Lord is in control. And you get the rest, the joy, the peace, knowing that he's in control. It stems from, first, this is believers, understanding who he is and the intimate knowledge of him. Then you can trust him. So these things that are said, now you can trust him. knowing, too, that he's using whatever it is to conform you to the image of Christ. Exactly. See, and that's when you start understanding that.

So when you go through a trial, is he just beating the tar out of you because he likes it? No. Put it in the verses, all these things. This is at the end of the class. I've got a whole list of things I want to go through when we get done with the stuff about these truths. If you understand them, they are amazing truths that he's told us. And when you, by faith, trust him, you begin to understand these things. That when you go through a trial, it's to conform you. And I always say, you know, when you point, like, he's working on that person, well, the three back at me. And he's using all these circumstances on you, on me, on everybody around you. For patience. Everything. All kinds of stuff. So when you go through a trial, you know, it hurts, it's hard. I'm not saying that it's not hard.

But underlying, you have a peace and rest that the world does not have. Well, it brings you closer to God, I think. Dependency. He could be doing it only to bring you to dependency upon Him. Yeah, and it's wonderful to have God in your corner because when you're down and out, you know, you get peace from that. I don't know how you get through this world without Him, to be honest. You know, is that the rest and peace that you have in Him, I'd hate to be in this world without Him.

I mean, there's no hope. There's no rest. There's no peace. I mean, you see what goes on, you know, the thing in Tennessee. As a believer, I understand that it's a horrible thing in a worldly perspective, in a personal perspective for those families.

But did God know about that? Did He allow it? Yes. I don't understand all His purposes. He may be dealing with that community. He may be dealing with ten people there. He may be dealing with a hundred people there. He may be using it for all of us. But He has His purposes, and it's not out of vindictive you know, just to inflict pain. It's for His purposes, which is to glorify the Father.

So, was there somebody else? Yeah, Clare. I just, excuse me, there's a hymn that for me really, really brings all that together, and it's, It Is Well With My Soul. Yeah. And, you know, the history of that, and the history there, it's pretty phenomenal if you think about that.

That came to me in a time See, he uses all those things. He uses all those things to work on you. At the right time, he's in control. His desire is for you to have union with him. John 17. He wants intimacy with you. He's doing everything he can to bring you to him for that intimacy, that fellowship.

Not like what Paul did here when he turned to the flesh, you lose that fellowship. I don't think that trials are the thing that cause you to grow. I think what trials do is they force you to go to the Lord. And when you're there as you behold Him, then you're conformed. You're not conformed by the trial. The Bible is brought to you so that you will go and deal with Him and behold His glory and that's... His glory is what transforms us, not the circumstance. Yeah, it's parsing the process. I mean, it's the process that He uses to conform you.

The actual conforming doesn't happen via the process. It's not like going to the gym and lifting weights and I'm going to get spiritual muscles. It's not like that. No, but consider knowing that the testing produces endurance, so there's a process there. And the trial is what starts that process off. Let me throw another thing in here. The spiritual growth from a position of rest or a position of anxiety... Rest. The rest is that no matter what's happening trial-wise, I'm able to rest in the person of the Lord Jesus. And the Spirit of God conforms me to His image.

He doesn't toughen me up to deal with the trial. No, it's what Monique says. It's to put you to dependency upon Him. But like I said, you're parsing the process. I think the process, He uses many things. He could bless you and blessings in trials. It's not the... He uses all things to conform you. But see, you can go through, as a Christian, trials and not do the beholding part of just going through a trial. And then you didn't grow.

Right. But see, I think he uses all that. I mean, that's all the things. This is Paul. I can toughen myself up and I can get through this and try and do this on my own. But what does it get you? Oh, wretched man that I am. So I think he uses all things. That's part of the process. It's not the trial that conforms you. It's the process that he uses to get you to him and dependency upon him.

Let's look at Romans 5.20.

Again, the law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Again, when he started doing all this and trying to do it in sin, where Paul is saying sin increased and went crazy, grace abounded all the more. When he tried, he suddenly realized this, and at the end of Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, knowing that anything in the flesh is worthless. And when you realize that the sin increases, what do you get? More grace. And grace abounds above all sin that we can ever fall into.

The other one was Romans 3.20. These are things that, again, just talking about the law and how that, you know, a lot of people think law is, you know, the Ten Commandments or what we should be following and all that. And we get, you know, in some of these recent court even, they bring that back up about the Ten Commandments. Is the law for us as believers?

Nope. No. It's for the flesh. It's not. The Jews will have it on their heart in a millennial kingdom. But for us, there are so many things that say the law is only to incite sin. Is that for us? No. The Holy Spirit doesn't need law. No. And it's totally contrary to the reigning principle we have of grace. Totally contrary to it.

Grace is unmerited. Law is always cause and effect. If you do this, this will happen. If you do this, there's a cause and effect. Grace is not. Grace is unmerited, unlimited blessings. And so it's completely different. So law and grace, which you see lots of places in Romans, you're dead to the law. We're dead to the law. No more.

I think the Galatians 3 verse that the tutor, the law is a tutor to point us to Christ. The very next verse says, now that Christ has come, there is no further need of the law. I think it's Galatians 3, 23, 24, somewhere in there. And so again, the law was to point us to Christ and the need, but once Christ was here, we have no longer need of the law.

I think. You've been doing a lot of thinking since last Sunday, I can see. We're going to have to keep you busier. These idle moments of thinking. I think personally for me, in growth, that Part of it is explanation of why the law is there. So you can see speed limit, 55, and you go like, okay, I hate this 55, but I think maybe in maturity, I'm making this up, you understand that the law is there for protecting other people, for saving gas, for, you know, I mean, whatever they came up with, why the law is there. So I think it's more of a cooperation with God of knowing why the law is there. I know this is off, I see Mike's hand. Paul basically says, I think we did that in one of the first questions, is the law sinful? No, Paul, it says it's holy and righteous. So there's nothing wrong with the law. It's just not fair.

Let's go to your example of the speed limit. I love that one. Because in a speed limit, so speed limit is 55 miles an hour. Did my friend who just passed away, is he subject to that 55 mile an hour law? Nope. Why? Because he's dead. He's dead. So, we as believers, we are, through identification, the Roman VI truce, we've been co-crucified with Christ.

Okay, read that, it's co-crucified, so we've been separated, placed into him, Galatians 2.20 and 2 Corinthians 5.17, we're new creatures in Christ, it's Christ that we have new life.

So, we've been separated from the law. Just like my friend who passed away, he's no longer subject to that law. The law was for the flesh. Now it's not anarchy, and you read Paul too. Now that we have no law, party time, sin as much as you can, may it never be. You need law for society.

And that's for control. And what's he done? Romans 13. He's put us governments in control. So we have not anarchy. But who put him in there? Well, we don't need law for spiritual life. No. And that's the next thing I was going for. 55 miles an hour. I can't I can't find it in my Bible. That's First California in 6-2. I would say like the Ten Commandments.

The difference is between, like, don't kill other people, or respect your parents, or whatever it is, don't have any idols, but then it's a matter of why, you know? Why is that important to not have any idols? Because God's the only God, and God is truth, and God is a jealous God, and so it's kind of more of like, okay, yeah, here's the law, but it's an understanding of maybe why God would have that as law. Who fulfilled the law?

Christ. No, I would say it's totally fulfilled, it's totally dead to it, but then I'm just going another kind of... Another way to squirm law back in. Oh, no, no, no, totally not. No, and again, it's so hard for believers, but who's the only one who wants law? The sin nature. It wants to do something. The only value it has is to say, you need to do this.

Was Christ not enough? We're in Christ. If we're in Christ, if we've been Positionally put into Christ, Romans 6, all those truths that we say, if we're in Christ, does Christ need to do anything more? No. So if we're in Christ, do we need any more law?

Oh no. It seems to me we do the Ten Commandments without even knowing the Ten Commandments. If you are manifesting the life of Christ, are you going to murder? No. We're going to love our parents. We're not going to steal. We'll just do those things. You'll manifest Christ.

As somebody in Christ, if we're in Christ, does Christ do those things? And we have a lot of principles that Paul puts out there. Logical imperatives. If you are a believer, if you're in Christ, if these things are true, logically, this should be the result.

The manifestation of Christ. If you live by the law, then it's because you want to be in control. You think that you're better than the average Joe. And you're climbing higher and higher. This is, read Romans 7. That's it. Everything that you see, Paul.

Now Paul's kind of had a lot of time with the Lord, had a lot of these things. He's kind of had a lot of private time, a lot of good things, you know. And he's struggling with this because of what? He tried to do it himself. You'll see in the verses. You know, I want to do this. I desire to do this. Everything wants, but my members of my body, I can't! So, I mean, it's not that you want to be a better Joe, it's that the sin nature is the one wanting to do this. And once you realize, oh wretched man that I am, it's the flesh, it forces you back into understanding your dependency.

What is Romans 8.1? Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ. This comes right after he says, oh wretched man that I am, thanks be to God. Not man, it's Christ, no condemnation.

I think I lost my train of thought. Short train. It also gives you an opportunity to look at what other people are doing. Are they doing law? Am I better than them? Or someone, it's important for somebody to punish them because they broke the law, you know, someone enforces it and it's not God. It's not us, it's not us. what's going through my mind is that we're saved by grace and not by works less than we actually boast.

And to me, when you go to the law system and the company I work for puts a stamp on your head, you know, you're a really good reformer, you're not too bad, you're kind of bad, or you're too bad. But see, and that's where I get to, you know, it's really important for everybody to understand the identification truth, that we've been placed in, in Romans 6, we've been co-crucified, past tense, crucified and baptized into his death. Now we have new life in Christ.

Galatians 2 and 2.20 and 2 Corinthians 5.17, we have a new life. Christ lives in us. Okay? So if that's true, then everything that's true about Christ is true about us, positionally. So again, you know, do we, actually we're going to get to that, the acceptance part.

The great thing about Romans 7 is that probably, I would say more than probably, every believer is going to have a Romans 7 experience and the reason you are going to have it is because you have to learn for yourself. what the law is going to do to you, and what you're attempting to live the personal life out of your own strength. You have to learn that, and you won't learn it by just reading the verses. Paul repeats and repeats and repeats how often he was trying to go to the law, and he knew the law was spiritual, and every time sin revived and he died. Every time. You can tell me that, but I'm going to cruise through the law. So wouldn't that be a trial? It becomes a trial when I start to try to use it and I can't figure out, well, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. How come it's not working out?

This is, again, when you go and you look at all the Christian bookstores, and again, I think it's flesh-based in that they try to have programs and processes and things to make the old man better, make you look like a believer. And I have some verses at the end. It's to know Him. It's not to know the prayer of Jabez. It's not to know the purpose-driven life. It's not to know those things. Those are law-based things.

If you do this, then this. All He tells us to do is to know Him. To know Him as eternal life. That's where it is. And I go back to what Mike told me years ago, intimacy with Him. Or just read the Bible to know Him. That's what we're called to do. Not to know a process, not to know anything else.

Because as we know Him, we know who we are in Christ. And that becomes then, the more intimate we are, the more we understand that, the more we manifest Him. Because that's who we are. It's not law-based. It's because that's who we are. A dog barks because he's a dog. manifest Christ. It's who we are. It's because of who we are we manifest Christ.

And that's not a program, it's not a process, it's not a law based or works or an ABCDE. It's just intimacy with Him and knowing Him because that's who you are. Well, I don't know if this is something that you said earlier. Uh oh, I deny all knowledge.

The law tells us who we are and grace tells us who God is. Interesting. Law tells us in the flesh and in grace it's all Him. Unmerited, unlimited blessings. Interesting, good. Maybe I did say that. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't say that. No, just kidding. Yeah. One of the things that we know that God's told me he's in control of all things. He holds all things together. We just trust him.

And I think the thing that gets tricky is like if you go to Central City and during the smallpox thing, you go to graveyards. It's just five year old, four year old, three year old and just graveyards full of babies. And they invent smallpox vaccine. Nobody, you know, you know, name it. Holocaust, named Hurricane Katrina. What's going on in the Middle East right now, the beheadings.

Does he allow that? If you don't, he's not all-powerful, he's not sovereign. So he allows it. Do you understand all that? I don't understand it all. But I rest in the fact that he's in control and he's using it for his purposes. And I don't know, I fully understand, you know, I think one or somebody said, you know, well, you've got to, you know, enjoy it.

There are many times I have no clue what the Lord is doing. No clue. What did Juan just say? I'm getting back. No, I think, you know, you said, how do you do this? And I don't understand everything that goes on. I mean, there are things that go on and I just shake my head. But I have an underlying rest and peace knowing that he's in control. And that's where they consider it all joy. that you have peace and you have rest, that I don't understand what you're doing. I have no clue, but I rest. That you're in control.

And then the big picture, you know, he's using it to conform someone to the image of Christ. He's using it for his purposes to glorify the Father. To glorify the Father. He may be bringing a hundred, a thousand people because of that. He may be working, I don't know. But I rest in the fact that he is in control. We just have to trust what God's word says. What's this class? Faith. Faith. Things of God. This is personal. Thank you. So wait a minute.

This thing we were talking about and Carol set me straight about the brain, you know, my daughter passing the CB. Well, I talked to her. Actually, she didn't pass it all in one day like Nick. It was divided up, but she did pass it step by step. And then I said, now you have the brains, you have that gift from your father. But I wonder what my gift is. And she said, your gift was to give, now I'm not going to cry, to give a stable home when it was split apart.

Yeah, he uses all those. Which a lot of women do. But again, the rest in the fact that even all these things go on, he's using it. And you may not understand it, you may not know all the things that he's doing, But you rest in knowing that he's in control on these trials.

Like I said, the only thing I say through the trials, you think I just like, no, I just have rest knowing that I don't understand and it hurts, but I have an understanding that he's in control. I can get through things. And I can rejoice in the end, because usually I look back and go, oh, that's why you did it. You know, your daughter's saying that, but you didn't understand that at the time. But now you look back, At the time, it hurt, it did all that stuff, but he used it for his purposes. But I knew that God, all that time, I couldn't have made it without him. And the dependency upon him, all these things. You know, the beauty of all this is that it doesn't matter if we're rich or poor, smart or dumb. I mean, it's absolutely marvelous. Because grace is unmerited. Unmerited.

Yeah, along the same lines, you know, sometimes you don't understand why you're going through the test you are going through. but you have that peace, and you're so thankful, and it grows you closer to the Lord, that intimacy. And then finally, maybe six months later, it is with me, oh, the light turned on, and the bulb, and then there's, again, there's that intimacy, and you're just thanking the Lord for what He has done in your life, and for that testing time. He gives you the peace through it, and as you get through it and look back, He gives you joy.

And it's His time, not mine. Like I said, it may not be six months, it may be 40 years. I think of Abraham and the promise and Noah. Hey buddy, you building a boat? How many people went to him going, let's have a little psychological testing buddy. You think he wasn't tried through all that? And how many years did it take? Yeah, so I mean, but those are those things that, you know, you may not be sick in six months, it may be ten years from now. You know, I have a lot of things in my life, I look back and I thank him, it was ten years ago.

I would say that what you're describing is personal faith, and personal faith, the focus and object of personal faith is, at least initially, trust in his sovereignty, that as you grow spiritually, there's a lot more than just his sovereignty. and just trusting him in a set of circumstances, because you've learned of him, you've learned his motives, you've learned as he went through what the things of God were, all of those start to come into play. Personal faith is just to rest and trust. Rest. That's exactly it. And that's the peace.

All this is meant to do is to bring you to Him for intimacy, dependency, and that's where you get all those things He promised. Joy, rest, peace, all those things. Initial and most important steps in spiritual growth is to actually arrive at an understanding that you have a sovereign God.

He does love you. He gave His life for you and you can trust Him. Right. Like I said, the inner city is trust. You trust Him. You trust him. And once you begin to trust him, all these things that he says, and okay, I don't understand it, but I read it and I trust it. And that's as you grow spiritually, personal faith, spiritual growth, you begin to trust more and more.

And it's amazing the joy, the peace, the rest that you get from that. I mean, that's a result. We shouldn't focus on the results. It's the conforming of us to glorify the Father. But He gives us those things too. He's told us about joy, peace, rest. And that shows us who God is. Joyful, and peaceful, and restful, and powerful. Because we're in Him. We're in Him, in Christ. There's joy, peace, rest there.

I don't know if this kind of connects, but it brings to mind once up at Breckenridge after a cross-country skiing and in-depth or whatever, and there was a little boy going around saying, Papa, Papa, Papa, and then he saw his dad and he said, Oh Papa, Oh Papa, and that makes me think, you know, and that brings tears to my eyes. Well that, the reason, that's why, you know, a lot of, excuse me, the Abba Father, you know, Vern, the translation is Daddy. Do you have the intimacy to go to God, the one who holds all things together, and say Daddy?

That gives me, again, the ability to go before Him with anything, with all supplications. I can go to Him and ask for anything. And I have peace understanding that He will give me an answer. It may not be what I want, but I can go with intimate, personal, anything, anytime, anywhere, Daddy, to the God of the universe.

And He wants us to do that. That's the thing that just drives me nuts, is that people don't do that. He's requesting you, John 17, that's why I always love John 17. It just really expresses that union that He wants to share His glory with you. He wants to share the union that He has with His Father with you. What are we doing?

Anyway, that gets off topic. Is it possible to get off topic? No. Really? We might actually get a second question done. Okay, let's do eight quickly. I think we have a few minutes, five minutes. Should the focus of my attention be on how to live the Christian life? No. Okay. Number nine. There's another word there that says explain. Explain. Yeah, yeah. Explain.

Well, when you try to live like Christ, then you're in the flesh, because you are trying to do it a certain way, so all you want to do is focus on knowing Christ, and then the Christian life will be a result of that. What is the focus if I'm looking at Christian life, my Christian life? You.

How am I doing? Great. No. You know, but the focus is not on the Lord. It's on how am I doing? Do I look good to all you guys? Wait, I'm being flagged by the back row. I think of that scripture, having begun by the spirit, are you perfected by the flesh?

Like you said, we can't do this Christian life. We can't walk it out. It is impossible for us. God never said we could, and he doesn't expect us to. So it's his spirit living in us, teaching us and growing us. So we can't live it out, but he can in and through us. Yeah, everything is, you know, if we do all these things, if we try and do them in the flesh, all He said, you know, I look at just being a husband. Look at the requirements of being a husband.

Poof! Pardon the English. Ain't no way I can do that without Christ. I can't. I cannot do that. And, so should I be hopeless? No, He's given me the Holy Spirit, His Word, to know him to allow me to at least attempt, no comments over there, attempt to do that. So is my focus on knowing that I should focus on Christ the same thing as focusing on Christ? What was that? That one. Is my focus that I should know that I should focus on Christ? No. Or is it just focus on Christ?

I think Bill Clinton over here is a is or something. I was trying to decipher that one. Okay, now I understand what you're saying. Sorry I went left there for a little bit. Because if Christ is the object, then the how-to's aren't my responsibility. Exactly. But it really comes down to, in practicality, it comes down to using our will Christ, to choose God, versus to choose, oh no, I'm not looking like a good Christian in this moment. Oh no, I sinned. It's to bring the thought around to choose Christ, God. Thank you.

It's just taking the view off yourself. Right. You know, the manifestation will come as you focus on Him. But then you can't take the view off yourself. You can't do it. So it leaves you in a position of dependence on the Spirit of God to do what he says he's going to do.

I'll quickly get to what Hal Malloy had to say on this. The normal challenges offered by many sermons will be to pray more, study more, give more, to witness more, to surrender more, to minister more, to consecrate more, and to commit more, etc. In and of themselves, there's nothing wrong with any of these actions. However, these don't precede the walk, they're a result of the walk. Again, I like that. You know, if you try and do all those things to get a walk, the cart's before the horse. It's a result of our walk. It's normal, don't you think?

If you get closer to Christ, the more you know Him, The more you want to embrace him, and the closer you get, and the more you want to know, and you want to turn the page and read more and more, and you get more... I forget. It's just a manifestation of who you are in Christ. As you know him more, it's who you are. It's, again, like breathing. If you know him and you're in him, you begin to...

It's not a thought process. I always go to the thing, did Christ wake up every morning and go, God, give me the laundry list, or the kitchen list, and I'll do these five things for you today. Did he do that every day when he woke up? Why? He didn't have to. He did. He was asleep on the boat. He was asleep on the boat.

We know that. So again, it's because of who he is. That's why he did the will of the Father. It's because that's who he is. As we become intimate, it becomes the manifestation. It's not a work. It's who we are. Well, we got one and a half questions done. I don't have to worry about next week. We'll finish question 8 and we'll march on quickly next week. The spirit doesn't have numbers. If you haven't learned in our class, we go at the speed of the class rather than the speed of our schedule. We go at whatever speed the Lord takes us at. Let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you again just for the time to open up your word and to see these truths and again just our reliance on you rather than law and the flesh. And we see in Romans 7 just the result of trying to do things law-based or through the flesh. The end result is the realization of, O wretched man that I am. And again, the end of that and the position that Paul is, thanks be to God, thanks be to you, thanks be to the Lord Jesus who went to the cross willingly for us. and got us to this position where we have intimacy with you and intimate knowledge of you and been placed into your son.

And again, we just thank you that we have new life in you. And again, it's not law-based, but it's a life. It's a relationship. And we thank you that it's intimate. And you desire that. And we just thank you for you constantly wooing us to you, to have that dependency, that relationship, just to understand who you are.

And we just thank you that it's the Holy Spirit and your word that direct us. it's not in our self efforts in any way shape or form that only leads to a wretched man so we we thank you again just for your word in the spirit and we just pray for Mike in the next service as he brings forth your word again just he'll be true to your word and just to prepare our hearts to receive that we just thank you for this time in Jesus name we pray amen