morning loved ones saints that's what paul calls us that's what jesus calls us holy ones his children okay if you would please open your bibles to romans chapter two we'll actually finish up chapter two today but we're not finished with the thought remember that the thought goes from 1.18 essentially to 3.21. So we're still in his thought on the wrath of God being revealed, God's judgment on those who do not repent, who do not trust in Christ and Him alone for their salvation. So let's pray and then we'll dig into the word. Father, thank you that we can worship you with song, that we can worship you in our giving, Lord. And Father, I just pray that it has been pleasing to you, Father, that it's a sweet aroma to you. I pray now, Father, that you would put your Son on display, Lord. I pray that your Spirit would come and convict us where we need to be convicted, Lord, and encourage us where we need to be encouraged. I thank you for all that are here today, Lord, that have come. And I pray, Father, that if there are any here that do not believe in you, that do not trust your son for their salvation, that you would open their ears, their eyes, and their heart today to see the beauty and the glory of Christ. Father, I pray you would draw them unto you. Save them, Lord, with your mighty hand. Father, use your word and your spirit as a sword to pierce their soul, to see their absolute need of you. Give them the gift of faith. Give them the gift to repent. Lord, we ask this that you would be glorified. Now I ask that you would help me, Lord. I pray that you would guard my words. I pray that you would guide me. Father, I pray that you would use your word as a conduit of grace to all who hear it today. We just ask it in your name. Amen. So we've been going through a pretty tough section of Romans, and we've been going through God's judgment. And last week we looked at God's judgment part two, but we looked at how we are different as believers that we don't presume on God's goodness, that we see that his kindness has led us to repentance, that we worship the creator and not the creature. And we have conviction in our lives. And today, Paul brings us to a section where he's going to deal with the Jews. So one simple question to open up with is, what is the condition of your heart? As St. Clair Ferguson would say, are you united with Christ? Or are you just merely religious? Which one are you today? That's the question I want to give to you. Let's look at our passage. Our passage is in Romans 2. It's a lengthy passage. It's 17 through 29. This is what the word says. But if you bear the name Jew, and rely upon the law, and boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are essential being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourselves are guides to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, Having in the law the embodiment of the knowledge and of the truth, you therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, through your transgression of the law, do you dishonor God? For the name of God is blasphemy among the Gentiles because of you, just as it is written, for indeed circumcision is a value if you practice the law. But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So if the uncircumcised man observes the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, will he not judge you who, through the letter of the law and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is of which is the heart, by the spirit, by the letter. The praise is not from men, but from God." There's a ton in there, so we got to listen really fast as we go through this. So what Paul does here is he's talking to the Jew. This is what he does, right? Look at that first verse. But if you bear the name Jew, now this was something back in the Old Testament. They were Israelites, they were Jewish, they were Hebrews. And so he's specifically talking to them now, their religion that they have. And so he's going to show us, first of all, their overconfidence. Their confidence in their birthright, first and foremost. This is what they were. They were Jews by ethnicity and religion. They believed that just being born a Jew meant that they could escape the judgment of God. because of their heritage. We can kind of bring it into our time is, oh, well, I've always been a Christian because I was born into a Christian home. No, you were not always a Christian because you were born into a Christian home. So this is what they believed. They were prideful because they were God's chosen. That's what Deuteronomy 7, 7 says. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. Psalms 135, 4 says, for the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession. And Romans 9, 4, they are Israelites. And to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. And we find all of that within the Old Testament. That the Jews were a privileged people. In the Deuteronomy, it says that God set his affections upon them, not because they were a great number, but they were the smallest. But this is what God chose to do, to set his affections upon them. The problem came as they all of a sudden had a superiority about themselves. They become boastful and they were prideful because of this truth. In Zephaniah 3.11 it says, On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me. For then I will remove from your midst your proudly exalted ones. And you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. This is the pridefulness and in John 8 33 the Pharisees when talking with Jesus they answered him. We are offsprings of Abraham And have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus talking about him free now from the slavery of the law. They go so far to talk about Jesus as being illegitimate. Why should we look at you? You're illegitimate. This is the arrogance that the Pharisees had, that the Jews had. They did not consider themselves sinners. And Paul writes that in Galatians 2.15, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. They looked down upon the Gentiles. Their birthright was what was more important to them. They held on to that heritage, and they thought that heritage would exempt them from the judgment of God. And as we've read through these last pages, we know that that is not true, that all men fall short of the glory of God. So they were the ones that had the law. They had the oracles of God. They had the promises. They had the covenants. But what did they learn from the law? Listen to what Paul says in Romans 2, 70, 18. But you call yourself a Jew, rely on the law, and boast in God, and know his will, and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law. So they had the knowledge of the law. They had the tablets. They had the scribes. They had the Pharisees. They had those who taught the law. They had this knowledge. They knew that God's law was righteous. It was a righteous law in Deuteronomy 4a. And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? They were above everything else because of these righteous rules that God had given them and these statutes that God had given them. And in Nehemiah 9, 13 and 14, you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commended them and commandments and statutes and a law by Moses, your servant. Listen to how Nehemiah describes God's law, that it's right rules and true laws and good statutes. We'll find out in Romans 7 when we get there that the law is good because it comes from a good and gracious God, that it is good. But the problem came is that the law was too tough to keep. You couldn't keep every single bit of the law. It's impossible. That's why the law came in. The law came in to increase the transgression. So what? So that God's grace would abound more. That's the whole point. God brought the law to show the Jews that they couldn't live by the law, but then when you see that you can't live by the law, you see how gracious God is. It's the same thing for you and I, brothers and sisters. We look at the law, the righteous law of God, and we look at just the moral section of the law. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. And we all fall short of this. Miserably, we fall short of this. But do we see the grace of God abounding even more in that? That is what Christ is. He's that grace of God that abounds even more. So what started to happen was the rabbis started to kind of change how things are. Well, judgment's not gonna come because you're not obedient to the law. So they begin to change some things. And so the rabbis taught that learning the law was sufficient. Just learning about it, that was sufficient. That some believe that possessing the law, the scrolls, was sufficient. Oh, I have a Bible. That's sufficient, right? That's sufficient for salvation. I have one of these. I never take it off of the shelf. It's got a bunch of dust on it. But that should be sufficient. They thought they were safe because they were the one God gave the law to. They deceived themselves. They deluded themselves. They trusted more in who they were, their ethnicity, than in Christ, in Christ alone. Their trust was in their performance, their rituals, their ceremonies. Their trust was in their circumcision. That's where it was. They boasted in God by saying that we know His will. Were they really boasting in God? Or were they boasting in themselves? We look at the Pharisees. Jesus came. We learned in Sunday school that Jesus is the same today, yesterday, and forever. The Jesus that's in the Gospels that we read is the same Jesus that's now. And we see that Jesus came and he was the hardest on the Pharisees. He was the hardest on the religious people. He brought out their hypocrisy. We'll see that in just a minute. They would boast, right, the Pharisee in chapter 18 of Luke. When he's praying, oh God, I thank you that I'm not like that person. This is what I do, I tithe, I give. This is what he does. He's not boasting in God, he's boasting in himself, in who he is. But they boasted that they knew God's will, they knew what he loved and what he hated, they knew What he commanded, they knew what he required of them. But when they kept it, it was a boasting in themselves. We gotta be careful too. We have to be careful that we can be very pious, right? And we can boast in our own self. We can boast in our own knowledge of the scriptures. Oh, we can. especially in teaching and preaching. We can boast in those things, leaderships, we can boast in those things that we know so much more instead of being humbled by the word of God. This is where we should be. Paul tells us what we boast in, 1 Corinthians 1, 29 through 31, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. Do you see that? Because of God, you're in Christ Jesus. Not because of a choice you made. But because of God, you're in Christ Jesus. who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, so that it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. That is all we can boast about. We can boast in one thing, Christ and Him crucified. That is it. That is all we boast in. And what greater boasting can we have than in Christ and Him crucified? but the Jews also were instructed from the law. Listen to how beautiful the law really is. Listen to what David writes in Psalms 19, eight. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Just take for a minute as we read the next three verses, and is this what God's law, is this what God's word does for you? Psalms 119, 104, and 105. Through your precepts I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 119.30 The unfolding of your word gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. That's the beauty of God's Word It is good. It is excellent his precepts his commands his laws They give us understanding they give us insight. They give us light This is what they had they were instructed the Jews were instructed with this The Jews knew much and They had the word of God. They knew much and they were obedient very little. Does that describe you and I as we sit here today? Do we know much? But we have very little obedience to how much we know. Or are we the ones that know little but have this much obedience? Or one or the other? We can be the same as the Jews. We can know so much and so much more. How much more responsible are we going to be when we have so much more than the Jews had? We got commentaries and commentaries and commentaries. We got Greek lexicons. We got so much more knowledge. We got the New Testament and the Old Testament. We have so much more that we learn from, that we are instructed from. How much greater is your disobedience? with how much greater you know? That would be the question. They knew much, but they were obedient to very little. But what did they teach? What did they do? What did the Jews do? Romans 2, 19 and 20. And if you're assured that yourselves are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and of truth. So they were superior teachers is what they looked at them as. They were superior in their knowledge. They guided themselves, or they prided themselves in the area that they were guide to the blind. Now who were the blind? The blind essentially were the Gentiles. But they were a guide to them. We are a guide to them. But Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus calls them out, and he calls them blind guides. Listen to Matthew 15, 14. He says, let them alone. They are blind guides. Excuse me. Lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And in Matthew 23, he says, you blind guides, straining out a gnat, swallowing a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Boy, Jesus didn't mince words, did he? He wasn't very politically correct when he was talking to the religious elite. He flat out calls them blind guides, whitewashed tombs. You're dead inside. You're dirty in the cup. You were blind guides. The Jews were due to be a light to the Gentiles. They were to be this light to the world. In Isaiah 42, 6, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. Isaiah 49 6 he says it is to light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth that ends up being Jesus Jesus ends up to be in the light. He is the light to the nations You and I are to be the light We are to not put our light under a bushel. We are to let the light of Christ shine. In Philippians 2.15, Paul says that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. Question after question after question we can bring out of this sermon. Application after application we can bring out of this sermon. We are just like the Jews. In the Christian church we are no different. Does your light shine, brothers and sisters? Do you shine in a dark world? Do people know in your workplace? Do people know at your school? Do people know in your retirement that there is something different about you? Because Christ is in you. Does your light shine or do you just collage right in with everybody else? And you make no difference. We are to be the light. We're to shine in the light. Dick talked about the persecution. That's because they shine. And the darkness doesn't like the light. So what do they do? They exterminate the light. They get rid of it. That's what's going on. Same with us, does our light shine? They were not only that, but they were instructors of the foolish. They directed Gentiles that they were foolish. They thought the Gentiles were foolish people. They were teachers of children, the immature, the simple-minded. This could be Jewish children or it could be immature Gentile proselytes. that they were teachers to. But what do they really do instead? Paul begins to call them out now. And he says in Romans 2, 21 and 22, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You say that one must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You abhor idols. Do you rob temples? He brings out the hypocrisy of the Jews now. You and your birthright. You think there's no judgment for you. You have the law of God. You knew His will. You knew what He wanted. You teach all these great things. But now he brings out the hypocrisy and likewise Jesus does too. In Matthew 20, 23, three through 80 he says, so do and observe whatever they tell you. He's talking about the Pharisees. But do not work, but do not the works they do. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear, and they lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their fingers. They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love the place of honor and feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace, being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. He calls them out. Do what they say, but don't do what they do. They practice, not what they preach. Read your Bible. Pray. Come to church. Go to Sunday school. But I'm not gonna do it. Right? Preachers can do this all day and twice on Sundays. Right? They can get up there and tell you everything to do, everything you should be obedient to. But are they obedient to it? I'm sure they're in the pulpit everywhere. You probably got one standing in here. You know? Most likely. I can tell everybody what to do, but it's hard to be obedient. It really is. But Jesus calls them out. And in Luke 11, 46, and he said, woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. In 11, 39, and the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees, cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. But yet they'll preach not to be greedy, not to be wicked, but that's what they are. He brings these out. They're the ones who say don't commit adultery, and yet they commit adultery. We talked about this a little bit back. We can sit here and say, hey, don't commit adultery. You shouldn't be sleeping with somebody else's spouse. Oh, we all know that's wrong. But yeah, I'm the one saying not to sleep with somebody else's spouse, but I'm the one lusting after somebody else's woman. That's adultery. We're not to do that. This is what they did. They said these things. In Galatians 16, for even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. When we went through Galatians, we talked about that. That even those who have the law, they don't keep the law. They don't keep the law. That's what they do. So what was the result of breaking the law? What was the result? Look at 23 and 24. You who boast in law dishonor God by breaking the law. For it is written, the name of God is blasphemy among the Gentiles because of you. They dishonor God. When they break the law, they dishonor God. When they lie, when they cheat, when they steal, when they covet, when they murder, when they commit adultery, they dishonor God. When we have other gods before God, when we take the Lord's name in vain, we dishonor God. So what Paul is saying, when you break the law, when you break one part of it, you break the whole thing. And it dishonors God. Jeremiah 8, 8, 9, how can you say we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. The wise men shall put to shame. They shall be dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them? They dishonor God. They blaspheme His name. Isaiah 52, now therefore what have I here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away for nothing. Their rulers wail, declares the Lord, and continually all the day my name is despised. Ezekiel just a couple of verses but when they came to the nation verse 36, but when they came to the nation wherever they came they profaned my holy name in That people said of them. These are the people of the Lord and yet they had to go out of his land But I had concern for my holy name which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came and This is what they did. They profaned God's name. They despised God's name. They dishonored Him. Why? Because they were disobedient. Because they preached and did not practice. They broke His law. This is what they did. Every sin, brothers and sisters, every sin that you commit dishonors God, brings reproach upon His name, and is ultimately against Him. Psalm 51, four, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgments. This is David as he repents of his sin with Bathsheba. Now did David sin against Bathsheba? Absolutely he sinned against Bathsheba. Did he sin against Uriah? Sure. He sinned against Uriah, but David gets to the heart Right to the heart and he says against you and you only have I sinned He sees it. Ultimately his sin is against God and It affects the name of the Lord it brings dishonor to God Now are we going to sin? Yeah, yeah, we're gonna sin. We are gonna sin. Should we confess our sin? Absolutely. We should confess our sin. Does it dishonor God? I believe it does. That's why we have conviction. But it also honors God when we come to him and ask him to forgive us. It honors God when we see that our sin shows us our absolute need of who Jesus is. James 4 16 and 17 he puts it this way as it is you boast in your arrogance all such boasting is evil So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him it is sin That is sin even if we know the right thing to do and we fail to do it it is sin God's name was blasphemed. His name was dishonored among the Jews. We must fight, brothers and sisters, to be sure that God's name is glorified among us, that it is exalted among us, that Christ is seen superior and excellent and beautiful and majestic among us, that His name would not be profaned. Their lives did not measure up to the truth that they possessed. Simply, that's what it was. They were overconfident. Second point, quickly. They trusted in the ceremonies, the circumcision. Romans 2, 25 through 29. For circumcision is indeed is a value if you obey the law But if you break the law your circumcision becomes uncircumcision and I'm just gonna bump down to 29 But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit not by the letter His praise is not for man, but from God. So it's circumcision of value for the Jew. Yeah, it was it was I mean it was a sign of the covenant with Abraham and That's simply what it was. It was this sign that God gave him. It was a value to those who practiced the law, who kept the law. Circumcision was a symbol of God's goodness, God's kindness, God's blessing. That's what it was. It wasn't a means of salvation. It wasn't a means of not coming under God's wrath and not being a part of God's judgment. And that's what they took it as. But Paul says, but if you break the law, your circumcision was of no value. And they become as a Gentile was. Paul says in Galatians again in 5.3, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. Now, in Galatians, keeping that in the context, right, we have to remember that the Judaizers were coming down in the Galatia, right, and they were saying that, yes, you need Jesus, you need him to die for your sins, you need him totally, but you also need the Mosaic law. And that was contrary to the gospel. That was preaching another gospel. And so that's what Paul is saying. If you're going to accept circumcision, then you're obligated to keep the whole law. You're putting yourself back under that law of perfection is what you're doing. So circumcision didn't matter is what Paul is saying. It doesn't matter. if you're circumcised or if you're not circumcised. And he brings these to the forefront. He says if you break one part of the law, you break all of it. Paul adds in verse 26 and 27, excuse me, that if a man keeps the law, then God will view his own circumcision as circumcision. That's what he says. So that's the question he brings to him. Well, okay, so if you're circumcised and this guy's uncircumcised and you break the law, then what about this guy that's uncircumcised that keeps the law? What happens with this guy? He's proving a point that circumcision and uncircumcision doesn't matter. But what matters, this is what we gotta look at. What matters is the circumcision of the heart. This is what God's after. And this is what he's coming to the Jews with. He's saying this is what God wants. He doesn't want the flesh to change. He wants the heart change. It's not the cutting off of this part of the body. But it's the heart being circumcised. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. So he's going after the heart. This is what God's going after. And this is what Paul's going after. He finally gets to this point down here. It's about the heart. It's not about your heritage. It's not about what you know. It's not about what you teach. It's not about what you're instructed. It's about the heart. Where is your heart when it comes to God? That's what needs to change, not the outward behavior. The inward behavior needs to change. And only God can change the inward behavior. Your religion, your religious acts will not change the heart. He says in Deuteronomy 10, 16, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart. and be no longer stubborn. Deuteronomy 36, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Galatians 6.15, for neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. This is what matters. is the new creation, the new heart. Ezekiel says that God will take out the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. That's what it is. Now what about you? How about us? We see all the religious things. Hey, we have ceremonies too, don't we? We do. We have ceremonies that we do. We can be over, what's the word I'm looking for? We can be overconfident in our religiosity as Christians, right? Oh, we preach the word verse by verse. Forget that topical stuff, right? Confidence. We sing hymns. We sing from the psaltery. We sing only psalms. That's what we do. This is the outward. that we take our pride in and we forget about Christ. And it's about what we do. Are you trusting in your birthright because you were born into a Christian home? Is that what you're trusting in? Are you and I prideful in knowing that God chose us? Do we parade around, I'm a Calvinist, because God chose me. Do we get puffed up? No, listen, I'm gonna say this one time. If you believe in the doctrines of grace, you should be the most humble person in this building. Because you understand that you were totally depraved. You could make no choice for God. You understand that truth. And you understand it had to be God who picked you out of the muck. Who delivered you out of the pit of hell. and that Christ's death is for you, and that His grace is irresistible, and it's Him and Him only that preserves you. It is Christ alone, it is scripture alone, it is faith alone, it is grace alone, nothing else. It's not your baptism, it's not your communion, it's not your attendance at church, it's not your attendance at Sunday school, it's not your teaching, it's not your preaching. It's none of that. It's Christ and Christ alone that we trust. You and I can have much in common with the religious because we can become puffed up and arrogant. Oh, I'm a Baptist. Oh, I'm a Reformed Baptist. I'm a Presbyterian. I have superior theology. You know what we need to have in common? We need to have in common is the one that was on the cross. that cried out to Jesus and said, remember me, the thief. Tell me one thing. What denomination was the thief? Did he ever have communion? Was he ever baptized? Did he go to seminary? Did he say a prayer? Did he walk an aisle? He didn't do any of that. God chose him. That's why he responded. It wasn't anything about that. And we take so much pride, brothers and sisters, in our religiousness instead of taking pride in who our Savior is. It's not about denominations. It's not about religion. You and I have to check our hearts always. 1 Corinthians 13 says to continually examine yourself, to see if you're in the faith, to see if Christ is in you, to see if you pass the test. That's what it is. We have to examine our own motivations for why we do what we do. You see, the Jews did it, and that's what Paul's bringing out, their motivation. You do all these things because you think they save you. It's the same thing, brothers and sisters. Our preaching, our teaching, our coming to church, our going to Sunday school, our being baptized, our taking communion, taking special classes, taking seminary classes. Those aren't the things that save us. It is Christ who saves us it is Christ who saves us from this wrath of God that is being revealed It is Christ who saves us from himself Because he is the judge who will come and he will judge the quick and the dead and he will judge righteously It is him that we turn to So I ask this question as we close brothers and sisters Does your behavior and my behavior do they hinder the work of Christ? Or do they further the kingdom of good gospel? Is God's name blasphemy among the unbeliever because of your life? We are to live lives that do not bring shame to God I We are to live lives that bring glory to Christ and him alone. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word and for our time. Pray that you would seat it deep in our hearts, Lord. Lord, if there's any ill religious things within Faith Bible Church here, Lord, please bring them out, that we would be a body, Father, of believers that trust in Christ alone for our salvation. Father, help us to be those who have a motivation of doing good works because we are saved. Lord, that we come to church, that we preach your word, that we teach your word, that we participate in communion because we are saved, not to be saved. Father, I thank you that we are those that because we are in Christ we escape the judgment of our sin because you have laid the iniquities of us all upon him. Father, I praise you and I thank you that we no longer as your children stand condemned because Christ was condemned. Father, I thank you for the preciousness of the gospel. And I pray that Faith Bible Church here, Lord, would be those who live it out, being merciful and gracious, compassionate, that, Lord, we would truly see others' need of you, and we would share the glory of Christ in his death on the cross. Father, please, I just beg of you that we would trust in nothing but Christ. Amen.