Open your Bibles back to Micah chapter 6. We're making our way through the book and we find ourselves now at the third cycle or oracle, if you will. I've mentioned that before. Once you find chapter 6, we'll look at verse 1 just by way of introduction. It says, Here now what the Lord is saying. Look back to 3.1, just a few pages back in your Bible. Notice 3.1 says, And I said, Hear now, heads of Jacob, the key verb to hear or listen. Go back to chapter 1 verse 2. And you'll see the same idea there. It says, Here, O peoples, all of you, listen, O earth. So those are the three beginnings of what we call these three cycles of what we have termed judgment and salvation. You can expand salvation beyond to restoration, hope. And we spent a lot of time in Chapter 5 especially looking at the future ministry of the Messiah to his people. and the future reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, even that famous verse Micah 5, which we see quoted in Matthew as part of the Christmas story. So now we're shifting gears a bit away from the Messianic sections and we're into another section of judgment and hope. Just to review a little bit, I haven't mentioned this in about a month, but just to kind of let you know the method that we're, by the Lord's grace, hopefully trying to do to please the Lord as we look at this text. Our method here basically is to go back historically and look at the text and try to discern as best we can exactly what the text is saying in the context in which it was written. And from that, we extract and learn timeless truths because we know that God is the same. He was the same 2,700 years ago during the ministry of Micah as He is today. We know that people are the same. Our biggest need is salvation. Our biggest need is fellowship with God. God reveals Himself to us in His Word just like He did during this time. So we go back and we look at God's dealings with Israel and Judah. and things will reveal about himself in these broad categories, his holiness, his sovereignty, his forgiveness, his salvation, all these wonderful truths. We look at man and his problems, his sin, his rebellion, his idolatry, his corruption, both religious and political corruption, which was certainly a key thing here from around 750 to 700 BC during Micah's time. And from that we can take great encouragement and learn so much about the Lord and about our relationship with Him and all the blessings we have and how faithful and dependable and how trustworthy He is. So hopefully the goal is always, even as we look into the minor prophets, is that we are conformed more when we leave tonight to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ than we were before we came this evening. Let's pray together specifically about the message. Dear Father, we're so thankful for Micah's ministry. Lord, around 2,700 years ago, during very difficult times, times of impending judgment through invasion. Lord, great distress through political corruption and religious corruption, through people using their power to take advantage of others. And Lord, in the midst of that, You use Micah to tell of Your future salvation, even Your future King, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Messiah and Shepherd. And Lord, we know that Your Word has been given to us and preserved, and Lord, thankfully even translated in a language we can understand and made easily available to us who have the opportunity to read and to even purchase a copy of the Scriptures inexpensively. And so, Lord, we come to Your Word tonight, to Your text. Lord, help us to grow spiritually by it. Help us to pay attention to the very words that You have breathed out that are authoritative. Lord, help us to learn more about You. And Lord, to be changed to be more like the Lord Jesus. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. When I was in seminary a good while ago, I had Pastor Mazak for a biblical counseling class and he gave us a little project, I don't know if you still do this, where you call counselors in the area, do you still do that in your class? Okay. So he gave us an assignment to call You know, people who counseled in the area with different backgrounds and tried to learn a little bit about what they did. And so I called a guy, and I can't remember how I got his name, maybe in the phone book or something. And I called a guy, and he was a Roman Catholic gentleman. He wasn't a priest, but he was a counselor. He tried to help people that came to him. And I was talking to him and having a nice conversation with him and trying to scribble some notes down, and he made a comment that I'll never forget, and that's why I use it in the illustration tonight. He basically said, yeah, you Protestant guys have it easy, you Protestant preachers, you know, you have Sunday service and you go home with your wife and have lunch. And what he was trying to point out to me is that the Roman Catholic priests are not allowed to marry. They must be celibate. And so he's trying to point out to me that I, as a Protestant preacher of the gospel, had an easy life. It's not as rigorous, and I have a wife and a family and things like that. And it kind of made me just do some more research on the whole idea of, for the last thousand years or so, the Roman Catholic Church requiring its priests to be unmarried. And part of that doctrine is that remaining unmarried is superior to marriage. And we've had illustrations, and Pastor Greg has talked about it, and Pastor Ward and different ones at different times talked about it, especially we saw during the Middle Ages, you know, the doctrine divided up between the secular and the sacred. You know, you could, if you were a priest or a nun or a monk or something like that, you were, quote unquote, doing God's work. If you were a bricklayer or a carpenter or something, that wasn't as important or something like that. And there's this whole emphasis on externals. and this emphasis on ritual. And obviously, as Bible believers, we do care about externals, and hopefully our motives are correct for having any kind of concern about what we consider external things. But we need to think about, do the things we do externally, like coming to church, or reading our Bible, dropping a check in the offering plate, or going to see someone who is sick, or making a meal for someone. Do we do those things trying to earn God's favor, trying to be more holy, or do we do those things as a result of our holiness, as a result of our justification, as a result of our sanctification, as a result of our love for Christ. It gets right down to motivation. Why do we do what we do? And those are the exact questions that Micah answers for us 2,700 years ago. And it's very interesting because Micah is basically showing us a courtroom scene in which God is not only the judge, but God is a prosecuting attorney, and God is presenting evidence in this case. And Israel is asked to plead their case and present their evidence. And the whole issue here is this idea of empty religion. Now, the word empty doesn't occur in the text, but I think you'll see as we go through and look at the key words, It'll be clear to you that the Lord's problem with Judah, with Israel, the whole issue here is, is not that they were not religiously active. And it's not that they weren't religiously busy or doing things that appeared religious on the outside. But in the Scripture reading, as John read for us all the way to verse 8 in chapter 6, which is a very famous verse in the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, the Lord gets down to what true religion is. And so tonight what I'd like for us to do is look at the first seven verses of chapter six leading up to verse eight, and we'll try to cover verse eight in a couple of weeks in detail, just devoting a whole message to that one verse. And I want us to see this evening that God condemns empty religion. He was doing it 2,700 years ago. And He's doing it today as well. First of all, what's the first thing the Lord does here in this legal setting, this forensic setting, if you will? The Lord first makes His case against His people. Let me read verses 1 and 2 again. Hear now what the Lord is saying. Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Listen, you mountains, to the indictment of the Lord and you enduring foundations of the earth. because the Lord has a case against His people. Even with Israel, He will dispute." Now, the first thing you'll see here after the injunction to hear, which is the beginning of our third cycle, if you will, of judgment and salvation. Notice in the first phrase in verse 1, he's saying, hear now what the Lord is saying. This is the Lord's Word that Micah is communicating. The Lord is a judge, the Lord is a prosecution here. The Lord is bringing the irrefutable evidence in this case, this courtroom case, if you will. Then the first command we see in the second part of verse 1, it says, Arise and plead your case. And the word arise here Basically, the Lord is telling them, listen, stand up and get ready to speak, is how one commentator explained it. Israel is to prepare to defend herself in court. Now, obviously, at this point, after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C., it's primarily Judah, but we're using Israel as well, because obviously they're There are refugees from Israel into Judah, and sometimes we see some interchanging, but the focus here is on the southern kingdom, because the northern kingdom at this point is no more. What are they to do? They are to rise, get ready to speak, stand up, prepare to defend yourself, and then the Lord commands them to plead their case. And then the Lord calls these inanimate objects as witnesses. The mountains and the hills are called to witness against them. And this is because they were even witnesses when the Lord made the covenant with Israel in 1400 B.C. in Deuteronomy, which is 700 years before this time we're looking at tonight. The mountains and hills being called as witnesses show the severity of the judgment. It also shows the enduring and significant nature of this because the Lord is showing Israel that His dealings with them have been from long ago. So even creation itself is called to witness. They're commanded to plead their case after they're commanded to arise, which again is a scene of justice. Look in verse 2. The Lord says, You mountains, to what? The indictment of the Lord, another legal term. Indictment speaks of a dispute, a legal case that the Lord has against them. Comes from the same root that the word case, if you see the word case there in verse 2 is related to the word indictment. And notice that the Lord's case is against His people. Not just anyone, but the people He made a covenant with in 1400 B.C. His people whom He redeemed from bondage in Egypt. His people whom He gave the law. His people whom He has cared for and done everything for them. And that's the whole issue here. is they have not been obedient. They have rebelled against the Lord and have been for generations and now it's all coming to a head. Now notice also that the Lord in the last phrase of verse 2, even with Israel he will dispute. Once again, the language of a covenant lawsuit used elsewhere in Scripture. So here we have all these words that I have displayed for you up here that have this idea of a legal case and the Lord is the one bringing the case. Now, this word indictment is used elsewhere in the Scriptures. Turn over to 2 Samuel 15. Let's do what we usually do a lot of times. We try to learn more about these theologically significant words in some of these passages. Let's go to 2 Samuel 15. And I want to show you a human example of a dispute, a legal dispute, so you understand exactly what the word means a little bit. 2 Samuel 15 to the context is Absalom here. At the gate, Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. And when any man had a suit, there's our same word, to come to the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, from what city are you? And he would say, your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel. Go down to verse four in 2 Samuel 15. Moreover, Absalom would say, oh, that one would appoint me to judge in the land. Then everyone who has a suit or cause would come to me and I would give him justice. So that's to give you an idea of what these words mean. We're talking about something that is legal. A courtroom scene, if you will. I think I've mentioned this before as an illustration because it really made an impact on me. I was once called for jury duty at the U.S. Circuit Court in Anderson, and I think Billy Wilkins was the presiding judge at the time. And so I was there to sit in the back of the courtroom. The courtroom's a very large room, like a traditional old courtroom building with the high ceilings and everything and the large windows and downtown Anderson. And then we were sitting at the back of the courtroom, and they had three cases. One was a federal civil case. The other two were federal criminal cases. One was a young man who had been charged with armed robbery of a post office, which is very sad. That's not a smart thing to do. And the other guy was a convicted felon that was caught with a weapon in his car, so that was an issue there. I remember as they called the jurors and they had the attorneys representing the different parties there, the prosecutor and the defense attorneys, and everything was just, it was very intimidating being in the courtroom because Judge Wilkins was appointed by President Reagan. He was a federal judge. And I remember I wanted to take some reading material in there with me. So as I'm going through the metal detector, I had some books. And the guy stopped me and said, you can't take that in there. You have to pay attention to what's going on. I thought, I'll just sit in the back and read a book. And if they call me, I'll do what I'm supposed to do. And they said, no, you have to sit there and listen to the judge and listen to all the instructions. And I was glad I was not the one charged with a crime that day. But yet here we have something even more serious than a federal courthouse in Anderson County down in South Carolina. We have the Lord of the Universe as the last song we sang, talking about God's sovereignty, His omnipotence, His righteousness, His holiness. We have this very person basically bringing a case against His people because of their empty religion. The Lord knows all the facts. He knows their hearts. He knew what they were thinking. And He does for us as well. And when we come to worship or we do religious things, whether it's Bible reading or anything that we do, the Lord actually knows what is going on in our heart. Is it empty religion? It could even be something good. But is it something that is empty? Is it something we are doing to be noticed of men? Is it something we are doing to build up our reputation? Is it something we're doing to assuage some guilt that we have for some sin? Is it something we're doing to feel that, you know, if I could just do something else, God would accept me? And what we need to do is think biblically. and realize the Lord knows all the facts, just like He did for these folks 2,700 years ago. Let's look at the next step in this case here, this legal case the Lord has against His people. The next thing the Lord does in verses 3 and 5 is He reminds them, and also us as His people today, of His faithfulness. So the Lord has said, okay, Israel, we're going to have court. I have a case against you. You know, make your case. And before he does that, he brings forth some of his evidence, because not only is the Lord the judge, but the Lord is also the prosecuting attorney. So now that the participants in the trial are called, and the trial can begin, God is the first witness presenting His evidence against Judah. So the Lord again, as I said, is a prosecuting attorney. And He's presenting the evidence for the prosecution. So what does He do first? The Lord recounts in a very brief summary, which we see in other places in Scripture, which we'll look at in a moment. The Lord recounts for them what He has done for them, His faithfulness. Even those acts of faithfulness and deliverance being the revelation of the Lord's character. which is what all these historical events are in the Old Testament. They're not just things that happen. Just like the Passover, Pastor Greg explained to us so well this morning, which is such a great blessing. These things actually reveal to us who God is and what he's doing for us. Verse 3, the Lord says, My people, again referring to this issue of the covenant, that's the whole reason this discussion is taking place, because they have violated the covenant, they have turned away from the Lord and His commands. My people, what have I done to you? This is the Lord speaking here. And how have I wearied you? Answer me. And they don't answer right away. And so the Lord's going to answer for them. But there's some key words here in verse 3, and that the Lord says in verse 3, what have I done and how have I wearied you? The Lord is basically saying, you know, what have I done to you to make you tired of me, is what the word means. Israel had become tired of obeying God. They had become impatient with their responsibilities to the Lord. God had done nothing to weary them, but they had done everything to disobey Him and not to serve Him." Now, there's no answer from Judah, so the Lord answers for them in verse 4. "'Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt and ransomed you from the house of slavery. I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. My people, remember now, key idea, remember. Remember now what Balak, king of Moab, counseled, and what Balaam, son of Beor, answered him from Shittim to Gilgal, in order that you might know, look at this, in order that you might know the righteous acts of the Lord. That's the purpose for what the Lord did in all His acts with them, and preserved for our instruction as well, is to reveal the Lord Himself through His righteous acts. Now, instead of doing anything to weary them, to make them tired of the Lord and weary of obeying Him, instead what the Lord did in verse four is He brought them up from the land of Egypt. And what's interesting is in the Hebrew text, there's a word play between brought up and wearied. The Holy Spirit is using some word here. If you would have been a Hebrew speaker and heard this, you would have picked that up. There's some association between those two words. The Lord had done nothing to weary them Instead, the Lord had brought them up, delivered them from Egypt, the same thing Pastor Greg talked to us about today. One of the most significant things in the history, in the Scriptures, is the deliverance, the ransom from slavery in Egypt. And what else did the Lord do? He ransomed them from the house of slavery. And not only did the Lord just deliver them physically from the house of slavery, look on in verse 4, He sent before them Moses, Moses was their spiritual leader and the giver of the law, and Aaron, the first high priest, and Miriam who led them and praised the Lord as we saw after the crossing of the Red Sea and Exodus. These are all the wonderful things the Lord has done for them. And we have this little capsule of history In this trial setting, where the Lord is presenting His evidence to them, where He asks them, okay, tell me, what have I done? And then He says, you know, these are the things I've done for you. I delivered you from Egypt. I gave you Moses and Aaron. I gave you the law. I gave you all these blessings. In verse 5, we have more historical remembrance. If we look at these in detail, we'll see why the Lord is mentioning these specifically. My people, remember now what Balak King of Moab counseled, and Balaam, son of Beor, answered him." Do you remember that story from Numbers 22 and 24? Balak, the Moabite king, paid Balaam to curse Israel as they were going through the wilderness. Balak was afraid of Israel and he wanted Balaam to curse them. Of course the Lord turned everything as a blessing to them and delivered them completely. One of the great miraculous acts of their deliverance. These two place names mentioned in the middle of verse 5, and from Shittim to Gilgal, Shittim is the last place Israel camped before crossing the Jordan to go into the Promised Land. Gilgal is the first place they camped in the promised land. And between that, remember you had that miraculous crossing of the Jordan River where they crossed on dry land. And these again stand as great reminders of God's provision for them, His care for them, the miracles He performed for them, all this faithfulness that He is reminding them. But remember, why is He reminding them of this? This is all a context of condemning empty religion. And there are many times in the scripture that God reminds us of His faithfulness. His faithfulness to Israel proves His faithfulness to us as well. We are God's people since we are born again. We are children of Abraham, as Paul describes in Romans 4. God cared for Israel. They had no reason to be weary of Him. They had no reason to disregard His law. He had been so good to them. But instead, they're not serving Him. They're not worshipping Him. As we'll see in the last point, the service and worship they are doing is empty. Turn with me to Psalm 136. This is a recurring theme. This idea of remembering God's faithfulness. Psalm 136. We'll start with verse 10. We have some of the same things recounted here. as we see recounted in Micah 6, demonstrating the Lord's faithfulness to His people and therefore to us. Psalm 136.10 says, To Him who smote the Egyptians in their firstborn. And then we have this refrain, For His lovingkindness is everlasting. The word lovingkindness being God's covenant loyal love for His people. Verse 11, And brought Israel out from their midst, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. To Him who divided the Red Sea asunder, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. And on and on it goes, down to verse 17. To Him who smoked great kings, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. And slew mighty kings, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Just like in this courtroom scene in Micah chapter 6. The evidence is overwhelming to prove to us that God is faithful and therefore our religion shouldn't be empty. It should be from the heart. How can we be weary of God? Going back to the Micah chapter 6 and that key word there in verse 3, the idea of weariness. How can we? I mean obviously we can become tired serving God. When our elder meetings and Pastor Greg, we've gone through these books about to help us be biblical elders. And we looked at some of the words used in the pastoral epistles to describe the work of an elder and overseer. And we are supposed to labor until we're exhausted. That's our that's our command. But in the midst of laboring and serving until we're exhausted, we don't need to be to the point we are actually tired of the Lord. God has delivered us just like he did them out of a life of sin. The Lord has ransomed us from the bondage of sin. He sent us his word by Moses like he did them and the prophets and Christ and the apostles. And just like biblically a married couple should love each other more and more in each passing year, so must our love for God as we recount His faithfulness grow more stronger each year, our desire to serve Him, our dependence on Him, our faith, our submission, everything. because the Lord is faithful. Lamentations 3, 22 and 23 say the Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. God condemns into religion when he reminds us of his faithfulness. Now let's look at our last point, the last two verses this evening, and we'll see our third point, the third aspect of God condemning anti-religion, and that is He sees heartless works. The Lord sees heartless works. Now we see Israel's first reply in this legal setting with verse 6. With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Israel is now ready to present their evidence in court. And they give their evidence in the form of questions as well. But what they do in response to the Lord's questions is offer to do more external things in an attempt to please God. No repentance. No confession of sin. No humility, if you will. Just, well, if we're supposed to sacrifice, then let's just keep doing that, except we'll do more. And then it goes into the extreme. They mistakenly think that external religion is enough to please God. And so they just want to know how much is enough. And that's always a problem with a works-based religion. If external ritual acts, religious things, Things that we might do that we wouldn't consider ourselves hopefully idolaters or something, so we would differentiate ourselves from that type of thing, but we can still have the same issue. Focusing on the externals, focusing on the ritual, focusing on the routine, and if it's good to do this, and doing this gains me favor with God, which it doesn't, then obviously more must be better. But when you start down that pathway, then you have to ask yourself, you know, how much is enough? And that's exactly what we see here. And so they talk about normal sacrifices in verse 6, burnt offerings and yearling calves. And in verse 7, and some of the commentators, you know, consider this hyperbole, but we know even once Solomon offered this quantity of sacrifices, his dedication to the temple, Verse 7, does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Yes, God commanded animal sacrifices. One person explained this verse this way, they think ritual alone is a solution when in reality it is part of the problem. So now in verse 7 they really up the ante in the last part of verse 7. Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" They even go to the extent of the heathen nations around them to offer their own children as sacrifices. Of course, the Lord condemned this. It was not common among the Jews. However, Kings Ahaz and Manasseh did participate in this abomination, as did the Moabites and Phoenicians. So their questions shows how desperate they are to offer religion to God. But yet, the whole line of their reasoning and their response shows us that they really don't understand what God desires. It's like they're going in the opposite direction of what the Lord truly desires, which is what we'll cover in verse eight, Lord willing, in a couple of weeks. Turn to Psalm 51, verse 16. And we looked at Psalm 51 in detail a year or two ago. I think we had three sermons on Psalm 51. Great Psalm of repentance and forgiveness and restoration by David after his adultery and associated crime. Look what it says in verse 16. This is David speaking to the Lord. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." God desires not just external quantities of religious activity, He wants our heart. He wants our heart broken over sin. He wants our heart dependent on Him. He wants our heart resting in Him. So let's ask some questions of ourselves this evening. And our last point here, what brought you here this evening? Think about that. You know, what brought you here this evening? I mean, could you answer that? If I went around and called on everybody, I wouldn't do that, but it would be embarrassing. But think about that. Really, what brought you here? What did you come for? Why did you stop what you were doing this afternoon or get up early this morning to come here to Sunday school or to our worship service or to play an instrument or participate in the choir or to sing a song? Think about what is it you're doing and why are you doing it? Because if your focus is on the external activity, then you always have to ask yourself, when is enough enough? Because we should be focusing on the God that saves and cleanses and makes us able to serve Him because He wants your heart first. He wants you. He doesn't need your activity. He really doesn't need you. He desires you, and your fellowship, and your service, and just like our memory verse this month, your love. So let's take all this that we've learned from looking back 2,700 years ago, and let's think about empty religion for a minute. And let's don't think about other groups, unbiblical groups, or let's don't think about Islam, one of the Asian religions or the things we've seen like on the frontline videos in India where people are in that kind of thing that's so sad. Let's apply this to our situation here and see that inter-religion is a religion where there's no relationship with God. And yes, sometimes a person sees that he needs to do something for his sin and he gets involved in religion and he's trying to do something to satisfy God. But true Christianity is when a person sees himself as guilty before God and trusts the Lord Jesus Christ, and has the righteousness of Christ put on their account, and they have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, and they are made a new person. And so everything we do on the outside is just a reflection of what God is doing on the inside. Not because we're trying to gain favor with God, because that's not possible. God loved you when you didn't know Him. So do you think doing something is going to make Him love you more? So one way I think we need to be cautious about empty religion is always striving to do more. Now we should be zealous in our service. And we should do all we can for the Lord. The Lord gives us differently. The Lord gives us different abilities, different experiences, different amounts of time. Everything is different. We're all unique. And we should be thinking, Lord, I want to serve you all that I can. But a person who's not thinking biblically can cross over into the line and start to put so much emphasis on activity, even good things, that they can actually become a self-focus, which leads to pride, which is exactly the problem we had with Israel in their day. Another thing that we'd be cautious of in our service, in our religion, if you will, true religion, is striving for the approval of men. So concerned about what people think, so concerned about what you're doing or not doing. Is it enough? Is it not enough? What does that person say? And yes, we need to think about what other brothers and sisters encourage us or admonish us about, because we're all biblically called to do that as a family of believers. We are called to minister to one another, encourage each other in our use of gifts, and admonish one another humbly if we need to, if we see someone doing something that's unbiblical. But on the other hand, any religious activity, we always need to guard ourselves that we're not striving for the approval of men. Another thing to take the temperature about religious activity, whether it's from the heart, is what is your joy based on? Is your Christian joy based on activity? Brother Berg talked about that in Sunday School in the video a bit this morning. About our joy should come from our fellowship with the Lord and His Word. I was in a ministry situation years ago and I was sick and I wasn't able to minister for several weeks. And I became anxious. There's all these things to do. There's people to visit. There's messages to prepare. There's evangelism that needs to be done. There's couples that need to be counseled. I couldn't do anything but be flat on my back. And after a while, I thought, you know what? The Lord doesn't need me. He can use me. My ministry then was to pray. That's all I could do. I could read the scriptures and pray. And I learned a hard lesson from that. Because my joy was based on sometimes what I was able to do in religious activity. And that's always going to let us down because things never go as we planned. People don't respond to ministry as we planned. Could you have joy if you witnessed to a hundred people and only saw one person come to Christ? Could you have joy that you were serving Christ? So what is the solution to help us have true religion from the heart as James talks about in James 1? Focus on Christ. Focus on the Gospel. Realize that your righteousness comes from Christ, not from your religious activity. Focus on Christ and rest in Him. Romans 5.1, let's turn there real quick. Romans 5.1, we've referred to it before. It's a great verse to meditate on when we're trying to make sure our focus is on Christ, our righteousness is in Christ, our standing with God is based on Christ. Romans 5, verse 1 says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace presently with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Dear Father, we're so thankful, Lord, for your Word. And we're thankful, Lord, for your Son. We're thankful, Lord, that you choose to save us and to use us and to use us, Lord, in your service as we labor for you and serve you. And Lord, do our best to depend upon you. Lord, help us always to keep our focus on pleasing You and resting in You, and not on our own abilities, on our own activities, even good things that we strive to do. Lord, help us to do it by Your grace. Help us to do it in Your way, in dependence upon You, so that You receive all the glory, so that we can avoid the pitfalls that Judah made 2,700 years ago where their only response was more activity. Instead, Lord, help us to have a relationship with You that is on the inside. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.