Thank you. You may be seated. Take your Bibles with me this morning. We're going to continue our way through Romans chapter 12 this summer. We've kind of let God direct our hearts towards this way. And so this is literally 1, 2, 3, 4, I think this is the fourth message on Romans chapter 8 and we've gone a long way and we're in verse 3. So I want to draw your attention to this passage. As I have prepared all week, I feel like I am probably the least one to actually speak about this. As I remember even going over last week's message, I feel like I perhaps am the one that needs to sit and listen to this particular passage as it is dealing with a very, very important topic, the body, being the body of believers, but in particular, how we ought not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. I will just tell you honestly I don't have that one down. I struggle in this area immensely. And so it's been very convicting to me and it's been a very rich text to look at and to unpack. And I have fought with my own pride all week and some lessons I think perhaps I passed, others I miserably failed. So this is, you don't have a perfect pastor and you don't have a pastor who can handle this in a way that I would like to say I have this one down, but I don't. And so we're going to learn together what God says in this. And this is very important and we should never miss what it is that God is saying here. But notice verse 3. He says this, For by the grace given to me, I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment. each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Some people see the Christian life lived by mere willpower. In other words, you get up in the morning and you just Flip that toggle switch of this is what I will do today and I will have victory by just mere willpower. It is a life that is lived by a self-imposed morality that seeks to emulate the righteousness of Christ by sheer willpower. Christ, when he was here on earth, faced a life full of people who had similar thoughts and daily confronted their self-made righteousness and it made them mad. They were furious because they placed a very high value on their self-concocted rightness. And Christ's earthly perfection mirrored back to them their pride. And it mirrored back to them their failure to live up to God's righteousness. Others see the Christian life as a mere ticket out of God's eternal judgment in hell. And so they use the church, they use organized religion as one of just many things that will ultimately fulfill their self-made dreams. And so Christianity is a good thing. I mean, it's an American thing. Because it brings morality, they think. It brings kindness to neighbors. It brings freedom. And there's certainly good times that one can have in Christianity. But I will tell you it is none of these. True Christianity is supernatural. It is not self-produced, it is not manufactured by denominational committees, and it certainly is not to be used in order to get something that makes us warm and fuzzy. That's not what Christianity is. It is something that is God-produced. Here, listen to God Himself. He says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. That person cannot create this new creature that God creates. But if a person is in Christ, God makes in him a new creation. Ephesians 2.10, perhaps the clearest passage. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Or Romans 7.6, so we serve not under old written code, but in the new life of the spirit. Second Corinthians 3.6, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Colossians 3.10, you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. And I could go on and on, but to understand that the basic core of being a Christ-like person is not something that you can manufacture. It's not some game that you can play simply by walking into a church building on Sunday morning. It is something that God works in the very core of our hearts. And it's purely by His grace. Thus, it should be no surprise to us that when Paul gets to Romans 12, he gives us a description of what this new God-made, God-formed, supernaturally born life looks like. It is a life that sacrifices self. It's self-sacrificial. It dies to self. It shuns the barrage of self-making religious humanism that disguises itself as church, and it begins to live in a whole new way of thinking, a transformed thinking that is holy and acceptable to God. It is a life that discerns the will of God that comes right out of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ and seeks to live this life in obedience to what is true. And they find, then, God's will good. And these are people who find God's will acceptable and find God's will as perfect. And since this life is from Christ, it is through Christ, and it all goes back to Christ. As Paul finishes up in Romans 11, 36, he tells us, it's about Christ in every way, shape, form, and avenue of life. So it's no wonder then that the transformed heart comes to Christ and finds him good, acceptable, and perfect. This is what we read about in verse 2. And this transformation begins in the mind. It's how we think. You see, the renewed mind is a Word-saturated, Spirit-led way of discerning all of life. All of life. Every aspect of life must come under the microscope of God's Word and the Holy Spirit Himself. So what does this life with a renewed mind look like? And this is what Paul gets at in Romans 12. So God begins to spell it out and we spent a great deal of time on it last week. It begins with how we look at ourselves in light of the supernatural work of God and in light of the effect of our lives on others. And so he begins with how you view yourself. And it is God's grace that works both the supernatural transformation and its continued effect in our lives. This happens purely out of God's grace. And Paul says this in verse 3, for by the grace given to me. And so this is what we see, and he starts this verse 3, he says, for by the grace that's given to me, and what is that? That's that undeserved supernatural work of Christ in us, and it should never be taken for granted. It should be something that we continue to long for, that not in order to get a new life, but because we have the new life, we are feeding on that supply of God's amazing grace. It truly is amazing. So this section in particular, verses 3 through 8, speaks of the effect of this grace. And what we see here is that the church is a group of people who have been transformed by the gospel of grace and are living it out in relationship with each other. And so the very first stopping point that it begins with is what we see here in verse three. And we said this last week, that grace forms the correct mindset towards people. So here Paul goes right to the very heart of sin. He goes to pride. We are people who in the very core of our very being think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. And we talked about this last week. Pride will kill you. And pride is the sin that keeps you from crying out for a Savior. Grace, however, is not available without humility. And so here's what Paul says, you must come to terms then as God works his transformation into my heart, you will come to terms with this understanding that you don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. And it is God's grace that works out humility that opens the door for more grace. Sometimes we talk of God's grace and yet we have pockets of deep-rooted pride that dwells in us. And God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. And so without preaching last week's sermon again, let me remind you of what thinking of yourself more highly than you ought to looks like by going to an essay that I read this week by Jonathan Edwards. that was called undetected pride. And he says this, he lists seven indicators of this relationship-destroying, death-producing sin that takes place in our lives. So are you ready for this? We'll go through this briefly. And this is just to remind us of what thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, this is what it looks like. And he talks about this, first of all, that this person who thinks of themselves more highly than they ought to think about, number one, finds themselves finding fault. They become fault finders. You see, pride causes us to filter out the evil that we see in ourselves, and it magnifies the evil in others. And all of a sudden, that person, that other person, cannot do anything right. And it's a very condescending look at other people. Second one, and because of this, it kind of goes hand in hand. Jonathan Edwards writes, A Harsh Spirit. Edwards writes this, he says, Christians who are but fellow worms, ought at least to treat one another with as much humility and gentleness as Christ treats them. You look at yourself as a fellow worm. Sometimes we're very harsh on people. We have these expectations and we're very harsh. And this leads to number three, a superficiality that he talks about. When pride lives in our hearts, we're far more concerned with others' perceptions of us than the reality of our hearts. We're constantly erecting walls and facades around us so that no one sees how we really are, and in doing so, we live in a superficial way of living life. We're very self-protective, and that leads to number four, a defensiveness. And quite frankly, folks, I'll just tell you, I wrestle in these areas all the time. True humility is not knocked off balance and thrown into a defensive posture by a challenge or a rebuke, but instead continues in doing good, entrusting the soul to our Creator, who is faithful. We ought to be people who know how to take rebuke. We ought to be people who know how to take input into our lives without a smugness. I wrestle with this all the time. You can ask my wife, wrestled with it several times just this week. And she was very gracious and kind to help me put down my defenses, even though I'm sure it didn't look like I was doing it at the time. It leads to number five, a presumption before God. Humility approaches God with humble assurance in Christ Jesus. And he goes on to write that if either the humble or the assurance are missing in that equation, he says, our hearts very well might be infected with pride. Both are needed. Some come to God irreverently, taking for granted His grace. And they treat God as some chum, or some friend. Others come with absolutely no confidence in God, as if He could not possibly forgive. That my sin was too big, God could not possibly forgive. And both these ditches on either side reject God's holy goodness, and doubting the power of the cross, and then we're stuck looking at ourselves rather than looking to Christ. And this presumption before God causes us often to wallow in self-pity. Number six, a person who thinks more highly of themselves are people who are desperate for attention. Pride is hungry for attention, hungry for respect and worship in all its forms. You see, we often seek significance. We long to be valued. We live for the esteem of men. We desire to be adorned. We desire to have a say. Our hearts are covetous. And we are greedy. And we want it over the desire of God's glory itself. See, our marriages soon rip apart, our working relationships are severed, and our feelings become the determining factor of life, all because we seek the glory of men over the glory of God. And then he writes, this leads to a neglecting of others. Pride prefers some people over others. Pride causes us to listen to only those we deem important, and it shuns those we deem unimportant. And in doing so, we end up rejecting God's sweet grace in using the lowly, the weak, the unattractive, and the inconvenienced to bring Him glory. But a grace-filled heart loves and cares for people, and they do so by reaching out of themselves to give of themselves to people who desperately need the grace. So Paul sums it up in these words. You're dying to yourself, and it begins in the mind, and so don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. So the question then that arises out of this, and what we want to talk about today, so how should I know how to think soberly about myself? Isn't this where we are today? We sit in this room and we go, yeah, okay, I hear you, man, I'm bad at that, and boy, I struggle with that, and I need the grace of God to just come in and take over my heart, I need the gospel. I need help here. I need something other than myself. And so Paul says, yes, I'll tell you how to think soberly of yourself. He says this, the last part of verse 3. You think soberly, how? Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Now what is it that allows us the opportunity to think soberly? Faith. I don't know about you, I don't know that I would have said that. I think I probably would have taken the very pharisaical route in saying, well, you just got to know what to do good and what to do wrong and don't do it. Or do it. Depending on whether it is yes or no. Good or bad. That's probably the route that I would take. And I think probably it's the route that many of you would take. But that's not what he says. He uses the word faith. So let's look at what he says here. Why faith? Well, first of all, because of what faith is. Let's just talk about this for a moment. Many people talk about their faith as if it was something, a special object that they cherish and hold on to, something like a favorite watch or a piece of jewelry. It enhances life, it glitters at times and has a function simply to enhance my well-being and how people perceive me. And so we use words such as this, he is a person of faith. And that's somehow supposed to be like he's a person of wealth or he's a person of class. Or we'll say this, in our world we even have faith-based initiatives. It's in our government. So what is faith? Well, if you go to a dictionary, it will read something like this, a complete trust or confidence in someone or something. It's a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of religion. And so when you begin to look at scripture, scripture speaks of three major components of faith. Three areas where faith begins to unravel for us or we begin to understand what faith is. First of all, faith is knowledge. It's beginning to understand things. Faith is dependent upon what can be known about God. As we place our confidence in God, or as the dictionary says, belief in the doctrines of religion, then faith has to have knowledge. It's one of the reasons that he's revealed himself to us in a Bible, in a book. Paul asks the questions in Romans 10.14, how can they believe in whom they have not heard? And the implication behind that question is they can't believe if they haven't heard. And Romans 10.17 begins to unfold this even more because the implication that they cannot unless they heard means that there has to be something which they hear. And so he says this, faith comes from hearing, and hearing what? The word of God. And Christ said in John 17 3, and this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. So this is eternal life, that they may know God. And so John gives us an example often of how crossed our thinking is in this light. And he says in 1 John 5 9, he says, if we receive the testimony of men, He says, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God, that He is born concerning His Son. And what John is saying here is that every day, perhaps we go to the bank, and we give unquestioned trust to the banker, and we place our money there, never thinking that that banker is stealing. We would never think that. And if it would happen, it would just kind of blow us away. And if we would trust humanity, who has a proven track record of failure of that trust, because we have people who've stolen from banks. We have planes that have crashed. We have boats that have sunk. We have cars that have wrecked. We have banks that actually have gone bankrupt. Yet we trust our very lives to these things all the time. So why is it that we do not trust God fully? Why is it that we struggle with our unbelief here? Because ultimately we don't know Him. And faith and knowledge are inextricably linked. So, knowledge. But the second part of faith is very, very important too. And there is assent. Assent. This word is approval. or consent or sanction. We can say it that way too. And this is uniquely connected with our wills. We must give our wills in approval or sanctioning of what we know. Faith is more than assent, but it is not less than assent. And this is the understanding that Christ then, in His grace, comes and compels our wills. When we see the powerful claims of Christ and understand with our hearing the wonders of God in His grace towards us, He compels us to faith. And then, of course, there's action. Faith, it is a knowledge that compels us to trust in Him, and thus opens the door for action based on the foundation laid by Christ. The difference is this, that there's a chair up here, and I've used this as an example, but just so you understand, I can sit there and go, you know what, I believe, I have knowledge that this chair will hold me up. I'm pretty sure it will. I believe it will. That's knowledge. I even can conform my will to say, yes, it will. But that conformity of the will with the knowledge demonstrates itself by faith when I sit in that chair. And I am acting on that which I know. And my body, my heart, and everything is transformed. I'm no longer standing, I'm sitting. I'm placing my trust, I'm having faith in that chair. So, that means three things. True faith is by nature, true faith in God is by nature God-centered thinking. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing the word of God. It's God-centered thinking. So it is something that we go to that is away from us. Faith is something that's not in us, it's away from us, and away from ourselves, and we rivet our thinking to all that God is and all that God says. It's also, secondly, truth-oriented attitudes. I don't know how else to say this, but truth is the self-disclosure of God Himself and all that is consistent with His holy being. Let me say that again. We say, what is truth? Truth is the self-disclosure of God Himself and all that is consistent with His holy being. And you see, humility clears the eye to look at things as they truly are, Jonathan Edwards says. When you're able to look at how things really are, and you see it, then you are beginning to understand what is true. And here's where the ascent comes in. Because we give ourselves to that which is true, and truth arrests our emotions, our attitudes, and the entire spirit so that our wills are enjoined with it. Philippians 4.8, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, you think on these things. In other words, you become truth-oriented in your very attitudes. And then thirdly, faith means that there's time-tested transformation. Our lives are by the avenue of grace and through the conduit of faith become a constant growth process from one glory to the next. It's true faith by its very definition requires, demands, expects and orchestrates this transformation. And James says it this way, brothers count it all joy when you meet various trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So faith is not merely a pure assent to the doctrines of faith or to the beliefs of our religious community. It is faith created by the Holy Spirit. When we listen to the preached Word and the Spirit uses God's Word about Christ to create faith in us, that is, we are made and able to trust the invisible facts of salvation in such a way that faith becomes the major component in our decision-making processes. And some of you are sitting there going, what? It's our trust in God because of all that we've known about Him, and it's the work of the grace of God in our hearts that cause our wills and our hearts to run to Him. And in the moment of trial, in the moment of darkness, in the moment of unbelief, we rest in Him. That's what faith is. Now bear with me here. It's not only what faith is that Paul is addressing, but what faith does. Because it says this, it's faith that God has assigned. This is faith that God has assigned. And what Paul is expressing here is nothing new in this comment, but he is highlighting this for a reason. Faith is something that comes from God. It is a critical component to our thinking and understanding, and this helps us to correct thinking. Ephesians 2.8.9 is the clearest teaching on this, where he says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. This faith is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It's not a result of works, so that no one may boast. You see, by God's kind grace, we've been given faith. Now why did God set this up? Because God knows the way of our sinful mindset. We want to boast. We want to look at ourselves and think that somehow we contribute. And the proud heart always desires significance in self. It always seeks to be valued in ourselves. It seeks to be esteemed and stroked and thus seeks to arrange life in order to obtain that stroking. And so to keep us from finding significance and value and esteem from ourselves and thus run away from ourselves and run only to Him, God grants us faith. And when we believe Him, there is no room for boasting. So he says it again in 1 Corinthians 4.7, what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? You see, God is rightly jealous for His own glory and quite frankly well deserves His own glory because of who He is. And this then affects our very core thoughts about all of life. And this flies in the face of the humanistic thinking that we are the center of the world, that life is about us. No. Life at its very core is about God and all of His glory, and we have nothing of which to boast. And this is what faith does. Faith wages war on boasting. It turns us from ourselves and it places our dependency upon God. So Paul says if you're going to come to an understanding of how you think about yourself, you've got to do this by the measure of faith that God has given to you. And this is the last part of this particular thing. What is faith? What does faith do? And then finally, what does faith work in us? And Paul talks about this with the measure of faith. And this is very pivotal, a very pivotal place of information that I think will help set up what he will say in verses four through eight. You see, each person is given by God a different measure of faith. Every one of us in here has been given by God a different measure of faith. And Christ speaks of this in Matthew 17, 20. And he says, if you have faith as the grain of mustard seed, Nothing shall be impossible Now the mustard seed is very very tiny Telling us that just a tiny bit of faith will move mountains We see this again in second Thessalonians 1 3 we ought always to give thanks to you or to God for you brothers as is right because your faith is growing abundantly In other words, faith may be tiny, but it's growing. And so the reality is, every one of us has a different measure of faith. And I think we can also say this experientially. There are days when we believe God with courage, and it seems that our faith in Him is very strong. You've had days like that, haven't you? Someone come alongside you and go, hey, how are you doing? Man, I'm doing great. Let me show you what God's done. He's done this and this and this. Man, God is good. Then there are days he come alongside you and you go, hey, how's it going? You go, man, I'm miserable. I don't know how to trust God. I can't trust God out of a bushel basket. In a conversation with my family recently, someone brought up the chorus that we used to sing. Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. Remember singing that chorus? How many of you remember singing that chorus? Some of you are looking at me like, what is that? As a teenager, I used to sing that and think to myself, wait a minute, that's not true. I won't even sing that anymore, because I'm like, I'd like for it to be true, but it's not true that every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. It's just not true. I'd love for it to be true. So what's the point? God gives to us different measures of faith for the purpose of taking our eyes off of ourselves and graciously forcing us to be dependent on one another. And notice in 1 Thessalonians 5.14, he says, Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. The real truth is when your heart, mind, and will are so enamored with yourself, your self-esteem, your self-significance, and seeking to be valued by men, you will not see others. And so in the realm of the church, God puts people who are stronger in faith around us to remind us about God and His great glory and His strength. And then he graciously puts people around us who are weaker, feeble-minded, weak people in faith. And he does so to help us understand that life is not about us. And that we cannot live a life based upon our own wills, our own emotions, our own ideas, that we must fall at the feet of the Creator God who has given to all of us the faith. We would not have any faith without Him. So the progression of grace in our lives goes like this, as Paul puts it, how does grace progress? Second Corinthians 3.18 it says, and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. So let me ask you a question this morning. Where are you in that one degree or another? Are you in the one degree or are you kind of in between the one and the other? Where are you? Well, the reality is all of us are some and we're being transformed into that. And we all really don't see the whole picture. None of us do. And so we don't have a right to pretend as if we have the all full understanding and we're all being changed. But that change is not even of you. It's of God and His great grace. So just because God is changing you, don't be smug about that. You don't have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. The older I get, the more I realize I don't have any answers. I don't even know what's up. And it cries out, we need a Savior. And here's the good news, we have one. It's Jesus Christ, and it's His righteousness that we must depend on. Some of you long for relationships. Some of you long for that inner biting of your soul that says, I'm just not satisfied. And you will find something that God maybe brings into your life, or find someone that God brings into your life, and you'll think, this is it! This is the end! I'll be happy if I could just get this! And what we fail to realize is, that could be a decoy. that says if you are the, you're the owner of this or this, you realize this, then you will be satisfied. And it means then that poor people who don't have it, they're, well, they're just, they're not quite as good. And that destroys life, that divides life. And so what Paul is getting at, Here, at the very core, is that faith works in us a transformation from one glory to the next. And if God has been kind to bring you from one glory to another glory, don't look down on those who may be over here. Don't find yourself looking, well, if you just knew what I knew, if you just had what I had, if God has given you a gift, and we're gonna talk about how this applies to giftedness in the days ahead, but if God gives you the gift of mercy, and you come and you go, oh my goodness, have mercy on this, and you need to have mercy like I have mercy. No, they may have the gift of truth. of understanding things. And so they come at it from a different way. We allow that difference to exist. Not one thinking of them more highly than the other. And we do this on the basis of faith. That God has given it to us. It's at work in our hearts and lives, and it is something that brings this transformation into us because we do not know how to transform ourselves into the image of Christ. And this is what trusting is, and quite frankly, in salvation. It is through faith that we're regenerated. And in sanctification, this faith works in us, this Christ-likeness. And what does all of this is not the amount of faith that we have, but the object of our faith, Jesus Christ working in us. So today ask yourself, Number one, is there a genuine transformation by the supernatural work of Christ where faith was made alive in your heart and your trust today is in his righteousness for salvation? That's the gospel. And it's got to be something more than we just kind of nod our head to and give approval to. This is something that God works in us by grace through faith. And there are times that you will come to life itself and you will stand at the very precipice of a decision and you will not know how to make a right decision. And you must trust in Christ. Believe in your emotions, not feel your way through. No, you've got to understand and God works this in your heart by His grace and through faith. And so run to a greater knowledge of His glory through the Word of God. But there must be this genuine transformation by the supernatural work of Christ. Is there an intentional saturation of your heart and mind with God and His Word to help bolster your faith regardless of how much God has allotted to you? Most of us spend more time building our facades rather than growing in faith. We don't want people to see in our hearts and our lives and so we live in this facade world and we don't want anybody to see instead of taking in the Word of God and allowing the Word of God to do that work in us to build our faith because we understand the goodness of God. Thirdly, is there an enjoyment of differing degrees of faith in people around you? As I look around this auditorium, I can see we don't have these thermometers, these faith thermometers. Here comes so-and-so. Boy, it's way up here. Here comes the next person. But that's what makes us the body believers that we are. And once one of us begins to think that we have all the answers, we become smug in our understanding of what God has graciously shown to us, and we don't do it by faith, and we don't do it through the grace of God that's in Christ, then we divide, and we rip and tear. And I'll be honest with you, I've done this. I didn't mean to. It's not what I set out to do. But in my heart, I wrestle with this. Because this is the core of life. It's faith in God's grace. And sometimes I don't enjoy the differing degrees of faith in people around us. So it's a very good question. The gospel allows us to do that. That God actually in Christ comes and saves the weak people. But then finally, I think it's very, very important then that we don't settle for a weak faith. That we don't settle for a weak faith. And we go, well, I'm just weak. Okay. Then strengthen yourself in the Lord. But grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul isn't interested in us merely being weak. God is kind to show us our weaknesses so that his strength will be our platform upon which we serve others and allow others to serve us. Jonathan Edwards says this, he says, pride keeps us from serving others and pride keeps us from being served by others. God has given to each other. a measure of faith so that we won't be dependent upon ourselves, so that it constantly rocks our world, that it constantly shakes up our lives, and so that we will come to terms with what it means that God, I'm going to trust you. Because no one, let me repeat, no one can be your satisfaction. No spouse, no boyfriend, no girlfriend, no friend relationship. I just want to have a relationship with someone. That's great. You were designed to do that. But please understand, every person that you come in contact with has been touched by the fall and the curse. They cannot bring you the satisfaction that you need. It's only in Christ. And we all know that. But we don't know how it applies to life and we become very dissatisfied. And all of a sudden the people that God has placed in our lives that should be a blessing are people that actually are driving us away from themselves. Because we will not love them in their differences. And you say, how do you do that? By faith. Trusting that God knows what he's doing. If God has brought goodness out in your heart and life through his righteousness of Jesus Christ. Don't you think that God can do that to that person? I think he can. Then believe that God can and will and trust. Very hard for us to do because self and sin want it our way. That's no longer grace and it's no longer humble and it's no longer by faith. So how we make our decision and how we view ourselves is by the measure of faith that God has assigned to us. But grow in that faith by turning to Christ and the gracious message of the gospel. Let's pray this morning. Father, we are crying out to you this morning because we desperately need you. Father, we look at this word and we scratch our heads. Lord, we don't know how to respond. And so we must have that undeserved, unmerited kindness and enablement that we call grace, that you call grace, that changed the Apostle Paul from a death-threatening killer of people who love Jesus to people, to a person who would point others to Jesus humbly. And yet he called himself the chiefest of sinners. God, I pray that you would work this humility in all of our hearts and lives, and that you would do so by faith, because we don't know how to handle each other. We don't. We do not know how to handle the truth that we find in God's Word. We don't know how to do this. So God, we need you. And so God, we cry out for this humility. We cry out for this faith to be worked in us. You would do so, not because we deserve it, God. but because of your grace and your mercy. God, help us to be a people of repentance. Help us to be people who humbly seek your work in us, and then live out in obedience that work, and in doing so we will demonstrate the glory of the Father. God, it's not in what we do It's in who you are and what you are doing. Cause our hearts to know you. And God, we give ourselves to you, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Will you stand with me this morning? We have an evening service tonight at 5.30, and I understand there's supposed to be some storms and stuff come through, that's what I've been told. I don't know, we're used to that, aren't we? Good night. What a mess. But we praise the Lord for this. John Diedrich. John, where are you? John, right here. John is going to be with us tonight. John is overseeing a mission that I think is very, very important in missions today. It's a new foray into missions in that it goes into areas that don't have pastors and don't have educated pastors, and this is A group of men who have been taught and they go into these areas and they teach them and instruct them there rather than sending Americans in there with American flag and American way of doing things. No, they go in and teach nationals how to do the church and how to center it on the word and some of the stuff that we've been talking about. So I am so looking forward to this. John has been a friend for many years and I've watched God work in his life and has brought him just a great wife and a darling little girl. I haven't met her yet. I haven't seen her yet. So I'm looking forward to seeing him this afternoon. But come back this evening at 5.30, just right at an hour. We'll fellowship with one another, but most of this time we'll be spending on listening how God has worked in his heart and life. We have this joy and this privilege of seeing how God is at work in our world. So you come, and then come prepared to give, will you? Calvary is a very generous church, and you give to help meet the needs of these people. I love this passage in Jude, and go away with this this morning. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. We'll see you tonight.