All right, so last week we looked at the argument for there being a covenant of works between God and man prior to the fall of from the perspective of Romans chapter 5 with Adam and Christ being the respective heads of their two people and the heads of their two covenant. This evening I want to begin what is going to be part one tonight and then Lord willing part two next week, a look at the unity of the covenant of grace which is inaugurated in the garden immediately after the fall as we began to look at last week from Genesis 3.15. As we saw from the perspective of Romans 5 and the clarity of that passage, we were really able to shine a light on a less clear passage of Scripture in Genesis in those opening chapters. And we saw the clear parallels between Christ and Adam. Since Christ is clearly spoken of as the covenant head and representative of his people, his works and sacrifice are counted towards his people as a free gift of God's grace. And Adam is counted as the head and representative of mankind, wherein his works, guilt and transgression is counted to all mankind. It follows that since Christ is the covenant head of his people, then so too was Adam the covenant head of his descendants. Again, to put it simply, though the word covenant is not mentioned in Genesis 1 through 3, the elements of a covenant are present. Lord willing, we've been able to see that the last couple weeks. And as, you know, simply put, I was made fun of this statement yesterday for being an antiquated statement, but if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, then it's a covenant, basically, is what we've seen in these passages. And we left off looking at the inauguration of the covenant of grace in Genesis 3.15, where God, in administering his judgment for the covenant of works having been broken, and his judgment upon the serpent and upon mankind, he also reveals the gospel to fallen humanity in really a stunning display of his loving kindness. Immediately after the fall, In the midst of judgment, God announces that He has a plan to undo the very effects of the fall. And this evening, we're going to pick up again with Genesis 315 and look at, as I said, the unity of the covenant of grace as it has unfolded throughout the history of redemption. And to do this, we're going to be looking at two key points. First, defining and distinguishing the covenant of grace with the covenant of works. Or in other words, distinguishing the gospel from the law. And we're also going to be looking at the substance of the covenant of grace as being Christ. Before we do that though, would you again, please pray with me for God's blessing. Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the clarity that it gives to us that it is a light into our path and a lamp into our feet. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who illuminates our hearts to receive your word as truth and sanctifies us by your word. We ask, Father, that you would please grant us all a growth in grace and knowledge and understanding that we may see more clearly, Lord, the truly marvelous plan of salvation that you have granted to us in Christ. And what an awesome work that you have accomplished for us through him. And that we, in loving gratitude, may serve him ever more closely and follow him more closely and more faithfully. In Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, just a brief refresher. Picking up where we left off last week in Genesis 3, we saw the great tragedy of the fall of mankind into sin, and we saw Adam as the covenant head and representative of all humanity. At the urging of his wife, he knowingly transgressed the command of God and ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And having succumbed to the subtlety of Satan, Eve ate the fruit and gave it to her husband, and that Adam's eating brought sin, death, and ruin to the human race. I don't know that we can really quantify or capture in our minds fully the enormity of this tragedy. We see how broken our world is. We see in our own hearts our own inability to even when we would do good, evil is still present within us. And we see throughout history such evil and misery that has reigned from that moment on. I don't know that we can quite fully take it in, but it is to our benefit that we take it in as much as possible, because in so doing, we also see the even greater enormity of the blessing of salvation and of the grace and mercy of God towards us, which is to our benefit. Adam's sin affected not only himself and all of his descendants, but it affected the earth itself. having been given dominion over the earth, that God's judgment that he pronounces is over every blessing that God gave to Adam. We see this clearly from Romans chapter 8, verses 20 and 22, where Paul writes, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. So Adam's sin affected not only his descendants, affected us, but affected that realm over which he was given dominion, the earth itself, being subjected to the bondage of corruption, as Paul tells us. We also saw briefly the method of Satan's temptation. He doesn't argue, but instead rather he slanders, he accuses, he attacks the goodness of God by insinuating that God is somehow unjustly keeping something good from Adam and Eve. And this leads to man seeing God's commands as burdensome instead of for our good. Now how often is that the case for us at times, where God's good commands, they seem, oh, you're asking a bit much of us from us. But we know that God's, from Genesis, that God's commands to Adam, they were blessings, they were good, they were right. But Satan calls the goodness of those commands, and the bounds that God places upon their relationship into question. He makes God out to be some sort of cosmic killjoy. How often do we see God as portrayed that way in our popular culture? God's portrayed as being ungenerous and stingy. If you think about that in the context of what we're talking about, what did God just do? He gave Adam the earth. He gave him the earth. And the serpent comes along and calls into question the goodness of God. He's keeping something from you. And we see also from Eve's response to the serpent to neither eat nor touch the fruit, it seems to indicate that she's beginning to give in to the devil's temptation. The command was not to eat the fruit, not because she would die, but because of the glory of God who had blessed them and established them in covenant. Death was the consequence for eating, not the reason not to eat the fruit. Eve is being deceived. And Satan's response to Eve is to deny the word of the Lord. He flat out calls God a liar. When he says, you will not die. Literally, you will not die, die. It's an emphatic negation of what God promised would be the outcome of violating the covenant. The crux of the devil's temptation to sin is to bring into question the lordship or the sovereignty of God. To get Eve to ask, who is God? To tell me such and such. Satan challenges both the goodness and the lordship of God who had been enormously good to man, indescribably good to man by giving them life, by giving them marriage, by giving them dominion. Satan calls God a liar and denies that there will be any judgment for breaking the covenant God had established. And then he goes on to promise enlightenment. He offers such an enormous lie that calls Adam and Eve to an entirely new view of the world that runs contrary to the words of God. Instead of being in harmony with God, God is told she will be like God. She will be as God and that there will therefore be no consequences. And according to the serpent, enlightenment comes from disobeying God. Unbelief at its heart. To be like God, the serpent says, well, you must sin. How contrary is that? The sinless, perfect, holy, righteous God. Satan gets them to think, well, in order to be like God, which he doesn't want me to be like Him, I have to sin, I have to disobey Him. And they're in His enlightenment. And the crux of the original sin, of original sin, is rebellion against God. Unbelief and pride and idolatry, they're all present in the fall of man. But at the heart of it, what the devil is driving at is to get man to rebel against God and to deny that he is Lord and to deny that he is good. And we see this in the story of Job when the devil challenges God that Job only loves him because God has blessed him. But in the end, Job realizes that God is worth living for even if all of his blessings are taken away. Satan's temptations, they're not original. He constantly asserts that there is a distinction between happiness and holiness. And he says that true joy comes from rejecting God's word and going your own way. But God's commands, as we see from Genesis 1 and 2, His commands to man are blessings. Happiness and holiness actually go hand in hand. And God is vindicated when Adam and Eve eat, and then they realize that they were naked, and they become ashamed. The enlightenment that they hoped for was not what they got. Their eyes were opened and they sensed their shame and their guilt and were now self-conscious in a way that they had not been. They now knew good and evil by committing evil and realizing the loss of their innocence and goodness. John Keurig writes of this terrible event the consequences of Adam and Eve breaking the covenant of works through their sinful behavior were staggering and far-reaching as Seen seminally in Genesis 3 7 through 24, but also throughout scripture first sin affected and infected all human nature The Westminster Confession of Faith puts it this way, by this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. This means that each and every aspect of human nature has been adversely affected by sin. As Paul says in Romans 121, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Sin simply darkened and distorted the hearts and minds of humanity. In addition, sin has resulted in the death of the human body. As Paul comments in Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death. God had threatened Adam with that punishment for covenantal disobedience, and it came to pass. The result is that by the rebellion, Adam and Eve lost their lives, both physically and spiritually. But Thankfully, and to the eternal praise of God's grace and loving kindness that the story doesn't end there. God would have been completely just and right if he had ended humanity right then and there. But even in the midst of his righteous judgment against the serpent and against mankind, the Lord reveals that he has a plan to undo all of that tragedy and inaugurates the covenant of grace with these words from Genesis 3. The Lord said, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. We see in God's judgment of the serpent that the creature who is crafty above all the beasts of the field is brought low. The devil who exalted himself against God, who twisted God's words to deceive is brought low. He is brought to the ground from the height of his pride and given dust to eat. And notice how the Lord wisely brings in all the elements of the serpent's sin into his judgment against him. He was high, now he is low. He enticed man to eat, now he must eat dust. The serpent challenged the goodness and truthfulness of God. The Lord responds by promising to wage war against the evil one and against his offspring, and promises to overcome the evil one through death itself. The very evil that sin brought into the world, God promises to overcome through death. And this is the Bible's first mention of the gospel and is the inauguration of the one covenant of grace that is administered to God's people in the subsequent covenants of scripture as the history of redemption unfolds and progresses throughout centuries until Christ comes. And what's worth noting here is that the gospel is set within the context of a declaration of war. by God against the works of the devil. And in the context of God's rescuing mankind from the curse that he is pronouncing against man for his sin. And this warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and God's fulfilling of this word of promise in Genesis 3.15 really is what the Bible is about. The rest of scripture is about God bringing this about. A few weeks ago, I preached on Psalm 139, which contains imprecatory language from David wherein he expresses hatred for the enemies of God and David as God's anointed king from whom the Messiah would come and of whom David is a type. He's expressing that in God's warfare against his enemies and against the works of the devil, he's on the Lord's side and wishes to be aligned with God's righteousness and just judgment against evil. Where do you think David got such ideas? And what is interesting is that in a lot of the imprecatory language of the Psalms, where the psalmist expresses a desire for God's righteous judgment upon evil, the language echoes that of Genesis 3.15, where God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the seed of the serpent. Speaking of the wicked in Psalm 58, three through four, the psalmist writes, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear. Speaking of the wicked, calling to mind that serpent language, calling to mind the devil as a liar from the beginning. Psalm 140, one through three. Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men. Preserve me from violent men who plan evil things in their heart and stir up wars continually. They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's, and under their lips is the venom of asps. Again, clear allusions to the serpent. Again, Psalm 7. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull, his violence descends. What do we hear of in Genesis 3.15? The warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent will involve the crushing of the serpent's seed falling upon his head. dashing, crushing his head. We see again from Psalm 2, I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. So often in the Psalms, when the anointed king of the Lord is spoken of as fighting against the enemies of God, it's spoken of as dashing or crushing their head. All of this comes from that passage that we just read from Genesis. But in saying that Genesis 3.15 is the inauguration of the covenant of grace, what do we mean by that? What is the covenant of grace and how does it relate to the subsequent covenants of Scripture? Now what is of great importance as we consider this covenant of grace, the gospel, is that we distinguish it from the covenant with Adam, the covenant of works or law. Adam was promised continual blessing from God provided that he continued to obey God's commands. In other words, Adam's obedience or works were essential to his continued fellowship with God. But in breaking this covenant of works, Adam rendered himself and all his descendants incapable of having fellowship with God on the grounds of their obedience or works. No amount of good deeds will bring us into right standing before God. No law or commands kept by man could mend the breach between God and man as mankind was now subject to death through Adam's sin and had inherited from him a fallen sinful nature that is inclined against God. And as the entrance to the garden was blocked by a cherubim and a flaming sword, so too was the way to God by works cut off from fallen mankind. But in the promise of the seed of the woman who had crushed the head of the seed of the serpent, God gave to fallen humanity the covenant of grace, the gospel. In the covenant of grace, God offers to mankind forgiveness, restoration to fellowship with God, not on the basis of works, but on the basis of grace alone, on the basis of God's unmerited, demerited favor and love, sheerly out of his own free goodness and kindness towards sinners like me and like you. Harrison Perkins, a theologian and pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who has an excellent book on covenant theology, he defines the covenant of grace as, quote, God's one plan of salvation, whereby he effectively redeemed all his elect by the work of Christ. The covenant of grace is built on the gospel principle. Again, the scripture teaches about two kinds of covenantal principles, law and gospel, works and promise. So we can see that the covenant of works and grace were both law covenants, and that God required one person in each, Adam and Christ, to render perfect obedience for those whom they represented. The covenant of redemption secured grace for us, but was a covenant of works for the Son. In the covenant of grace, God can promise grace, not because He set aside His just judgments or His just requirements, but because Christ has fulfilled those requirements for us, and so earned the blessings of grace on our behalf. That is such an important thing for us to grasp. The covenant of grace is gracious towards us. But to Christ, it's a covenant of works. It requires his obedience on our behalf. It requires his perfect righteousness on our behalf, his resisting against the devil on our behalf, his resisting against sin on our behalf, and his subjecting himself to the just punishment of our sins on our behalf, so that we could receive all the blessings of the covenant freely by God's grace. Our fallen condition means that we cannot have a right relationship with God on the basis of our works. So we must relate to him by grace rather than by law." So to put this all in simple and plain terms, what God promises in Genesis 3.15 in the seat of the woman is Christ. Christ is the sum and the substance of this promise. He is the sum and the substance of all the subsequent promises of God. The substance or the essence of the covenant of grace. And what do I mean by substance or essence? That if you take it away from a thing, the thing stops being what it is. He's the essence of the covenant of grace. That which is promised and provided to God's people in all the subsequent covenants of Scripture is Jesus Christ. This is why he said to his opponents, you search the scriptures before you think in them you have life, but as they that testify of me. And he says elsewhere, Moses was writing about me. This is an enormous claim. And this is why I've said that everything in scripture after Genesis 3 15 is about Christ and God's unfolding plan to save a people for himself through the giving of his son so that we would be saved from sin and death and judgment and granted eternal life with God. that Christ is the substance of what is promised in Genesis 315 and the subsequent covenants as we'll see more of next week, Lord willing, tells us of the unity of salvation for all God's people in all time. From Adam to today and to the end of the age, it has always been the case that God's people have been saved by his grace alone through faith alone as he was promised to them at that time. The Westminster Confession, chapter 8, puts it this way. Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after His incarnation, Yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated into the elect in all ages successively from the beginning of the world in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices wherein he was revealed and signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent's head and the lamb slain from the beginning of the world, being yesterday and today the same and forever. So just as we believers today living in the blessed, we are so privileged, we live in the blessed light of the clear revelation of Christ contained in the New Testament, we're saved by grace on account of what Christ has done for us, so too were God's people prior to Christ's coming saved by God's grace through faith in the promise of what Christ would come to do. The work of Christ reaches back into the ancient times to save all of God's people of old and stretches out to us today and into the future to save all God's people yet to come. And that we can see that Christ is the substance of all God's promises from Genesis 315 onward. Let us consider several passages of scripture. First, 2 Corinthians 1, 19 through 20, which we heard of from recently. For the Son of God, Paul writes, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in Him it is always yes. Verse 20, for all the promises of God find their yes in Him. That it is why through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory. Christ is the answer yes from God in all of His promises. Colossians 2, 16 through 17, Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. Verse 17, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Now look at what Paul's talking about in that passage. He's talking about food and drink, festivals, new moons, Sabbath. What does that call to mind? It calls to mind things of the Mosaic covenant. And what does Paul say of those things? They're just the shadows of what is to come. What those things were ultimately about and pointing to, the substance, as Paul says, was Christ. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 and 22, but if, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Another clear connection of Christ being the representative of all the people of God. In Adam all die, in Christ all live. So from these passages from Paul's writings, we can see clearly that Paul's understanding of the promises of the Old Covenant and of Adam are summed up in the person and work of Christ. Christ is what has always been promised to God's people, and it is only by grace through faith that God's people have been, are now, and will be saved. Looking back to the promise of Genesis 3.15, in the promised seat of the woman, we can see how scripture carries forth with this promise and reveals to us the substance of this promise, the fulfillment of this promise being Christ. Isaiah 7.14, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. An emphasis, now what's, besides the virgin birth being significant in that passage, what do we see? The Emmanuel who would come is specifically identified as being the product of a woman. Galatians 4, 4 through 5. Now raise your hand if you were born of a woman. Me too. So what's unusual about Paul making this point? He's saying that in the appointed time, God sent his son born of a woman. He's specifically calling to mind this promise from Genesis 3.15. This is the one who was promised. This is the seed of the woman who would come. And again, the covenant of grace as it first comes and announces the seed of the woman who would come and destroy the works of the devil. This is the promise as it is first given, and again, it finds its fulfillment in Christ. 1 John 3.8, the very reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So we see this thread running throughout all of Scripture in all the various administrations and covenants that God subsequently establishes. And at the heart of every one of them is the promise of Christ who would come to deliver His people and save His people by grace through faith. And also carried forth from Genesis 3.15 onward is the enmity God declares between His seed and the serpent. And we see this. If you just keep reading along in Genesis, it's clear. From Genesis 4 to 6, we see the accounts of humanity divided between those who follow after God and those who follow after the serpent. And we see this most clearly in the account of Cain's murder of Abel. And then subsequently in the genealogies of Cain and Seth and how those two lines are described. And also seen in this chapter is the common refrain, and he died, and he died, and he died, signifying that the promise is yet to come. And until it comes, death will reign. And it also emphasizes the universal aspect effect of Adam's sin. And it is in the midst of the spreading of man's corruption and death across the earth where we first meet up with the first explicit mention of God's grace as being the remedy for sin and death. Genesis 6, 5 through 8 tells us that the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The ESV translate the Hebrew word for grace as favor, but most English translations have it as grace, as does the Greek translation of the Old Testament passage have it as grace. The story of Noah is deep with biblical significance that points to Christ saving his people through death, through a flood, and delivering them to a new heavens and a new earth. But what is significant for our purposes here in showing Christ as the sum of all the promises of God from Genesis 315 onwards is that the grounds of God's saving of Noah and his family, and thus the saving of all humanity, is solely God's grace through faith. Nothing else, nothing more. Grace through faith. We see this by Hebrews 11, seven. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. The scriptures make explicit with Noah what is promised in Genesis 3.15, that our salvation depends not upon our own works, but upon God's grace through faith and a promised seed. And it is because of God's promise given to us by his sheer and free grace that we are forgiven of all sins and brought back into fellowship with God. And in establishing his covenant with Noah, God ensures that his promised seed will come and ensures the continuance of the world until he comes. Now next week, we'll continue our study of the unity of the covenant of grace from Adam to Christ. And next week, we'll look further at the development of the promised seed of the woman throughout the scripture as God progressively reveals that his seed will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. He will be the deliverer of his people. He will be the one who shepherds his people to safety and that he will be his people's king who will set up an everlasting kingdom that will finally and forever destroy the seed of the serpent and rule in righteousness. That is what we see unfolded before us across the centuries as God reveals slowly over time more and more and more the nature of his promise to save his people by grace through faith. And as we come to the New Testament, that picture becomes clear because we have it in the face of Christ. Now, since as we've seen this evening, all the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ as the second Adam and secured for us in the new covenant, it is vital that we see ourselves as being in Christ by covenant. The warp and woof of our entire relationship to God is covenantal in nature, and it stands upon the promises of God in Christ. To help us see that perhaps a little more clearly, I want to read to you from Hebrews chapter 10, verses 12 through 23, where the author to Hebrews writes, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Waiting from that time until his enemy should be made a footstool for his feet. Remind you of a passage from Genesis 3 about the serpent. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. All of our hope, all of our enduring, all of the encouragement of these words is all grounded in promise. It's all grounded in a covenant that God himself sovereignly established through the blood of his son. So what we ought to take from these most wonderful words is that our standing before God and our access to him has been secured for us by God who keeps his promises. When the Lord first spoke the good news of the gospel in the garden, he did so in terms of what he would do for us in Christ. Sin rendered us incapable of life and fellowship with God, but in Christ, our guilt and sin is washed away. In Christ, we have access to God. Where access was cut off from us, we now have access to God. And we have access to God as children have access to their father. And this is all done through God's words of promise to us that Christ has established in the shedding of his blood, not our works, We stand in covenant with God by His unbreakable, infallible, and perfect word. And in the covenant, Christ has ensured for us that we will never again be cast away from the presence of God. that in all our need we may find mercy and grace to help, that in all our weaknesses Christ has been strong on our behalf, that in all our sins have been thoroughly and justly dealt with and our consciences are clear with God. Unlike Adam who hid from the presence of God, we may rush into his presence. We may rush into the throne room of God and be received by our Father who delights in us. Even when we sin, that's the first place you should go. That's the first place you should go is to your heavenly father who loves you and has provided the means of your forgiveness and cleansing. Our Lord who gave us these promises of the new covenant who by his works has secured for us everlasting life and blessedness. Our Lord is faithful and he cannot lie. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the word of promise to us is unshakable. Our Lord has gone to such extravagant lengths to demonstrate His faithfulness to us, and it is upon this rock upon which we stand. By God's unbreakable word, etch these truths into your minds. By God's unbreakable word, Through the perfect works and sacrifice of Christ, we have the forgiveness of sins, all of them, all of them. Even the ones that we don't even wanna utter to ourselves we're so ashamed of. We have the indwelling spirit to guide us by God's word. We have the promise of being set apart for God by God. We have the cleansing of our consciences. Our guilt has been dealt with. And we have a perfect priest who stands before God on our behalf. So we can have confidence, true confidence before God to come to him as accepted. And we have the sure hope of a blessedness that cannot be taken away from us. Will you pray with me? Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful promises that you've given to us in Christ. Lord, we can scarce take them in. Please expand the boundaries of our heart that we may see them more clearly and trust in them more fully and live by them each and every day. Lord, we thank you and we praise you for the marvelous work that you have accomplished on our behalf. We ask, Lord, that as we go about the rest of our week, that there would be a song of thankfulness and praise in our hearts towards you. We ask these things in Christ's name.