Well, for hundreds of years, Israel had been in the land of Canaan, surrounded by powerful nations, at least relative at that time, with powerful kings. Israel was, by all human estimation, in a very vulnerable position. It was a somewhat loose confederation of tribes. It had no central governing structure. It had no head of state and it would seem that it had no standing army. In fact, however, as vulnerable as Israel appeared to be, Israel was more secure than any nation on earth. And that is because the invisible God, Jehovah, was their king. As long as they submitted to Jehovah's reign, no enemy could harm them. Now, this must have sounded foolish to the political scientists and diplomats of the day. I'm sure they had such people. They probably didn't go by their name, but they probably had such people. They would have thought all this was silly. And because, for the simple reason that all this required faith in an unseen God. And besides that, this Jehovah has a law to obey. And that law can be rather confining. And so this was no doubt a constant struggle. And again, if we don't put ourselves into the narrative, we miss so much. We ought not to think that Israel was just being trite in their struggle on this point. I think it was a very real struggle. Who do we have that can go out and straighten things out? At times, Israel really wished they didn't have to rely on God as their king. Jehovah has an annoying habit of not moving when you want him to do, and not doing things quite the way you wanted him to do it. And it was a struggle for Israel, and it's a struggle for us. And why couldn't they, after all, have a king with a great army and a central government to look to in times of distress and danger? After all, you could get a special interest group together, go and meet with the king and have some influence over him. After all, God had told them from the days of the patriarchs that there would be a king over Israel. Why not now? But as we noted in chapter eight, the problem was not so much that they asked for a king, per se, as the reason they asked for a king. And we learn from verse 12 of this chapter that Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had come against Israel in some way. he had posed some threat to their national security. We don't have any detail, but we know from verse 12 of this chapter that that was the case. And so here is Nahash, he is posing a threat, and if they only had a king to defend them. But they did have a king. They did have a king. No, no, no, no. Yeah, we know that. You don't understand. If we only had a king, you know, like the other nations have a king. You know, somebody that'll take care of things and respond and go out and lead an army. Samuel had twice before rebuked Israel for their sin and asking for a king when Jehovah was their king. But his rebuke had fallen on deaf ears. There was no confession of sin. There was no repentance. It is as though Israel was collectively saying, we hear you Samuel, but we still want a king. Like the other nations have a king, you know what I mean? Somebody that sits on a throne, you can go and make an appointment with him. And actually, Samuel was not the first to deal with this situation. Way back in Judges 8, Israel came to Gideon after he had led them to victory and was judging Israel. And they asked him to reign as king over them. And Gideon's response in chapter eight, verse 23, is remarkably parallel to what we are seeing here. He said, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. You see the theme in what Gideon says and what Samuel is dealing with. The problem was, God is not enough. I need something different. I need something better. I need something visible. The invisible God who is sovereign, who you cannot influence, you cannot control. That king is not good enough. You know, if I might just pause, I know I'll kind of move off this point here a moment, but I wanna just drive this home. I have recently encounter or been reading some church history where a lot is said about the relationship of kings to the church and whatnot, and how kings have responded. And over and over again, what you read and what you realize is, Kings don't get to do whatever they want to do. They got armies, they got, back in, you know, 300 years ago, they could go out, slaughter a bunch of people in the nation, but the fact is, when enough people in the nation say no, the king has to say okay. But you can't do that with God. And that was the problem. That was the problem. In 1 Samuel 12, God through Samuel finally gets through to the people of Israel. And they come to see their sin. The verses that deal with that are what we will cover next time. It's beyond verse 18. But they do finally come to repentance. They come to see their sin, confess their sin. And if they fully comprehended all that Samuel had said to them here, and I don't know whether they did or not, but if they did, They would see and know that we will never, we can never, we should never lose sight of the reality that God is king over all. That we are under his rule, that he is such a king that we must serve and obey him with fear and joyful gratitude. that he remains king whether we will acknowledge him as king or not. Well, although Samuel is relinquishing many of the functions of his functions as judge to Saul as the new king, in this chapter He presents a powerful combination, really, of both judge and prophet. It's fascinating to watch it in the chapter. You see the headings that we're going to work with here, but let me just give you the outline of the entire chapter, verses one through 13. You have Samuel's defense of Jehovah's reign. as king, and we'll be dealing with that first today. And then Samuel's prosecution of Israel's sin in their request for a human king in verses six through 15. And then Samuel's invocation of Jehovah's power as sovereign of the universe in verses 16 through 18. And then next week, Lord willing, we'll take up Samuel's exhortation to Israel as a repentant people. We'll look at verses 19 through 25. Well, first of all, Samuel's defense of Jehovah's reign as king. Now, in a proper sense, we would not say that any man stands and defends Jehovah. But what I mean by this is that Samuel is speaking to the people as God's instrument, God's spokesman to the people to raise a defense, to raise an argument that shows that Jehovah's reign as king was perfect and could not be improved on. Now, whether they would have admitted it or not, and whether they would have admitted it in these terms or not, Israel clearly found fault with a simple reliance on Jehovah's King. and following the leadership of the judges he appointed. If there was not some weakness, if there was not some fault, they would not have asked for a king instead of Jehovah. But Samuel is going to show that there was in fact no fault in God's leadership and in his administration. And in keeping with the principle of Christ, before Samuel judges Israel, he will first judge himself. And remarkably, what we see is that Samuel submits himself to judgment by the people. It's an extraordinary thing. Samuel is justified here as a faithful judge to an ungrateful people. And we see that in verses one through five. I think I'll just read those verses and then when we read the next section, we'll read on through further. Well, verses 1 through 5, now, Samuel said to all Israel, indeed, I have heeded your voice and all that you said to me, and have made a king over you. And now here is the king walking before you, and I am old and gray-headed, and look, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my childhood to this day. Here I am, witness against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I received any bribe? with which to blind my eyes. I will restore it to you. And they said, you have not cheated us or oppressed us, nor have you taken anything from any man's hand. Then he said to them, the Lord is witness against you. And his anointed is witness this day that you have not found anything in my hand. And they answered, he is witness. Now, these verses show a level and a progress of grace in Samuel that is truly remarkable. Contrary to what we would expect from most men, from most Christians, from ourselves, Samuel does not view Saul as his rival, much less does he resent him. though he excelled Saul in every point. There was absolutely no dimension that you could evaluate Saul and Samuel on and say that Saul was the better of the two. And yet, here is Samuel without any resentment, without any hesitation, putting Saul forward and preparing to transfer the administration of justice in the kingdom to Saul. Nor is he resentful toward the people. Again, remarkable. He's been assured by God that it was God's purpose to give Israel a king. Now the prophet Hosea writes about this very incident and Hosea makes clear that God is giving them what they asked in judgment and in anger toward them. So it's not as though what the people have asked for is okay. It's not as though this is all fine and God's gotten over it. Not at all. There is still a heavy aspect of judgment and anger. But he is not resentful. Samuel is not resentful toward the people, though he has been slighted by them. He gives them the king they asked for. He is willing now to step to the side. But there's something that I had never seen in my reading of this passage before that I think is the most remarkable. And it's in verse three. In verse 3, he calls the nation to give testimony before Jehovah and his anointed. His anointed refers to Saul. What is Samuel doing here? Samuel is submitting himself to Saul's administration of justice. Samuel is placing himself in the court of Saul and say, all right, let's have a trial. And he calls on the people to bring forward any charge or complaint against his rule as judge. Implicit in that is that if any charge could be brought against him, he was willing to submit. to Saul's administration of justice. The humility here, the full submissiveness of his spirit to God, the full submission of his spirit to all that God gives to be authorities over us is remarkable. Let me just put it this way to make sure that we're interacting with this passage on the level we should. If you were Samuel, Would you have placed yourself voluntarily under the authority and the judgment of Saul? You're three times, many more times qualified to be a judge than Saul is. But Samuel says, that's okay. God's anointed. And if God has chosen him to be king, I willingly submit myself to him as king. You see, our submission is not a function of the competency or the spirituality or lack thereof of the one that God has appointed. In Samuel's mind, it was very simple. He is the Lord's anointed. He is the one I submit to. And Samuel is willing to say, okay, anyone, anyone, any of you, come forward, anything I've done wrong, God's anointed will be judge here. Samuel had conducted himself with such flawless integrity and faithfulness that the people could not gainsay anything of his conduct as judge or as prophet in all those decades of public life. This was a man of unusual grace. Now, he is not the only man like this in the Bible, but whenever God places such a man like this, before us in the pages of scripture, he clearly does it so that we have an example to follow. I have often thought of how important this is in the Bible. God could have written the Bible as just a series of commands and principles of wisdom. So think of those passages in the Old Testament that are command after command after command. Or like Romans 12, just a series of commands and principles of life. And he could have made all the Bible like the book of Proverbs. Think of those chapters in Proverbs, where it's one proverb after another. And maybe he built an index in the back, and so that you could, and maybe he organizes them by topic, I don't know. But that could have been the way he wrote it, but he didn't. And so throughout the Bible, we have godly men, and their examples showing us how these things work, how they work out. And perhaps for some of us, the way we're wired more than others, that's tremendously valuable to see. I see the command, but how does that really work? And we see how it works. So we ought to always take note of men of this caliber. Think of Daniel, his life so blameless that the only option for those who wanted to accuse him was to do so by pointing to his obedience and worship to God. We need to imitate the grace of Samuel, the aversion to envy and strife, the slowness to take offense, the willingness to suffer wrong without resentment, the utter lack of self-interest, the humility of spirit, the perseverance in a life of faithfulness and integrity. Remember Samuel, remember his example. Well, so Samuel has been justified in the public square here in the court as faithful judge to an ungrateful people, but second, now he moves on to raise the defense for Jehovah as a faithful king to an ungrateful people. God's perfections in his being and works are such that we find an abundance of demonstrations of his faithfulness and grace and mercy to the most unworthy and ungrateful. And Samuel here only gives a sampling, drawing from the history of Israel, that reminds us, reminded them of how good Jehovah had been to them as their king. And here I want to read from verse six down to verse 15. We'll be moving in our reading really to cover the next major heading as well. But let's read verses six. through 15. Then Samuel said to the people, it is the Lord who raised up Moses and Aaron and who brought your fathers up from the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still that I may reason with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did to you and your fathers. When Jacob had gone into Egypt and your fathers cried out to the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. And when they forgot the Lord their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. Then they cried out to the Lord and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtoreths, but now deliver us from the hand of our enemies and we will serve you. And the Lord sent Jeroboam, Bedin, Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side and you dwelt in safety. And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king. Now therefore here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired. And take note, the Lord has set a king over you. If you fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and do not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God. However, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was against your fathers. Now again, Samuel has summoned Israel into court. He has submitted himself to the judgment of the court. That judgment has been given. He is guiltless as judge before them. He is justified as judge. So now he rises as the lawyer for the defense and he presents evidence to in the court that there has in fact been no fault in Jehovah as Israel's king. Now their very birth as a theocratic nation with Jehovah as king was against the backdrop of Jehovah's deliverance from their bondage in Egypt. They were helplessly and hopelessly under Pharaoh's oppression. And God raised up Moses and Aaron. But it's not like God raised up Moses and Aaron and said, there, you've got the people that'll take care of it. I'll move on to other things. No. He raised up Moses and Aaron. to be those that would lead them, who would deliver them, but it was still Jehovah's King that worked with great power and mighty acts and overthrew Pharaoh and brought them out of Egypt. to be a great nation. Their history under Jehovah's reign was marked by a succession of such remarkable deliverances. Mighty kings and nations, the Canaanites, the Midianites, the Moabites, the Philistines, and others, were overthrown by Jehovah. Again and again Jehovah raised up men who would lead them in victory. You see him list them here. Jerubbabel, which was Gideon, all right? That was Gideon's, the other name that Gideon went by. We have bet in here that, I think there's pretty strong agreement, should have been written as Beric, So it's referring to Beric. He mentions Jephthah even in their own time. Samuel himself had been raised up as judge to lead them to victory over the Philistines. You remember that several chapters ago. Jehovah did this for them in spite of their ungratefulness and rebellion. Now the question is, what king would ever be like Jehovah? What king could you find that with such an ungrateful people, would continue to do such great things for them. But in spite of these mighty acts, in spite of God showing his greatness and his goodness, they forgot Jehovah, verse nine. They forsook Jehovah, verse 10. And then the crowning act of their ungratefulness was, in verse 12, they asked for a king to reign over them when Jehovah God was their king. Again, what king is there like Jehovah that would respond with such long-suffering and patience to rescue and deliver a people who would forget and forsake him? And see how God has even given them the king they asked for, though their very request for a king was a slight and an insult against his good and gracious reign. Don't just read this as a historical narrative. Jehovah God is revealing something of his majesty. It's one of the things, Dale Ralph Davis has written some commentaries on some of the Old Testament historical books. And one of the things that I appreciate about that is he returns again and again to make this very point. Jehovah is showing his greatness. Jehovah is showing something of himself. that we might love him, that we might adore him, that we might be enthralled by him. There is no God like this God. There is no king like this king. Those who continue in unbelief and rebellion against this king act foolishly to their own hurt. There is no greater privilege then that this God should be our God, that this King should be our King. There is no better. For him to be our deliverer, for him to be our ruler, for him to be our leader, for him to be our protector, there is no better position to be in. Again, the greatest thing in the world is to be a Christian. The greatest thing in the world is to be one that God owns as his own child. A God of such perfection by his very being makes claims on us. You cannot have a God like this and say, well, that's nice. I appreciate that. Maybe I ought to jot off a thank you note to him this week. No, it's a God like this demands things of just simply by his being. The sin of unbelief and rebellion against such a God is audacity. The sin of ungratefulness and unthankfulness against such a God is beyond explanation. So Samuel has shown that there is in fact no fault in Jehovah's administration. Jehovah as King has been perfect. There could be no better. It's not just that there hadn't been any better, there could be no better. If there is fault, and clearly there was, there was a problem. But they had already said the problem wasn't with Samuel. And now Samuel has shown the problem is not with God. Where's the problem? And we see here now Samuel's prosecution of Israel's sin in their request for a human king. And we've already read through this verse 15. I did that on purpose. We're looking here, we're going back and overlapping. We're looking at verses six through 15 as the basis for what we are going to cover under this heading. And looking back over those verses, we realize, again, there's a question we have not really answered yet. Jehovah has delivered Israel again and again. How was it that they ended up in a position again and again where they needed one to deliver them? How did they come to be again under the oppressive dominion of another nation? How was it that their enemies gained power over them? Was it a dereliction of duty on the part of King Jehovah? Was he not paying attention? Was he unable to defend them? These other nations were too powerful. They came and God tried but he couldn't. Well, clearly that would not be so because he delivered them again and again. Samuel tells the people of Israel that in asking for a king, they haven't understood the problem. They're looking to solve the problem In the wrong way. Remember that message where we said we gotta understand the problem before you can come up with a solution? Here's the problem. It says, first of all, the problem is with the people, not the ruler. How would having a king like the other nations solve anything? How would it fix anything? Okay, you're gonna have a king. God's going to give you the king you wanted. I'm appointing the king you asked for. So how does that fix anything? Would a king be better than Moses and Aaron? Where would you find a king better than Moses and Aaron? Would a king be better than Gideon? or Beric or Jephthah. You say, well, Jephthah wasn't so great. Yeah, but a lot of the kings weren't so great either. Certainly Gideon and Beric and Jephthah had their faults, but so would any king. How does having a king fix anything? And after all, okay, Jephthah wasn't so great, but he still was strong enough to be a leader to Israel. He still was ahead of where the nation was through the grace that God gave him. Indeed, Samuel gave, or God gave Samuel as the judge. They were under the dominion of the Philistines. God delivered them through Samuel's leadership. They had just testified that Samuel was blameless and faultless. Where are they going to find a king that's an improvement on Samuel? Were any of the judges that God gave them responsible for the oppressive dominion of these nations? Think about it. What was the sequence? God gives a judge, they come under the oppression of the nation, and God, the judge delivers them? No, that's not the sequence, right? They come under the oppressive dominion of another nation, God gives a judge, he delivers them time and time again, the record is, so long as that judge was alive, they kind of kept the course. They die, Israel would stray away and then another nation would be raised up. So where's the problem here? The problem was the pride, the ungratefulness, the unfaithfulness, the impatience, we could add a lot of other things, of the people that the judges led. They were even ungrateful toward Moses and Aaron. Remember they wanted to stone them? How does having a king instead of a judge solve the problem? Their issue is with God, not the judge. God's not going away. God gave them judges, now God will give them kings. Judges, kings. Tomato, tomato. Put any title you want on the man. If you've got a nation, if you've got people that want to worship their idols, you're not going to fix the problem. If we get the right guy, if we get the right guy, we'll turn the nation. No, you don't. That's Samuel's point. You're not gonna turn them. You might get one degree of turn, maybe. It's not gonna fix the problem. The problem is submission to God's law rather than those that govern. And now we reach the central use the Latin term, and I don't know Latin, locus, central locus of the problem, the heart of the problem. What really was their issue with God as their king? They had God. as their king, Jehovah as their king, and they want another God. What's really the issue with God as their king? It was the law of God. That's the problem. In particular, Samuel in these verses calls out their unwillingness to love Jehovah with all their being, to worship and serve him and him only. He said, that's the problem. The problem is that you, as a people, have not been willing to bow to Jehovah's law. In fact, Samuel skillfully uses the nation to judge the nation. Watch this, he says, your own fathers have confessed we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtoreth. He says, I'm not saying this. Your own fathers have said this is the problem. This is where the real issue is. We have forsaken the Lord. Our hearts are not wedded to him. He could have even directed their attention back to Mizpah. Again, their own generation. Remember back, what was it, chapter seven? Yeah. Samuel calls for them to put away their foreign gods and astros. What do they say in verse six? We have sinned against the Lord. This is the problem. He says, your own mouths have confessed this. Why had they ended up under the dominion of these nations? It was no failure on the part of the judges. It was no failure on the part of King Jehovah. Indeed, King Jehovah had allowed them to come under that dominion because of their sin and rebellion against his law. Why? To destroy them? No, no, no. To save them? To forsake them as his people? No, no, no. To recover them. They are rebels again and again against his law, and yet the king delivers them to recover them, to bring them to repentance. So many applications could be made. I'm going to take one, and only one, So many times we think that our problems will be solved by a change in our circumstances. We think that our problems have to do with the people and the things and the events that are in our lives and interacting with us when the real problem may be within us. We've all been here. We tend to think of what my spouse is doing, what my kids are doing, this house I live in, my job, my boss, the company I work for, the pastor, certain church members, the church as a whole, the president, the governor, the Congress, the media, whatever. But sometimes, and I think more often than we want to admit, the problem is within us. Change all of our circumstances, we would still find ourselves out of sorts, discontent, contentious, grasping, annoyed, frustrated, whatever may be our state. Problem is we're still chafing at God's law, we're fighting God's providence. We aren't willing to humble ourselves and be submissive. We need to understand this, we need to remember this, we need to watch for it in ourselves. It may be that at times God intends a change in our circumstances. that can be legitimately part of his providential purpose. But we need to be careful that we do not attach to circumstances what ought not to be attached to it. You know, it strikes me how futile life in God's world is for the unconverted and unbelieving. You're trying to live in a world where God controls every detail, and you're cross-purposes with God. That's like a train wreck waiting to happen. You just, you can't, nothing is going to work. And we need to understand that this is some of the enormous struggle that the unconverted have, where they keep trying to make life work in God's world, doing it differently than God said it ought to be done. Well, I want to move finally to Samuel's invocation of Jehovah's power as the sovereign of the universe. Just these three verses, verses 16 through 18. Fascinating, though, in their impact. Now, therefore, stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is today not the wheat harvest? I will call to the Lord and he will send thunder and rain that you may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord in asking a king for yourselves. So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. The wheat harvest, from what I've read, occurred generally in about the months of May and June. In those two months, rain was unknown in Palestine. In Central New York, we do occasionally have snow in May. We joke about it. When it happens, we are perhaps not thrilled about it, but it does occasionally happen. I don't know as I have ever seen snow in June, but let's just get a better parallel. Think of South Florida, let's say the Keys, okay, off the southern tip of Florida. Have you ever seen three inches of snow fall in May or in June in South Florida in the Keys? No. It just doesn't happen. Is it meteorologically possible with the right combination of conditions? I suppose. But it's just not going to happen. And that's the situation with rain and the wheat harvest. It's just not going to happen. This would be something approaching a miracle. It was a miracle. Now, Samuel calls on God to perform this miracle to show their sin in asking for a king, and I think he makes two points with it. When that rain and that thunder came during the wheat harvest, he shows, first of all, God's power to save and destroy. They wanted a king like the other nations to lead them to victory. over their enemies. But what human king can make it rain in wheat harvest? Oh, but he'll have a big army. Well, I'll take making it rain in wheat harvest over any size army. In fact, if you remember, with Cicero, and his army, part of what was involved in that victory, a barrack over Cicero was torrential rain that led to flooding that overthrew that army. Having a king that can make it rain and wheat harvest, pretty good. Not going to get better than that. But there's another theme. The God who can make it rain and wheat harvest is a God you don't mess with. Why did they want a king like the other nations? Well, because Jehovah can be intimidating at times. And you gotta treat Jehovah carefully. But that's true. If God can save or destroy, if God can make it rain and we harvest, yeah, I guess you don't treat that God lightly. You fear him. You reverence him. And you pay attention to him. And you stick close to him. Well, but if we have a king like the other nations, but think what you're giving up. I think we really need such a God as our king. In fact, think of it another way. Is it possible to get rid of such a king? We want a king like the other nations instead of Jehovah. Let's just say it was said that outright. How are you going to get rid of the one who can make a rain and wheat harvest? He's gonna be king whether you want him to be king or not. You cannot trade him away. You can't say, Time for you to step down, somebody else take over. No, he is still going to be king. Do whatever you want. Put whatever government you want in place. He's still king. There's another thing that is evident here, and this is what we close with, and that's God's power to give authority to those that he will have rule and to those he will have govern. And this we must not miss. Samuel does not say to them, God has revealed to me that he is going to send rain in the wheat harvest. He doesn't do that. Samuel says, I'm gonna tell you before it happens what I'm going to do. I am going to pray to God and he will send rain in wheat harvest. Why did he arrange it that way? So that it would be absolutely clear. He was speaking with the authority of one that God had appointed as his prophet. As his judge and as the prophet, he would have rule over them. In fact, what we see is that they get their king, but they haven't gotten rid of Samuel either. And Saul hasn't gotten rid of Samuel. Samuel is still God's guy. And again, we need to remember that God is still king. He will give power and authority to whoever he will. You can't change it. You can't modify it. You better just submit to it. That's the message, I think, of this chapter. And the people of Israel got the message. They really did. We're gonna see that next week. I actually want, just in closing, call your attention to one verse. Look at verse 14. I think I end on this note. He said, if you fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and do not rebel against the commandments of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God. You see that? Both you and your king. You have your king now, but you know what? Your king is exactly where you are. You're both, you're both under the rule of Jehovah. You haven't gotten rid of him. You haven't even taken anything away from him. He is still king. He will remain king. He will not be diminished in his rule. Our dear Heavenly Father, we are thankful that you are the God that you are. We are thankful, our God, that you, in grace and out of your sovereign initiative, brought us, who were naturally rebels against your rule, to bow the knee to you. We pray, our God, that we will daily be grateful and thankful to have such a God as our King, to have such a one to rule over us. We pray, our God, that our submission to you will be more thorough and complete than it is. We pray, our God, that our obedience to you will flow out of a heart more fully possessed by a love for you. We pray our God that we will be like Jesus who was always doing the will of you, your will as his father. We ask our Lord that we might have been instructed by your word today that sin that remains in us will have been discovered Attitudes that ought not to be there, identified. Need that we have to grow in grace, called out. We ask our Lord that for the glory of your great name, that you will make us, your people, more like Christ, living in this world more like he did. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.