as we open up the Word of the Lord together. Father, again we come to You in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, knowing from Your revelation that we have access into Your presence, knowing from Your revelation that our Savior is at Your right hand, ever living, making intercession for us. Thank You for such a high priest. Thank You in the kindness of Your grace that You have brought us under the sound of Your Word, under the sound of Your gospel, and through Your eternal Spirit have called us to Christ, gifted us with repentance and faith, and opened up our understanding to know You that You are the Lord, and we give You thanks. that this has been Your plan for us. We're eternally indebted to You, and we pray that the mystery of this wondrous grace would cause each one of us to desire to obey You, to live for You, and to make You known. So, Father, I lift up these dear people. They're Your people. You know what week they had, Lord. You know the challenges they went through. You know the joy, you also know their sorrow. You know their anxiety, the things that brought them mental pain and emotional pain, the things that stress them, that caused them concern. You know all these things. And I lift them up to you and ask that you would grant them today healing. that you would build them up, that they would be encouraged, that their hearts would be filled with joy, and that, Lord, they would be better equipped today to enter this week, this week that lies before us. Lord, we commit it to you, not knowing what it'll bring. But I pray that you'll take your people from this place into the darkness of this city. with the light of your glorious gospel. And Father, I pray that you'll give all of us in this room a love for you and a love for our neighbor and a love for one another that only can come from your Spirit. So we would ask that your Spirit would control us. And Father, we especially ask for the help of your Spirit now. to open up our understanding, to have our mind meditate on the truth of your word, that we might know your presence today, your forgiveness today, and you, the great teacher, would instruct us today. So, thank you for this book. Thank you for your revelation, O God. We bless you for it, in Jesus' name, amen. I love this text in the book of Romans. It is packed full of tremendous theology that is going to help us understand the message of God's gospel. The word gospel just means good news. God has good news for all of humanity. And we're going to, over the weeks, just meditate on these sentences, these thoughts, let them work deep into our souls. So with clarity, we can move through life rejoicing in the gospel of God and then knowing how to share it with lost people. So let's read this in unison together. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world become accountable to God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and come fall short of the glory of God. being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. That was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God, who will justify the circumcision by faith, And the uncircumcision through faith is won. Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. This theme, the righteousness of God, is the message of the entire Bible. The righteousness of God. The righteousness that is His righteousness. The righteousness of Him. The righteousness that comes from Him. His provision of righteousness. We began looking at this great passage last week and we noted a number of things. And that is that this righteousness of God is needed by every individual because of our unrighteousness. And He's going to establish that by taking us through, as we've seen, chapter 1, verse 18, all the way through chapter 3 and verse 20. Whether we're Jewish or whether we're one of the other nations of the world, we are all unrighteous. There is none righteous, no, not one, for all have sinned. and come short of the glory of God. And that has been the case from the very beginning. We all sinned in our representative head. We are all descendants of Adam. We are the race of Adam. And that guilty pair has affected all of us. The father and mother Eve of all the living, in their disobedience to God, have affected their posterity. And our disobedience that follows because we share that corrupt nature, it affects our posterity too. Matter of fact, one of the great calls of God as we look at His law is to understand that our disobedience can affect a third and a fourth generation. And yet, our obedience. goes to thousands. God calls on us to reflect on our obedience to His law. But because we are all unrighteous, we need this righteousness that comes from God. We also noted secondly last week, and I began leading with that, the righteousness of God comes from God. You're not going to get this righteousness from any other source. This righteousness is not going to come from your father or your mother. This righteousness is not even going to come from you. The righteousness we're referencing in this great passage comes from God. And then we noted last week that the righteousness of God is apart from your own keeping of the law. It's apart from law. And that is His way of saying that there's absolutely no way that you're going to get this righteousness by a perfect obedience to the law. You can't do it. Now, if you could, you'd be as righteous as God is. If you could render a perfect obedience to the Ten Commandments, you could claim to be righteous. Anybody here want to make that claim? No? Not a single one of us. And that's why God brought in His written word, by the way. God brought His written word in not to save you. God brought His written law in that was already written in your heart to show you that you needed to be saved. The law brings a knowledge of sin. You might say, well, I really don't know what sin is. And a lot of people go through life not understanding what sin is. But when you go to the law of God, those ten words will show all of us what sin is and how we've fallen short of the glory of God. So there's no way that you will ever get this righteousness by your own obedience. No, it doesn't come from you. It comes from God, the very righteousness of God. And then we saw Finally, last week, that the righteousness of God is the message of the entire Bible. It's witnessed, verse 21, by the Law and the Prophets. And that phrase, the Law of the Prophets, is a reference to the entire Hebrew Scriptures. The message of the Bible is God's provision of righteousness. It's what it's all about. When you read your Old Testament wondering why, you're reading the history of the nation of Israel. And over and over again in that history, he's citing the commandments they're breaking. If you've never read your Old Testament with that in mind, you need to do that. And in the margin of your Bible, when it references, and they did such and such, right in the margin of your Bible, which one of those 10 commandments they were breaking right there. And one of the ones they break over and over and over again is their idolatry. They're making images and they're worshiping images. When God said that you should not make any likeness, isn't that one of the ten words? Now why did God not want them to make an image of Himself? And I'll tell you why. Because Jesus Christ is the image of God. And if you fail to recognize that He is the image of God, you are committing idolatry. Any other representation of who God is, apart from Christ, is idolatry. And He would hold His people from that idolatrous acting because the image was coming. So this has been the witness, the message, of the Old Testament that we are unrighteous, but God is going to provide righteousness for us. And this was a message that they understood in the Old Testament too. They understood that the righteous one was coming. They understood that there would be one who would reverse the curse. of sin, the seed of the woman was on his way. They knew he was coming. Did they have all the information that God would give? The answer is no. God began to give more and more revelation to them. But do not think, do not think that they only had the revelation that we read about in the Old Testament. There was revelation they had directly from God. Can you imagine what God taught Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve passed on to their children, and their children's children, and their children's children's children? Remember what's written about Abraham? What did he know? I mean, this gospel we preach today in 2020, what did he know? Did he know this gospel? Well, all I've got to do is read the book of Galatians, that great book on what the true gospel of God is. What is the gospel? Paul's arguing that if you preach any other gospel than the gospel that I'm preaching right now, he said, let that individual be what? Accursed. And it's in that book that Paul says that Abraham had the gospel preached to him. And Jesus said in John 6 that Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it. And Abraham believed. He believed what God told him about his descendant who would be his righteousness. And he listened to that gospel. And He acted out the very death of Christ in taking His only begotten Son to a mountain, Mount Moriah, ready to slay Him at the command of God, knowing that this Son would be the one through whom the Messiah would come. And God stayed His hand, demonstrating the sacrifice would take place. And yet, what did He believe? If He killed His own Son, that God was going to do what with His Son? Raise Him from the dead. What a picture of Christ, the only begotten Son, a sacrifice for His own, raised from the dead. There is so much in the Old Testament era that we're not even aware of, but we do know this over and over and over again. From the moment God offered a sacrifice in the Garden of Eden, from the moment that Noah offered a sacrifice after he came up, and the moment that we see man after man offering sacrifice in the Old Testament, they understood that a death would take place. Oh, we could just go on and on, and I'm not going to repeat what I said last week. But this gospel of God is witnessed in the Hebrew Bible. The great lawgiver Moses, the great lawgiver, given all of the types of worship in the tabernacle, everything that was acted out every single day and then on Yom Kippur, the great lawgiver. Did he think of Christ? Did he know of Christ? Oh, yes, he did. You say, well, I read Genesis through Deuteronomy, and I don't see him talking about Jesus Christ in there. Well, there was one called the great prophet that would be just like Moses. But if you and I really wonder whether or not he knew about Messiah, just go back to the New Testament and read the 11th chapter of Hebrews. And the Bible says that Moses esteemed the reproach of greater riches than all the wealth of Egypt. He knew the Anointed One was coming. He knew that that Anointed One would be the offering and sacrifice that he desperately needed to satisfy the justice of God. The sacrifice hadn't been made yet, but he knew He was coming. Well, I bring you to a new thought today. And that is that the righteousness of God was manifested in the life and the death of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 21, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. It became visible. It was revealed. It was exposed publicly. Christ is the righteousness of God in life and in death. When Christ came, God did not change the rules. When Christ came, God did not throw out the law, which is the standard of what is right. Rather, Jesus came to fulfill it. And in His life, He perfectly kept the law of God. Think of that. Can you imagine not once did He disobey God the Father? How would you like to live with someone who was like that? I wonder how His brothers and His sisters felt. He kept the law. He kept it with all of his heart. He kept it with all of his mind. Can you imagine going through life as a human being and not even thinking a thought, thinking a thought that violated the law of God? There's never been a man among us like Christ. You ought to read afresh and anew the gospel accounts and see his life of love for his neighbor. and his life of love for the Father. The very essence of the law is fulfilled in what? Love God and love your neighbor. And we know of his love for God. On the road to Calvary, Jesus said that they might know that I love the Father, I'm going to the cross. You think of the cross as Christ's love for his people, but my friends, the cross was Christ's love for his Father. totally obeying God. Look at his life. Look at the love for neighbor. Look at him touching people that were lame and causing them to walk again, opening eyes that were blind and causing them to see again, cleansing lepers who wouldn't have to cry, unclean, unclean, feeding those who were hungry, those who were thirsty, a cold drop of water. We could go on and on. The miracles of Christ are a demonstration of His love for humanity. He loved God and He loved His neighbor. The law of God was kept. Theologians reference this as the active obedience of Christ in His law-keeping throughout His entire life. And yet, He not only kept the law, But he fulfilled the law's demands for disobedience. And the theologians refer to this as the passive obedience of Christ, a word that was taken not like we think of it today as he was passive and had nothing to do with it. No, it was a word that made reference to his passion, his dying. Christ was obedient unto death, even what? Death on a cross. He obeyed the Father by going to the cross, but what was he doing on the cross? He, by the kind grace of God, was paying the debt that the law demanded for disobedience. The wages of sin is what? Death. The wages of disobedience is death. And when Adam sinned in the very beginning, God told him that that would be the wage. You would die. You would die physically, and yes, in a sense, die spiritually, separated from God forever. And yet, why didn't God demand Adam and Eve's life immediately? Why did He postpone that death sentence? the kindness of his grace, but he demanded that that debt be paid. And you can hold up Jesus in his life and in his dying and see nothing but a perfect righteousness. Matter of fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures, as they were looking for him to come, he is called the righteous branch of David. He's called the righteous servant of the Lord. He's called the righteous one. And in Isaiah chapter 53, a number of weeks ago, we saw in the text, in that great servant song, Him called the righteous one who shall justify the many for He shall bear their iniquity. By knowledge of Him. By knowledge of Him. That's how that Hebrew could be translated. Some translate that as by His knowledge. But by knowledge of Him, this righteous one can get a justifying sentence for his people because he's righteous and he bears their unrighteousness. So I would submit to you that Jesus is the righteousness of God in life and in death. And in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14, the promise of God is that if you'll put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and are regenerated and born again, that you are, get this, perfected forever. Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. And not a one of us can be, but that's the standard. And yet when you come and you put your faith in Jesus Christ, the perfect one, the righteous one, you and I are perfected forever in Him. The very righteousness of God becomes ours in Christ. Then I would have you also see today that the righteousness of God is provided as a gift by grace and it precludes boasting. Verse 27, where then is boasting? It's excluded, but this righteousness Verse 24 is a gift by His grace. Can you work for a gift? I mean, do you work for a gift? No. Someone gives it to you. Now, you make a decision on whether or not you're going to receive it. Have you ever given anybody a gift back? I'm kind of looking back on my life, and I've received a lot of gifts in my life, but I don't think I've given them back. So this righteousness is not something that you can work for. I want you to remove from your thinking any concept that you contribute anything to get this righteousness. There is errant theology out there that people are hearing in churches. And that is that they need to cooperate with God to get this righteousness. That God is demanding something of you in order to get this gift. That is not the theology of the Bible. It comes to you out of this sheer grace of God. Can you think of another verse outside of this text that testifies to this so clearly? How many of you know Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9? For by grace are you... And what is grace? Grace is unmerited favor. It's unmerited. It's not something that means you don't work for it. It's unmerited. You don't work for grace. It's unmerited. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You've got to understand this. You've got to help people out there understand this, people that are confused, thinking that this salvation that God brings, this righteousness that God brings, they have to work for. They've got to do something for it. Oh, no, my friends, this righteousness comes by the sheer grace of God, and because of that, He's the only one that gets glory. Listen, if God had to pay you for your work, we'll come to that in chapter 4 and verse 4, if God had to pay you For your effort of law-keeping by giving you salvation, it wouldn't be a gift. It'd be your own merit. You and I are not saved by our own merit. We are saved by the merit of Christ. There's one that did the work. There's one who not half-heartedly obeyed, but obeyed from his heart and obeyed in entirety. He has merit. Jesus has righteousness. Do you understand that? And God, and we'll see this when we come to chapter 5, five times in verses 12 through 21 in Romans 5, you find a reference to a gift. And we're told what the gift is. And it is the gift of righteousness. And we're defined in that text as the obedience of Jesus Christ. And there's a great contrast between the two men, Adam and Christ. Adam disobeyed and it brought us all this trouble. We were condemned in Adam, but Jesus Christ obeyed. He's the second man, the Lord from heaven. And you and I stand in relationship to one of these two men. You and I automatically, we're in Adam. We all were born. We're descendants of it. We're all related. We're all family in here. Aren't you thankful that we're living in 2020 and throughout God's history of humanity, He's allowed nations to develop, different nationalities to come into being with culture? Isn't that a fabulous thing that God has done in His creation? And we get to enjoy our other family members? They like certain types of food that I don't even care for. And I've tried it. I don't know if I want to try it again, but the food and the music and the culture and the dress and the language and all these things that God has allowed in the history of humanity to form is something that we rejoice in, but we're all family, distant cousins and relatives, but all of us are descendants of the first man. We were born in him. But thank God there's a second man, and it's the Lord from heaven, who, unlike the first one, was obedient perfectly. And in the kind grace of God, he's willing to offer to us as a gift the righteousness of Jesus the Christ. And this gift will preclude any human being from boasting. But I would remind you with this other thought that the righteousness of God came at a great cost. When you received a gift at no expense to you by the kind grace of somebody, someone had to pay for it, right? Someone gave you a present, didn't cost you anything, but it cost them something. And this gift of the righteousness came at great cost. Matter of fact, the text will tell us in verse 24 that we've been justified as a gift by His grace through the what? Redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. Oh, that beautiful word. redemption. It appears about ten times in the New Testament, and it always carries the idea of deliverance by the payment of a ransom. A payment was made, and we were delivered from the wrath of God, delivered from the anger of God, and God is the one that literally pays the price to redeem us from Himself. in the sense that He redeems us from His wrath to the tenderness of His mercy. But it was Christ who paid that debt. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 16, Christ gave Himself a ransom. What was the price Himself? God gave Himself as the ransom. Verse Peter chapter 1 and verse 18, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your vain manner of life, your empty manner of life. Can you imagine what it's like for the Jewish people every single day to get up in the morning and mix straw with clay and make bricks? And then get up the next morning in the emptiness of that and mix brick and mud and straw to make more bricks. And then Pharaoh comes in and says, I'm not even going to supply it for you anymore. You're going to have to supply your own mud and your own straw. And now they've got to labor more intensely to make bricks from straw and mud every single day, being driven by Pharaoh in that vain life, in that empty life. And then they experience the greatest redemption by God calling them out of that slavery, that old manner of life, and bringing them ultimately to the land of promise. And in that picture, in Israel's history, we see redemption affected by God, pictured in the sacrificial Passover land. When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Oh, this righteousness might be a gift by God's grace, but it came at great price. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. It took the death of Christ. It took the death of Christ assuming the anger of God. It took the death of Christ assuming the justice of God against sinners. It took Him willing to come as the new Adam, the second Adam, the representative of His people to stand in their stead and stand in their judgment and assume it from His Father. What a price. And I have you see one more thought today that has multiple thoughts within it and comes from verses 25 and 26. That is this, that the righteousness of God satisfied God's justice and allowed God to remain just. There's a great question in the book of Romans. How can God be just and justify the ungodly? How can God be just? How can God be true to who He is? When you're just, you are conforming to what is just in the universe and it's God. It's God in His character. How can God remain true to who He is? And then turn around and justify, declare righteous unjust people. How can He do that? I mean, if God just comes along and looks at unjust people and says, I'm going to declare you righteous, that might manifest His love, His patience, His mercy, right? I can see that aspect of the character of God and God conforming to it, but if He will sit there and just declare unjust people righteous, what does that say about His true justice, demanding that the penalty for disobedience be paid? How does that demonstrate His holiness? He's got to be true to that too, right? He's got to manifest all of His glory, just not one facet. For Him to remain just, true to who He is in His holiness, in His righteousness, in His love, in His mercy, in His kindness, in His patience, how is He able to do all that and still look at us as unjust people and say they're righteous? If you know the answer to that, you know the Gospel. And these two verses tell us some incredible things. He's able to do this. through Christ, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, that was to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. My friends, there was, for 4,000 years, something crying out in human history. God, how can you pass over all of the sin that's being committed? How can you pass over Adam's sin? and Eve's sin, and all their children's children's children's children's sin. God, how can you go through the ages without punishing man immediately? You can't do that. You've been forbearant. You've been patient, and you're passing over sin. What are you going to do about that, God? How are you going to satisfy your justice? Well, you're going to provide Christ. Whom? Whom God displayed publicly. So the source of solving this problem is God Himself. And God displayed publicly the cross of Christ. You really understand that the death of Christ and satisfying the justice of God was not done in a private place? Matter of fact, for centuries, he announced that it would come. For centuries, animals were being slain and blood was being shed, not to take away sin, but to testify that the Lamb of God was coming It would be centuries before John the Baptist said, behold, the Lamb of God. And when it came to Calvary, God displayed publicly in the presence of Jews and Gentiles, men and women and children, the death of Christ. The satisfaction of the justice of God was a very public thing that required death. And references made in that verse, in His blood, whom God displayed publicly as a what? A propitiation. In His death, in His blood, in the shedding of His blood, in the giving up of His life, God displayed that this cross work of Christ was a propitiation. Now what's a propitiation? What a tremendous word in the Scripture. One of those theological terms you need to understand. What's a propitiation? Anybody know? No, that's a totally different idea. Christ was a substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice. He appeases the anger of God. He turns away the wrath of God. All of the wrath that God has toward disobedient people, something's going to have to satisfy that. Now, how many of you as a parent ever got angry with your children? Come on, stick your hand up. The rest of you that are parents and aren't raising your hand, you're liars. And what gets us angry? It's when our children do what? Disobey. You see, on the human level, God gives us experiences so we can understand the divine. Don't miss this. God gives us families because we believe we're in the family of God. God gives us children because we're His children. God gives us children that have to come through birth because you and I need to understand we need a new birth. God gives us kids that disobey, so we'll be reminded how we disobeyed. And the desire of a parent is to discipline the children so that the action will change, the behavior will change, so that they'll come to a place of obedience and reverence and honor, not just for us, but for who? For God. Now, what turns many a parent's anger and wrath is when the child is punished. They've experienced the fruit of their disobedience. But I can tell you this. I have one child sitting in this room. Sorry, Sheree, you're the last one in the home. You guys are beginning to wonder what dad's going to say. I can't even remember all of the things that she's done to disobey me or disappoint me. They're gone now. They're dismissed. I stop and I think of all six of my kids. I sit down with Jill. She's got a fabulous memory, but once the discipline has taken place, it's like a brand new what? Start. It's gone. Justice has been appeased. The anger's been turned away. That is what this word is talking about. It's God has been appeased. Can you imagine that? The Holy One of God has been appeased. And I want you to understand something, too, that this whole idea of appeasement was acted out in the Old Testament over and over and over again every single year on Yom Kippur. The day of atonement, the day of covering, the day of appeasement, the day of propitiation, when that high priest, only one, a high priest to demonstrate that there's only one who can appease the anger of God. And it's our great high priest who entered the tabernacle and the temple with blood, the blood for his own sin, for which Christ never had to offer. But he came with two goats for the sin of the people. And one goat, he turned and he faced the great congregation that were gathered outside the tabernacle, fasting. And he laid his hands on the head of that goat, and he confessed on the head of that goat his own sin and the sin of his people, and that goat was led out to the wilderness. But the other goat was turned to face the most holy place, to face the throne room of God. And it was that goat that was slaughtered, and the blood from that goat was taken into the most holy place one day a year, and that blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. You know that word mercy is propitiation? This was the place of propitiation. And this was the lid that covered what? The law that's on the inside. God was acting out on the Day of Atonement, the great propitiation work of Christ. When in His death, He satisfied the law of God with all of its demands, and that blood was sprinkled on the lid that covered it all, and there were cherubim angels looking on. Why? Because it was in the Garden of Eden where angels saw the disobedience of man, and they turned man away from the tree of life. But it's here through the work of Christ that man gets access back to God and the demands of God's law kept. through a representative of God's choice, and that obedience brings the manna of life, but his death appeases the wrath of God." That was acted out every single year in the presence of the people to demonstrate publicly that the cross was coming. You see that in the worship of God. The source of this is God. It was public. A death was required. A death that appeased the justice of God. And a death that revealed the patience of God. 4,000 years of disobedience God passes right over until the present time. A time in the fullness of time. When God sent His Son made of a woman, made what? Under the law. Oh, He knowing the Son was coming, passed over sin because He knew it would be paid for. He knew that His anger would be turned. But from whom was God's anger turned? Oh, look at the text and do not miss this. Do not miss this. God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His death through what? Through what? Verse 25, through faith. And it doesn't only say that. Verse 26, for a demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time so that He'll be just and the justifier of one who has what? Faith in Jesus. There is only one thing that can turn the wrath of God for you, and it's Christ. And it is only available, this propitiatory work of Christ is only available for His people who believe. You must put your faith and trust and confidence in Christ and Christ alone as the righteousness of God, as the gift of righteousness, as the one who kept the law and died for you so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him. God's wrath is not turned from you. if you have refused to believe in Jesus. Oh, I believe. Do you believe in Jesus? Is your faith and trust in Jesus? It must be. For there's no other name under heaven that's been given among men whereby we must be saved. Saved from what? Saved from His wrath. That's what it means to be saved. You see the great wrath of God being poured out in the time of the end, the only thing that's going to deliver people from wrath is if they'll call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Christ and Christ alone saves. If you're not one of the people of Christ, you are still under the wrath of God. I'm going to stop there today. I'm out of time. But this great passage has many more things to teach us. Have you received God's gift of righteousness in Christ? You say, How? Well, it's not by what you do. It's not by your own law keeping. It's apart from that. It is you receiving what Christ has done for you. He is the righteousness of God and His whole life of righteousness, and your need for that is the message of the Hebrew Scripture. And His work totally satisfies God. When you put your faith in Christ, you know something? I don't worry ever again that I'm going to spend eternity with God the Father. It doesn't even cross my mind. It doesn't. Many people go through life worrying, what's going to happen to me when I die? I don't worry. For I am accepted in the Beloved One." I'm secure. Oh, that's arrogance. No, there's no boasting in that, but I'll boast in Christ. He is my security. He is my righteousness. One of the verses I want you to learn over the coming weeks, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21, God made Him. who knew no sin, to become a sin offering for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Great verse, and it summarizes everything. Be a great passage that we're studying for you to memorize. Just meditate on it over and over and over again. Let the great truth of it sink into your heart so that you can share with people the gospel of God. Let's pray. Father, I pray that we will continue to learn this great message of Your grace and mercy, a message that You have given The righteousness you have provided, a righteousness that is acceptable to you, righteousness that turns your anger. Thank you for Christ. Thank you for giving us the knowledge of Him. And I pray that your people will be filled with this knowledge so that they'll announce to their neighbors and strangers Your gospel in Christ, told us to preach this gospel to all the world. So even this week, may these dear people here in this room reach out to somebody and share Christ. I ask in Jesus' name, amen.