Well, thanks for that. And good morning, brothers and sisters. It is great to be here. It was nice to be with the men back in April at the men's breakfast. And Susie and I were very excited to be here with the whole congregation this morning. Well, it is a privilege to be with you, but it is particularly a privilege to be together here with these precious promises that we have in this wonderful chapter in Romans 8. And my purpose this morning is really just to focus on verse 31 to 39. Although I'm glad that we read the other, the context will be helpful for us. But you know, we're gonna find as we dig into this passage that we are swimming in the ocean of God's love. And it's not only thrilling, but it's overwhelming because we find ourselves in the realm of the infinite and we are finite. And so we are so dependent this morning on the Spirit of God to guide us. So before we consider this passage, I'd just like to ask for the Lord's help. God our Father, as we now come under the authority of your precious word, we find ourselves, Lord, so dependent upon the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And so we just pray, our God and Father, that you would open up our hearts and our minds, that we might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the width and the length and the depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. We ask this, our Father, for the glory of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Well, the first thing I think that we have to consider as we look at the 31st to the 39th verse of Romans 8 is what is the apostle's purpose in writing to us, in writing these words, these words of comfort. And I think most of us know that the whole theme of Paul's letter to the Romans is the gospel. That we are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that not only has the guilt of sin been removed, but the power of sin over our lives has been canceled. And that there is no condemnation. That wonderful verse, Romans 8 and 1, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. That our bodies have become the temples of the Holy Spirit. We have the abiding presence of the Spirit of God, who is the guarantee, engagement ring, if you will, the assurance that we will be with Christ forever, glorified with him. And so as the apostle comes to the end of this eighth chapter, after having unpacked for us the glorious gospel, it is his desire that we would have assurance, that we would have assurance of our faith. You know, I was saved at a very young age. I don't remember a time when I was rejecting the gospel. I know there was a time when I was unsaved, but I don't remember that. But when I was in my teenage years and into my 20s, I had no assurance. I was saved, but I didn't have the assurance of my salvation. I wrestled with many doubts. I had all the precious promises that we've read here this morning. I'd even memorized many of them in Sunday school, but I did not have the peace that comes with assurance. In fact, more often, I had terror. I had terror of my sins, terror of hell, terror of judgment and death. What was the problem? It wasn't that I wasn't saved, I believe I was. It wasn't that I didn't have the promises, it wasn't that I didn't know the promises. And as I look back on that, in years to come, I realize that the issue was that I had my eyes on myself. and I didn't have my eyes on Christ. And with my eyes on myself, I didn't know how to reconcile my feelings with the truth of Scripture. I didn't know what meaning to place on the circumstances that were happening in my life. Did it mean that God didn't love me? Did it mean that God was angry with me? Did it mean that God was punishing me? I didn't know what meaning to place on them. And so rather than peace, I had anxiety. And maybe that's where some of you are this morning. You know the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior, but you don't have the assurance of your salvation because your eyes are on yourself, on your feelings, and on your circumstances. And so rather than peace, you have anxiety, maybe even torment. And if that's where you are this morning, may the spirit of God this morning use his word to assure you of your salvation, that by the ministry of the Spirit and the Word, you might exchange those fears and those doubts for that wonderful assurance that the Lord would want us to have. Well, the passage that I had in mind, verse 31, starts with a question, what then shall we say to these things? And so we have to inquire, well, what things? And in one sense, it's everything that we've had all the way up to the end of where we are in chapter eight, the whole gospel. But I think in a very direct way, it relates to what we had and we read this morning in the 28th to the 30th verse. And so I wanna take just a moment to unpack just really quickly what's in the 28th to the 30th verse of this chapter. Now the 28th verse is a verse that's probably the most quoted verse by Christians and non-Christians alike. That for those who love God, all things work together for good to those who are the called according to his purpose. But you know often when we quote that verse, maybe it's at a funeral, Maybe it's when somebody's going through a trial or a difficulty. And often we pull that verse out of the rich theological setting in which it's given to us here. And so because of that, we have this promise, but sometimes it can come off as a bit of a platitude because we don't ever consider what this promise rests upon. And when we unpack those verses, we realize that this promise, that to those that love God, all things work together for good, to those that are called according to His purpose, that that rests on the eternal purpose of God, the eternal purposes of God. What are the eternal purposes of God? We have that in the 29th verse, that we would be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn among brothers. So what is God's eternal purpose? God's eternal purpose centers on Christ, that in all things he would have the preeminence, that he would be exalted to the highest place, and that he would give him a bride who is like him, who will surround him for all the ages of eternity and rejoice in him for the eons of eternity to come. That is the purpose of God that will never be thwarted. And so that promise rests on that eternal purpose. That's what we have in the 28th and 29th verse. But you know what? That purpose is so certain because it is undergird by this eternal plan. It's an eternal plan that's forged by five unbreakable links that span eternity past to eternity future. You know what those five links are? You can see them in verse 30. For new, predestined, called, justified, glorified. If you are justified this morning, it is because you are anchored to that eternal plan, that in a past eternity, Before this world was created, God knew you and chose you in Christ. And all who he knew and chose in Christ, he predestined. That is, he set a destination for them, that they would be conformed to the image of his son, and that they would surround him and be like him for all eternity. That's in an eternity past. And then in time, in the present, all those that he predestined, he called. And it was with an effectual call, an irresistible call, if you will, so that all who are called, that inner call in the heart, will respond and will be justified by grace through faith, so that all that are justified by grace through faith will be, and that takes us to eternity future, glorified, like Him, surrounding Him through all eternity. So that eternal plan forged of those five unbreakable links undergirds the promises of God or the purposes of God on which we have that wonderful promise. That for those that love God, all things work together for good to those that are called according to his purpose. And so the question then in verse 31 is what shall we say to these things? What shall we say to these things? Well, we have to conclude, we have to conclude that God is for us. And that is the title of this sermon, God is for us. We are the bride that has been promised to Christ. We are the bride that will be presented to him on that great day without blemish, conformed to his image. And where does that leave us, brothers and sisters? It leaves us in the most secure, protected, loved place we could possibly be. We are in the hand of Christ, as we have in John's gospel, chapter 10. We are in the hand of Christ from which no one can pluck us, who is in the hand of the Father. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the engagement ring, the assurance, the down payment. God is for us. Now, if or since God is for us, since God is for us, then three things must be true. And that's what we get in this 31st to 39th verse of this chapter. Three things must be true. Since God is for us, now, My home church in Westminster, we sometimes encourage people to take notes, because I say to them, listen, if I ask you on Monday morning, what's the theme? What was the theme of the sermon? And what were the three points? And what did you do about it? And you can't tell me that I think the sermon's failed. So we always encourage them to write things down. So if you're writing things down, you could say, the apostle's purpose was that we would have assurance The theme is God is for us, and there's three points. Since God is for us, nothing can be against us, that's the first point. Nothing can condemn us, that's the second point, and nothing can separate us. Nothing can be against us, nothing can condemn us, and nothing can separate us. And those are the three things that we are going to discover with the Lord's help in this passage. So let's start with the first taken from verse 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? Now that's the question that I struggled with for many years in my life. But I was looking at it from my situation and circumstances. and failures and shortcomings and trying to imagine from my perspective what God must think about me. But that's not how it's presented to us here. The Apostle Paul starts from God's perspective, God's purpose, what rests on him and how we are brought into it. So it's from that perspective that we need to consider who can be against us. And that, by the way, is where we go wrong in trying to interpret and understand scripture so often. We often wanna look at things from my perspective back up to God. That's where we say, what's God's will for my life? I mean, what about me? And we think about scripture from my perspective back to God, but the way it's presented to us is God's purposes, God's purposes back to us. Now here the great proof that God will protect us from anything that could come against us is considering the price that he paid for us. It's considering the price that he paid for us. That's what we have in verse 32. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Now, I believe that phrase, did not spare his own son, is an allusion back to Genesis 22, 16, where God said to Abraham, you have not spared or you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. Now, most of us here that are students of the word know that back in Genesis 22, God tested Abraham. And he said to him, take now your son. your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains that I will tell you of. Now, those of us that are fathers and mothers here can only imagine what that journey must have been like that Abraham and Isaac took together. Can you imagine? Father and son walking together, the deep bond and the love between those, that young man Isaac and his father and they're walking along together and Abraham is thinking that every single step is taking him closer to the death of his son. Not only the son that he loves so much, but the son that would connect him to all the promises of God. And then what it must have done to the heart of Abraham when he heard his son Isaac say, Dad, I mean, As you get the fire here and as you get the wood, where's the lamb for a burnt offering? What that must have done to his heart. And can we not gain insight from that into the thoughts of the Father in eternity past when we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the earth knowing that it would require him We're required that he not spare his own son, but deliver him up for us all. And just as Abraham loaded that wood upon his son Isaac to carry it, knowing that that wood or believing that that wood would consume the body of his son, that God knew that he must place on the shoulders of his son the cross upon which he would suffer and bleed and die for us. And God didn't allow, as you know, Abraham to go ahead with that sacrifice. He provided a substitute, a ram caught in the thicket by its horns, a picture of Christ. But there was no substitute for the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the only perfect, spotless sacrifice. So what we have here is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God would give the ultimate to win us, what would he not give to keep us? That might be something you wanna write down. If God would give the ultimate, the ultimate to win us, what would he not give to keep us? What would he possibly allow to steal us away? You see, your assurance, brothers and sisters, comes not in considering your worthiness or your feelings or your circumstance, it comes in meditating upon the price that God paid to redeem you and the value that he places upon the work of his beloved son. Since he gave his only son to purchase us, is it not easy to see that he will pay any lesser price to keep us? That he will give us all things that are necessary to bring us safely home. So since God is now for us, Nothing can be against us. But could something condemn us? Something that we have done in the past or that we might do in the future. Could a charge be brought against us that would cause God to ultimately condemn us? That's our next point. We've established that no one can successfully stand against us. Let's consider our second point then, that nothing can condemn us. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of my kids were up north at our little cottage there with some friends, and they had some visitors. A black bear and two baby cubs came trotting out onto the property like they own the place. And black bears, those of us in Ontario, we know that they're pretty harmless creatures. But if they have their cubs with them, you still want to be careful and keep your distance, right? But a couple of my kids just got back from Wyoming. And there you meet grizzly bears. And a grizzly bear is not an animal you want to mess with, especially a mother grizzly bear that is with her cubs. Can you imagine how foolish it would be to try to grab a mother grizzly bear's cub and make off with it? It would be the last thing that you ever did. Now, if it's a fearful thing to try to take a grizzly cub from its mother, can you imagine how serious it is to try to steal one of God's children away from him? One who he gave his only son to redeem, and one who he has chosen to be part of his bride. Can you imagine how impossible that is? And so in verse 33, the apostle Paul, as if he's in a courtroom, challenges anyone, he challenges anyone to try to bring a charge against God's elect. And so he says in verse 33, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Who would like to stand up and make a charge against God's elect? That's what we have. Well, the most powerful candidate would be Satan himself. We read in Revelation that he is the accuser of the brethren. That's what he does. He goes before God and he accuses us. So it's not a question of who can bring a charge, but will that charge stick? Yes, he absolutely brings charges against us, but will any of those charges stick? And the answer is clear. It is God who justifies who is to condemn. It is God who justifies who is to condemn. God has justified us. declared us righteous because he punished his son for every sin that we would ever commit. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, I want you to track with this. For God to punish Christ for every sin that we would ever commit, he had to know every sin that we would ever commit. As the hymn writer put it, Our sins were laid upon them. Jesus bore them on the tree. God who knew them, God who knew them laid them on him and believing thou art free. So imagine then God's reaction when Satan comes along and charges one of his children with a sin that he has already punished his own son for. How successful do you think Satan will be? As the hymn writer put it, though the restless foe accuses, sins recounting like a flood, every charge our God refuses, Christ has answered with his blood. Do you want a little picture of what happens when Satan accuses us before God? God gives us a little picture of this in the minor prophet Zechariah. as Satan brings charges against a man by the name of Joshua. Now this isn't the Joshua who brought the children of Israel into the promised land. This is a man, Joshua the high priest he's called in scripture, who lived in the fifth century B.C. and who helped some of the returning exiles to rebuild the temple with men like Ezra and Zerubbabel. And so we read about him in Zechariah 3. I won't ask you to turn to Zechariah 3, because that might take some of us a while, but you could write that down, and maybe you would wanna come back to this again, because I think it's a very comforting scripture. I'm just gonna read from Zechariah 3, verse one to four. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a bran plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was standing before the angel clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you. I will clothe you with pure vestments. And I just love this passage. Because I can so relate to Joshua, the high priest standing there ashamed, in filthy clothes, head hung low, waiting for Satan's accusations to start. But you know, the Lord doesn't even let Satan get started. Doesn't even let Satan get a word in edgewise. He rebukes him and says, is not this a brand plucked from the fire, as if to say, I pulled him out of the fire, don't you dare think that you're gonna throw him back in again. I've chosen him, and God sends Satan packing. See, God does not take kindly to those who condemn and bring charges against his children. So on a side note, stay out of that business. Let's stay out of that business of bringing charges against God's elect. Don't let the enemy use you as a tool to bring charges against God's elect. Elijah had to learn that the hard way. And it may be that there's some here in this room that need to forgive a brother or a sister, right? When we withhold forgiveness from someone else who has injured us in some way, That is one of the ways that we lose our sense of assurance is that when we are unwilling to forgive someone else. Yes, it's true that there are times when we have to exhort and even rebuke one another, but we don't bring charges. We don't hold bitter, vengeful spirit towards a brother or sister and have an unwillingness and even a desire that God would punish them. God doesn't take kindly to that. So let's stay out of that business, but I digress. I wanna ask you this morning, do you feel sometimes like Joshua, standing there in filthy clothes, in fear and in shame? Then look at what the Lord did for Joshua. He removed the filthy clothes, and he puts on him a pure garment, and that's what the Lord has done for you. You are perfectly clean in his sight. That's how he sees you, fearful sister. That's how he sees you, fearful brother. He will not accept a charge against you. He has put your filth away. He has clothed you in his righteousness. You are justified, and the Spirit of God, who lives in you, removes your fear and teaches you to call God Father. Abba, Father. And if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior this morning, that's what he wants to do for you. If you will just come to him in repentance, repentance towards God, and place your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is God who justifies who is to condemn. I think that's a better way to read the end of verse 33, putting those two phrases together. The punctuation in scripture is added by the translators. Usually it's helpful. Here I don't think it is, but it is God who justifies who is to condemn. And I say that because The Apostle Paul here is actually quoting from Isaiah. He's quoting from Isaiah chapter 50, verse eight and nine. I want to read that to you. He who vindicates me is near, who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Now you know who's speaking here in Isaiah 50? It's the perfect servant. It's the Messiah. It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Many would accuse him. Many would revile and condemn him, but he is the spotless Son of God. The Father was with him. The Spirit of God was upon him. God would vindicate him. And here's the amazing thing that I really want us to get from this passage. What the Lord Jesus Christ said of himself, the Spirit of God applies to us. His body and His bride. What the Spirit of God says, or what the Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, the Spirit of God here applies to us because we are His bride, we are His body. His life is our life. And I say this reverently, but we are as pure before God as Christ Himself, for we are in Him. God will no more accept a charge against you than He will accept a charge against His own beloved Son if you are in Christ. So verse 34, who is to condemn? Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Let me ask you a question. Who has the authority to condemn? Who has the authority to condemn? Well, if we were to look at John 5, verse 22, we would read that all judgment, the Father has given all judgment to the Son. committed all judgment to the Son. So the question then is, will the Son, to whom God has committed judgment, will He condemn us? And John 8, There were those who found this, there was this woman who was, as you know the story, who was caught in adultery and they drag her before the Lord. I always find it strange how you can catch just one person in the act of adultery. But anyway, clearly it was a setup. So they drag her before the Lord and they say the law requires that she should be stoned. But what do you say? And Jesus didn't speak against the law. He just said, well, Whoever is without sin, you go and cast the first stone. And they were cut to their hearts, to their consciences, and every one of them went out, leaving just the woman and the Lord standing there. And when the Lord said, where are your accusers? Is there none left? And the woman said, there is none, Lord. And he said, neither do I condemn you, go your way and sin no more. Now how could Jesus in righteousness do that? And I believe it was because he knew that he would be condemned in her place. He knew that he would be condemned in her place, that he would pay for her sin on the cross. And the same is true of those of us who have placed our faith in him. The only one who can condemn us, get this point, the only one who can condemn us for our sins is the very one who died on the cross to pay for them. How then could he possibly turn around and condemn us for the very sins that he paid for? It's impossible. It's impossible. And not only did he die for our sins, but he was raised from the dead and is seated now at the right hand of God. And what is he doing for us there? He is making intercession for us with his own precious blood. And that blood will never lose its power before God. So fearful brother and sister, You simply could not be more secure. Nothing can stand against us. Nothing can condemn us. But is there something, is there something that could separate us? Is there something that could cause in the future him to turn from us or us to turn? From him, that takes us to our last point. We've talked about how that nothing can come against us. We've talked about how nothing can condemn us. Let's talk about our last point. Nothing can separate us. Verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. I mean, this list almost sounds like the Apostle Paul's resume, doesn't it? Tribulation, pressure from without. Distress, pressure from within. Persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and ultimately the sword, because we know that from history that the Apostle Paul was beheaded for his faith. But were any of these things successful in separating him from the love of God? Even at the end of 2 Timothy, when Paul has to say that everyone in Asia has forsaken him, he says in 2 Timothy 4, 17, but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me. And in verse 18, the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. But there's something else here. There's not a single thing in that list, not a single thing in that list that the Lord Jesus Christ as man did not go through and feel to the greatest extent possible. And he experienced it all so that he could understand everything that we could possibly go through. And having passed through it all, he knows that there is nothing in it that can separate us from him or him from us. But it's not only that the Lord promises to bring us through these trials. It's not only that, okay, I have this trial, and yeah, the Lord's gonna, it's not just that. In verse 37 it says, knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. What could that possibly mean? How do you be more than a conqueror? Guys, you remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Remember those three Hebrew boys that were taken away in captivity from their land, and they were brought into the court of the Babylonian court, and they were taught in all the ways of the king of Babylon. And when King Nebuchadnezzar, who happened to be the most powerful man in the world, set up an image of himself and forced everyone to bow down, they wouldn't do it. And he was so infuriated with them, you know the story, he was so infuriated that he stoked up his fire, his furnace, to seven times its regular heat. And he got his mightiest men to take them and pitch them in the fire. And the fire was so hot that the men that threw them in perished. I figure he lost six men that day. But you know, when he pitched them into the fire, I believe they met the Lord himself there. And they walked with the Lord in that fire, and the Lord did not allow those flames to touch them in any way, not even the smell when they came in, not even the smell of smoke was on their clothes. But you know, there was something on their bodies that did burn. You know what it was? It was the ropes that bound them. And you know, I think there was something else that melted away, because if you can imagine that Nebuchadnezzar sitting there, the most powerful man in all the world, glowering as he looks at, having done the very worst thing that he could possibly think of to do, looking into that furnace, and there they are, standing there looking back at him, walking around, completely invincible before him. And I believe that their fear of man melted away as well. The flames did not consume their body. They consumed the ropes that bound them. And so the flames freed them. Gave them a freedom. Set them free. And in that way, you could say they were conquerors. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar lost six men. They came out untouched. But it would be a little reductionist, wouldn't it, just to say that they won six to zero? I mean, they... They gained through the trial. They gained through that trial. They earned a new freedom and boldness. God was exalted through their lives, and they were promoted before men, and in this way, they were more than conquerors. And brothers and sisters, we will be brought through, we will not only be brought through all the trials that the Lord allows in our lives, but we will benefit from them. We will be more than conquerors. You know, there's not a single trial that you will possibly go through in life that isn't carefully weighed and measured and allowed by the Lord for your good and blessing and for his glory. If I can give you an exercise for this week, I wonder if you would do it. You know, we all have trials in our lives, but often there's one thing that looms larger than anything else, and we can say, if I could just deal with that problem, if I could just have that trial removed, then I could probably get on okay. I want to encourage you to do this. I want you to take that trial before the Lord. Get on your knees before the Lord and bring it before him and say, Lord, What can I learn through this trial? How can I glorify you in this trial? Lord, what would you have me to learn from this? Or if the Lord allows something in your week, this week, that's a trial, before getting panicked and anxious, bring it before the Lord and say, Lord, I know you allowed this. I know you're in control of this. Lord, what can I learn through this trial? Well, what is the conclusion of all of this? Verse 38, for I am sure that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know, I'm not gonna dissect this passage because I think it's self-evident what the Spirit is saying to us here. There is no state of being, whether it is in life or death, There is no power, whether it be spiritual or earthly. There is no time, whether it be in the present or in the future. There is no space, whether it be in the height or in the depth. There is simply nothing that can separate us from Christ Jesus our Lord. But as I draw this sermon to a close, I wanna just drill down on one of those things. And I think it's the thing that is perhaps the most difficult for us to grapple with. The fact that even death itself in no way separates us from the love of God. There is nothing of the love of God that is in any way interrupted by death. And that's difficult for us to process, because we are used to experiencing all things through our bodies, through our five senses, and so the prospect of being without our body for a time while we await the resurrection can be a fearful prospect. But listen, When I close my eyes in death, it will be to awaken. It will be to awaken in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have died in Christ have not ceased to exist. They are merely absent from the body and present with the Lord. We're not to fear death, my beloved. For death has lost its sting. The grave has lost its victory. If I should die today, if I should die today, I would continue in the same enjoyment of Christ that I have been enjoying throughout my whole life. Only it would be more beautiful, for I would be gazing upon him. in His arms, in His presence, but beyond the realm of suffering and sin. Nothing can separate us from His love, so there is nothing to fear. Not even death itself, for God is for us. Therefore, nothing can be against us, nothing can condemn us, and nothing can separate us. I wonder if there's someone here this morning who still does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. You know, he's here this morning and he says to you, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. So I invite you, I urge you, come to him this morning in repentance. owning yourself a vile, helpless sinner, bringing nothing of yourself, it's all just filthy rags. As we sung this morning, nothing of myself I bring, only to the cross I cling. Come in repentance towards God, and come in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that he is the Son of God. Believe that he became man, that he came into the world, and that he died, not just for everyone's sins, but that he died for your sins. and that God raised him from the dead. And then place your faith and your trust in him, and in him alone, and he will save you. And rather than being under the wrath of God, you will leave here knowing that God is your father. And if God is for you, if God is for us, who can be against us? Let's pray. God our father, we just thank you for these precious promises. We just thank you for the word of God. We thank you for the spirit of God who makes it good to us. We just pray, Lord, that these things would lay hold on our hearts. And that as we gaze at Christ through the trials and difficulties of this life, that you would continue the process of conforming us to him, knowing that we will be fully conformed to his image and surround him for all eternity and glorify him and praise him. And that's the prospect that we await. So may that fill our hearts with joy and anticipation this morning. And may we, Lord, go into this week living our lives fully for you. We ask this, our Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.