James chapter 2. This has been a section of scripture for a long time that has perplexed me. I just seen a little bit of grin come up on your face there. I'm assuming that you had the same perplexity that I had. Before I get into this, I think everybody knows what we're going to be talking about here in the second chapter of James. Where James speaks about faith without works is dead. The question arises a lot of times. I guess let me just go ahead and read this before I say all this. Look if you would, and I guess I want to start reading at, oh, let's start reading in verse 13. It says, or I'm sorry, verse 14. It says, what doth it profit, my brethren, Though a man say he hath faith, and have not works." That's a question. Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful in the body, What doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well. The devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith brought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. I know many people who wants to throw James out of the Bible because of these passages right here. And the reason being is because it seems that James is speaking in complete and total contradiction to the rest of Scripture. And what happens to the detriment of many is that they focus in on these passages and say, there you go. It is about works. We are to have works. Get out there and get to work, Christian. And they think that James is paramount, and Paul is just some lackey that's come up with some other new idea. They try to put James versus Paul. And if you look at this, and a lot of the religious world out there, and even the non-religious world, take these passages here to even try to prove how the Bible is written by men and contradicts itself. But my question to you is, does James, in these passages, contradict Paul? We know Paul was the one who wrote and taught ferociously justification by faith. We know that Paul, in Romans, in Galatians, other places of Scripture, clearly taught Justification in Christ alone through faith. Christ's faith, that is. And so, Paul over here is saying that we are justified by faith alone. And here we read James, the apostle, just as much an apostle as Paul was, called of God. And he's saying here that we are justified by works I mean, that is clearly contradictory, isn't it? Well, we know a few things, and I've said this a lot of times. A lot of times we might not understand what something says, but we know what it's not saying. And a lot of times if you look at the explicit things in Scripture, we can understand non-explicit things. Now, this seems to be very explicit, though. James clearly says that man is justified and not by faith alone. But yet Paul says that we are justified by faith alone. So what is the problem here? Well, the problem is our understanding. Our problem is the vantage point in which we look at this. Our problem is with our interpreting these verses And whenever you look at James and you begin to interpret these verses as being contradictory to Paul or in a place of proving that we are to keep good words, then you're interpreting that from the wisdom of natural man and not from the Spirit of God. Let's look at a few things first before we even go much further into this, because I think we need to kind of lay some biblical foundation before we look at what James is saying here. First and foremost, turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. Look with me if you would at verse 16. Very familiar verses to all of us, I'm sure. Probably most of us could probably stand up and quote it. They won't stand up and quote it. Everybody got nervous all of a sudden. 2 Timothy 3.16 says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. That word inspiration there has been breathed out by God. It's God's words. All Scripture is God's words. So there we know that this isn't, even though it was penned by men, it's not written from the thoughts and the wisdom and the ideas of men. It's written by God. God dictated to His men, and they wrote it down. They were given inspiration, or the words of God, and they wrote them down. But it says all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. Now, turn if you would with me over to 2 Peter chapter 1. In 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 20, We learn this. It says, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture, now that word prophecy there means forth-telling, not fortune-telling or fore-telling. It means forth-telling. Preaching. Speaking of preaching. Knowing this first, that no prophecy or preaching of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. Nobody came up with it on their own. These aren't doctrines that men formulated on their own. These are not teachings that men came up on their own. As we learned in the previous verse, it was given by the inspiration of God. So Paul wrote under the inspiration of God. Peter wrote under the inspiration of God. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, all these men wrote under the inspiration of God. God gave them the words to say and they wrote it down. So it didn't come by any private interpretation or figuring out what this meant or what that meant. No, they just wrote down what God had them write down. Verse 21, it says, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. That's what I was just saying. It didn't come by the will of man. But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So the writing of Scripture The documenting of the words of God came by the Holy Ghost. Now we learn in Scripture that God is immutable. He cannot change. He's the same yesterday, today, forever. We learn that God is of one mind and who can turn Him. We won't go over and read those verses. I pray that you know that those verses are biblical verses and you can go look them up later. But the Scripture says that God is of one mind and who could turn Him? Meaning that God doesn't change His mind and He's not a double-minded man. Therefore, if the holy Scriptures are written by the inspiration of God, as the Holy Ghost gives them the words to say, the Holy Ghost being God, then they cannot contradict. They're not going to be at clash with each other. One's not going to disprove the other. One is not going to lie about the other. So now, with that foundation, we know that what Paul is teaching and what James is teaching, both by the inspiration of God as the Holy Spirit, give them the words to write down. These passages cannot contradict otherwise the Holy Spirit of God would be a changed-minded person. The Holy Spirit of God would have contradicted Himself and God cannot contradict Himself because He is truth. He only speaks the truth. He is truth. And he cannot speak a lie. And if he would speak that justification is by faith alone, and then say that justification by works alone, then he would contradict himself and he would be a liar, either on this side, where Paul said it, or this side, where James says it. And we know that that cannot be true. We understand that these two verses are inspired and breathed out by the Spirit of God and is truth. It can't be lies. It's truth. Therefore, if there is a seeming contradiction in these verses, then it's in our understanding and thinking. Because it's surely not in the interpretation as God intends it. Okay? knowing that the writers are not going to contradict each other because it's written by the same person, the Holy Spirit. Let's look at some of the explicit verses that Paul talks about as far as being saved by faith or justification by faith where James is saying justification is by words. But let's see what Paul says because if we look at James just by himself and we take James and what he is saying without the context of what Paul is saying, then we are going to become Catholics. We are going to become Judaizers, Hebrew Roots people. We're going to become people who think that salvation comes through our good works, or that our good works is fused with our faith, and that's what brings justification. But that's not what the Bible teaches. So, let's look at what Paul says. Turn with me if you would, back to Romans. where Paul begins his treaty on justification. Romans 3. And look with me, if you would, at verse 20. It's where I would like to begin. Well, actually, let's look at verse 19. There was actually a passage in James that we didn't read that also reiterates what Paul says here in verse 19, but we'll just read this here in 19. It says, Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. So the purpose of the law that God gave was to make everybody guilty. It never was. The law never was given to Moses to ever make anybody righteous before God. The law came in that the offense might abound. Romans 5 verse 20. So the law was given to show us that we cannot be righteous, because we can't keep God's law. No matter how much we try to keep God's law, we always break God's law. No one ever has kept the law of God except for Christ alone. So the law was given for the purpose of condemning us in our sin, showing us that we are sinners before God to show us, and again, this is for those who have been given to understand it. See, the person who is not born of God, they don't see this. They don't understand this. They might know that they have done a sin, but they don't realize that they are sinners who cannot keep the law of God. They think they are sinners who have just sinned, and they need to be a better person and quit sinning more. but the child of grace is given to see that that law, that standard, that measure of righteousness cannot be attained in this flesh. Therefore, we have no hope in ourself, no hope in our own righteousness, no hope in anything that we do to save us because we cannot be saved by our works. Our works are always going to be deficient of righteousness. And because our works are deficient of righteousness, we cannot merit favor with God. We cannot be accepted of God. God cannot forgive us. God cannot redeem us and love us and keep us and all the things that God does for us. He cannot do that based upon men's works because men's works, as the Bible says, all have fallen short of the glory or righteousness of God. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. We have not been able to keep that. So Paul here is making it clear that God has given us this law and under this law everybody has become guilty. Now look at verse 20. by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." So what's Paul saying there? I mean, what's the plain and main thing that he's saying there? Nobody is going to be justified before God by keeping the law. Now, brethren, that's an axiom. That's a principle of Scripture. That's something that you can, as my grandpa used to say, take to the bank. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. Now, before we go any further, let me ask the question. Do you still think that you can be justified before God by keeping some laws? What laws are you going to keep? Because here it says, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. So what laws are you going to keep that is going to make you justified before God? So what works? Get out there and start working. And you tell me, what works are you going to do that are going to justify you before God? That God's going to look at and say, hey, all right. Because you've done that, I'm going to give you the inheritance. Because you've done that, I'm going to forgive you of your sins. Because you've done that, I'm going to give my love to you. I'm going to give my preservation to you. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to, at the end of time, I'm going to give you a new body, and I'm going to bring you into my presence, and you're going to be with me for all eternity, and there will be no more sorrow and no more weeping and crying and sickness and death. All this stuff is going to be gone away. You're going to get all the inheritance that is coming to my children because you did whatever. No, he says, by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. See, whenever the law comes in, we begin to realize, hey, there is no righteousness in me. I can't keep the righteousness. But look at verse 21, it says, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So here we see explicitly, Paul says that our justification before God comes by the faith of Jesus Christ, not our exercising faith in Christ, not Christ's faith that He gives us so that we would trust in Him, but we are justified by Christ's actual personal faith, His faithfulness to God in keeping the law on our behalf. That's what justified us. See, to be justified before God is to be able to be holy and to be righteous. The only one who did not fall short of the glory of God or the righteousness of God was Jesus Christ. Why? Because He was perfect in every way. Perfect. Without sin. Man is full of sin. Nothing but sin. But Christ was without sin. Therefore, being without sin, His righteousness, His legal standing before God is accounted to us. That's what imputation means. It's imputed to us. It's laid to our account. So we have an imputed righteousness by faith alone, not by our faith alone, but by the faith of Christ alone. He imputes that to us, and then he, in the new birth, imparts faith to his children, that same faith that he has, He imparts to His children. He is the one who grants that faith, who gives that faith. And listen, this is very important, especially to the topic we're talking about today. He's also the one that controls and empowers that faith, sustains that faith, activates and works that faith. It's not us. Faith is not something that we can do anytime we want. Whatever we just choose to do so. No, faith is something that is wrought in our heart by God. It's something that is wrought in our mind by God. Faith is something that is worked within the child of grace. So therefore, we can't claim to be justified before God because we believed in Jesus. Because we don't have faith. The Bible even says that. All men have not faith. So the faith that we actually exercise in Christ Jesus to believe on Him and to trust what He says and to love our brothers, to love God, that faith is something that is wrought in us, and that word wrought means worked in, activated in, controlled by God. That's something that God does in us. Faith is a work of God in us. Matter of fact, it says, And Ephesians, we'll read this here in just a little bit, but Ephesians says explicitly that faith is not of yourself. It is a gift of God. And if it is a gift of God, that means that it is a work of God. It isn't something that is natural or inherent in our nature. Our nature is void of faith. Not natural faith. Don't mix them up. Natural faith and spiritual faith are two different things. Natural faith, whenever Caveman sat down in that chair, he had faith that that thing wasn't going to fall down on the ground underneath him whenever he sat down. That's natural faith. I have faith every time I get in my car that I'm going to drive across town without it breaking down. That's natural faith, okay? So that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the experience of God's work within us to keep us looking to Christ for salvation, to keep us looking to Him as our hope for us to love God and to love our brethren and to, as we'll see, to work out that in our lives as we have fellowship and dealings with the brethren. But here he says, for all sin to fall short of the glory of God, justified freely by His grace. It says, Whom God has set forth to be of propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sin that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Not because he believed in Jesus, But just, he's talking about the people group, the believers. That he might be the just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That's the quantifier. Who is he the just and the justifier of? The believing ones. Not because they were believing ones. They were believing ones because they have been justified of God. He says, where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith, and look what he says here, without the deeds of the law. Now, that's just right there is completely opposite of what James said, right? James said that we are justified by works alone without faith. So see, this is where people begin to start doubting the Scriptures, begin doubting God. Listen, remember this thing, remember this principle. The natural man, who we are created in Adam, the natural man, his default position is always self-righteousness. His default position is always thinking that I can put my hand to something and do something for God so that God will be pleased with me and accept me. That's the default position of the natural man. He thinks that he can do that. It started with Adam. Adam thought that he could do something and put his hand to something and to justify himself before God. So what did he do? He got in some fig leaves, he clothed himself, and he thought God was going to be okay with that. And what did God do? God came and said, no, shook that off, we're not going to... And he clothed him with what God required him to be clothed in. Not from Adam's work, but from his own. Whenever Cain and Abel came and presented their sacrifices, he accepted Abel's but not Cain's. Why? Because Cain's was the work of his own hands. See, God will never accept the natural man's attempt to be holy attempt to be righteous, attempt to keep the law for righteousness. He's never going to accept that. That was the axiom. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. God has made that plain and clear. I am not justifying any person based upon their law keeping. Why? Because the flesh is weak and it cannot keep the law of God. Therefore, nobody would ever be justified. Nobody would ever be justified if God was to justify people by their works. No one would ever be justified. And so that's why Paul here is saying that we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. So that's very clear. Look if you would over at chapter 4 while you're there, verse 5. or excuse me, verse two. For Abraham was justified by works he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. We'll come back to that here in a minute. Verse three, for what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. So if you want to be a worker, it's going to be accounted under you as a debt. If I work for something, I'm not receiving something. I've mentioned this to you before. Digital x-ray company pays me to go out and work and fix and install x-ray equipment. So whenever I go out and work on x-ray equipment and fix it, drive all over the country working on stuff, and come home, that day that I've done, I have put in work for them, and they in turn owe me wages. And if my boss would come up and say, or if someone would say to me, I'm going down to the bank, cashed in my check or deposited my check in my account, someone would say, oh, I see you're cashing your check from work this week, huh? Boy, your boss was surely gracious to you to give you that. Wait a minute, was my boss gracious to pay me for the work that I did for him? See, that's not grace, because grace is unmerited favor. Grace is somebody giving me something that I didn't deserve, that I didn't work for, that I'm not owed. Grace is to give something to someone freely with no strings attached. That's what grace is. So if I work and my boss pays me, that's not him being gracious. Now, he may be gracious in giving me a job, but once we are contracted together as employer-employee, and I do work and labor for him, he has contracted me to give me my wages. And he gives me my wages. And so I earn those wages and I have therefore grown to boast, hey, I did 80 hours of work this week and that is what I have earned. And that's what Paul is saying here. If you are trying to seek to be justified by your works, It's going to be not grace that you receive. It's going to be wages. And what did the Bible just say? The wages of sin is death. You know what you're going to get in return for your working? Because all you're working is sin. You're going to get death. So brethren, all these preachers that are out here telling us that we've got to keep the law for righteousness, that we need to be law keepers for righteousness, and that God is only going to accept us if we're good little Christians keeping all the law of God and being righteous before God, and everything here is actually going completely against what Paul said. Because Paul here is saying, listen, if you do works for righteousness, then you're not getting grace, you're getting a wage, and the wage of sin is death. Your payment for you going out there and trying to work for righteousness is death. That's what your wage is. Listen, you hear gospel preachers. A gospel preacher is one who is going to tell you that it is not by the law. A gospel preacher isn't going to tell you to pull up your bootstraps and get out there and start working for Jesus. That's a Judaizer. That is the ones that Paul said that that is not the gospel, that that is a false gospel and let it be a curse. But yet we have preachers and churches all over this country and all over this world who every Sunday that all the preaching is a preaching of life application about how you need to get yourself up to par, get yourself up and do good, do right, do all these things. And it's a preaching of do, do, do, work, work, work. And Paul here says, listen, if you're going to go through and do that, you're going to get wages, not grace. Because salvation is by grace. For by grace are you saved, not by works. For by grace are you saved. So if you want to be saved, don't do it by works because by works you're going to get your wages and those wages is death. If you want to be saved, and I'm saying this in a human Because all those who will be saved are going to be saved because God has elected them before the foundation of the world. Christ has died for them and not one will be lost. Every child of grace that God has elected and Christ has died for, they will come, they will be saved. So I'm not saying this is a decision thing. But what I'm saying is, in our mind, as the children of grace, our salvation is not dependent upon us working. It is upon Christ who died. Our salvation is upon grace being given to us. And out of that grace, Christ came to die. From that grace, God loved us, Christ came and died for us, and the Holy Spirit of God quickens us and gives us the understanding of this Gospel to rejoice in this Gospel, to hope in this Gospel. Faith believes in Christ, not believes in His existence, not believes necessarily in His being God, although that comes with it, but believes in Him as their righteousness. That's what the Gospel is all about. And so we believe. Therefore, if we believe in Christ, if we believe upon Him as our righteousness, if we believe on what He says and everything like that, then that shows that we have been one of the justified. Because one of the justified, if you are justified before God, if Christ has died for you, and you are that person who has been justified, the Bible says here that He is the justifier of them that believe. So that means all those who have been justified are believers. Now that doesn't mean that they come out of the womb believing. But at some point of time, God begats them or brings them forth as believers, as children of God. He begins to make them manifest as the children of God, not only in their own mind, but outwardly before others. In their own mind, they begin to see that I'm a child of grace. I begin to see that I've been died for. I begin to see that there is a righteousness that has been given to me. I begin to see that there is an inheritance to be had. And it hasn't got anything to do with me because I've also been given the seed that I'm a wretched sinner who has no hope in himself. So I'm looking to Christ Jesus. And this is what Abraham did. Abraham believed the truth about Jesus Christ being his righteousness and he believed God and it, the seed, was accounted to him. Abraham believed that the seed was going to be his righteousness, not his own works, not his going and taking Isaac up on the altar. That's not it. That was the sign or the symbol or the signification that Abraham was a believer. What happened with Abraham taking Isaac up onto the mountain and onto the altar and was there ready to slay his son, who the Lord had promised was going to be from where the seed comes, trusted God, believed in God, went through the whole entire thing because God had worked in him faith. It wasn't Abraham that did that. Abraham was faithless. We see it all through the Bible. Abraham was a faithless man. From the time he came out of Ur of the Chaldees and started following where God took him, yep, that by faith he was let out because God enabled him to do so. But after that, we see time after time after time that Abraham was a poor, poor example of faith. I mean, how many times did he say, hey, tells his wife, hey, you need to act like you're my sister so I don't get killed. They know that you're my wife, they're gonna kill me and take you from me. to act like they're my sister. How many times whenever did God say that you were going to have children, him and his wife both chuckled at it, thought it was funny. Oh, that can't happen. Abraham was faithless, just like all the rest of us was. But Abraham also showed faith by coming out of the Ur of the Chaldees, leaving his idols behind. Oh, by the way, Abraham was an idolater. He left those idols behind. He did take Isaac up on the Mount, so there were things that Abraham did. How did he do those? Because of the grace of God that was in him. Giving him faith to do those things. But whenever Abraham acted on his own, Abraham was faithless just like the rest of us are. Same thing with Rahab. James was talking about Rahab in our passage. Do you think Rahab was some moral person? Some religious giant? No. Who was Rahab? What was she? You remember? It told us what she was. Prostitute. She was a harlot. Rahab was a harlot. She was a harlot up until the time that the spies came in and she hid the spies. She was in harlotry. And guess what? When she hid those spies, she lied to all the other people. So in hiding the spies which the Bible credits her for her faith of doing, in doing that, she was lying to everybody else. Now that's kind of ironic, isn't it? Do you think Rahab was some moral, divine, religious person? No. But God had given Rahab faith. And in doing so, she trusted God Whatever, she was told to hide these spies, and she hid those spies. Now, what does it say here? It says, For if Abraham was justified by works, he had word of glory, but not before God. What says the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth, counted for righteousness. The one who justifies the ungodly, Christ. Christ is the one who justified us. And His faith is the one who justified us. So His faith is counted for righteousness. And whenever I am given faith, I believe that His faith is my righteousness. I believe on Him. I believe that I've been imputed the righteousness of God and that God is not looking at my righteousness, nor do I have to perform a righteousness so that I can be accepted of God. I look to Christ alone and I am resting in His Word and not trying to uptake my Word. Even as David also described it, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness without works. Paul was very clear. Look at verse 13, it says, for the promise that he should be heir of the world, this is Abraham, for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. of Christ. See, we don't become the heirs of the world as the children of God. We don't become the heirs of the world through the law and law-keeping. That's what works is we become heirs by the righteousness of Christ. Now, turn with me over to Galatians 2. Let's look at verse 16. It says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." Now, is that explicit? And is that plain? I'm asking, brothers, I don't know any other way to look at this. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Not by the faith of Michael Smith. But by the faith of Jesus Christ. Now, just a side note here. If you look at modern translations of the Bible that use the corrupted Greek manuscripts, they insert the word in, by the faith in Jesus Christ. Those Greek texts that they translated the King James into, it's the faith of. And there's a difference between the faith of Jesus Christ and the faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is something that I do. Faith of Jesus Christ is something that Christ does. But by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." So he said it twice right here in the same passages. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, see we're seeking to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? So that's basically saying God must be unjust because if we seek to be justified by Christ, And we're sinners. Is God wrong for doing that? He says, God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. Paul said here, no, the law is what let me know that I was dead to the law. I can't keep the law. It was through the law that I became known in my own mind that I am an enabled person to keep the law. All I can do is unrighteousness. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? He said, whenever I choose to do one thing, or when I choose to do good, evil is present with me. I want to do this that's good, but I always do this which is evil. Paul is saying that there is always within me evil dwelling continually. I can't do anything pleasing to God. So he said, I learned that from the law. When I looked at the law, I see that I can't keep that. And so God showed me that so that I might live unto God and not under the law. See, the child of grace is showing their inability of righteousness by law keeping so that they might in turn look to Christ. and live unto God. Live hoping in Him. Live unto Him as their source of righteousness. For he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. So now Paul is saying, listen, now that faith of Christ is living in me. Therefore, if I do anything, it is not me who does it, it is Christ that does it in me. I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Very clear, brethren, that justification before God does not come by words. Look, if you would, while you're there in Galatians chapter 5, verse 4. It says, Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law. You are fallen from grace. Not that we can be justified by the law, but what Paul is saying here is you who are seeking to be justified by your works, by your law keeping, then Christ has become of no effect to you. Meaning that everything that Christ secured in His death, remember where we're at. We're in Galatians, right? Paul is writing this letter to the Galatian believers who began in the Spirit, but now was trying to be made perfect by law keeping. Why? Because those preachers of the law started infiltrating their churches and began to whisper in those people's ears, yes, you need to be saved by grace and by words. You still need to keep the law of Moses to be right before God and to be saved. If you don't believe me, just read Galatians and you'll see Paul says that. That's what was going on. Go back to the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter I believe it's Acts 15. I might be wrong on that. Someone can correct me. But I think it's Acts chapter 15 where Paul and Barnabas went back to the Jerusalem council and they began to tell them, hey, you need to get a hold of these guys coming down to all these Gentile churches. And they're trying to tell everybody that they still need to be saved by keeping the law of Moses. Because he mentioned being circumcised and keeping the Law of Moses. It wasn't just about circumcision, brethren. It was about keeping the Law of Moses. And so we see here, Paul is saying, listen, if you are seeking to be justified, then everything that Christ did in His coming is of no effect to you. Forgiveness of sin. Redemption. Propitiation. All the things that Christ secured for His people on the cross is of no effect for you because you're trying to seek it by law. And the wages of that will be death. For we who through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Not by works. We don't hope wait for the hope of righteousness. We don't wait for righteousness to be given to us through our works. We do it through faith. Let's do a couple of pages over the Ephesians. Chapter 2. I already quoted this once, but let's read it. You can see it for yourself. I'm not making this up. And this also will lead us into what we're talking about in these works. It says, for by grace are ye saved. For by grace are ye saved. Paul said that even before he got to this place, that we were saved by grace. He didn't even mention faith in that whenever he said that. He just said, for by grace are ye saved. We know that that's true. Whenever we read those familiar verses, keep your hand there in Ephesians. I'm just going to read real quickly here for you. In 2 Timothy 1-9 where it says, "...who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began." The grace that saves us is given to us before the world began. What grace is that? Well, we know that in grace God sent His Son. But the grace that was given to us before the foundation of the world is God's electing love. God's electing love was given to us because the Bible says that He has loved us with an everlasting love and it says that those names were written down in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain before the foundation. of the world. And those people that God loved, He said, for God so loved that world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's not an invitation to believe on Jesus. That's an exclamation or a proclamation of who those people are that Christ died for. The believers, or the believing ones, are the ones for whom Christ died. And those are the ones who are the recipient of eternal life because of that death of Christ. And so that grace that saves through faith, the faith of Jesus Christ in coming and living our obedience for us and dying the death for us, that obedience or that faithfulness all pours out of God's eternal love for us before the foundation of the world. And how can works be included in that? How can works that we do now be included in God's vision of how He was going to redeem us? did everything in Christ Jesus. Because back to Ephesians chapter 2, we learn that it is in Christ Jesus, that was Ephesians chapter 1, that we received all those blessings. But here it says, For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God. Not of words. Grace and salvation is not of words. Matter of fact, the grammatical structure of this in the Greek, the that, or excuse me, the it is the gift of God, and that, the that there, is referring back to grace, it's referring back to saved, and it's referring to faith. Because of the grammatical structure of that. Now I'm not a smart man, but I've had to use to help me learn that. But that right there goes back. And really, you don't need those tools to know, because the plain reading says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. You're not saved by yourself. It is the gift of God. In other places of Scripture, we find out that faith is a gift of God. Why? Because it is the work or the gift of God. What are the gifts of God? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, faith. It's a gift of God. And he says here, he says, Not of works lest any man should boast. So if salvation came by any man's works, then we have room to boast. And we just learned that Paul had said that Abraham believed God, and it wasn't of worse lest he would be able to boast before God. And what Abraham did, he was not able to boast before God. But look what it says in verse 10. It says, and here's what ties in to what we're going to see in James. For we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Now, we've talked about this here before, brethren. This is not saying that there is a list of works that we have to do, that we need to figure out what it is that God wants us to do, and then we get out there and do it. No, the works that are good works are the ones that God has ordained. And if God has ordained us to walk in them, you've heard my phrase a million times now. I'm sure that you've got it memorized. The child of grace is going to work every work that God has ordained for him, no more and no less. Are you going to work more works than God ordained for you to work? Are you going to work less works than God ordained for you to work? Because He said that they shall walk in them. See, we're going to do every good work perfectly that God has ordained for us to do. No more and no less. The exact number of good works that God has ordained to be worked in us will be worked out. That's God's promise to us. That's why we rest in the fact that I don't look at my outward appearance. I don't look at my activity. I don't look at my scores chart and see how many good deeds and how many bad deeds I'm doing to know whether or not I'm accepted of God or in right standing with God because God is not looking on the outward appearances. But what's He looking at? He's looking at the heart. And what's in the heart? The Bible says that He has put His Spirit in our heart that we would keep His statute. The Bible says that He has given us the Spirit of God, and that Spirit of God convinces us of sin, and the Spirit of God also causes us to look into the law of liberty that James spoke about. We look into the law of liberty, which is looking unto Christ and His obedience. And so he says here that we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. Why? Because we are His workmanship. That means God is the one doing the work and we are showing evidence of a work being done. That's what workmanship is. We go back, the Bible uses this illustration in several places of a potter in the clay, right? I don't know if anybody's ever watched one of those potters on a potter wheel making clay pots and everything. It's actually kind of fascinating and a little bit satisfying whenever you watch them take that clay and they start spinning. They put their hand and they press it in just a little bit and all of a sudden, it just kind of comes up to a weird looking vase or something like that. Is the clay doing anything? Is the clay doing anything to make itself like that? Is the clay forming itself? And then once it's done, once it's done, And that pot, let's say he makes a plate. And he makes that plate, and that plate hardens and is now ready to be used. Does that plate do anything to work? No, it's just the plate. Who's the one doing the work? The one who takes the plate, puts the food on the plate, washes the plate, puts the plate up. Everything that has to do with the work of the plate has to do with something outside of the plate. The plate is just who it is. It's the plate. The pot is just the pot. It's the potter who makes the pot, determines what the pot is going to be, and then the one who is the one working the pot, using the pot, taking advantage of the pot's making, is the one who is the workman, not the pot. The pot doesn't do anything. That's what Paul is saying right here, for we are his workmanship. That means everything that is being done is being done by Him through us and in us. And if it's being done in us by Him, then let me ask you, how do you control it? How do you control those words? To say, well, today I think it doesn't work for Jesus. I hear people all the time on Facebook, a lot of my old Christian friends in the Armenian camp, you know, talking about all the work that they're doing for God. all the work that they're doing for Jesus, all this stuff. Well, let me ask you, how are you determining to do that? Whenever you aren't in control of your faith, when you aren't in control of the work being done in you, how are you doing anything? And besides that, James, I believe, in his passages, is not even talking about religious and moral activity. I believe that he is talking about an inward work of God that comes out in our working and our fellowship with the brother. Turn back, if you would, to James. And by the way, if you want to write this verse down, you can. I'm going to turn to it real quick. I was going to read this and I skipped over. because it kind of got off track a little bit. But in Isaiah 45 and verse 25, for those Reformed folks who think we're still justified by our own faith, verse 25 of Isaiah 45, it says, In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory. That tells us two things. Number one, that all the spiritual house of Christ His seed, spiritual seed of Israel. They are going to be justified in Him. Not in your works and not in your faith. In Him. And, what are they going to do? They are going to glory in that. For the one who works, they glory in their works. Whether they glory outwardly to other people, hey, look at me at what I do. And there's a lot of people that do that. They get out on the street corners and they trumpet all their almsgiving, as Matthew would say. They spread it out to the world, what all they're doing and giving to God. So whether you're doing that or whether in your own self you're boasting to your own self, Hey man, I'm doing a lot better this week. I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this, and I did this, and I did this, and I read my Bible more this week, I prayed more this week, whatever the case might be. Now, those who are justified will glory in the Justifier. And so if you hear people glorying in their words, then in their mind, What is being told about them, they're telling on themselves, is that they in their heart believe that they are justified before God by what they've done. Therefore, they are boasting in themselves. They're boasting in what they do. So whenever you hear a preacher boasting about his church, about his numbers, about his money, about all this kind of stuff, boasting about himself and what all he's accomplished in his ministry, You're looking at someone who thinks that they're justified before God because of what they've done. And Paul said that we will not be justified by those things. But anyway, Isaiah is proof that we are justified in the Lord and we shall glory in Him. But back here at James, if you would. Let me get back over here. James chapter 2. We see that James, the context here, that James is saying all this stuff is in regards to how we as brethren treat each other. And he begins up here talking about verse 2, chapter 2. Let's just start in verse 1. My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring and godly apparel, and there come also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, Stand thou there, and sit here under my footstool. Are ye not then partial in yourselves, that I become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren. What does he mean by judges of evil thoughts? That person is believing that that guy is in his state because he's not being obedient to God. And isn't that kind of how we default, judge people? We judge people's religiosity on how much they do for Jesus? Or how much they don't do for Jesus? Oh, that guy's doing that. Well, oh man, he must not be. And so we elevate or we demote people based upon our performance. And here, James is giving this example. He said, listen, if one comes into you and he's in fine apparel and raiment, you put him up. But obviously, he's prominent. He's got something going. The Lord is blessing him because of how he is. So let's give him the precedence. And then here comes a man of lowly estate, poor man, whatever. Obviously, the Lord isn't blessing him and everything, so he's going to take a lower seat. And so we're having partiality between each other. So it's how we serve one another. How we are serving. We're serving the more prominent, outspoken, beautiful person and not the lowly of persons. That's how we're treating each other. That's what James is dealing with here. How we are treating people within the assembly. And he says, Have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith? and the heirs of the kingdom which He had promised to them that love Him. But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called? If ye fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Ye do well." Now, he's not bringing up the moral law. He's not bringing up the mosaic law, the civil law, the ceremonial laws. He's bringing up that law that is being worked in us by the Spirit of God, the law of a loving God and loving the brethren. He says, If thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. But if you have respect to persons, what's on the outside, if you're looking to the outside and having respect for them on how they are doing things outwardly, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." So basically saying, you know, if you're looking at these people and how they're doing things on the outside, what's being produced on the outside? Didn't Jesus say that this wayward generation seeks after signs? The religious people are always looking for signs, not just miraculous signs, signs outwardly. They're looking for evidence outwardly. But the Bible tells us that the fruit of the Spirit are spiritual fruits. They're not outward, fleshly fruits. They're spiritual fruits. And they're fruits that are worked by God inwardly. And so that's what we are to look for. And one of the things is loving God, looking to Christ, and loving Him, and hoping in Him, and trusting in Him. That's the law of liberty. And loving our brethren as ourselves. That is the royal law. And it says, For he that said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." There's that phrase again. He said, don't be like them who are judging on outward appearances. Be like those who are judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath shown no mercy, and mercy rejoices against judgment. What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not words? Can faith save him? Now here he goes again. He talked about how he treated those in the assembly as they come in and their status. Now what does he say here? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food. Notice he says, if a brother or sister. Again, he's keeping it within the context of the assembly, of the people of God, of the brethren. If they be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say to them, depart peace and be warmed and filled, notwithstanding you give them those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?" If you just say that you're, you know, be warmed and well-filled and not look after your brother or sister in Christ who is in need and help provide for that need, then what does it profit you? He says, even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead. being alone. Now this is where we get into what James is actually saying. Paul spent all those verses that we just talked about for how long? Over an hour or around an hour here already. Laying down the foundation that legal justification before God is not by works. It's not by the law. It's not by anything that we do. But it was by Christ alone. James is saying something from a different vantage point, which is actually saying what Paul is saying in a different way. Paul is looking at it from the standpoint of justification before God. James is looking at it as the justification before men. The works that faith produces in us the love of the brethren, the not being a respecter of persons, the taking care of each other, looking into the law of liberty, of loving Christ, and looking at Christ, and hoping in Christ. That right there, those internal works, the fruits of the Spirit, which are the works of Christ, those things there are the evidences, are the justification to others that we have been legally justified before God and given faith in the new birth because that faith that we get in the new birth will produce the fruits of the Spirit because Christ is in us. That's why Paul said, I no longer live but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of Christ. The faith of the one who died for me. The faith of the one who saved me. The faith of the one who keeps me. The faith of the one who will, in the end, redeem me from this body of death. I live by His faith. That means Christ's faith working in me. And when Christ's faith works in me, it's evidence in loving God, loving the brethren, trusting in Christ alone. And those are the things that show forth that we are justified. It justifies us before men. Not in a legal standing before God, but before each other. Now, listen. It's surely going to show within the people of God. But listen, brother. It's our experiential standing. Look, if you would, and I'm going to read one more verse and we'll be done here. John 13. I spent a lot of time on legal justification when we were talking about experiential justification. I hope you understand what I mean by experiential. The difference between legal and experiential. Legal is everything that is contractual within the covenant of God that is required to save men. That was what God determined to do. That's what God covenanted to do for His elect people in saving them. And so all of that, all the onus of that covenant is upon God because that eternal covenant was not a conditional covenant. God did not covenant with us that He would save us. God made a covenant of Himself that He would save His people and this is how He would do it. He elected them. He redeemed them. He sealed them and He keeps them until the day of redemption. But in John chapter 13 and in verse 35, we see there is an experiential justification, meaning that's what we not only feel, experience, but it's what others recognize as being a proof of something that was unseen. That's unseen. Remember, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the evidence of salvation. Faith is the evidence of salvation. Faith is the evidence of salvation. I can't reiterate that more. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, not works. But when faith is there, when Christ is in me, it produces the fruits of the Spirit, which are the works of God that are ordained for me to walk in and that are enacted or enabled or empowered or worked at as the workmen by Christ. Verse 35, John 13, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." James is dealing with how we deal with each other in the assembly in love and respect and honor. If Larry was a millionaire and came in here and I treated him different than Zach, who is a 20-year, a 50-year, a 100-year, and I give Larry more respect than I give Zach because Larry is a millionaire and Zach's a 50-year, then I would be wrong in that. Why? Because I am judging people by their outward appearances. But if I come in and I see how Larry has a love for God and a love for the brethren, and I see how Zach has love for God and a love for the brethren, and I realize these two are brothers. And so I treat Larry as a brother. I treat Zach as a brother. I don't treat one one way because he does more work. If Larry comes in and he's out in the community and he's feeding the poor and clothing the naked and he's helping the widows and helping the orphans and doing all that. And he's doing all these great good deeds. And then I come in and Zach really hasn't done much of anything. And I have more respect for Larry than I do for Zach. I'm judging by outward appearances. Because anybody can feed the sick or feed the hungry and clothe the naked and help the sick and help the children. Anybody can do that. There are secular organizations out there that do it all the time. That's no proof that they're children of God. What's the proof that they're the children of God? Faith is the evidence. And faith produces what? Love for God, love for the brethren, and a hope in Christ Jesus. Believe in the Gospel. You see why everything hangs on those things? Because those are things that cannot be mimicked by anybody. love for the brethren, love for God, and a hope in the Gospel alone. Now, the deadly man, there are wars against that. There are sometimes, Larry might not be too happy with mine. We may love each other as brethren, but he may not be happy with me. Or I may not be happy with him. And we may be at odds. There may be a time whenever I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to do anything. There may be a time whenever I'm not happy with God because of a certain circumstance in my life. The Adamic man is always going to be against those things. That's the warfare. That's why Paul was saying, O wretched man that I am, in my mind I love my brethren, in my mind I love God, in my mind I have hope in the Gospel, but in my flesh, I fail at all of them. I failed at loving my brethren and I failed at loving God. I failed at hoping in the Gospel because that endemic man still thinks that I can do something and keep up some appearances before God. But thankfully, the Spirit of God constrains me. For the love of God constrains me. The love of God that's been given to me and the grace of God that has been given to me and the Spirit of God that is in me constrains me. That's the works that we're seeing. And when those are evident in our lives, those are what is the things that we can see that there has been a justified person before God. It doesn't get us justified. It doesn't save us in the fact of a legal salvation of a standing before God. But it saves us in an experiential way. It saves us from the wrong knowledge of righteousness, the wrong knowledge of our fellowship, the wrong knowledge of how we are to minister to one another. See, that is what saves us. The faith in Christ shows that we have been justified by God, and then the love of the brethren shows that we have been justified before God. These things are evidential things that come out because of the work that's already in us, not to make us saved. So whenever people look at James and say, hey, he's talking about salvation in the legal standpoint, then they've missed it. James isn't at contradiction with Paul. James is talking about a different justification from a different viewpoint. Paul was worried about justification in a legal standing before God. James is talking about an experiential justification before men. That's why Paul said when Abraham believed God, it wasn't by works because he had nothing to boast for before God. But surely by his work that God did in him of faith, it was evident to those outside that he was justified before God. Abraham didn't do that to get justified. Abraham did that because he was justified. One's legal, one's experiential. One's legal, one's evidential. And we don't control either one. Both of them are by the sovereign will of God. Therefore, we have no room to boast in our legal standing or in our experiential outworking, because it's all of God's work. Doesn't the Bible say that it is God who works in you? To work out your salvation with fear and trembling. How do I do that? If I'm not to work, how do I do that? Because it's God that works in you. You will work out, but it's not you doing the work, it's God working in you. And He's going to work those fruits in you. He's going to work all those works that He ordained for you. Don't worry about it. Some days it may not look like it's happening, but trust God that it is. And to you out there, when you're looking at me, no, God's doing that work. Though it might not look like it, God's doing that work. Whenever we have that understanding, brethren, if the Spirit so gives us that understanding, you know what? I'm going to treat each one of my brethren in such a way because I know It isn't Larry to will and to do. It isn't to Mark to will and to do. It isn't for my wife to will and to do. They are all at the mercy of the Spirit of God working in them those things which God has ordained for them to do. Therefore, I have patience and longsuffering if the Spirit would work that in me. I have patience and longsuffering because they're just like me. You're just like me. We all struggle with our sin. We all struggle with our inability. And yet we're all beholden to God to give us the grace and to increase our faith and to exercise that faith in us and those fruits in us so that we would be and do and accomplish the things that God has ordained in this habitation. All of our works have been ordained of God. They have been wrought in God. And so it's up to Him to bring them out. It's up to Him to exercise them. Therefore, Mike can't say, here's my list. Here's what I want to do today. This is how I want to get it done. And Mike, as a preacher, is not going to get up here and say, all right, here's what you need to do. Get to work. I'm not saying much in here. I've seen the stupid video. I don't mean to go any further. I've seen a stupid video this week, I'll tell you what, it made me want to puke. It was some fundamentalist preacher, and I don't know from what church or what denomination, but it came across and they were getting all over these women for wearing these tights under their skirts. I knew it was in the Holiness Church because they kept saying, we're the Holiness Church. They were talking about their women in their long jean skirts, they were starting to wear those tights underneath there. And they were saying women aren't supposed to wear pants. So, they were wearing tights, those tight things that women wear. And some women even got up to this thought, oh yeah, when women start wearing those, their skirts are going to start getting up closer, until eventually they won't wear skirts at all, and now they're just wearing the tights and they're wearing the pants, and all like that. And you see, let's put laws upon laws upon laws here. Nothing wrong with women wearing skirts. I'm not getting down on that at all. I'm just saying the mentality of those preachers was let's find out what you're doing and what you're not doing because if you're going to be righteous, you need to be getting down to this right here. When God puts it into the heart of His ladies or men, dress modestly, they're going to dress in accordance with how God wants them to dress. But here this man, the women had their skirts almost down to their ankles, but because that much of a legging was showing, they were heartless. Now I know the Philips here, they've come up through that movement, the holiness movement, and how rigid and how strict and how legal Things are. That's exactly what the Pharisees were doing. They were adding laws upon laws upon laws. They were adding laws to laws to keep this law that God gave. But because they wanted to make sure to keep it, they made a law and a law and a law and a law to make sure that there was no way to circumvent the law. And they held man to their standard. See, that church was holding ladies to a standard that God didn't ever forgive them. That's where legalism gets us. Who's to say how much righteousness is righteousness and how much is not righteousness? Because we just read a while ago that if you offend in one point, you're guilty of all of them. So those preachers that's up there condemning those women for that much leggings showing from underneath their skirts are just as guilty as those women and what's in their mind guilty because they themselves have not kept the law. They're judging themselves by themselves. That's why what James is saying is completely different. It's not the outward work, but it's the inward work that God does inside of us, that evidences or justifies us before our men and women in our assemblies. It justifies us that we have been justified because, listen, every one of us in here that has ever been to another place where we are with people of like faith, whenever I went out to West Virginia, I went out there and I've never met those people ever before in my life. Whenever I went there, it wasn't but 10, 15 minutes, I could tell we were like kindred. And there immediately became a bond of love between those brethren, even though I didn't even know them. Some of them may be rude and just obnoxious or something like that outside of the media. I don't know. While we were there, everything was great. But there was a bond of love there. Why? Because I seen their love for the brethren. I seen their love for the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and their love and honor to God. And that right there, it did something inside of me. It connected with something inside of me. And whenever we come across people, it's almost you can know right away, that's a brother in Christ, that's a sister in Christ. See, that is what James is talking about. James is talking about we are justified by our works, not our religious activities, but our works that are being brought in us by God. And therefore, it's not a contradiction, it's a justification that's by Christ in faith alone, in His faith alone. Alright, does anybody have any comments or questions? No corrections. No rebukes. Anything you want to add to it? Anybody got anything you'd like to share? Give your preacher a message to his brother. You're all welcome. All right, let's bow and have our prayer. Father, we thank You today for Your grace to us and Your mercy that You've given us in Christ Jesus. We thank You for the life that we have in and through We thank You, Father, that we can rest in the fact that all the works that You have ordained for us are being completed just as You have ordained in the time that You have ordained it in this habitation You have ordained for us. And Lord, that we rest in Your activity, in Your work alone, and not in the activity and the ability and the desire and hope of the natural man. to perform something in His own self-righteousness. So, Lord, we just pray that You might help us to keep these things in mind by Your Spirit, that we might continue to look to Christ, to believe in the Gospel, to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we should love each other and that we should serve one another in love as we look upon each other and know that we're all fallen, sinful children of Adam. But because of the grace of God, we have this kindred, that no man can share, that no man can know, no man can understand. Even so much so, Father, that even our love and our fellowship with the brethren is so much stronger than even our blood ties to our families who know not God and know not this Gospel. Father, we just are so humbled by the fact that You would even save any sinner by Your grace and by the work of Christ Jesus and why we would even be considered to be saved, Lord, is beyond us. But we know that it's only because of Your will, that Your purpose has a purpose to do, that we are saved. Because we know that we are no different than anybody else in this world, that we are sinners deserving of damnation. But Lord, we are grateful for the salvation that comes in Christ Jesus. And we dare not lift an eye or lift a heart to think that we can boast within ourselves because we know that it's all by grace and it was all done by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's to Him that we give exaltation and glory and honor to today. And we pray, Lord, that it's been pleasing to you and what we've done today. And we pray that the Spirit has been with us today to help us in our worship. And I pray, Lord, the things that I've said today has not been from natural wisdom of my own mind, But Lord, it's truly been in accordance with your word, within the truth of Christ. And Lord, that it might be to the edifying of your people. For it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.