Latest / HBCWestminster / 11.20.22 Romans 2:1-11 Pastor Sam Porges

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11.20.22 Romans 2:1-11 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  If you have your Bibles, turn to Romans. Romans chapter 2 is where we're going to be today. And if you'll remember, if you were here two weeks ago, Pastor Danny preached on chapter 1, verses 24 to 32, and he titled his sermon, The Great Exchange. The Great Exchange. We saw how, in verse 18, it says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
• 0:27
  And we saw that there were these two exchanges in chapter one that humanity has made. Because we loved our sin more than God, we said, maybe God isn't as glorious as he actually is. And so I'm going to trade his glory, the glory of the creator, for the glory of created things. And then we kept going down that path of sin to the point where we said, well, maybe it's not only that God isn't glorious, maybe he's no God at all.
• 0:57
  And so in verse 25, we exchange the truth about God for a lie. And then we concluded a couple weeks ago with saying that the ultimate exchange, the really great exchange is when Jesus Christ went to the cross for us. Amen. And we can exchange our sin for his righteousness by faith. And so that was a couple weeks ago. We finished chapter 1. We're going to begin chapter 2 this morning. And one thing I think it is important for us to keep in mind.
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  especially over the next couple months as we go through Romans chapters 2 and 3, is that Paul is building an argument in the first three chapters of Romans for the sinfulness of humanity and our universal need for salvation. You guys may have noticed we've got these banners up in the back that kind of break Romans up into its major themes from condemnation through justification all the way to...
• 1:50
  application in the last four or five chapters. And you may have noticed that the first banner we have, which goes through chapters 1, 2, and 3, is titled Condemnation. That really is the theme of the beginning of Romans. Chapter 1 states that the immoral Gentile world is under a sentence of condemnation from God. And it's clear that in chapter 1, verses 18 to 32, Paul is referring to the Gentile
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  world because he describes sins in that chapter, which would have been characteristic of the Gentiles at the time and not of Jews, namely homosexuality in verses 26 and 27. Paul says that the Gentile world has no excuse for acting as if God doesn't exist because verses 19 to 21 say that God has made it so plainly clear that he exists in nature. You should be able to deduce from the natural world that there is a God.
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  But, he says, because they do live as if God doesn't exist, they are condemned. And in chapter 2, this message of condemnation turns from the Gentiles to a second audience, the Jews. I don't know if you've ever had a really, really good day where everything went according to plan, and then something came along and messed all of it up.
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  I went to college in San Diego, California. I'm from California and the school was about three hours south of where I grew up. And I remember my first semester in college, I got a car. And when the semester had finished and I was driving back home for Christmas break, as I...
• 3:32
  you know, not me, probably most college students do, I was racing home. I was going 25 or 20 miles an hour faster than the speed limit. I was weaving like no one had ever seen. And the freeway I took kind of went through the inland part of California. And then there was this little two-lane highway that broke off from that major freeway into Palmdale, where I'm from.
• 3:57
  And as I'm zipping up the freeway, I get off on this highway. I'm trying to make it home in record time, you know, save the five minutes or whatever. That going faster actually saves you. But I'm on this little two-lane highway, and there are people in the lane in front of me going two, three miles an hour slower than the speed limit, which I just could not abide. Unacceptable. So I speed up, pass them in this lane, come back, and at this point, I am flying.
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  And all of a sudden, I see a car fly by me, and I look in my mirror, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a cop. But they can't tell how fast I'm going. Like, they don't have the technology to be able to judge. You know, Highway Patrol doesn't, they don't know how to do that. So I'm just driving, and then lo and behold, in my rearview mirror, this car comes zooming up behind me, and it's a cop car. And those lights go on, and you know when you get that sinking feeling in your stomach, right?
• 4:54
  I was joking with one of the cops here a few months ago that one time he was in his patrol car. One of his cop buddies was in his other patrol car behind him and his friend turned on his lights and he was like, oh my gosh, there's a cop behind me. And then he thought, no, like I'm a cop, right? But we all know that feeling, right? Oh man, so I pull over. This cop says, do you know how fast you were going? And I said, no. Now to be fair, my speedometer was a little broken.
• 5:22
  on that 1995 Ford Ranger. Even if it was working right, it would not have helped in this situation. But I did not know how fast I was going, and he wrote me, that was the first ticket I ever got, and sadly it was not the last ticket, but first ticket I ever got, it was the fattest ticket. He writes it to me, it ended up being $464. He said, you were going 79 in a 55.
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  I bet I was going faster than that, but he decided to be merciful in the spirit of Christmas and say I was going 24 miles an hour over instead of 25 because then I would have had my license revoked. That absolutely ruined my day. So I pull, you know, I was about half an hour from home. I pull into the driveway and my parents are so excited to see me. Hey, welcome back, you know, and I'm just head hung low. I got pulled over and half my money, you know, as a college student goes to this ticket, ruined my...
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  You know, after hearing of God's condemnation of the immoral Gentile world in chapter 1, Jewish congregants at the church in Rome probably would have given a resounding amen. Yeah, chapter 1, the wrath of God is revealed against these immoral people. Amen. They may have felt superior as members of God's chosen nation. They may have thought that they were exempt from God's judgment, but Paul here sets the crosshairs of condemnation.
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  on them. In chapter 1 verse 20, Paul says that the Gentiles have no excuse for living as if there is not a God. And here in chapter 2 verse 1, he says you Jews have no excuse for judging them as if you aren't guilty. This passage is a transition text in Paul's argument where he begins to directly address the Jews and explain that both they and the Gentiles are in the same place of condemnation.
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  This argument for universal condemnation will reach its climax in chapter 3, and it's really verses 9 to 20 in chapter 3. I'm going to read some of that in a little bit here. But Paul begins here by stating that the Jews had no excuse that would excuse them from the inescapable judgment of God. And so, if you are able, let's stand in honor of God's word as I read it. I'm going to read chapter 2, verses 1 to 11. It says this,
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  You have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience?
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  not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works. To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
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  There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. Let me pray for us. Father, you alone are good and righteous. You dwell in unapproachable light. Your holiness blazes like a fire. All of your ways are perfect.
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  And Father, we have fallen short. So I pray not only for this morning, but for the coming Sundays that we study Romans 2, chapters 2 and 3, that the weight of your words here would sober us, that Jesus would be exalted in our midst, and that we would rejoice in the righteousness that he gives. Bless us this morning as we not only hear, but seek to apply your word. We pray in Jesus' name.
• 10:06
  Amen. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Well, I've titled this morning's message, A Bubble Bursting Reality. And if you're a note taker, my two points are no excuse and no escape. No excuse and no escape. As previously stated, Paul shifts his attention from the unbelieving Gentile world in chapter 1 to the hard-hearted Jewish world in chapter 2. Now, the explicitly stated audience here is found in verse 1.
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  where he says, every one of you who judges. So really he's talking to anyone who judges, but from verse 4, that phrase, the Jew first and also the Greek in verses 9 and 10, and really the overall context of this passage as you go into chapter 2, seems to make clear that he is addressing Jews directly. As Paul described the immorality and irrationality of Gentile idolatry in chapter 1, you can imagine,
• 11:03
  A bubble of Jewish self-righteousness expanding. After all, they were God's chosen nation. And like a child nodding in approval as parents discipline that child's sibling, right? Yes, you should be disciplined. So the Jews nodded in approval at God's wrath poured out on unbelievers. But like a parent disciplining the sibling and then turning to the child himself, Paul quickly pivots and brings the...
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  fire and brimstone to his own people, the Jews. In chapter 1, you may have noticed this, from verses 18 to 32, Paul uses a lot of they, them pronouns, as it were. But here in chapter 2, verse 1, he says, therefore you, right? And so if you read chapter 1, it's they.
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  have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for lesser glories. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie. It's they, they, they, they, they. And I love what Tim Sigler, Dr. Tim Sigler said last week, right? The guest preacher, he said, you've been hearing a lot about pronouns in our culture. It's time to hear about a biblical one, right? Look at chapter two, verse one. He says, therefore, you have no excuse. Oh man, every one of you who judges.
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  Paul here allows the gospel to burst their bubble, stating that they actually have no excuse to sit in judgment over the Gentiles, and he explains why. Now, Hyland, you've got to catch this, okay? Why are they condemned according to these verses? Is it because they judged? What is it? They're not condemned for judging. They're condemned for hypocrisy.
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  He doesn't just say, you judge people, therefore you're condemned. He says, this is verse 1, This is an issue, the whole judging thing, is an issue I find that Christians can kind of get hung up on. Right? The Jesus said don't judge kind of blanket statement. And what we must realize this morning, I want to take a quick rabbit trail here, is that moral discernment,
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  The ability to distinguish between right and wrong and to call it right and wrong is a faculty given by God to humanity and to no other created thing. God is honored when you make judgments between good and evil, between what is moral and immoral. He is not honored when we call everything good because not all things are good.
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  Like the prophet Isaiah says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Not all things are sweet. Not all things are light. There is darkness. There is bitterness. There is evil. In fact, the context of Matthew chapter 7, when Jesus said, don't judge lest you be judged, the context of that is him saying, if you see a speck in your brother's eye, but have a, what does he say? A log in your own.
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  Remove the log from your own eye so that you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. The problem here in Romans 2 is not calling things right or wrong, but doing so hypocritically. The Gentiles had a speck in their eye, and it did need to be removed by the gospel, but the Jews had a log in their own, which prevented them from seeing clearly. They considered themselves moral.
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  respectable, and deserving of God's favor. But Paul says that in their judgment of others, they are actually judging themselves. Verse 2 tells us that the Jews agreed with God's standard, right? Look at verse 2. He says, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Yes, God, we agree. You're right. Those who practice the sins in verses 26 to 32, as verse 32 says, they deserve to die.
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  And yet verse 3 reveals a hidden desire, maybe even an expectation, that God would judge them, the Jews, by a different or lower standard, even though they were guilty of the same sins. Verse 3, do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? It's interesting. This is the typical attitude of the hypocrite. They hope to be
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  counted as an exception to judgment on the last day. That somehow God's standard of perfection doesn't actually apply to them in the way that it does to others. And the inner egotism of the hypocrite whispers, I know that you did the same thing as them, but it's not the same. If only they understood, if only God understood, he wouldn't judge you like he's judging them. Your case is different.
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  It whispers, ah, you're a good person. You know that. Other people call you a good person. And surely God will accept you. Surely. That attitude is foolish. Look again at verse 3. This verse, I mean, I can imagine it being read incredulously, or written rather incredulously. Do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape?
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  The judgment of God? Do you honestly think that's going to happen? I love that he even says, oh man, twice, right? In verse 1 and then again in verse 3. Do you suppose, do you really think, oh man, that you will give God an excuse for your sin? That you will be able to explain it away? Like, who do you think you are? Donald Barnhouse, who was a theologian in the first half of the last century, he puts it pretty bluntly. He says, you dummy.
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  Do you really figure that you have doped out an angle that will let you go up against God and get away with it? You don't have a ghost of a chance. There is no escape. Do you understand? No escape ever. And this means you, the respectable person, sitting in judgment upon another fellow creature and remaining unrepentant yourself. Verse 4 says that
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  Their self-righteous hypocrisy actually proves that they despise God's grace. Verse 4, he says, That word for presume in verse 4 means to think lightly of, to look down upon, to despise. The Jews forgot that God's forgiveness and grace were meant to lead them into holiness,
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  complacency. And so they unrepentantly walked in sin and assumed that God would forgive them. They forgot Psalm 130, which says this. There it is. It says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, if you're going to keep track, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you, what? May be
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  The audience here in verses 1 to 5 had forgotten that God's forgiveness is not a license to sin. Like, I know I'm going to be forgiven, so I just get to do whatever I want. Paul directly contradicts that argument in chapter 6, which we're going to get to sometime next year. But they'd forgotten, like, God, your grace is meant to lead us into the lives that you have called us to.
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  You're meant to lead us into holiness, not into laziness. Imagine for a moment if I offended my wife. But because I knew that she's a loving and forgiving person, I kept offending her in the same way. Would that show my love for her? Would that honor her? No, absolutely. Thanks, me and you right now. Absolutely, it would not.
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  It would show that I actually think lowly of her. Like, hon, I know I keep offending you in the same way, but listen, it means I get to tell everyone else how loving and forgiving you are. You come out looking so great. Like, do you think really she's going to buy that? No, absolutely not. It would show that I despise her love and forgiveness. And this, Paul says, is the attitude of those who depend on their false, plastic self-righteousness to be made right with God.
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  Therefore, verse 5 says, because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. You are treasuring up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Paul says here, your account is growing, hypocrite. Your investment in this life will have its return. You are building up bigger and bigger barns for yourself and you are filling them with...
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  unrighteousness, and there will be a day when you will be called to account. He says you are on a highway to hell that you have paved. These verses, church, teach us a crucially important lesson, and it's this. It is not only blatant, visible unrighteousness that merits the wrath of God, but it is also hidden inward
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  self-righteousness. It's not only those who flagrantly flaunt their fallenness who are condemned, but also those whose religion is pretend, who live as hypocrites, who outwardly appear righteous, but inwardly are filled with dead men's bones, whose love for Christ is nothing more than an act, and who think themselves righteous before God.
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  Unrepentance, whether it be manifested externally or hidden internally, is seen by God and it merits his wrath. Self-righteousness is an affront to the holiness of God. It is offensive to him and he alone sees within the human heart better than we even do. The person who seems moral, respectable,
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  and good but is outside of Christ is condemned because they do not possess the righteousness which God requires. The hypocrite has given themselves over to a false comparison. They compare themselves to people that they think lesser than themselves in order that they might come out looking really, really good. I imagine it like this. They'll say things like, I'm good. I'm not one of those people who cheats on their taxes.
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  I'm not one of those people strung out on drugs and alcohol. Unlike some people, I work hard at my job. I'm not one of those people who aggressively advocates for abortion rights or LGBTQ rights. Other people tell me that I'm a good person. And sure, I love money and I've been self-centered and I lust and I'm envious of other people's stuff and I'm boastful and I've done things I know are wrong and I don't actually love God.
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  But thank you, Father, that I am not like this tax collector. The self-righteous person does not, indeed, he will not compare himself to God because he knows that in the end he wouldn't come out looking good at all. He has fallen short of God's glorious standard and he fails to realize that God's grace toward him is both an opportunity for and a summons to repentance. And so,
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  In the purity and the light of God's holiness and in the gospel, his self-righteous balloon bursts. You guys, the reason God bursts our self-righteous bubble is not to put us down. It's not just to make us feel bad, but to get us to face reality. We are not righteous.
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  God intends to lead us into all manner of freedom and joy, but the gospel begins with us acknowledging that we stand guilty. It's more than just shame. It's more than just a bad feeling for what I've done. It is a legal guilt in the courtroom of the all-seeing God. And we have no excuse that will placate his wrath or wash away our sins. A day is coming.
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  when the wrath of God, which is being partly revealed now in God giving people up to their sin, will be fully revealed. And on that day, Paul says, there will be no escape. There will be no escape. Look at verse 6. He will render to each one according to his works. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
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  There will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil. The Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. The Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. You may have known this if you've been with us in our Roman study, that we're memorizing a handful of verses as we go through the book. And I would encourage you to...
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  look at these banners back here or get the verse memorization sheets out in the lobby and memorize the verses corresponding to the chapter that we're studying. So if you haven't started yet, it's not too late. We've memorized Romans chapter 1 verse 16. Now we're on Romans chapter 2 verses 6 to 8, which is this passage this morning. It's verses 6 to 8 here. So I'd encourage you to memorize those along with us. But when we read verses 6 to 8, we encounter a problem. Did you see it?
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  What's the problem in verses 6 to 8? Self-righteousness? Are your theological alarms blaring when you read verse 7? What's the problem? I see some of you guys nodding. What is it? Yes, it seems to be teaching justification by works. He says, to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Now, if we read these verses in a vacuum, by themselves,
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  it would teach justification by works. But we know that in Bible study, context is king. And so what does the context of this passage tell us about the meaning of these verses? We know that in the larger context, even outside of chapter 2, Paul teaches justification by faith pretty clearly. And so these verses can't actually mean that we're justified by works because it's unlikely that the Apostle Paul would contradict himself.
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  on a topic so important in a span so short. I mean, we're talking about the end of chapter three. He says you're not justified by works of the law, right? So the context outside of chapter two says, ah, I don't know that's what he's teaching here, justification by works. But then also verse five says that the wrath of God is being stored up for these hypocrites and will be revealed on the day of wrath. And so these verses seem to teach that God's justice and judgment
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  is perfectly fair and just. Now church, let me ask you this. Is it true that for the person who by patience in well-doing seeks for glory and honor and immortality, is it true that God rewards that person with eternal life? For the person who is truly good, yes. God does not unjustly punish anybody. But with that truth comes another problem. And what is that problem? We are not good.
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  Neither Jews nor Greeks have sought for glory and honor and immortality. We haven't done that. And we know that to be true. As Francis Schaeffer, an apologist from 50 years ago, puts it, Romans 1, 2, and 3 make so clear that the person without a Bible and the person with a Bible are both guilty of sin. Malcolm Muggeridge, who was a British journalist and author, said this,
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  The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality, but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact. Like, we know this, Christian or not, and yet everything within us, it wells up within us when we read Romans 1 and 2. It says, ah, that's not me though. It's not me. I'm different. No, we are not. It's verifiable. Everyone knows, and yet we intellectually resist that.
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  fact. The fact that we are not good is so clearly taught in Romans chapter 3, the climax of his argument, right? And I actually want to read some of these verses. Go to Romans 3, flip the page. Verse 10, Paul lays it out, says, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
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  Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. No one is righteous. And if no one is righteous, then no one is saved.
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  One scholar sums it up this way. He says, first, salvation for Jews and Gentiles is available through doing good. Two, the power of sin keeps Jews and Gentiles from doing good. Therefore, no one can be saved by doing good. No one. Verses 6 to 11 tell us that one day every person will stand before the all-seeing eyes of God and give an account for their life. And the bubble-bursting reality
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  Here is that because of our conscious and willful unrighteousness, the reservoir of God's wrath is filling up. And in the end, the dam will break and that reservoir will be emptied and every person will stand before Almighty God in complete silence and terror as truthful words of condemnation come from the mouth.
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  God will not play favorites on that day. And the eternal weight of judgment will fall heavily on their shoulders and in their hearts. They will be able to do nothing except agree with God because his judgment is true and inscrutable and unquestionable. There will be no evasions, no excuses, and no exceptions that will allow them to escape from judgment. This passage began.
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  with man on the throne of judgment, and it ends with God on the throne of judgment, which is right. This passage is frightening and sobering because it is so truthful. And we, today, should read chapters 1 and 2 not as a biography of someone else's life, like, yeah, you've given yourself up to sin, you've pursued after unrighteousness. We shouldn't read it as a biography of theirs, but as an autobiography of our own.
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  Oddly enough, the theme of condemnation at the beginning of this book, at the beginning of Romans, is fundamental to your understanding of the gospel. Did you notice that? When we were going through chapter 1, Paul says in verse 16, our memory verse, right? For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And then in verse 18, how does he begin describing the gospel?
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  for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Why would he begin there? Why wouldn't he say, and Jesus comes to save you, that's the gospel. Why would he begin with condemnation? He does this because it is imperative that the heaviness of chapters 1 to 3 get into our guts so that we can revel in the glories of chapters 4 to 8.
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  As we deepen our understanding of our own unworthiness before holy God, so too does our understanding of grace deepen. Today, we have the chance to let the gospel burst every bubble of self-righteousness so that we may look beyond ourselves to the righteousness that God offers in Christ. I want to end this morning by taking a big left-hand turn in your Bibles to Psalm...
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  24. Psalm 24 verses 3 to 6 are so beautifully written. The psalmist writes this,
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  He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Who's going to ascend the hill of the Lord? Because God, Father, we confess we have not honored you as God. We don't have clean hands. We don't have pure hearts. We've lifted up our souls to what is false.
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  We are not righteous before you. We are not a generation of people who have sought your face, O God of Jacob. But look.
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  And see what's on the horizon. Verse 7, lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. He says, look up. Lift up your heads.
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  Who is this king of glory, you ask? What's his name? His name is Jesus, who is the one who has ascended the hill of the Lord, who is able to stand in his holy place, who had clean hands and a pure heart, who never lifted up his soul to what was false, never to an idol, never swore what was false. His name is Jesus, who by patience and well-doing sought for glory and honor and immortality.
• 36:14
  His name is Jesus. Who alone has done good? His name is Jesus. Him we honor. Man, as Scottish pastor Robert Murray McShane says, for every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. Yes, Jesus, we look to you this morning. We look to the one who by his death and resurrection took the wrath that we deserve so that we need not fear condemnation on that last day.
• 36:44
  Day, we look to the one who ascended the mountain of God and fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law for us and who then graciously returns to us and says, put your trust in me. Let me make you new. All of you who labor and are heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me for I am gentle.
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  and I am humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus says to us, let me show you how to seek for glory and honor and true immortality. Let me show you how to do good. And with a kind heart and a smile, Jesus takes us by the hand, leads us up the mountain to God.
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  He is all of our righteousness. And for everyone who looks to him and says, I trust in you alone, they are counted righteous before God. Amen. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word, which deals with reality as it truly is and is not trying to skirt around anything. It is not trying to hide anything. And Father, we confess that there are some of us in this room who are
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  Chapter one sinners, blatant, flagrant, outward rejection. And then some of us have been chapter two sinners. We think ourselves righteous before you and we pretend religion. Outwardly, we appear good, but inwardly, we have no love for you. And Father, we understand that your judgment rightly falls on all of us. But we thank you this morning that for those of us who stand in Christ, we are renewed.
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  and we wear his righteousness. We are made acceptable in your sight, and all of our sin is washed away. And so I pray that you would stir within us a gratitude for Jesus, stir within us a desire to walk in his steps, to learn from him how to have clean hands and a pure heart. We love you, and we thank you for this time together this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.