The Causalities of Faith - Romans 3:27-31

2:14It just can't be with their own righteousness, right? All are under sin, but God put forward Jesus Christ as a propitiation by his blood. Put forward Jesus Christ as a redemption to be received by faith so that we can be justified by his grace. So, yes, we still can be righteous. It's just not with our righteousness. It's with God's righteousness. If we have faith, then he justifies us. And so, his righteousness is available to anyone. Well, having talked about that, Paul is going to kind of land now on that idea of faith. He said that we can be justified by faith, we can receive God's righteousness by faith. Faith, and now he's going to kind of camp out there and talk about faith for a long time. And in chapter four, we'll look at how some of the Old Testament figures had faith and what their faith looked like. But before that, as we end chapter three, Paul is going to give some practical, kind of logical consequences of this doctrine of faith.

3:26As we step through the end of chapter three, we're going to see four casualties of faith. Four things that, if we truly understand the doctrine of faith, then these things can't coexist. They're killed by the true doctrine of faith. Four casualties of faith. And they're boasting, self-righteousness, exclusivity, and lawlessness. Boasting, self-righteousness, exclusivity, and lawlessness. Four casualties of faith. Follow along as I read Romans 3, verse 27 through 31. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.

4:19By what kind of law? By a law of works? No. But by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Well, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Pray with me. Father, help us as we come to this text. Help us to be humble.

5:11Help us to be people that are ready to be convicted, ready to change where our thoughts are wrong about you or wrong about faith. Help us be people that are eager to learn from your word. Help us be people who are eager to apply these things, even if it's hard. People who are willing to do the work to apply your word to our lives in humility. And Father, we pray that you'd help us understand. As we step through this passage, some parts obvious, some parts harder for us to understand. I pray that you would help us understand.

6:00Help us get a picture of what you're saying in this text through the Apostle Paul. Help us humbly learn and grow. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, the first casualty of faith is boasting. Boasting. Look at verse 27. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No. But by the law of faith. So Paul had kind of, for a little bit, taken a break from asking all of these questions. You remember earlier in chapter 3, he was asking question after question after question and kind of moving the text along. Well, last week he took a break from that, but now he's back at it. He's going to be asking these questions that make us think more now about faith. And so he asks the question, what becomes of our boasting? If it's true that we are granted God's righteousness as a gift, if it's true that this is entirely because of the redemption of Jesus Christ, if it's true that it's because of the propitiation by his blood on the cross, if it's true that we're saved by faith, then what becomes of boasting? Can we still boast in anything? What becomes of boasting? And Paul says, it is excluded. It is shut out.

7:32It's barred from entry, disqualified from entering. Boasting has no seat at the table. There's no room for it in the room. It's shut out outside. Well, why? Why is boasting so excluded? Well, that's where Paul goes next. He says, by what kind of law? By a law of works. He's saying, what is it that shuts out boasting? If we've believed in Jesus and we've had this faith, what shuts out this boasting? Our first thought might be some kind of law of works. You know, now that we're Christians, there's this special rule now that we can't boast.

8:15Is it a law of works? Paul says, no. But by the law of faith. It's kind of interesting, right? It's the law of faith that prohibits this boasting. It's something in the nature of faith itself that makes it impossible to boast. It's not some outside set of rules that says don't boast anymore. He says, no, once you have faith, boasting doesn't even make sense anymore. It's excluded by the nature of faith itself. In the same way that hysterical laughter can't coexist with pouting in a kid.

9:01Boasting is incompatible with faith. It can't coexist. It doesn't even make sense. The attitude of faith is completely opposite of arrogance. We don't have the ability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps for eternity, right? We can't just work real hard and then somehow cross a threshold where we get into heaven. No, the whole point of faith is that we've gotten to a point where we say, I can't do anything. I need to let God justify me. There's nothing I can do to earn any of my salvation.

9:48And so, if you truly believe that, if you truly have held your hands up and said, I can't do anything to earn my salvation, God has to do all of this, well, then you can't turn around and boast, right? What are you going to boast then? You just raise your hands and said, I can't do anything. What grounds do you have to boast then? And if you are boasting in something you've done, then it shows you don't truly understand faith.

10:16I was recently reminded by one of our young adults of the example of a parachute. Have you heard this before? A parachute being a good example for faith. My brother went skydiving. Once, and I never will. Sounds terrible. Just a really bad idea. But if you're jumping out of a plane, before you take that step, you really have to trust that parachute, right? If you're falling through the air already, you really don't have another option. It's your only choice, right? You have to trust it. You can't just flap your arms fast enough, right, to slow yourself down. You can't spread out or aim for a soft spot on the ground or something like that. It's not going to work. You need the parachute and you need to trust it.

11:10You can't do anything yourself to fix it, your situation. All you can do is trust in that parachute and pull it. That's the heart of faith. And if you were skydiving with a friend and you got down to the bottom, you both pulled your parachute, you're both standing there, you don't get to, you know, nudge them and say, hey, do you see me flapping my arms? Right? Wasn't that cool? I think I really slowed myself down a little bit. You know, your friend's going to say, no, you know, are you crazy? It was the parachute. We both had a parachute. We're both alive. Your crazy arm flapping didn't have anything to do with it. You can't boast in that. And I think that that's the same point of why boasting is excluded by faith. That doesn't even make sense to boast if we're having. This faith. If we're throwing our hands up and saying, I trust God for everything, then we can't turn around and say, Look what I did. Even a little. We can't do that. 1 Corinthians 1:26 through 29 says, For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

12:33This is how God works. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. God has made it impossible for us to have any grounds of boasting. It's God who has done the work. God who has chosen what is low and despised in the world.

13:13It's God who has done this work, and so we can't stand before God and boast as if we added something to it. God has made that impossible. And so what is the application for the Christian? It's obvious, right? Be humble. Be humble. If we are really people who have based our lives on the truth that we are sinners and we can't justify ourselves, and so we have to trust in what Jesus Christ did on the cross to pay for our sins, if we have based our life on that truth, then shouldn't it be true that our lives are characterized by humility?

13:57That we are penetrated through and through with a humble heart. We, in contrast to any other system or creed, we are the ones that say we can't do it ourselves. And so, if that's true, then bragging and boasting, arrogance, and pride, they have no place in our lives. It doesn't even make sense. It can't coexist with true faith. So, take off boasting. And as 1 Peter 5:5 says, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another.

14:38Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. The next casualty of faith is self-righteousness. Self-righteousness. And really, this is the reason for the first one. Right? If you were to ask Paul, okay, why is boasting excluded? His answer would be verse. 28, for because we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Apart from works of the law. So, since there is no self-righteousness, since justification is apart from works of the law, then there is no ground for boasting. There's nothing self-earned that you did to boast in.

15:30This verse 28 is really a review of what we studied last week. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. So, we hold that Christians are justified. Not that we were so righteous that God accepted us, but that he justified us, he declared us right by paying our penalty. Justified by faith, we're justified by this trust in a finished work of Christ. And then we're justified by faith apart from works of the law. There's no works of the law that we could accomplish. There's no works of the law that we could do in order to earn our salvation. A few weeks ago, we brought up that movement called the New Perspective on Paul movement. And I just bring it up again here because. Here again, we see this phrase, works of the law, as kind of their buzz phrase. And again, they're saying things like the works of the law are these distinctive elements of Judaism, like circumcision or keeping the Sabbath, the things that make the Jews unique. That's what he's talking about. And so Paul is addressing this tendency to be exclusive or this tendency to be even racist from the Jews or something like that, and not a tendency to try and earn your own righteousness. But I think here, again, we see that he's saying this is apart from any work of the law. And he is going to address those matters of exclusivity in the Jews. That's going to be our next point. He addressed it in chapter 2, and he talked about how the Jews thought that they were going to get partiality from God because of their circumcision or something. He's going to return to the idea of circumcision in chapter 4. But I think it's still clear in this text that he's saying any work of the law. There's nothing. Faith is apart from the works of the law. And so we are justified apart from the works of the law. This is anything.

17:46There is nothing Christians can do to add to their justification. They're saved by faith alone. This is what we studied last week. So boasting and self-righteousness are killed. By true faith. If we really understand faith, then those things can't stand. We can't be self-righteous people. We can't be arrogant people. The third casualty of faith is exclusivity. Exclusivity. Look at verse 29. For is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

18:35Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. So he's saying there's not two gods. It's not like the Jews serve one God in one way and the Gentiles serve another God in another way. No, there's not two gods. There's one God. He's God of the Jews, but he's also God of the Gentiles. One God over all humanity. And his point is that since there is one God, since God is one, then there are not these different rules for approaching him. It's not that one person approaches him one way and another. Person approaches another way, all approach him by faith.

19:37All men, regardless of any kind of identity, approach him by faith. That's the only way we can be justified. Back to the parachute example. You know, if two friends jumped together and landed down at the bottom, it would be foolish to claim something about themselves that saved them. You know, if a friend looked over to the other friend and said, you know, yes, you were saved by your parachute, and I also had a parachute, but unlike you, I also have very strong quadriceps.

20:19And I think that played a big part in my safety. You know, no, they're safe for the same reason. They both have a parachute. Quadriceps had no part of the equation. If they had a parachute, they live. If they don't have a parachute, they die. And that's the same thing we see here. There's not two different ways of salvation. There's not even two slightly altered ways of salvation. It's 100% the same, the exact same for all men. Because everybody, Paul has already established, everybody is. Under sin and under judgment, universally. And now, as he's establishing here, there is only one God. God is one.

21:12It's not like these old pagan societies that each had their own God and they thought that their gods were competing or something like that. You know, the Spartans versus the Athenians. Whose God is stronger? Whose God is going to win? And how do we appease each of our gods if all of these gods are different? No, it's nothing like that, right? Those are all fake. There's only one God for Jew and Gentile, for everybody. He justifies everybody by faith. There's only this single option because there's only a single God who never changes.

21:51God is one. And this never-changing reality causes there to be never-changing, universal realities about mankind. First, that all of us are created by one God. And so universally, there is intentionality and purpose in each human life. There's value in each human life. This is true regardless of our ethnicity and regardless of our status. All of us are created. Created by one God. All of us are sinners in the sight of one God, full of sin in every part of us. And so, therefore, all of us are universally condemned. All of us are disqualified to earn something that we can boast in. This is true regardless of our ethnicity, regardless of our status.

22:58All of us can only be justified through faith by one God. This is the only pathway to God's righteousness, and therefore, universally, our only option is to turn away from our own efforts and trust in what Jesus Christ has done. This is true, regardless of our ethnicity, and regardless of our status. That's why there's no room for racism in the Christian faith. There's no room for sexism. There's no room for age-ism. There's no room for any kind of group identity at all.

23:41There's no room for prejudice, not because we're all so lovable and we're all so precious, but because God is one, and that same God made us. And it's that same God that we've all sinned against, and it's that same. God that offers to forgive each of us by his grace, universally. One God. He never changes. And so this truth never changes. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

24:29He's saying there's not a way of salvation for the Jew and a way of salvation for the Gentile. No, he's bringing those together. It's always been by faith. That's true for every single individual because God is one. You know, practically, I think this is going to show up in the way that we treat each other in the church, right? If we are people who have based our life on the truth that we are saved by grace, then I know I'm saved by grace in the same way you are.

25:15I know that I don't deserve anything, and so there's nothing I can take pride in. There can never be any snobbery towards each other or any condescension between one member or another member in the church. We're all in the same boat. I think this plays into maybe some of the wisdom that Jesus was teaching. You know, it would be foolish to go and take the head of the table to display that arrogance. It'd be foolish to be the Pharisee on the street corner boasting in our accomplishments.

25:53That doesn't make sense to be exclusive like that if we have been justified by faith. Instead, we consider others more significant than ourselves in the church. We jump at a chance to serve one another, to be each other's slaves, to lower ourselves and be humble, to bring in as many people as we can and not be clickish, because God is one and he saved us all in the same way. Another practical way this makes a difference is in the way we treat outsiders and unbelievers. I think if we look at the Old Testament, one of the expectations of the Jews was that they would be a light to the nations. And I think that's part of why they had all these unique things. You know, when somebody from another nation is doing business with Israel, it's going to be frustrating that they have this one day out of the week where they can't go in the city and sell stuff, right? Because everything's closed down.

26:59Why then? Uniqueness. You know, where does this law come from? Look at their society as they obey this law. Why are they different from all of us? Why don't they practice the underhanded things that we do? And of course, the Jews didn't always do the best of following those rules, and they neglected to be that light to the nations, but they were meant to be a light to point people to God. Well, as Christians, we share that same privilege, right?

27:29We're people who are meant to be a light to the nations, to share the truth of God, and we neglect that privilege a lot. One of the ways we neglect it is that we have this attitude towards other groups of disdain. You know, maybe we'll never deal with somebody because they're in a different political party or they have a different skin color or they have too many tattoos or they drive an ugly car or something. It can be petty. Anything, whatever random reason we have for being exclusive, we can look at another group of people and just stay away from them.

28:11Instead, we should remember that there's one God, and there's only one way to be saved. And I'm a wicked sinner, and I had no head start over those other people. It's not like I was closer to salvation than they were, I was wicked, deserving judgment. Just like them, and there's only one way that we can be saved. God did all the work in my life, and He can do it in the life of that person. God is one, and so I can joyfully and earnestly and lovingly share the gospel with any other person. There's nobody to avoid because we're all in the same boat. So, towards each other and towards those outside of our church, exclusivity is dead if we truly understand faith.

29:04If we understand that we've been justified by a God, a God who never changes, God is one, then exclusivity is dead. And the fourth casualty of faith is lawlessness. This one's a little bit of a surprise. Verse 31: Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. This always seems to be the next question.

29:52When Paul is dealing with salvation by faith through grace, this seems to be. Be the next question. And it makes sense that this is the next question. Paul, if you are really saying that we are saved by faith apart from the works of the law, if you are really saying that it is apart from the works of the law and it has nothing to do with our good deeds, that we're saved. Paul, if you're saying that we're justified by faith and not the law, if you're saying we're granted God's righteousness because we're unable to earn it ourselves, if all this is true, then aren't you saying we should just throw out the law? Throw out good conduct.

30:51Throw out any rules. If the rules don't save, then get rid of them. Doesn't your version, Paul, doesn't your version of faith overthrow the law? That's what he asks. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? What's Paul's answer? By no means. No way. Never. On the contrary, we uphold the law. We uphold the law. If we've been saved by faith, does that mean works don't mean anything? Anything at all? Does that mean sin so that grace may abound? As he says it earlier in the passage, no, no way. We still uphold the law. If you really understood faith, then you would know that true faith does not promote wickedness. It does not promote lawlessness. It promotes righteousness.

32:01And if you think that lawlessness is encouraged by the doctrine of faith, then you have believed something wrong about faith. In our passage here, he doesn't really deal with this too long. He just says we uphold the law and kind of leaves us hanging. You know, what does he mean? We uphold the law. Are we supposed to keep the Old Testament law? He doesn't really deal with it here. He mentioned it also a little bit earlier.

32:32But he'll deal with it very fully in chapter 6 through 8. And in chapter 6, when he returns to this idea, he says, what then? Are we to sin because we're not under law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to death. Leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you, who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. That's how Paul deals with the issue later. So, does it follow that if we're saved by faith apart from the works of the law, that then we should throw away any good deed at all?

33:29No, we still know what God wants from us, right? Just because we're not under the Old Testament system of the law or something like that, we still know what God desires from us. We still know what God has commanded, and we want to keep that not to earn something, but because something has already been given to us. What does he mean when he says we uphold the law? I've heard a lot of Christians say it, and I've actually held this position before, and maybe you have as well. I've heard a lot of Christians say, when he says we uphold the law, what he's saying is that Christians really should still keep the Old Testament law, but only the moral aspects of it or something. Like that. Have you heard that before? They'll split off the ceremonial aspects or the civil aspects, and they'll say, Christians are, we uphold the law. We are supposed to keep the Old Testament law, just not the ceremonies or the government things or things like that. But if you actually try and go back to the law and you try and split it up like that, you'll realize it doesn't quite split as cleanly as we'd like it to if we're going to hold that position. I don't think he's saying that Christians are meant to keep certain parts of the law, the Old Testament law, when he says we uphold the law. Well, then what does he mean? He could be saying, he could just be referring to the Old Testament as the law, and he's saying, what I'm teaching now agrees with the Old Testament. He's about to talk about Abraham and David and how they were justified by faith. So he could just be saying, we're not getting rid of the Old Testament. We're upholding it. It teaches the same thing that Paul is teaching. Or he could be saying something like, the whole point of the law was to teach you that you're a sinner, and so we're agreeing with that. Right? If we're going to be saved by grace, then we're agreeing with the law that we're sinners. And so we uphold that truth. We uphold the law. Or he could be saying that there's just simply no issue here. The law was never meant to save anyways. He's going to return to that idea in Romans. It's like two different categories. It doesn't make sense for you to say, oh, I'm saved by faith, then I'm going to throw away the law. It's two different. Things. You were never supposed to be saved by the law. It's not like the New Testament came and all of a sudden made a new way of salvation. It was always people being saved by faith.

36:12And as we studied last time, always people who would eventually be paid for by Christ. All of these things are true, but I think what Paul is doing is that he's addressing this charge that always gets put before him of antinomianism, of people saying, well, then, woohoo, we're going to do whatever we want, right? That's what Paul's teaching. He's saying, if we're saved by grace, then Christians, they can be dogs. They can do whatever they want. It doesn't matter. They're saved forever.

36:41Paul's saying, no. Yes, we're saved by faith, but that doesn't lead to lawlessness. If you truly understood faith, then you would understand that it doesn't blow off these good deeds. It still seeks to please the Lord. It still seeks to do well, not to earn anything, but just to please the Lord. When we look at a text like this, when we look at a text like Romans 3:27 through 31, one of the biggest practical helps to us is that it exposes where we think wrongly about something that's maybe a little fuzzy in our head. So, this text here can expose where we think wrongly about faith. What I mean is that as Paul is going through these things and exploring the implications of faith, if one of these doesn't sit well with us, or if one of these doesn't seem to make sense, why he'd even bring this up, if one of these we don't understand, then it's probably because we don't have a full understanding of what true faith is. Because I think if we're going through this passage, it should make sense to us.

38:08Well, duh, if I have true faith, of course I can't then boast in something I've done. Of course, I can't be self-righteous. True faith kills any opportunity to be exclusive, it kills any opportunity to promote lawlessness. If you understand the nature of what true faith is, trusting in God's words, then how could you say you're going to be lawless? If our understanding of faith leads to lawlessness or leads to boasting, if it leads to exclusivity, then it shows that we're off. We misunderstood what faith is. And so, this is a good passage to fix our idea of what faith is. Faith is opposite. To those things, another help in this passage, another practical help with our thinking, is it can fix wrong thoughts that we have about God.

39:11This passage has taught us that our Father is not manipulated by righteous deeds that we do because it's made clear that there's no grounds for boasting, there's no grounds for self-righteousness. So it teaches us about our Father. We see it in His character that He's not prejudiced or biased or treating one person differently than another. There's no partiality, there's one God. And if anyone's going to be justified, they're going to be justified by faith. We've seen about God that He never changes, that this truth carries, as we saw last time and this time, that this truth carries from the Old Testament to the new. There's no change there. People were still justified by faith and eventually paid for by Christ. It's not like God had one idea and then decided He didn't like it and changed His mind and just made a new way to salvation. It was through the law, now it's through faith. No, it's clear that all along the law was never meant to save. It was always by faith, and God is consistent, He never changes. So, a passage like this is practical. To us because it helps us fix our ideas about faith. It helps us fix our wrong ideas about God. And then, not to mention all of the practical things in the passage itself, right?

40:42Rid your life of boasting. It has no place in your life. Be humble. Rid your life of self-righteousness. You've got no business pretending like you did something to earn your salvation. Instead, you trust in the righteousness that God provides. Rid your life of exclusivity. God is one. There's only one way of salvation. And so we're all on a level playing field. We have no right to single out somebody. Rid your life of lawlessness. True faith makes us want to do well. It doesn't overthrow the law.

41:33There's so much here for the Christian to work on. But before we close, I want to address one more time those of you who have never trusted in Christ. Those of you who have heard this message but never placed your faith in Christ, never asked God for the forgiveness that Christ paid for on the cross. Sometimes we get this idea like, we'll just figure that out someday. If it's going to be, let it be. I'll try out this church. I'll try out this religion. I'll try out these good deeds. And when I find something that fulfills me or makes me feel complete, then that's where I land.

42:21I want to tell you that I think that's a very bad idea. I think it's a dangerous idea to try out things until you feel complete. That's not how it works. There's actually only one option. It's faith. Trusting in the work of Jesus Christ. That's the only place you can land. Because it's not about finding self-fulfillment or finding completeness or something like that. It's about securing that righteousness for yourself. And there's only one way to do it.

42:56You know, if you were to think back about that parachute example, all of us, before we become Christians, we are in that free fall. We haven't pulled the trigger yet to unleash the parachute and be saved. We're in that free fall, but we're also blindfolded. Can you imagine that? Being blindfolded, free falling through the air. You know where the Strap is, but you can't see the ground and you don't know when the end is coming. Wouldn't it be foolish while you're free-falling through the air to just dabble and say, oh, maybe I'll fight my arms a little bit and see if that slows me down.

43:48Maybe I'll spend 10 minutes trying to spread out and see if that slows me down or something like that. Wouldn't that be crazy? If you don't know when the ground is coming, you pull the strap right away, right? It's just as crazy to have that same view of life. Oh, I'll try this for a little bit, see if it fulfills me. I'll try this for a little bit. You don't know when the end is coming. And there's only one option: to have faith.

44:18Faith in Jesus Christ paying your penalty on the cross. Faith is your only option. Yes, it will kill your ability to boast in your religious deeds. True faith will. Yes, it will kill your ability to pretend like you're righteous because true faith has to admit I'm a sinner and I can't do this on my own. Yes, it will kill your ability to be exclusive or prejudiced towards anybody because God is one. Yes, it'll kill your desire to be.

45:00Lawless because it frees you from being a slave to sin. Yes, all of those things are true, but it's still your only option. How foolish would it be to keep trying other things when you only have one option and you don't know when the ground is coming up? So pull the cord now. Have faith. Trust in Christ. Stop relying on your own goodness. We only have one option because God is one. Pray with me. Father, as we come to this passage, as we step through the ins and outs of what faith means for the Christian, what the implications are of faith, what the practical outworkings of true faith are, as we explore all of these, I pray that you would reveal our misconceptions about what true faith is.

46:20I pray that you would help our unbelief. And in response, God, I pray that you would make us people who are. Humble. Make us people who are mindful of the fact that we didn't add anything to our justification. That was all you. It was all by your grace. And it's all your righteousness that was added to our life. And in response to that truth, help us be humble, truly humble. Help us stop pretending like we're self-righteous.

46:59And instead, just trust in you. Help us stop pretending like we are different than other people, like we have some grounds to boast before a holy God. Like we were saved in a different way than someone else was saved. Help us be humble. And Father, help us be people that have this true faith that longs to be obedient to you, longs to please you, not to change something about the way we are saved, not to add anything to our righteousness, but just as people who long to please you, people who love you.

48:02We thank you, God, for this passage. We pray that you'd help us learn from it and remember this week. We pray that you'd help us be full of humility. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Would you please stand?