Scott continues a study through the book of Romans, focusing on Romans 12:9-13. After reviewing the foundational doctrines of the first eleven chapters, he discusses the practical outworking of God’s mercy, emphasizing that the Christian life is a response to grace, marked by transformed thinking, behavior, and relationships. He stresses that these are not mere outward checklists but the fruit of genuine inward transformation by God's Spirit.

The episode examines the characteristics of grace-filled love in a believer’s life—such as hating evil, clinging to what is good, devotion like family, outdoing one another in honor, serving with diligence and fervor, and practicing hospitality and generosity. Scott talks about the importance of daily surrender, worshipful service, joyful hope, perseverance in tribulation, persistent prayer, and caring for others’ needs as natural expressions of being transformed by God’s mercies. The discussion concludes with reminders of the assurance believers have in their adopted position as God’s children and the ongoing work of being conformed to the image of Christ.

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Key Topics Discussed:

• Surrendering as a living sacrifice
• Renewing the mind
• Exercising spiritual gifts
• Honoring God and serving others
• Grace-filled, unhypocritical love
• Hating evil, clinging to good
• Family-like devotion in the church
• Outdoing one another in honor
• Serving with diligence and fervency
• Worship through service
• Joyful hope and perseverance in tribulation
• The importance of persistent prayer
• Generosity and contributing to those in need
• Practicing hospitality
• Assurance and transformation as God’s children

Hi. If you're looking for greater hope, assurance and confidence through the shifting sands of life, then join me on today's episode as we dig deep into the Bible to discover rock solid truth for life and living from the God of the Bible. I'm your host, Scott Keffer. Hi and welcome to today's Episode. As always, for a deeper experience, you can go to the show Notes and download the Blank Insight sheet. Fill in the blanks along with the group. Depending on how you're listening to this, there will be a link to the episode website@beholdingbibletruth.com and a sheet with the answers is included as well. Enjoy today's episode.

Well, here we are walking our way through the Book of Romans on the other side of the doctrine which were laid in the first 11 chapters, Read Dug deep together. Appreciate you going on that journey with me. And now the Spirit of God, through the apostle Paul, is asking us, so what's the response? What's the result? What's the the fruit, if you will, of the mercies of God. So he says, therefore, I urge you, therefore, by the mercies of God, to surrender yourself, literally to present yourself a living and holy sacrifice. So he's saying we are, as a result of God's grace and mercy, which are the same thing, his mercies, his grace. It's different ways to say the same thing that he's saying. Our our response. What else could it be but to surrender ourselves wholly and completely and totally into his hand? And as a result of that, he has great work for us to do.

He's given us gifts and a ministry and he's got work to do, not only through us, but even more importantly in us. And so he's going to unfold here. What does it look like? What is the fruit of God's grace? What is the fruit of his mercies? What does the mark, what does it look like in the life of individuals and the life of his people? So stand with me, if you will, we'll read this short section. Honor God in His words. Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. Since we have these gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in Hope persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. So we could start and say, this seems like a checklist of behaviors, right? To either check ourself and or check others. But he's going to remind us here that this is not a checklist. This is not an outward list of behaviors. This was an inward transformation that God is bringing about. So he's showing what's the result of God's mercies and his grace, his daily mercies and his overall grace. He first of all, he said, it should inspire our surrender. It should inspire our surrender.

Not really something that we are naturally wired to do. Surrender ourselves to another, surrender ourselves to another's care, surrender ourselves to another's guidance, Surrender ourselves to another's direction, if you will. Right. Fully surrender ourselves. But he's saying, in light of God's mercies, is there any other response than to present ourselves, right. A living and holy sacrifice. Holy, devoted unto the Lord we are. To present our bodies.

Couldn't be more visual picture than to present your bodies like an Old Testament sacrifice. Literally consumed by God, not in the sense that you no longer exist, but consumed by God in the sense that you are fully his and therefore fully usable by him and for him. Second thing, he said it would transform our thinking, transform our thinking. We begin by surrendering ourselves, but we need to think differently. Don't we? Be transformed by the renewing of your mind? Why? We've been infected. We breathe the carbon monoxide of the world system. And then we have our own sinful background, right? So we have a thinking problem. Not just a hard problem, but a thinking problem.

You have to renew your mind. And then lastly, he says, it will empower our ministry. It will empower our ministry. He didn't give us gifts to be put on the shelf. He gave us gifts that are defined by verbs. In other words, they are to be employed. Put the work fully utilized. And he said they had.

They are to be exercised. That's a good word, isn't it? They're to be exercised. Longer you go in life, the harder it is to exercise. You ever notice that sometimes the longer you go as a Christian, same way, right? Same way. Make sure those gifts are being exercised. And he says, exercise them accordingly. Right? And all of this surrender, change our thinking. And empowered to.

Is to honor God is to honor. God. Says in the Old Testament, for those who honor me. God says, for those who honor me, I will honor. So God lifts Us up, if we will, as we lift him up. And he says it's to honor God and to serve his people. To honor God and to serve his people. We are to be interdependently serving one another.

So he's saying, so what does this look like? What does this look like? And he starts with the. The sense that this is to drive all of the transformation, it's to drive our surrender, it's to drive our thinking change, it's to drive our ministry. And that is grace filled love. Grace filled love. So he says, the love of God has been poured out. Poured out? Really? Where? Within our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So we're empowered by the Holy Spirit. And he said, what does this love look like? Godly love is love without partiality or love without hypocrisy.

Love without hypocrisy, Which we know. But this Greek word is not just sincerity, but without hypocrisy. What's hypocrisy? Putting on a face, pretending. Right? So it says love without pretending. Right. Love without pretending sincerity to it. Well, how do we do that? He says, beloved. I love how he starts in first John.

He starts with the fact that we are beloved. We are beloved. And I always said that before. I don't know what it means to belove or to be beloved, but it sounds good, doesn't it? And I know that the Lord Jesus is the beloved Son, right? And therefore because of him we are beloved. And so the apostle Paul says here, beloved, which means we are loved. We're loved with the love of God. God has poured out his love. He set his love upon you.

He says in Deuteronomy 7, when he called the nation of Israel, he said he loved them because he loved them. He chose to set his love upon them. And he shows us in, in all of Romans that God is free to set his love on whom he will. For his own purposes. He has set his love on us and he set his love on you. Which means it's not going anywhere. It's a. It's a love that does not change.

So he says, beloved, let us love one another. Well, that's a little harder. He says, why? Well, love is from God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. For God is love. God is love. Which is really interesting.

The Beatles didn't have it right. All you need is love, right? All you need is love. But the question was, what do we mean right when we say love? What do we Mean when we say everybody's got a different picture. When Scripture says God is love, which means everything from his goodness, right? His grace, his mercies, all of that along with his justice, that means everything. All the things that he does is love. It's love. God is love. In this love not that we've.

In this is love. Not that we've. We've loved God. I love that it's a reminder because we say, you know, we talk about even the way we say, you know, when I accepted Christ, when I loved God, when I chose God. And Scripture reminds us. You're, you're unclear. God is the initiator. God is the initiator.

When you respond to his initiation, when you. Right. Responded to his work, when he changed your heart. Yes, you love God because He loved you first. That's a great reminder. He is the great initiator. He is the first cause in all things, in all creation and in all salvation. In this is love.

Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the prop, propitiation, the payment, if you will, for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. The application of that has to be supernatural. Has to be supernatural because you can't grunt your way to love one another, can you? You can't grunt your way to love one another. Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. It's part of the problem. Sometimes we do love our neighbor as ourself because we don't even love ourself, right? I mean, this, if you look at that, right, we have to be transformed. But he's saying this, the center of all of this is the Lord Himself and He is love.

Therefore love is at the center of all of this. And, and so he's going to say, this is what it looks like. Grace filled love transforms God's grace filled love transforms us. This is not. This is not a behavior checklist. This is the fruit of grace. It's the fruit of grace. What does it look like? What are the marks? What is it? What should we.

What's the evidence of it, if you will, is what he's saying. This is what it will look like. First of all, he says, not that you'll be annoyed by evil. He says that you will hate evil. That's pretty strong. He says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Wow. Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth.

He goes on to say in proverbs to hate evil, to hate sin. Understand that God is righteous. He's holy, right? He's pure, right? So at the, at the core of that is to recognize, right? In Psalms it says, in light of my sin, who can complain? In light of your sin, who can complain? And I always say, nobody wakes up each day and says, whoa, what about right? We always think, Lord, what about this? What about that? It's not fair. It's not fair what you're doing in my life. Not fair what you're doing in other people's life. Look at all this stuff. Nobody wakes up and says grace is not fair, Lord. It's not right that people get, get redeemed.

It's not right that people get grace. It's not right that God pours out his love. It's not right. It isn't, but it's God, right? So grace filled love, what's it look like? He says, first of all, hate evil. Why? Because you'll see in here. This is the character of God. He's a purer eyes than to behold iniquity. That's his nature, right? Righteous means hate evil.

The second thing he says, it says in, in New American Standard, cling to what is good. But literally, the word literally means super glue. Super glue to good. Super glue to good. You ever super glued your fingers together, ever try that stuff? Super glued your fingers together, you can't get them apart. So we not only hate evil, but we, we glue ourselves to good, to what is good. So in, in Psalm, when we first came to Christ, Lee and Jan, they, she had on their TV this verse, I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I said, well that means you don't turn it on very much on there for that.

So she had that taped up on, on the television. Well now of course, like I say, we now have HD sewer lines and right in our hands, right? Accessing anything and everything, you know, anything and everything. Said no one worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. I like this. It shall not fasten its grip on me. The things which are not good have a, have a power, don't themselves them. We do have a power because we're, we're, we're redeemed, but we're still sinners, right? The passing pleasures of sin, that means they're pleasurable, they're just short lived.

So in Philippians it says, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, there's any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on those things. Which means my Nat. My heart, right? My old man is. Is attracted to that which is not that. And so the transformation that occurs is a transformation of our desires, isn't it? Transformation of our desires. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And I always understood that to mean delight myself in the Lord. And he would transform my desires because my general desires aren't always in line with the Lord.

I really need his desires, don't I? Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Because if you've been around long enough, you know, I really shouldn't get a lot of the things I want because at the end of the day, they're not all the best for me. Right? Transform my desires. So we super glue yourself to good. And then he says, you're. You'll be devoted like family. You'll be devoted like family in covenant love. You'll be devoted like family in covenant love.

Yeah. If you've been on the planet for a while, in relationships, you realize it's the grace of God that two people can hang together for very long. Isn't this. It's the grace of God even that you can hang with yourself. I always said sleep is God's grace. That I get a relief from me, right? You get. Get a chance to get relief. But then the fact that you stay together for long is God's grace.

We're. We come together as a people and we're to be like family. He says. Like family. Like family. Dang. In covenant love, it's the. The idea.

Devoted is literally the idea of devoted fondness of relatives. And we have Philadelphia or a covenant love, right? A covenant love for one another. And we are to outdo honoring one another. Literally. The Greek means one up in honoring one another. Challenging stuff. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Dang, that one's hard, isn't it? Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

And in Philippians it goes on to say, have this attitude in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. So again, who demonstrates this perfectly? The Son of God, right? We're being. We were being transformed into sons. And he demonstrates it perfectly. Outdo honoring one another. So he says it transforms us just from inside out, right? This is a fruit of grace. He also shows us the great grace Filled love transforms our worshipful service, our Worshipful service. We don't just serve, we serve as worship.

As worship, right, which is your spiritual service of worship. So we worship through service. So he says, well, what does that look like? What does grace fill love do to service? First of all, we're not lagging in diligence. Not lagging in diligence. What's diligence mean? What to mean? To be diligent and steadfast. So the flip side of it is, is slothful. The flip, the opposite of it is again, not being slothful. The flip of slothful is diligent, right? Hands to the wheel, eyes on the road.

This idea, right, of faithful service, not lagging in diligence. So he says, show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end. So that you not be sluggish. Opposite of diligent is sluggish again, challenging more miles. You get on this life, harder it is to stay diligent, isn't it? And then you live in a society that says, hey, you worked hard for a long time. It's time to play fun, to play, hang loose, play on, to play, right? So he says, keep that same diligence, don't lag in diligence and stay hot, fervent in spirit. Stay hot. Which means that's not our natural case, isn't it? Life will cool us down naturally.

And he said to spirit of God through the apostle Paul said to Timothy, what should he do? Kindle afresh. That's really interesting. And then stir it up. Stir it up by the laying on of hands, which is prayer, asking God for anointing, if you will, right? That's that whole picture, right? Hey, Lord, stir up my gift. Stir it up. Get it heated up again. Get it heated up. And it heated up.

They reminds us here, what's the core sacrifice of service is unto the Lord. Unto the Lord. So our natural result is to redo. We surrender and we serve the Lord, serve the Lord comes out in service to his people. But at the core of this, we serve the Lord. We surrender and serve the Lord, right? We, what do we do? We, we bend our knee, bend our knees and we surrender when we sacrifice ourselves on the altar. So it reminds us, don't get lost in the behavior. These are fruits and outpouring and outworking of the Spirit of God.

And he reminds us, no one can serve two masters. So we think, oh, you know, don't love money, don't love money. You know, it says the love of money is the root of all evil, don't love money. This is not fundamentally about money. It's fundamentally about who do you serve. That's what Joshua said, but right. He asked the question, so who do you serve? He said, you want to serve the gods of our fathers, you want to serve the gods of the nations around us? Or do you want to serve the living God? Who do you serve? Because at the end, this principle is, you cannot serve two masters. You can't ride two horses.

You can't have your feet in two camps. Only one, only one. Because you love one and hate the other. Love one and hate the other. So he says, who do you serve? Who do you serve? But Joshua said, as, as to me, in my house, I serve the Lord. So surrender service. This to me. I don't know about you.

This is daily. This is daily. Because I get it out of whack. I get it out of whack, my alignment goes off. It just does. Take my car and how often to get it aligned, right? So this is about my heart alignment, right? This is about my heart alignment to serve the Lord. Because my heart wants to serve me. My heart honor me, My heart wants to sing.

It's not just money. That's the idea that what will it produce? What will it produce? So surrendering daily surrender daily sacrifice, daily service. So grace filled love transforms our worshipful service. What else does it look like? Hoping, just hoping. Hoping, hoping. Hoping joyfully. Hoping joyfully, You know, shout joyfully to the Lord. I thought, how about I shout joyfully? I shout joyfully.

What do you mean to shout joyfully? You're really glad, you know, you're really glad. You're happy. You're glad, you're, you know, outpouring, right? Joyfully I wait for the Lord. My. My soul does wait. In his word do I hope. I hope, surrendering. And then there's this hope.

Hope is about the future, isn't it? Hope's about the future. Says, what does that look like? We're waiting eagerly. What are we waiting for? Our adoption. Our full adoption. We've been adopted now, but we're full adoption. What will that look like? We'll be made like him. God will transform the body of this humble state into conformity with the body of the glory. All of my wrangling with sin.

This world will be gone. I'll see him and I'll be made like him. He's saying, are you waiting eagerly for that? Eagerly waiting for in hope we've been saved. And hope that is seen is not hope. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So he says, we wait, we hope for we do not see with perseverance. We wait eagerly for it. What do we wait? What are you waiting for? What are you hoping for? Hoping joyfully.

Hoping joyfully. King David said, restoring to me the joy of my salvation. Joy of my salvation, said the Lord. I'm not a very joyful Christian. I'm usually mumbling and moaning about stuff, right? So he says, joyfully, joyfully. I need the Lord to restore unto me the joy of my salvation. You can't. You can't crank up joy, can you can't crank up joy.

You can feed it with gratitude, but you can't crank up joy. Joy's got to come from the Lord. These are grace filled. His love produces joy. Love produces joy. Who doesn't want at the core of everything to know they matter, to know they're loved, to know they have purpose? God says, you get them all in Me, in Christ, everything that your heart desires in his presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forever. He says, that's what awaits you.

Hope in that. In that. So he says, we'll be hoping joyfully. Yeah, but Lord, what about the world? The world's not for us, right? Tribulation, some version of that. Ours is pretty light on the scale those around the world. It's pretty heavy depending on where you are. He says, persevering, persevering in tribulation. Persevering in tribulation.

Notice these fruit. This fruit, the marks of God's grace and mercies. They're all verbs. They're all verbs. He says, therefore, since we have so great a kind of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is the author and the perfector of faith. Your story as an author.

An author who wrote your story and is writing your story and will complete your story. He's the author and perfector of faith. Well, what does he know? He for the joy set before him. He endured the cross, despising the shame. He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. And now he ever lives to make intercession for you. He says, consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself. Why? So that you will not lose heart.

Lose heart? I lose hope, don't I? In the midst of stuff. What will I Do I'll grow weary and lose heart. What does that mean when Scripture says that? It means you will grow weary and lose heart. Everybody get it. It's not that you won't, it's this is encouragement for when you do. This is encouragement, Encouragement from God saying, you will grow weary and lose heart. You so persevering in tribulation. Tribulation, tribulation.

Well, how do we do that, Lord? Now he's telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. So now he's saying, okay, when you lose heart and you will, you should look to Jesus the author and perfect your faith. And, and oh, by the way, he says, this is what you should do. In a certain city, there was a judge who did not fear God. He did not respect man, was a widow. She kept coming to him saying, give me legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, even though I do not fear God or respect man, yet because the widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise by continually coming.

Otherwise by underline continually coming. That's the point, isn't it? She will wear me out. And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said. So he says, if that's not unrighteous judge, who? Because of her continual coming response, he said, what about God? God will bring about justice for his elect who pride him day and night. And will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? We're saying this picture is persisting in prayer. Persisting in prayer, persisting in prayer. We're fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author, perfector of our faith.

Where because I'm growing weary and losing heart. Growing weary and losing heart. So he says, fix your eyes on Jesus the Lord and pray. Just keep praying. Pray. Keep praying. Pray hard to keep praying. Is the Lord really here? Doesn't matter.

God going to do what he's going to do? Does it matter what he says? Persist because of her continual coming. So we're saying, persist in prayers. Persisting in prayer. Hard to persist in prayer in it. Give up after a while. Doesn't really matter. Things don't seem to change. Of course, the scripture reminds us part of praying persistently is not just to change things.

It's to change me, change me, change my heart. What am I hoping in? What am I hoping for? Part of coming to the Lord is not changing Things as much as it is changing me. He shows that at all times we ought to pray and not lose heart. Because you will lose heart and grow weary. You should pray so you can hope and persevere and persist. What else does it look like? What else does it look like? Whoever has the world's goods and beholds his brother need, closes his heart against him. How does the love of God abide in him? So brother need. So in.

Timothy says, instruct those who are rich in this present world, raise your hand if you're rich in this present world. No, raise your hand. Everybody in here. If you live in America, you're rich in this present world. You don't understand. There's a different. There's level of riches in here. But if you're in America, we're rich in the present world.

As we go around the world, we're in the top, you know, few percent of wealth in the world. Right? We live at a standard of living. So he's saying if you're rich in this present world, not to be conceited or fix your hope. There's that hope thing on the uncertainty of riches or more riches? Not only uncertainty of riches, of the uncertainty of more riches. How many have done that? Come on. I've done that. How about every day only have a little more? The uncertainty of riches. But he says on God, who richly supplies with all things to enjoy.

Huh? Well, that's a good thing. He satisfies our years with good things. God has given you rich things to enjoy. No problem with that. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share. Storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future. Why? So that. So that what they may take hold of that which is life.

Indeed. They're saying the riches aren't life. Indeed. They would be used in a way where we can take hold of life. Indeed. How do we do? Generously contributing to saints. And me? Generously contributing to saints in need. Generously contributing to saints in need.

Giving is a faith, isn't it? To give the first fruits. To give. And the first fruits really was the first. Right. The first part of the harvest in the beginning of the year. It's not. It's just not like off the top. It was the first, which means you didn't know where there was any more.

It was really giving by faith the first fruits. So we're to give, but he's saying generously give and. And to remain. So what's the picture here? As time goes on you will get. It will be harder to remain generous. It'll be harder to remain generous. Continue. Right.

To allow the fruit of God's work. Allow you to be generous, to share the same, to need, you know. Look, I love this in second Corinthians. Well, I don't love this. It's very challenging. Now brethren, we wish to make known to you. What's he making known? The grace of God. The grace.

There it is again. The grace of God. What does that grace look like? Well, it's been given to the churches. Well, what happened? There was a great ordeal of affliction in a great ordeal of affection. Their abundance of joy and their deep. Wait a minute, hold on. Their abundance of joy in their deep poverty. Those don't seem to go together.

They were broke, right? Scratching for food. That abundance of joy in deep poverty. Well, what did they do? They overflowed. That look like in the wealth of their liberality. Their generosity. Right. Their generosity. Right.

Testifying according to their ability, says. According to their ability and beyond. Why they were broke. Right. The widow's mind, if you will. Right. There was nothing there. They gave of their own accord.

Sometimes you get letters of people are going on mission trip or needs they're going and you feel like they're begging. The apostle Paul says, I'm asking for the profit to your account. I don't have a problem asking for people to give to the work of God because it's for the profit to your account. Sometimes it feels like ministries have to beg God's people who percentage wise don't give any different than unbelievers in the United States of America. The giving, the percentage is something like 3% among believers, which is about same for unbelievers. So these people were broke. They overflowed with joy. And yet they were begging us.

What were they begging you for? The favor of participation in the support of the saints. No. You will let us give. You will let us give. We're begging you for the favor. And this is not as we had expected. But first they gave themselves to the Lord. Here we are again.

Where did it start? They had surrendered. They had surrendered. Therefore the their desire to change. They gave themselves to the Lord and to us. By the will of God, we back here to surrender. There's that picture of surrender. Right? So he's saying the. The money just flows, the joy just flows and it flows into generosity.

It flows into generosity. Generosity of contributing to those in needing. To those in need. Beholding a brother in need and receiving a blessing as a Result of being a part of that. So Lord, give me opportunity. Look around, lots of opportunity, isn't there? So, and finally he says, practicing hospitality be hospitable to one another. So it had a different feel then. Because of course, being a believer in that time often meant that you were shut off economically.

Right. You could be shut off economically. Be a little bit like in the Muslim world where you're not getting a job, you're not. Right. And so they would be moving around. And so literally it's saying, when a believer shows up in your life, practice hospitality. That's, that's really the context here. It's not just to strangers, but it's to believing strangers who are in need.

In other words, it would be open up your house because people are traveling around and they don't have place to stay. So he's saying, what does it look like? Not lagging in diligence, fervent spirit, sacrificing and serving the Lord. What's that look like? Hoping, joyfully, persevering in tribulation, persisting in prayer, generously contributing, practicing hospitality marks of what it looks like when grace filled love has filled us. In other words, it flows out. It flows out and it produces verbs in your life. Grace filled love produces verbs. Hoping, persevering, persisting, giving. Right, practicing.

Those are the verbs. Yes. And he is a God who fills us to overflowing. That's the point. Overflowing. And when it looks like there's no more left, he keeps filling you to over. That's why those, those, those who water will be watered. Those who water will be watered.

What's his name? Earth Moving Company. I want to remember his name. Second World War. Yes, yes. Bob Letourno. Yeah, Lieutenant University. So he had an earth moving company. His machines were on D day during, on, on the ships on, during D Day.

And he would say, you know, God shovels it in and I shovel it out. He said, I just realized God has a bigger shovel than I do. God has a bigger shovel than I do. So God's grace first and foremost confirms our sonship. God's grace confirms our sonship. That's where this begins. You've been adopted. You've been adopted.

The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are his. Yeah, we're his children. So his grace confirms your sonship. That's where this flows out of, right. Romans 8. And then it conforms us to the image of his son. God's grace confirms our sonship, for whom he foreknew. He also Predestined.

Everybody gets caught up in all his words. What do they mean? I don't like it. I don't agree with all that stuff. But the point they miss is conformed to the image of His Son. If God didn't do that, that's not happening. I can tell you that that's. That's miraculous, impossible. That I would be conformed to His Son who is the Son of God.

The Son of God. That is a grace empowered miracle. Miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. Only for a new also predestined become conformed. Why? That the Lord Jesus would be the firstborn. Firstborn.

Not just the firstborn. He is. This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Firstborn. But he's the firstborn among many brethren. Brethren. Fellow heirs with the Lord Jesus. What? Who would do that? Who would do that? Take a sinner, rebellious sinner, adopt them and make them a fellow heir with their Son.

The Son whom I'm well pleased. The Son who deserves the position, who deserves the inheritance, who deserves the glory and honor and power that he has. That he would be the firstborn among many brethren, which would be us. Isn't that amazing? That's grace filled love. So God's mercies and grace not only redeem us, they literally transform us. They confirm our sonship and they conform us to the image of His Son. So write down a question, an insight, a comment, not the patient. May the God of all mercies, may he bless you.

May he keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. May he lift up his countenance and grant you his shalom, his peace, Peace that passes all comprehension in your soul. That you would hope. You would hope afresh. Hope afresh. May he bless you and keep you. Amen.

Thanks for listening. I hope you have greater hope, assurance and confidence in your life and a deeper trust in the God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus Christ. Until next time. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may. May the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you his peace, his shalom in your soul and in your life. Until next time.

May God bless you and keep you.