After a few announcements . . . um, concerning the Adult Sunday School class, we are very excited about these series of classes that are going to be starting this evening. Dr. Dallas Willard, who is going to be introduced more adequately I hope by me later on—sitting up here in the blue suit. He is going to give a class this evening, which he’s just been told about. He said something about he didn’t need much announcements or much warning before he could give his sermon or teach his classes and he was scheduled for, I think it was last Sunday and we told him a couple days ahead of time that we had another speaker for the morning and anyway, he’s a good sport and he’s really a blessing for our congregation. I am sure you are gonna know more about that after you hear him this Sunday morning. Anyway, come back this evening because he’s going to be teaching, 6:00 on Romans, Chapters 5-8. This is the same series that he gave in the evening at the Van Nuys Baptist Church for a number of weeks recently, wasn’t it? Or was it not? [1:08]
Dallas: Different church
Oh, different church. Alright, anyway he taught recently at a different church [Laughter} and then at 7:00 this evening or 7:15, isn’t it—7:15 this evening at the services, he’s going to be preaching to us on “Discipleship or Christian,” right? Okay; that’s intriguing. [1:34]
It’s now my pleasure to introduce Dr. Dallas Willard. I’m going to introduce him but then he’s going to sit down. He’s not going to get a chance to talk. We are going to keep you in further suspense because then we are going to have the anthem.
Dr. Willard is an ordained, Baptist minister and he’s also a Professor of Philosophy at University of Southern CA where he has been on the staff for a number of years. He’s done an awful lot of exciting work in both his profession of philosophy as well as in his research and study of the Bible. [2:17]
I had a unique opportunity of going to lunch with him last week and found out something else about him. He’s one of those types of people that you never really get to know enough about. He’s so exciting to be with. The two hours or so that we had lunch passed very quickly. I found out an awful lot about him. I’d love to tell you as much as I know about him and that’s only a little bit of what there is to talk about him. He’s a wonderful person, a person that you really want to be friends with. I enjoyed the lunch so much and not simply because he picked up the tab—[Laughter]. Thank you!
Dallas: That helped! Thank you! I’m delighted to be here with you and to see some of you once again and to make the acquaintance of others. We did have an enjoyable time last spring, I think it was dealing with some portion of the Sermon on the Mount in one of the classes at Van Nuys Baptist. We made many lovely friends there and I am glad to see you again. [3:19]
My agreement with the people who have approached me about speaking here is that when they can’t get anyone else, I’ll be glad to fill in. and so when you see me standing up, you know you’re at the bottom of the barrel. Right? [Laughter] And so let the buyer beware and all of that sort of thing.
I noticed as I sat up here, that this pulpit has an arrangement I’ve not seen before. They have, what looks like a Sears and Roebuck alarm clock sitting back of the pulpit here. If you haven’t seen that, you ought to come up and look at it. It’s quite a unique arrangement. Sometimes, perhaps we need these kinds of things and so to remind us when we are done. [3:57]
This morning, I am going to open the scriptures and turn to some passages which I will be enlarging on in some measure in the evening series, but I am not going to try to be systematic in my teaching today but rather to bring forward what I regard to be the essence of the book of Romans.
Now, let me say one thing about my approach to the scriptures. I regard the Bible, and I hope you will not think this is shocking that I regard it very light—a manual you might get with your new automobile. It says on the front “1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass,” whatever; and you open it and you look into it and you find a detailed analysis of all the parts and what they do and what may go wrong with them and how you may fix them. [4:53]
Now, over the years, I have learned to look at the Bible as a manual of the human soul and to read it as a book of instructions about what goes on in the human soul, what the parts are, what they are supposed to do, what might go wrong with them, and how they can be fixed. And when I read a verse, such as we find in the fifth chapter of Revelations, for example that is often quoted—verse 10 of Revelations 5—“Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” (Paraphrased) When I read that verse, I try to understand it in terms of what might actually go on in the life of a human being on this earth.
I ask myself, what does it mean to be a King? And what does it mean to be a Priest? Let me be clear. I mean, what does it feel like? Because that’s where you and I basically live is in the domain of our feelings. And until our religion comes to the point to where we understand what it feels like to be a King and a priest unto God, that verse is practically meaningless to us. [6:24]
Now, I believe that we honor the word of God, not just by praising it, not just by saying we believe it, not just by swearing by it and at it and on it, but by reading it and taking it seriously with our intelligence and believing that God is intelligent and that He intends for us to understand what He says. Much of our problem with understanding the Scriptures, because we continually take it to be talking about something that’s going on somewhere else at some other time—perhaps in the mind of God before creation or perhaps on a hill in Golgotha called Golgotha hill in Jerusalem or perhaps in the future. It is my insistence that by and large what the scripture means to say to us deals with what we are now. What our experience is now. So, I want you to understand that. [7:30]
Well, when I speak I will be taking large portions of the scripture and mainly just commenting on them, trying to put them in a new light so that you might see them differently and so that you might feel them differently in order that your minds might be transformed, in order that you might prove what is that good and acceptable will of God which is your reasonable service (Romans 12:1 Paraphrased).
Now, I didn’t just select this verse, “Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reign on earth” (Revelation 5:10 Paraphrased). I didn’t select that just by chance, and before I leave Revelations, I want you also to look at chapter 1, verse 6 because I am going to talk to you this morning for the time that I have on the topic Reigning in Life by One, Jesus Christ—Reigning in Life. And the verse I read says, “We shall reign on earth that God has made us Kings and priests.” Verse 6 of chapter 1 of Revelation says, “and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” [8:41]
. . . has made us kings and priests—the Bible struggles just as it struggled with the attempt to conceptualize and express the nature of Christ. It struggles with the attempt to conceptualize our status as children of God. And it takes the greatest figures that are present in human life and identifies us in our status as children of God with those figures.
We are kings. A king is the greatest power towards men. Among men, there is none higher than the king. That is why in our country we dread that power and the words of Lord Acton that “ . . . power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely . . .” is something that has been taken to the heart of many of us and our forefathers who founded the country understood that principle and they attempted to limit power. And that is why in our system of government, there is no absolute power. There are three powers—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial and they are designed precisely to limit power. There should be no absolute power among men, and yet in this fallen world, people desire that power and so far as they have desired it, it is the King, it is the Emperor who stands as the greatest power among men over men. [10:18]
In relation to God, the greatest power is a priest. The priest is the one who has the power to intercede and move God Himself—the greatest Power in the universe on his behalf. And when the Bible says, “we are Kings and priests unto God,” it is taking the two greatest figures that exist in the human mind and saying, “That’s what you are as a child of God.” That’s worth stopping and thinking about, isn’t it? Do you feel like a king this morning? Are you living like a king this morning or like a priest this morning?
And I must say at first that these are metaphors and they are limited but they have a real content which I am concerned to share with you now by looking at some of the great passages from the Scripture. I’m going to come to my text about halfway through my sermon. I’ll tell you what it’s going to be so that you can look forward to it and won’t get all together lost as I go towards it. The text is going to be Romans 5:17. [11:44]
But before we go there, let’s go to Psalms 37. Now, there are many, many passages out of the Scripture which I could have taken to bring forward the kind of point that I wish to make this morning—Reigning in life by One, by Jesus Christ. But this is one of my favorites and I think it may be one of yours too.
In the 37th Psalm, and I will begin with the third verse and read through the ninth. “Trust in the Lord, and do good.” It is so important that we break this up and see the different stages. “Trust in the Lord.” That’s first. That’s the basis of everything. “And do good.” That’s next. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; and if you don’t trust in the Lord, you won’t do good. You may try, but you will give yourself a spiritual hernia trying because we are not made to do good without trusting in the Lord and there are deep and profound reasons for that. [12:58]
“Trust in the Lord and do good” and the result of that will be “ . . . so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Now, we have reached one plateau in this development—“Trust in the Lord, and do good; and verily thou shalt dwell in the land and be fed.” You are going to have enough to eat. But man does not live by bread alone, does he?
So, let’s go on to verse 4—“Delight thyself also . . .”—underline, circle, emphasize, put exclamation point after “also” because delighting in the Lord is not the same thing as trusting in the Lord. The scriptures tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, but it sure isn’t the end of it. [13:42]
“Trust in the Lord but also delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Well, let me just ask you—What is it that a king who is at his best has—a king who is at his best—who is functioning well, who is reigning and ruling effectively and rightly has “the desire of his heart.” (Paraphrased) A priest who is able to intercede according to the Will of God and in the power of God has the desire of his heart. You cannot find—you rarely can find a King who has the desire of his heart. And yet, here we are told at this next plateau of this marvelous passage, “Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
Now, the truth of the matter is if you delight in the Lord, you’ve already been given some desires because normally people don’t delight in the Lord, they delight in all sorts of other crazy things that make their lives miserable and the lives of other people around them miserable. And when we read here, “he shall give thee the desires of thy heart,” let’s keep in mind two sense of that phrase. One means he will give you the actual desires you have and he will take away some of the others that you have had. That’s an important sense of this verse because our greatest trouble in life comes from unfortunate desires. Most of us would be much better off if instead of getting what we desired, we would get new desires. If we had our “wanter” overhauled…hmmm? [15:52]
Much of what we see around us in terms of possession and obsession of people that drives them to unhappy and painful things is simply to be understood in terms of desire. One of the things we have to learn if we are going to be kings and priests is how to get rid of wrong desires. I can’t say much about that right now but it’s so important that I can’t skip it altogether.
In the second sense of “ . . . giving thee the desires of thy heart,” he will give you what you want. But, now you know very well and many people have crucified themselves on this text. You know very well that there are many things the Lord is not going to give you, right? He probably is not going to give you $3 million no matter how much you desire it. He probably isn’t going to give you a Bentley or a Mercedes Benz. So, when you read this verse, remember the two senses of the desires of thy heart. [17:01]
“Delight thyself in the Lord.” Now, the truth of the matter is that this is not the end of the matter. The truth of the matter is if we delight ourselves in the Lord, we are going to have enough right there to be abundantly happy. But God does not intend that we should stop there. He intends that we should have more than Him. For many people, that is just almost impossible to think but it is the intention of God that we should reign in life upon this earth through Him and that our reign should extend over things which are not Him but also over His creation. [17:46]
When he created the first man and woman, he gave them a charge, which was to have dominion over the earth and that is our calling. It is to have and to exercise dominion over the things, which constitute and impinge upon our lives. “Commit thy way unto the Lord;”—trust in verse 3, delight in verse 4, commit in verse 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Commit thy way. This doesn’t just say you; it’s your way also.
You and your way are not exactly the same thing and very often, we are lead to think that we can commit ourselves without committing our way. You see, our way is again our life. It is our course of experiences. It is the place in which we live. It is the place in which we work and sometimes we have been taught yet to surrender ourselves to God but to hold on to our way. [18:59]
“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.”
You see, you have the picture of a person who is not reigning in life—a person who is not even coping—who spends their time in anger and fretting. That’s a lovely word—fret. Cease from anger; forsake wrath; fret not thyself “ . . . for evil doers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” Kings and priests inherit the earth. [20:06]
Now, quickly to Romans 8—the reasons why I want to present it to you and talk briefly about it is because I want to whet your appetite for an understanding of how we got to the end of Romans 8. The book of Romans has a marvelous structure and there is a development from the beginning of chapter 2 of the book of Romans which leads up to the end of chapter 8 and in chapter 8, we have a marvelous crescendo of the fullness of the life of God in the individual being so. We are familiar with this passage. We know that, for example, we have in verse 28, he or “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God—to them who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 Paraphrased).
Again, verse 32, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” (Paraphrased) And we are all familiar with the way this mounts up to this concept that there is nothing above the earth or in the earth, below the earth, in the past, in the future, in the present—there is nothing that can separate us from God. [21:31]
Now, you see, that is the vocation of the priest who is in contact with God, and being in contact with God, delighting himself in God, committing himself to God, trusting himself to God, has everything need met and has the desires of His heart.
In verse 37 of chapter 8, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us”—more than conquerors—we are not just coping, we are not just managing to get by. We are more than that. We are doing it with flying colors. We are doing it with joy. [22:11]
And now, when we turn from that back to Romans 5 and you see this development that has puzzled many people and one of the parts of the Bible I find that people most avoid is the last part of Romans 5. We all know the first part. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” (Paraphrased) culminating in the great letter of recommendation in Romans 5:8—“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” But, then we stop. Puzzling things begin to emerge.
Look at verse nine—“Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” I find in talking with serious Christians that they are bothered by the last part of verse nine. It looks redundant to them. They say, “justified by his blood;” that makes perfect sense. The death of Christ has entered in between man and God and has reconciled man to God and God to man; that makes perfect sense. [23:24]
But, what’s this other? “ . . . we shall be saved from wrath through him.” If you put it with the next verse, I think some light begins to dawn. Notice first of all, the first word in verse 10 is “for” and for because it is going to give a reason for what went before. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,”—that corresponds to the first clause in verse 9 which reads “much more then, being now justified by his blood.” Now, the last half of verse 10 corresponds to the last half of verse nine, “ . . . being reconciled, we shall be saved by His blood.”
I want to ask a question. How many of you here have ever heard a sermon on being saved by his life? May I see your hands? One or two or three; in fact, it has been talked about and there is even a book been written on this topic but by in large, we are at a loss to understand what it means to be saved by his life. And because of this, the remainder of Romans 5 remains a puzzle to us because it talks about death entering into the world, sin entering into the world by Adam and life entering into the world through Jesus Christ. [24:48]
Now, let me tell you something about the life of Jesus Christ. When he died, he poured out his soul unto death. Where do you believe his soul went? What happened to the life of Christ when he died? He gave it to mankind. The life of Christ was a beachhead in the world of the flesh and if you will study the first part of Romans 8, you will see how this works. The life of Christ was a beachhead in the world of the flesh, which was to grow and to overcome—in the flesh—was to overcome sin.
When Christ died, his life didn’t just disappear, you know. Had you thought about that? What happened to his life? His life was set free from its limitation in his fleshly form and it was thrown upon the earth like a new organism. [26:07]
Forgive the analogy, but recently there has been a good deal of discussion in the news about bubonic plague. We know that there are any number of organisms which exist upon the earth. They recede and they come forward. And we know that at any time with various life changes in those organisms, all of human life could be wiped out. Now, if you are going to understand the old Adam and sin and the new Adam and righteousness and grace in the Bible, you have to understand that they are very like these forces, which reside in the world. Sin is in the world. I often wish people understood that and that they didn’t believe that sin was only in human hearts. Sin is a reality, which is in the world.
One of the things that most misleads us in trying to understand the triumph of righteousness in our life is that we continue to believe that sin is only something in human hearts. Sin is not in human hearts at all. Sins sometimes are and the effects of sins are, but sin is in the world. Now, since Jesus Christ has come into the world, He is in the world. [27:52]
Now, if you believe He left at the ascension, I’ve got good news for you. He didn’t. Jesus Christ is in the world. His life has been poured out and it came into the lives of those who were with him and it has come through the centuries. It is present in the lives of people today.
When Paul was talking to the Colossians in the first chapter of Colossians, he did not say Christ on the cross is your hope of glory. He did not say Christ in the tomb or ascended at the right hand of God. What did he say was your hope of glory? Christ where? Christ in YOU, the hope of Glory. The life of Christ was poured out onto the earth into the lives of people and only if we understand that what is going on in the church and in the world today since the death of Christ is a battle between the nature of sin and the nature of righteousness and grace in Christ can we begin to comprehend the magnificent scope of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. [29:01]
The book of Hebrews says, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3) Always as I’ve heard that text preached upon in terms of how shall we escape. But what we must understand is the greatness of that salvation. And many times, the salvation we hear preached is as Paul Sherar, the great minister of the East has said, “is too trivial to be true.” The salvation that is in Jesus Christ is one, which brings us to reign in our lives by Christ Jesus.
Let me return to verse 10 now. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” And let me ask you, “Do you see those two dimensions—the function of the death of Christ and the function of the life of Christ; and do you understand that the point of the death was to set the life free—to throw it upon the earth—to establish the beachhead. “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.” (Romans 5:11) [30:28]
And then we see a kind of newspaper report if you wish of how the battle is going to go. “Wherefore, as by one man . . . “—Adam, sin not sins—“sin entered into the world, and death came by sin; so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world . . . “ (Romans 5:12-13) Please look at that phrase. Sin was IN the world.
Now, the world is not new. The world is not your heart. Sin is in the world and I would love to have time to expand on just what the world is. I can’t here but I do want to stress this verse and ask you to look at it.
“Sin is IN the world: but sin was not imputed when there was no law. Nevertheless we don’t have to have the law to suffer from the effects of sin and from Adam to Moses, when there was no law, even over them that have not sin, back to the likeness of Adams transgression. Who was the figure of him that was to come but not as the offense so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ has abounded to many” (Romans 5:13-17 Paraphrased).
The life which is poured out has abounded to many.
“And now as it was by one that send so is the gift of judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offense, death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign by one in life that is by Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:18-20 Paraphrased) [32:36]
Now, that is talking to you. That is saying something about you and I want to take my few remaining moments to just try to make this as plain as possible. This is talking about four main areas of life in which you are to reign by the abundance of grace that is in Jesus Christ and the first of these is the domain of provision. So ask of thee what to eat, what to wear, where you live and what you drive. It has to do with the provision of the material circumstances of life.
That Psalm from which we read at the outset—verse 37 says, “I have been young, and now I am old and I have never yet seen the righteous forsaken nor His seed begging bread” (Psalm 37: 25 Paraphrased). And I know a lot of folks to whom I have given that verse say in their heart, “He didn’t see me” because I really don’t have enough provision. The abundance of Christ, which is to reign or by which we are to reign in life in his provision. It also includes the expectation that we have of life. I don’t quite know a good word to put there and so I have chosen expectation but what I refer to is that the mean of life beyond provision, where we just want things. We just want things. This is an extremely important area of life and it is in this area where we have the greatest disappointments and disappointment embitters and kills the joy and praise of God in our hearts. [34:31]
The expectations about yourself—many, many people, they are disappointed with themselves or disappointed with their family, or their children or their mates. They are disappointed with their job. They are disappointed with their educations. They are disappointed with all of these things; and when one is beaten down in this area, they are not reigning. They do not have the desires of their heart. They are not kings and they are not priests.
Another area of life in which we are to think of this abundance of reigning by Christ Jesus is righteousness. Here’s another great area of disappointment and hurt. Paul expressed it in these words, “the things that I would do I don’t do; and the things I wouldn’t do, I wind up doing” (Romans 7:15 Paraphrased). And many, many folks are defeated by their inability to do the things they know to do right. It may be such a simple thing of gossip and occasionally you will meet a friend who is just sick with themselves because when the malicious gossip is being passed around, they couldn’t let it go by. They had to take it on their own tongue. [35:53]
It may be lying. Lying is such a way of life in the world where sin is. It forms our commercials. It forms our politics. It forms our business. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies—and it may be that you have wanted to take a stand against lies and just have not been able to do it and what I am saying to you is that in that area too, you can reign. You can be a king and a priest unto God.
Let me mention one other area and that is the area of personal relations and influence of other people. That is very important. We seem to find many people, especially those who cannot make personal relations go right and this extends all the way from the heartbreaking family fights and squabbles to the loneliness of the person who is without a friend. To a person who can’t hold a job because their personal features are such that they simply cannot get along with people. And all of this heartbreaking domain of personal relations is one in which we are given the gift of reigning through the abundance of grace and gift in Jesus Christ. [37:09]
We have to ask ourselves–am I reigning as a king and a priest? And do you know that I find in teaching these matters, the hardest thing to do is to get people to take the question seriously. They say in themselves, hmmmm, me? Reign? Me? And it is so far removed from them that they simply cannot conceptualize it.
And so, I ask you today—take seriously the task of imagining it, of thinking what it would be like if you were reigning in your life. Handle it in the most concrete of details. If you are not reigning in an area this afternoon, go home and in the privacy of your room, right it down on a sheet of paper. If you are defeated, if you are the servant and not the king, own it. Confess it. Say it to God. Don’t believe he is going to wither up and go away because you express a little dissatisfaction. [38:37]
There are many people who believe that they have to protect God. Oh, that’s quite wrong. God is here to receive and embrace everything you are and everything you feel. And until you are willing to offer that to Him, you will continue to be dominated, to be frustrated, to fail but the moment you bring yourself to the place where you understand that all of that is included in the scope of salvation, you are ready to begin to move.
And then after you have done that and you have gone over the great details of your life, the very things where you are not reigning, where you are not a king and you are not a priest and you have asked the Holy Spirit to help you be honest and to see things as they are, then you begin to wait in prayer and study to be shown the way in which those things will change. As you do so, you will be lead into an understanding of what it is to reign in life by One, Jesus Christ. [39:52]
I wish I had time this morning to spell out in great detail what that means—by ONE. You see, the verse doesn’t say we just reign. It says we reign in life by ONE, by JESUS CHRIST. It is by him in our lives that we learn to reign. When we welcome Him in and when we have the confidence to believe that God is bigger than we had thought, that he isn’t just one who had barely enough grace to arrange it that our sins could be forgiven, for there are many who believe that that’s all God does—that that’s the whole of salvation—that He just managed to get enough righteousness out of the death of Jesus to save us from the guilt of our sins and leave us there where we were in our misery until we die and go to heaven. But when we begin to believe in the greatness of God and His willingness and readiness to reign in our lives by grace so that we might reign with Him, then we are beginning to exercise saving faith. Until we do that, the principle of the Gospel is very simple as is your faith, so be it unto you.
Now, we are going to sing a hymn which I believe the Lord directed whoever wrote the program for the morning to bring because it is right on the topic that I am talking about and that hymn is number 300—Take time to be Holy and if you take time to allow God to wholly enter your life, you will see then what it is to reign by One, in your life, in your circumstances where you live in Christ Jesus. [41:53]
If you want to come forward as we stand and sing, there will be someone here to meet you and to pray with you. If you have any decision which you would like to make in relation to your membership in this group or in relationship to the details of your life, there will be those here who would love to listen and to love you and to pray for you as we stand and sing.
Singing hymn “Take Time To Be Holy”
- Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek. - Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see. - Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word. - Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.
Let’s bow for the benediction. Lord we are glad to know that we are no wanting to be fitted to services but we want to be fitted to reign in life here. We are thankful that eternal life begins here and now in all of its fullness and we pray that the grace of God and the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and the companionship and the instruction of the Holy sprit will be with everyone of you all today and the rest of this week and throughout your lives. Amen.