How God's Righteousness Is Imparted to Mankind Through Faith

Well, good morning again, and it's always wonderful to see all of you. So, we're thankful to have a wonderful Sabbath to be able to get together. As you know, I've been going through the book of Romans, and I want to continue in the part two. We're going to have four parts to this, but I want to go through part two today, which will be through chapter four through eight. Now, if you've already read that, that's fine. If you haven't, then I'm going to recommend that you do read it. Because I can't go through every verse. You know, you would never be able to get through. We know how that works. If you try to go through word for word and verse to verse, it isn't something that you make a lot of progress in. But, it is very important for us to, I think, come to understand the book of Romans, because Paul reveals, God reveals through Paul, an incredible and amazing revelation about how God is going to bring about salvation for us and for all of mankind. That's actually what we find in the entire book, but I will tell you directly here in this second section, chapter 4 through 8, it's amazing. The overview. Again, I'm not going to get down into all the details of every verse, some of which are misunderstood by people. And yet, I do want us to be reminded how this book is about how God's going to bring about salvation. We talked about the first part, about how everyone is sent. Jew and Gentile alike is realite and non-is realite. Everybody says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And so, who deserves eternal life?

Nobody. That's what Paul was saying. And then, of course, you know, in chapter 3, we read about how it is that a righteousness from God, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ is now revealed. That's what Paul was telling the people there in Rome. He says, you need to understand how important it is that God began to work with you and that through faith in Him, He credits us, reckons us to be righteous.

Now, are you righteous? Am I righteous? Well, God says, you know, He views us as righteous. Now, we know our failings. We know our shortcomings. But because of God, and because of His calling and His forgiveness and mercy, you know, He says, He looks on us and views us as righteous. So, maybe we should look at that a little differently than we might have. The second section that we covered today is how that righteousness from God is imparted to mankind.

How the righteousness from God is imparted. That's what we're going to go through in the chapters 4 through 8 today. How it is that our faith in God leads to receiving the Holy Spirit that empowers us then to obey God. You know, where is Paul doing away with the law in any way? You know, he mentions over and over positive things about the law, benefits of the law, how important it is, how needed it is.

But what he does show us in these initial chapters in chapter 4 and 5 is that by faith, you know, we have come to receive from God the most incredible blessing that we could ever have, which would be to have the Holy Spirit. To have a power that is going to enable us to become like God, to become like our elder brother, Jesus Christ. And of course, as Christ did come to the earth 2000 years ago, as he came, as he was not in a form that the Jews wanted to accept, he came as a humble servant, and yet what he went through was for us.

He came because of God's love for us. And so he wants us to be ever mindful of that. The third section that we're going to get to next time, it's chapter 9 through 12, talks about how the plan of God involves Israel.

Israel and the Gentiles, and it's incredible to see the significance of what those three chapters reveal about God's calling. And then finally, the last section, chapter 12 through 16, gives us a number of Christian living principles, but I think we will find that those descriptions actually show us what it is to have a transformed heart, a transformed heart and mind that actually becomes like our elder brother.

I want to begin here with this discussion of these chapters 4 through 8, with one verse that is in the book of Colossians. In Colossians chapter 1, you find Paul actually addressing some other issues that the people there in Colossae were struggling with. But here in chapter 1, in verse 25, he says, I became a servant, or its servant, the servant of Jesus Christ. I became its servant according to God's commission that was given to me for you to make the Word of God fully known. Verse 26, to make the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations, but now has been revealed to the saints.

So here he's actually saying, I'm telling you a tremendous mystery, clearly something that must be understood by all of mankind. But he goes ahead to verse 27, to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is... So he tells us what the mystery is. What's the mystery? What is truly important for every one of us in our spiritual development in life?

Well, he says the mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. See, ultimately, that's what every one of us need. We need Christ living in us. We need the mind of Christ. If that's not a part of our prayers, then we ought to make it a part of our prayers, because we not only want the mind of Christ, we want the life of Christ to be living in us.

And that's what this section in Romans chapter 4 through 8 is talking about. So let's go back to Romans chapter 4. And again, I'm only going to briefly hit the kind of the highlights of these chapters, because it's important for us to see the overview of them. And we can go back and study the specific verses as we can individually or then collectively. But here in chapter 4, after having told everyone there in Rome, Jew and Gentile alike, that all of you have sinned, and all of you have fallen short of the glory of God.

But he says, you know, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ has now appeared. And so what he was saying is that God's intervention in your mind is an incredible blessing. Actually, he's going to call it in chapter 5, the grace of God.

See, what is the grace of God that God has extended to those that he has called? See, now in the past we have, I think in summary, kind of said, well, grace is an undeserved and unmerited pardon. And yes, I guess that would be a description of that. But I think we find revealed here that the grace of God in which we must stand is, it includes God's calling, it includes his mercy, and then his forgiveness, his undeserved and unmerited pardon. That's what we find the grace of God involves.

But here in chapter 4, you see Paul pointing out to the people then, and of course all of us today, how that Abraham was credited or reckoned to be or accounted to be by God to be righteous before he was ever circumcised. See, that's what he's pointing out to them. You know, of course, they had at that time a segment of people who felt they had a Jewish background, they felt everybody had to be circumcised in order to be the children of God.

And of course, as we remember in chapter 2, he said, no, that's not what's required. What's required is a change in your heart. What's required is a circumcision of the heart, and that would what make you part of a spiritual Israel. But here in chapter 4, verse 3, it says, what does the Scripture say? Well, it says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. It was accounted to him. I think it says in your New King James, if you're looking at that particular translation, it was accounted to him as righteousness. And you see that mentioned by Paul over and over here in chapter 4.

And if we drop down to verse 10, how then was it reckoned to him? How did God count Abraham to be righteous? Well, how was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he was circumcised? It was not after, but before he received the sign of circumcision in verse 11 as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, which while he was still uncircumcised. See, God deemed him to be righteous. He deemed him, credited him to have righteousness from God while he only exhibited faith. See, all of us, whether we knew it or not, as we came into an awareness of the truth and responsiveness to God, we were exercising faith. Now, we also want that faith to continue to grow and to expand and to become a way of life, but it started with our faith in God. We had to believe that God would forgive us. We had to believe that God would give us the Holy Spirit. We had to believe so many different things, and yet God is the one, as he says here, that credits us with righteousness.

And in verse 13, he says the promise that he would inherit the world didn't come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So it's important for us to realize how it is that God says that he honored Abraham. Now, yes, Abraham did obey, but he started out with a relationship with God that involved his faith, his faith that God accepted.

And down in verse 16, it says, for this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the Jews, the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham. He was saying those who are not Jews, those who are Gentiles and have been brought into the Church of God, the people who made up the Church there in Rome. So it involved the mercy of God to those that he had called. And if we drop down to verse 22, there's more information there about Abraham and what he did, and of course, how he would later respond to God. He believed that he would have a son that God would be with, even when that was physically impossible. He felt it was, as far as he was concerned, he felt it was as far as Sarah was concerned. This doesn't seem likely that Isaac will be born. He believed what God said. And yet it says in verse 22, Therefore his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. And now the words, it was reckoned to him or imputed to him, were written not for his sake alone, but also for ours. See, so it wasn't just that this happened to Abraham. Abraham is the father of the faithful. He is the one that we're going to, in a sense, follow that example in his life. We're going to live by faith. We're going to have to understand the value and the importance of faith. But, he says, it's also extended to us, and it will, verse 24, be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus from the dead, as he was handed over to death for our sins and was raised for our justification. See, that's actually what chapter 4 is about. It's about the significance of faith and God extending righteousness to us through faith. Now, in chapter 5, I think in some ways we're more familiar with others of these chapters. Chapter 6 is certainly familiar in that it talks about baptism. Chapter 8 is clearly familiar because it talks about the Holy Spirit Chapter 5 tells us in verse 1, therefore, since we're justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. See, Paul is making some extremely profound statements to people that, you know, whether or not they fully understood what he was telling them. He was certainly wanting to pull them together. He was wanting to pull Jew and Gentile together, for they would understand that, well, it was by faith that God began a process in our lives that involves his righteousness, but it involves his grace, his calling, and his mercy in extending forgiveness to us. And it also goes ahead to tell us in chapter 5, verse 3 through 5, it says not only this, but also we boast in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us. Now, how is it? How is it that we can have the divine nature of God? How is it that we can impart or be imparted the divine nature of God? Well, it's through the working of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, Jesus Christ is involved. Obviously, God the Father is involved in calling us and in drawing us. And yet, when we drop down to verse 10, and verse again we often focus on, while we were the enemies of God, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved?

We will be saved not simply by His death that covered our sins in our stead, but we are saved by His life. You know, what is that saying? Well, that's saying what we read in Colossians. The mystery of the ages, the mystery, the secret of the kingdom of God is that human beings, following God's lead in their life by calling them, they have faith in God. They are justified and forgiven through the blood of Jesus. And then it says, His life has got to be lived in us. And Christ living in us is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And of course, that's what Paul is so emphatic about whenever, you know, he is writing this to the church members who, you know, who may or may not have understood that. And again, it's not an easy concept for us to understand, but God begins a process that is a miraculous process. And it involves His grace, it involves His calling, His mercy, His forgiveness, and then His developing in us, a divine nature where Christ is actually living in us.

I want to drop down, you know, there's a big discussion, verse 12, on down to the end of the chapter here, chapter 5, about sin. It talks about how sin came into the world through one man.

Now, who was that? Well, it was Adam, of course, Adam and Eve, and then all of their descendants, you know, they were affected. All of us are affected by sin. But he says in verse 17, much more surely, well, those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through also one man, Jesus Christ. That's why it's important for us to pray for the mind and for the life of Jesus Christ to be lived in us. But here, in verse 21, he kind of concludes this section about how important it is to rely on Jesus Christ.

And he says in verse 21, so that just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification, leading, actually through righteousness, to eternal life, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. See, actually, in chapter 4 and 5 has simply laid a foundation. He said, we are brought into a relationship with God through faith. We are deemed to be righteous from God by faith in Jesus Christ. But then he asked a question in chapter 6, verse 1.

So what should we say? Should we continue to sin? Should we continue to live in sin? Should we continue to practice sin in order that grace may abound just because we know that God is merciful, just because we know God is forgiving? And of course, he answers that question emphatically by saying, absolutely not. Absolutely not! He goes ahead to say, how can we who have died to sin go on living in sin? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized under Jesus were baptized into his death? And therefore, we've been buried with him in baptism under death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so that we would walk in a newness of life. See, that's what he wants all of us to fully appreciate. Walking in a newness of life. God has provided what we need. Out of his love, he sent his Son to this earth. Out of his love, he made a way whereby we could be redeemed.

And it is by faith that we receive his righteousness. But then, what are we supposed to do? Well, chapter 6 and then 7 and 8 say what to do. See, that's really what he's saying in verse 1 of chapter 6. Should we continue to sin? Should we continue to disregard the law and just sin indiscriminately? Or should we turn from that? Well, he brings up the fact that, well, you're required then to act. To redeem righteous by God through faith, but then we're required to act.

And a part of that action is repentance and baptism. And of course, baptism is what he's going to describe through chapter 6. And again, much of this is something that we're a little more familiar with. If we drop down to verse 13. You know, since we have been granted the mercy from God that he is extending, he wants us to act by not only being baptized, but by verse 13, no longer present our members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present ourselves to God, as those who have been brought from life, death to life, and present our members to God as instruments of righteousness. See, that's the transition. That's the change that he wants to bring about in our lives. By us acting, turning away from sin, identifying sin in our lives, identifying sin in our attitudes, identifying sin in our heart, in our mind, in our thoughts. And then he brings up, verse 14, sin should not have dominion over you, since you're not under law, but you are under grace.

See, what he was saying was that the Jews who had the law, you know, they felt that as long as they kept the law, that they were okay with God. And he said, well, all of you, as members of the Church of God, have been brought to this point through my mercy, my grace. And so you are to live with that knowledge. And in verse 15, he says, what then? Should we sin? Because we're not under law, but under grace. And of course, he says, absolutely not. Certainly, we're not to do that.

But he does go ahead to say, and he points this out in numerous different ways. Verse 17, thanks be to God that having once been the slaves of sin, and have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you have been entrusted, that you having been set free from sin have become the slaves of righteousness. See, that's a transition that he says has to happen. Whenever we begin to act, whenever we begin to respond to God, whenever we see what God is doing, well, then we're turning from sin. We're fighting against sin. And even as you conclude this section in chapter 6, down in verse 22, but now you have been freed from sin, and you are now enslaved to God. See, all of us are indebted to Jesus Christ. We're enslaved to God. The advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life, because we know in verse 23, the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. See, that's a verse that all of us probably could quote. You know, we know what it says, we know what it means, but see, Paul is elaborating in these five chapters, he's elaborating on what kind of a transition that requires, what kind of a transition comes about in your life whenever you yield to God. Whenever you yield to God, he's going to bring about a transformation that is impossible on your own. He's going to bring about a change. Chapter 6, of course, talks about being baptized, being freed from sin, and then walking in a newness of life, and he goes through different descriptions of that. But what does chapter 7 talk about?

Chapter 7 talks about Christian life, struggling against sin. He uses an illustration to begin with here in chapter 7, you know, again that some confuse or misunderstand, and he's certainly not saying that the law no longer applies because he would go ahead and talk about how that, you know, sin is what we have to struggle against. It's what we have to fight against. And he even says in verse 7, so what should we say? That the law is sin? Well, again, certainly not. Yet if it had not been for the law, I wouldn't have known what sin was. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you should not covet. So he goes back to reinforcing the fact that, well, the law is necessary to know what sin is. And down in verse 12, he says the law is holy and commandment is holy and just and good. And in verse 14, he says we know the law is spiritual, but I am flesh sold under slavery under sin, into slavery under sin. See, now again, that can sound like, you know, he's not making a lot of progress. And even when you read verse, I guess the rest of started going on in verse 15, he says, I don't understand my own actions. For I don't do what I want to do. I do what I don't want to do. See, that's what this whole section in chapter seven, again, that we have often talked about, about struggling against sin. Sin doesn't all of a sudden just disappear in our lives. We have to struggle against it. And that's what Paul would say, even 20 years into his ministry, he was saying, I'm still struggling with sin. But I know, you know, that God has granted me a righteousness that came through faith, and then he set me on a pattern of obedience, being baptized, struggling against sin.

And he says in verse 18, well, even in verse 16, now if I do what I don't want, I agree that the law is good. But the fact is, it's no longer I to do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I can't do it.

See, actually, chapter 7 is a remarkable chapter about our Christian lives, our struggle against sin. Are we sinless? Not according to 1 John. It says if we don't acknowledge our sins, you know, then we're not truthful. If we say we don't sin, then we're a liar. That's what he says. That's what John says. But here in Paul, he's just describing his struggle. See, are any of us struggling against sin? Are any of us, is there any things in our lives that are needing to be improved, needing to be overcome? Well, of course, all of us. All of us struggle. And what Paul was saying is that I do. So he says in verse 21, I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. Even though I delight in verse 22 in the law of God in my innermost self, I see in my members a law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive of the law of sin that dwells on my members. His struggle against sin doesn't appear to be over. You know, it's an ongoing thing. It's an ongoing process. And all of us throughout our lives are going to be struggling against sin, actions or thoughts, even intents of our heart. We will be struggling with those throughout our lives. And yet, of course, he answers, you know, the question he poses in verse 24, a wretched man that I am, who can rescue me? Who can deliver me from this body of death?

And thankfully, he said, it is thanks be to God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, I can be delivered.

See, this is really an in-depth composition of conversion. He says, you've been brought into a relationship by God through His grace, through faith. You are viewed as God. By God is righteous, but you have to act. You have to be baptized. You have to struggle against sin. And thankfully, in chapter 8, in chapter 8, he starts off in verse 1 to say, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. He says, with the help of Jesus Christ, with Christ living in you, and the Holy Spirit living in you, you are being transformed. And of course, chapter 8 is probably one of the most fabulous chapters of the whole Bible. If you want to continue to read something over and over and over again, that would be one that could be very beneficial. And yet, what it points out is, and again, what we've led up to, we've been brought to God by faith. We've been extended grace and mercy and forgiveness. We have acted in obedience to God. We struggle in that obedience, but we're still fighting. And he tells us, you know, I don't even leave you alone. I am going to send you, and I have sent you the Holy Spirit. And of course, that's what chapter 8 is all about. And he tells us in verse 4, so that the just requirement of law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And so we then, you know, we've been, you know, the descriptions of the change that is taking place in our life is described numerous different ways by Paul. But here he says, verse 6, if you set your mind on the things of the flesh, then that's going to lead to death. But if you set your mind on the things of the Spirit, then that leads to life and peace. Because in verse 7, for this reason, the mind that is set on the flesh, a carnal mind is enmity. See, I think the Revised Standard Version makes that even clearer. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile, hostile to God, and it does not submit to the law of God. Indeed, it really can't. And those who are in the flesh simply can't please God. But he says in verse 9, see, that's what we've had to come to admit, that we have been in hostility toward God. And even when we sin, that's expressing a certain hostility toward God. But he says, you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. In verse 9, see how he's incredibly telling the members of the church that you've been drawn into a spiritual body through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your life, in your mind, in your heart, to cause you to be a completely different being. Now, do all of you look the same to me as you were two years ago? No. You're different. You're different. You're better. You're closer to God. You're learning more of what the nature of God is like. You're becoming more a partaker of a divine nature. And that's only possible by the Spirit of God. In this section from chapter 9, verse 9 on down to verse 17 is just, it's incredible. In verse 12, so then, brothers and sisters, brethren, we're debtors not to the flesh, we're debtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh, because if we do, then we're simply going to die. But we're debtors to live by the Spirit, to be empowered. See, that's why I said, do we pray for the mind of Christ? Do we pray to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to gain spiritual understanding, but to gain the strength and power of the love of God? That's what we are growing in.

And so he says, verse 14, those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

And he says, you're able to communicate with the Father in an extraordinary way. Do we think of our prayers as extraordinary communication? Well, it is. It is because, you know, we've been given the Holy Spirit. We've been given the privilege of addressing the Father in such a way that He hears. He's interested. He is wanting to help us. And he goes on to say, not only are we able to cry out to the Father, but in verse 16, it is the very Spirit of God bearing witness with our spirit that we're the children of God. And if we're children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And in fact, you know, we may suffer with Him. We may suffer some during this life so that we may also be glorified with Him. See, we don't want to suffer. We don't like to suffer. We don't like to hurt. We don't like problems. We don't like difficulties. We don't like some of the settings that we find ourselves in. But he says, well, that's up to me. I'm the one who's able to solve that. Or I could allow a certain level of suffering because ultimately you will be glorified as Jesus is. And of course, he says in verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that's going to be revealed in us. See, it's incredible the expanse of what Paul is talking about in this small section here in Romans. And he says in verse 19, the whole creation awaits the manifestation of the children of God. See, the whole creation is looking forward to Christ's return. And the initial installment of the first fruits into the family of God are going to be glorified. And then beyond that, this same understanding of needing to be a recipient of the grace of God and through faith receiving God's righteousness and yet then acting in struggling against sin. And yet with the power of the Spirit of God, you know, we are conquerors. That's what he's going to tell us here. You know, there are other verses here that we could focus on. Verse 28, he says, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose. He also, down in verse 30, he says, there are those that I have predestined to be called. And those He called, He's going to justify, and those He justified, He's going to glorify. See, Paul is making some incredible claims here, and yet claims that God clearly was showing him, this is how you are achieving salvation. Your life is growing in the Spirit of God. And then in the final section in verse 31, what should we say? If God is for us, and that's what he's saying. God is for those that He has called, He has forgiven, He is giving understanding of the struggle, and He is empowering with the Spirit of God.

He says, if God is for us, then who can be against us? Who could undermine us? See, it says in verse 32, He didn't withhold His own Son, He gave Him up for all.

Will He not with Him also give us everything else?

To God is invested a lot. He's invested a lot in not only sending His Son to the earth for the redemption of all of mankind, and yet He's invested a lot in each of us. He's invested a lot in our lives, and we are the recipients of those blessings. And so, if God is with us in verse 31, who can be against us? And then He asks another question in verse 35. He says, Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword? Is there anything that ought to separate us from the love of Christ? Well, He says, as is written for your sake, we are being killed every day, we're counted as sheep for the slaughter, knowing all these things. We are more than conquerors through Him, through Jesus Christ, who loved us. See, our lives are in God's hands, and we are simply a recipient of His grace, which involves His calling and His mercy and His forgiveness, and then Him allowing us to struggle against sin, but giving us the power to be conquerors over sin and to have eternal life. He says there's nothing that is going to limit our potential. There's nothing that's going to keep us from having eternal life if we continue to persist, if we continue to have faith in God. If we're going to be the children of Abraham, as He started out this whole section, those children are children of faith.

They're children who live according to the guidance of the law, because, as He says in chapter 8, we're no longer hostile to the law, we're no longer hostile to God. We're actually a recipient of His help to be able to be successful and to be, actually, as He says, the creation awaits the manifestation of the children of God. It's really incredible to see, you know, not only that Paul is writing about this, but other New Testament writers write about it. Peter writes about it. John writes about it as far as the nature that we are to acquire.

And yet all of that is only possible through what we started out with. What we start out with in Colossians 1? Well, it's the fact that the mystery that is now revealed is that Christ must be in you. And see what Paul said, and we'll conclude with this in Galatians chapter 2, what Paul said as he described the life that he was living in Galatians chapter 2.

In verse 19 he says, through the law, I died to the law that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me in the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loves me and who gave himself for me. See, brethren, that's what I desire more than anything on earth. Maybe that's a real summary statement, and it doesn't go into a lot of details of a lot of other things. But see, I desire to have the mind of Christ, to allow Christ to live in me. I think that involves me getting out of the way. That's the problem. That's the struggle that Paul described there in Romans 7, but he also says there in Romans 8 that I've given you the Holy Spirit. I've given you the Spirit that enables you to be my children, and so I truly want you in my divine family. So I hope you can, if you read through this section, maybe have an overview of this, not get hung up on some of the verses that are a little less clear, but they all, none of them are doing away with the law. You know, they are all supporting the law, and yet understanding how Paul is expanding on the divine plan. And we'll get into chapter 9 through 11, which is even more incredible. You know, that ultimately it's up to God and how he chooses to offer salvation, and we simply want to be a recipient of his offer. So that will be all we can cover today, but I'm thankful to see all of you, and hope you'll have a nice weekend, and hopefully the weather will be good over the next few days, and we'll be able to get everybody together next weekend.