Romans 7:14-25 • Masks Off
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let me ask that you look in your Bibles at Romans 7 this morning, Romans chapter 7 as we'll be considering verses 13 through 25.
I would imagine for a number of you, you had some celebrities come to your neighborhood this last week, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man, Ariel, maybe Martin Luther, maybe a pastor president, I don't know, but as those little people behind the mask said the words to you, trick or treat, I would imagine even if you knew who was behind the mask that a common question was, "Who is that behind that mask?" And you expected them to speak up. Some of the same questioning is going on in Romans chapter 7. I mean, you know that the apostle Paul is speaking, but somehow behind the mask of that apostleship there are questions. Which Paul is speaking? Is it the Paul of a present-day Christian, or is it the Paul of a previous pharisaical life?
That's the question the scholars debate in Romans 7.
Let's read verse 13 and 4, and you decide. Do you think Paul is speaking as a present believer, or is he speaking in the context of being a past pharisaical Jew? Let's stand as we honor God's Word, Romans 7 verse 13. Paul begins, "Did that which is good," meaning the law, which he has already identified as spiritual, good and righteous, "Did that which is good, then bring death to me by no means."
Remember earlier in the chapter, the apostle has already said, "We are dead to the law," in the sense that being a good person is not your God. It's not going to give you a law. It's not going to give you life.
But at the same time, while we are dead to the law, we are not lawless.
There are guides to help us. So the apostle begins, "Again, did that which is good, bring death to me by no means." It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
For you know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not want to do, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." I knew I was going to mess up one of those do's and wants.
I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.
For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
"Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
Christ be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, thank You already for the wonderful testimony of what it means to be dead to the law of our own performance.
As Morgan and Nicole wonderfully demonstrate for us confidence in You and not in themselves,
but even as You raised them and us to newness of life, we recognize what You are doing as giving us a better path, strength through Christ and through others that He loves.
Help us to tap into that this day, that we might know the hope that is ours and through hope, joy, and through joy, strength. This we pray in the name of Jesus, amen. Please be seated.
If you know anything about the great American Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards, it's probably on the basis of one sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
And if that's all that you know of Jonathan Edwards, in fact, if you only read portions of that, it's virtually a caricature of fire and brimstone preaching. After all, if you have any image in your mind from that sermon, it is of spiders dangling over a pit of flame, which ultimately in his time made his hearers tremble in terror, which doesn't fit entirely with what Jonathan Edwards also believed.
After all, his teaching was not simply that people could be scared into heaven, but ultimately that they would be changed by renewed affections, that the grace of God could be so powerful that what would ultimately happen to take people on the path of godliness was hearts transformed by the love of Jesus for His great grace.
After all, if you only preach part of Jonathan Edwards, you end up preaching only part of the Bible.
And Jonathan Edwards knew that if all you were going to do was try to create fear in people, all you would create was an idea of an ogre God and not the God who loved them and called them to His heart. How would Jonathan Edwards preach with such prophetic power that people would tremble before the wrath of God and yet with such tenderness that they would desire the heart of God? A key is from his journal early in his adult life. He wrote these words, "Resolved, to act in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been as vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins or had the same failings as others, and that I will acknowledge of their failings, prompt nothing in me but humility and prove only an occasion for confession of my own sins and my own need of grace."
What made the prophetic voice of Edwards so strong was the priestly voice that said,
"I understand.
I've been there too. I know the struggle. And it's actually to stay away from the hell that is the consequence of that struggle that is my heart's greatest desire. And I know you won't hear me. You won't be able to hear me if you don't think I know what you're struggling with."
And that's exactly what the apostle Paul is doing. Here is an apostle saying amazing things that which I want to do, I do not do.
Now the big controversy of the scholars through the centuries is how could Paul say that? Which Paul is speaking? Is it the present apostle? Or is he looking back into the past at his fair, sayable, Jewish existence and saying, "I'm speaking about what it was to be condemned by the law, to know only the death of non-performing what God had expected." Well, that's the big debate. Is Paul speaking of the past or the present? I'll plant my flag. Please don't turn me off if you disagree because we're ultimately going to agree on the purpose. I think Paul starts talking in the past. He is saying this what it was like to be crushed by the law as a Pharisee.
And then he draws that right into the present and say, "I say that to you so that you will know when your presence struggle. I know struggle too."
Why would I say that? What do I think about who is actually talking in this chapter? I think Paul is at first writing from his past perspective. I think he's actually pretty clear about that. If you go just a little higher in the chapter than where I began today, verse 10 says this, "The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me." Now that's what a Jew would know. Paul would say in Galatians 2, "We who are Jews by birth know that no one is justified by the law." We know that if you're just going to be right with God by doing better than other people or even what the law is going to require, that's going to crush you. And so Paul says, "I recognize that what was intended to give me life instead became death to me." He continues that thought in verse 13.
It was sin producing death in me by what is good. I began to recognize I was a sinner in the face of the perfections of God's law. And verse 15, "For I don't understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very things I hate."
As you begin to follow that train of thought, you recognize that the apostle Paul is speaking with the honesty of what any good Jew, particularly any good Pharisee, is supposed to say. Verse 12, "The law is holy."
Verse 14, "The law is spiritual." Verse 16, "I agree with the law that it is good." Verse 18, "I have the desire to do what is good." I mean, any good Pharisee should say that.
That any good Pharisee and any honest Jew would as a consequence have to confess what Paul also confesses. Verse 15, "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." Verse 19, "In fact, the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." Now, as you're listening to that, I hope you're thinking, "Well, that's not only what a good Jew ought to say. Every one of those things is what a good Christian ought to say. I don't do what I want to do. The law is good, but I find myself not keeping it."
But there are certain things, Paul says in this chapter, that no Christian, well-informed,
can say.
Look at verse 14.
Before the end, Paul says, "I am of the flesh, sold under sin." I am sold evil. I'm possessed by evil and sin. It's the very thing he has taken such care to say early in the chapter is not true of believers. Verse 4 of chapter 7, "You belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead."
If that's true.
If you belong to another, you are not sold to sin. You're not on the slave block somehow under the control of sin anymore. That's not who you are. In fact, verse 18, what no Christian really can say, it seems to me to be the key verse at the end where it says, "Nothing good dwells in me." Now, how could a Christian say that? Nothing good dwells in me. This same Paul will write in Galatians 2.20 these words, "I'm crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives," where?
In me. How could a Christian say, "No good lives in me," or the last of verse 18, "For I have the desire to do good, but not the ability to carry it out." Can a Christian say, "I have no ability to do good. I'm a slave to sin." It's what he took such care to say in Romans 6, 6 and 6.14. You are no longer under the dominion of sin. Sin shall no longer have dominion over you. You are not a slave. That reality is what the apostle has tried to drive home so much for us to know, "You are united to Christ. You are not united to sin." As Nicole and Morgan were saying earlier, "My identity is not in what I do. My identity is in Christ. I'm united to Him. He covers me. He covers my past. He covers my sin. I'm not only united to Him by identity. I'm united to Him in His power. He is in me, the same one who is risen from the dead. He now by His Spirit indwells me." So says the apostle, "You are no longer a slave." Tomorrow doesn't have to be like yesterday. Real hope is possible. Real change is possible.
If all that is coming to the fore, why does Paul take the life of the past a Pharisee who is saying, "I wanted to do good, but I didn't do it. I couldn't do it"? Why is he dragging that reality roaring into the present tense to say, "Wretched man that I am"?
Surely it's because he wants us to hear his voice as a priestly voice, the one who cares, who understands to say, "Listen. If any time you think, my pastor, the apostle, Jesus Himself does not understand," the apostle Paul says, "Been there.
I know what you're going through. I know the struggle. I have been there." And for that reason, whether or not you agree that Paul is speaking from the past or in the present, there is really no debate about his purpose. His purpose is that we believers would understand that we have an understanding ear and an apostle who wants us to follow him by understanding who we really are.
After all, if you're going to follow this path of maturity that the apostle is laying for us, then there are certain realizations about who you are that have to be dealt with in order to find the power and the joy that's in Jesus Christ.
Every one on this path of maturity is going to have to sing first a lament of discovery. It's verses 13 at the end in verse 14, where the apostle is going to say, "Through the commandment, I became sinful beyond measure. I'm of the flesh, soul under sin. I began to recognize that when the law really was plain to me, telling me not to covet, not to lie, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not even to lust after it, that when that law was before me, it became a mirror.
Its perfection is showing me my imperfections. And I began to recognize, I'm not who I want to be. I discover the reality of my weakness, my shortcomings, my sin. I begin to see myself in the holiness of God that is being reflected. But it's not just a lament of discovery as I begin to look at the people of the Bible now in a new way and I say, "Look at Peter.
He betrayed.
Look at Thomas. He doubted. Look at Elijah. He was a coward.
Look at David. He was an adulterer and a murderer.
Look at Abraham.
He was an adulterer and he betrayed his own family."
And I don't just stand apart and say, "I'm just glad I'm not like them."
Instead what we are doing is we're saying, "Once I understand the perfections of the law of God, I recognize why those people are in the Bible.
I'm supposed to recognize I'm like them.
They needed a Savior. I need a Savior." That's the path of discovery which leads, of course, to the lament ultimately of dismay. Verse 15 right at the beginning, "I do not understand my own actions." Verse 15 at the end, "I do not do what I want to do and I do what I hate." It's this discovery that leads to dismay. How could I possibly be that person? How could I do that?
I love the commercial that's out right now where the company is reminding us that it can't guarantee that we won't have in our mouths the voice of our own parents, that we don't become our own parents, remember? The ones who are saying, "Are we trying to heat the whole outdoors? Then why is the door open?"
Championships are made by defense.
"Hey, if my phone's not broken, why would I get a new one?"
And we all think, "How silly that we would have the voice of our parents."
And then in the unguarded moment when we are at the frustration's end with our own children,
when our anger or our desperation or our frustration rises to the point that we no longer have control, we think, suddenly we hear coming out of our mouths the voice of our parents.
And we're just dismayed. How could that happen?
I think of a friend of mine who doesn't joke about it at all, raised by an abusive father who beat him and his brother until they could beat up their own father, said to me even as a young man, "I resolved never to be like my father."
And then years later, in tears said, "I did what my father did."
How could that be?
And the dismay ultimately leads to the lament of disgust. How could I? How could this be true of me? Verse 16 and 17 at the end, "I agree with the law, but sin dwells within me." Verse 18, "Nothing good in me." Verse 19 at the end, "The evil I do not want, I keep on doing." It seems I've controlled me. I can't seem to stop it. I want to stop. I do not want to do it. And it holds me. It comes back to me. I want this to be gone and here it comes again.
Some of you read Ray Bradbury, the science fiction writer, not only because of the science fiction but his insight into the human soul.
And in that famous short novel, The Illustrated Man, he talks about a young man who is being tempted by an older man to go into a brothel.
And the young man responds to the older by saying, "Do you not recognize that there is a quality of man who is disgusted by sin, but then cannot explain to himself why he cannot stop thinking about the brothel or ultimately avoid it?" How could I be like other people? How could I struggle this way? How could this be part of me? And ultimately the dismay turns disgust with ourselves. Nothing good in me. How could I possibly have done this? How could I do it again?
Because ultimately what the apostles after is not just the lament of discovery and not just the lament of dismay and not just the lament of disgust, but ultimately the lament of desperation.
Verse 20 and 21, "Sin dwells within. Evil seems always to be at hand."
So that verse 23, "Evil is winning," says the apostle 22 and 23, "I delight in the law in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war and making me captive." It's got me. It's got a hold on me. It's got an oxen me. And I can't seem to be rid of it.
I can't speak to this number of people without knowing people who are thinking exactly that in this moment, whether it's an addiction of lust, an addiction of chemical, whether it's a pattern of life, a pattern of thought, a pattern of speech. I want to be free of it, but I can't get free of this. I just feel desperate.
I think of a time in which I was pastoring in another town, and the way that church was made my office was kind of on the corner of a building where I could look at the front door from my office.
And I remember a young man coming to get help from me for an alcohol addiction. And I would watch him come in to get counseling, but as he would come in the front door he would hide his beer bottle behind one of the columns before coming in to get counseling for his alcohol addiction.
And when I would confront him, he would say, "I believe with all honesty. I want to be free. I want to put this away. I don't know how.
I'm disgusted with who I am." But of course it's that very desperation that the apostle is using to say, "Once you know that, that on your own, that apart from Christ, apart from His benefits and blessings and strength and power, that you actually are desperate, you are not ready for the glory that the apostle is wanting us to embrace."
Somewhere, you have to hear somebody's priestly voice who says, "I get it. I understand. You struggle. I struggle. We're in the same pot. We know this heat of the soul.
We all struggle." The reason the priestly voice of care and compassion needs to come is so we will ultimately hear the prophetic voice of what the apostle has to say to us are part of the solution, part of the help. He is commanding us, after all, by his own example, to be a community without masks.
That it's not just the Sunday School images, not just the Facebook perfections that we show to one another, but the reality of what it means to be human in a world of temptation and sin and addiction and futility. What is that like?
What's really behind our mask? First, the apostle is making clear, "You must know in this community in which we are being called to live without masks that you are not alone."
The end of verse 23, Paul and apostle says, "The law of sin dwells in my members."
Now whether he's talking about past or present, he is saying, "I know what it's like to struggle, to burn, to have this desire in me that I can't just put away by my own efforts and my own energies." And not as Paul only is saying, "You are not alone."
But ultimately he's helping us by saying, "And you're not the worst.
You aptly won't be helped. You'll be hopeless if you think you're the only one struggling and if you think you're the worst one struggling."
The apostle is so caring. So he will say early in his ministry, as he is writing to those at Corinth, a church that is struggling with the approval of incest, can you believe that? The church had people who were actually saying, "It was okay for a man to be living with his father's wife." And to those who were struggling with that kind of sin, the apostle addresses them this way. He says, "I'm just the least of the apostles."
It was fairly early in his ministry. By midpoint in his ministry, he says, "I'm the least of the saints." Not just less of the apostles, but kind of above everybody else. He looks at everybody else and he says, "I'm really the least of the saints."
What did he mean by that? Did he mean just, "You know, I did murder Christians in my previous life." Or did he actually recognize that when he was writing to those at Corinth and says, "I'm going to have to come visit you because of the sin among you." He would confess in the very same breath, "And I'm scared of that.
I'm actually trembling at the thought of having to come visit you." An apostle would say that. The one who would face tens of thousands with courage would say, "I'm trembling to come to the people I know because they're living so sinfully. I know they're going to reject me and hurt me if I try to correct them."
But that wasn't the end. Ultimately, he would write to Timothy toward the end of Paul's own life and to encourage the timid Timothy preacher. He would say not just that he was the least of the saints.
He would say, "I am the chief of sinners.
With what I know, with the privileges that have been given to me, the fact that I would still struggle with fear or lust or pride, it's actually worse for me now than when I acted with what I did not know or the maturity I did not yet have. Now in my maturity to struggle with those things, I recognize I am the chief of sinners. But what he's teaching us is that secrecy is not the mark of maturity.
If we are in the church, then we recognize that even an apostle or a prophet would say, "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of his all." It wasn't just, "You have done bad. You are going wrong." What or apostle would say, "I know the struggle." Why? Because if we hide from each other, we can't help one another.
Kathy and I laid to rest this past week, one of our dearest and longest friends. When I pastored in Sparta, Illinois, this was a young family that had all boys, and we raised our boys, their boys, and they were just dear, dear friends.
And the mom, due to heart disease, passed away this last week, and it brought a lot of thoughts and memories back to mind. And one was being in a Bible study in their home those decades ago, and because we were pastoring the church at the time in that Bible study, Kim prayed for us. And this is what she prayed. It's kind of etched on my brain.
Heavenly Father, thank You for bringing Brian and Kathy into our midst.
Even though they don't have problems like the rest of us, thank You for bringing them to us.
Now, I must tell you, there's a part of me that really likes that prayer and the respect that it gives to us, but there's another part of me that knows such a prayer calls for my repentance.
What is it in us that have made other people think that we don't struggle like them? How does that possibly help anybody to think that there's one category of Christians that struggles in another category of Christians that don't struggle at all? We cannot be the community that God is calling us to be. If at some point we can't drop the mask and be able to say, "I know what you're struggling with. This is what's helped me. This is what I'm still struggling with. Help me, I'll help you." Because when that kind of honesty is in front of one another, then we begin to really find the healing that the gospel intends. I am not talking about unwise disclosures to any and all people, those who can't understand, those who are not safe, but I am talking about someone, a spouse, a pastor, an elder, somebody in your small group, a peer, a Christian at work, to whom you are able to say, "How are you dealing with this? What are you struggling with? How can I help you?" That we recognize, "If I can do that, then I myself can help even as I am helped." I think of some young businessmen that I know whose job involves a lot of travel. And as a consequence, when they are back from their travels, they ask each other questions. They have covenanted to do so. Seven questions. I'll just give you two and you'll get the gist.
One of the questions they ask each other is, "In your hotel room, did you remain pure?"
Second question, "On your expense report, did you remain honest?"
I'm not sure I want to answer those questions.
But you must recognize that not one of those young men can look at the other and say, "I don't struggle with that." "Oh, I don't know why you struggle with that." No, listen. Don't you dare say you don't struggle. "There is no temptation taken me but such as is what?" Common.
"I know my heart. You know your heart. Whatever this struggle is, we share it." If an apostle knew what that was like, we can know what it's like and confess and help one another. I am so thankful for the small groups, for the life-on-life discipleship groups here that are seeking so much to bring life without mass to this congregation, whether it's radical mentoring or young leaders mentoring that we are now doing, whether it's mops where mothers gather with one another to help talk about children and issues that they're facing, whether it's the countless scores of Bible study groups where people are just trying to do life together.
And what they're trying to do is to say, "I understand. Well, you understand me.
I think of the young moms who are able to say to one another, "I so crave adult conversation.
If I have to sing the alphabet song one more time, I'll go crazy."
Or there is somebody pulling on some part of my body every hour of every day. I am too tired to cuddle a child or a husband, and he doesn't understand."
Or an older spouse who will say, "Until my spouse got sick, I had a friend and a lover and fun."
And now there is so much pain.
I just have to get some space.
I just got to clear my head and my heart some, and I feel guilty for that.
How are you dealing with it?
I think about myself.
I think just a few weeks ago, I called an elder in our church, and I said, "You know, I'm just really discouraged about something, and I want to tell you, so I don't have to carry this alone."
And his first words were, "You will not have to carry it alone."
And I think what the apostle is doing for every single one of us is saying, "If we would be a community without masks, we would not have to carry the burden alone of sin, of hurt, of misery, of need for mercy.
When we do life together, we help each other even as we are helped." If you're not in one of those small groups, those life-on-life, those covenant groups, some moms, some fellowship, some place where you can debrief and be real, I urge you, find the place where you are able to expose yourself and be helped even as you help others who will do the same.
Because ultimately, we are being called by the apostle here to be a community without fences. When the apostle says in verse 24, "Wretched man that I am," he's not speaking in the past tense. He's looking at the reality of who he is past as well as present. How could I do this? How could I struggle this way? I'm supposed to know better. And he just says, "Wretched man that I am." It's the recognition that he's willing to dare to be honest in front of other people. And believe me, he will be more daring in other places in the Bible. I've already mentioned in 1 Corinthians how he says, "I trembled at the thought of coming to you and having to correct you." It gets worse.
By the time you get to 2 Corinthians, where he's now correcting the people who have incensed in their own congregation, he actually writes in the 11th chapter, "Who is weak?
And am I not weak?
Who has led into sin?
And do I not inwardly burn?"
Whether he's speaking of anxiety or lust, the commentators debate, but no one debates that he is showing his soul in all of its weakness and misery to build up those who are also weak. "To the weak I became as one weak," he said. Why? "That I might by all means save, Psalm."
I was willing to disclose. I think of what it means for us in the society that we're in. We can cheer someone like Josh McDowell when he comes, and he gives statistics that just wipe us out. And he talks about pornography with such pervasiveness, and we think how often here I will tell you that when he was in private with the pastors, he was even more real.
Because despite what the surveys said, he said his own opinion was that right now, struggling with pornography, he said 100% of men struggle with pornography.
Now if you say 100%, you're talking about yourself.
And yet he was willing to do it. I think of the reality and the goodness of the work by Artemburn and Stoker, every man's battle. This isn't just you. This isn't just them.
What ultimately the apostle is doing is calling us to be a church without fences. They don't say, "Now this side is for the people who have it all together, and that side is for…"
No.
There is no temptation taking you but such as is common.
When we acknowledge our struggle out of our desperation, we have to say, "My struggle may not be your struggle, but we all struggle." That's the point. So that we will help as well as hear, that we'll acknowledge that people are not alone, that they don't desperate without any help, because we understand their struggle. If there's no temptation taking you but such as is common, I don't know what problem you're facing. Is it sexual purity or HDTV envy or faking religiosity because you think you're supposed to?
Yet whatever you face, you are not alone.
Because ultimately the apostle is wanting us to know not just that we should be a community without mask and a community without fences, but he's driving us to be a community without despair.
"Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?"
Preachers through the ages have said at least one of the potential references for that phrase was one of the Roman penalties for murder at which one who had killed another would have the corpse bound to him, leg to leg, arm to arm, chest to chest, cheek to jaw, so that ultimately the rotting and the foulness and the disease would consume both.
And the apostle who would at least know that image says, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death that's bound to me?" And he's got an answer.
"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." As though the horror of the image is being counterbalanced, undone, the desperation answered by saying, "This is not your fate." The reality is all the struggle, all the difficulty is being counteracted by Jesus Christ our Lord, He who takes guilt away, who fills us with His power by His Holy Spirit, who gives us His word to instruct us, who gives us His people to help us. All of those are part of the means of Jesus Christ to lead us forward into the joy that is our strength. So that ultimately in verse 25 when the apostle says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," we recognize it's just the trumpet call of God to say against all the horror and all the weakness that we all share.
Here comes Jesus with hope and help and through His people to let us know that even if we feel hopeless there is still help. I received a letter a couple of weeks ago from one of the senior leaders of this church who talked about the power of that grace when it is perceived. And he wrote these words to me.
I wanted to send you a note for some time and finally getting to it.
I want to sincerely thank you for your continuous preaching of the grace of the gospel.
In the past five years I've just begun to get my arms around this grace.
Slowly I've been able to internalize it, to really feel it. In the nearly 50 years of being in the church I began to have a negative attitude because I knew no matter how hard I tried I could not be good enough.
But now as I counsel with people as part of the prayer team I encourage them to accept this grace.
It's part of their being. They can take it in. We all know, we all believe in grace, but we struggle in accepting it.
Now His transparency.
I don't know what I would have done without this grace in a recent family heartache.
But pray that more and more of us will allow this grace to heal us and keep on keeping on with the message of grace.
Okay?
Because I need it so much.
Not just you.
Because I need it so much.
Finally I need to recognize that when my heart screams, "How could you have done that?"
Again.
And my soul cries out, "Who shall deliver us from this body of death that the answer of the gospel is fresh on my heart and mind?
Thanks be to God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, in Him there is therefore now no condemnation.
May God make the gospel fresh and new and powerful as we minister to one another of our weakness and Christ's strength for the greatness of the gospel. Father, amazing grace may not just be the words of the past, but poured into the present that we who need again and again to know how great is the grace of God for those who are weak when He is strong.
Grace is yet the sound of comfort and strength and great joy. So fill us with your grace, we pray, that we might be the people you call us to be.
In Jesus' name, amen.