Main Idea: Believer, sin no longer rules you, so don’t live like it does. Instead, your life is God’s, so live righteously under His rule.
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It's good to be with you again. today. It's my pleasure to be able to lead us through another section of Romans this morning. This will be my last week over the summer. So next week, we'll have Brian with us for a couple of weeks. And then Nathan for a few weeks and then Josh Gilchrist will be up here, wrapping us up for a few weeks before Dan gets back down. And Linda, just to remind you or tell you if you're a visitor, Dan Jarms is the regular teaching pastor here. He's on a three months, three month sabbatical. They're over in England at the moment. physical and spiritual refreshments, so we missed them. But I'm glad that they've gotten to go for that they've been serving faithfully here with us for 20 years. So it is well do because they serve us so well, don't they? So glad glad for them to be there. We'll pray for them again this morning. But looking forward to them being back here in August with us. A couple of other things for you guys just to add to your prayer lists as well if they're not already on there. A number of people at our church are involved in ministry to refugees in Spokane. This weekend was a camp that they went on some of the families with the refugee ministry. So this morning just I Amundson was preaching the gospel to them. So they come from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds. So please do pray for for salvation for those people that were there this morning that heard the gospel and I'm sure had many gospel conversations over the time there but also the ongoing ministry in the weeks that they spend with people from our church. And as well, please pray for Miko and Vanessa de and they are missionaries from our church sent over to Greece life London. So there's a church over there, London, England, they're serving there, they have some visa hurdles that they have to overcome in the renewal of their visa. There's about a week or so timeframe that they have to resolve those things. There's some expenses that are involved with that as well. So please add that your prayer list, and we will give you updates as things come about. So please stand for the reading of God's Word. We're going to be in Roman six, this morning, and I'm going to read two verses one to 14. If you don't have your Bible, it's up on the screen behind me as well. Or if you just prefer to read it up there. You can follow along so beginning Romans six, verse one. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin, the grace may abound? By no means? How can we who've died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him and a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died, has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you. Since you are not under law, but under grace, let's pray together. Father, we're so thankful to be able to come to your word now. This indeed is your word is authoritative in our lives. It shows us what's true. It shows us what we need to know and shows us what's true about ourselves, what's true about you, what you've done on our behalf, and then where we need to go. And we're so thankful for that and just pray that you'd help us to pay attention to what you have to say to us in these verses this morning. And live by them. Father, we're thankful for the ministry of Dan and Linda in this church. We're thankful for all that they've sacrificed and given to invest in the people of the body here. Pray that their time away in England would be refreshing, physically relationally, that it'd be refreshing spiritually as well that you'd help Dan as he works on some study tasks as well, that you'd help him to accomplish all the things that he needs to accomplish while he's there. Bless their time with their family, and as they attend and take part in different churches while they're there, as well. Father, we're thankful for the ministry of Miko and Vanessa over in England as well thankful that they've been able to go and serve alongside the pastor's of grace life London, we ask that You would help them to overcome the visa difficulties that they've come up against, we pray that it would not prevent them from being there, that it would not mean that they would have to leave and figure out a bunch of stuff to be able to go back, but they they would just be able to continue with their serving, they're in the church, unhindered undisrupted. And that you'd use them continually to glorify Your name. They're in England, we pray for those who were ministering to refugee families this weekend as well that you would use their words into these people's lives to highlight and illuminate gospel truth in their lives help these refugees to see their own need for Christ to understand their sin. And what Jesus has done to provide a way for them to be forgiven of sin, and to be free from sins, domination. And we pray Father that those words through Josiah and others that were there would take root in their hearts, and then people would be saved and turn to Jesus. So Father, we pray all of these things together now in Christ's name. Amen. Please do have a seat. All right, as we begin this morning, I'm going to ask you to imagine something. Okay. And that's going to lead us in to understanding what Paul's talking about in Romans chapter six. So imagine this, imagine a person who gets really sick and unhealthy, because of a habit that they've been entertaining, okay, so they get so sick that they have to go into the hospital, all right. And in the hospital, they get cleaned up, they feel way better after some time, because of the help that all the doctors and nurses give them. And when they come out of the hospital, because of their memory of what things were like before, and probably some fear of falling back into it for a time. They're like, Alright, I'm not doing that, again, because I don't want to go down that road. I don't want to end up where I was before. They think that way for a while. But eventually, the temptations are there, the temptations overwhelm them. And little by little, they fall back into the same patterns. And they end up worse than where they were at the first time. Why do things like this happens? Because what they really need is for their hearts to be changed. They need their desires to be changed. They're still hungry for those same things. So they need their hungers to be changed. So what we're going to see in the passage that we're going to look at together this morning that I've already read, is that for the believer, things have already changed.
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We don't just get spiritually cleaned up by Jesus in the spiritual hospital. He changes everything for the believer. He gives us a new heart that desires to know Him, to serve Him, to obey Him and to live lives of repentance, turning away from those former things and following him instead. So our main idea this morning that you'll see If you picked up one of the notice sheets this morning, the back page of those has the outline for the message, the passage, the title, the main idea, all of that kind of stuff. So the main idea is just the summation of this passage, if you could put it in a simple sentence, how would you summarize what this passage says? Is this believer sin no longer? Or sorry, believer sin, no longer rules you. So don't live like it does. Instead, live righteously under God's rule. Okay, that's all Paul is saying. He's directing himself to believers, to Christians. And he's saying, sin doesn't rule you anymore. Sin is no longer your master. Stop living like it is, stop living like it is your master. Instead, now you have a good master. So live righteously under his rule instead. That's good. So to help us understand how we get here in Romans six is helpful to understand the context where we've been before and where it fits in. You'll remember maybe last week, I gave you a brief summary of Romans. And you might remember that in Romans one through a the first eight chapters, Paul outlines the theological truth behind our salvation. He highlights for us. Everything that God says is true about us as unbelievers, he gets us to this point of being able to see our need for salvation. He gets us his point of understanding our own hopeless condition, apart from Christ. And then he says, But there's good news, Christ has come. And he has made a way for your sin, to be dealt with. He's made, he's made a way for you to be forgiven, he's made a way for you to be made right with God. So he shows us that all human beings are sinners and are accountable to God and are rightly condemned to eternal death by God, because of our sin. But Christ came. And there's this good news, that we can be justified by faith in Christ, because of His perfect life, because of his death, in our place, and because of his resurrection from the dead. And justification, all that means is God's legal declaration of us that we are cleared from all previous offenses, and their punishments, and instead pronounced righteous by him, because of the work of Christ. We also see in Chapters one through eight, that and this was last week. Justification doesn't just affect our eternal future. It doesn't just affect that day when we die. And it means that we will go to heaven after we die, but it affects our lives today. The saved life is the transformed life. At the point of our salvation, God begins a transforming work in us, where he's transforming us into the image of His Son. Certain changes have already taken place, as we've already heard, and will continue to hear today in chapter six. And these changes affect the way that we live today. So last week, we were in chapter five. And that's immediately we kind of narrowed down into that now we've looked at one through eight. Now let's hear about what happens immediately leading up to this one, verses one through 21. What Paul does in chapter five is he assures believers, that we can live in hope, and not in fear of the wrath of God, because he has already justified us. He sealed us with the Holy Spirit. And we can hope in that and not fear because that justification is not based upon our own work is based upon the work of Christ. And all that means is, there's nothing that we can do to justify ourselves. It means no matter what righteous works, we do. It means no matter what evil we don't do, we will never meet God's standard. Sin is pervasive. It affects all of us. It affects our whole be. It means as scripture says, even our righteous deeds are as filthy rags before God, because of sin, which forces us then not to depend upon ourselves. Because we're unrighteous, in our own strength with our own merit, we will achieve nothing before God. But it forces us to depend upon God's grace that He shows to us through Christ, the one who came the righteous one who lives eternally righteous righteously, because he is righteous, because He is God, Jesus Christ. And he came and suffered a death in the place of believers, he took God's wrath upon himself, he said, I will shoulder the burden of their sin, I will take the punishment in their place, so that they can go free so that they can have my righteousness. And so that they can inherit all of the blessing that comes with it. That's justification. That was chapter five. It affects where we live today. The work of Christ. And then at the end of chapter five, he wraps up by saying that the law of Moses, so that's the law of Moses, this is the commandments of Old Testament scripture that Moses gifts. Okay, this is the way Israel that you are supposed to live by these commandments. So what Paul does is in the end of Chapter Five is he wraps up that chapter by saying that when Moses gave those commands with Moses law, actually, our trespass our sin increases. When Moses law came, it provided rules that made God's righteousness known, while at the same time highlighting sin. It showed us the boundaries that had been set, it showed us the life that God had called us to live. And what is what happened with Israel was they said, Okay, here's the standard, here's what I need to do. Here's the check boxes that I need to live by. And if I live by them, then I'm going to be made right with God, when really the intent was from God was to say, notice, that's not the intent of the law. The intent of the law is not so that you will have some kind of list of things to do, by which you will gain your own righteousness before God and make yourself right with Him. The intention of the law is to show your sin is to show how far short of God you really are. And in doing that, to show you how much you need Christ, how much you are dependent upon Jesus, how much that he is the only one who can save you through faith. In Him. We see the end of chapter five where the trespass increased through the coming of the law. Paul tells us that God's grace increased abundantly further. Way more than was necessary. God went above and beyond to deal with the problem of sin. He provided what was necessary for people to be saved. He provided what was necessary for people to be forgiven, and made right with Him and live eternally. So then we come to chapter six and verse one, where Paul says, What shall we say that? All we to continue in sin, the grace may abound, based upon what he's just said, at the end of chapter five, the because of the pervasiveness of our sin, how deep rooted is how awful it is. God, abundant grace was given to cover it. Should we send more than so that we can receive more of God's grace?
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So he says in verse one should should we do that? Is that what we should do? So that we can continually experience the abundance of God's grace being poured on us? What's his answer in verse two? By no means, by no means? How can we who died to sin, still live in it? By no means it's an extreme response? May it never be may what you are thinking never come to be. May it never come into reality may never come into existence. And he asks that interesting question, then how can we who died to sin, still live in it? And that's what he spends the rest of verses three through 10. expounding on. What does it mean? What does he mean there? In verse two with that question about people dying to sin, not living in it any longer? I think there are some that probably still think in the verse one way are we to continue in sin, the grace may abound that there's probably some people who still think things like that, should we send more so that we can receive more of God's grace? I think there are probably more people that think this second way. I can sin all the I want, because God's grace covers me. This like this, this assumption, the, yeah, God, God is gracious, God is forgiving, therefore, I can do whatever I want. And he's always going to forgive me. I can live however I want, and the forgiveness of God is mine. This gives me an all access pass to do whatever I want. Because of God's forgiveness. Maybe there are more of you that think that way or more people that you know, that maybe think that way. But I think probably what's more common for this group? For believers? Is to wonder, if and how we can have any confidence in our ongoing battle with sin? Do I ever have any hope of resisting this temptation? Is this ever going to change? Am I ever going to have victory over this? Will I ever win the battle? And Paul's answer to that question, is the same as his answer to the other two questions. It's an emphatic response. Yes. You can have victory. You can resist temptation, you can win. And all of that is based upon what we see next, in verses three through 10. And what we see here is that there are several facts that are true of believers, which mean we can and will have victory over sin. And they begin with our union with Christ. So that's point number one, consider yourself united with Christ. And we see that in verses three to five. I'll read it again. He says, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection, like his. He begins with do you not know? Are you ignorant of this fact that I'm about to tell you? Are you uninformed? That question in verse one is the kind of question that someone would ask who is missing the following information about a person who has saved? So at first glance, then we get to verses three and four, and they seem a little bit unusual and maybe a little bit hard to understand. You wonder, what does it mean, to be baptized into Christ Jesus? What does it mean to be buried into his death? To be buried with him by baptism into death? Verse five, helps us to understand what he's talking about. He says, if we've been united with Him in a death like his, so we see that with his words in verse five, what Paul's talking about in the verses before, is being united with Christ. He's talking about being united with Christ. That word united, it literally means to be grown together. It'd be like planting two trees, and then they grow up together, they experience things together. They experience the same thing. ditions as one another, they're in the same soil as each other. So in the same way we are united with Christ, it doesn't mean we have all of the exact same life experiences with him. But according to these verses, we are united with Him in at least two specific ways. One in his death, and two, in his resurrection. And this is why the title of today's message is not dead or alive, is dead and alive. Kind of a paradox. But the believer in Christ is both dead and alive. And we'll see how, as we work our way through these verses, we are united with Jesus, in His sin conquering death. And we are united with Jesus in His death, conquering resurrection to life. Now, while in these verses, I don't think Paul was referring to water baptism, because there are things that are true here of a believer who hasn't been baptized in water. But I think water baptism, as we saw, as Steven on the screen just now is a good illustration of this truth. Because one of the things it does is it pictures, what has already happened in the life of that believer. Going down into the water is a picture of the unity that the believer has with Jesus in His death. And coming up is a picture of the unity that we have with him in his resurrection. Both spiritual facts that are already true of the believer. So what is the significance then, of being united with Jesus first, in his death, point number two, verses six and seven, consider yourself dead. If you are a believer, consider yourself dead to sin. Verse six, we know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died, has been set free from sin. Now verse five, where we wrapped up the first point, could really fall into this second point as well, because it's the linking sentence is summarizes verses three and four. But then it also provides us an introduction into verses six to 10. And here, what we see is that based upon the fact that believers are united with Christ, in His death, they must consider themselves first dead to sin. So first, he says, believer, you are united with Christ in His death. And here he says, Therefore, consider yourself dead to sin. And that starts to give us an understanding of what it means to be united with Christ in His death. I think sometimes consider can seem to be too weak of a word. In English, we use it when we're talking about someone like mulling something over over or thinking something through, right. Like you're considering the pros and the cons, to try and make a good decision about something. I might say, consider whether you want to come to youth camp at the last weekend of July. See what I did there. Seth, got it. I got I got a little plug in there right in the middle of my sermon. Yeah, skip the announcements, just get it in the sermon. Snap that one in. That's not how the word consider is being used here. It means more than that, not just saying think about it. Like, think about whether you're going to be dead to sin are not
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saying realize, recognize, acknowledge that this is true about you if you are a Christian. This is a fact that defines you. Listen to this. This is incredible, as sure as Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for your sin. Are you dead to sin? Bye Both of those things are equally true. That's amazing. He says here in verse six, we know that our old self was crucified with him. What was old self Paul uses it in other places in the New Testament in Ephesians 422. He says, the believers have been taught to put off their old self, which belongs to their former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Similarly, in Colossians, three, five Paul says, believers are to put to death, what is earthly in them, seeing that we have put off the old self with his practices. And then he in that Colossians, three, he actually gives some examples of the types of practices he's talking about with the Colossians. Things like sexual immorality. That's an old self practice, impurity, passion, evil, desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth, lying. Those are all things is there's more of a list, but those are things Paul mentions in Colossians. Three, the are the fruit of an old self type life. So the old self then in Romans six is just the the unregenerate plus. The before salvation person. It's the EU that existed before you were saved. The EU that gave into whatever impulses your heart wanted. That's the old self. And what does Paul say has happened to the old self? What has happened to the unbeliever you according to Romans six have been crucified with Christ nailed to the cross. That person is dead. Buried. Gone. It's been hot recently, hasn't it? Who likes going to the lake in the hot summer of Spokane? Like going to the lake I like going to the lake is fun. But you know what I'm afraid of when I go to the lake. Great white sharks. Thanks to watching Jaws when I was a kid. Okay, so now I can escape any body of water jumping in, and then thinking could be a great white shark. And, and it's gonna do something bad. But, you know. That's the I'm just as irrational as the rest of you. Okay. I'm like it too. Of course, there is rest assured kids. Don't worry. There are no great white sharks in any in any of the lakes around here or any freshwater anywhere. So rest assured in that. But if there was Do you know what the only thing that would give me comfort would be if it was dead, right? Like, I wouldn't have any comfort unless that thing was dead. Because when it's dead, is powerless, right? It can't do anything. The old self has been crucified with Christ. It has no power. It's dead. The rest of us sixth and seventh. Tell us what the effect of this crucifixion is. It says that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. That we would no longer be enslaved to sin. And verse seven says one who has died has been set free from sin. So let me encourage you just with a couple of words of application. If you're an unbeliever if you don't know where you stand with God, or if you know, I don't stand with God. I don't follow him. And I don't care to listen to this. You can be forgiven of your sin. And you can be set free from his domination in your life. You don't have to keep living the way that you're living. There's hope there's great hope in Christ. He has been powerful and have to do it and he is powerful enough to do it, whatever your issue may be. The rest of you believe us, those of you who already have Christ and know Christ, you are free. You are free. Well before in your unbelieving state, sin was your master and it ruled you. You had no control over it, you wanted it. You served every impulse of your flesh and had no power or desire to please and glorify God through obedience. But now that Master is dead, dead. The old self is flatlining. Not coming back. God. But I know even as a believer, sometimes it doesn't feel like that right? The temptation to sin is still there. That's where Romans seven, specifically, verses 13 through 25. Come in. Paul understands that reality. He shares some of his own testimony in those verses. He understands even though these Romans six things are true, there's still a battle going on. Until I reach eternity until I reach Christ, there's still a battle battle going on. Paul understands the reality of temptation and sin in the life of the believer. But as chapter eight tells us, which is where Brian is going to be next week, there is no condemnation for believers, we have been set free in Christ and empowered to live in righteousness by His Holy Spirit. So that's the significance of being united with Christ in His death. So what's the significance of being united with Him in His resurrection point number three, consider yourself alive to God. verses eight through 10. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. death no longer has dominion over him. For the death, he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So based upon the fact that believers are united with Christ in His resurrection, they must consider themselves we must consider ourselves believers. Second, a life we considered ourselves dead. We must also consider ourselves alive. But here, it's not alive to sin as was previously true. When we were unbelievers, but alive to God. The resurrection is a massive reality in the life of the believer. Not only because of the John 1125 cents, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and He says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet how shall he live? But also in the Romans six, eight sense. It's not just a future resurrection reality. But a reality that we can experience today. We can experience new god pleasing, God filled joyous, pleasurable, life saturated lives today, because of the resurrection of Jesus. Just as was true in verses six and seven, so to now here we must realize and acknowledge that this is a fact about you, if you are a believer, as sure as Jesus was risen from the dead, and lives eternally for God the Father. You have been given new life to live for Him
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just as incredible. We see in verse nine that Jesus was raised from the dead, never to die again. Remember, death is the eternal payment for sin, administered by God. So it's significant then, in Acts 224, having been told one verse earlier, that Jesus was crucified, he was killed, he died, according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, that then next we read, it was God, who raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by what my again, Jesus didn't escape death. He wasn't rescued from death, he defeated death. The eternal payment for sin was satisfied through the death of Jesus. So God raised Him up, and he will never die again. That's the life we're united with in Christ. And this death no longer has dominion over him. He rules it, it doesn't rule him. And he can break whoever he wants, free from it. Paul in Galatians, 220 says it in a slightly different way. He says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. That's really similar to how Paul wraps up verse 10. In Romans six, he says the life He lives, He lives to God, which brings us to our application as we wrap up. So based upon these truths, the old self was crucified with Christ, and that we are likewise united with Him in His resurrection, based upon these truths. How does that change things? How does that help us? What's what's the implication was the application of these things? Well, he tells us in verses 12 and 13, therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body. Don't live as if sin still rules you. Stop being guided by your impulses, that Master is dead. Verse 13, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness choose a different way you can. In Christ, you have the power to the end of verse 13. present yourselves and your members, your body parts, all of you to God as instruments for righteousness. You might feel given to sin, you might feel dominated by it. But if you are in Christ, this is no longer true. So then, practically speaking, how does this change happen? Like how am I okay, you've given me all of these theological truths about who I am and where I'm at in Christ. But how do I have victory over sin because the temptation is still there. Number one, I'd say by using God's word, not your impulses, to determine the difference between unrighteousness and righteousness, put off the things that God calls unrighteous, and put on the things that God calls righteous. Sounds really simple, doesn't it? But rest assured, I'm not just saying Just stop it. Just stop it, just stop sinning. Like it's not what it means. Paul recognizes it takes hard work, we see that through Scripture. It's not easy to fight sin. It takes being willing to write radically amputate the things of this world, which might mean leaving friendships or relationships. It might mean having someone else control your devices. It might mean throwing out the TV, it might mean giving your money or your credit cards to someone that you trust. So you can spend wherever you want whenever you want. It might mean controlling your tongue, not speaking, because you have a tendency of whenever you speak, to say something that tears down or there is negative, or there is a lie. So I'm going to calculate my words. I'm going to hold back I'm going to discipline myself not to speak until I can speak well. Or at least until I've thought through what I'm about to say it might mean cutting off the internet. It might mean moving out it might mean driving a different way to work. The list could go on and on and on. But being willing to radically amputate the things of this world, which contribute to temptation. It takes hard work, big decisions. But by the grace of God we can do because of what Christ has done. It means putting on spiritual disciplines that are going to connect you to Christ and His grace in place of those things. It means getting in the word every day, it means thinking about it and thinking about how it applies and then actually applying it, trying to do what it says it means memorizing it. It means listening to the Word through good music that has good Bible verses and truths in it. It means attending church and growth groups to be taught the Word regularly. It means taking opportunities, any opportunity that you can to meet with other believers for encouragement in the word to talk through Bible passages, what they mean how they might apply to life. It means prayer, increasing your time in prayer, talking to God asking Him for help worshiping Him. Putting reminders in your phone to remind you to pray praying at times you wouldn't usually pray. praying out loud when you're driving your car. Meeting with other people to pray. Sometimes it might mean fasting depending on what you got going on and praying as you fast. It means serving giving your time and your skills to bless the body of Christ the church, and serve those outside of the church unbelievers as well. And show them love. And means be willing to have someone to hold you accountable, and to be open with about the sin that you struggle with so that they can help you and pray for you. It means being willing to confess sin, it means being willing to forgive others when they confess sin. Again, the list could go on. obedience to the Word shapes our hearts and our desires. When I intentionally choose to not react poorly in a difficult or tempting circumstance, it trains my heart to do that more and more. God by His grace has given us the instruction. Also, by His grace, He empowers our right desire and obedience. And again, by His grace as we obey, he transforms our desires and our thinking and our actions. Each of these outpourings of grace have God's Holy Spirit. At the center. We see the thread of God's work through the Holy Spirit through chapters three, and seven, three through seven of Romans. But then we'll see in more detail in chapter eight as we get to it next week. So this is how we battle with sin. These are invincible, effective weapons that you have at your disposal. And this is the good news. This is the breadth of salvation. Salvation is not just I can go to heaven when I die. Salvation is I can live for Christ and glorify God in my life today. And I can go to heaven when I die. This is why Paul says in chapter one, verse 16, that the power of God for salvation he says I'm not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Let's pray together. Father, we're so thankful for the the breadth and the depth of the gospel. The good news that you have given us, doesn't just give us hope for tomorrow. It gives us hope today. Through the work of Christ's and our unity with him we
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can overcome sin not only be forgiven by it, we're thankful that we can but can overcome sin, we can fight temptation, and we can live for you and please you with our lives and do the things you've called us to do. We're thankful for that. We're thankful for the new hearts you've given us. We're thankful for the Holy Spirit that you've blessed us with. I pray for everybody here. If there are unbelievers that you would save them, they would turn to Christ. And for us as believers huge strength then us. Help us to remember and trust in and be motivated by these truths in Christ's name. Amen.
Ian is the Youth Pastor of Faith Bible Church. He and his wife, Claire, have 5 kids and recently spent a few years serving in a small church in England.
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