Tonight I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Romans 8. Romans chapter 8, we'll read the first 11 verses. We'll be looking at this passage this evening in connection with Article 14 of the Belgic Confession, which speaks of the creation and fall of man. This marks something of a transition in the Belgic Confession. It begins with our doctrine of God, you might say. and then it proceeds to our doctrine of man, who we are, and then it proceeds from there to Christ and salvation and so forth. So we're coming here in Article 14 to the doctrine of man. And what does the Scripture teach about man? And we have then this article on the creation and fall of man. So we'll be reading from Romans 8, verses 1 through 11. It's page 1,200. So Romans 8, starting at verse 1. This is the word of the Lord our God. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. And that ends our reading from God's Word. Again, we're looking at this in connection with Article 14 of the Belgic Confession. And that's page 166 in your Forms and Prayers book. So, Article 14, it's page 166 in your Forms and Prayers book. Article 14, we believe that God created man from the dust of the earth and made and formed him in his image and likeness, good, just, and holy, able by his own will to conform in all things to the will of God. But when he was in honor, he did not understand it and did not recognize his excellence, but he subjected himself willingly to sin and consequently to death and the curse, lending his ear to the word of the devil. For he transgressed the commandment of life, which he had received, and by his sin he separated himself from God, who was his true life, having corrupted his entire nature. So he made himself guilty and subject to physical and spiritual death, having become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways. He lost all his excellent gifts, which he had received from God, and he retained none of them except for small traces, which are enough to make him inexcusable. Moreover, all the light in us is turned to darkness, as the scriptures teach us. The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not receive it. Here John calls men darkness. Therefore we reject everything taught to the contrary concerning man's free will, since man is nothing but the slave of sin and cannot do a thing unless it is given him from heaven. For who can boast of being able to do anything good by himself, since Christ says, no one can come to me unless my Father who sent me draws him? Who can glory in his own will when he understands that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God? who can speak of his own knowledge in view of the fact that a natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. In short, who can produce a single thought since he knows that we are not able to think a thing about ourselves, by ourselves, but that our ability is from God. And therefore what the Apostle says ought rightly to stand fixed and firm. God works within us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. For there is no understanding nor will conforming to God's understanding and will apart from Christ's work as he teaches us when he says, without me you can do nothing. My sons are reading from the confession here tonight. A congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 8, opens with one of the most triumphant statements you can find in the Bible, the statement that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. All of our hope, all of our joy, all of our comfort, all of our salvation is wondrously found in that short little statement. No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. It is very simply and beautifully the gospel. And it's the reason I trust why you and I are here tonight. We gather to worship and praise our God. We are assembled to open His Word and hear it proclaimed to us because we are so very thankful for this gospel. And yet, as you know, I trust there are many people aren't there, many people who hear these words and find little cause for celebration. It seems unbelievable to us, but there are many people who hear of Jesus and they simply laugh. There are those who are told that the eternal Son of God took on our flesh, bore our sins on the cross to bring us forgiveness, and their hearts remain absolutely cold and hard to it. The gospel means nothing to them. The good news of Christ does not move them, it doesn't even touch them. And again, it seems unbelievable to us. How can it be? How can such glorious news mean absolutely nothing to so many people? How can it be that the message of the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and yet so many hearts are untouched, that this gospel is still so easily rejected? And we, of course, understand that the ultimate reason why is simply because the Spirit hasn't worked within them to bring them to faith. Even as we see here in chapter 8, the Spirit is the one who brings life and peace. The Spirit is the one who has to enter into our lives that we may have life. But from a human perspective, One of the reasons why I believe so many people turn away from the gospel is that they do not understand who they are before God. Why need a Savior? Why would I ever need a Savior? Why would I need Jesus? Tell me why I need Jesus. You talk to people, you meet with them on the streets, you discuss with them who they are, where they're from, and where they're going, and you will encounter people, many people, why would I ever need Jesus? They don't recognize they have a need for Him. They don't see why Jesus is important or should be important to them. They see no reason for faith in Him. They see no reason to devote their lives to Him. They have no understanding of who they are before the Lord our God. Heidegger Catechism asks the question, what do we need to know in order to live and die in the joy of Christ's comfort? And one of the things the catechism says we need to know is how great our sin and our misery are. The point being that we cannot know Christ, have Christ, unless we know who we are. And you see, that's why an article like this in the Belgian Confession is so very important, why it's essential for us to consider, because it reminds us of the enormous loss that we have suffered as a result of the fall, and just who we are before God, and therefore why we need Jesus. So in our time here tonight, we wanna focus upon the loss we've suffered as a result of the fall, with all its terrible consequences. And in our time here, we see, first of all, the loss of fellowship, secondly, the loss of gifts, and third, the loss of ability. What is Paul doing here in Romans 8? Well, we already said that he is rejoicing in the gospel. He's proclaiming the gospel and giving thanks. He's celebrating it before God. But when he particularly comes to verses 5 through 8, what he's doing is he's showing the glory of the gospel by contrasting unbelievers to believers. Or you might say he's contrasting who the unconverted are in themselves and who the converted are in the Lord Jesus Christ by the working of the Spirit. He's contrasting who we are by nature and who we are by grace. And so, Paul is making very clear who we are apart from Jesus, who we are in Adam, who we are as a result of the fall. And one of the things Paul brings out in these verses is that the mind that's set on the flesh, in other words, the mind, the being that is consumed by sin and has fallen in Adam, this mind is hostile to God. Now, what does it mean that they're hostile to God? Really, it means that they hate God. What Paul is saying is that those who don't believe in Jesus, those who are unconverted, hate God. They live in war against God. They don't love God. They don't want God. They don't want to serve God. They don't want to obey God. They'd rather get rid of Him, and if it were humanly possible, they would rather kill God. I know that sounds shocking, perhaps to you children especially, how people actually want to get rid of God. Yes, we live in a world where people want to get rid of God. They don't want God. They want nothing to do with God. And you see, that's what the Bible says is true about every single one of us by nature. that as a result of the fall, we are all those who live at war with God. If you look at Genesis, the beginning of Genesis, for example, we're told that Adam and Eve, they walked and talked with God. They enjoyed this wonderful fellowship with God. And we like to imagine it, don't we? We like to try to picture it in our minds. What must it have been like to walk and talk with God? They could see God's face and they weren't afraid and they could just speak freely and there was no doubt in their heart whether God would ever love them or accept them. There was no fear in their minds. There was no worry. There was no, you know, boundary that they were always conscious of, we can't pass this or we'll die. There was none of that. They loved God fully, they were His friends, they joyfully obeyed God, and they experienced the fullness of His love every moment. There was no break in their fellowship. There was no end to their continual experience of God's love and presence in their lives. They never had that feeling of, is God really there? Does God really care about me? None of that. They had this blessed, beautiful fellowship and harmony with God. But then you see them sin. And what do you quickly find? They hide from God, they're scared of God, they want to escape from God. What do they do when God asks them what's happened? Adam blames God. God, this is your fault. The woman you gave me. And he looks over at his wife and he blames his wife. It's her fault. What do we see? We see the immediate breakdown and we see even Adam attacking God. God, this is your fault. And what does the Lord do on his part? He drives them out of the Garden of Eden. He doesn't let them walk and talk with him anymore. They're not allowed to dwell with him. God says, you must leave, you must go away. And that wasn't wrong of God to do. That's what they deserved, because they're sinners. And so instead of enjoying peace with God, Adam and Eve are now at war with God, all because of the fall. And the Belgian Confession is teaching us the same thing. It talks about how man by his sin separated himself from God who was his true life. You see, sometimes we can look at what happened in the garden and we think, oh, they ate fruit. Isn't that, I mean, that's small. That's kind of insignificant, isn't it? I mean, so much from just this little eating of a fruit. But you see, what the scripture is saying to us and teaching us is that when Adam and Eve took of the tree, that was a declaration of war. That was an act of mutiny. In that moment, as Adam and Eve grasped the fruit and ate of it, they were saying to God, we don't want you, God. We will not obey you, God. We will not follow your way. We do not believe that you're a good and loving God. We want our own destiny. We want to control our lives for ourselves. We won't listen to you, we will follow our own desires, we will follow our own life, and we will listen to the voice of the devil. See, as they ate from that tree, that was an act of war. And ever since, says Paul, all mankind has continued to live at war with God. I'm sure you children have sometimes gotten in a fight with your brother or your sister. And when you get in a fight, what happens, right? You're angry at them, and you maybe cross your arms, and you turn your back to them, and I don't wanna talk to you. I don't even wanna be around you. I don't wanna see you. You separate from each other. And you see, that's exactly what happened between us and God because of the fall. We're saying, God, we don't want you anymore. You're not my friend. I don't wanna talk to you. I don't care about you. I want you gone. But it's not even just our relationship with God, it's our relationship with one another. You look around at the world, and it's not just hatred of God you see, but it's hatred of our fellow man. You look at those two very prominent sins, or widely discussed sins today, and you hear about slavery, you hear about racism, and what's behind those sins? What's at the bottom of those sins? It's the hostility, the hostility, the war. The hatred for man, no more does man love his fellow man, love his neighbor as himself, but now he's self-centered, he's self-interested, he's only focused upon me, myself, and I. And we see the fruit of that in many homes and many marriages and so on and so forth, because with sin comes separation, a loss of fellowship. You see, that's how broken we are apart from Christ. And you can begin to see then why Paul celebrates the gospel like he does. Because exactly in Christ Jesus is that separation ended. We, by nature, are at war with God, and Christ comes, and Christ, as it were, lays His hand on us, and He lays His hand on God, and He brings us back together again. And Paul says, don't you realize what Jesus has done? By nature, we hate the Lord, but by Christ, by grace, we love the Lord. By nature, we refuse God, and we reject God, and we want nothing to do with God, but in Christ Jesus, by the working of His Spirit. We're at peace with God. We have life and peace with God. And Jesus brings us back together as brothers and sisters. He brings us and unites us together into one body, into one family, so that in the church we find people from every ethnicity, every language, every culture, all dwelling in peace and harmony. So when we look out at the world, we see the consequences that we still suffer because of the fall. We experience all this because the fall took away peace and brought in its place war. And it's only therefore that in Christ or in Christ that this war is ever overcome and we begin to experience peace. So one of the losses we suffer as a result of the fall, the situation we're living, who we are before God is we're at war with him. That's who we are. That's the kind of heart we have, a heart that hates God and wants to get rid of Him. But what we suffer as a result of the fall doesn't only have to do with the loss of fellowship, it also has to do with the loss of gifts. Article 14 mentions that in the fall, man made himself guilty and subject to physical and spiritual death, having become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he lost all his excellent gifts. which he had received from God, and he retained none of them except for small traces. In the fall, we lost the gifts God had given to us." What are these gifts? What gifts did God give us when he made us? You know, it can be hard for us at times to really appreciate the kind of life Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden, because this is the only existence we've known. We have no idea what it means to live or have a perfect life. We've never even come close to even beginning to understand what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden. For one thing, they had life. They had real life. You know, when they were in the garden, their bodies didn't get sick. Their bodies didn't get hurt. Their bodies didn't grow weak. They didn't get old. They didn't get tired. They didn't get worn out. They didn't have muscles that would get cramped. They didn't have hearts that would murmur. They didn't have bones, as it were, necessarily that would break, although they were certainly capable of that. They had no fear of death. In fact, they didn't even know what death was. That wasn't a word that was part of their vocabulary. If you mentioned death to them, they would be like, what is that? That doesn't compute, that doesn't make sense according to our own experience here. God made them for life, and life is what they knew, perfect life. not just physically, but also spiritually. They had the gift of physical life, real abundant life, but they had spiritual life too. We talked already about love for God, but it's also the fact that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the gifts of true knowledge, true righteousness, and true holiness. When it came to their life in the Garden, they had no errors in their thinking about God. They didn't misunderstand God. They didn't say, oh, sorry, God, I misunderstood what you were saying there. There was none of that. Even when they lived together, Adam and Eve, there was no mistake in understanding one another. There were no errors in their thinking. There were no lies, there was no confusion, there was no false conclusions, but they knew everything rightly. Never anything wrong. They didn't have complete knowledge, but what they knew, the knowledge they had, was not false. It was all true without error. And in addition to that, God gave them the gift of real righteousness. You know, they could obey God. Just think of that. They could obey God with zero hint of sin. Their obedience was not tinged with any rebelliousness. Their obedience to God in the garden was not containing within it little hints of sin here or there, little reservation about not quite wanting to do what God desired, no bits or pieces of only self-service as they live for God. But they really served the Lord wholeheartedly, unreservedly, There was not a piece of them that was pulling back from obeying God. And they could do everything God required of them without any problem. They had a truly righteous life. God gave them that gift, enabled them to have this true righteous life. And they lived a holy life. You know, they lived a life that honored God's lordship of them in every respect. They talked holy, they thought holy, they acted holy. Holiness filled every fiber of their being. But then came the fall and man, you see, lost these gifts. In the words of Romans 8, rather than having minds set upon God in truth, they set their mind on things of the flesh. Rather than knowing the life of God, they came to know and experience and possess death. Instead of righteousness, they were now filled with unrighteousness. Instead of truth filling their minds, their minds were filled with error and wickedness and sin and the lie. Romans 1, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. As our confession puts it, all the light in us turned to darkness. The only thing we find in the world around us are small traces, small hints at what we once knew and what we used to be. And you see, this even helps wake us up to the reason why we find all that we do in the world around us. You know, I'm sometimes surprised by how surprised Christians can be by the world around us. You know, it's like Christians are somehow surprised to find scientists who reject God and create all these other fanciful ideas to account for the creation that's around us. And it's like people are surprised by that. Or they're surprised by a nation that suddenly gives itself ever more fully to the promotion of godlessness and immorality. Or they're surprised by finding young people plunge themselves headlong into the pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. Or they're surprised by the sin their little child shows. Or they're surprised that there's this division within the Christian church and that there's such disagreement over what the Bible actually teaches. You know, I've met a lot of Christians who are surprised by these things. And in a certain respect, I wonder why they're ever surprised. Why does that surprise us? Why does that sort of put us back and be like, how can this be? And I say, it doesn't make sense that we're surprised by it because of what the Bible teaches about who man is. It makes, you know, in a certain respect, it makes perfect sense that there are scientists who reject God and they come up with these fanciful ideas that reject Him. It makes sense because they are lost in their sins. The light has been turned to darkness inside of them. They hate God. They want nothing to do with Him. You know, to find wickedness in the heart of a young child, why is that surprising? By nature, we hate God and we hate our neighbor. We lost holiness, we lost righteousness, we lost true knowledge. This isn't surprising. This world should not surprise us. It should sadden us, certainly. It should grieve us deeply. But surprise, it should never surprise us. If anything, we should be surprised it's not worse. We should be amazed that we're not living in hell on earth. I know we talk that way sometimes, but we do not live in a hell on earth. It can be bad, but it certainly isn't as bad as it could be. We are still human. There's a sense in which we remain in the image of God, but it's like a shattered mirror where we're broken into a billion pieces. And you know, it's amazing, again, how many Christians sort of fight back against this, not just with their surprise at seeing what they do in the world, but I was even reading some time ago, maybe about a year ago, I was reading about how there are churches that are changing the song Amazing Grace to get rid of the language of singing that God saved a wretch like me. They get rid of wretch and they replace it with something else because they don't want to admit, they don't want to acknowledge just how bad we are. And maybe we scoff at them, but that part of me as well wonders sometimes how many songs even on the Christian radio station even delve into the fact that we are sinners. How many songs on the Christian radio station aren't instead about lifting us up and saying, oh, this is what I have, and oh, I wanna be strong, and oh, I wanna be powerful, and oh, I want this, and oh, I'm gonna be that, and they don't really, you know, maybe you say they assume it. Well, perhaps it's assumed, but it's never really explicit, is it? There's hardly any songs that explicitly delve into the wretchedness of the human condition and how lost we are before God. that really fail to express the reality of our depravity. Apart from Christ, we are lost. Apart from Christ, we have nothing. Apart from Christ, we are a fountain of evil and wickedness. Apart from Christ, every part of our being has been corrupted and enslaved by sin. You see, one thing is very clear as we look at the world around us and as we look into our own hearts. We are not who God made us to be. We are not who God made us to be. And that's what we're to see as we look into our own lives. I am not who God made me to be. I have fallen so far in Adam. See, this is the humbling stuff. This is the confession of faith that acknowledges I need to be saved. I can't save myself, I can't buy my own effort, restore myself to God's good graces and fellowship. I need to be saved because I've lost everything. I've lost all the gifts God gave me. I'm separated from God. I can't do this. I have to be saved. And so the Scriptures are very clear in revealing our loss of fellowship with God, the loss of the gifts we originally knew by God in the Garden of Eden. So the fall removes from us, or we lose fellowship, we lose gifts, but there's one final piece to this picture, and that is the loss of ability. And that's something Paul brings out here in Romans 8 as well, when he contrasts the converted from the unconverted. It's the fact that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, he says, it cannot. Those in the flesh, he says, cannot please God. And that's the language of ability. that the mind set on the flesh, those who are unconverted, those who are not saved in Jesus Christ, cannot, are not able to submit to God's law. They cannot, they are not able to please God. You see, when Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, it was so much worse than we could possibly imagine. So much worse because it didn't only bring with it the fact that we're God's enemies and that we lost these gifts of knowledge and righteousness and holiness. It also meant that we lost our ability to actually obey God. We forfeited the ability to do what is pleasing to God. And that's exactly what Paul's reminding us of here. that because of the entrance of sin into the world, we, by nature, are completely and totally unable to do anything that is good or right or holy or true. By nature, he's reminding us, all of mankind has this natural bent. that if you will, ever since the fall, we are bent over and we always point at sin. And our choice, whatever we might think about the freedom of choice, our choice is always towards sin, always to do sin, always to pursue sin, that by nature, we are always directed in love to evil. One of the ways it's sometimes put is that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were able not to sin, and they were able to sin. They had this ability to not sin. Adam and Eve were fully able to never sin, and they did have the ability to sin if they so chose. But after the fall, by nature, it is impossible not to sin. By nature, it is impossible for us not to sin. Sin is all we can do. Sin is all that we will ever choose. And a lot of people wonder how we can say that. How can it be that through one act of eating this fruit, we have somehow completely lost the ability to do what is good? How can the eating of one little fruit rob all of humanity of the possibility of ever doing what's good in God's eyes? Well, we need to remember what we've already said about the fall, how in a certain respect, the fall was the moment when humanity switched sides. Rather than give their obedience to God, they gave their obedience to the devil. The fall was this choice of saying, we will follow Satan rather than the Lord. We will obey Satan rather than God. You see, this first sin wasn't just any normal sin, it was a switch in allegiance that took us out of the realm of God's life and brought us into the realm of death. And you see, that's what Paul's really getting at in Romans 8, that when we have this mindset on the flesh, when we're unconverted, we live in the realm of death. That's the context, that's the sphere in which we live. So that when that first fall, that first sin happened, we joined up, we became citizens of the kingdom of death. And since the fall brought corruption with it, Ever since, we've only been devoted to the kingdom of death, and we cannot ever switch our allegiance back to God. We have entered into the kingdom of death, we've been corrupted, and it's impossible for us to switch our allegiance back to the Lord. And it's for this reason that our confession says in Article 14, we reject everything to the contrary concerning man's free will, since man is nothing but the slave of sin and cannot do a thing unless it is given him from heaven. And you'll notice the rest of the article goes on to quote all these Bible passages that stress how we are unable to do what God asks of us or requires of us. Jesus says, no one can come. Again, there's language of ability. No one is able to come to Him unless the Father draws him. And this, again, properly speaking, is where we refer to Isaiah, where Isaiah writes about how all our righteousness is like filthy rags. Outside of Christ, we cannot please God, and therefore, whatever we think, whatever we believe is good, is actually false and full of sin. And if you have a hard time believing that, just think of your own personal life. I mean, why is it that we still have a hard time obeying God even now? We believe in Jesus Christ. We have trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've received the Spirit of God. But why is it still so hard for us to actually love God like we should, to obey God like we know he commands, and to serve God with a heart that's fully devoted to his glory. Why is it so hard? Why do we get so frustrated and angry? Why is it that we come here week in and week out, and we come again with sins? Because the Bible very clearly teaches we have this sinful nature, and Adam, we're corrupt. And while we have been made alive in Christ, while we have been saved in Christ, that corruption is still a part of us. That corruption that we've received in Adam, that desire to do evil, that devotion to what is wicked, there's still that part of us dwelling within our mortal bodies. And we see in that a picture of who we really are by nature, who we are in ourselves. So why do so many people refuse to believe the gospel? Because they refuse to admit that this is who they are. I'm not so bad. God will be happy with me however I live. But you see, the scriptures have been given to us to expose all of these things, all these ideas for the lies that they are. You are not good. You are not good enough to pass God's scrutiny. You cannot do that which God requires. You cannot give God what He demands. You cannot restore yourself into God's favor. You, by nature, are utterly lost in darkness, unable to do anything to please God. You see, it's to take us again to the end of our rope. Do you know why? Children, why does God want you to know you're a sinner? You've been born into this family that you're born into. You've been born, as it were, into this church. Why does God want you to know that you're a sinner? Is it simply to make you sad? No, it's not simply to make you sad. It's because God wants you to understand that only Jesus can save you. Because you're in such a bad spot that only the Son of God can come and deliver you from all this loss. Only the Son of God has everything you need to raise you up of this bankruptcy and to restore you to God's favor and grace. It's exactly what Paul is writing there in verses two and three. The law, the spirit of life, has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending his Son in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us. See, we have lost so much, and we're called to confess the greatness of our loss, confess the wretchedness of who we are by nature, so that we might wholeheartedly embrace Christ as the only answer. so that we never think it's Jesus plus me, or Jesus and what I do, or Jesus and what I give, but that we are so very clear in our minds it is Christ, it is all Christ, it is absolutely Christ, and it is only the power of God within me that has ever brought me to this place where I am saved, and where I am alive, and where I am able to do good. And you see, that's part of the beauty, again, that Paul's bringing out here in Romans 8. Remember, he's contrasting the unconverted to the converted. And part of that is to show us and to teach us that in Christ, by the working of the Spirit, we aren't those who are separated from God. We have fellowship with him. We aren't those who have fully and completely and finally lost all those gifts because in Christ, God is restoring those gifts to us. He's building us up in true knowledge and to righteousness and holiness. And although we were unable to serve God or do what pleases Him, because of Christ, we are able. Isn't that amazing? We are able to do good. We are able to please God. See, that's the beauty, the beauty of Christ, who answers all of our loss, all of our need, and brings us to this place where we know God's love, we know the gifts of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and we have been granted again the ability to serve Him, to love Him, and to please Him. Seeing then what Christ can do and does give to his people, we're called therefore to repent and believe this gospel. We can't look to ourselves because that's no different than looking to Adam. And we see how he failed. We must look to Christ and keep looking to Christ. Remembering that only in Christ does God welcome us in his grace, mercy, and love. In our day, brothers and sisters, nobody wants to talk about sin anymore. And more and more churches don't want to talk about sin anymore. But we have to talk about sin that we may see Christ. Because if we don't talk about sin, if we don't understand sin, then we will simply join the legions of others who say, what need have I for a Savior? We are reminded always of our standing apart from Christ. That all our hope, all our joy, and all our confidence might be in Him alone. So may God continually keep before your minds and your hearts how lost you are apart from Jesus, so that you always hunger and thirst for Him who alone is the Savior of all men. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord our God, Your word exposes us and your word diagnoses our wretched condition. And Father, we thank you. Thank you for the honest diagnosis of who we are. For how foolish would it be, O Lord, to turn to you seeking a different diagnosis, one that simply would lie about what we're suffering from, one that would simply cover up and put a Band-Aid on what truly would instead kill us. how foolish we are to seek such empty platitudes as well. We pray, Lord, that this word might reach and touch our hearts, that we might anew confess our own wretchedness, that all our hope might be found only in Christ. that we would flee to Him wholeheartedly in repentance and faith, and as well be filled with joy at the glory of all that we receive through faith in Him. Father, reveal the glory of Christ to our minds and our hearts, that we might truly love Him and know Him and serve Him. And Father, this new life we received, that we may then use it. to obey you and bring pleasure to you, our true and only God. So grant us your blessing here this day and send us forth in the power of your grace, looking unto Jesus. We ask it all in his name and for his sake, amen.