The Failure of Religion

tonight's scripture comes from the book of Romans chap 2 veres 1-6 and then verses 12- 26 you therefore have no excuse you who pass judgment on someone else for at whatever point you judge the other you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth so when you a mere man pass judgment on them and yet do the same things do you think that you will escape God's judgment or do you show contempt for the riches of

his kindness tolerance and patience not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance but because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's Wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed God will give to each person according to what he has done all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law for it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight but it is

those who obey the law who will be declared righteous indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law do by Nature things required by the law they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts now accusing now even defending them this will take place on the day when God will judge men's Secrets through Jesus Christ as my gospel declares now you if you call yourself a Jew if you rely

on the law and brag about your relationship to God if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind a light for those who are in the dark an instructor of the foolish a teacher of infants because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth you then who teach others do you not teach yourself you who preach against stealing do you steal you who say that people should not commit not commit adultery do

you commit adultery you who abhor Idols do you rob temples you who brag about the law do you dishonor God by breaking the law as it is written God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles Because of You circumcision has a value If You observe the law but if you break the law you have become as though you had not been circumcised if those who are not circumcised keep the Law's requirements will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised this is the word of the Lord we're trying to trace out the storyline of the

entire Bible and we started in Genesis where we learn what's wrong with the human race and we've gone now to Romans 1:4 where we're learning uh what Paul says God has done about it through Jesus Christ and we've been going through Romans and here at the beginning of chapter two Paul does a turnaround it's so surprising and shocking that if I begin to I don't even have to introduce too much introduction here I will start to explain it and it'll draw us right in please see however this chapter talks about three things the failure of

your failure of religion because of the Terrible Beauty of the law and therefore the need for a regenerated new heart the failure of religion because of the Terrible Beauty of the law and therefore the need for a regenerate new heart first the failure of religion now Paul starts this chapter by saying you therefore have no excuse you who sit there passing judgment on someone else for when you judge others you're condemning yourself because you do the same things now this only makes sense if you go back and see what was in chapter 1 right because

the same things refers to chapter one and if you remember Paul's been talking about Gentiles pagans Idol worshippers worshiping bowing down to figures of wood and stone and and metal uh sexual orgies that's all been in you know Romans 1 and all of a sudden Paul's turns and says hey you out there listening sitting in judgment you do the same thing because see Paul knew that this letter was going to be read this letter would have been read out loud to the Roman congregation and who was in the Roman congregation Gentile Christian converts and Jewish

Christian converts now who would have been out there sitting thinking oh yeah those pagans those orgies that bowing down to worship that the idols uh that's just awful and who would have been sitting there condemning who would have been sitting there passing judgment on all that it would have been the Jewish Christians but now keep this in mind these in in this case Paul is actually speaking to people uh who essentially represent anyone who's religious anyone who has tried very hard not to be pagans not to have orgies not to bow down to uh you

know little figures of wood and stone uh he says hey you people out there you people who all of your lives been trying to obey the Bible all of your lives been relying on the on on obedience to the law and feeling pretty good about it I obey the biblical law you out there when you condemn those pagans you condemn yourself because you do the same things see it's very surprising and how could that be how could he say he said we're talking about bowing down to idols and orgies and all now how can he

turn to the the good Bible believing people who've been trying to obey the Bible all their lives and say you out there smug people sitting around there saying yes that's awful that stuff's awful you condemn yourself because you do the same things how could that be well if you go down a little deeper into the text he actually talks about it in verse 21 he says uh and 22 you who teach others do you not teach yourself you preach against stealing but don't you steal you say people shouldn't commit adultery but don't you commit adultery

now at that point the reason he's saying don't you know uh you condemn yourself he's talking to moral people and he says though you say publicly you don't commit adultery a lot of you do commit adultery' and any moral Community any church any synagogue any moral Community is going to have Hypocrites in it people who say this is what I believe but in private they're doing the opposite and so that's partly why he's able to say Hey you religious people you Bible believing Bible obeying people looking at all these awful pagans out there you know

rolling in the in the streets you know together and their drunkenness and their orgies and you're feeling Superior to them you do the same thing and some of it is hypocrisy but that's not all he's saying here because then he says you who abhor Idols don't you rob temples now he's talking to Jewish Christian Believers as you can see from the paragraph top of the paragraph and one of this is completely inexplicable at First Sight because there is absolutely no record of Jews running a kind of you know uh you know that at night they

would go out to temples and Rob temples and and sell the the idols on the black market is that what he's talking about there's absolutely no evidence that Jews did anything like that what in the world is he talking about and the answer is he must be talking metaphorically and by the way he hints uh uh at that in verse 5 because when he says to them uh up in verse 5 because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart and this is something you can never tell by looking at it in English but he's using

two Greek words that in the Greek Old Testament the Greek translation of the old Testament were always associated with idolators and uh what he's actually saying is this you're religious and you're obeying the Ten Commandments and externally it looks like you're complying with all the rules and regulation but though you may not have Idols of the hand you have Idols of the heart you may not have Idols that you can pick up and move around but you've got Idols in your heart you abore idols and yet essentially you're no better than the idolators because though

you're obedient the thing you really live for the things that really give you meaning in life the things that you really are worshiping are career or achievement or power and therefore you stand condemned now how can he really say this that the good Bible believing people are every bit is condemned every bit as lost as the Gentiles and the pagans how can he say that well we'll get to that under point two but first I'd like to stop and I want you to think about the amazing point1 because this is what he's saying he's saying

something that we'll show you if we think about it the unity of the Bible and the uniqueness of the Gospel Unity of the Bible by that I mean this remember if you were here in the fall we talked about Jesus great Parable Luke 15 of the prodigal son we spent six weeks going through that Parable and in the parable Jesus gives us a father with two sons a younger brother who loves sex with PR stitutes and takes away all the father's money and squanders it he's materialistic he's lenti he's disobedient to the father but then

he's got a second son and the older brother is very obedient and very compliant to the father and obeys everything the father says and yet the point of the parable is they're both lost they're both alienated from the father and they both need salvation that's Jesus but now here you have Paul and Paul is giving his greatest exposition of the of the gospel and he's saying exactly the same thing because in Roman 's one he's talking about younger brothers he's talking about how they're condemned he's talking about how they're lost bowing down to Idols of

the hand see you know rolling around in drunkenness and sex okay sin the kind of sin everybody thinks of his sin but now he turns to Romans 2 and he says you you Elder Brothers you people who trying so hard to be good and you think God owes you a good life because you're so good you are every bit is lost your every bit is in need of Salvation isn't that amazing Paul saying exactly the same thing that Jesus was saying you see the unity of the Bible but also let me let me show you

how unique the gospel is for for Paul to be saying you good people condemned you bad people condemned you're all lost you moral people you immoral people you're all lost um in the 1970s there was this enormous bestseller as some of you may have heard of It's actually kind of passed into the into the you know the the language a little bit a by Thomas Harris called I'm okay you're okay it was a little self-help book it was on the top of the New York Times best sist for two years you know I'm okay you're

okay and in the 1990s um a uh a woman named Wendy camer wrote a devastating critique of the self-help movement a devastating critique of it and she C the name of her book was um I'm dysfunctional you're dysfunctional and it it was it's a tremendous critique and basically uh she she shows how narcissistic the whole idea was she says how in the world can you say I'm okay you're okay and this is mental health I'm okay you're okay we're all okay and yet out there in the world there's all the the the blood of the

innocent crying out from the ground for justice there's genocide there's terrorism there's all this awful stuff she says and how can the world can you say it's the sign of mental health to go out in the world and say everybody's okay you're okay I'm okay we're all okay she says that's silly and she says that's Nar iism and she she just she hilariously deconstructed it but you know 10 years later after she really showed how silly it is to say I'm okay you're okay we're all okay she came back with another book that showed she

was a bit in a bind because her whole point was hey with all the Injustice with all the the innocent blood crying out from the ground for justice how can you say everybody's okay but then she came back about 10 years later with another book in which he was very critical of what she called the hard right because she saw a lot of people saying yeah there's evil out there and we've got to bring back the death penalty we've got to go to war and she suddenly saw all these people saying I'm okay and the

rest of you are no way okay in fact that was the subtitle of her book uh according to the New York Times gave it the book a subtitle I'm okay and you're nowhere near okay and she says the trouble with that she says okay I said you know she say right I'm okay you're okay we're all okay that was that was narcissistic that's narcissism but to say I'm okay and I have the truth and you all are evil and I'm going to punish you that's how you get death camps that's how you get I'm the

superior race you're the inferior race I'm the superior person you're the inferior person and she says that's moralism and that's as bad as narcissism narcissism is we're all okay you're okay I'm okay and moralism is I'm okay and you're not okay well now wait a minute so she was just saying I I'm okay everybody's okay that's narcissism but then moralism is bad so now what's left well there's there's masochism you know I'm not okay and everybody else is and of course that's not right well what's left in the 1970s uh a minister who's now passed

away um and a great teacher a Bible teacher named John gner uh was speaking and he referenced the book I'm okay you're okay and he says well what's the what how does that compare to the message of the Bible and then he told a story and it was about the fact that he and his wife were on a trip to Asia they were actually in cashmir and I one point they went on an Excursion and they went in on Excursion in a little boat and it was he and his wife and a Boatman who didn't

know much English and his grandson and on their way back from the Excursion as they were starting to Nearshore they actually bumped another boat and when they bumped the boat there was some water a fair amount of water kind of splashed in and got everybody wet up to the knees and The Boatman started getting very very agitated very agitated and John gersner said you know okay it's a little bit of water so and so he he said it's all right we're okay don't get upset we're okay we're okay but then a couple minutes later the

man was still getting even more agitated and John was thinking he's very Superior he says you know this poor man either has an ego problem or he you know and he says don't worry we're okay we're okay but then finally as they got almost to the dock he got really agitated and John John gers says we're okay we're okay and the man looked up at him and said you not okay I not okay pushed him out of the boat onto the dock threw his grandson jumped out onto the dock and at that minute the boat

was sucked down into the water and um came up about six boats to the right you know on the other side uh it turned out that there had been a hole in the hull The Boatman had seen it John gner had not seen it and if he'd stayed in there one more second they would have gone down with it okay and gersner said you know I realize that's the message the Bible I'm not okay you're not okay do you realize what this means not the moralism of saying I'm okay and you're no way okay not

the narcissism that says I'm okay you're okay everybody's okay not when there's Injustice out there in the world and not the dysfunctionality the masochism is saying oh I'm not okay and everybody else is no what the Bible says is we're all Sinners we're all lost nobody has the right to look down at anybody else we're all in trouble we're all alienated from God no one has the right to be trampling upon or exploiting anybody else we all need God I'm not okay you're not okay and if you don't know that you're going to go to

the bottom and that's that's what's so unique about the gospel there really isn't any other position like that and it's the right one now why is it that religious people stand condemned the reason is because according to Paul because of the Terrible Beauty of a law and what we see here when Paul talks about the fact that judgment is going to be according to the law he shows us why nobody can stand in the Judgment no matter how religious and good you are he shows us both the inwardness and the intuitiveness of the law now

here let me give it to you here briefly first of all the inwardness remember how I mentioned in verse one Paul actually says to the religious people you condemn all those Gentiles and those pagans out there for all those but you do the same uh it says you who pass judgment do look look it says do the same things now what are the things well it's the things that are not on the page they're listed in the last verses of chapter one he made a list of sins and then he says you religious people you

do the same things now what was that list well here's some of the things on the list evil greed and depravity Envy murder Strife deceit and Malice gossip slanderers insul inent arrogant boastful senseless faithless heartless ruthless and if you look carefully you'll see that almost all of these are not Behavior but inner attitudes of the heart greed Envy malice insolent by the way that's the Greek word hubris have you ever heard of that word see arrogant heartless meaning not able to put yourself in other people's shoes ruthless you know obviously meaning exploitative now here's what

Paul is doing doing and this is very important Paul does what Jesus does when we read the law Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal when we read the law we because we're trying to justify ourselves we actually read it just the surface we read only about the external behaviors we see only the external behaviors and when you go away from the law of God in the Bible you can feel like H I'm not so bad what Paul does and what Jesus does in The Sermon on the Mount is they do what we all

should do the law of God is getting at a kind of person a kind of heart you need to actually when you read the law you need to be reading through it because the law of God is actually an outline of the kind of beautiful character a kind of incredibly beautiful heart that we should have and the law of God is getting at it and it is absolutely wrong of us to read the law in the most self-justifying way oh I don't kill you know well that's one that's one law I'm not breaking when you

get to The Sermon on the Mount you'll see that Jesus does exactly what Paul does here what does he do for example listen Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount actually expounds the Ten Commandments but shows the kind of heart and the kind of Spirit The Commandments getting after so first of all Jesus says this here I just give you one case he says you've heard it said Thou shalt not kill but I say unto you anyone who looks at another person and says rqa has broken this commandment well what's rqa mean is it mean

you fool you imol is it an insult no it's actually a word that means nobody it means you you nothing you nobody and what Jesus is saying is if you look at any other human being and feel like this person isn't important this person in fact if you you can barely pay attention to them because they're no they're nobody if you look down your nose anyone to disain them or are indifferent to them or don't treat them with importance he says that's like breaking the Commandment well how could that be how could that be like

murder for cry out loud you know what Jesus is saying he's saying look murder is a tree trees grow from acorns at least oak trees do okay all right well well what is the acorn what is the seed of the tree well the seit what what does murder start with superiority hubris arrogance a disdain a contempt a treating a person not as a person but as a thing looking down using people he says the only difference between a murderer and you if unless you welcome every human being that comes into your life every human being

that is presented to you unless you treat that person is infinitely valuable unless you treat every person as a person of infinite value and worth uh if you just disdain certain people ignore certain people just can hard you know don't even care care about certain people he says that's a seed the only difference between you and a murderer is the murderer seed has been watered and fertilized and therefore the Commandment of God is getting after someone who cherishes people cherishes every person even the persons that the world considers unimportant of no consequence you treat them

as if they're kings and queens that's the kind of heart Jesus says that the word of God is trying that the law of God is trying to get after or and then he goes through all the you know if you read The Sermon on the Mount what does he say you should be so honest that you don't ever have to swear an oath he says every yes and every no every interaction should be as honest as if you were had sworn on a stack of Bibles in a courtroom then he says you should be so

loving that if someone wrongs you you don't just refrain from Revenge but you forgive them in your heart and even when you go and confront them and even when you go and seek Justice you do it with no ill will at all filled with love in your heart for your enemy he says you should be so generous to the poor that you give and give and give and give and you don't even care if you get any thanks that's all in The Sermon on the Mount he says you should be so trusting of God that

you don't worry no matter what the circumstances now some years ago a woman who was teaching literature at a loc at a university not locally but a university uh decided to have all of her students read The Sermon on the Mount and Mo none of them had and half of them hadn't even heard of it so it was all fresh for them so they read it and they all hated it they absolutely hated it this is a typical comment that she got in in the the response papers I did not like The Sermon on the

Mount it made me feel that I had to be perfect and they all hated it they said this is ridiculous this is absolutely nobody can be like that nobody can be like I it's ridiculous and then she said but then she said that's so that she listened to and then she asked them a question isn't this aren't these though the kind of people you want around you don't you want people who are so loving that they don't resent and they're never indifferent that they're so generous that they're always grateful uh aren't these the kind of

people you want around you aren't aren't these the kinds of things that you want in other people and you ask you demand of other people and they all got very quiet in other words I'm very angry if you hold me to the standard on the on the other hand actually I hold everybody else to the standard and therefore you're condemned from your own mouth that's exactly what Paul's saying because the law of God if you learn how to read it is after a kind of person a kind of heart a life of absolute Beauty not

just the external Behavior but but the heart the motivation the attitude and when we see that and we see how we really demand it of other people we refuse to to to demand it of ourselves we're condemned see it's not just the inwardness that Paul talks about here you notice how you know what is amazing about this middle this middle section where he says you are condemned from your own mouth and then down to verse 12 he says all you all who sin apart from the law will perish apart from the law indeed the Gentiles

who do not have the law show that they do understand something of the law and they will be held accountable for that what is that well some years ago a man named Francis schaer summed this up beautifully and said you know what Romans 2 is about Romans 2 is about the invisible tape recorder Romans 2 is saying that even though you don't know it there is an invisible tape recorder that God's put around everybody's neck no no you can't feel it or see it so don't try it's there Roman says it's there and on Judgment

Day all of a sudden you're going to appear before God and you're going to a lot of people are going to sayh I didn't even know you existed wait a minute you can't hold me responsible for the law of God or or other people are going to say I've heard of the Bible I never read the Bible you can't hold me responsible for this law I mean I didn't realize that the god of the Bible is the real God okay but here you are but you can't hold me responsible you can't judge me for something

I didn't believe in or and then God's going to do what he's going he's what he's he's going to reach around the back and he's going to unclasp and he's going to get off your invisible tape recorder and it'll become visible and you'll say I didn't see that there and he says no you couldn't have felt it it was invisible and then he says I want you to know that I'm the I'm the fairest judge you could possibly imagine I'm not going to judge you according to the Bible because you didn't know the Bible I'm

not going to judge you according to Christ because You' never heard of Christ if it's I'm going to judge you by your own words because this tape recorder only record throughout your life whenever you said to someone else you ought you should see this taper quar has only recorded your standards for the people around you and therefore I'm not going to judge you by anything other than the standards by which you judge people your entire life and nobody in the history of the world will be able to stand in the Judgment Day because you're not

going to even be able to stand before your own words before your own standards and therefore we are all lost we are all absolutely lost well what where okay where's the hope is there any hope and the of course the answer is yes the fail failure of religion because of the the uh the Terrible Beauty of the law means now at the very end that there's a need for a new heart Suddenly at the end Paul begins to talk about circumcision and he says this is almost the end of the chapter he says circumcision has

value If You observe the law but if you break the law it has no value uh if those who are not circumcised keep the Law's requirement they will be regarded as though they were circumcised were they not and then he goes on and it's not printed but let me read you the end then Paul says at the end of the chapter a man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly nor is circumcision merely outward or physical no a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly and circumcision is circumcision of the

Heart by the spirit such a man's praise is not from men but from God now here's what Paul is saying he is saying you know you religious people and of course in this case the Bible believing religious people were Jewish believer Christians he says you know all of your life you've been trying to obey the law of God and circumcision was a sign of being a Jew who is trying to obey the law of God but he says there's something what you really need is circumcision of the heart what you really need is a new

heart not obedience outwardly you need to be have a regenerated heart or you will never ever do what the law requires now why does he bring up circumcision what's the big deal here's the big deal when God entered into a relationship with Abraham uh that was the first time God showed up and said to a a man and his family I want to have a personal intimate Covenant relationship with you and as a sign of that relationship he says to Abraham I want you to be circumcised now the circumcision was a sign of the relationship

the way baptism is a sign of being you know in the church why though circumcision I think most people understand baptism you know kind of like death and rebirth and the spirit and but what was the symbolism of circumcision now I don't want you to think about it too long but that's the point why did God choose circumcision as a sign of this intimate Covenant relationship he had with Abraham he said I want you to walk blamelessly before me and if you walk blamelessly before me if you follow my Covenant I will bless you but

he said if you disobey the Covenant if you enter into a covenant with me and then you go your own way and you disobey me then you'll be cut off he said from your people you'll be cut off from the Lord you'll be cut off from me that was that's the natural punishment so you know what circumcision was in those days you didn't sign a contract to bind a contract you acted out the curse in other words when a person would enter into a covenant with someone else he might pick up some sand and he

might drop it on his head and say if I don't do everything I'm saying I will do today if I disobey the words that I the Covenant that I've just made you today may I be as this as this dust or a person would cut an animal in half and walk between the pieces and say if I don't do absolutely everything that I have said today in this contract may I be cut into pieces myself and what God was saying to Abraham was if you want to enter into a relationship with me you need to

be circumcised and that means you are admitting that if we dis you disobey the the Covenant you'll be cut off well here's my question did Abraham really obey the Covenant did Isaac really obey the Covenant did Jacob has anybody ever obeyed the Covenant has anyone ever walked before God blamelessly that's the Covenant well then why in the world no of course not well then why does God have any people at all why is there anybody called the people of God why is there anybody that God says I You Are My People and I'm your God

how could anybody be in a covenant relationship with God and the answer is in Colossians 2 there's a little verse that almost always when you go by it if you're reading through Colossians it's one of those verses that you read and you say what was that about and then you just go on you know I'll ask him about it I'll ask him about it someday but right now I don't get it but in Colossians 2: 11 and 12 Paul says this he's talking about the cross he's talking about Jesus dying on the cross and then

he says in him you were circumcised he's talking to Gentiles by the way who weren't literally circumcised he says in him you were circumcised and with a circumcision done by the hands of men but in the circumcision of Christ in him you were circumcised not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but in the circumcision of Christ and here's what he's saying on the cross Jesus was cut off that's why he calls it a circumcision on the cross Jesus Christ said my God my God I can't see you I can't feel you where

are you Isaiah 53 says he was cut off from the land of the living why he was getting what circumcision repres presented he was being cut off he was going under the knife it was Bloody it was violent he was getting the curse that we deserve because we can't stand in the Judgment we can't stand before the law but that's not all it doesn't just say he was circumcised on the cross it says in him you were circumcised not a circumcision made with hands he says because the Gentiles weren't you've got a new heart you've

got New Life why because you're circumcised in Christ what does that mean it means that now you stand in him in this way when you read the law properly when you read The Sermon on the Mount and you see what the law is getting after the love the peace the generosity the Integrity that it wants instead of saying oh my goodness oh my goodness I hate this I hate this you know I'll never be like this instead realize what that is describing you know who it's it's describing a person whenever you read the law of

God and you see this incredible perfect standard you know it's it's describing Jesus don't be crushed by the standard see the beauty of Jesus and according to the Bible when you believe in Jesus Christ and you give your life to to him then all of your sins and what they deserved is transferred to him he's cut off for you and all of the beauty of his lawke keeping all the beauty of his life is transferred to you and in Christ we're told now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and once

you understand that it Pricks the heart you know the idea of a circumcised heart is pretty weird quite a metaphor it's it's intimate and it's tender and it's scary and what it means is Your Heart of Stone begins to be a heart of Flesh and you have a new attitude toward the law because when you see that God sent his son to die so that the requirements of the law were fulfilled you never look at the law of God and say oh I'm saved so it doesn't really matter the law is so important so important

that Jesus died to fulfill the requirements of the law so when you you don't look at the law as a Christian and say oh it doesn't matter how I live because after all I'm not condemned Jesus died because the law was so important and so you try like crazy to live according to the standards of the law And yet when you fail you don't get crushed with with guilt you're not crushed like oh what an awful person I am cuz you know what he did for you there's this paradoxical attitude toward the law we're absolutely

fastidiously diligently seeking to obey it and never crushed never crushed into the ground by it nor hopeless when we disobey it we get back up on the horse it's a it's FAS so in other words we're not I'm okay you're okay everybody's okay after all we can live any way we want or I'm not not okay everybody else is okay or I'm okay and you're not close to being okay it's none of those things I'm not okay you're not okay I'm no better than you yet in Jesus Christ I'm a beauty when God sees me

I'm beautiful and as a result I don't judge anybody because God's the judge when somebody wrongs me I leave that to God I forgive them I don't even judge myself oh how bad I am no I've been judged in Jesus don't you see that at the center of your life ought to be Jesus Christ the judge of the Earth but the judge who was judged if you bring into the center of your life the judge of all the Earth who was judged in your place you have both a healthy respect for moral absolutes you know

that there's right and there's wrong you know there's Injustice you know it's important to seek Justice you know it's important to be a good person and a morally upright person but on the the other hand you don't are not judgmental toward people you forgive people you're not down on yourself judging yourself when things go wrong oh the uniqueness of the Gospel the uniqueness of a Christian bring into the middle of your life the judge who was judged in your place let's pray thank you Father for giving us the uh the bad news about Judgment Day

the bad news that no one can stand in the judgment and the good news that your son Jesus Christ was circumcised for us on the cross he was cut off for us so that now in him we have new hearts and we thank you for all that oh my word father we thank you for it and we ask would you please help us to live in accordance with it to appropriate it to have the joy and the Poise and the power that would come with what we believe and what we know so we ask that

you would Grant it for Jesus sake in his name we pray amen