Dear church,

I can’t read Romans 16 anymore without thinking about a sermon I heard years ago. You might have parts of the Bible that are like that for you, too. Some preacher somewhere had something to say that grabbed your heart and would not let go.

And so I think today, I am going to defer to that sermon. It’s by a preacher named Fred Craddock. He died a few years ago but had an influential ministry, particularly in the area of preaching. Fred Craddock had a rich imagination, which you will encounter in his sermon.

You can listen to it here.

So find a quiet place, and quiet your heart. Read Romans 16, and then listen to this sermon. I pray you have a blessed day!

Chris

Dear church,

It seems to me that in all of the apostle Paul’s ministry – all the mission trips and efforts to convince people about the Messiah, and all the dangerous experiences those efforts entailed – Paul had a singular purpose. And that purpose was worship.

Paul wrote at length about unity within the church – unity between Jews and Gentiles, and between the “strong” and the “weak.” His desire was the people of the church live in harmony – not for harmony’s sake, but for the purpose of worship.

“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul advocated for harmony within the church, and togetherness, and the ability with one voice to glorify God. Worship of God was the goal.

Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles had that same purpose – worship. Jesus laid down his life, Paul said, so the “Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” That is, so we would worship God. Paul quoted a string of Old Testament texts that predicted the gospel would come to the Gentiles (15:9-12). In all of them, worship of God bubbles to the top.

And Paul wrote that his mission to the Gentiles – his preaching the good news to them – was designed so that “the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” What was the offering of the Gentiles? It is worship.

If worship of God ranked so highly in the mission of Paul, then it ought to rank highly in our lives. We are the recipients of the gospel he preached. We are designed to worship God. The proper and acceptable worship of God was what Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were all about – and indeed what they displayed to the world.

A failure to worship God was the root of the problem within humanity, after all. Failure to worship God resulted in sin. Paul said as much at the start of the Book of Romans: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).

What does your worship of God look like?

That is a big question, certainly. And it can produce a certain amount of guilt and feelings of inadequacy.

But if we take our cues from Paul, we might remember our worship of God is not merely an individual endeavor. It is corporate. We don’t do it all by ourselves. We worship in harmony with our brothers and sisters in Christ. A man by himself on a mountain can worship God, but let that man recognize he lives in a communion of saints who are doing the same thing across the globe. And let him come down off that mountain every once in a while to encourage his brothers and sisters.

And if we take our cues from Paul, we might remember the best worship emerges from unity. Divided congregations don’t worship well. Remember here what Jesus said in Matthew 5:23-24. We must constantly be on a quest for harmony within the church because harmony in Christ is the fertile soil for life-changing worship of God.

At the same time, it seems to me worship also must emerge from a unified and undistracted heart. Our anxieties and our preoccupations can make it hard for us to worship. Perhaps this is why prayer is so important (Philippians 4:6-7).

Finally, if we take our cues from Paul, we might remember the mission of the gospel is all about worship. Christians go on mission for God because they care about the worship of God, recognizing some day every knee will bow anyway (Philippians 2:10-11). The missionaries point the way for us, helping to bring us closer to the fulfillment of all things.

Today might be a day to consider your worship of God. Is anything getting in the way?

Chris

Dear church,

After reading Romans 12, a good friend remarked to me, “I belong to you, and you belong to me.” That’s a good takeaway from that chapter. The apostle Paul was combatting the pride that sometimes breaks into a church family when people think their gifts are more important than the gifts of others. Paul wrote, “so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:5).

So we don’t think of each other more highly than we ought. We recognize every member of the body of Christ has value and a gift from God to share with the church and the world.

And so, “I belong to you, and you belong to me,” is a good takeaway from Romans 12. And, if so, a good takeaway from Romans 14 might be, “Each of us belongs to God.”

Those two things go hand in hand – our mutual obligation to one another and our individual commitments to God. On the latter part, we respond to God as our consciences lead us.

In the Roman church to whom Paul was writing, there seemed to be a couple of factions of church members at play And they were not getting along.

Some of them weren’t overly concerned with matters on conscience as it related to food and special days (like the Sabbath and maybe the Passover and other Jewish festivals). These likely felt they were free in Christ on matters like that.

In contrast, others were led by their consciences to abstain from certain kind of foods and to keep the holy days. These likely felt obedience and devotion to God dictated they keep these traditions and, I suppose, couldn’t imagine abandoning them.

And these two groups were judging one another. The unity of the church was threatened. And Paul desired that the divisions be healed.

Paul told the church “not to quarrel over opinions.” Ah, Paul showed what he thought about the things that were dividing the church. They were merely “opinions.” Paul urged the church to walk in love and to put opinions aside, to stop judging, and to find a way forward to peace and mutual upbuilding.

If that meant someone abstained from eating certain kinds of food for the sake of his or her brothers and sisters in Christ, then so be it. If that meant someone put a lid on their lips and declined to comment when in the presence of a wine-drinking fellow church member, then so be it.

Both sides were expected by Paul to give up things that were a matter of opinion. “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.” The beauty and diversity of the church ought not to be wrecked because any one member has a strong opinion that he or she just can’t help but share.

Of course, this kind of thing happens in churches all the time. We can be quick to criticize our brothers and sisters in Christ. “I would do things differently,” we say.

But Paul said each person must live according to his or her conscience before God – and his or her brothers and sisters in Christ must graciously accept that person’s idiosyncrasies.

Of course, there are limits to this. Blatant and unrepentant sin doesn’t get a pass. But mere “opinions” do. We are to live in unity as the church. And each of us has a relationship with our Master.

“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls.”

And so each of us approaches God in humility, asking him how we should live. Should no work be done on a Sabbath? Should our families celebrate holidays like Halloween? Is it OK to drink wine? We search the Scriptures, and we listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And we trust in the Lord who is able to make us stand. And we don’t judge our brothers and sisters in Christ as they live out their own relationships with God.

I belong to you, and you belong to me. And both of us belong to God.

Chris

Dear church,

The apostle Paul has much to say about how we ought to view and respond to our governing authorities. Paul likely had very good reasons for saying what he said here, because Paul soon would be going to Rome, to visit this church tucked inside the capital of the world.

And when Paul got to Rome, he would not be bringing with him any social agitation or violence or other forms of political unrest. This is not the way of this new king, Jesus. There’s nothing in the gospel message about the overthrow of governments – at least not yet.

Christians worshipped a king who was not Caesar, and this likely made them suspect. Law-abiding citizens do not appreciate those who would stir the pot and rile the masses. No, law-abiding citizens prefer peace and a quiet place to raise their families and equitable places to work their businesses.

And government, at its finest and most pristine, was created to do just that – to maintain peace and to give people space to flourish. In Paul’s world, anarchy was only a few steps away, and he could express gratitude and respect for the governing authorities.

And so Paul did not want his Christian brothers and sisters working in opposition to the government. Survival of this newly created worshipping community depended on careful compliance with the government – to offer no reason for harsh treatment.

And so Paul urged the church to respect its governing authorities, and to pay their taxes. Worship God, not Caesar – and then go quietly about your lives.

As I read this text, I could not help but think about our world today, with so much unrest in the United States relating to protests and pandemic. Some people protest and are praised. Others are vilified. Some turn to violence and looting and graffiti. Some governing officials allow this, and some do not. Some gather in violation of social distancing rules. Some governing officials allow this, and, again, some do not.

In the end, it is hard to know what to make of our governing authorities today. Is the government still in effect for our good? Does it still carry out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer?

In some ways, Paul’s writing almost seems like it is for another time and another place – where people desired more government, not less.

And yet, a fundamental truth is bound up within Romans 13. The judgment that the governing authorities can levy against wrongdoers is a picture for us of God’s coming judgment on the earth. Our King will return. And, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

The wrongs will be made right. Evildoers will be punished. And we will be judged by the blood of Christ.

In the meantime, we recognize the divine picture bound up within our governing authorities. They carry out judgment in the here and now. It prefigures what God will do at the return of Christ.

Yes, sometimes our governing authorities don’t act rightly today. Sometimes they press too hard in the wrong direction. And yes, sometimes we must disobey their orders.

But this is rare. Inside the very founding of government is the truth of God, the creator of peace and the one who sets things right.

Chris

Dear church,

This famous chapter from Paul’s letter to the Roman church reminds us we ought not to take from God what belongs to God. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

And so the Christian is not to seek revenge against against people who have committed wrongdoings against him or her. The anger is not supposed to seethe and boil over for the child of God. In place of that, God’s people are to sit with the hurt with patience and to leave the settling of things to the wrath of the Almighty.

But not only that, the Christian is to take pity on his or her enemies. The Christian is not supposed to turn a cold shoulder against them. Rather, if one’s enemy is hungry, the Christian is to feed him. If one’s enemy is thirsty, the Christian is to give her something to drink. In other words, when bad things come to Christians, those Christians are to try to return those bad things with good things.

At that point, it is up to one’s enemies to decide how to respond – when kindness is shown in the face of evil. Surely, if the enemy of the love-filled Christian were to continue doing evil in such circumstances, he or she would indeed be compounding the sin – and the judgment. Burning coals are no fun.

But all of this, mind you, is a matter of leaving the business of God in God’s hands. And vengeance is God’s business. God is the judge.

Perhaps this is what it means to live by the mercies of God that Paul mentions at the beginning of this chapter.

The mercies of God became for Paul the incentive to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God. We don’t throw ourselves, body and soul, onto the altar as a sacrifice – giving up our own lives and desires and wills – without good reason.

No, we throw ourselves down on the altar because we are moved to do so by the mercies of God. Christians are saved by grace and the will of God – not by works.

Gentile Christians really ought not to be saved because they existed outside God’s chosen people. But they were saved anyway – grafted into the nation of Israel. God’s chosen people, meanwhile, ought not to be saved because they had the promises and commands of God and yet they were stiff-necked and disobedient. But Paul showed the open the door to salvation for them as well. “All Israel will be saved,” he said.

These are the mercies of God – at least some of them. And in response to these mercies of God, we offer up our bodies as living sacrifices to God – holy and acceptable sacrifices. And by the mercies of God, we don’t allow our minds to be conformed to the ways of this world. Rather, we allow our minds to be renewed day by day. And we come to learn the will of God.

And in this, we learn our place.

We sit under the mercies of God, not over them. We are humble partakers in grace, not deserving guests at the table. If we are in the kingdom at all, it is because we’ve been granted pardon, amnesty, or clemency. We don’t belong here, and yet because of the mercies of God, this is our home now. And so we live with thanksgiving and the utmost humility.

And as we learn our place, and as our minds are renewed, we learn not to take away from God the things that belong to him. Things like vengeance. Or credit.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, Paul wrote. Again, we may be taking something away from God by stealing from him the credit. The spiritual gifts he entrusts to us are not of our own making. To say my gift is better or more important than yours is to take something away from the gift you were given from God. It is to take something away from God.

And so we humbly receive what God gives, and we serve as he’s trusted us to serve – or we prophesy or teach or exhort or give or lead or show mercy. These things aren’t ours. They belong to God and are to be given away.

We do not take as our own something that belongs to God. Not vengeance. Not credit. And not ourselves.

This may seem a stretch, but I don’t think it is. To love one another with brotherly (or sisterly) affection, to outdo one another in showing honor, to contribute to the needs of the saints – this is about how we live within the church, about how we live in the kingdom of God. As it turns out, as our minds are renewed, we come to see that we are not our own. We have an obligation – to God and, yes, to his church.

If we don’t love sincerely, if we don’t show honor to one another, if we don’t contribute to the needs of the saints, we are denying the fundamental fact of our Christian existence, which is that we are living under the mercies of God and have been swept into his New Covenant people. And with that comes new gifts to use and new obligations to use them.

We don’t belong to ourselves any more. This body of ours belongs to God, and he has placed us into this new body, the church – to love, to share, and to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so, yes, this famous chapter in Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us we ought not to take away from God the things that belong to him – vengeance, credit, and our very lives. We have a wider calling right here.

Chris

Dear church,

The apostle Paul painted a picture in Romans 11 of an olive tree. It was a very interesting-looking olive tree. Some branches had been cut away, and other branches – branches from trees that were growing wild – were grafted into the olive tree.

Over time, it seems, some of the branches that were cut off (perhaps all of them?) would be grafted back into the olive tree. As I picture this, the olive tree must have a lot of branches – some going this way, some going that way, some looking like traditional olive branches, some looking like branches from another kind of olive tree altogether.

It is a strange tree, indeed.

But it is one tree. And that is Paul’s point in Romans 11. The same God who chose Israel and promised a Messiah to that people is the same God who calls non-Israelites to himself through the Jewish Messiah. Jesus is the Savior for all. Paul already had written, “For I am 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” (Romans 1:16).

The question Paul was answering in Romans 11 is about the future of Jews who reject Jesus as their Messiah. Paul wrote of the possibility that Jews who reject Jesus eventually will come to faith in him. Branches once cut off from the olive tree, “even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.”

Paul added, “for God has the power to graft them in again.” All of this lies under the power of God. This is so much so that Paul kicked open the door to the idea that “all Israel will be saved.”

And so there is no place in the life of a Gentile Christian for looking down on Jews who do not believe in Jesus as their Messiah. But there is a place for humble recognition that Gentile Christians, by the skin of their teeth, have found the salvation God desires for his people who were chosen from ancient times. There is a place for gratitude on the part of Gentile Christians, as well as a big sigh of relief.

There also is a place for desire – a desire that Jesus would be recognized as the Messiah by the very people from whom he emerged. There is a place to stand against anti-Semitism. And there is a place to share the good news with those among the Jewish nation who have not yet accepted the gospel.

Some feel ill-equipped to do this last ministry ourselves. But we must remain open to the possibility God will equip us to do that very thing. And we must pray.

Somehow, Paul’s writing in Romans 11 feels like a prayer. All prayer is built on earnest desire. And we can feel Paul’s earnest desire for his kinsfolk. Even though Paul was specifically called to be an apostle to non-Jews, he desired that none of the Jews would be lost and that all would be saved.

And it feels as if Paul’s prayer always had been for his people, whom he loved dearly (and whom we know God loves dearly). Perhaps that’s the fundamental, base-line response for Gentile Christians: to pray for the Jews.

And to expect a miracle – because Paul’s writing in Romans 11, even more than a prayer, is a promise.

Chris

Dear church,

The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 10 about the availability of the salvation of God. He makes a bold statement about how salvation is available now to God’s chosen people – Israel – as well as to the Gentiles who had never known God before.

Paul in particular is writing about his Jewish brothers and sisters who had been following God’s law for so long believing it would lead them to righteousness. The Israelites were striving to obtain life by following the law – not realizing Christ already had replaced God’s law.

The important thing now is not obedience to the law of God but faith in Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, a person can get the idea he or she can deliver himself or herself from a bad eternal faith. Or perhaps we can get the impression we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things with our lives.

Paul silences that notion.

Even for Israel, whom God chose thousands of years ago to be his treasured possession and who received the Ten Commandments and the very promises of God, could not accomplish salvation by sheer force of will or obedience to the Law. It was impossible.

Righteousness – right standing with God – isn’t based on works. It is based on faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is available to all.

For Israel, it wasn’t a matter of climbing up into heaven to find their Messiah to save them. And it wasn’t a matter of digging their Messiah out of the grave. We have to understand what Paul is saying here: This business of righteousness belongs to God not to men and women. Rather than trying to climb to heaven or plunge into hell to locate our Savior, we accept that he both came to us from heaven and that he already has risen from the grave. We don’t try to do what he already has done.

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

Salvation is available.

This is important because many things in life are unavailable to us. We grasp, and we grab, and we cannot attain some things. The world has been lurching in search of a solution to both pandemic and political crises but to no avail. The solution is out of reach.

In our own lives, we stare sometimes at medical charts and wonder about a future that may not be attainable. We puzzle over our pocketbooks and question what tomorrow may look like. We consider family members who have been disagreeable in the past and who show no signs of changing – a goalpost that is much too far away for us.

The solution to those problems is unavailable. And it can leave us helpless and hopeless and rather depressed.

But the word that is near us, that is in our hearts and in our mouths, is a word of good news that has power to squash all other concerns in life and make us abound with joy without end. Salvation is available.

We don’t have to pry our Savior out of heaven or dig him out of the ground. He already has descended, and he already has risen. In our very hands, we have the truth – a truth that can fill our hearts, chart our course, and stir us to share.

It is a salvation that is available to us and one that we can make available to others.

Chris

Dear church,

Sometimes we rumble through life with an attitude of entitlement. We believe we deserve this good thing or that good thing. We consider who we are and what we’ve done and the skills we’ve acquired over time, and we think that, yes, we do have some positive things coming our way – or we should have some positive things coming our way. The word “deserve” may even enter our vocabulary.

And then at some point in our Christian development, we get a glimpse of the glory of the God who chooses.

God has a purpose. And before a person does anything good or bad with his or her life, we see that God is quite able and willing to do as he wants to with the people whom he creates. “The older will serve the younger,” God said, and “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

And Paul in Romans 9 gives us the picture of this God who chooses. We see Paul’s desperate longing for his own people – Israel – whom God most certainly chose but who were whittled down over the long centuries to a mere “remnant.”

This is a God whose choosing of people is irrevocable. And this is a God who does not have to put up with questions from his creation – “Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?'”

It is enough to bother us for a while. And we will ruminate in our Christian development over how God could choose as he does. We cannot do things like this. We wouldn’t feel right doing things like this.

But at some point, I think, God wants us to stop and marvel not at his choosing – but at his mercy. Because at some point, every Christian must come to the realization that God turned and made a choice about that very Christian. Could I – even I, with everything I’ve done and all the skills I have acquired – could I, too, have been like Sodom or like Gomorrah?

Yes. The answer must be yes. Without God’s mercy, it most certainly would have been yes. There is only one difference, according to Romans 9, between the “vessels of wrath” and the “vessels of mercy.” That difference is the God who chooses.

And so at some point in our Christian development we ought to stop fussing and worrying over words like “election.” And we should stop looking so much at ourselves and who we are and what we’ve done and the skills we have acquired.

We should simply stop and ponder the glory of the God who creates and hardens and shows mercy. And we should hit our knees in gratitude that he showed mercy to us.

Chris

Dear church,

The distinguishing mark of a Christian is not simply that the Christian does good things with his or her life. Lots of people do good things with their lives and yet are not Christians. The distinguishing mark of a Christian is not simply that he or she attends church gatherings. Lots of people have attended – and even regularly attend – church gatherings and yet are not Christians.

The distinguishing mark of a Christian is not knowledge of Christian things – knowledge of the Bible or the way of salvation or the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Lots of people know all about these Christian things and yet are not Christians.

No, the distinguishing mark of a Christian is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of that person. Only Christians have the Holy Spirit living in them. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8 that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. Only Christians have the Holy Spirit.

And it is by the Spirit that we live. The Spirit enables us to put to death the deeds of the body. The Spirit gives us freedom from slavery to sin and death. The Spirit cast out fear from our lives.

And the Spirit is the first fruits of our future. The Spirit is a Spirit of adoption. We have the Spirit now even as we await the final fulfillment of what we will come to be – spiritually and physically transformed children of God.

The Spirit is even more than this to Christians. But Paul wanted us to know we are alive because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives – and this life we have in the Spirit is the distinguishing mark of a Christian.

The long testimony of Scripture always pointed to God’s Spirit dwelling within his people.

The prophet Ezekiel reported God talking to his people, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

The prophet Isaiah reported God’s promise to “pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3).

And the prophet Jeremiah reported the coming of the new covenant of God with his people – a direct teaching about what the Holy Spirit would do in the lives of God’s children. “And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

Of course, the Holy Spirit works quietly in our lives quite often. We aren’t always overwhelmed with the power and compelling presence of the Spirit. But if we, as believers, pause and search for the leading of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will lead us. And if we need a witness that we indeed are children of God by adoption, the Holy Spirit will provide that witness. And if we try to pray and we simply don’t know how, the Holy Spirit will pray for us.

We accept by faith we have the Holy Spirit. And we hope.

“For in this hope we were saved.”

The Spirit ushers hope into our lives. To lose hope is to lose life. That is, we no longer live if we no longer have hope because hope is what enables us to get up each morning and think there might be a brighter day ahead than the dark day that just passed.

Lots of people can have hope. But Holy Spirit-fueled hope is the hope that enables us to move through suffering knowing that something glorious is coming – that the suffering ultimately will turn out for good and that the suffering actually is a conduit for God’s good that comes to us.

And so the Holy Spirit is the distinguishing mark of the Christian and of the church. It speaks to our past, our present, and our future.

Chris

Dear church,

Looking back, you might recall some things you did in your “former life” that you regret. You might see some things that make you shake your head. You might see some things that, if you had it to do all over again, you might do differently.

The apostle Paul here, in the latter part of Romans 7, is writing to a collection of Gentile Christians who seem to have come into contact at some point with the law of God. And Paul seems to be putting himself in their shoes.

Life was going along pretty well for them. They had no law. I suppose they were a law unto themselves, if it is possible to be that. And then, somehow, they encountered the law of God. You know what this is – the Ten Commandments and every other law that followed.

A struggle ensued, because now those Gentiles could see the expectations of God. And it seemed at every count, they could not meet those expectations. In fact, their very knowledge of the law of God seemed to make things worse. If they had been living as a law unto themselves, listening to their consciences and trying to do what they knew to be right, now their consciences were elevated even higher. Now the words of God came to their mind in certain moments – “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain,” “Do not commit adultery.”

They knew these commandments were good to follow. But the more they tried to do them, and to follow their own consciences – what they knew they “ought” to do – they found it harder and harder actually to accomplish. It seemed the wrong thing to do pressed them even harder in those moments. The temptation was almost inescapable. It was overwhelming.

We all know what this feels like. We all know what it means to fail to live up to the values that we hold. We all know how difficult it is. Every religion offers a “way” to follow. Those are the expectations. Every secular society offers a “way,” as well. And in our own minds, we feel it, too. There is right and there is wrong, and our conscience screams at us about what is wrong, but we do wrong anyway. We are slaves to our impulses. And we don’t know why.

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

The gospel of Jesus Christ is unlike anything the world has ever seen. God would know this. He created the world, and he chose to redeem it. He did both of these things on his own. He needed no help from us.

God knows we are prone to do evil. And the more knowledge we have about right and wrong, the greater the struggle becomes – because wrong always will be standing by, impossible to ignore.

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Indeed, the gospel of Jesus Christ is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Salvation is not about forcing a behavioral change. It’s not about somehow doing enough good to offset the bad. It’s simply about faith in Jesus Christ.

And the way of salvation is about death – dying to the old way – and it’s about rebirth to the “new way of the Spirit.” Who will help us in our wretchedness? God will. He helps us to see it – our wretchedness – and he gives us the cure.

Chris