We're in Galatians, chapter five, and read that for the law this morning. And as you can see, the theme is about freedom. And usually when we think about freedom as Americans, we think about it as a national kind of a thing, don't we? And you are our national anthem, the land of the free and the home of the brave. And it seems like just about every war movie that comes out these days. I'm going all the way back to Braveheart, probably even earlier than that. It's like the chance is freedom, freedom. Everybody wants freedom. I wonder how much Christians really want freedom, though, how much we really understand the freedom that we have in Christ, as opposed to the kind of freedom that the world wants, which is to be free from a sovereign king. Isn't that really the kind of freedom that they're proclaiming? Kind of like. exact opposite sort of a thing is what we have set for us in the passage today. Going to be looking at this freedom and its freedom from specific things, specifically the law this morning. And I want to start off by telling you a story or a couple of little anecdotes from the life of Charles Spurgeon. It is told that one time he and Dwight Pentecost had a public encounter. And it goes that Pentecost told Sir Spurgeon how much he had gained in holiness since heating is still small voice that told him to give up tobacco. And Spurgeon replied, Notwithstanding what Brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed tonight. If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, thou shalt not smoke. I'm ready to keep it, but I haven't found it yet. I find ten commandments and it's as much as I can do to keep them. And I have no desire to make them into eleven or twelve. And on another occasion, it is said that a brother reproached Spurgeon for his cigar smoking. He replied that he would give it up if he ever smoked to excess. And the man asked, well, what do you regard as excess? And Spurgeon said, more than one at a time. These quaint little stories make some people very angry. I hope you know that. And there are other stories told about reformed theologians that, for example, they would intentionally drink alcohol whenever perfectionists or Wesleyans came into town on their high horses. And these stories positively cause people to have steam boil out their ears. When someone like Spurgeon responds like this to critics who say that you can't be a good moral person if you smoke, he's attacking one of two forms of legalism, as I see it in the Bible, one of which is in our passage today. And maybe both of them are in a roundabout kind of a way. First thing I want to do is define legalism for you. And as I see it, legalism is any imposed threat to the free gospel of Jesus Christ, either in the form of biblical laws or man-made taboos. It can be either one of those things. Now, one kind of legalism imposes man-made rules upon people in such a way as to make them think That if they follow these rules, they will be victorious Christians living the higher life as opposed to carnal Christians who haven't put God on the throne yet ever heard that kind of language. It's usually the case that man-made rules attack what we call sanctification or growth in the Christian life. Because few people have enough nerve to actually say that following non-biblical rules will somehow merit justification and God's initial favor. The idea seems to be that sanctification is my work brought about my way, which seems to me should be something that God should approve of. Paul speaks about this kind of legalism in Colossians, when he brings up rules of the aesthetics, when he says, quote, Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And this is in the word itself, referring to things that perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. And then he adds, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom. In promoting self-made religion and the word there, it's one word, it's literally will worship. They promote will worship. And asceticism and severity of the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh and talk about the flesh more next week as we continue through chapter five here. Now, Jesus ran into this kind of legalism with the Pharisees who were obsessed with something that you may have heard of called fencing the Torah or fencing the law. Now, in fact, Jesus entire sermon on the Mount is directed at fencing the Torah. The teachers of the law say one thing, remember, Jesus has the formula. You have heard that it was said. But God says another thing and Jesus says, but I say when Jesus says, but I say he is giving the actual teaching of the Old Testament, the things that he originally told Moses on Mount Sinai. He's not making up new things. But you see, the Pharisees wanted to be clever. They thought that if they could put a wide enough fence around God's laws, That while we might break some of those human laws, we would not be able to get close enough to God's laws in order to violate them. This is will worship and it is performed in ignorance of the truth. Now, it's always been a strange thing to me that Calvinists who hate free will would sometimes get into it when it comes to will worship. Legalism. But we are no more immune than any other Christian, because, as Paul says, these things appear. Outwardly to us to be a good idea. If we can stop the outward sin, then the heart will take care of itself, and that's even more perplexing to me Especially since we're supposedly the ones who believe in total depravity and that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful and beyond cure. These things seem to be things that help us further our way down the road to religion and holiness, but we forget something else. One thing is that the religion that God loves, according to like James and other places, is outward. not inward. The very opposite of what mystics teach, too, and a lot of the evangelical spiritual disciplines that are out there right now, they're all inward focus, focusing on your navel, thinking about yourself. Very rarely is it outwardly focused. But God says the religion that he loves is one that helps the poor and the widow. It loves its neighbor and it loves its God. It's consumed with being kind and merciful rather than promoting itself in the eyes of others. Another thing it forgets is that the law can create no power to help you keep it. If this is true of God's law, that it can't give you any power to keep it, how much more of the laws that we invent that God hasn't even said anything about? And thus, the law was actually given to increase our sin, not to snuff it out. This is the exact opposite purpose that we have when we sincerely are not invent laws to help us contain our fleshly desires. In our ignorance or disbelief of what God tells us about the law, we end up cursing ourselves a lot like Adam and Eve before us. Now, the other kind of legalism, so the first one is one that imposes self manmade rules. The second kind is one that imposes God's laws upon God's people for the purpose of causing them to think that through obedience to them, they will be accepted or acceptable to God. Now, this is very similar to the first kind of legalism in that it has the same purpose. Like the first kind, this is sometimes used with regard to Christian life, to sanctification. And we saw this already in Galatians 3, when Paul says, after beginning with the spirit, are you now trying to be perfected by the flesh? So that's sanctification. But this kind of use of the law is also used prior to sanctification by many people in the initial declaration of righteousness that we call justification. People are made to think that if they perform God's laws, that he will then look upon them with favor and declare them holy. And if you have a view of justification like Rome has, which is that it occurs at the end of your life rather than at the beginning of your Christian life, then this kind of legalism is going to torment you for your entire life because you're never going to be sure that God really has declared you righteous because of all these things that you have to keep doing. Now, this also ignores something vital holiness in God's eyes is absolute purity, absolute purity. It is purer than 24 karat gold. It is cleaner than water from an artesian spring. Not a single sin can taint the water of our holiness if we want to be justified by our works. Paul seems to be more concerned with this kind of legalism, at least in our passage right here, because he says, In verse four, chapter five, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. Now, he uses circumcision, the ancient ceremony given to Abraham. As his law of choice, but beware, lest you think that Paul is picking on circumcision because it's ceremonial law that is passed away. But we can somehow do the same thing with the moral law that these guys were doing the circumcision because that hasn't passed away. His concern is not with something that is passed away, but with using a law, any law. It doesn't matter what law it is, whether it's in the Bible or not, to try and justify yourself. Consider what he tells the Romans in chapter two. You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that somebody shouldn't commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who hate idols, do you rob temples? Now, what are those commandments? Ceremonial laws that are passed away. Ten commandments, aren't they? They haven't passed away everywhere you go in the New Testament. Christians are told to keep the Ten Commandments. What he is concerned with in Romans and in Galatians is in keeping these laws to merit God's favor. So don't let circumcision trip you up as we move through the passage. Keep in mind that Paul is using this law as an example, and it is one that he uses quite vividly. To say the least, as he said, some of his harshest condemnation anywhere in his letters for those who would impose this ritual upon the gospel that trust by Christ through faith alone. Now, if we return to my Spurgeon stories for a moment, you will quickly see why he and so many other reformed Christians have felt it vital not to give in to legalistic tendencies, but to resist them fervently. Paul begins Galatians five. He says this verse one for freedom. Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. You know, forceful, that is. Stand firm against what? Against legalism and for freedom. This versus the very heart and soul of the letter, and it's worth taking some time to consider. For most of two chapters now. Paul has been telling us about slavery that we are under or that we were under, whether we were Jews or Gentiles prior to coming to faith in Christ. Now, slavery is a terrible condition. But is what the whole world is under in one form or another, whether they chant freedom in a movie or not, because they're either in slavery to sin or to the law or to the devil. But the point he's been making then is that Christ has set us free. Now, if you skip over this too quickly, you will miss the powerful significance of it. How did Christ set us free from sin and the law and say, It's by becoming sin on the cross and giving up his own life by dying for us in our place. In other words, the freedom that Christ won for you costs God everything. Father was separated from the son. For the only time in eternity. The only begotten son of God tasted death that he did not deserve. God Almighty was punished with the fiercest wrath ever known so that we might no longer be under slavery. If, therefore, we return to again fall under the whips of the masters that used to beat us mercilessly, we turn our back on Christ. He says he will be of no advantage to you. He says we are cut off from Christ and we've fallen away from grace. That's very strong, serious language. And this is what both kinds of legalism do. They cause us to stand between polar opposites, north and south. They mix together incompatible compounds. What happens when you mix glycerol with nitric and sulfuric acid? Boom, that's what happens. Have you ever seen the movie Vertical Limit? Some of you have seen it. And there's little nitroglycerin bottles, containers that are leaking in the sun. And at any moment, they explode and the whole mountain erupts. You don't want to die in that kind of a state where you're trying to hold these two things, these two compounds separate, but yet together, it doesn't work. If returning to law is really a cutting off from Christ because you've abandoned faith alone, then there's only one direction that you're going to go in that explosion and it isn't up. Therefore, the apostle commands us, it is an imperative here, the verb of command. This is the law, not a choice. Stand firm. Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Legalism is not a room in the Christian castle. It is the dungeon of the pit of hell. It is a different gospel altogether. What we are saying this morning is the working out of Paul's anathema at the beginning of the letter. Keep that in mind, what does he say at the beginning? If anyone preaches another gospel, let he be eternally condemned. That's what he's bringing about here now. It is serious business to stand up against a kind of religion that looks so good on the outside. but which is full of spiders, webs and all kinds of decaying corpses on the inside. And this is why reformed Christians have so often decided this is a hill we have to die on. The law and the gospel distinction is that important. If or what I should say is I want you to hear that the good news really is and always remains good news. Always. I want you to think for a moment about something. The gospel comes to you with absolutely no cost and no obligation, and it's not a TV commercial. It's utterly free. Just believe that Christ has done all this for you and God will look upon you with favor through the merit of Jesus. And you will be saved because he did all things necessary to please his father. And he offers it to anyone who hears without price. But what is so good about me coming along sometimes later and doing what you often hear on advertisements? My dad sent me this email a couple of weeks ago for five ways that you can have economic success in the coming disaster in our country. So he goes through five things, and each time he goes, this is absolutely free right now. Absolutely free right now. Absolutely free right now. Absolutely free right now. Absolutely free right now. All five of them. And then at the end he says, all you have to do is spend $300 and subscribe to my newsletter. Is that freedom? I mean, come on. What if I came to you and said, now, brothers and sisters, I told you that Christ was enough and he is in a way. But now he really wants you to be good little boys and girls. He demands now that you do what he says, if you want to stay in his good graces. That's not good news. But to those who do not understand the power of the Holy Spirit to change a person's desires, it sounds utterly abominable. Standing firm keeps the good news good. Now, if we will not do this, the consequences are grave indeed, and really a lot of this passage is taken up with the consequences of not standing firm. Verse two says, Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. Now, circumcision is the example that he gives only because this seems to have been the particular law, the false teachers were using to begin their destruction of the gospel. What is circumcision do for Abraham? Ask yourself that question in Genesis. Paul tells you in Romans what it did. Abraham received circumcision as a sign of the faith that he had many years before he was ever circumcised, and it was a symbol of the circum symbol of the circumcision that God had given him in his heart already. But circumcision served another function in the inscrutable plan of God. Circumcision also set apart a physical people in their flesh. Now, last week, as we are going to the end of chapter four, I showed you through Sarah and Hagar that two covenants always remain side by side. God doesn't take one away so that now you never have to deal with it in your life. You can see this in circumcision. Israelites were always supposed to have remembered that Abraham was given this as a sign of faith. But under the terms of the law, if they chose not to believe that then circumcision would stand as a sign of the conditional covenant of works, wherein God would bless them if they obeyed and punish them if they did not. You must remember, then, That chapter five comes right after chapter four and the two covenants that stand side by side with Ishmael and Isaac. One covenant represents works and the other is grace. But both are there as two potential means of salvation, as long as you meet the terms. And conditions and the terms of the covenant of grace is faith alone and the terms of works is perfect obedience. It's the covenant of works that is clearly what the false teachers were forcing the Galatians to return to in their own peculiar teaching on circumcision. They were not pointing to faith as a as this is a sign there, but to the temporary physical standing in the covenant of works. Verse three says, I testify again to everyone who accepts circumcision. Every man that he is obligated to keep the whole law. Now, remember, Paul does not have a problem with circumcision per se, and to keep this up in your mind, as it says in chapter six or verse six in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. So he could have Timothy circumcised. After writing this letter to the Galatians without any feeling that he was forced in Timothy to come under the terms of the covenant of works. If you approach the law as Paul did, then it counted for nothing in terms of meriting God's favor, and then it didn't matter if you got circumcised or not. As he finishes verse six, but only faith working through love counts for anything. But if your attitude towards the law is that this obedience will make God like you. Or even somehow cause you to become more holy, like Pentecost, then you have returned to slavery and you must perfectly keep the law. Now, I say this to you all the time that that's the terms of the covenant of works, but I'm not making this up and neither are reformed theologians. It's right there in the Bible. It's right here in our passage. Verse three, James says it to whoever keeps the whole law, but fails at one point becomes accountable for the whole thing. He's talking about meriting God's favor. The Old Testament says it to be holy as I am holy, and Jesus tells you what was the intent of that be perfect as I am perfect. What is the consequence then of returning to the law? That's utterly devastating. It's what it is. And so using circumcision as the launching point, Paul says, you are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. Now, the verb there severed in the ESV literally means to cut off. Do you see the word play with circumcision? It means that you have made Christ's death of no effect. This is not because Christ's death is ineffectual, it is effectual because of the Holy Spirit to transfer you into one covenant through the doctrine of election. It's a return to the return to the law is a return to the covenant of works, though. And the desire to please God through your righteousness rather than Christ. And this is what it means, then, to fall away from grace. Now, Paul has language that several times in the letter makes you think, well, this is very Arminian, losing your salvation. That's not what he's talking about here. He's not talking about falling away out of salvation. Remember, he's talking to a group here. I made the same point last week. He's not singling out individuals. He's not saying you over there and sits in the second to the last row in the right side of the church. You're going to lose your salvation if you do this. He didn't say that. He's not singling out individuals as a group. They are returning to works and abandoning grace. Anyone who does this within the group is in grave danger of proving that their profession and salvation was a lie. Their names were not really ever written in the book of life by God, but they were forged there by themselves, as if we have the right to put ourselves in such a book is that. Paul is hopeful for true believers here and for the group as a whole in verse 10. that God's word will not return void in this instance, but will powerfully call the people back to their senses. And so he's using the means of grace and he's trusting in them that they're going to be factual. Because the Holy Spirit is pleased to show grace and mercy to them, we don't know historically what really ever happened to the Galatians after this, but Paul certainly has the hope. There are subtle and deadly forces that are surrounding the Galatians here, trying to get them to abandon Christ. And so Paul wonders aloud in verse seven, you were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? Now, that's an interesting choice of words to obey the truth. I mean, to obey the truth, well, that means to obey the gospel. But to obey the gospel is to believe by faith and not by words of obedience. So it's kind of an irony, isn't it? Such deceivers in verse eight are not from God who calls you. Through the Holy Spirit and the word, they come from somewhere else, and I've spent some time in past weeks telling you about where they come from. Somebody else is calling them and wooing them with a siren song to the rocky island far out at sea where they will perish in the storms and the obstacles of their fleshly obedience. These people sound divine to them. Their message seems so pure and so good, it's definitely religious. I mean, it comes from the Bible, after all, to be circumcised. That's where we learn about circumcision. God's the one who told the Jews not to murder or steal or take his name in vain. He's the one who said, do all these things and you will live. But he also said, you can't do these things because I'm a holy God and I haven't given you a heart to obey me or ears to hear me or eyes to see me. They don't want to remember those words because depravity is never a popular message among legalists. They only want to teach things that will puff up their pride in the pride of their listeners and. Make themselves appear to be super apostles and great religious teachers of morals and wisdom. Paul uses a metaphor in verse nine of. Leaven and bread, it's one of his favorite figures, he doesn't really explain it here, he just says a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. So if you go to Corinthians, for example, where he uses the metaphor, he ties that imagery right to the death of Jesus. He says, Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened for Christ. Our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil. But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The context of Corinthians is the sinful actions of the church, and the same you will see very shortly next week is true of the Galatians. They were so high and mighty in their desire to return to pure obedience to the law, and at the same time, if you go down to verse 15 as an example, he says, you keep on biting and devouring one another. It's sort of like Sarah Palin might put it. How is that keeping the law thing working out for you? You can't even treat each other with a little love and respect. How do you think God will then be pleased with your circumcision? Eleven is a substance that you put in dough to make it ferment like yeast or to produce gas and to rise like baking powder. And obviously, if you've ever cooked it, you know that it doesn't take a lot to work itself through the entire lump of dough. And this is the way the false gospel of legalism works, too. It doesn't take a big bite to see that suddenly your entire way of thinking has changed, reverted back to where to from the freedom that you had in Christ, to where you've now abandoned the gospel. It doesn't take very many people in a church to confuse the gospel and the law to start needing slavery to send back into the bread of the church through gossip or through bad Bible studies or through corrupting influence or whatever. And this is another reason why it's so important to stand firm and not let yourselves give in to your very natural desires to improve upon God's law. or to take his laws. And suddenly think that through them, you're justified or sanctified or glorified. We are an unleavened bunch, that's what he tells the Corinthians, that's what you are, a group that does not find our satisfaction in the tasty bread that we bake with the yeast and baking powder of our own good works. We are the people who feed upon the bread of heaven. Our Passover lamb who was stricken by God so that our sin might be given to him and so that we might be justified in his sight apart from our works and only by his. Any other gospel than that is an abomination and it's a curse. But like I said earlier in verse 10, Paul's confidence is that the Galatians will take no other view of the truth than what he's saying, but he adds his severe anger towards those who are leading his little children astray. He says, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is, and he adds one of the most severe condemnations in the entire Bible in verse twelve. Look at it. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. Now, I'm not going to be Victorian here and dance around what's going on. Because you need to see how serious this really is. This is a crude language. The word like the word earlier, it's a different word, but it also means to cut off. And in fact, it translates the word to crush as in testicles in Deuteronomy 23 to. It means to castrate or to emasculate, in other words, Paul's being very crude here. He's saying that if I'm going to start with the tip, why don't they just, as the NIV puts it, go the whole way and cut the whole thing off? He's angry with the righteous indignation that is hardly, maybe never paralleled anywhere else in his letters, because this false teaching puts the Galatians in danger of hellfire. You think of all the things Paul ever wrote about in his letters? All the bad sins that people were doing in those churches. He never talks about them like this. It's only when legalism comes into view that he's that serious and angry. That is that is something to really stop and think about my friends. This is why we have to stand up strongly and persistently against false teaching that tries to rob the good news of its power and us of our joy. One thing about legalists you will notice is that they are never happy people. And how can they be when their whole life is consumed with outward perfection and is usually completely oblivious to their own hearts? And all because of a false understanding of the purpose and the work of the law. Your pastor wants you to be happy people. And I want you to be free people. I want your obedience. You said you wanted us to obey. Yeah, I want you to obey, but I want your obedience to come from joy, not from servitude or obligation. I want you to know the true power from the tyranny of sin that you've been released from. I can only come by living as if you really were free. Is for freedom that Christ set us free, that means you. Friends, you are not justified or sanctified or glorified by keeping the law. The gospel sits right in the middle of the passage today in verse five, through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. It's one of the reasons why I read the gospel from Romans chapter eight. It's very similar waiting for the hope. Romans 824 says, who hopes for what he already has? But through faith in Christ's righteousness, we believe that God looks upon us right now as if we were righteous, because that's the only way that he can bring unrighteous people to heaven. He has to declare them righteous. He can't just zip you up there because you're 51 percent good. He also declares us righteous because he loves his son and because he's preparing us to be a spotless bride for him. through the gospel. How are you cleansed and washed and made new and sanctified? It's through word and sacrament. Through hearing that you are free. God wants to make his bride pure, spotless, blameless, holy, glorious white virgin for Jesus. Like I said at the beginning, there's a lot of Christians who don't like the way Spurgeon responded to Pentecost and makes them angry because they love their own self-righteousness. They love to be puffed up by their own works and holiness. It makes them feel good and worth something to God because they want to do it for him. This is a reaction Paul knew far too well in verse eleven. He says, if I brother still pre circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. This is a fascinating verse. What in the world is he talking about? Well, let me get back. Let me get at this by going back to the opening stories. I don't particularly like smoking. In fact, I think it's pretty disgusting. And it harms people's health. But like all gifts of God, it can also be enjoyable, especially when you are around a bunch of reformed Baptist pastors after the meetings. Moderation and common sense and a little wisdom should be used when you hear about these things, but spiritually speaking, smoking is nothing and not smoking is nothing. It doesn't make you a lesser or a better Christian. They say, well, what if it's something that could lead to sin, let's say drunkenness and alcohol or fill in the blank. If you get drunk, it must obviously make you a lesser Christian, one that has lost God's favor, right? No. Nothing we do in obedience or in disobedience makes us better or worse Christians. All that matters in this area is faith alone. And this is where the persecution comes in right here, because people hate that kind of a message. They think it's an excuse to sin. They think it shows disdain for the law of God, because but it's because these people have not come to a knowledge of the truth themselves. They've never experienced the change that the Holy Spirit brings in a person's heart. The amazing and ironic thing is that these people will never understand this. Once a person is really saved by such a free message, God begins working in that person's heart to give them new desires and affections. Sometimes it happens immediately. Sometimes it happens over a long, long, long, long period of time. But the sins that once entangled begin to lose their excitement and their appeal. We find ourselves wanting better things. We find ourselves wanting to obey and to please God because he's working out our new life through the spirit, through word and sacrament. But the farthest thing in our mind now is that by doing or not doing, we're somehow meriting God's favor because we know that God is pleased with Christ and because he looks upon us as he looks upon him, because he loves him and he loves us. It's utterly free. The offense of the cross, that which is a stumbling block to Jews and an offense to the or foolishness to Gentiles, is our freedom from the obligation to keep the law. That's the offense. This is absolutely backwards from every other religion on the planet. Including many falsely disguised so-called Christian teachings. The offense is that Christ has done it all and that you and I have nothing to add to his perfect work. It is natural to think that if we do something good, we will be rewarded by God with life, as long as the good outweighs the bad, that's the way we were wired since the fall, maybe before the fall. I don't know. It's natural to think that if the flesh can be subdued, that the spirit and the heart will follow. Never mind that it's the heart that told the flesh to go out and do what it did. Even when we know that we grieve the Holy Spirit and bring about God's displeasure from our sin, and we do, we also realize that it is always a loving father's displeasure and that he never stops loving us or bringing about what is best for us, as he promised. That's the whole point of Romans 8. It ends in that very kind of language, doesn't it? Who can bring any charge against God's elect? Doesn't that include you and the things you've done? People who hate grace persecute those who stand up for it. Get used to it and learn to recognize what's going on. If a person is being persecuted for their message because they tell people that their only hope is outside of themselves, in the Lord Jesus, then they are being persecuted exactly as Jesus told them that they would be, because the world hates Christ, even though Christ loves the world. Believe in this love and in his death, and God will save you from your sins. And do not give up faith alone at any point. Because to do so is to put your soul in peril, my friends. Do not return to the yoke of the law. If you must cling to something in the day of trouble, cling to the rock, because he will never be moved or shaken. And he says that his burden is light and his yoke is easy to bear. Father, whenever we talk about what Paul talks about here, whenever I think about it, I can see how angry Paul gets about the legalism, because I know that personally, if you were to look upon me at any moment in my life from the things that I did or wasn't doing, God, you would send me to hell faster than a lightning bolt from Zeus. But you don't do that, Lord, you offer a free grace to people that remains free. And you also give us a Holy Spirit. Who is God Almighty, who works miraculously through the word and the gospel to create new life and to bring us out of the flesh and the temptations that come in the world and the things that are passing away, and he gives us desires to love you and to want to obey you out of. Gladness for what you've done for us. And so, Father. Help us to be a people that wants to obey you, that loves your law. That delights in the things that you've told us, but may it always remain a free thing for your people that you Look upon them because of what Jesus has done and only that. Please don't let your people go back to the slavery that they once found themselves in. Create joy in their hearts. Oh, Lord, I pray. Give them a great hope for future that they have. Thank you for what Jesus has done for us, for it's the only way that any of us could ever stand in your presence. And we've come into your presence here for this hour. We've been lifted up into heavenly places and. You fed us, you've brought us close to yourself, I pray that you would continue to do this for us as we come to the Lord's table and that it would be a reminder of your goodness, your kindness, your selflessness to go all the way to the very end, to being forsaken by the father in heaven that Jesus would die a death that he did not deserve, that he took my death upon himself. As we think about these things in the supper, may you also use them to grow us and to change us and to help us. And I would ask that you would do this in Jesus name. Amen.