So yesterday we had our Children of Light Symposium, and I view this message as sort of the final part of that. In God's providence, we're right there in Genesis chapter 3, the fall. These verses we're about to read, Genesis 3, 7 to 12, and then again 21 to 24. We've already done the first part of those. And then a little bit into the sermon, we'll read these verses from Romans chapter 5, because I really view this sermon as a Romans 5, 6 to 11 sermon on the backdrop of the fall in Genesis 3. So please listen. This is the very word of our God. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me a fruit of the tree and I ate. And down to verse 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man. And at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of the Lord. Next week, Pastor Pablo will be preaching, and when I come back, we'll do the rest of Genesis 3, including those last verses that we just read. I entitled this sermon, Hope for Broken Rebels. You may remember, it's been a year ago, I had a harrowing Memorial Day weekend. Last year, after a wonderful camping trip with many in this trip, we packed up the car and trailer, and the trailer went careening off the road at 65 or 70 miles an hour, spinning around, hitting the guardrail multiple times, and we came out of it without a scratch. You may remember that. Amen is right. This year we decided to do something less adventurous than camping for Memorial Day. And we went to Myrtle Beach. And many of you said, why on earth would you go there? We had a great place. I guess it was a condo or an apartment. We were on the third story balcony. We had a private beach. There was a pool below the balcony and then beautiful palm trees and like a picnic area and then the sands and the ocean. And honestly, it was perfect, idyllic even. Yes, there was the craziness of the road and people cruising the strip on the other side. And yes, there was a lot of partying going on. But on our beach and from our balcony, it was great. And one night, it was 10.30 at night, and Susan and the kids did what everybody, of course, does on vacation at 10.30 at night. They walk a half mile to Krispy Kreme. I just was sitting on this balcony, cool breeze, glow of lights off both the pool area, the pool was lit and the palm trees and the crash of the waves in the ocean and a cool ocean breeze and I was reading by the light that came through the sliding glass doors. Just thanking God for the beauty and the wonders of creation and common grace to us all and peace and tranquility rest amidst a busy season of life, all of a sudden I heard three loud sounds. And again, this was Memorial Weekend, it was bike week, and there was a lot of bikes and classic cars cruising the strip on the other road, and you know, cars can backfire and motorcycles can backfire. But it didn't sound like a loud vehicle backfiring. It was too erratic and it just didn't feel right. It jarred the peace. I actually waited. I was like, I have to see what that was. So I went through to the front door of our place. There was like a walkway out there and a railing and I go out to see mayhem on the road. And the guests in the room to our, I just said, and their faces just were horrified, and I said, what happened? What was that? And he said, there's a shootout right in front, and it was right there. And the man was laying, bleeding out on the road, and it was chaos. And this whole weekend, there were cops everywhere on the street, and they were nowhere to be found. And this is not a critique of the cops. I'm just saying, to add to the, the whole experience. And so as I saw the chaos, And I mean, I could throw a tennis ball and hit the man laying bleeding out on the road right in front. And so I called Susan immediately. And I just said, where are you? And she says that, you know, they're at the car. I said, well, you need to stay there until I figure out what's happening here. And quickly, it became near-riot conditions because the man's bleeding out, whatever the fight was, was, there was a lot of shouting and people are angry. And then this is the strip. So people are continuing to walk upon a body bleeding out on the road. And I thought we were in the middle of a riot. And so I called her again and said, Stay there. I'm coming. and I'm going to help us navigate this because I didn't want to be separate from them. And as I came down, the police started to arrive and I passed the man bleeding out literally five feet away as they were working on him. And I started running through a crowd that I, hard to get through. And because of the chaos, people started shouting at me and pointing at me to the cops. This guy's running. And so now I think maybe I'm going to be implicated somehow. And so I get to my wife and kids, and the adrenaline is pumping in me, but they don't have any idea what happened, so they couldn't quite process it. And what I wanted to do was navigate us around to the other side of the hotel and the back roads and get us into safety. And when we got back, we looked out from the balcony, and there was no more a man bleeding out on the road. It was just a white sheet. And I just had this awful sense, like what just happened? Because there couldn't be more extremes of what I had just experienced. The juxtaposition of a cool breeze off of an ocean and just peace and death. That's the fall, y'all. That's creation. That's the sin in the garden. Somehow God has chosen to continue to give us common grace so that sinners and rebels like myself and like y'all can enjoy the beauties of His goodness day in and day out. And yet there's darkness lurking at every corner. It's a broken world made up of broken people. But worse than that, it's a sinful world made up of sinful people. I came to find out that the shooting was over a parking spot. I thought it was a gang issue. I mean, there was a lot of indications there were gangs in the area. It was over a parking spot. A man lost his life. See, there's great beauty in darkness. There's great good and evil in creation. We think they're sinful people and broken people. Hitler, sinful. George on his balcony, just broken. Somebody who would kill somebody over a parking space, sinful. Us with our petty spats and disagreement, broken. And we want the sinful people dealt with. Justice. No grace for Hitler. Or murderers on a holiday weekend. But the rest of us, just help us out a little. See, the Bible gives us a completely different picture of the fall. The fall doesn't just kind of break some of us and make others of us really wicked. We become sinners and rebels against the Holy God. That's who we are. That's who I was in the peace and tranquility I had on the balcony. And it was, it plagued me, because we had another day or two there. So then, you know, what are we supposed to do? A man lost his life. Go back in the ocean? Throw the ball with the kids? What do you do? I didn't know him. Didn't feel right. I couldn't go to bed. I went back on the balcony. Next day we went in the ocean. And I just had this sense of the fallenness of creation the rest of the weekend. And it made me face who I really am outside of salvation in Jesus Christ. The problem that the Bible portrays and the problem in the Garden is that we are rebels and sinners against a holy God. And we will not appreciate God's goodness and grace to us until we rightly assess that. And we will not offer the salvation and hope that we have in Jesus Christ to others truthfully and properly unless we rightly assess that. And that's what this sermon is about. It's just helping us see who we are without Christ, who we are with Christ and still struggle to be. To appreciate God's goodness to us, so that we can help others have the same freedom that those of us in Jesus Christ have. The three parts to your sermon are three R's. R's are great for points if you haven't figured that out. Rebellion, reconciliation, and rejoicing. Last week we saw how Adam and Eve rebel in the garden and we analyzed some of this already and we saw how it started out with a questioning of the Word of God which ended up changing the Word of God and contradicting the Word of God. How sin conceived. She saw that the fruit was good. She desired the fruit. She then took the fruit and ate the fruit and she gave the fruit. She shared the sin with her husband. That caused them to cover, hide, blame because of fear. All that was in last week's sermon. It says their eyes were opened. And this is interesting because we see even as their eyes were opened, what happened actually? Their hearts were darkened. That's the picture of this sinful world. They think they're wise in their own eyes, knowing good from evil and choosing good and evil and determining good and evil for themselves apart from the Creator, the creature rejecting the truth of the Creator, trading the Truth for a lie. See, that's the condition, not just what happens in the garden, but what happens to every human being. What is the condition of every human being without Jesus Christ? Trading the truth for a lie. The effects of sin are instantly experienced. Instantly. They hide themselves. They remove themselves from the presence of the Lord. And that is so key there. The very face of God. Of course, that's hilarious if it's not so tragic. Psalm 139, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I free from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there. bed and shield of the grave you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is not as bright as day for the darkness is as light for you. You can't hide from God, but they try to hide. And we talked about those questions last week also, so we won't go back into that. A call to repentance. Where are you? You're not with me now, Adam. But not only is that relationship with God instantly severed, but relationship with one another is instantly severed. As Adam blames Eve, blames God and Eve. The very next story in the Bible, we're going to see the strife between brothers, of all things. Next time I preach, we'll see that relationship to creation is ruined, as the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles and there'll be pain and childbirth and it's just, you know. Eve, of course, blames the serpent. So those three relationships, God, others, creation, strained, ruined, damaged, severed, but also relationship with self. They fear, have insecurity, feel shame. So there's four relationships, actually. God, self, others, and the world around us all break. Severed. Broken. Maybe in your own lives you see how your own sin can produce this pattern of creating alienation with God as you try to cover yourself before Him, straining your relationship with others and feeling shame, condemnation, a conscience with yourself. It's funny how that actually comes out in your relationship with creation, because oftentimes when I'm angry, I end up hurting myself. Man, you ever working in the garage, come up with some interesting words so the kids don't really know what you're saying and hit yourself with a hammer? So many of my own injuries are because of my own anger. God, self, others, creation. See, our hopeless condition is often referred to as broken. We're broken. We say it as pastors. I say it. I pray it. Taylor prays it. Pablo prays it. I get it. We are indeed broken. But that's not all we are. And I'm concerned with an overemphasis on brokenness because it's passive. It's like it's not our fault. I'm broken, like the song says. I'm only human after all. Don't put the blame on me. This is where Romans 5 comes in, and so I'm going to read that now. It's in your bulletin. Romans 5 is a big Genesis 3 passage in general. In the past we've looked at the verses that are after this that talk about Jesus Christ as the new Adam. In Adam, all have sinned. In Christ, all who are in Christ receive reconciliation. It's a long passage and it tells us Adam is a type of Christ. But we're going to read the verses right before, Romans 5, chapter 5, verses 6 to 11. And look at how I highlighted it for us with underlines. While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, but perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Do you see the pattern? He's using the same phraseology. While we were still weak, while we were still sinners, while we were enemies, there's an amplification of our condition, an intensification. It's not that we're just weak. And that word there is unable, sick. Oftentimes it'll be translated, it'll talk about people, Jesus healing the sick, the infirm, the powerless sometimes it means. We're not just that. We're sinners. We're not just sinners. It makes us enemies, rebels against a holy and righteous God, his enemy. Ephesians 2, the great passage, for you have been saved by grace through faith, this is not your own doing, this is the gift of God that no one may boast. Before that it says this, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once, we were all dead. We lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath like them, the rest of mankind. But God, so there's your two great but God moments, Romans 5, Ephesians 2. Being rich in mercy because of the great love which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The picture that the Bible gives, and you've heard this analogy before, is not that of a drowning person whose hand is up like this and just needs to grab the hand reaching down to them. It's of a dead person in the bottom of the sea that is decaying and being consumed by the creatures of the sea, and somebody reaching down into the sea, picking up somebody who can't reach back, bringing them up and giving them life. There was a popular pastor who said this as he was talking about how to reach this new culture, and this kind of goes back to some of yesterday's symposium. But he basically said sin doesn't resonate in this culture. He struggled to reach people in cities by talking about sin. And so he wanted to remain faithful to Scripture, but he just stopped talking about sin and he started talking about idols and idolatry because that seemed to resonate better with people. Well, that's true. Every sin involves idolatry. And every sin involves brokenness. And every sin involves unbelief. But each one on their own is not encompassing of sin, because sin is first and foremost rebellion against a holy God. It doesn't surprise me that sin doesn't resonate with our culture. that they don't want to hear they're sinners, they don't understand what that is. By the way, I don't believe that for one second. Because even the most hardened, atheistic, progressive person in the culture, if you hit them or steal from them, they will want justice, and they know exactly what sin is. And Romans 1 says, in our hearts, we are always doing that to other people. We know what sin is. The same pastor, when asked what's the big deal with homosexual behavior and gay marriage, what's the big deal with it, the pastor said publicly, it's his moment, it's not God's best for you. Who is he, Joel Osteen? Yes, sin is not God's best for you, but that's not why it's wrong. It's not best for me to eat An extra cookie here is some of the other stuff it's not necessarily sin to. Sin is first disobedience and rebellion against a holy God. Christian, notice what it says, while we were still weak, while we were still enemies, while we were still sinners. We can have an error in this, and I've had this a lot. You know, some people who maybe doesn't like repentance of sin in the worship service, or if we say, well, we're sinners. I try to say we're sinful, because the Bible calls us saints. But there is the already not yet tension that nobody likes to live in. See, you have been justified, but that doesn't make you righteous yet. You are being conformed into the image of Christ. That's a positional declaration. How does God view you as a justified person positionally? But we still sin. And we are still broken, by the way. And we often act like enemies. And so the challenge for Christians is not to live in those states. That's why Paul and the apostles are constantly saying to put off the old and put on the new. To have a renewed mind. Yes, you're broken and weak. But the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. And then you see everything in that, that it tells us to get up and walk in newness of life, to walk in the power of the Spirit, that you actually can change. And so many Christians are afraid of telling other Christians that, so they leave them in this state of brokenness and just be glad that one day everything will be alright. And I get it, we don't want to be holiness preachers that act like you're not a real Christian if you're sinning. And that you could actually achieve perfection now. We're not that. But I'm afraid that so many Christians are robbing people of the real joy of the power of the Holy Spirit to change them by telling them to expect nothing at all because they're broken. No. We are supposed to recognize that we're broken. Absolutely. That's why we say it up here. But then, we have a renewed mind and the power of the Holy Spirit to say, I'm not who I was, and I one day will be better than I am, but praise God for he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion a day of Christ Jesus. So I can walk in the Spirit. I can change. I have changed. I am changing, not in my flesh, but in his power and in the Spirit. And that's why I want to protect against brokenness theology. We are broken, but a theology that leaves us there is wrong. And a theology that just says our only problem is our brokenness is wrong because it says we're sinners and rebels against a holy God. And if we don't honor that and we don't get that, we will never understand grace. Verse 8 of Romans 5, but God shows his love for us that while we were sinners, while we were enemies, Christ died for us. These foolish people in the garden that had everything and lost it, that's us, yes. They try to cover themselves. They're unable to cover themselves. That's that word again, while we were weak, while we were unable, sick, dead, can't cover, fake leaves, that's the joke. God has to kill an animal to clothe them with skins. The New Testament says we wear filthy rags. Paul says I don't want a righteousness of my own, I want to wear Christ's righteousness, his pure garments. bought and paid for by His blood, His blood shed on the tree of life, the cross, spilt for you and for me. That's what it costs. That's why it's so heinous. That's why the bronze serpent in the wilderness there to look at the heinousness of the serpent and you look at the cross of Christ. And that's not a visual representation. That's seeing truly what Jesus and the love of God has done for you and me. See, if you're just broken, you just need a little fixing. And He does fix us. But what does a sinner need? How can a sinner stand before a holy God? He can't. He needs righteousness, justification. What does an enemy need? Reconciliation. Look at Romans 5. Weak sinners, enemies, Verse 9, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him. So you, weak person, are saved. You, sinner person, are justified. Verse 10, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled. You, sinful, rebel enemy, are reconciled to a holy God, your friend. God calls Moses his friend. Jesus calls his disciples his friends. And that goes to us. Yesterday, Dr. James Anderson talked about how Islam, there's no relationship between the creator and creation. God is so other, and there's no likeness there. But we've been made in God's image. And he calls us his friends, something that the Islamic religion can never offer their people. The text says God demonstrates His love for us, shows His love as demonstrates by dying, by sending His Son to die. This is why Romans 5 can say in verse 1, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace, that's the reconciliation. Through him, we've obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. This is why we receive reconciliation and friendship. You know, this broken thing, is a key theme in the Bible, this weakness. Hebrews 2 says, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things. This is why Jesus became a man. This is why the incarnation, God becomes flesh. That through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. Therefore he has to be made like his brothers in every respect. so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 4, we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, our brokenness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. You're discouraged about your inability, your brokenness, why you still sin, why you feel shame. Jesus felt all of that, yet without sin. He didn't have sinful desires. We talked about this yesterday also. He felt rejection. He suffered hunger. The cross was viewed as shame. Broken relationship with the Father in that moment. All his friends abandoned him. Go to your Savior who understands. We go baldly, Hebrews says, because we're reconciled by His blood. He is a propitiation for our sins. Jesus says, pray with me for the flesh is weak. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That's your Savior. But of course, if we say we don't have sin, we call him a liar, and the truth is not in us. So this is the tension, y'all. This is what I'm trying. And after these three weeks, so the first week of September, we have Wednesday night classes. And those first three weeks, we're calling Worship in the Church. We'd like everybody to be there. And if you can't, I know, no pressure. We'd like you to watch them, though. But after those, the class is going to be called The Majesty of Mystery. And it's all about Christian paradox. How we hold in tension the realities like this. How is it that we were weak, we were sinners, and we were enemies, and yet we still feel weak, we still sin, and we still act like enemies? Covering and hiding from a holy God, but one who loves you. It's the tension. This is why repentance is part of the Christian faith and walk. It's all it is. Look, same thing. Your sins have been forgiven on the cross, past tense. But we still ask for forgiveness now. If you sin, He is faithful and just to forgive your sins now. What do you mean? I thought they were forgiven. Yes, but we appropriate the realities and the blessings of Christ in space and time. We are physical human beings living in a time continuum. So what has been declared in eternity plays out in time. And you can't sin your way out of the love of Jesus Christ. You can't. That's the point of what I just read in Romans 5. While we were that, he did this. What's the point? He's not gonna abandon you now. That's why Romans 8 in that pinnacle chapter in so many of our lives. If God is for us, who can be against us? That's the point. He gave us His Son while we were weak, enemies and rebels. How much more now won't He give us all things? So Romans 8 says, He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Who will condemn? It is God who justifies. You're worried about condemnation from others? You've been absolved, not guilty, by the judge of the universe. Standing before him, not in a righteousness of your own, but in pure white garments of Jesus Christ because you are saved by what? By his life. Look at verse 10 in Romans 5. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life, both because He has resurrection life that brings Him to glory, but because of His life on earth, living in this sinful world. Did not count equality, God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's our Savior, saved by His active obedience to fulfill the law, to be the new Adam, to succeed where the old Adam fails, to rather than blame the bride who is condemned, stand in the gap before the Father and say, I take the blame for my precious bride. Take it out on me, the wrath. And God does. That's what our sin costs. And this says, verse 11, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. You see, the recognition of our weakness, our brokenness, our sin, our acting like enemies is overshadowed by the joy of Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You have been set free. And that's why Christians don't grieve without hope. That's why we don't wallow in shame and condemnation. We take it to the cross. And if we don't, we are living in the flesh. God does not want self-flatulation. You can't whip yourself and feel the pain. You give it up. That's why we don't wallow in our brokenness. We can admit it. We can cry. We can rest our heads on our friends God gives us, the church, because this life is hard. But then we get up. Like I've said before, have a good cry with a friend in God, and then get up in the power of the Spirit and walk in newness of life. Adopted children. If Christ came for you knowing your sin and rebellion, now that you're His, He will save you. This frees us from being honest about our brokenness but not wallowing in it. It frees us to face our sin rather than hide, cover, blame, and fear. It frees us to admit that when we stand on our own righteousness, we Christians act like enemies. But when we stand in His righteousness, we are free. It frees us from thinking we can't change. But in Christ, we are moving from one degree of glory to the next. He is conforming us into the image of his son. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion and is bringing it to completion. And so the point of this is, we can't rob others of this joy. And we rob others of this joy when we downplay their rebellion and sin. Now, I'm not saying the first time you see somebody, you just condemn them. You, world, wag your finger at them. That's not it. But so many people that are promoting this, ah, you're just broken and it's not God's best for you, they never get to the point to tell them your real problem is you're a rebel against a holy God. We've got to tell them the truth. I go back to the beginning of the sermon when I talked about Memorial Day at Myrtle Beach. It wasn't just the murder. Even before that, you know, like I said, many of y'all warned me, you don't want to go there. By the way, I found the place beautiful. Again, there's a dark side and a pretty side, glorious side. Beautiful seas, it was blue ocean. But we'd venture off along the strip to go shopping and restaurants and all this. And my soul was just grieved at the amount of people shaking their fist at God. The way people spoke, the way people acted, the way people dressed, it was just outright rebellion. And I found myself ashamed to be walking around with my kids and angry. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was almost as if God said, I'm not saying He said this, but my spirit received, did you forget this was you 25 years ago? In street parties. dressed in ways I won't tell you, doing things I can't share, shaking my fist at a holy God even though I didn't think I was doing that. And it reminds me of Jesus Christ on the cross. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. What? They crucified the Lord of glory? Forgive them? And I'm reminded of myself on one of those street corners. At a Mardi Gras-like festival, it was at Savannah, Georgia, for St. Patrick's Day, which is a big thing, and there's beads, and there's all kinds of stuff. And a guy was standing there with a big sign, a big billboard with Bible verses on it. One of these guys that people say Christians are ashamed of, because why is he doing that? This isn't the way. This isn't winsome. This guy wasn't yelling at anybody. He wasn't, like, fighting with people. He just stood there. People spit on him, was throwing stuff at him. I thought I was a Christian. I was a little offended at the guy. So I was like, you know, I'm going to go talk to him. Dude, what's your problem, man? He goes, what do you mean? He says, are you a Christian? I said, yeah, well, yeah, I know Jesus is God. And he started quoting Bible verses to me. I said, yeah, but you've got to understand, we're not hurting anybody here. God really only doesn't really care about this kind of stuff. We're not hurting people. He says, where's that? What verse is that? He just confronted me with the Word of God. In the meantime, people are throwing stuff at him, beads and other stuff. And then a friend of mine threw something obscene on him. And he looked at me, didn't even address my friend, looked at me and he said, are these your friends? Very sheepishly said, yeah. He goes, do you call yourself a Christian? Yeah. He told me to wake up. I said, you need to wake up. And there was love in his voice. And, I mean, I didn't come to faith in that moment, but it always stuck with me, and it grieved me. What is the relationship between what I claim to believe and how I live? And do I get determined right from wrong, like Adam and Eve in the garden, and I have this knowledge of good and evil, and I can determine what's okay and what's not okay? Or am I a creature subjected to the Creator, but not in an Islamic sense? a distant God, but one who wants to make me an enemy, his friend. And so that's why I want us to be children of light. That's why I want us to stand firm on what is truth. There's not two truths, the truth for the church and the truth for the world. God always judged, in the Old Testament, the world, the pagans, by his moral law. This idea that we can abstract society from the law of God, because they're not Christians, they shouldn't be expected to follow that, they just need the gospel, Read the Bible and read even the New Testament. Read the book of Acts and see what happens to rulers that defy the law of God that Paul tells them. They die on the spot and worms eat them. Now, I want to preach the gospel of grace and hope, but they can't have that if they don't know they're a broken rebel shaking their fist at the creator of the universe that wants them to be their child. My hope for us Christians, to be honest, that we don't measure up, but in Christ we are infinitely valuable, and then to want to share that hope with others. Truth and love, the way we heard on the stage yesterday, particularly in the Q&A session, and I hope those videos will be out this week, because it was really good answers to how to do this truth and love thing, I think. If you don't know Jesus Christ, and maybe some of my story resonates with you, or maybe you just realize you're just not rightly viewing this, All you do is turn to God. Recognize His Son is God and His blood is shed for you and you receive His work in your place. Then you seek to follow your Savior. That's what you do. Believe. Let's pray.