I invite you again to turn to the Book of Romans as we continue our study in Paul's Epistle. This is our third study in chapter five, verses 12 through 21. And our last study on this section, there's no way to teach this passage in three Sermons, there's so much here. It has been a great joy to me to spend the time that I've had to study this in the last two months. I actually dreamed about this passage, and I don't dream at all, ever. But I've been in it a great deal, and I'm thankful. I think it's getting into me, and that's what God wants, isn't it? He wants the word and the truth to get inside of us and awaken, and correct, and direct us, and encourage us, and strengthen us. It has been just sheer delight for me to face the discipline of the many hours of looking into this and trying to open this up and somewhat of an easy-to-understand fashion. Let's read again verses 12 through 21. Someone wondered how I was reading the last time I preached without my Bible open, and this section is broken on two pages, and I photocopied it so that I could read it together. I don't have it memorized. Not quite. Let's hear God's Word. Romans chapter 5, verse 12 through 21. When we get to verse 20, pay special attention because that's our text for today. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man. Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass or the trespass of one led to condemnation for all men, So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, Grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so the question or the theme of this passage is, how can we that were dead in trespasses and sins, we who were the enemies of God, we who were, as we read earlier, full of bitterness and cursing, without hope in this world, how can someone like this be made to rejoice in hope of the glory of God, having the confidence that God is going to be glorified through us and that we're going to share in His glory. How can people like us anticipate sharing in the glory of God? How is it that what one man has done, our Lord Jesus Christ, How can what this one man, what he's done, bring justification and life and glory to an untold multitude of men? How can one man do all that for so many? How can the action of Jesus, the man Jesus, Jesus Christ, how can he effect such a change in so many, how is it that the Lord Jesus Christ, in what He did in becoming a man, His incarnation, His life, His obedient life, His death and His resurrection, how can it that Jesus, the one man, can save more than one man here today? That's the focus of this passage. How is this possible? And these are the matters that Paul is addressing in this passage. And though there's some really complex things here, there's a simplicity here that has been just so thrilling to me to realize these root principles and these first principles of the gospel and how they work salvation for us. The key to the answer to these questions is found in the end of verse 14 where Adam is called a type of the one who is to come or who was to come. And we know who that one to come is, that's Jesus Christ. And Paul is not so concerned about teaching us the history of Adam as he is explaining to us that there's another Adam, Jesus Christ, and that Adam is a picture or a type of Jesus Christ. When Adam was created, he was created to be the representative of all of humanity, of all of mankind. He wasn't created just as an isolated individual. He was a representative for all of mankind. And Jesus Christ, when he was incarnate, He was incarnate. He became man to be a representative for all who are in him. And so Adam is a type or a model or a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this passage is not, let's not think this is about the first Adam, but the last Adam, the second man. So this is the theme that we've been studying, we've been thinking about this and working our way through this. If you miss this, if you don't get this principle that Jesus Christ was our representative and he, the one man, did a work for the many, then you obligate yourself to dig in and find a way to save yourself as an individual. If Jesus Christ did not do what He did for us, then you must do it for yourself. And I realize how true that is because of great weakness in my background in relationship to this passage. It truly did give way to a lot of emphasis on every individual trying to do their very best and save themselves. But we are delivered from that work's personal obligation Salvation were delivered from that failure by recognizing that Jesus Christ did it for us in our place as our representative. And so Jesus' perfect obedience to God brought to us the free gift of righteousness by the grace of God. As verse 21 says, that as sin reigned in death, that was in the first Adam, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And brothers and sisters, it's not in this first Adam and the last Adam, the second Adam, it's not that once sin reigned and now grace reigns. It's not that. That would be a tit for tat. That would be, you know, sin reigned, grace reigned. Paul makes it clear that where sin reigned, much more. There's more in grace than what there is sin in Adam. And so, in Jesus Christ we have much more. As I said several times, Jesus Christ did not bring us back to a zero. We are much more in Christ than what Adam was in creation. And so, let's move on now to verses 20 and 21. And there's a question that arises. as if you read this passage and you were thinking about it, you would realize that Paul, he skips from the end of Genesis all the way to Matthew. He goes into detail in speaking about Adam, the first man and what he did, and then he leaves that and he jumps all the way to Matthew to Jesus Christ. And so the question is, we could ask Paul, and Paul anticipates this question, but Paul, what about this part you missed in laying out this plan of salvation, of redemption, what about everything between Adam and Christ? And this is not the only place where this happens. does the same thing in Galatians as he's teaching on a very similar subject. Galatians was written about eight or nine years before the book of Romans, but in Galatians 3 and 19, Paul is speaking about Abraham, and then he abruptly stops, and he goes to Christ. And the question is raised in verse 19, well, what about the law then? If you teach us about Abraham being justified by faith, and we got that, you skipped Moses. You skipped the law and the prophets. You just went directly to Jesus Christ. And so Paul in 3.19 in Galatians says, why then the law? It's like he knew this question was going to be asked. If Abraham, you talk about him and inheritance through faith as Abraham inherited the promise by faith, why then the law? And he asks that question. That's what he's doing in verse 20 of our text today. What about the law? What's the place of the law? If it's all about Adam being a picture of Christ, what about all of the rest of the Old Testament scriptures from Genesis all the way to Matthew? Now, when Paul asks or comments on the law in verse 20, when he says, the law came in to increase the trespass, he's speaking about the law of Moses. That's the law that he's speaking about. Aren't you ignoring the law that was given by God to Moses? What's the place of the law in all of this? And here he gives a brief answer. He explains why the law was given. He's going to talk about it more in chapter 7. He's going to get in more detail in that chapter. When we get there, we can look at that. The same question came up, or a similar comment was made in chapter 3 and verse 31, Paul asks the question, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Are you overthrowing the law, Paul? No, never. We are upholding the law. And so again, in 520, he comes back to this matter of the purpose of the law. My title today is a quote from verse 20, The Law Came In. The law came in. Why did the law come in? Paul answers this question very briefly. I want you to notice two matters in verse 20. Notice what Paul says about God's law and the impact that it has. And then secondly, much more briefly, we're going to notice what Paul says about God's grace and its far greater impact. So first of all, let's notice what Paul says about God's law and the impact that the law coming in, what impact does it have? Literally, the language here is that the law was slipped in, it was brought in, it was put into place. And the picture is that God gave the law, he put it in at this point because he had something very unique, something very special that he wanted the law to do. Before Jesus Christ came, the law was slipped in. It was put into place by God for a very particular reason. Turn back to chapter two, and we'll read another section on the law from the earlier in the epistle. And Paul discusses this matter, why the law came in. Chapter two, verse 12 through 15. For all who sin without the law will perish without the law. And he's simply saying here that the law doesn't make sin. The law identifies sin as sin, but if you didn't have the given, written, spoken law of God, sin would still be sin. For all who sin without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves. even though they do not have the law. Paul's speaking here of the law of Moses. And the Gentiles were not given the law of Moses. They did not have that given, spoken, revealed law. But by nature, they still did what the law requires, showing that there is a law at work in themselves, even though they do not have the law, the law of Moses. Verse 15 makes it very clear. They, these Gentiles, without the given law of Moses, they show the work of the law written on their hearts. while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. When God made Adam, he made him with his desires turned Godward. Adam had originally, as God made him, his desire was to please God, to love God. His desire, it was natural for Adam to not worship any other gods but the one true God. That was natural for him. It was natural for Adam not to steal. It was natural for Adam to speak the truth. It was natural for Adam to be faithful to his wife. But when Adam fell, the clarity of that law written on his heart, sometimes we call it conscience, When Adam fell, the clarity of that which was natural for him was diminished and distorted. The power of those Godward-created instincts were weakened. They were diminished. They were clouded over. And when Adam fell, he no longer had those clear and powerful affections to please God in terms of what God had created him to be. And there was something weakened and something spoiled and something clouded in Adam's heart and his life. Now, when Adam fell, he did not cease to be the image-bearer of God. He did not cease to be made in the image of God. And those who descended from him still were image bearers, and they still had, as it were, the remnants or the shadow of those desires and those principles still existing in their life. They had a law still written on their hearts. If you would have been around in the day of Cain, and you would have observed Cain killing his brother, and you would have known his thoughts, Cain knew that that was wrong. He knew it. We have no record that God ever gave the commandment not to kill your brother. We know that he gave the commandment not to eat of the tree, but he never gave that commandment to him that we know of. But he knew that this was displeasing to God. This was not the will of God for him. If you would have gone along with Abraham and Sarah to Egypt, and you would have heard, you know, the conversation between Abraham and the king of Egypt, where Abraham was explaining that his wife was his sister. You would have realized then, that's not right. Something's wrong. You know, though the commandment of Moses not to bear false witness, not to tell a lie, it wasn't given in that form yet, there still was a law of God written in their hearts. So those who did not, and then years go by and you have the choosing of Abraham and his descendants to be the keepers of the promise of the coming Redeemer. And that was given to Abraham and to his descendants. A very special task and privilege was given to them. But then there were other people, Gentiles, who did not receive the law of Moses. But Paul says in chapter two, what we just read, that these Gentiles had a law written on their hearts. And to a certain extent, They knew what was right and what was wrong. They show the elements of the will of God in their lives. It was spoiled, it was clouded, but it was still there. I remember the book I read years ago. I think it was entitled Eternity in Their Hearts. And it relates how that different people groups in various places As mission and gospel workers went in, they found that there was already among the people a sense that there is that which is right, there is that which is wrong. And the title of the book is that, you know, eternity, the consciousness of God was written in their hearts. They had a knowledge. I remember that lovely, maybe children's story of Bruko. And I think it was in that book. I did not look it up. but how that there were tribal individuals that were going up trees in the jungle and calling out for God. Well, why did they do that? They had no written divine revelation, but there was eternity in their hearts. God had written upon their hearts. Though that law was clouded and distorted and weakened, there was this law written there. As I was preparing, I had to think of a trip that Miriam and I made at the time of our 25th anniversary, and we visited some of the ancient ruins in Scotland. And Miriam and I were walking on the street in Durlton, and we met a man who stopped and greeted us there on the sidewalk, a very beautiful town, gorgeous town. And he asked us whether or not we visited their castle. And we said, yes. He said, well, I must apologize for our castle that Mr. Cromwell came many years ago and ripped the roof off of it, and we haven't gotten it fixed yet. Well, it was just ruins. It was stone walls, but there were floors in it, and there were towers there, and the roof was missing, and the walls were crumbling. And it was really nice to walk around. You sensed that there was glory here. that this one day was something really, really, really wonderful. But in that day, it was in ruins. But there was remnants of the glory of that castle still visible and yet remaining. And I think that that's an illustration of what The law of God, which He created in us, making us in His image. You know, sometimes we think about being made in the image of God as being physical. I don't think it's so much. It's not that. It can't be. Because God is Spirit. But it has more to do with the person, and integrity, and the verity, and the holiness of God. That's what it means. And so, we're in our sin, we're like that castle in Duralton. You know, there's remnants of the glory there, but the glory is in rubble. It's been marred, it's been destroyed, it's been degraded in so many ways. And so, the law in the heart of man after the fall was not functioning as it was made to function in the glory of creation. But still there remains a shadow of the original glory. And so the Gentiles who don't have the law of Moses, they have a sense of right and wrong. They don't agree on the details, you know. And if you study culture at all in history, you'll realize that their sense of right and wrong is quite skewed and it's weird sometimes. But there's still, there's remnants left there and remnants of the glory of how God created man. It's interesting that in the Old Testament that the promise of Redemption comes in the language that God is going to write his law again upon our hearts. That's one of the promises of the covenant, that I'm going to make another covenant and I'm going to write my law upon their hearts. And I'm going to make it clear. And I'm going to make it vibrant. And I'm going to make it true. And I'm going to make it, I'm going to restore it. And so in our text, Paul shows us that one of the purposes of giving the law is to increase trespass. Now that's not the only purpose. I want to make that clear, that I think primarily, and the Puritans would agree with me, or I would agree with them, sorry about that, that the primary purpose of the law is to display the character of God. When God gave the commandments, God was giving us a revelation of himself. Now you say, now wait a minute, God's not married. Why did he bring in that one about adultery? Well, just take a deep breath. It's still, it's a revelation of the purity and holiness and perfection of God. That's what the law is primarily. The law is God showing us himself. If you doubt it, go back and read the chapter before the chapter that we're studying on Wednesday night. And it's very clear that God is revealing himself in the giving of the law. Now, The law, it's interesting to compare the law that was given to Adam and the law that was given to Moses. The law that was given to Adam was given almost entirely in positive terms. The law to Adam was yes, yes, and yes. And yes, and yes, and yes. With only one prohibition, with one negative. But when the law of Moses was given, it's no and no and no. It's given in negative form. Why? Because when God gave His will to Adam, He was giving it to a perfect man, a sinless man. But when he gave it to man through Moses, he was giving it to sinners. And so there was the very difference from the, you know, just think about it. Adam could do whatever he wanted to do, except one thing. There was only one negative in the revelation of God to Adam, just don't eat of this tree. How many others? I don't know how many more there were. But yes, and yes, and yes, and yes, there's one no. And that because we are sinners, God needs, the law comes to us in the negative form. And in the garden, it was very differently. All the trees you can eat of them. Follow your instincts, Adam. There was only this one thing that God said no to. Now, let's move on from to the people of Israel. In choosing Israel as a nation, the children of Abraham, in choosing them, God was choosing a people through which the promise of salvation was to come. And we need to understand that. Paul, in other places, he talks about what advantage does the Jew have. He says he has much advantage. To the Jew was given the oracles of God. But God had something very, very special for the children of Abraham. He was fulfilling through them the promise of the seed of the woman that was going to come and destroy the seed of the serpent. And so God fences Abraham and his family up. He narrows up their way. He fences them in. so that they would not be totally destroyed. And Satan wanted to destroy them. Satan from the beginning was making war on the seed of the woman, trying to destroy, we have a picture of that in Revelation as well, trying to destroy them to prevent the promise that God gave from being fulfilled. And God gave to Israel, some very particular commandments that are strange to us. You read, if you read chapter 21 and following in Exodus, and you just read the detail, you'll say, some of these things are really, they're really strange, they're weird, and why did God say this and that? Do you know what God was doing? He was, putting walls around them to keep them separate from all the other nations. And God knew that to the extent that they would become absorbed in all the other nations, they would be lost, they would be finished. And we have that in the book of Judges, that God commanded the children of Israel to drive out the inhabitants of the land. You're not going to live together. What did Israel do? They made a great mistake and put them under tribute. Said, we're going to let them here. They're just going to pay taxes to us. But what happens? Israel was degraded and destroyed through the influence of those nations around them. So God gave them commandments, strange commandments to keep them apart from other nations. He set them apart in an ethnic community until the promise of God was fulfilled. And that's why that many of these commandments we say are fulfilled in Christ when Christ came. The purpose of the law, that is, the ceremonial law and the civil law, the purpose of the law to keep them isolated, it's no longer needed, it's no longer necessary, because the Savior has come. The promise has been fulfilled. And so God set them apart, but that wasn't the whole deal. The law came in, our text says, to increase sin. What does that mean? What does this mean that the law came in to increase sin? Well, in verse 13, which we read earlier, it says in verse 13 that sin is not counted where there is no law. that where there isn't law, sin is not counted as a violation of the law that's given. There was no law given. You can't say that this sin violates this law if this law was not given. But sin was still present. It wasn't counted as a violation of the law. Did you ever think about why the patriarchs were so messy? Why was Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and why were things so messed up? Well, they did not have the specific detailed law of God. All they had was the remnants of that conscience still remaining there in its clouded form. They did not see sin as it really was. There was a distortion in their mind. And so, Here's a man who's wondering about through life, going through life, desiring what was not his to have, thinking, I deserve that. I think I'll take that. His mind is clouded. The law, when the law was given, it cleared it up. It made it clear. No, no, that's not yours. You can't take that. The law says you're not to covet that. That's not yours. You're not to steal. That's not yours. And so by the law, that inordinate, that sinful desire is known to become or known to be sin. It was sin all along, but it became clear to mankind that the heart is not neutral. That the matter of how I live is not, you know, a matter of, well, it doesn't matter. It's okay this way. It's okay that way. God is not saying it's not really a big deal. If you want to do that, I know it may not be the best for you, but I'll just turn and look the other way while you do it. No, the law came in, the law was given to increase the trespass, to show clearly what was already true. The law does not create sin. It shows sin to be what it really is. That is what Paul's speaking of here when he says, the law came in to increase sin. Now, he says Paul's going to say something else in chapter seven. He's going to add to this. In chapter seven, he talks about the principle that, how did the preacher say it? That 87% of little boys will eat their peas if you tell them not to. Now I'm not sure what the math, I've been trying to research the math, I didn't get the 87%. But in chapter 7, that's what Paul deals with, that not only does the law increase trespass, but it actually stirs up rebellion in us. You know, it's like you want to get the fingerprints of everybody in town? Paint the park bench and put up a sign, don't touch it. and you'll get them all. But there's something in us, in our fallenness, that when God says no, we want to. Now, that's another purpose of the law. It shows how wicked our heart is. And so it's not just a matter of doing this or not doing that, but we have a heart that is naturally not inclined to God, but naturally in rebellion to God. And so the law is also in chapter seven given to stir up that which is camouflaged or hidden or latent in our hearts. When the law was given right at the beginning, this happened. you know the account, that God gave the law from the mountain and it was written upon stone. And Moses came down from the mountain and he asked Aaron, Aaron, what's going on here? What's happening here? There's something wrong going on. There's something weird going on. And you know what Aaron said? He said there's sort of a molecular transformation, chemical reaction going on here. That's what he said. He says, I threw it in and a calf came out. That was Aaron's take on it. Do you know what the law, the very law coming down the mountain says? No, Aaron, it's not that. It's idolatry. And so the law just, it made what Aaron was excusing, it made it, it showed it to be what it really was. It was idolatry. It was idolatry from the get-go. It was not a physics lesson. It was not a science experiment. It was idolatry. And so when the law came down, the law called what was going on there with Aaron and the people, what it really was, idolatry. The law came in and exposed sin for what it really is. Now, practically speaking, some people sometimes say, well, let's just not preach the law and everybody will be better. No, that's never true. If the activity at the foot of the mountain is not called idolatry, it's still idolatry. It's still a violation of the holiness of God. The law doesn't make it sin, the law reveals it to be sin. And so the law must be understood and preached and embraced and studied And let's not blame the law. The problem is our fallenness. A few of you may be familiar with Victor Hugo, his better known book, Les Miserables. He wrote another book entitled The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I confess I never waded my way through the original. The book, not the movie, the Disney movie. But if you read the book, you may remember where the hunchback, Quasimodo, he's there with this beautiful thing that he's captured, and she's crying. And he says to her, why are you crying? And she says to him, well, you're crying. And he says, well, yes, I'm crying. And she says, well, why are you crying? And he says to her, because I never knew how ugly I was until I saw how beautiful you are. My friends, that's the law. We do not know. This beautiful thing that he captured did not make him worse than what he was. It just showed him to be like he really was. And so, we do not know how ugly we really are until we see how beautiful God is. And then that's what the law does. The law is a revelation of God. It shows the beauty and the glory and the honor and the uprightness and the holiness of God. And it should humble us. And it makes us to realize how much a mess we really are. Now the law does not transform the heart. Education doesn't transform the heart. The law just shows the heart to be as it was, but it doesn't change it. Back when I went to public school, a long, long time ago, wasn't it, Gary? There was this talk about that there needs to be more sex education in the school. you know, because we want to raise young people with integrity and morality. And so they brought in all kinds of education programs. Did it fix the problem? No, for the good old days. You know, all that the education did was it made sin increase. It showed it to be the monster it really was." So it's only when we come to understand the heart issue of our own sinfulness and the reality of our sinfulness, it's only when we understand that, that the grace of God becomes large. And that's what Paul says here in verse 20, that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. There's more grace in Jesus Christ than there is sin in you. If you come to Jesus, trusting and believing in Him, you'll never have Jesus say to you, in any shape or form, I'm sorry, but there's more sin in you than what I have grace to cover it. Isn't that wonderful? That He'll never say that. That's an impossibility. Paul says there's more grace in him than what there is sin in you. And where sin increases, grace increases more. There's more cure than what there is illness. And some say this is dangerous. I was told this countless times. That if you emphasize the largeness of grace, that you're going to give men and women license to sin. We'll deal with that in chapter 6. But there's a problem with this caution. And it's an outlandish and wrong caution. There's a problem. If you don't understand the largeness of the grace of God, you're never going to deal honestly with your sin. You never will. If you don't understand that there's more grace in Him than what there is sin in me, you're going to tend to excuse and cover up your sin. Because, you know, you don't want your sin to be exposed and uncovered, and so, if you have an eight-foot sin problem, and you have a six-foot cover solution for it, you've got two feet sticking out, don't you? That reminds me of what the Old Testament prophet says. That the bed is too short, and the cover lid is too narrow. That's talking about man trying to cover his own sin. Now, we're in the South. We're good Southern folk. Do you know what the good Southern way of dealing with sin is? It's a great method. Deny it. Just deny it. Minimize it and deny it. And the reason why we do that is that we don't understand that where sin increases, grace abounds all the more. And so if we have a puny view of grace, we're going to have to keep our sins small. Smaller than the cover. But if we understand the grace, the marvelous, matchless grace of God in Jesus Christ, now for the first time in our life, we're able to call all of it sin. We no longer need to deny it. We no longer need to self-cover it. We no longer need to redefine it. Because we have been set at liberty. And that's why Paul says that in Jesus Christ, grace reigns. Sin reigns, but grace reigns. That means that grace reigns, grace has the upper hand, grace has the power, grace is at work, grace is doing its thing. And it's a blessed day whenever we realize that I can be honest with myself. You'll not reign in life. You'll not reign in life. Grace will not reign in your life. It'll only be slinking around the edges. of your salvation because you're afraid that the coverlet is too narrow. You know, I've tried already, maybe some of you have as well, to help individuals and couples who come for financial counseling. Have you ever done that? Don't raise your hand. I've done that. And so usually how I begin, maybe Brother Daniel, this is the wrong place to begin, but I say, well, let's talk about the bad stuff first. Let's list all the deaths. Let's just get them written all down here and know what we have to work on. Do you know how frustrating it is to spend several sessions together and coming up with budgets and plans and all that. And just to realize that the original list was incomplete. That there's another $10,000 from dad and there's another $5,000 debt from a sibling. And there's also that credit card bill that I've only been making minimum payments on. And then you realize, let's just get it all out of here so we know what we're working with. You know, I can't help you with this unless you're willing just to humbly lay it all out. And so it is in all the areas in our life. Grace reigns. Grace abounds. Grace abounds all the more. It reigns in life. And I would like to conclude this chapter with just a simple statement. Grace dismantles sin. It does that. It dismantles sin. That's how grace works. It reigns. It takes it apart, and it deals with it, and it conquers it, and it overcomes it. So I'm thankful again to just consider that Jesus is bigger than Adam, and grace is greater than all our sin. And where sin reigned in death, bringing death and disintegration, grace reigns through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let's pray. Our loving and kind Heavenly Father, You work what looks like in a backward way to us sometimes. And as we seek to find solution and help and answers and forgiveness and pardon, we wrongly sometimes, we draw back. And because we don't understand your love, we don't understand your grace, we draw back and we just We just diminish and we downplay our own neediness, not realizing that there is abundant grace, more than enough, more than what we'll ever need. Oh, what a great and loving Father you are to tell us this, to encourage us to come to you just as we are without any excuse, without any plea, without any self-justification to just come as we are and allow you to dismantle, to tear apart that which is sinful and to rebuild through your power and your grace, your holy will in our lives. We thank you, Father, For the Lord Jesus Christ, our representative, we thank you for his perfect obedience. We thank you for his sacrificial death. Go with us and keep us, Lord. Do provide for us and do remind us again to come to you again and again, to never stop coming to you Father, I thank you that you never tire of your children coming and asking for bread. So give us bread for Christ's sake. Amen.