Podcasts about verse one

Verse by verse study through the book of Acts Chapter One and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Twenty One and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Twenty and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Nineteen and Verse One

“The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want.” God knows what we need better than we do and when we're following & trusting God (as our Lord & Shepherd)…if we don't HAVE it - we don't NEED it! -----Official WebsiteInstagramTwitterFacebook

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Eighteen and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Seventeen and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Sixteen and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Fifteen and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Fourteen and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Thirteen and Verse One

This week, Sha Stimui and Boardwalk Brown dissect Andre 3000's otherworldly lyrical display on the classic "The Art of Storytellin', Pt. 4" Topics discussed: The poetic format and construction of 3 Stacks' story Being the antithesis of what is considered a "real one" in the Black community The top tier wordplay and entendres Links mentioned in this episode: https://youtu.be/5QA9xcbMJFI?si=TgctvUFV0GnHCbv7 http://hashtaglegday.com This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Twelve and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Eleven and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Ten and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Nine and Verse One

s It Okay For Believers To Backbite/Gossip? Episode One Is it okay for a Believer to Gossip? In accordance to God's Word, the answer is no. I will share some Bible verses today on why it is displeasing to the Lord for Believers to gossip in Episode One of “Is it okay for a Believer to Gossip?” VERSE ONE: 2 Corinthians 12:20 ESV For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be qarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. VERSE TWO: Leviticus 19:16 ESV You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. VERSE THREE: Proverbs 16:28 ESV A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends. VERSE FOUR:Proverbs 25:23 ESV The north wind brings forth rain, and a backbiting tongue, angry looks. VERSE FIVE:Proverbs 26:20 ESV For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases. VERSE SIX:Proverbs 20:19 ESV Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler. Verse Seven: Psalm 101:5 ESV Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure. Verse Eight: Proverbs 11:13 ESV Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered Verse Nine: Psalm 15:1-3 ESV And O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend Verse Ten And my final verse for today is Romans 16:17-18 ESV I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. Biblical References and Translation https://www.openbible.info/topics/backbiting English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/biblequestionsandanswers/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/biblequestionsandanswers/support

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Eight and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Seven and Verse One

Hey Council, hope everything has been going good for you all while we've been away. In this episode Ace and McMillian discuss what's been happening in Mushoku Tensei S2 so far (S2E0-E6), and they definitely have a lot to say about what's been happening in the show and the path Rudy is treading right now. Hope you all Enjoy!! VERSE ONE-   / @verseone1111   This Music is promoted by " SeeeD Tribe"    • Unfinished - Instrumental Song for An...  

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Six and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Five and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Four and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter Three and Verse One

Psalm 23

Verse by verse study through the book of John Chapter One and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter Seven and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter Six and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter Four and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter Three and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter Two and Verse One

Verse by verse study through the book of Micah Chapter One and Verse One

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.God, first of all, we just thank you for the kids of Mosaic, and just what a tremendous blessing that they are. God, we pray for them, we pray for their families. We pray that You would bless the kids' summer nights this year and everybody that's working so hard to put that together. Lord, we thank You for all the brothers and sisters in Christ that are not only working on that, but are down in Mini Mosaic every week just being a blessing and service to our children. God, we thank You for these kids, but we thank You also that You have made us Your kids, that You have made us Your heavenly father through Your son, Jesus Christ. You have adopted us into Your family. God, I just pray that You would help us to grasp what good news that truly is for us, that our salvation is not contingent upon anything that we have done or need to do, but fully upon what You have done for us in Christ.And that Lord, just as we did nothing to contribute to our conception or physical birth, we can do nothing to save ourselves, but it is Your spirit alone who regenerates hearts and causes us to be born again. We enter Your household by sheer grace through faith in Your son Jesus Christ and we thank You for this amazing grace. We pray also Lord, that Your grace taught us would not be in vain, that You have done a great work for us and we pray now that You do a great work in us, so that by the power of your Holy Spirit, You could do a great work through us for the sake of Your mission, Your kingdom, and Your glory. Lord, we thank You for this time. We pray that You just speak to us today through this amazing passage of scripture that we have. We pray all this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.All right. Well, today is an exciting day. I think first of all summer is officially here and so you might see me breaking a sweat up here today, but that's not really why I'm excited. I'm excited because we finally have made our way to Romans Chapter Eight. If you were here at the beginning of the series of Romans, we talked about how the Bible, holy scripture, is without comparison, the most important, the most influential book in human history. Nothing else even comes close. You cannot begin to understand the world as it is today if you have not read the Bible. But within the Bible, we talked about how the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, is arguably most influential letter within the most influential book.Today, as we come to Romans Chapter Eight, if you are familiar with the Book of Romans, you know that within the Book of Romans, this is a halfway point, it's the summit, it's the peak, it is the crowning jewel of Paul's letter. It is arguably the most influential chapter, within the most influential letter, within the most influential book, that has ever been written. This chapter has been called the inner sanctuary within the cathedral of the Christian faith.Have you ever had a really exciting story to tell, and you just can't wait to get to the point of it, but you know that you can't do that because if you just jumped straight to the point that the people that you're telling this to, they're not going to grasp the full weightiness of just how great of a point that you're trying to make? A few weeks ago, my son Owen is 10 years old, he just finished up the baseball season this past week. And a few weeks ago during baseball, Owen got a base hit. That's the point of the story. But if that's all I tell you, you haven't even begun to grasp the point.And so let me set this up. A few weeks ago, Owen's team began the playoffs. It's a double elimination tournament and they lost their first game. What that meant is they went into the loser's bracket and if they lost one more time, their season would be over. And so in the second game of the playoffs, they're losing the entire game. It's the bottom of the last inning, there are two outs, but there are runners on second and third. The team had been down the whole game. They made a little bit of a comeback in the last inning, but victory was just within grasp, but not quite there, and Owen is up to bat and he has three balls and two strikes, full count. This next pitch is going to determine everything. If he strikes out, the inning is over, the game is over, the season is over, they finish last place and he becomes that poor kid that struck out in the last inning and blew the game for everyone. The pressure was insane.Now, within that context, you understand the weightiness, the gravity of my words, when I say Owen got a base hit and he hit in, drove in the winning runs to win that game. Actually his team, after that, they came back and they made their way all the way up to the championship game and they beat the defending team in the first game 26 to seven, and then they lost the second game, which ruins the story. But you get the point. You can't just jump straight to the point, sometimes you need some context. And what Paul has been doing in his letter to the Romans is you can sense his excitement as he gets to Romans Chapter Eight, as he gets to the big idea, to the big point, but he's taken his time for the last seven chapters setting up the context so that we can really feel how great, how good, this good news really is.In the first couple of chapters, he presents, he lays out the human problem that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that the wages of sin is death. He builds this argument, this case that proves that we all actually know that. Deep down in our hearts and our souls we know that we are not as we ought to be, and that we are deserving of judgment.Then for a couple chapters, he presents the divine solution, that even though we have all sinned and that the wages of sin is death, that we can be justified freely by grace through Jesus Christ, because Christ has made propitiation for our sins on the cross. But then right as he gets there, he takes this unexpected detour, and for a couple of chapters Paul begins to answer the objections that he is anticipating from his critics. He does this in order to show definitively how bad our problem really is. That it's not just that we're sinful, it's that we are sinful beyond all measure, and that even something as good and perfect and holy as the law of God, this is Romans Chapter Seven, even the law is powerless to save us. The law cannot make us good. It can show us what is good, but all it can really do for us is show us how far from good we really are.Paul brings us back down deep into the pit, right up to the brink of utter hopelessness and despair. At the end of Romans Chapter Seven, he just says, "Wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me from this body of death?" What hope could we possibly have to overcome the presence and the power and the penalty of our sin, of our depravity, that we are all guilty, we are all without excuse, we have no defense, we are not worthy of anything but judgment, and judgment is coming and deep down we all know it.Then all of a sudden in Romans Chapter Seven, Verse 25, Paul makes this sudden shift, and it's like in a symphony, he begins this crescendo in verse 25 and he says, "But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and then he launches into Chapter Eight of our text today with this triumphant proclamation that, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." How can he say that? That's what we're going to be looking at in our text today.If you would please look at Romans Chapter Eight, we're going to be looking at verses one through four together this morning. This is Romans Eight and beginning in Verse One. The apostle Paul says this, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done, with the law, weakened by the flesh could not do, by sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." This is the reading of God's holy word for us today.As we look at this text, I have three questions that I want you to ask yourself this morning. First of all, what has God done for you? Do you know what God has done for you? Second, what is God doing in you? And then thirdly, what could God do through you? The first question that we need to ask, it's not what must we do for God in order to justify ourselves or be saved? It's what has God done for us? We all know this, but this is what sets Christianity apart from every other worldview, every other philosophy, every other religion, is this idea of grace.Going back to the beginning of Romans, Paul begins Romans Chapter One, and he tells us that, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." This is good news, in a strange way. It's bad news for us. It's good news because what this means is that God is good and because God is good, God is just, and in order for God to be just, then He must condemn sin. But now that's bad news for us because we are sinners.Why is Paul so excited in Romans Chapter Eight? Well, we get a clue to that a little bit later on when he gets to Romans Chapter Three. He says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith." And why did He do that? He says, "This was to show God's righteousness," because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just, and the justifier of those, of the one who has faith in Jesus.This is the miracle of the gospel, that through Christ God is both just and justifier, that God upholds His justice by properly condemning sin on the cross, proving Himself to be just, but He also in upholding His justice is upholding His mercy as well, by taking that condemnation upon Himself, proving to also be the justifier of those who have faith in Christ. And this is what God has done for us. And the question is why would God do that? Why would He sacrifice so much to justify us who are so unworthy?1 John Four, the Apostle John in Verse Nine, says, "In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His own Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."What is it that makes you a Christian? Are you a Christian because you love God? If you think that loving God is what makes you a Christian, scripture says you might not be a Christian. That God doesn't love you because you're loving. He doesn't love you because you're lovely. Your love for God, yeah, that may show that you are a Christian, but you are not a Christian because you love God. The only reason you are a Christian is because God has loved you. That God first loved you. He chose you. He adopted you as His own. And so does that mean that God's love, sometimes we hear this phrase God's unconditional love, is God's love unconditional? No, not exactly. God's love is not universal. It's not unconditional. It is actually completely conditional, but the good news is that it's not conditional upon us. It's conditional upon the character of God the Father. It's conditional upon the sacrifice of God the Son, that God is love. We do not define the love. Love is defined by the character of God. And He has manifest His love by sending His Son to come, to seek, and to save us who were lost.And so back to our passage, Paul says at the very beginning, he just kind of bursts into this excitement of, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." In Greek, what he actually says, "Is no therefore now condemnation," which doesn't make a whole lot of sense in English. But if you understand the way that Greek sentences are structured, the point is he is trying to powerfully emphasize the no, the noneness of our condemnation, which stands in total contrast to the fullness of the condemnation that we actually deserve.We talked about this earlier, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That's Romans 3:23. That the wages of that sin is death. That's Romans 6:23. And so how can Paul say now that there's no condemnation? Well, he goes on in Verse Three and he tells us, "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." That where there was no hope, where there was no way, God made a way. He made a way to justly condemn sin in Christ on the cross, while at the same time mercifully justifying sinners. And this is the gospel.He says that God the Father sent God the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And notice that word likeness there. Jesus did not come in sinful flesh. Jesus never sinned. Jesus was fully God, and yet he was fully man. He took on flesh. He was incarnate. But like Adam before the fall, Jesus did not have a sin nature. And so what that means is that Jesus faced all the limitations of a human body. He faced all the temptations that we experienced in a fallen world, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, He lived every moment of His life from the cradle to the grave without sin. He loved the Lord His God with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength continually and loved His neighbor as Himself perfectly. And so being fully man, Jesus had to be fully man, because what this meant was that He could stand as a worthy substitute in humanity's place. He was one of us. He could represent us. But being fully divine, He could also stand as a worthy sacrifice, capable of actually paying that debt and in doing so, He actually defeats Satan, sin, and death itself.So Verse Four says that by sending Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, that this is the reason that God sent Christ, this is the reason He came, was to deal with our sin. God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus in order that the righteous requirement of the law may actually be fulfilled in us, that Jesus took our condemnation and exchanged it for His justification, that God the Father declares Jesus guilty so that we could be declared perfectly righteous. That all the penalty that our sin deserved was placed on Christ. It was imputed to Him at the cross and there, and all of His righteousness is imputed to us, all the glory that His righteousness deserved is given to us by grace, through faith. That the curse of our lawbreaking fell on Him so that the blessing of His law keeping could be given to us.And so before we begin to consider what God wants to do in us or through us we need to just sit in this and be immersed, be overwhelmed, by what God has done for us. That God has done what even the law weakened by our flesh could not do. He's saved us from the penalty of our sin. And He has now hidden our lives in Christ. That's the language that Paul uses in Ephesian, that your life in Christ, you are hidden in Christ. And so think of it like this. We're going to talk a bit about sanctification. Sanctification is the power of Christ's life in you. Justification is the position of your life hidden in Christ. That if you are in Christ, that right now, when God the Father looks at you, He sees Christ's perfection, that all of your sins past, present, future, they were nailed to the cross. It's done. It's finished. They're forgiven, forgotten, cast to the bottom of the sea. Scripture says removed as far as the east is from the west.That all of our debt was transferred to Christ on the cross and He paid it in full with His blood. And now by grace God credits Jesus righteousness to us and it is sitting on our ledger, that you are in Christ and Christ is in you. And so now do you begin to understand why the Apostle Paul is so excited? Do you remember who this guy was like? This is Paul, the persecutor of Jesus Christ, the persecutor of the church, the murderer of Christians, the blasphemer, that this man, now in Christ, has been given the full assurance of the Father's eternal unfailing love. The full assurance that God the Father is never going to rub his sin in his face again.And it's not just that Paul got a second chance. We're not talking about a blank slate where you can go and try to do better next time. What we're talking about is actually Paul's given Jesus' slate. It's like imagine Jesus is the big brother. Paul's the little brother. Paul's the class clown. He's failing out of every subject in school. Jesus is the is the valedictorian and on the way home to Dad, to show their report cards, Jesus takes them, He swaps the names. Paul gets to go home and show this perfect record to the Father and experience the perfect pleasure of the Father. Not because of what he's done, but because of what His brother Christ has done for him. And you begin to get, get a sense of what has Paul so excited in this chapter.Psalm 103, 11 and 12 says that, "As high as the heavens are above the earth so great as His steadfast love to those who fear Him. As far as the East is from the West, so far does He remove our transgressions from us." This is why we sometimes sing Amazing Grace or we sing the song Scandalous Grace, that this is amazing, this is scandalous. It seems almost too good to be true. And really the reason that Paul had taken that detour around Chapter Six and Seven is to answer the objections of those who were claiming that, "Yeah, this actually is too good to be true, that you can't preach this, that you can't go around telling people this message of grace, this message of complete forgiveness, that there's no condemnation. Because if you go around talking about this amazing grace, well then aren't you just taking away people's motivation to not sin? Aren't you just going to encourage them to sin more?" And Paul says, "No. If that's what you think, then you've still yet to understand grace."And that brings us to the second question today, that God's grace doesn't set us free in order to sin or for sin. God's grace sets us free from sin. And so Paul goes on and he says, Romans back to Romans 8:1, "There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." That grace, it takes us out of this impersonal realm of religion and law and it brings us into the personal realm of relationship and love. And this is pretty easy for us to understand if we think about it in human terms. Like if I sin against my wife and I go and I beg her for forgiveness and she forgives me, I don't think, "That was so easy. I'm going to go do that again because now I know she's just going to forgive me. And so I can just keep doing."No. I think, "Wow, I didn't deserve that forgiveness and I never want to hurt her like that again. I never want to do that again." That forgiveness and that grace actually motivate me to not sin again. Why? Because we're in a relationship, because we love one another, and this is what the gospel does. It brings us into this relationship with God the Father.I said this earlier, but justification is the position of your life in Christ and sanctification is the power of Christ's life in you, that the reason there is no condemnation for us is because our lives are hidden in Christ. But now the reason that we can fight the good fight of faith and put our sin to death is because we have the power of Christ living in us.And so if you remember last week we were in Chapter Seven and Chapter Seven is, it's kind of a lot to wrap your mind around, but we talked about how the big idea that Paul is getting here is he's trying to illustrate that as good and as holy as the law was, the chapter is really showing us that it was weak and it was incapable of saving us from our sin. And if Chapter Seven, Paul wrote that to show us the weakness of the law, then Chapter Eight, he wrote us to show us the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. And so in Chapter Seven, you see law, law, law, over and over and over, and here in Chapter Eight, you see he's just talking about the spirit, the spirit, the spirit.And the first thing that we need to understand here, Paul talks about the law of the spirit of life compared to the law of sin and death. In the Book of Romans, Paul uses the word law in two different ways. And so sometimes when he uses the word law, he's referring to God's law, the Mosaic law, the 10 Commandments. Other times he's using the word law in a more general sense. It's like a governing principle. It's like a power. Like we would think of the law of gravity. And so that is the way that he's actually using it in these verses, that the law of the spirit of life, the law of the sin and death, in the flesh, the law of sin and death, this was the governing power, principle, in our life. That before Christ, sin had this, it was like the gravitational pull of the sun and our lives revolved around sin and we were slaves to that orbit. There's nothing that we could do to escape the power of sin's gravity on our lives.And so when I picture what Paul is describing here, it's as if Christ has come and He has just ripped us out of that orbit around sin. He's broken the power of sin's gravity on our lives and He's now placed us in a new orbit, that we have this new governing principle, this power that he calls the law or the power of the spirit of life. That we were once under the power of sin that led to death, but now in Christ, our lives revolve around the spirit who gives abundant and eternal life.Now here's the tension that we live in as Christians. We've been ripped out of one orbit, we've been placed into this other orbit. Now does that mean that after you come to Christ that you're never going to feel the pull of temptation again? Does that mean that after you come to Christ that you're never going to sin again? No, of course we know that. But so then just as your life will no longer revolve around sin, it doesn't mean that you're never going to experience sin again. 1 John 1:8 says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous."We talked about this a little bit last week, that we are never going to be perfect and without sin on this side of eternity. That until Jesus comes back and gives us our resurrected, glorified bodies, that sin is going to continue to be this constant threat and presence in our lives, that none of us are ever going to in this life, none of us are ever going to come close to fulfilling the greatest commandment, which is the love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind and all of your strength. I can't even imagine doing that perfectly for a few seconds, let alone a lifetime. And the second commandment, which is to perfectly love your neighbor as yourself. We're never going to be sinless, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. That's the big idea. Pastor Jan said this last week that you will never be sinless, but as a Christian, you should be sinning less, that there is a real change, a real difference, a real distinction, between your life and the flesh before Christ and your life in the spirit in Christ.And that difference is you now for the first time have the power to say no to sin, to fight back against your sin, and to put the flesh to death. That before, you were powerless, that sin was your master. You were its slave. Your mind was set on it, your life revolved around it. But when Christ became your master, He set you free. And in setting you free, He deals a death blow to sin. And so on the one hand, sin is not dead, but it is dying and it's power over you should be growing less and less as you progress in your sanctification. And so sin is no longer your master, but it is still very much your adversary. This is why we still need to be on constant alert. Peter tells us that our enemy is He's roaming around like a roaring line seeking someone to devour. God told Cain in Genesis 4:7, He said, "Cain, sin is crouching at your door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it"And that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we have to rule over our sin. We're told that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. If we draw near to God, God will draw near to us. So in Romans 7:4, Paul asked the question, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" And then in Romans Eight, he tells us. Who will do this? God sent Christ to deliver us from the penalty of our sin, but also that Christ sent the Holy Spirit to deliver us from the power of sin in our lives and we need to fight in that power to rule over sin.And so the practical question right now for all of us is what is your life revolving around? What is your mind set on? We're going to talk about, Tyler is going to talk a little bit more about this next week when we get to the next passage, but in Romans 8, five and six, Paul says that those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. What is your mindset? What is your mind set on? And the question is what are the practical rhythms that you are placing in your life right now in order to set and to reset your mind over and over on the things of the spirit?Now you're here right now. That's a pretty good start, right? Gathering for worship with the church, with the communion of the saints. This should be a habit. This should be a rhythm of our lives. And not only that, we show up here on once a week and worship together. But when you do, do you have your mind set on it? Are you thinking about it? Are you looking forward to worship all week? Are you preparing yourself to come and to be present and to be focused and to be attentive, to actually sing God's praise and to apply your mind to His word during worship. We need to do that. Daily, just reading God's word, abiding in God's word, being constant in prayer. It's another habit we need to have to set our mind on the spirit. Serving the body of Christ. Having fellowship with the believers. Are you committed to a community group? Are you dedicated and are you consistent in your participation with other believers and their lives? These are all very practical things, but they're practical things we need to do because the Holy Spirit uses these practical things in very profound ways to sanctify us in our fight against sin.Now, I want to take a moment to just talk about something else that is going on in Romans Chapter Eight. As we think about these things, most of us at one time or another have probably had a concern, a question, come and linger in our mind. And that is if all these things are true, if we are saved, if we are in Christ, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we are adopted into the family of God the Father, if we have truly been set free from the law of sin and death, then why do we still experience sin and death?As a Christian, do you still face temptation? Yeah. As a Christian, do you still sometimes sin? Yeah. As Christians, we still suffer. As Christians, we still die. And I believe that these concerns, these questions, are actually the reason that Paul is writing this chapter. He's anticipating these thoughts because if all of this is true, then we're going to ask then why is the Christian life so hard? And Paul is writing to a people who have suffered and they know how hard it is. Paul himself is a man who knows how hard. He had suffered so much as a Christian for his faith. But if you look at Romans Chapter Eight and you just sit down and just read the entire thing and just kind of zoom out on it, you see Paul begins the chapter with this promise, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.And then he ends the chapter with another promise that there's also no separation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that nothing in heaven on earth can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. That Romans Eight, what he's doing is he's giving hope, he's giving comfort, he's giving assurance to Christians and to us that the trials and the temptations that we face in this life, these are not a sign that we're still condemned. They're not a sign that we're not saved. They're not a sign that God has forsaken us or left us. And they are not a sign that God is not in control. That this pain that we experience as Christians in this life, these are not the pangs of death that we're experiencing. These are the pings of birth. And that's what he says towards the middle of Chapter Eight, that this pain is real, but we need to understand that there is a purpose in this pain that is bringing about something so good that the pain is soon going to be totally forgotten.That's the hope that Paul wants to give us and he wants us to hold onto as we read Romans Chapter Eight, because, yeah, we are saints, but we're also sinners. We have eternal life, and yet we see Christians still die. We are more than conquerors, and yet we still face suffering and persecution. And if God has not chosen to just kind of teleport us off this earth and give us our glorified bodies as soon as we get saved, then it's because He has work for us to do here until Christ returns, that His good purposes for us in this world are not yet complete. And so that brings us to the last question we need to ask ourselves today. If that is true and if God has you here for a purpose, for a reason, then what will God do through you? What does God desire to do through you? Have you stopped to just imagine what God could do in your life?One of the things that I didn't mention earlier when I told the story about Owen's baseball team is that one of the reasons that moment was so tense, and one of the reasons that the outcome was such a big deal, is that for the first half of the season he had not gotten a single hit, I don't think. He was really struggling to hit the ball this year. This was the first year that he was doing kid pitch instead of coaches pitch, so the kids are pitching the whole time. And what that means is all the batters, they need to develop a new skill. And that skill is how do you bat against a pitcher who's not just, he's not just going to throw consistent strikes over the plate, some of these pitches are going to be all over the place. Actually, there were a few games where I think the pitchers were hitting the batters more than the batters were hitting the ball.And so, it's a new skill you got to develop, is how do you choose your pitches and how do you know when to swing, when not to, but he was struggling with this. And what it meant was he was striking out most of his times at bat. About halfway through the season, though, something changed. There was a turning point. Owen's coach rented some batting cages and for just several hours, there was just intense, focused, practice over and over and over with hitting the ball. And when he came out of that practice and went back out into the field, he started hitting the ball really consistently for the rest of the year. And practice is important. Practice makes perfect. There is a work that needs to be done in us, but what good would all of that have practice have been for him if he had never gone back out and applied those new skills on the field in a real game?And one of the temptations that we face as Christians is that a lot of times we'd rather practice than play the game. That when the coach calls us in, we would rather sit the bench, and it's a lot more comfortable to study the Bible theoretically in a simulated environment than it is to live it out in real life with real people and real problems. And this is one of the reasons that we intentionally want to try to keep things simple here at Mosaic. We talk about love Jesus simple, that really at Mosaic, we just focus on really three main things and we make them a priority.We worship together. That is a priority. We need to make it a priority. Every week we gather for worship together. We serve together. It's another important priority, that Jesus Christ did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. That He was a servant and we need to be servants. And then thirdly, we gather in homes and have community groups together. That is another priority. But beyond that, we really don't want to pack people's schedule full with a whole bunch of like churchy stuff. Like one hand, we know how busy people's lives are in the city already, but we don't want to just cram and just have people where all they're ever doing is going from seminar to class to study to one thing after another, because all those can be very good things, and necessary things at times, but you can't win championships if you never leave the batting cage. That's the point that I'm trying to make, that we all need enough margin in our lives to actually go out and do something on the field. And this city is a field. This is our mission field.If you remember, earlier in Romans, really the big idea of Romans is this idea that justification comes by grace through faith. And Paul, the way that he proves this case is by pointing all the way back to the example of Abraham, that this is how God had always intended it to be, that we are justified not by our works, but by grace through faith. But do you remember what God said to Abraham the very first time He speaks to him, when He calls him? This is Genesis Chapter 12, One through Three. It says, "Now the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and from your kindred in your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you, all the families on earth shall be blessed.'"Romans Chapter Eight can really be read as a list of the blessings that we have in Christ. That in Christ we have the blessing of justification. In Christ, we have the blessing of adoption into the family of God. In Christ we have the blessing of sanctification and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. That in Christ we have the blessed hope of glorification that Christ is going to return and make all things new. But God's grace toward us, God's blessings toward us, and God has been incredibly gracious toward us, but his blessings toward us should not be in vain. That like Abraham, there is a greater purpose in all of these blessings than just the way that they bless us individually. That God has blessed us in Christ in order to make us a blessing to all the nations, as he said to Abraham.And the nations are in this room. The nations are right outside our door. And so what that means is on the one hand we cannot give up this inner battle of the work that Christ is doing in us. We need to fight against sin. We need to grow in sanctification. But we also cannot forget we have an outward mission to the world, to share the gospel of what Christ has done for us, to testify to the reality of what Christ is doing in us and to allow Christ to work through us by making disciples of all the nations.We say this in our membership class a lot, but if you haven't taken the class for a while, if you've been a member for a while, just a reminder, if you are a Christian living in Boston, Massachusetts, then the chances are when you go to school, when you go to work, when you see your neighbors, chances are that you are the only Christian that they personally know living in this city. You may be the only person they know who has the answers to the meaning of life. Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? How should we live?You may be the only person they know who is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that you have been set free by the law of the spirit of life from the law of sin and death. You can show them what that looks like. To live a life in the power of the Holy Spirit, without guilt, without shame, with no condemnation, to the love sacrificially, to forgive people quickly from the heart, and to extend people grace in a graceless world, to tell them why you have hope, why you have peace, why you have joy, and why you are different. You may be the only person who can be the hands and the feet and the words of Christ to them that can come and say, "Come and see what God has done for you. Come and see what God wants to do in you and come and imagine what God could do through you."Later on in Romans Chapter 10, the Apostle Paul tells us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Then he asks some questions. How will they call on him, in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching, and how are they to preach unless they are sent. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news.As a Christian you need to know that you have been saved in order to be sent, in order to be that blessing. And so, as we close today, just a couple of things, as you prepare to go out and live your lives this week, first of all, I just want you to remember that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, that you are in Christ. That you are loved, you are chosen. There is no condemnation for you. There is no accusation that the enemy can bring against you. That there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That you are in Christ. And approach this week with that mindset, that you are in Christ. But also approach this with your mind set on the spirit, with the mindset that as much as you are in Christ, that Christ is in you. And if Christ is in you, then what might He desire to do through you in this coming week, in this coming season, in this life?And then, finally, if you're here today and you are not a Christian, and you want to experience what this means, that there can be no condemnation for you? And the way you do that, you just simply repent, turn and put your faith in Jesus Christ, call on the name of the Lord, as the Apostle Paul said, and you will be saved. You can do that today, as we close in prayer. So let's pray and we'll continue and worship.God, we thank you for this good news. We thank You for saving us. We thank You for sanctifying us, for adopting us into Your family, for giving us a future and a hope and an eternal inheritance through Christ Jesus. God, we pray that the good work that You began in us, both individually and as a church, that You would carry on to completion until the day that Christ returns. And Lord, I pray that if there is anyone here today that has not been justified by Your grace, that You would save them, that You would give them faith and that they would put their faith in Christ and what He's done for them, that Your spirit would fill them and begin a good work in them, that their lives would become a testimony to Your grace, and Your power would work mightily through them. For the sake of Your name and glory, we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. God, first of all, we just thank you for the kids of Mosaic, and just what a tremendous blessing that they are. God, we pray for them, we pray for their families. We pray that You would bless the kids' summer nights this year and everybody that's working so hard to put that together. Lord, we thank You for all the brothers and sisters in Christ that are not only working on that, but are down in Mini Mosaic every week just being a blessing and service to our children. God, we thank You for these kids, but we thank You also that You have made us Your kids, that You have made us Your heavenly father through Your son, Jesus Christ. You have adopted us into Your family. God, I just pray that You would help us to grasp what good news that truly is for us, that our salvation is not contingent upon anything that we have done or need to do, but fully upon what You have done for us in Christ. And that Lord, just as we did nothing to contribute to our conception or physical birth, we can do nothing to save ourselves, but it is Your spirit alone who regenerates hearts and causes us to be born again. We enter Your household by sheer grace through faith in Your son Jesus Christ and we thank You for this amazing grace. We pray also Lord, that Your grace taught us would not be in vain, that You have done a great work for us and we pray now that You do a great work in us, so that by the power of your Holy Spirit, You could do a great work through us for the sake of Your mission, Your kingdom, and Your glory. Lord, we thank You for this time. We pray that You just speak to us today through this amazing passage of scripture that we have. We pray all this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. All right. Well, today is an exciting day. I think first of all summer is officially here and so you might see me breaking a sweat up here today, but that's not really why I'm excited. I'm excited because we finally have made our way to Romans Chapter Eight. If you were here at the beginning of the series of Romans, we talked about how the Bible, holy scripture, is without comparison, the most important, the most influential book in human history. Nothing else even comes close. You cannot begin to understand the world as it is today if you have not read the Bible. But within the Bible, we talked about how the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, is arguably most influential letter within the most influential book. Today, as we come to Romans Chapter Eight, if you are familiar with the Book of Romans, you know that within the Book of Romans, this is a halfway point, it's the summit, it's the peak, it is the crowning jewel of Paul's letter. It is arguably the most influential chapter, within the most influential letter, within the most influential book, that has ever been written. This chapter has been called the inner sanctuary within the cathedral of the Christian faith. Have you ever had a really exciting story to tell, and you just can't wait to get to the point of it, but you know that you can't do that because if you just jumped straight to the point that the people that you're telling this to, they're not going to grasp the full weightiness of just how great of a point that you're trying to make? A few weeks ago, my son Owen is 10 years old, he just finished up the baseball season this past week. And a few weeks ago during baseball, Owen got a base hit. That's the point of the story. But if that's all I tell you, you haven't even begun to grasp the point. And so let me set this up. A few weeks ago, Owen's team began the playoffs. It's a double elimination tournament and they lost their first game. What that meant is they went into the loser's bracket and if they lost one more time, their season would be over. And so in the second game of the playoffs, they're losing the entire game. It's the bottom of the last inning, there are two outs, but there are runners on second and third. The team had been down the whole game. They made a little bit of a comeback in the last inning, but victory was just within grasp, but not quite there, and Owen is up to bat and he has three balls and two strikes, full count. This next pitch is going to determine everything. If he strikes out, the inning is over, the game is over, the season is over, they finish last place and he becomes that poor kid that struck out in the last inning and blew the game for everyone. The pressure was insane. Now, within that context, you understand the weightiness, the gravity of my words, when I say Owen got a base hit and he hit in, drove in the winning runs to win that game. Actually his team, after that, they came back and they made their way all the way up to the championship game and they beat the defending team in the first game 26 to seven, and then they lost the second game, which ruins the story. But you get the point. You can't just jump straight to the point, sometimes you need some context. And what Paul has been doing in his letter to the Romans is you can sense his excitement as he gets to Romans Chapter Eight, as he gets to the big idea, to the big point, but he's taken his time for the last seven chapters setting up the context so that we can really feel how great, how good, this good news really is. In the first couple of chapters, he presents, he lays out the human problem that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that the wages of sin is death. He builds this argument, this case that proves that we all actually know that. Deep down in our hearts and our souls we know that we are not as we ought to be, and that we are deserving of judgment. Then for a couple chapters, he presents the divine solution, that even though we have all sinned and that the wages of sin is death, that we can be justified freely by grace through Jesus Christ, because Christ has made propitiation for our sins on the cross. But then right as he gets there, he takes this unexpected detour, and for a couple of chapters Paul begins to answer the objections that he is anticipating from his critics. He does this in order to show definitively how bad our problem really is. That it's not just that we're sinful, it's that we are sinful beyond all measure, and that even something as good and perfect and holy as the law of God, this is Romans Chapter Seven, even the law is powerless to save us. The law cannot make us good. It can show us what is good, but all it can really do for us is show us how far from good we really are. Paul brings us back down deep into the pit, right up to the brink of utter hopelessness and despair. At the end of Romans Chapter Seven, he just says, "Wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me from this body of death?" What hope could we possibly have to overcome the presence and the power and the penalty of our sin, of our depravity, that we are all guilty, we are all without excuse, we have no defense, we are not worthy of anything but judgment, and judgment is coming and deep down we all know it. Then all of a sudden in Romans Chapter Seven, Verse 25, Paul makes this sudden shift, and it's like in a symphony, he begins this crescendo in verse 25 and he says, "But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and then he launches into Chapter Eight of our text today with this triumphant proclamation that, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." How can he say that? That's what we're going to be looking at in our text today. If you would please look at Romans Chapter Eight, we're going to be looking at verses one through four together this morning. This is Romans Eight and beginning in Verse One. The apostle Paul says this, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done, with the law, weakened by the flesh could not do, by sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." This is the reading of God's holy word for us today. As we look at this text, I have three questions that I want you to ask yourself this morning. First of all, what has God done for you? Do you know what God has done for you? Second, what is God doing in you? And then thirdly, what could God do through you? The first question that we need to ask, it's not what must we do for God in order to justify ourselves or be saved? It's what has God done for us? We all know this, but this is what sets Christianity apart from every other worldview, every other philosophy, every other religion, is this idea of grace. Going back to the beginning of Romans, Paul begins Romans Chapter One, and he tells us that, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." This is good news, in a strange way. It's bad news for us. It's good news because what this means is that God is good and because God is good, God is just, and in order for God to be just, then He must condemn sin. But now that's bad news for us because we are sinners. Why is Paul so excited in Romans Chapter Eight? Well, we get a clue to that a little bit later on when he gets to Romans Chapter Three. He says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith." And why did He do that? He says, "This was to show God's righteousness," because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just, and the justifier of those, of the one who has faith in Jesus. This is the miracle of the gospel, that through Christ God is both just and justifier, that God upholds His justice by properly condemning sin on the cross, proving Himself to be just, but He also in upholding His justice is upholding His mercy as well, by taking that condemnation upon Himself, proving to also be the justifier of those who have faith in Christ. And this is what God has done for us. And the question is why would God do that? Why would He sacrifice so much to justify us who are so unworthy? 1 John Four, the Apostle John in Verse Nine, says, "In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His own Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." What is it that makes you a Christian? Are you a Christian because you love God? If you think that loving God is what makes you a Christian, scripture says you might not be a Christian. That God doesn't love you because you're loving. He doesn't love you because you're lovely. Your love for God, yeah, that may show that you are a Christian, but you are not a Christian because you love God. The only reason you are a Christian is because God has loved you. That God first loved you. He chose you. He adopted you as His own. And so does that mean that God's love, sometimes we hear this phrase God's unconditional love, is God's love unconditional? No, not exactly. God's love is not universal. It's not unconditional. It is actually completely conditional, but the good news is that it's not conditional upon us. It's conditional upon the character of God the Father. It's conditional upon the sacrifice of God the Son, that God is love. We do not define the love. Love is defined by the character of God. And He has manifest His love by sending His Son to come, to seek, and to save us who were lost. And so back to our passage, Paul says at the very beginning, he just kind of bursts into this excitement of, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." In Greek, what he actually says, "Is no therefore now condemnation," which doesn't make a whole lot of sense in English. But if you understand the way that Greek sentences are structured, the point is he is trying to powerfully emphasize the no, the noneness of our condemnation, which stands in total contrast to the fullness of the condemnation that we actually deserve. We talked about this earlier, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That's Romans 3:23. That the wages of that sin is death. That's Romans 6:23. And so how can Paul say now that there's no condemnation? Well, he goes on in Verse Three and he tells us, "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." That where there was no hope, where there was no way, God made a way. He made a way to justly condemn sin in Christ on the cross, while at the same time mercifully justifying sinners. And this is the gospel. He says that God the Father sent God the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And notice that word likeness there. Jesus did not come in sinful flesh. Jesus never sinned. Jesus was fully God, and yet he was fully man. He took on flesh. He was incarnate. But like Adam before the fall, Jesus did not have a sin nature. And so what that means is that Jesus faced all the limitations of a human body. He faced all the temptations that we experienced in a fallen world, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, He lived every moment of His life from the cradle to the grave without sin. He loved the Lord His God with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength continually and loved His neighbor as Himself perfectly. And so being fully man, Jesus had to be fully man, because what this meant was that He could stand as a worthy substitute in humanity's place. He was one of us. He could represent us. But being fully divine, He could also stand as a worthy sacrifice, capable of actually paying that debt and in doing so, He actually defeats Satan, sin, and death itself. So Verse Four says that by sending Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, that this is the reason that God sent Christ, this is the reason He came, was to deal with our sin. God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus in order that the righteous requirement of the law may actually be fulfilled in us, that Jesus took our condemnation and exchanged it for His justification, that God the Father declares Jesus guilty so that we could be declared perfectly righteous. That all the penalty that our sin deserved was placed on Christ. It was imputed to Him at the cross and there, and all of His righteousness is imputed to us, all the glory that His righteousness deserved is given to us by grace, through faith. That the curse of our lawbreaking fell on Him so that the blessing of His law keeping could be given to us. And so before we begin to consider what God wants to do in us or through us we need to just sit in this and be immersed, be overwhelmed, by what God has done for us. That God has done what even the law weakened by our flesh could not do. He's saved us from the penalty of our sin. And He has now hidden our lives in Christ. That's the language that Paul uses in Ephesian, that your life in Christ, you are hidden in Christ. And so think of it like this. We're going to talk a bit about sanctification. Sanctification is the power of Christ's life in you. Justification is the position of your life hidden in Christ. That if you are in Christ, that right now, when God the Father looks at you, He sees Christ's perfection, that all of your sins past, present, future, they were nailed to the cross. It's done. It's finished. They're forgiven, forgotten, cast to the bottom of the sea. Scripture says removed as far as the east is from the west. That all of our debt was transferred to Christ on the cross and He paid it in full with His blood. And now by grace God credits Jesus righteousness to us and it is sitting on our ledger, that you are in Christ and Christ is in you. And so now do you begin to understand why the Apostle Paul is so excited? Do you remember who this guy was like? This is Paul, the persecutor of Jesus Christ, the persecutor of the church, the murderer of Christians, the blasphemer, that this man, now in Christ, has been given the full assurance of the Father's eternal unfailing love. The full assurance that God the Father is never going to rub his sin in his face again. And it's not just that Paul got a second chance. We're not talking about a blank slate where you can go and try to do better next time. What we're talking about is actually Paul's given Jesus' slate. It's like imagine Jesus is the big brother. Paul's the little brother. Paul's the class clown. He's failing out of every subject in school. Jesus is the is the valedictorian and on the way home to Dad, to show their report cards, Jesus takes them, He swaps the names. Paul gets to go home and show this perfect record to the Father and experience the perfect pleasure of the Father. Not because of what he's done, but because of what His brother Christ has done for him. And you begin to get, get a sense of what has Paul so excited in this chapter. Psalm 103, 11 and 12 says that, "As high as the heavens are above the earth so great as His steadfast love to those who fear Him. As far as the East is from the West, so far does He remove our transgressions from us." This is why we sometimes sing Amazing Grace or we sing the song Scandalous Grace, that this is amazing, this is scandalous. It seems almost too good to be true. And really the reason that Paul had taken that detour around Chapter Six and Seven is to answer the objections of those who were claiming that, "Yeah, this actually is too good to be true, that you can't preach this, that you can't go around telling people this message of grace, this message of complete forgiveness, that there's no condemnation. Because if you go around talking about this amazing grace, well then aren't you just taking away people's motivation to not sin? Aren't you just going to encourage them to sin more?" And Paul says, "No. If that's what you think, then you've still yet to understand grace." And that brings us to the second question today, that God's grace doesn't set us free in order to sin or for sin. God's grace sets us free from sin. And so Paul goes on and he says, Romans back to Romans 8:1, "There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." That grace, it takes us out of this impersonal realm of religion and law and it brings us into the personal realm of relationship and love. And this is pretty easy for us to understand if we think about it in human terms. Like if I sin against my wife and I go and I beg her for forgiveness and she forgives me, I don't think, "That was so easy. I'm going to go do that again because now I know she's just going to forgive me. And so I can just keep doing." No. I think, "Wow, I didn't deserve that forgiveness and I never want to hurt her like that again. I never want to do that again." That forgiveness and that grace actually motivate me to not sin again. Why? Because we're in a relationship, because we love one another, and this is what the gospel does. It brings us into this relationship with God the Father. I said this earlier, but justification is the position of your life in Christ and sanctification is the power of Christ's life in you, that the reason there is no condemnation for us is because our lives are hidden in Christ. But now the reason that we can fight the good fight of faith and put our sin to death is because we have the power of Christ living in us. And so if you remember last week we were in Chapter Seven and Chapter Seven is, it's kind of a lot to wrap your mind around, but we talked about how the big idea that Paul is getting here is he's trying to illustrate that as good and as holy as the law was, the chapter is really showing us that it was weak and it was incapable of saving us from our sin. And if Chapter Seven, Paul wrote that to show us the weakness of the law, then Chapter Eight, he wrote us to show us the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. And so in Chapter Seven, you see law, law, law, over and over and over, and here in Chapter Eight, you see he's just talking about the spirit, the spirit, the spirit. And the first thing that we need to understand here, Paul talks about the law of the spirit of life compared to the law of sin and death. In the Book of Romans, Paul uses the word law in two different ways. And so sometimes when he uses the word law, he's referring to God's law, the Mosaic law, the 10 Commandments. Other times he's using the word law in a more general sense. It's like a governing principle. It's like a power. Like we would think of the law of gravity. And so that is the way that he's actually using it in these verses, that the law of the spirit of life, the law of the sin and death, in the flesh, the law of sin and death, this was the governing power, principle, in our life. That before Christ, sin had this, it was like the gravitational pull of the sun and our lives revolved around sin and we were slaves to that orbit. There's nothing that we could do to escape the power of sin's gravity on our lives. And so when I picture what Paul is describing here, it's as if Christ has come and He has just ripped us out of that orbit around sin. He's broken the power of sin's gravity on our lives and He's now placed us in a new orbit, that we have this new governing principle, this power that he calls the law or the power of the spirit of life. That we were once under the power of sin that led to death, but now in Christ, our lives revolve around the spirit who gives abundant and eternal life. Now here's the tension that we live in as Christians. We've been ripped out of one orbit, we've been placed into this other orbit. Now does that mean that after you come to Christ that you're never going to feel the pull of temptation again? Does that mean that after you come to Christ that you're never going to sin again? No, of course we know that. But so then just as your life will no longer revolve around sin, it doesn't mean that you're never going to experience sin again. 1 John 1:8 says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." We talked about this a little bit last week, that we are never going to be perfect and without sin on this side of eternity. That until Jesus comes back and gives us our resurrected, glorified bodies, that sin is going to continue to be this constant threat and presence in our lives, that none of us are ever going to in this life, none of us are ever going to come close to fulfilling the greatest commandment, which is the love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind and all of your strength. I can't even imagine doing that perfectly for a few seconds, let alone a lifetime. And the second commandment, which is to perfectly love your neighbor as yourself. We're never going to be sinless, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. That's the big idea. Pastor Jan said this last week that you will never be sinless, but as a Christian, you should be sinning less, that there is a real change, a real difference, a real distinction, between your life and the flesh before Christ and your life in the spirit in Christ. And that difference is you now for the first time have the power to say no to sin, to fight back against your sin, and to put the flesh to death. That before, you were powerless, that sin was your master. You were its slave. Your mind was set on it, your life revolved around it. But when Christ became your master, He set you free. And in setting you free, He deals a death blow to sin. And so on the one hand, sin is not dead, but it is dying and it's power over you should be growing less and less as you progress in your sanctification. And so sin is no longer your master, but it is still very much your adversary. This is why we still need to be on constant alert. Peter tells us that our enemy is He's roaming around like a roaring line seeking someone to devour. God told Cain in Genesis 4:7, He said, "Cain, sin is crouching at your door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it" And that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we have to rule over our sin. We're told that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. If we draw near to God, God will draw near to us. So in Romans 7:4, Paul asked the question, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" And then in Romans Eight, he tells us. Who will do this? God sent Christ to deliver us from the penalty of our sin, but also that Christ sent the Holy Spirit to deliver us from the power of sin in our lives and we need to fight in that power to rule over sin. And so the practical question right now for all of us is what is your life revolving around? What is your mind set on? We're going to talk about, Tyler is going to talk a little bit more about this next week when we get to the next passage, but in Romans 8, five and six, Paul says that those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. What is your mindset? What is your mind set on? And the question is what are the practical rhythms that you are placing in your life right now in order to set and to reset your mind over and over on the things of the spirit? Now you're here right now. That's a pretty good start, right? Gathering for worship with the church, with the communion of the saints. This should be a habit. This should be a rhythm of our lives. And not only that, we show up here on once a week and worship together. But when you do, do you have your mind set on it? Are you thinking about it? Are you looking forward to worship all week? Are you preparing yourself to come and to be present and to be focused and to be attentive, to actually sing God's praise and to apply your mind to His word during worship. We need to do that. Daily, just reading God's word, abiding in God's word, being constant in prayer. It's another habit we need to have to set our mind on the spirit. Serving the body of Christ. Having fellowship with the believers. Are you committed to a community group? Are you dedicated and are you consistent in your participation with other believers and their lives? These are all very practical things, but they're practical things we need to do because the Holy Spirit uses these practical things in very profound ways to sanctify us in our fight against sin. Now, I want to take a moment to just talk about something else that is going on in Romans Chapter Eight. As we think about these things, most of us at one time or another have probably had a concern, a question, come and linger in our mind. And that is if all these things are true, if we are saved, if we are in Christ, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we are adopted into the family of God the Father, if we have truly been set free from the law of sin and death, then why do we still experience sin and death? As a Christian, do you still face temptation? Yeah. As a Christian, do you still sometimes sin? Yeah. As Christians, we still suffer. As Christians, we still die. And I believe that these concerns, these questions, are actually the reason that Paul is writing this chapter. He's anticipating these thoughts because if all of this is true, then we're going to ask then why is the Christian life so hard? And Paul is writing to a people who have suffered and they know how hard it is. Paul himself is a man who knows how hard. He had suffered so much as a Christian for his faith. But if you look at Romans Chapter Eight and you just sit down and just read the entire thing and just kind of zoom out on it, you see Paul begins the chapter with this promise, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then he ends the chapter with another promise that there's also no separation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that nothing in heaven on earth can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. That Romans Eight, what he's doing is he's giving hope, he's giving comfort, he's giving assurance to Christians and to us that the trials and the temptations that we face in this life, these are not a sign that we're still condemned. They're not a sign that we're not saved. They're not a sign that God has forsaken us or left us. And they are not a sign that God is not in control. That this pain that we experience as Christians in this life, these are not the pangs of death that we're experiencing. These are the pings of birth. And that's what he says towards the middle of Chapter Eight, that this pain is real, but we need to understand that there is a purpose in this pain that is bringing about something so good that the pain is soon going to be totally forgotten. That's the hope that Paul wants to give us and he wants us to hold onto as we read Romans Chapter Eight, because, yeah, we are saints, but we're also sinners. We have eternal life, and yet we see Christians still die. We are more than conquerors, and yet we still face suffering and persecution. And if God has not chosen to just kind of teleport us off this earth and give us our glorified bodies as soon as we get saved, then it's because He has work for us to do here until Christ returns, that His good purposes for us in this world are not yet complete. And so that brings us to the last question we need to ask ourselves today. If that is true and if God has you here for a purpose, for a reason, then what will God do through you? What does God desire to do through you? Have you stopped to just imagine what God could do in your life? One of the things that I didn't mention earlier when I told the story about Owen's baseball team is that one of the reasons that moment was so tense, and one of the reasons that the outcome was such a big deal, is that for the first half of the season he had not gotten a single hit, I don't think. He was really struggling to hit the ball this year. This was the first year that he was doing kid pitch instead of coaches pitch, so the kids are pitching the whole time. And what that means is all the batters, they need to develop a new skill. And that skill is how do you bat against a pitcher who's not just, he's not just going to throw consistent strikes over the plate, some of these pitches are going to be all over the place. Actually, there were a few games where I think the pitchers were hitting the batters more than the batters were hitting the ball. And so, it's a new skill you got to develop, is how do you choose your pitches and how do you know when to swing, when not to, but he was struggling with this. And what it meant was he was striking out most of his times at bat. About halfway through the season, though, something changed. There was a turning point. Owen's coach rented some batting cages and for just several hours, there was just intense, focused, practice over and over and over with hitting the ball. And when he came out of that practice and went back out into the field, he started hitting the ball really consistently for the rest of the year. And practice is important. Practice makes perfect. There is a work that needs to be done in us, but what good would all of that have practice have been for him if he had never gone back out and applied those new skills on the field in a real game? And one of the temptations that we face as Christians is that a lot of times we'd rather practice than play the game. That when the coach calls us in, we would rather sit the bench, and it's a lot more comfortable to study the Bible theoretically in a simulated environment than it is to live it out in real life with real people and real problems. And this is one of the reasons that we intentionally want to try to keep things simple here at Mosaic. We talk about love Jesus simple, that really at Mosaic, we just focus on really three main things and we make them a priority. We worship together. That is a priority. We need to make it a priority. Every week we gather for worship together. We serve together. It's another important priority, that Jesus Christ did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. That He was a servant and we need to be servants. And then thirdly, we gather in homes and have community groups together. That is another priority. But beyond that, we really don't want to pack people's schedule full with a whole bunch of like churchy stuff. Like one hand, we know how busy people's lives are in the city already, but we don't want to just cram and just have people where all they're ever doing is going from seminar to class to study to one thing after another, because all those can be very good things, and necessary things at times, but you can't win championships if you never leave the batting cage. That's the point that I'm trying to make, that we all need enough margin in our lives to actually go out and do something on the field. And this city is a field. This is our mission field. If you remember, earlier in Romans, really the big idea of Romans is this idea that justification comes by grace through faith. And Paul, the way that he proves this case is by pointing all the way back to the example of Abraham, that this is how God had always intended it to be, that we are justified not by our works, but by grace through faith. But do you remember what God said to Abraham the very first time He speaks to him, when He calls him? This is Genesis Chapter 12, One through Three. It says, "Now the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and from your kindred in your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you, all the families on earth shall be blessed.'" Romans Chapter Eight can really be read as a list of the blessings that we have in Christ. That in Christ we have the blessing of justification. In Christ, we have the blessing of adoption into the family of God. In Christ we have the blessing of sanctification and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. That in Christ we have the blessed hope of glorification that Christ is going to return and make all things new. But God's grace toward us, God's blessings toward us, and God has been incredibly gracious toward us, but his blessings toward us should not be in vain. That like Abraham, there is a greater purpose in all of these blessings than just the way that they bless us individually. That God has blessed us in Christ in order to make us a blessing to all the nations, as he said to Abraham. And the nations are in this room. The nations are right outside our door. And so what that means is on the one hand we cannot give up this inner battle of the work that Christ is doing in us. We need to fight against sin. We need to grow in sanctification. But we also cannot forget we have an outward mission to the world, to share the gospel of what Christ has done for us, to testify to the reality of what Christ is doing in us and to allow Christ to work through us by making disciples of all the nations. We say this in our membership class a lot, but if you haven't taken the class for a while, if you've been a member for a while, just a reminder, if you are a Christian living in Boston, Massachusetts, then the chances are when you go to school, when you go to work, when you see your neighbors, chances are that you are the only Christian that they personally know living in this city. You may be the only person they know who has the answers to the meaning of life. Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? How should we live? You may be the only person they know who is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that you have been set free by the law of the spirit of life from the law of sin and death. You can show them what that looks like. To live a life in the power of the Holy Spirit, without guilt, without shame, with no condemnation, to the love sacrificially, to forgive people quickly from the heart, and to extend people grace in a graceless world, to tell them why you have hope, why you have peace, why you have joy, and why you are different. You may be the only person who can be the hands and the feet and the words of Christ to them that can come and say, "Come and see what God has done for you. Come and see what God wants to do in you and come and imagine what God could do through you." Later on in Romans Chapter 10, the Apostle Paul tells us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Then he asks some questions. How will they call on him, in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching, and how are they to preach unless they are sent. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news. As a Christian you need to know that you have been saved in order to be sent, in order to be that blessing. And so, as we close today, just a couple of things, as you prepare to go out and live your lives this week, first of all, I just want you to remember that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, that you are in Christ. That you are loved, you are chosen. There is no condemnation for you. There is no accusation that the enemy can bring against you. That there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That you are in Christ. And approach this week with that mindset, that you are in Christ. But also approach this with your mind set on the spirit, with the mindset that as much as you are in Christ, that Christ is in you. And if Christ is in you, then what might He desire to do through you in this coming week, in this coming season, in this life? And then, finally, if you're here today and you are not a Christian, and you want to experience what this means, that there can be no condemnation for you? And the way you do that, you just simply repent, turn and put your faith in Jesus Christ, call on the name of the Lord, as the Apostle Paul said, and you will be saved. You can do that today, as we close in prayer. So let's pray and we'll continue and worship. God, we thank you for this good news. We thank You for saving us. We thank You for sanctifying us, for adopting us into Your family, for giving us a future and a hope and an eternal inheritance through Christ Jesus. God, we pray that the good work that You began in us, both individually and as a church, that You would carry on to completion until the day that Christ returns. And Lord, I pray that if there is anyone here today that has not been justified by Your grace, that You would save them, that You would give them faith and that they would put their faith in Christ and what He's done for them, that Your spirit would fill them and begin a good work in them, that their lives would become a testimony to Your grace, and Your power would work mightily through them. For the sake of Your name and glory, we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Rev. Brian L. Kachelmeier  In this lecture, we conclude our conversation about the prophet Jonah, and we set our eyes on Jesus the One who is greater than Jonah. Download this lecture by clicking on the link below: Lecture: Jonah … Continue reading →

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit Mosaicboston.com. God, we thank you for these words that we just sang. Not just that we can sing them but that we can know that they are true. We see death and decay all around us. We need resurrection in our world, in our country, in our church, in our hearts, Lord. Jesus Christ, you are our living hope, you are the resurrection and the life. We just marvel at what a great and awesome and merciful God that you are. So Lord, we pray for those who are suffering. And we pray for those who are lost, that we are reminded then for many of us, this is the closest to hell that we will ever be. And yet, for some, this is the closest to heaven they could ever hope for. But you Lord have made a way to change that through your Son, through the gospel. So we just cry out for peace but we also out for revival, Lord. That we want to see you raise the dead, bring new life to those who are lost and dead in their sins, Lord. And we know that you can do it, you've done it and we praise you for that. God, right now I just ask for grace as we preach your word this morning, we pray that you would speak to us through this amazing text written by the Apostle Paul and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So if you are just joining us, we have been working our way through the Book of Romans. We're in chapter 2 and I'm going to be just looking at a small passage today. It's a small passage but it has a really big idea and that's one of those ideas you just kind of have to chew on. And it's a simple idea, it's simple but the implications of it are massive, they're huge. And the big idea is just simply this, that things are not as they ought to be. Now that statement isn't very shocking or profound, most of us would say, "Yeah, obviously things are not as they ought to be." I mean, how many of us, when we turn on the news, we think, "Wow. Things are so great, I can't even imagine them getting any better." Where you turn on the news and you think, "Wow, ..." I'm moving my mic pack. So cringe, this is worse than that episode of the Ringer... What's going on here? I'm going to move this down. There we go. Obviously, things are not as they ought to be. And Paul's big idea, the case that he's been trying to make for these first couple of chapters is just simply that, that creation is not blessed, it is cursed, that people are under God's wrath, that the world is not filled with the glory of God as it ought to be, it is filled with sin and death and decay. And it's not just that, that is it's that we all know it intuitively, we just know. We know this is true and yet we deny it, we suppress it and at the same time we don't want to face the truth so we suppress the truth because as much as we know that things are not as they ought to be, we also know that we ourselves are not as we ought to be and that scares us. And so we ignore it, we deny it, we rationalize it away and just try to pretend that this is normal. Quick example from this week, Thursday morning, I was having one of those days where I just couldn't wake up, right? You get out of bed and you're not fully awake, you're not really asleep, eyes are just kind of halfway open. Groggy, that's the word for it. I was groggy. And I get up, every morning we make the kids breakfast, I don't eat breakfast, I'm one of those intermittent fasting type people. So I make breakfast, we sit down and Kelly and the kids, they eat breakfast and as they're eating, I read scripture, we read through books of the Bible together. So they eat, I read and then we pray together. And then it's time to like, "Okay, hurry up. You've got to go get dressed, we've got to get ready for school." And so the kids run off, they get ready, go to get dressed and as they're getting dressed, I usually pack their bags. So every day they take a lunch, they take a water bottle and they take a snack to school with them. I pack them up a little snack in one of those Ziploc bags. And so I did that. I packed their bags, we walk them to school, we both work from home so we walk back home and go about our day. Later that day, I go into the kitchen, I open the pantry and I see laying there on the shelf is our son Owen's snack in his Ziploc bag. I was so out of it, I packed it up and then I just set it down and left it there and didn't put it in his bag. And I felt terrible, he's probably hangry, we're going to get a call from the principal, he's going to get in trouble and I felt terrible. But there's nothing really I could do about it so I just went back to work, forgot about it, put it out of my mind. Anyways, later that night we're sitting at dinner, we're talking, we're eating and all of a sudden Owen pipes up and he says, "Oh, hey dad, I wanted to say thank you so much for that boatload of Oreos you gave me and my snack today." I was like, "Wait, back that boat up. What are you talking about?" Here's the backstory. Tuesday night, we had community group, my wife and our daughter, Nora baked a cake and they crumbled Oreos all over the top and they took the rest of them, and there was a lot of them, and they put him in one of those big oversize Ziploc bags... You know where this is going? So that day 20, 25 of them, I don't know, it was this big and it was packed full. He opens up his backpack at snack time and he eats them all. Actually he said he saved a couple for lunch because he started to get a stomach ache, he couldn't quite power through those last few. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, "What were you thinking?" We don't do sugar in our house very much and I was like, "What would make you think that I would intentionally give you a massive bag of Oreos for your snack?" He's like, "I know, right? It didn't seem right but I jus ate them anyway." And the point is, things are not as they ought to be, we just go with it. This is us. That truth is obvious but it's also inconvenient. And so we know things are wrong, we do them anyway, we just go with it, we go with the flow and that's the problem. But the bigger problem is that the consequences of our wrongness and of the wrongness around us is a lot bigger than the consequences of a 10 year old eating 25 Oreos in one sitting. That had some pretty big consequences as well, I'm sure. But as truly as there are laws of gravity and physics governing the tangible things around us, there are laws of truth and justice and morality governing our hearts and souls and we all know it intuitively. We also know that we are in violation of those laws. We don't want to face the reality of those laws, we don't want to face the reality that we know that what goes up must come down. So instead of facing the truth, we suppress the truth because deep down we're terrified of the truth. We know what's gone up, our sin, our iniquity, our rebellion and we know what is coming down is judgment. If you have your Bibles open up to Romans, Chapter Two, we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 16 today. And the three points that we're going to be talking about during the sermon is number one, we need to face the reality of the law and its giver. Number two, we need to face the reality of our guilt and shame. And then three, we need to face the reality of our judge and our defender. So if you have your Bibles, Romans Chapter Two, starting in Verse 11, the words are also going to be up here on the screen. The Apostle Paul writes this, "For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned 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 with the requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Point number one is that we need to face the reality of the law and its givers. So real quick, Paul's train of thought here is that number one, there is a divine and impartial judge. Number two, everyone knows what is right. Number three, no one has done what is right. And number four, therefore we are all going to stand justly condemned and without excuse, that's his basic argument. But within this argument lies the proof that this argument is true. The Jews knew it was true and even he says the Gentiles who did not have the law, that's everyone else, they know it is true as well. And so first of all, Paul was writing to Jews in Rome. And the Jews knew the reality of the law and its giver personally, right? Because their entire history as a people had been wrapped up in this God who had clearly and miraculously revealed him self to them. Now you see that all throughout all the Old Testament, that Israel's God revealed himself as the God of truth and grace, law and order, justice and mercy. That Israel's God is the one who had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt with undeniable signs and wonders. He gave them his word, he gave them his law, he had written it on tablets of stone and brought them into the Promised Land. The Jews knew the law and the Jews knew the giver of the law personally. And the problem was they didn't keep the law or obey the giver, they didn't love the Lord, their God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength, they didn't love their neighbor as their self. And so Paul says in the second half of Verse 12 that, "All who have sinned under the law," that's the Jewish people, "Will be judged by the law. For it is not just the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified." That the Jews, they knew the reality of the law, they knew God the giver of the law, the problem was that, that law couldn't save them because they couldn't keep it. All they could do was reveal how guilty they were, reveal how desperately they needed mercy from God. And so Paul was writing to Jews but at the same time, Paul was writing to Gentiles in Rome. And the Gentiles, they did not have the law, they didn't have the history, the culture, they didn't have the miracles, they didn't have the personal relationship, the first hand encounters with God that the Jewish people had. And so the question that some might wonder then is, "Okay, on account of their ignorance, is God just going to let them off the hook? How can God judge them according to a law that they don't have, that they don't know?" And this is where things get really trippy and deep. The Gentiles did not have the advantage of having the law written in tablets of stone but Paul says, "Hold on. That's true. But their actions prove that they'll along with every other human being on the planet actually have the work of that law written on their hearts." That everyone, even if a person never reads the Hebrew scriptures, never hears the 10 Commandments, is never told of Israel's God, they still have the work of that law written on their hearts, their actions, their consciences, they bear witness to what the law requires, that deep down they all know how they ought to live but they don't. And so Paul says of the Gentiles in Verse 14, "For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they don't have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears a witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." If you've never read CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, read it. Get it, read it, that's your homework, chew on it, it's a dense book, you've got to take the time to process through what he's writing. But Lewis takes the theology of Romans 2:15, this idea that the law is written on every human heart. He takes that theology and he presents a case, a full fledged, philosophical apologetic for why this is just undeniably true. I was trying to think of a good illustration to give here and I couldn't think of anything better than just say what he says in his book. And so I'm just going to read a couple paragraphs, you can go read the rest of it on your own. But the premise is just this, God's moral law is written on our hearts, everyone intuitively knows it and we prove this every time we instinctively appeal to it. And so this is what Lewis writes in his first chapter of Mere Christianity he says, "Everyone has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say because they say things like this. 'Well, how would you like it if anyone did the same to you?' 'That's my seat, I was there first.' 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm.' 'Why should you shove in first?' 'Hey, give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine.' 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated and children as well as grownups." "Now what interests me about all of these remarks is that the man who makes diem is not merely saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, 'Well, to hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what has been doing does not really go against the standard or that if it does there's some special excuse. He pretends there's some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat for should not keep it or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise." "It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you want to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals but they cannot quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you had some sort of agreement as to what right and wrong are just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer has committed to foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football." And so the big idea is that there is this law, we all know it, we all appeal to it but more than that, we didn't make it, this is not something we came up with ourselves, it transcends us. It's a law that transcends individuals and cultures and time, that it's not just true for you or true for me, it's just simply true, transcendently true. And if this is true, we get to ask if there's this transcendent truth, where did that come from? If there's a transcendent moral law, there has to be a transcendent moral law giver. This is why Psalm 14 Verse One, the Psalmist writes that, "It is the fool who says in his heart that there is no God." That it is irrational to deny the reality of a moral God if we just sit down and think about it. If we're afraid to face that reality, if we're afraid to face the of the law and its giver, it's not because the idea is untrue, it's because the idea is uncomfortable. That facing the reality of God, that forces us to face the uncomfortable reality of our own guilt and shame. And that brings us to point number two, that we're all guilty. Verse 12, he says, "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. But it's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified." And there's none who have done, who have perfectly upheld the law. People in general, they don't object to the idea of a good and just God, we understand that without that existence would be hell. We want justice, we want God to be good and bring justice to stop evil, we want those things and we instinctively cry out for justice every time we are personally wronged. See the problem people have is not with that so much as we want God to be just, we just don't want him to be just towards us. We want justice for others but deep down we know that we're deserving of judgment ourselves. Lewis mentioned this briefly in the passage but have you ever noticed, then you get caught in moral violation, violation of this law that we're talking about, that the impulse is not to deny the law, the impulse is to pass the blame. And this began at the very beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden, right? God comes to Adam and calls Adam to give an account and Adam didn't say, "Well, yeah. But God your rules weren't fair." No, he says, "Yeah, but it wasn't my fault. It was that woman that you gave me, it was her fault and you gave her to me so it's kind of your fault. But it's definitely not my fault." And we do this, right? "Yeah, I lied but everybody lies." "Yeah, I stole but not as much as that person over there." "Yeah, I'm bad but you're no better." "Yeah, I did X, Y and Z but I'm only human." I see how foolish that is, in what human courtroom would that defense stand up? "Okay judge, let me just say, I totally murdered that guy. Yep. My bad. I'm only human. Also, it's just one guy, he was kind of annoying, it's not like I'm Hitler." Why do we always go there? Where do we get this idea that the best standard for judgment should be comparing ourselves to the worst person in history, right? The measuring stick of morality is not Hitler's wickedness, the measuring stick of morality is God's holiness. And we acknowledge that. We see that no one even comes close to measuring up. We all fall short. Take a moment here to brag about some glory days, remember Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite? "Back in '82, I could throw a pig skin a quarter of a mile. I bet I could throw a football over the mountains." That's where we're going to go right now. Back in '82, I was born in '82, but back in '98, believe this or don't, I could dunk a volleyball. On a good day, with no one guarding me, at the right angle, give me a few tries, I could even dunk a girl's basketball. I could never quite dunk a men's basketball. The reason this is a big deal, I'm five foot seven and a half. That was a big deal for me for those couple years that I could accomplish it. I was always living in the shadow of Spud Webb, remember him? He was five foot seven and not a half and he won the '86 NBA Dunk Competition, that was always looming over my head. And then you had Muggsy Bogues, he was five foot three in the NBA and he could dunk. But at least for me, small town, Midwest Dutch boy, that was a big deal. I could dunk a girl's basketball, I could dunk a volleyball, I could jump. We're all jumping and some of us can jump higher than others. And we're looking this way and we're looking that way and we're thinking, "Hey, as long as I can jump higher than some of these other chumps around me, then I'm must be doing okay." We measure ourself against the standard of our peers and then we feel justified so long as we're at least somewhat average. And I know some of you and I know that you can jump and from a human perspective, your vertical is impressive but from God's perspective, looking down on earth, he's not impressed with any of our attempts to jump up to the heavens. I'm not talking about adding a few inches or even a few feet to our vertical jump, even the best of us, even those of us who can dunk a girl's basketball at five foot seven and a half, it's like, "Yeah, you've got light years to go before you hit the mark." Romans 3:23 says, "For there's no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." See the standard is not to see who can just do the least amount of evil, the goal is not even to see who can do the most amount of good, the goal is perfection, the goal is holiness, the goal is the glory of God. This is what we were created for and anything less falls short. And now I know what some of you might be thinking, you might be thinking like, "I can't believe that, that standard is just too high." And I get that. And so for the sake of the argument, then I would just ask you to ask yourself, if that is not the standard, then what is the standard? We know there's a standard. If you're going to be a law to yourself, as Paul talks about the Gentiles being a law to themself, are you even able to measure up to your own expectations of yourself or to the people around you for that matter? If you believe that honesty is better than deception, have you ever told a lie? If you believe that fidelity is better than betrayal, have you ever broken a promise? Have you ever let down your friends, your family, your spouse? If you believe that love is better than hate, have you ever been angry with a person in your heart? Can you really say that you are as you believe that you ought to be, without guilt and without shame? There's none of us who can. Just to put it into perspective, what if I told you... I sent this meme out in the newsletter yesterday? What if I told you that Morpheus never actually says the words, "What if I told you," in The Matrix? That's not the point but the point is this, what if I told you that all of your life you've been hooked up to The Matrix or the metaverse? How about that? And what if I told you that our good old friend Mark Zuckerberg, he has been secretly recording every moment of your life, your actions, what you do in private, your thoughts, your inner dialogue, all of it? I know this sermon's going to get shadowbanned under Facebook for this but whatever. And what if I told you that we've got your life on tape right now, up here on the screens, we're all going to pop some popcorn and we're going to just at least watch the highlight reel of all of the darkest moments of your life together? Could one confidently say, "Go ahead. I've got nothing to hide, I'm not ashamed, I am guiltless, I am fully as I ought to be." Or would you say, "Why on earth did I ever open a Facebook account?" We know. And we're not going to watch the tape of your life, don't worry, but Jesus has and he's seen it all. I'm going to hit pause and we're going to come back to that in just a moment because there's something else here that I want to deal with in this text. Because sometimes you maybe have heard, some people will use this text to suggest that Paul is teaching that people who have never heard the gospel can still be saved by their good deeds by keeping the law that is written on their hearts. And that might sound comforting at first, it's actually the opposite of what Paul is teaching here. What Paul is saying is that even those who never hear the gospel, never read the Bible, they have the law of God written on their hearts but instead of keeping it, they break it, none can keep it and so all of us, whether Jews Gentiles alike, we're all guilty, we're all without excuse. That's the big idea. Now, can a sovereign God intervene and save a person? Yeah. That happened with the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. He wasn't sitting in a church service, God just beamed him and said, "You're mine, I'm saving you, get up and go, I'm going to tell you what to do." And we've had, it's not common but we've had people come to Mosaic, they're like, "I grew up Muslim and Jesus came to me in a dream and said, you need to become a Christian and go to church." And they listened and they obeyed, they got baptized, they got saved. God can do that. Yeah. But scripture shows us that, that is the exception, that is not the rule. The rule, the application and where we're going to see Paul go with this train of thought as we move through the book is that the gospel is the power of God to salvation, that the name of Jesus Christ, there is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved and so therefore there is an urgency to preach the gospel to anyone, to everyone who will listen and to take this message to the ends of the Earth. That's the application. Now, the reason that some might want to twist this text to say otherwise is because on the surface that doesn't seem fair, right? From a human perspective, it doesn't seem fair that some would never get the chance to hear the gospel. Now here's the problem. Where did we get this idea that the gospel was fair if the gospel is not fair? It is not fair that the holy, innocent, pure, spotless lamb of God, Jesus Christ would suffer and die for the wicked, depraved, sinful, rebellious enemies of God, that is not fair. So questioning the fairness of salvation is not where you want to start. Of course, it's not fair and praise God it's not fair, if it was fair that would mean that we all just go straight to hell right now, that would be fair. The question we should ask is not, why doesn't God just save everyone? The question we should ask is, why would God choose to save anyone at all and do so at such a tremendous cost to himself? He had to sacrifice everything that which he most loved and cherished in order to save us. And it wasn't because of anything good in us that deserved it, it was only because of him. It was because of his divine goodness, patience, kindness, mercy, compassion and love. And so this theme will probably come up some more as we work through Romans, we'll be it into it more detailed as we go. But for now we just see that the big idea is this, that everyone has the law written on their hearts and so therefore we are all guilty and without excuse because none of us have kept that law, none of us have measured up to that mark, none of us has lived up to that standard. Except for one person and that person was Jesus Christ, that God the law giver took on flesh, entered human history to become the law keeper so he could stand in the place of us who were the law breakers. And this brings us to the final point that we must face the reality of the law and its giver, we must face the reality of our guilt and our shame but the only way that we can do this with any sense of confidence and hope is by facing the reality of our judge and our defender and that's Jesus Christ. And so let me just start by saying Jesus is coming soon, maybe in our lifetime, but if not, I mean, the most any of us have is 70 years or so, soon we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And this should either be our greatest source of hope and joy in this life or our greatest source of misery and terror because you will either stand before the judge alone and without defense or you will stand there with Jesus Christ, who is your defense. And Jesus will judge the world in righteousness and praise God for that because without that heaven would become hell. The promise of Christ's return is the promise that even though things are not as they ought to be right now, a day is coming when that will no longer be true. The promise of Christ's return is that a day is coming when everything that is done in secret will be brought into the light. And it doesn't matter who you are, man, woman, Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, slave, free, you will give an account and when the judge sits on his throne, he will show no partiality. That's where Paul began. That Jesus will judge the world in his righteousness but he will also defend the church with his righteousness as well. And now whether that is true for you personally, then it depends on what you do with Jesus Christ right now. And before we talk about what you need to do with Jesus right now, I want to remind you about what Jesus did for us back then. And Paul writing to the church in Ephesus in the first chapter of Ephesians. He says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." Before the creation of the world and God saw everything that would to ever be, not just the metaverse, the entire universe, all of human history, he saw it all. And Jesus watched the movie of your life, past, present, future, every word, every thought, every action he saw it all. He saw the avatar, the facade, the shell of your outer life, he saw beyond your attempts to cover your guilt and your shame and he peered deep into the darkness of your soul. He watched that movie and as the credits began to roll, he stood up and he said, "I still love you and I have chosen you and you are my beloved. And though you have not been faithful and you fully deserve to die, I will not leave you or forsake you. I will make you mine." And Jesus looked at his bride, the church and he said, "I will take the nails of her iniquity into my own hands and feet. I will carry her sorrows and wash away her tears. I will be raised up on her cross to publicly bear the nakedness of her shame. I will pay her debt with my blood. I will take her punishment with my body. I will go through hell to give her heaven. I will die and she will live. I will bear her sin so that she can wear my righteousness. I will be wrapped in the linens of her death and buried in her tomb so that she can be born anew of my spirit and wrapped in the love of my father. And I will rise from the grave and ascend to the hand of my father and prepare a place for her where she will never be separated from my love and where everything will always be exactly as it ought to be." That is the hope of the gospel and what have we done to deserve this? Absolutely nothing. What do we do to receive this? We simply repent, turn from our sin, our idolatry, from constantly trying to justify ourselves, surrender and believe. Find our justification in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust him with everything and know that he will be our judge but he can also be our defender. Cry out to God, put your faith in Christ and the promise of scripture is that you will be saved. I'm going to close by reading a couple passages from scripture and then we're going to respond and worship together. Hebrew 4:14 says this, "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. And let us confidence drawn near a throne of grace that we may receive the mercy and find grace to help in time of need." And Romans 5:1-2 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." If you would like to learn more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ or if you've made a decision to surrender your life to him today, we would love to talk with you and pray with you. Please come up, talk to us after the service. If you mark on your connection card, we'll follow up with you this week but we would love to follow up and just pray with you and just celebrate that decision. Right now, I'm going to pray and then we're going to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and worship him together. Let's pray. Father I ask that you would just stir our hearts to be just speechless and amazed by your mercy. God, give us a vision of your glory, of your majesty that allows us to grasp the glimpse, the depth of our depravity, not to crush us but to open our eyes to the gravity of the sacrifice that you made, of the blessing that has been offered to us through your son, Jesus Christ. God, teach us to live in a manner worthy of this good news, humble, joyful, confident, bold and always grateful for who you are and for all that you have done for us. God, I pray that your gospel would not return void but that even now that if there are any here today who walked in as strangers and enemies of God, that they would walk out in a newness of life, adopted by your grace, regenerated by your holy spirit, united with your son and help them to find their place in the body of your church. We thank you for Jesus, we pray all of this in his beautiful and powerful name and we worship you now together. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit Mosaicboston.com.God, we thank you for these words that we just sang. Not just that we can sing them but that we can know that they are true. We see death and decay all around us. We need resurrection in our world, in our country, in our church, in our hearts, Lord. Jesus Christ, you are our living hope, you are the resurrection and the life. We just marvel at what a great and awesome and merciful God that you are. So Lord, we pray for those who are suffering. And we pray for those who are lost, that we are reminded then for many of us, this is the closest to hell that we will ever be. And yet, for some, this is the closest to heaven they could ever hope for. But you Lord have made a way to change that through your Son, through the gospel.So we just cry out for peace but we also out for revival, Lord. That we want to see you raise the dead, bring new life to those who are lost and dead in their sins, Lord. And we know that you can do it, you've done it and we praise you for that. God, right now I just ask for grace as we preach your word this morning, we pray that you would speak to us through this amazing text written by the Apostle Paul and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.All right. So if you are just joining us, we have been working our way through the Book of Romans. We're in chapter 2 and I'm going to be just looking at a small passage today. It's a small passage but it has a really big idea and that's one of those ideas you just kind of have to chew on. And it's a simple idea, it's simple but the implications of it are massive, they're huge. And the big idea is just simply this, that things are not as they ought to be. Now that statement isn't very shocking or profound, most of us would say, "Yeah, obviously things are not as they ought to be." I mean, how many of us, when we turn on the news, we think, "Wow. Things are so great, I can't even imagine them getting any better." Where you turn on the news and you think, "Wow, ..." I'm moving my mic pack. So cringe, this is worse than that episode of the Ringer... What's going on here? I'm going to move this down. There we go.Obviously, things are not as they ought to be. And Paul's big idea, the case that he's been trying to make for these first couple of chapters is just simply that, that creation is not blessed, it is cursed, that people are under God's wrath, that the world is not filled with the glory of God as it ought to be, it is filled with sin and death and decay. And it's not just that, that is it's that we all know it intuitively, we just know. We know this is true and yet we deny it, we suppress it and at the same time we don't want to face the truth so we suppress the truth because as much as we know that things are not as they ought to be, we also know that we ourselves are not as we ought to be and that scares us.And so we ignore it, we deny it, we rationalize it away and just try to pretend that this is normal. Quick example from this week, Thursday morning, I was having one of those days where I just couldn't wake up, right? You get out of bed and you're not fully awake, you're not really asleep, eyes are just kind of halfway open. Groggy, that's the word for it. I was groggy. And I get up, every morning we make the kids breakfast, I don't eat breakfast, I'm one of those intermittent fasting type people. So I make breakfast, we sit down and Kelly and the kids, they eat breakfast and as they're eating, I read scripture, we read through books of the Bible together. So they eat, I read and then we pray together.And then it's time to like, "Okay, hurry up. You've got to go get dressed, we've got to get ready for school." And so the kids run off, they get ready, go to get dressed and as they're getting dressed, I usually pack their bags. So every day they take a lunch, they take a water bottle and they take a snack to school with them. I pack them up a little snack in one of those Ziploc bags. And so I did that. I packed their bags, we walk them to school, we both work from home so we walk back home and go about our day. Later that day, I go into the kitchen, I open the pantry and I see laying there on the shelf is our son Owen's snack in his Ziploc bag. I was so out of it, I packed it up and then I just set it down and left it there and didn't put it in his bag.And I felt terrible, he's probably hangry, we're going to get a call from the principal, he's going to get in trouble and I felt terrible. But there's nothing really I could do about it so I just went back to work, forgot about it, put it out of my mind. Anyways, later that night we're sitting at dinner, we're talking, we're eating and all of a sudden Owen pipes up and he says, "Oh, hey dad, I wanted to say thank you so much for that boatload of Oreos you gave me and my snack today." I was like, "Wait, back that boat up. What are you talking about?" Here's the backstory. Tuesday night, we had community group, my wife and our daughter, Nora baked a cake and they crumbled Oreos all over the top and they took the rest of them, and there was a lot of them, and they put him in one of those big oversize Ziploc bags... You know where this is going?So that day 20, 25 of them, I don't know, it was this big and it was packed full. He opens up his backpack at snack time and he eats them all. Actually he said he saved a couple for lunch because he started to get a stomach ache, he couldn't quite power through those last few. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, "What were you thinking?" We don't do sugar in our house very much and I was like, "What would make you think that I would intentionally give you a massive bag of Oreos for your snack?" He's like, "I know, right? It didn't seem right but I jus ate them anyway." And the point is, things are not as they ought to be, we just go with it. This is us. That truth is obvious but it's also inconvenient. And so we know things are wrong, we do them anyway, we just go with it, we go with the flow and that's the problem.But the bigger problem is that the consequences of our wrongness and of the wrongness around us is a lot bigger than the consequences of a 10 year old eating 25 Oreos in one sitting. That had some pretty big consequences as well, I'm sure. But as truly as there are laws of gravity and physics governing the tangible things around us, there are laws of truth and justice and morality governing our hearts and souls and we all know it intuitively. We also know that we are in violation of those laws. We don't want to face the reality of those laws, we don't want to face the reality that we know that what goes up must come down. So instead of facing the truth, we suppress the truth because deep down we're terrified of the truth. We know what's gone up, our sin, our iniquity, our rebellion and we know what is coming down is judgment.If you have your Bibles open up to Romans, Chapter Two, we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 16 today. And the three points that we're going to be talking about during the sermon is number one, we need to face the reality of the law and its giver. Number two, we need to face the reality of our guilt and shame. And then three, we need to face the reality of our judge and our defender. So if you have your Bibles, Romans Chapter Two, starting in Verse 11, the words are also going to be up here on the screen.The Apostle Paul writes this, "For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned 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 with the requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Point number one is that we need to face the reality of the law and its givers. So real quick, Paul's train of thought here is that number one, there is a divine and impartial judge. Number two, everyone knows what is right. Number three, no one has done what is right. And number four, therefore we are all going to stand justly condemned and without excuse, that's his basic argument. But within this argument lies the proof that this argument is true. The Jews knew it was true and even he says the Gentiles who did not have the law, that's everyone else, they know it is true as well.And so first of all, Paul was writing to Jews in Rome. And the Jews knew the reality of the law and its giver personally, right? Because their entire history as a people had been wrapped up in this God who had clearly and miraculously revealed him self to them. Now you see that all throughout all the Old Testament, that Israel's God revealed himself as the God of truth and grace, law and order, justice and mercy. That Israel's God is the one who had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt with undeniable signs and wonders. He gave them his word, he gave them his law, he had written it on tablets of stone and brought them into the Promised Land. The Jews knew the law and the Jews knew the giver of the law personally.And the problem was they didn't keep the law or obey the giver, they didn't love the Lord, their God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength, they didn't love their neighbor as their self. And so Paul says in the second half of Verse 12 that, "All who have sinned under the law," that's the Jewish people, "Will be judged by the law. For it is not just the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified." That the Jews, they knew the reality of the law, they knew God the giver of the law, the problem was that, that law couldn't save them because they couldn't keep it. All they could do was reveal how guilty they were, reveal how desperately they needed mercy from God.And so Paul was writing to Jews but at the same time, Paul was writing to Gentiles in Rome. And the Gentiles, they did not have the law, they didn't have the history, the culture, they didn't have the miracles, they didn't have the personal relationship, the first hand encounters with God that the Jewish people had. And so the question that some might wonder then is, "Okay, on account of their ignorance, is God just going to let them off the hook? How can God judge them according to a law that they don't have, that they don't know?"And this is where things get really trippy and deep. The Gentiles did not have the advantage of having the law written in tablets of stone but Paul says, "Hold on. That's true. But their actions prove that they'll along with every other human being on the planet actually have the work of that law written on their hearts." That everyone, even if a person never reads the Hebrew scriptures, never hears the 10 Commandments, is never told of Israel's God, they still have the work of that law written on their hearts, their actions, their consciences, they bear witness to what the law requires, that deep down they all know how they ought to live but they don't. And so Paul says of the Gentiles in Verse 14, "For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they don't have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears a witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them."If you've never read CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, read it. Get it, read it, that's your homework, chew on it, it's a dense book, you've got to take the time to process through what he's writing. But Lewis takes the theology of Romans 2:15, this idea that the law is written on every human heart. He takes that theology and he presents a case, a full fledged, philosophical apologetic for why this is just undeniably true. I was trying to think of a good illustration to give here and I couldn't think of anything better than just say what he says in his book. And so I'm just going to read a couple paragraphs, you can go read the rest of it on your own. But the premise is just this, God's moral law is written on our hearts, everyone intuitively knows it and we prove this every time we instinctively appeal to it.And so this is what Lewis writes in his first chapter of Mere Christianity he says, "Everyone has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say because they say things like this. 'Well, how would you like it if anyone did the same to you?' 'That's my seat, I was there first.' 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm.' 'Why should you shove in first?' 'Hey, give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine.' 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated and children as well as grownups.""Now what interests me about all of these remarks is that the man who makes diem is not merely saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, 'Well, to hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what has been doing does not really go against the standard or that if it does there's some special excuse. He pretends there's some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat for should not keep it or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise.""It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you want to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals but they cannot quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you had some sort of agreement as to what right and wrong are just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer has committed to foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football."And so the big idea is that there is this law, we all know it, we all appeal to it but more than that, we didn't make it, this is not something we came up with ourselves, it transcends us. It's a law that transcends individuals and cultures and time, that it's not just true for you or true for me, it's just simply true, transcendently true. And if this is true, we get to ask if there's this transcendent truth, where did that come from? If there's a transcendent moral law, there has to be a transcendent moral law giver. This is why Psalm 14 Verse One, the Psalmist writes that, "It is the fool who says in his heart that there is no God." That it is irrational to deny the reality of a moral God if we just sit down and think about it. If we're afraid to face that reality, if we're afraid to face the of the law and its giver, it's not because the idea is untrue, it's because the idea is uncomfortable. That facing the reality of God, that forces us to face the uncomfortable reality of our own guilt and shame.And that brings us to point number two, that we're all guilty. Verse 12, he says, "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. But it's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified." And there's none who have done, who have perfectly upheld the law. People in general, they don't object to the idea of a good and just God, we understand that without that existence would be hell. We want justice, we want God to be good and bring justice to stop evil, we want those things and we instinctively cry out for justice every time we are personally wronged.See the problem people have is not with that so much as we want God to be just, we just don't want him to be just towards us. We want justice for others but deep down we know that we're deserving of judgment ourselves. Lewis mentioned this briefly in the passage but have you ever noticed, then you get caught in moral violation, violation of this law that we're talking about, that the impulse is not to deny the law, the impulse is to pass the blame. And this began at the very beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden, right? God comes to Adam and calls Adam to give an account and Adam didn't say, "Well, yeah. But God your rules weren't fair." No, he says, "Yeah, but it wasn't my fault. It was that woman that you gave me, it was her fault and you gave her to me so it's kind of your fault. But it's definitely not my fault."And we do this, right? "Yeah, I lied but everybody lies." "Yeah, I stole but not as much as that person over there." "Yeah, I'm bad but you're no better." "Yeah, I did X, Y and Z but I'm only human." I see how foolish that is, in what human courtroom would that defense stand up? "Okay judge, let me just say, I totally murdered that guy. Yep. My bad. I'm only human. Also, it's just one guy, he was kind of annoying, it's not like I'm Hitler." Why do we always go there? Where do we get this idea that the best standard for judgment should be comparing ourselves to the worst person in history, right? The measuring stick of morality is not Hitler's wickedness, the measuring stick of morality is God's holiness.And we acknowledge that. We see that no one even comes close to measuring up. We all fall short. Take a moment here to brag about some glory days, remember Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite? "Back in '82, I could throw a pig skin a quarter of a mile. I bet I could throw a football over the mountains." That's where we're going to go right now. Back in '82, I was born in '82, but back in '98, believe this or don't, I could dunk a volleyball. On a good day, with no one guarding me, at the right angle, give me a few tries, I could even dunk a girl's basketball. I could never quite dunk a men's basketball. The reason this is a big deal, I'm five foot seven and a half. That was a big deal for me for those couple years that I could accomplish it.I was always living in the shadow of Spud Webb, remember him? He was five foot seven and not a half and he won the '86 NBA Dunk Competition, that was always looming over my head. And then you had Muggsy Bogues, he was five foot three in the NBA and he could dunk. But at least for me, small town, Midwest Dutch boy, that was a big deal. I could dunk a girl's basketball, I could dunk a volleyball, I could jump. We're all jumping and some of us can jump higher than others. And we're looking this way and we're looking that way and we're thinking, "Hey, as long as I can jump higher than some of these other chumps around me, then I'm must be doing okay." We measure ourself against the standard of our peers and then we feel justified so long as we're at least somewhat average.And I know some of you and I know that you can jump and from a human perspective, your vertical is impressive but from God's perspective, looking down on earth, he's not impressed with any of our attempts to jump up to the heavens. I'm not talking about adding a few inches or even a few feet to our vertical jump, even the best of us, even those of us who can dunk a girl's basketball at five foot seven and a half, it's like, "Yeah, you've got light years to go before you hit the mark." Romans 3:23 says, "For there's no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." See the standard is not to see who can just do the least amount of evil, the goal is not even to see who can do the most amount of good, the goal is perfection, the goal is holiness, the goal is the glory of God. This is what we were created for and anything less falls short.And now I know what some of you might be thinking, you might be thinking like, "I can't believe that, that standard is just too high." And I get that. And so for the sake of the argument, then I would just ask you to ask yourself, if that is not the standard, then what is the standard? We know there's a standard. If you're going to be a law to yourself, as Paul talks about the Gentiles being a law to themself, are you even able to measure up to your own expectations of yourself or to the people around you for that matter? If you believe that honesty is better than deception, have you ever told a lie? If you believe that fidelity is better than betrayal, have you ever broken a promise? Have you ever let down your friends, your family, your spouse? If you believe that love is better than hate, have you ever been angry with a person in your heart? Can you really say that you are as you believe that you ought to be, without guilt and without shame? There's none of us who can.Just to put it into perspective, what if I told you... I sent this meme out in the newsletter yesterday? What if I told you that Morpheus never actually says the words, "What if I told you," in The Matrix? That's not the point but the point is this, what if I told you that all of your life you've been hooked up to The Matrix or the metaverse? How about that? And what if I told you that our good old friend Mark Zuckerberg, he has been secretly recording every moment of your life, your actions, what you do in private, your thoughts, your inner dialogue, all of it? I know this sermon's going to get shadowbanned under Facebook for this but whatever. And what if I told you that we've got your life on tape right now, up here on the screens, we're all going to pop some popcorn and we're going to just at least watch the highlight reel of all of the darkest moments of your life together?Could one confidently say, "Go ahead. I've got nothing to hide, I'm not ashamed, I am guiltless, I am fully as I ought to be." Or would you say, "Why on earth did I ever open a Facebook account?" We know. And we're not going to watch the tape of your life, don't worry, but Jesus has and he's seen it all. I'm going to hit pause and we're going to come back to that in just a moment because there's something else here that I want to deal with in this text. Because sometimes you maybe have heard, some people will use this text to suggest that Paul is teaching that people who have never heard the gospel can still be saved by their good deeds by keeping the law that is written on their hearts. And that might sound comforting at first, it's actually the opposite of what Paul is teaching here.What Paul is saying is that even those who never hear the gospel, never read the Bible, they have the law of God written on their hearts but instead of keeping it, they break it, none can keep it and so all of us, whether Jews Gentiles alike, we're all guilty, we're all without excuse. That's the big idea. Now, can a sovereign God intervene and save a person? Yeah. That happened with the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. He wasn't sitting in a church service, God just beamed him and said, "You're mine, I'm saving you, get up and go, I'm going to tell you what to do." And we've had, it's not common but we've had people come to Mosaic, they're like, "I grew up Muslim and Jesus came to me in a dream and said, you need to become a Christian and go to church." And they listened and they obeyed, they got baptized, they got saved.God can do that. Yeah. But scripture shows us that, that is the exception, that is not the rule. The rule, the application and where we're going to see Paul go with this train of thought as we move through the book is that the gospel is the power of God to salvation, that the name of Jesus Christ, there is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved and so therefore there is an urgency to preach the gospel to anyone, to everyone who will listen and to take this message to the ends of the Earth. That's the application. Now, the reason that some might want to twist this text to say otherwise is because on the surface that doesn't seem fair, right? From a human perspective, it doesn't seem fair that some would never get the chance to hear the gospel.Now here's the problem. Where did we get this idea that the gospel was fair if the gospel is not fair? It is not fair that the holy, innocent, pure, spotless lamb of God, Jesus Christ would suffer and die for the wicked, depraved, sinful, rebellious enemies of God, that is not fair. So questioning the fairness of salvation is not where you want to start. Of course, it's not fair and praise God it's not fair, if it was fair that would mean that we all just go straight to hell right now, that would be fair. The question we should ask is not, why doesn't God just save everyone? The question we should ask is, why would God choose to save anyone at all and do so at such a tremendous cost to himself? He had to sacrifice everything that which he most loved and cherished in order to save us. And it wasn't because of anything good in us that deserved it, it was only because of him. It was because of his divine goodness, patience, kindness, mercy, compassion and love.And so this theme will probably come up some more as we work through Romans, we'll be it into it more detailed as we go. But for now we just see that the big idea is this, that everyone has the law written on their hearts and so therefore we are all guilty and without excuse because none of us have kept that law, none of us have measured up to that mark, none of us has lived up to that standard. Except for one person and that person was Jesus Christ, that God the law giver took on flesh, entered human history to become the law keeper so he could stand in the place of us who were the law breakers.And this brings us to the final point that we must face the reality of the law and its giver, we must face the reality of our guilt and our shame but the only way that we can do this with any sense of confidence and hope is by facing the reality of our judge and our defender and that's Jesus Christ. And so let me just start by saying Jesus is coming soon, maybe in our lifetime, but if not, I mean, the most any of us have is 70 years or so, soon we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And this should either be our greatest source of hope and joy in this life or our greatest source of misery and terror because you will either stand before the judge alone and without defense or you will stand there with Jesus Christ, who is your defense.And Jesus will judge the world in righteousness and praise God for that because without that heaven would become hell. The promise of Christ's return is the promise that even though things are not as they ought to be right now, a day is coming when that will no longer be true. The promise of Christ's return is that a day is coming when everything that is done in secret will be brought into the light. And it doesn't matter who you are, man, woman, Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, slave, free, you will give an account and when the judge sits on his throne, he will show no partiality. That's where Paul began. That Jesus will judge the world in his righteousness but he will also defend the church with his righteousness as well. And now whether that is true for you personally, then it depends on what you do with Jesus Christ right now. And before we talk about what you need to do with Jesus right now, I want to remind you about what Jesus did for us back then.And Paul writing to the church in Ephesus in the first chapter of Ephesians. He says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."Before the creation of the world and God saw everything that would to ever be, not just the metaverse, the entire universe, all of human history, he saw it all. And Jesus watched the movie of your life, past, present, future, every word, every thought, every action he saw it all. He saw the avatar, the facade, the shell of your outer life, he saw beyond your attempts to cover your guilt and your shame and he peered deep into the darkness of your soul. He watched that movie and as the credits began to roll, he stood up and he said, "I still love you and I have chosen you and you are my beloved. And though you have not been faithful and you fully deserve to die, I will not leave you or forsake you. I will make you mine."And Jesus looked at his bride, the church and he said, "I will take the nails of her iniquity into my own hands and feet. I will carry her sorrows and wash away her tears. I will be raised up on her cross to publicly bear the nakedness of her shame. I will pay her debt with my blood. I will take her punishment with my body. I will go through hell to give her heaven. I will die and she will live. I will bear her sin so that she can wear my righteousness. I will be wrapped in the linens of her death and buried in her tomb so that she can be born anew of my spirit and wrapped in the love of my father. And I will rise from the grave and ascend to the hand of my father and prepare a place for her where she will never be separated from my love and where everything will always be exactly as it ought to be."That is the hope of the gospel and what have we done to deserve this? Absolutely nothing. What do we do to receive this? We simply repent, turn from our sin, our idolatry, from constantly trying to justify ourselves, surrender and believe. Find our justification in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust him with everything and know that he will be our judge but he can also be our defender. Cry out to God, put your faith in Christ and the promise of scripture is that you will be saved. I'm going to close by reading a couple passages from scripture and then we're going to respond and worship together.Hebrew 4:14 says this, "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. And let us confidence drawn near a throne of grace that we may receive the mercy and find grace to help in time of need."And Romans 5:1-2 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."If you would like to learn more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ or if you've made a decision to surrender your life to him today, we would love to talk with you and pray with you. Please come up, talk to us after the service. If you mark on your connection card, we'll follow up with you this week but we would love to follow up and just pray with you and just celebrate that decision. Right now, I'm going to pray and then we're going to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and worship him together. Let's pray.Father I ask that you would just stir our hearts to be just speechless and amazed by your mercy. God, give us a vision of your glory, of your majesty that allows us to grasp the glimpse, the depth of our depravity, not to crush us but to open our eyes to the gravity of the sacrifice that you made, of the blessing that has been offered to us through your son, Jesus Christ. God, teach us to live in a manner worthy of this good news, humble, joyful, confident, bold and always grateful for who you are and for all that you have done for us. God, I pray that your gospel would not return void but that even now that if there are any here today who walked in as strangers and enemies of God, that they would walk out in a newness of life, adopted by your grace, regenerated by your holy spirit, united with your son and help them to find their place in the body of your church. We thank you for Jesus, we pray all of this in his beautiful and powerful name and we worship you now together. Amen.

Unless an adult has small kids, I don't think too many are listening to children's music. But the messages we encourage our kids with can still apply no matter your age. Strip away the music and notice the words. Words to live by as you journey along your path of wellness.

Rev. Brian L. Kachelmeier  Galatians Chapter One Verse One In this lecture, we begin our discussion on Paul’s letter to the baptized in Galatia. Download this lecture by clicking on the link below: Galatians 1 Verse 1

Email: audioofftheshelf@gmail.com. Instagram: @audioofftheshelf Twitter: @AOTS204 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/audioofftheshelf Blueprint. "Verse One." Blueprint. [independent release], 1995. Cassette. EP. Raw Sewage. “I'm Normal, You're Weird.” Wrecking Ball. [independent release], 1993. Cassette. EP. Raw Sewage. “9lb. Hammer” Wrecking Ball. [independent release], 1993. Cassette. EP. Racketeers, The. “Busted.” [unreleased], c.1999. CD. EP [unknown artists]. “It Ain't Easy.” [unreleased], 2004. Chop Logic. “No Will.” [unreleased], c.1992. Cassette. International Conglomerate. “Robot Zombie Murder of 1972.” [unreleased], c.1997. Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.

Love learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishMusic, meaning, and text transcript at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/911.htmlSpecial links for today's episode:Easy Stories in English - A podcast by Ariel Goodbody https://easystoriesinenglish.com"The Monsters Inside Us" - Kiah voiced a character in this story!https://easystoriesinenglish.com/monstersNow, let's learn some English with music as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song "911" by Lady Gaga.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✦ INTRODUCTION WITH ARIEL GOODBODY:(00:22) A note about today's advanced explanation(00:47) Introducing our guest interpreter Ariel Goodbody(02:12) Ariel on Lady Gaga and 911SONG EXPLANATION:(04:50) Kiah's introduction to "911"VERSE ONE:(06:02) Turnin' up emotional faders(07:47) Keep repeating self-hating phrases(08:29) I have heard enough of these voices(08:49) It's almost like I have no choice(09:09) This is biological stasis(09:59) My mood's shifting to manic places(11:05) Wish I'd laughed and kept the good friendships(11:57) Watch life, here I go againPRE-CHORUS:(12:27) I can't see my cry, can't see me cry ever again(13:24) I can't see me cry, can't see me cry, this is the endCHORUS:(13:40) My biggest enemy is me, pop a 911(14:49) Ever since day one, pop a 911 then pop another oneVERSE TWO:(15:24) Keep my dolls inside diamond boxes(16:47) Save 'em 'til I know I'm gon' drop this(17:54) Front I've built around my oasis(19:07) Paradise is in my hands(19:22) Holdin' on so tight to this status(19:56) It's not real but I'll try to grab it(20:18) Keep myself in beautiful places, paradise is in my handsSONG OUTRO:(20:43) Please patch the line, need a 911, can you please patch the line?INTERPRETATION WITH ARIEL GOODBODY:(21:39) Ariel on 911 lyrics and Chromatica album(24:14) Are we all a bit psychotic?(26:42) Music video interpretation(29:44) Easy Stories in English and "The Monsters Inside Us"

Love learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishMusic, lyrics, and free interactive transcript at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/dontknowwhy.htmlNow, let's learn some English with music as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song "Don't Know Why" performed by Norah Jones.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧ INTRODUCTION:(00:23) Introduction to "Don't Know Why"VERSE ONE:(01:25) I waited till I saw the sun(02:25) I don't know why I didn't come(03:34) I left you by the house of funVERSE TWO:(04:37) When I saw the break of day(05:06) I wished that I could fly away(05:37) Instead of kneeling in the sand(06:21) Catching teardrops in my handCHORUS:(06:50) My heart is drenched in wine(08:01) But you'll be on my mind foreverVERSE THREE:(08:31) Out across the endless sea(09:21) I would die in ecstasy(09:53) But I'll be a bag of bones(10:43) Driving down the road aloneVERSE FOUR:(11:28) Somethin' has to make you run(12:20) I feel as empty as a drumFINAL THOUGHTS:(12:56) "Don't Know Why" song meaningPhoto of Norah Jones by Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77833927Significato spiegato, significado canción explicada, sens

Pastor Chris kicks off Cornerstone's Psalm 23 Initiative with the first sermon of the series.

Love learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishMusic, lyrics, and free interactive transcript at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/dockofthebay.htmlNow, let's improve your English as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧ INTRODUCTION:(00:23) Notes about today's explanation(01:27) Introduction to "The Dock of the Bay"VERSE ONE:(02:19) Sittin' in the mornin' sun(03:28) I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come(04:07) Watching the ships roll in(05:01) And then I watch 'em roll away againCHORUS:(05:23) I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay(06:38) Watching the tide roll away(07:22) I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay, wasting timeVERSE TWO:(07:47) I left my home in Georgia(08:56) Headed for the 'Frisco bay(09:30) 'Cause I've got nothin' to live for(10:29) And look like nothin's gonna come my wayBRIDGE:(11:16) Look like nothin's gonna change(11:36) Everything still remains the same(11:47) I can't do what ten people tell me to do(12:50) So I guess I'll remain the sameVERSE THREE:(13:05) Sittin' here resting my bones(13:42) And this loneliness won't leave me alone(14:24) It's two thousand miles I roamed(16:00) Just to make this dock my homeINTERPRETATION:(16:20) "The Dock of the Bay" song meaningANNOUNCEMENTS:What does the song mean to you? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.LINKS:Check out all the unreleased song explanations at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlBedeutung. Lied bedeutung. Liedtext bedeutung. Significado. Significado de la canción. Significado de las letras. Sens. Signification de la chanson. Signification des paroles. Senso. Significato della canzone. Significato dei testi. Имея в виду. Значение песни. Смысл лирики.

Love learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishMusic, lyrics, and free interactive transcript at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/withorwithout.htmlNow, let's improve your English as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song "With or Without You" by U2.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧INTRODUCTION:(00:23) Introduction to "With or Without You"VERSE ONE:(01:20) See the stone set in your eyes(02:28) See the thorn twist in your side(03:59) I wait for you(04:29) Sleight of hand and twist of fate(05:45) On a bed of nails she makes me wait(06:46) And I wait -- without youCHORUS:(07:03) With or without youVERSE TWO:(07:28) Through the storm we reach the shore(08:35) You gave it all but I want more(09:27) And I'm waiting for youCHORUS TWO:(09:45) With or without you -- I can't live with or without youBRIDGE:(10:14) And you give yourself awayVERSE THREE:(11:37) My hands are tied my body bruised(12:45) She got me with nothing left to win and nothing left to loseINTERPRETATION:(03:33) "With or Without You" song meaningANNOUNCEMENTS:(16:40) 80s song and artist requestsWhat does the song mean to you? Leave a comment on our Facebook page.LINKS:Check out unreleased song explanations and search for songs by grammar topic at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlU2 Montage: By File:U2 montage.jpg:File:Bono at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.jpg: David Shankbone (photo editing by Megapixie)File:The Edge's face.jpg: Flickr user Christopher HarteFile:Adam clayton 1.JPG (derived from File:Adam Clayton rdblk.jpg): Flickr user Eliane Kobayakawa (derivative work by Suede67)File:LarryMullenJr.jpg: atu2.comderivative work (crop, placement, and coloration): Michael Barera (talk) - File:U2 montage.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17450025

Please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get access to bonus content, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, and a personal song explanation of your choice:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishFree interactive transcript, lyrics and music at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/hunghead.htmlNow, let's Improve your English with this special dual episode featuring an explanation of the song "I Hung My Head" by Sting and covered by Johnny Cash.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧INTRODUCTION:(00:22) Introduction to "I Hung My Head"VERSE ONE:(02:20) Early one morning with time to kill(03:01) I borrowed Jeb's rifle and sat on the hill(04:21) I saw a lone rider crossing the plain(04:56) I drew a bead on him to practice my aim(05:26) My brother's rifle went off in my hand(05:59) A shot rang out across the land(06:24) The horse he kept running, the rider was dead(06:54) I hung my head, I hung my headVERSE TWO:(07:37) I set off running to wake from the dream(08:18) And my brother's rifle went into the stream(08:41) I kept on running into the salt lands(09:14) And that's where they found me, my head in my hands(09:52) The sheriff he asked me, "Why had I run?"(10:16) Then it came to me just what I had done(10:48) And all for no reason, just one piece of lead (I hung my head, I hung my head)VERSE THREE:(11:34) Here in the courthouse, the whole town is there(12:28) I see the judge high up in his chair(13:15) "Explain to the courtroom what went through your mind(13:52) And we'll ask the jury what verdict they find"(14:45) "I said I felt the power of death over life(15:04) I orphaned his children, I widowed his wife(15:43) I beg their forgiveness, I wish I was dead" (I hung my head, I hung my head)VERSE FOUR:(16:40) Early one morning with time to kill(16:48) I see the gallows up on the hill(17:35) And out in the distance a trick of the brain(17:59) I see a lone rider crossing the plain(18:19) He's come to fetch me to see what they done(18:53) We'll ride together till Kingdom come(19:31) I pray for God's mercy, for soon I'll be dead (I hung my head, I hung my head)INTERPRETATION:(20:12) "I Hung My Head" song explanation(21:18) Is the Sting or the Johnny Cash version better? Vote and leave a comment at facebook.com/explainedinenglish(22:02) More narrative songs available at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlLINKS:Find unreleased song explanations and search by grammar at:https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlImage Credit: By Sting_by_Yancho_Sabev.jpg: Yancho Sabevderivative work: Fiorellino (talk) - Sting_by_Yancho_Sabev.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped from the original version at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10723467

Free interactive transcript, lyrics and music at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/thescientist.htmlLove learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishNow, let's improve your English as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song The Scientist by Coldplay.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧INTRODUCTION:(00:22) Introduction to "The Scientist"VERSE ONE:(01:56) Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry(02:38) You don't know how lovely you are(03:03) I had to find you, tell you I need you(03:48) Tell you I set you apart(04:29) Tell me your secrets, ask me your questions(05:22) Oh let's go back to the start(05:48) Running in circles, coming up tails(07:42) Heads on a science apartCHORUS:(08:22) Nobody said it was easy(08:47) It's such a shame for us to part(09:34) No one ever said it would be this hard(10:04) Oh take me back to the startVERSE TWO:(10:28) I was just guessing at numbers and figures(11:32) Pulling the puzzles apart(11:56) Questions of science, science and progress(12:31) Do not speak as loud as my heart(13:18) Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me(14:10) Oh and I rush to the start(14:33) Running in circles, chasing our tails(15:21) Coming back as we areINTERPRETATION:(15:32) "The Scientist" song meaning explained(16:44) Full albums of song explanations at (https://explainedinenglish.com)(16:54) Let's create a music learning community! Share this episode.LINKS:Email me your feedback:info@explainedinenglish.comUnreleased song explanations at:https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlImage Credit: By Chris_Martin_-_Viva_la_Vida.jpg: Alberto Ferreroderivative work: DC at en.wikipedia - Chris_Martin_-_Viva_la_Vida.jpg, CC BY 2.0

Is this show helping improve your English? If so, consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get access to bonus content, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, and a personal song explanation of your choice:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishFree interactive transcript, lyrics and music at:https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/nosurprises.htmlNow, let's improve your English as I explain the lyrics and meaning of the song No Surprises by Radiohead.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✦✧INTRODUCTION:(00:22) Introduction to "No Surprises"VERSE ONE:(01:56) A heart that's full up like a landfill(03:26) A job that slowly kills you(04:23) Bruises that won't heal(05:31) You look so tired unhappy(06:00) Bring down the government(06:39) They don't, they don't speak for us(07:27) I'll take a quiet life(07:56) A handshake of carbon monoxideCHORUS:(09:10) With no alarms and no surprises(10:03) Silent, silentVERSE TWO:(10:38) This is my final fit(11:37) My final bellyacheVERSE THREE:(12:08) Such a pretty house(12:56) Such a pretty gardenCHORUS VARIATION:(13:12) Please get me outta hereINTERPRETATION:(13:52) "No Surprises" song explanation(17:01) Please leave feedback! (https://explainedinenglish.com)LINKS:Email me your feedback:info@explainedinenglish.comSearch for song explanations by grammar, difficulty level, or decade:https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.htmlImage Credit: Photo of Thom Yorke by Goldberg. The photo was cropped from the file found on Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC-by-SA-2.0

Free interactive transcript, lyrics and music at: https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast/yesterday.htmlLove learning English with music? Join our Music Lovers Club today and get exclusive access to unreleased song explanations, printable PDF transcripts for new episodes, a personal song explanation of your choice or even online English lessons. Learn more at:https://www.patreon.com/explainedinenglishNow, let's improve your English language skills as I explain the song meaning and lyrics of Yesterday by the Beatles.Lyrics Difficulty: ✦✧✧EXPLANATION:(00:23) Introduction to "Yesterday"​VERSE ONE:(01:20) Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away(02:15) Now it looks as though they're here to stay(03:40) Oh I believe in yesterdayVERSE TWO:(04:27) Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be(06:21) There's a shadow hanging over me(07:43) Oh yesterday came suddenlyCHORUS:(08:07) Why she had to go(08:49) I don't know, she wouldn't say(09:30) I said something wrong(10:16) Now I long for yesterdayVERSE THREE:(11:21) Yesterday, love was such an easy game(13:03) Now I need a place to hide away(14:09) Oh I believe in yesterdayINTERPRETATION:(14:14) "Yesterday" meaning explained(14:55) More songs at https://explainedinenglish.comLINKS:Email me your feedback:info@explainedinenglish.comFind all unreleased song explanations at:https://explainedinenglish.com/podcast.html

Karina and Mary introduce themselves, tell the story behind the name of their podcast, and give a summary on their college experience up to this point to catch you up