In his sermon titled 'Your Spiritual Biography,' Scott Brown explores Romans 6:1-14, emphasizing the profound transformation that occurs in a believer's life upon salvation. He contrasts the life 'in Adam' (Volume 1) with the life 'in Christ' (Volume 2), explaining that believers are now 'dead to sin' and 'alive to God.' Brown discusses the distinction between 'indicatives' (statements of truth) and 'imperatives' (commands) in the scripture, noting that the first part of Romans 6 focuses on the former, while the latter part provides practical guidance for believers. He critiques the therapeutic culture for causing believers to obsess over feelings rather than relying on the objective truths of their faith. Brown also warns against the 'accept Jesus heresy,' emphasizing that true salvation results in a transformed life, not just an emotional experience. He concludes by urging believers to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God, acting based on the truths of their salvation rather than their feelings.

Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 6 and find verse 1 and be reading verses 1 through 14 This morning verses 1 through 14 This is the inerrant all-sufficient sweeter than honey, word of God. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and as your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for giving us wisdom from heaven. We thank you for teaching us things about what you have done and who we are, what you have made us to be, and what you have called us to be. So I pray, oh Lord, that you would keep me from error, keep the congregation from misunderstanding, and keep us all, Lord, in your name, for your namesake.

Amen. Please be seated. So how are you feeling about your life as a Christian? You know, do you have a sense of assurance of salvation? You know, what is your assurance based on?

Is it based on your feelings? Do you ever doubt your salvation? Or do you have absolute assurance unbroken every second of your life since you were converted? One of the problems that we have in dealing with that, all those kinds of questions is that we live, we live in a therapeutic culture. That therapeutic culture teaches us to obsess about how we're feeling about everything.

And if you go to a therapist, they'll ask you how you're feeling. How do you feel today? Are you happy? Are you sad? Do you feel fulfilled?

Do you feel that people like you? Do you feel lonely? Do you feel secure? These are the questions of this therapeutic age that we live in. And so when you grow up in a therapeutic age, you become a Christian and you find yourself asking, How do I feel about my salvation?

Am I good enough to be a Christian? Do I have enough passion to qualify before God? Am I obedient enough to qualify for salvation? But what if I have doubts? What if I don't feel like reading my Bible?

What if I feel that things aren't going well for me? Well, the problem is, our inner therapist is always working us over. He works the real Christian over with questions like that. We are taught to ruminate. We're taught, you know ruminating is, well if you have cows you know what rumination is.

Rumination is just continuing to go over the same thing that you've ingested over and over again. And you ruminate over your shortcomings, we ruminate over our difficult situations. And if you get trapped in this therapeutic culture, they're gonna say that you have a condition, and they're gonna give you a drug to deal with your condition they're gonna categorize you for the rest of your life as somebody is having an anxiety disorder or something like that But the Word of God teaches us how to deal with our feelings and with the realities and that's what this passage of Scripture is all about. The Bible is so wonderful. It teaches us how to deal with everything and to understand everything that's going on in the world.

It helps us to understand our emotions. It helps us to understand history. It helps us to understand politics and everything that's going on in the world. And it also, as it turns out in this passage of scripture, it explains about the concerns that we have for our lives, particularly as it relates to assurance of salvation. And we might feel one way, but there are actual realities that are fixed by the sovereign hand of God through Jesus Christ.

And that's largely what this passage is about. But there's a big warning in this passage. I'm gonna warn you of something, there's something big about to change in this letter to the Romans. It's big. It happens in this chapter.

Paul makes a radical departure from the way that he talks about things in this chapter. It'll take us a minute to get there We'll work our way to it Now the Apostle Paul So far has given us ways to understand Humanity you have You have those who are in Adam. There are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who are in Adam, still in their sins, and there are those who are in Christ. The first Adam brought sin into the world.

The second Adam came as a sacrifice for sinners. And that's in chapter five, that's where we have been. And then, and also at the end of chapter five, he speaks of those who are in Adam, or those who have been in Adam but have now been transferred into Jesus Christ That something something radical has happened to them. They they have they have become children of God and They they have been they have been delivered unto what the Apostle Paul calls abounding grace, grace that is greater than all of your sins. We talked about that in detail the last time we were in Romans.

But now we turn and the Apostle Paul is still working this same theme. You know, we've moved from chapter five to chapter six, but the chapter divisions don't really indicate that there's a change here, because the apostle is still talking about justification by faith, and he's talking about the impact of abounding grace. Remember, we talked about John Bunyan's book, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. It's really a biography of his life. And he tells how God saved him and how God gave him assurance of salvation.

Now, there are two things in this passage before we jump into it. The first 10 verses are indicatives. And the verses from 11 all the way to the end are imperatives. So the language shifts from indicatives. An indicative, children understand, you're gonna get a lesson here, a language lesson.

An indicative is something that is true. It's just real. It's hard and fast. It's something that will happen. It's a declaration of truth.

Okay? That's an indicative. An imperative is a command. An imperative tells you what to do. An indicative tells you what is.

An imperative tells you what to do. An indicative tells you what is, an imperative tells you what to do about it. So the first 11 verses are in the indicative. I was listening to Steve Lawson talk about this text and he said that he called this your spiritual biography and that the Christian life is in two volumes. A volume one is life in Adam before you were a Christian.

You were under bondage. You were under the mastery of sin. It was all that you wanted to do. You loved it and you didn't feel bad about it. And you were dead to God.

And volume two starts when you were born again, when you come under the second Adam and everything changes. You used to be alive to sin but now you're alive to God. In volume two you're no longer dead to God, you're alive to God, and you're no longer obligated to obey your master. You can say no. So the Christian life is in lived in two volumes, volume one and volume two.

And this is the truth that runs all through scripture that there are only two kinds of people in the world. There's sheep and there are goats. There's light and there's darkness. There's the first Adam and there's the second Adam. There's those who are dead to God and those who are alive to God.

These are the two categories. Whoever you meet in the world is in one of those categories. There's no nuancing humanity. We are actually very, very simple beings. And so we continue to work through this whole matter of justification by faith.

I was thrilled on Wednesday night when we sang that song, and can it be, we just sang it again this morning, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood. Well that's what this whole text is about. It's about the interest in others, what you get, what you get when you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and What you get when you have been saved. He says, long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray.

I woke the dungeon flamed with light, my favorite words in the whole song, my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee. So again, we find in this passage The nature of the writing of the apostle Paul, he's full of encouragement. In every chapter he brings a message of hope, a message of encouragement. And here in this passage it's a message of realism. A realism that goes far beyond your feelings.

A realism that goes far beyond your inner therapist, that's always trying to tell you what to do. Because God has declared what he has done. So, what you have here is the language of justification. You have an outline in front of you. The indicatives come first.

There are six of them that I want to highlight. When I read this, I think Paul is just pounding. He's pounding one thing, pounding another, using a different word, pounding another, using another word, pounding using another word. I've identified six, they're in your outline. Died to sin, burial, death and resurrection, crucified, freed, died with Christ.

Paul, he doesn't want to let us be confused about the finality of justification. So you find this first phrase, died to sin. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And he's talking about continuous action.

The language that he uses has to do with ongoing, shall we continue in sin? Should we just keep on sinning without any constraint in our soul, without any objection at all in our heart. Shall we shall we continue in sin? He says absolutely, absolutely not. And the reason he says certainly not is because when a person becomes a Christian, something changes, it's big.

The direction of their lives changes. Salvation is not simply I accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal savior, which actually has really nothing to do with what the Bible says about the doctrine of salvation. That's a bunch of bogus language that got invented in the mid 20th century. And This is why you have people like AW Tozer saying things like this It is my opinion that 10 tens of thousands of people if not millions Have been brought into some kind of religious experience by quote accepting Christ and they have not been saved If your Christian conversion did not reverse the direction of your life, if it did not transform it, you are not converted at all. You are simply a victim of the accept Jesus heresy.

And what you find at this cheap grace altar, at the bottom of it, are often millions of unbelievers. They exist in all kinds of churches. And they've been deceived by people who've told them, accept Jesus Christ into your heart. But that's not the litmus test of salvation in the Bible. It's deeper than that.

In this passage, this entire chapter deals with it. He deals with both the indicatives and the imperatives of the Christian life. So, died to sin. How shall we who died to sin no longer any longer live in it? Now this is one of the most important verses in the Bible Because it's very important that you understand what it means here we who died he is using a past tense verb an heiress verb which indicates completed action.

It's something that already happened. It's something that is done. How shall we who died, it's done, to sin live any longer in it? So, it's true as we've said many times so far in our studies in Romans, justification is a declaring of righteousness. It's a declaration that you have been judicially judged as righteous, that is justification by sin.

But justification is not only a declaration, it's also a transformation. It's a change of life. Something has happened to you. Now, many years ago, there was a famous bumper sticker that said, I'm not perfect, I'm just forgiven. There is some truth in that statement, but it understates the reality.

You are not just forgiven. You are no longer dead. You are no longer dead to God. You are not just forgiven, you are transformed. You are not just made righteous.

You are actually a changed person. Something snaps when a person becomes a Christian. And you find this in this passage, There's a death. You find it in verse one, verse two, verse three, verse four, verse five, verse six, and verse eight. That same theme.

You have died and it's in the past tense. The mastery of sin has been broken. God has done something for us. This is just simply Christian theology of salvation. Justification is not an emotional experience.

It's an experience that is objective and is an experience that is based on a judicial action of Jesus Christ dying for sinners and a sinner believing and receiving and repenting of their sins and being changed. So then he gives an illustration in verse three of this in baptism or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus, we're baptized into his death? And of course, the word that he uses here has to do with immersion, to dip into water, not sprinkling, to dip into water. But it's actually a metaphor. And this is something that has happened.

You were baptized, this is in the past tense, And he's not referring here to water baptism. This is a symbol of union with Jesus Christ. There's no water in this verse. Like for example, the children of Israel were baptized in the Red Sea. Well they weren't covered with water in the Red Sea.

That word baptism is used as a metaphor for salvation. They were delivered from Pharaoh's grasp. They escaped the bondage of Pharaoh through the Red Sea. It was a baptism. We're very familiar with the idea of using baptism as a metaphor.

He's going through a baptism of fire. We use that in different ways, but this word baptism doesn't have anything to do with water. It's symbolic of the act of baptism, but this is a symbol of oneness with Jesus Christ. Christ was buried, we were buried with him. Christ was raised, we were raised with him.

This is the symbol of salvation. You know, Jesus referred to his death as a baptism in Mark 10, 38, and also in Luke 12, 50. So he's not talking about water here. In 1 Peter 321 uses the word baptism and it uses the word in the same way that it's used here. He's not talking about the believer getting baptized in water.

I'll read it. 1 Peter 321. There is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism. Not the removal of filth from the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." He's saying that this metaphor, baptism in the sense of it being a change, of being united with Christ, that's what saves you.

He uses the word in the very same way that he uses the word here in Romans. The act of baptism doesn't save anyone. A person is saved and then they are baptized to tell the story that they have already been baptized by Jesus Christ. They've been baptized into his death. Here in 1 Peter 321 that it's not about water, he says it, it's not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's the kind of baptism that saves. It's not baptism by water that saves. So that's what he's saying here. And perhaps the verse has already come to mind to you. Probably one of the central explanations or expositions of this idea in St.

Corinthians 5 17. Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new. So it is the death of Jesus Christ that makes anyone a Christian. Apart from the death of Jesus Christ, baptism is meaningless.

So first of all you have this having died to sin in the first three verses, then you have another word burial, verse 4. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. There is a sense that when a person becomes a Christian, they are attending their own funeral. The old self has been baptized or covered or died. And as the person who's getting physically baptized, they die, that's the symbol, as they go under the water.

And when they go under the water they're saying all that I was as a child of Adam was put to death on the cross and then he comes out of the water and he says I I'm raised up to new life it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me this is what it means to be a Christian and that's why just just jumping ahead a little bit in verse 10, we read this, for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. The believer walks in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was, he suffered and he died and he was buried and he was raised up to new life. That's the picture of what it means to be saved. And what this is saying is that continuing in unrepentant sin is inconsistent with the work of the grace of God, which was to bury the old man.

And if, if, if unbroken patterns of sin persist, then we should ask whether we are really converted. And of course, he's not talking about, you know, being tempted by to sin, he's not talking about sinning. John in 1 John says if anybody says they have no sin they're a liar. So we know that we still sin as believers, but there's a burial that took place in verse four. And then in verse five, death and resurrection, for if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

This idea of being united with him, it has to do with being planted together and then growing together. And then you have a crucifixion in verse 6. The old man was crucified knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin Who is the old man the old man is the old man under Adam? The old man and his sins were nailed to the cross the old man was crucified And it says They were done away with That means they were put out of business. They could not dominate anymore.

And then Hebrews 2 14 says a similar thing. He says, Inasmuch as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He himself likewise shared in the same that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death that is the devil and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. So there was a crucifixion. And the old man and your sins were nailed to the cross. And you know, there are so many metaphors that God gives.

We've spoken of them so many times. He doesn't just nail your, He doesn't just tell you that he's nailed your sin to the cross. He's also separated you from it as far as the east is from the west. And he's put it in the bottom of the sea. And he's thrown it behind his back.

And he's stomped it with his feet. And you know, when you think about some of the things that you did before you were a Christian, you need to know that this is what you should do with it too. You should do exactly that. Put it out, Put it out, stomp it under your feet, throw it behind your back, put it in the bottom of the sea, and separate it from you as far as the East is from the West. Just quit feeling so guilty about it.

It's over. It's done. Because it was crucified. You know, if you're one of those people that's tormented by things that you did in the past, Jesus Christ wants to relieve you of that torment. He wants you to put it away.

And not let it harm you anymore. Because He crucified it on the cross and Then in verse 7 freed freed from sin The word that he uses here is the same word for justification. It's a legal declaration. It means justified and set free. In the picture of justification, someone sets you free from slavery.

And that's why you have this language in the song that we sang, my chains fell off, my heart was free. Because you have this breaking of the power of sin. In Colossians 1 13, Paul tells that church, he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. You have in Christian theology, the idea that the power of the devil has been broken God has upset the work of the devil in your heart. And you're no longer in his grip.

You're no longer a slave of corruption. You know, God has set us free from the law of sin and death. And that's the whole idea, that the power of sin was broken. Yes, we still will sin, but the power grip that it had is nothing like it was. It's been broken.

And so in considering your salvation you would ask, Do I see how God has delivered me from the power of sin? Am I still a slave to sin the way that I used to be? Have there been any changes that have taken place in my life? If there have been, how could that possibly happen? And if you can see that the tentacles have been pulled off, and you're no longer subject to sin like you were, That should help you understand the reality of salvation.

Not that you have achieved perfection in any part of your life. That's not the reality and that's not what Paul is saying here. And then in verse 8, died with Christ. For now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. What does it mean to die with Christ?

Well, it's a spiritual death. It was a past death. It was a death with Christ. And this is the fascinating thing about the Christian theology of salvation. When a person is regenerated, God spiritually translates you back to the cross and spiritually and you die with Christ and you're buried with him and you are raised with him.

It's a this is a spiritual death and a raising to life The same thing is true of the Old Testament saints people say how are the Old Testament saints saved? Well the Bible says Abraham Rejoiced to see my day in other words in other words the Old Testament saints were also saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So there is a spiritual translation to the death of Christ. In the year 2024, if anyone is saved, they are spiritually transported into the death of Christ. They become one with him.

They become united with him in his death. Isn't that amazing? Maybe you don't believe that, but I believe that. But the Bible says that that's true of the Old Testament saints. Those who are justified by faith were translated forward and participated in the death of Jesus Christ.

We'll get to this more in the book of Romans. The apostle will explain it. And then in verse 9, death no longer has dominion. In other words, there is a liberation. A rulership has been broken.

Now, we're going to spend quite a bit of time in this chapter, but you'll see this idea of rulership. There's a rule, rulership of death, and there's a rulership of life in this entire context. We won't get to the rulership of life in much detail today. But there's like a, somebody described it like a castle. And there are forces at work.

There's a rulership in the castle. And the question is who is ruling your castle? To be continued. Verse 10, for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives he lives to God. Once for all.

Once for all time. Your salvation is not based on your feelings. Your salvation is not based on whether you have enough passion. Your salvation is not based on the inner therapist in your life. In Jesus Christ you have more than just forgiveness of sin you you have more than a new life You have the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You have God God is the gospel which is the title of a really great book on the gospel And this has everything to do with assurance of salvation It's very important that you put to death the inner therapist in your life. We have today the most highly counseled, most highly drugged generation because of this therapeutic culture. They've been taught to obsess about their feelings and about their insecurities and what they've lost and what they might lose and what's been done to them. And if you go to these councils, you're in danger most of the time because they're gonna make you somebody that you're not. It's such a tragedy.

You have the most fearful and secure generation in history because of this and all of us have been affected by it one way or another. Okay the response to this justification verse 11 how do you respond the rest of the chapter answers how do you respond to this What are you going to do about it? You've had the indicatives, the things that are true, The things that have happened, the things that will happen, the things that are real, those are the indicators. Now we turn to the imperatives. What are you going to do about it?

Verse 11. Likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You reckon yourselves dead. By the way, this is the radical shift in the letter. It's so radical because all the way up to this point, you have only heard, read, indicatives.

There have been no commands at all in the first five chapters of Romans, not one single command, and not one single command until you get to verse 11 Paul has spent all of his time laying the foundation of what's real of what's true True about you true about the world true about sin true about the gospel He's been laying down what's true so that your faith does not rest on your inner therapist. It rests on Jesus Christ. You know the book of Ephesians is just like it. Two thirds of the book of Ephesians is indicative. The first three chapters just speak of what God has done.

It's so beautiful. The riches you have in Jesus. And then in chapter four here's what you do about it in the Church of Jesus Christ. Reckon. Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin.

It's sometimes translated consider. It's well, okay. It's the word logizomai, right? Okay, think of logic. Think of thinking, right?

It's about, in other words, think. This is an accounting term. An accounting term Is something that leads you to put a number on a page that's true He's here's what he's saying do the math forget your feelings do the math. Change your thinking about sin. To reckon is not to feel.

To reckon is to think. Is to make a judgment on what Jesus Christ has done for you. So he's saying we must put the doctrine in practice, and we put the doctrine in practice by thinking about how we should live. Because the doctrine teaches us how to live. The doctrine is designed to change our everyday experience.

Yes, you'll still have fleshly desires. Reckon yourselves dead to them. It acknowledges that you still have weak areas of the flesh. Reckon yourself dead to them. To reckon is an act of faith.

When a temptation comes you reckon it as dead. You say, I hate that. It's very difficult for any of us to live up to even to our own expectations. But when it grieves you, that's a good sign. When somebody comes to you and says, I don't know if I'm a Christian, you know, because I really feel bad about my sin.

Usually that's somebody who's alive to God. Not somebody who's dead to God. If you're dead to God, you don't care. It's not that big of a deal. So how do you set yourself to be dead?

To reckon yourself dead? First of all, you need to know that you have a choice. You can look away, You can fill your mind with different thoughts. You can do that. Reckon yourself.

Do the accounting. Do the math. You're not a victim of sin. You're not a victim of anxiety. You're not a victim of fear.

You're not a victim of lust. You're not a victim of bitterness. You're not a victim of hatred. You're not a victim of anger. And you can say to fear, I'm dead to you, stop trying to move me.

You can say to bitterness, I'm dead to you, stop trying to inflame me you can say to anxiety I'm dead to you stop trying to bring me down you actually have something to say to your feelings Your heart says I'm so lonely. You say I'm not stuck here. I'm dead to you. You say I'm ignored. You say I'm not stuck here.

I'm dead to you. I'm so discouraged. I'm not stuck with you. I'm dead to you. You get the idea?

That's to reckon, to name something for what it really is, and to hang with the indicative and apply the indicative with the imperative to reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. The believer will sin but he won't like it because the this enslaving power has been broken and he can get away. There's a way to escape temptation. And that's what he's saying here. And then he says, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and as your members instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." Now this is the passage we'll return to next time and and walk through it. First of all he says that you're not under the law but under grace. This phrase is used seven times in the New Testament. Every time it's used it means to be without Christ. Most of them are in Galatians.

To be under Grace is that you do not have a righteousness of your own to be under the law is To have a righteousness that is of your own. That's what it means to be under the law To be under the law means I'm a good person. Therefore. I'm saved. I'm keeping the law that makes me a good person.

But grace comes and reminds us that all is not hopeless. You have been given grace. We've been celebrating the ordinary means of grace but there is the grace of God that infuses all of it. One theologian says, We are no longer subject to the law as requiring perfect righteousness and pronouncing death on all who deviate from it. The apostle is wanting to comfort us, lest we should be wearied in our minds while striving to do what is right, because we still find in ourselves many imperfections.

So we'll begin to develop these things from verses 11 on the imperatives. What we should do about it. What do you do with remaining sin? It's so practical, it's really so wonderful. And this is your spiritual biography in this message.

It speaks of the finality of justification And it speaks of the finality in these past tenses. You have died. You were buried. You were dead. The old man was crucified.

You were freed from sin. You died with Christ. What we need to recognize is that our hearts might tell us different things, but the question is what do you believe, what do you reckon, What do you believe is true? And what we find here is that the Lord Jesus Christ puts our sinfulness out of his mind, and he nails it to the cross. Let me put it another way finally.

God has burned the bridge behind us and if he saved you you cannot go back Because He loves you. He'll carry you all the way. He who began a good work will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. And in the meantime He forgives you of your sins and He crucifies them on the cross. But at the same time he teaches you to do the math he teaches you how to count he teaches you what to do and that's what we'll be discussing in the coming weeks would you pray with me Lord we we thank you for your marvelous gift of eternal life.

We thank you for doing what you've done. And I pray, oh Lord, that you would this morning that you would at least convict anyone here who does not love you has not been justified. But you would also so encourage and thrill and embolden those who have been justified by faith, whose sins have been crucified. Amen.