Scott Brown's sermon 'Serve in the Newness of the Spirit' explores Romans chapter 7, focusing on the believer's relationship with the law and grace through vivid metaphors. Brown explains that the law has dominion over a person as long as they live, but believers are released from its condemnation through Christ. He uses the metaphor of marriage to illustrate this transformation: believers must 'divorce' their old ways and 'marry' Christ, leading to a new, fruitful relationship. Paul defends the law's goodness, noting it reveals God's character and teaches us about ourselves and the world. The sermon emphasizes that while the law's condemning power ceases for believers, its commanding power remains. Believers are called to serve in the newness of the Spirit, producing good fruit and living in freedom from the law's condemnation. The sermon concludes with a call to embrace this new relationship with Christ, the ultimate husband, who guides, cares for, and forgives.

Open your Bibles of Romans chapter seven and find verse one. And I will be reading from verse one to verse seven. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God. Romans seven, verse one. Or do you not know brethren for I speak to those who know the law that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives.

For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as she lives. But if the husband dies she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress though she has married another man therefore my brethren you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to that which we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law said, You shall not covet." The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. These words meant to shape our thinking about our lives, about your law, about everything in the world. Lord, we pray that you would come and show us Jesus Christ and the greatness of his help towards sinners today amen please be seated it is it's the Bible and the Bible alone that gives the most exalted and beautiful picture of a marriage. We just witnessed a marriage yesterday.

It was such a joy. But There is nothing in literature of all time that explains the beauty of the role of a husband in the Bible. There's just nothing like it anywhere else. And it's such a remarkable blessing to have Such a testimony. And in this passage that we're in today, we learn that those who love the Lord, who've repented of their sins, who follow the Lamb wherever He goes, they get a new husband.

Isaiah, the prophet, spoke of it in Isaiah 54 verse 5. He said, your maker is your husband. In St. Corinthians 11, the apostle says, I have betrothed you to one husband to present you a pure virgin in Christ. In Isaiah 62 verse 3 we read these words, but you shall be called my delight is in her and your land married for the Lord delights in you your land shall be married for as a young man marries a young woman so shall your sons marry you And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God shall rejoice over you." We could go to Ephesians 5, which summarizes almost everything that the Bible says about what a husband should do and be.

In this passage we get a little window of knowledge about what that is and here in Romans chapter 7 today I want us to understand what does it mean to be dead to the law that's those are the words that we just read And as we come to Romans 7, the apostle is continuing to explain why he's not ashamed of the gospel. And he just continues, he can't stop expanding on the blessings of Jesus Christ. He has covered one metaphor after another, one angle and another of this diamond of the beauty of Jesus Christ in the soul of a sinner. And so now in the seventh chapter, he's defending the law of God. And he's defending the law of God in the face of accusations, accusations that he dismisses the importance of the law, accusations that he's over exalted the view of the law.

So he's answering these questions in chapter seven. Maybe you noticed the word law appears in every single verse in our section. The word law appears 20 times in this text. Add that six times the word commandment. So it's easy to understand what the apostle Paul is focusing in on.

There's a great simplicity on the one hand in the midst of some of this difficult language. But the apostle has been very lavish about the metaphors of salvation. And to convince us the glory of Jesus Christ, you remember in chapter six, You had this metaphor of baptism. You were baptized into his death. Verse 3, we were buried with him through baptism.

Verse 4, we were united together in the likeness of his death. Verse 5, our old man was crucified. And these metaphors are just flowing out of the Apostle Paul I said this at the beginning of our study the Apostle Paul is so full of encouragement He has so much to say to encourage the soul of a sinner and to encourage the unrepentant to come to him. And so we turn from this previous chapter 6 with an enormous number of metaphors ending with the metaphor of slavery. He says, you're either a slave of sin or you're a slave of God.

And now he can't stop. And so he says, you're either married to one or married to another. So he's just continuing to elaborate through these really vivid, beautiful metaphors about what it means to be saved. And of course, he's being accused of saying, under grace you can live any way you want. And he's answering that accusation.

And he's being accused of preaching cheap grace. And so the answer is found here in this passage of scripture. And the central point, I'll say it right up front but we'll elaborate on it as we go by this, go through this verse by verse. But the central point is this. As a result of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the believer is released from the rigors of the law.

And what are the rigors of the law? The strictness of the law. The stiffness of the law. The hardness, the firmness, the roughness of the law. Jesus Christ releases us from the condemnation of the law.

And that has happened because we have been joined to Christ. We've been joined to a new husband. We've been joined to a better husband. And so it's very critical that we understand how the law and how grace work together. In the coming weeks, the Apostle Paul will continue to explain this.

You're going to get kind of an advanced degree on the law of God and the grace of God in the next few weeks. We will continue this passage because what the Apostle Paul did in chapter 6 was to defend the grace of God. Here he's defending the law of God and he will spend the entire chapter and chapter 8 to to give that explanation. Now you have an outline in front of you that sort of tells you where we're going here this morning. And I want to say that there are five things that the apostle wants you to know about law and grace.

Five things. And the first is just the ever-present reality of the law. That the law hangs over you. Verse one, or do you not know brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. And so, you know, in Paul's letters, he uses the word law typically in three different ways.

First he uses it in reference to the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments. And second he uses it with reference to civil law. And thirdly, he uses it in reference to this governing general principle that everybody understands that all live by a moral standard and all feel judged by some moral standard. They may have their own standard, the standard of their parents, the standard of their church, the standard of their culture, the standard of the woke world that we live in. You know, everybody lives by some kind of law.

Everybody is condemned by something. Some people feel so condemned by the whole climate movement that they feel guilty if they don't recycle. So everybody lives under some kind of a law. And Ray Stedman, one of my favorite preachers in my youth, he says that there are four proofs that everyone believes in the law. First, we're proud of our achievements.

The philanthropist is proud of his giving. Second we are critical of others. We can think of how others have failed to follow the rules that we have followed so beautifully. Thirdly we are reluctant to admit our own failures. And then fourth, we suffer from depression and discouragement and defeat, often because of our failures.

So everybody lives under law. And I think that The apostle Paul, he's first of all speaking to the Jews. I speak to those who know the law. So I believe he is speaking to the Jews, but he speaks of this fact that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. He may be moving into this general sense that everybody lives by some law and everybody judges everybody else around them by their law.

So this is how the Apostle uses the law. But the law is like a dog you can't get rid of. The law, have you ever had a dog that you just can't get rid of? We have a dog that chases our cars. And just the other day, the dog was chasing our cars.

And my wife said, I'm going to floor it and get away from this dog so it doesn't chase us all the way to Rollsville. So the dog is always chasing you, or the dog of the law is always chasing you down. And the condemning power of the law ceases when you become a Christian. Here's how Spurgeon spoke of it. He said, if we are Christians, we delight in that law, but we are not under it as a rule of condemnation and judgment, but we rejoice to obey it.

And as we go through these studies in the law of God, it will just become very clear that the law teaches us how to know God, because every law of God manifests the character of God. That the law teaches you how to know yourself the law teaches you how to understand your world the law teaches you how to correct your thinking so the law of God is good but yet it was but but it was not meant to save And there's really only one way to escape the condemnation of the law. And in this passage he uses a metaphor of marriage and a divorce. And the only way that one can escape the comprehensive condemnation of the law is through a divorce. A divorce from an old way.

And of course, we know that, you know, James says if you break one point of the law, you've broken them all. So no one can stand before God as a lawkeeper because there is only one lawkeeper, the Lord Jesus Christ, who kept all the laws for us. But if we do not keep the law perfectly we must be punished. This was the point of the law of Adam and Eve in the garden. They broke one law and as a result they were condemned.

And this is why in Galatians 3.10 we read, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do that. He's talking about the rigor of the law. He's talking to the fact that if you believe the Bible, then you must believe that you have to be perfect to be acceptable before God. You must obey every law of God unless someone would obey that law for you and that would be the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you have this ever-present reality concerning the law.

That's the first thing the Apostle wants us to know about law. Law hangs over everybody at all times. The second is that there is, he wants us to know of a new relationship. He wants to know of this, he wants us to understand this illustration of what it means to be released from the condemnation of the law. And so he gives this real life illustration that everybody can understand.

Verse 2, For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress though she has another man now I I don't I don't believe that this passage of scripture, this illustration, this metaphor, is meant to teach anything but just one thing and that is that If you are married to one and that relationship is dissolved, then you are married to another. I think it's a really simple illustration.

I don't think you should make a lot of applications about divorce and marriage. He's not teaching the doctrine of divorce and marriage. I think he's just saying that one relationship ends and another one begins. I think that's really the simplicity of the metaphor. And Here's how Matthew Henry speaks of it, we're delivered from the power of the law which curses and condemns us for the sin committed by us.

The sentence of the law against us is vacated and reversed by the death of Christ to all believers. And so the point that the apostle is making when he's speaking of this marriage that has ended, he's talking about the jurisdiction in the same way that the jurisdiction of a husband ends at the end of a marriage or divorce, so the condemning power of the law has been broken and you are no longer subjected to the condemning power of the law. It is our divorce from the world and our marriage to Jesus Christ that breaks the condemnation of the law. In that sense, I think it's really a very, very simple point that he's making. And then, so there's this new relationship.

And the new relationship can only happen if you have a divorce with the world a Divorce with your thinking that you can be so righteous by being so nice by being so generous You know by being such a good person You know everybody thinks that they're such a good person and as a result they think that they're Christians But what the Apostle Paul is saying is you have to divorce that idea if you're going to be a Christian and You have to divorce your old ways of the world and follow Jesus Christ and be like that those that are spoken of in Revelation they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. So you have this new relationship and every person you know reading this should ask do I have that relationship? Have I gotten a divorce from the world? Have I gotten a divorce from my own righteousness? Have I gotten a divorce from my own self-congratulation?

And have I been married to Jesus Christ? Do I have a new husband? Is he my husband? Is he the one that's ruling my life? Is it his authority?

Is it his word? His ways? Is it his that leads me now? That's the whole question here. And that's the fact of a new relationship.

And then the apostle goes on, the third thing he wants us to understand about the law is that when there is a divorce with the old man, then there's a new fruitfulness. And he's now actually giving sort of the spiritual application of what he's already said. There's a spiritual meaning to this divorce and this remarriage. And this now that you are married to Christ Or in the previous chapter, you know, once you were a slave of sin, now you are a slave of righteousness, you know. Now who are you married to?

What has happened? And it says here that we became dead to the law. We became dead to the law. Now what does it mean to be dead to the law? And I think that it's very important that, you know, those who read their Bibles and who love the Lord are very careful not to take things out of context.

Like if you just memorize this one verse about the law, you would be very deceived about what the Bible teaches about the law. And this is true of many, many things. We need to understand the fullness of the meaning of a statement as it exists in the context of the Bible, because the Bible interprets the Bible. So you have this difficult phrase, we become dead to the law. What in the world is that supposed to mean?

Does that mean we hear nothing about the law? Does that mean that we despise the law of God? Is that what he's trying to say? And so I think it's important to understand what the Bible says about the law of God and we'll begin with the Apostle Paul. What else did the Apostle Paul say about the law?

And this actually sets this statement being dead to the law in context. In verse 7 of Romans 7 he says, is the law sin? Certainly not. In Romans 7-12 the Apostle Paul praised the law. He said, therefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good.

In Romans 7 22 the Apostle says that he delights in the law. He said, for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. In 1 Timothy 1, 8 he says that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Paul believed that the carnal man in his unbelief did not subject himself to the law of God in Romans 8-7, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it does not subject to the law of God nor indeed can be in Romans 13 8 he says He who loves another has fulfilled the law. In Galatians 321, the apostle says, is the law against the promises of God?

Certainly not. In Titus 211, We read that we were redeemed from every lawless deed. So the believer in getting a divorce from the world is redeemed from every lawless deed and becomes actually a law keeper. And in Romans chapter three, this is outlined, the Apostles say the same kind of thing the Apostle John said if you love me you will keep my commandments he said sin is lawlessness and sin and lawlessness is not good So when you read this that we are dead to the law, we have to understand what it means. It does not mean that you ignore the law of God.

It's in this wider context of the teaching about the law of God. And so, let me say it this way. I think I read this somewhere. The commanding power of the law is still applicable. The condemning power of the law has ceased for the believer.

I think that's a helpful way to think about it. The commanding power is good. The condemning power has ceased for the believer. That's why you know we take the Lord's Supper. We take the Lord's Supper.

We're proclaiming our freedom that Jesus Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death. We're proclaiming that he forgave us of all of our sins. We're proclaiming that there's no condemnation hanging over our heads. The church should be the happiest people in the world because they've been released from the condemning power of the law. And it says how?

It's very clear. Do you see the language there? Through the body of Christ. Through the body of Christ. We have been, we are no longer married to a bad husband.

It's easy to get married to a bad husband who's constantly critical, who is a perfectionist, and you can never do anything right. And that's the condemnation of the law. An abusive taskmaster, a perfectionist of a husband. And frankly, a husband that is like Jesus Christ would never be like that. And then there is a new fruitfulness, not only a new relationship, but also this fruitfulness.

This is so remarkable. He says, and you can see the context here, that you may be married to another, to him who is raised from the dead. So we are married to Christ, we've sworn off all other lovers, we enter into a covenant, a pledge of loyalty to this new husband, and we look to Christ above all others. And What happens? And this is such a thrilling thing about this passage.

And this is why I just want to continue to say, listen, let Paul encourage you, okay, that we should bear fruit to God. So this new relationship has opened up a new door in your life. You know, it's so remarkable to me, you know, looking out into your eyes in this congregation. And I can see how that's happened. How you're bearing fruit to God.

When you were married to that old husband, there wasn't that much good fruit. But now there's a lot of good fruit that's being born, you know, right here before our eyes in this congregation. It's such a beautiful thing. But that's what he's saying, that you should bear fruit to God. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruit.

A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. The fruit actually matters. It tells you and everyone else what's really going on in your life. And so God's objective in saving you is that you might bear fruit. Jesus called it in John 15, fruit, more fruit, much fruit.

I'm just quoting his words in John 15. He says, I am the vine and you're the branches. And then he talks about bearing fruit. It's such a beautiful thing. I was reading a sermon on this whole text by Charles Spurgeon and he talks about just how good the law of God is in your fruit bearing.

He says if you were a sailor it's like the chart to chart your course you know across the sea so you wouldn't miss your way. If you're a beggar, you'll find comfort here. If you're a father, you'll learn how to manage your household. If you're children, you'll learn how to bear fruit as a child. If you are a servant or a master or a wife or sick or if you have robust health or whatever it is he says this book is for you all he says it will talk with you into whatever condition you may happen to be cast the book will follow you It's a wonderful book that adapts itself to every moment of your life.

You can use it everywhere you go. Whether you're in the palace or in the prison. It doesn't matter for the Christian. Because He has God. He is a branch that's connected to the vine.

He's bearing fruit. He can bear fruit everywhere. There's nowhere that you are that you can't bear fruit. Many years ago I heard someone say, if you have to move 18 inches to bear fruit, you'll never bear fruit because you can bear fruit no matter where you are. You don't have to have to have a different friend, you don't have to have a different church, you don't have to have a different pastor to bear fruit, you bear fruit because you're connected to such a good husband.

Spurgeon says It's your everyday book, every day of the week throughout the year. But this is all about fruit bearing. You know, we were, I believe we were in men's Bible study this last week, And I was just thinking about this whole matter of bearing fruit and I turned to Nathan I said Nathan Let's sing that song come all you pining hungry poor You know Lord we adore thy boundless grace He says there's this never failing store never failing store of grace for every willing guest. That's us. That's the Church of Jesus Christ wherever she exists.

He says, he says, come all you pining, hungry poor, the Savior's bounty taste, behold, a never failing store. Here shall your numerous wants receive, a free and full supply. He has unmeasured bliss to give and joys that never die. And then come all you finding hungry poor, the Savior's bounty taste. That's what he's talking about.

He's talking about this new fruit, this new fruitfulness that takes place when you get your divorce from that bad old husband who was trying to run your life with all kinds of guilt mechanisms. And then it's very interesting. Well let me just stop here. There are a number of things here that in verse 5, there's this old attitude toward the law in verse 5. This is a picture of the unbeliever.

He's been talking about the believer and then in verse 5 I think he loops back and says don't forget what it was like Don't forget what it was like to be under the law under the condemnation of the law Verse 5 for when we were in the flesh the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. He's saying you know after talking about this beautiful picture of fruitfulness, then he says, don't forget what it was like. Don't forget what it was like to be under the condemnation of law. And there are four things that characterize this pre-conversion life. First, it was life in the flesh.

That's code for being unconverted. Second, sinful passions were aroused. And I'll explain that in a minute. Third, unceasing work was engaged in bearing fruit to death. Like your whole life was bearing fruit to death in your pre-conversion life.

It says that sinful passions were aroused by the law. This is a difficult thing to understand and I've tried to read about everybody possible about this. Here's what I think it means that sinful passions were aroused by the law. We heard the law of God and we bristled at it. It bothered us.

God's laws are not fair. I don't like that law. It's the indication of the rebellious heart of man. We hear the law and we are offended by the law. We want to rebel against the law we say I'm gonna do it anyway We say this law is ridiculous.

We say this law was for an older time This law is the Old Testament not the new I can get away with this I Used to have a farmhand You know he would be doing something and I would say why are you doing that he would he said this so many times To me God will forgive me anyway Well he was under the condemnation of the law, but he didn't care. And one writer says, the law says, thou shalt not. They say, yes, I shall. It says, it shalt. They say, I shall not.

And this is the rebellion of the heart of men You know whenever whenever you see here's a really important principle Whenever you see a law of God in the Word of God Which reflects the heart of God and you say that law is not fair Here's what you need to understand. You're the one that's not fair. You're the one that doesn't understand the heart of God. You're the one that needs instruction about what is fair. You're the one that needs instruction about what is good.

Because every law of God is good. Every law of God is a law of love. Every law of God reflects the heart of God. Every law of God was written by Jesus Christ himself. And so if you want to say this law is not a good law, you need to understand what you're actually saying.

But when sinful passions are aroused by the law, because we are so self-righteous that we think we are wiser than God. We think that we are more holy than God and His word is not holy and we become judges of God and his word. But you know there's an even more dangerous response to the law. You know it is dangerous to say I don't like that law. I'm not doing it.

But there's a more insidious and even more dangerous response to the law and that's when you think you know I'm such a I'm such a generous person God must love me I'm such a kind person I I'm such a successful person, God must really like what I'm doing. He's put His hand upon me because I'm so successful. People, there are people who, they're just nice. There are so many nice unbelievers in the world. And they congratulate themselves.

Because they're so nice, they're so generous. They might be more nicer than all of us, they might be more generous than all of us, they might give more than all of us and they think that that makes them righteous before God. That's the most dangerous form of responding to the law of God. And the effect is stated here. It was to bear fruit to death.

Bear fruit to death. There's so many carnal ways that people try to deal with their sin. Oh, I'm going to start going back to church. Yeah, I'm going to get it together. You know what?

I've been a bad father. I'm going to start being a good father. You know, I need to count to ten before I blow up. That's what I'm going to do. These are just carnal ways of dealing with your sin.

And There are all kinds of success principles that you can adopt to deal with your imperfections in your sin. But he's saying here that all of these carnal moralities, they bear fruit to death. But then he turns from the unconverted life and the fifth thing he wants us to know about the law. And that is that it brings us into a new kind of service. He uses the language, the newness of the Spirit.

You know, I titled the sermon, Serve in the Newness of the Spirit, because I think that's what he's driving at. I think every verse is pounding away to get to verse six to say, when you are released from your old bad marriage with the law, with the world, then you're free. And that's why he says, Verse 6, let's read it. But now we have been delivered from the law. And he must be talking about the condemnation of the law, the rigor of the law, the self-righteousness that someone feels when they keep the law.

That's what he's talking about. But now we've been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. And what does it mean to be delivered from the law? Well, David said, oh how I love thy law. So, it means that you have a new heart toward the law.

It means that the law can no longer condemn you because Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for all of your sins and taken the punishment that we deserved upon himself. And the law is no longer there to congratulate you. You've been delivered from all that. And you're free to serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. So you have these two things.

They're in contrast. The newness of the Spirit and the oldness of the letter. Now in terms of the newness of the Spirit, the apostle is going to continue to speak about the Spirit. When we get to chapter 8, it's the chapter of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit. It's so wonderful.

And the newness of the spirit is that your heart has changed and now you want to do the will of God you want to say no to sin you instead of hating the law of God and we're uncomfortable with it, you want to understand it. You want to understand what it means for you. You're no longer defensive. You're no longer rejecting. You're no longer arguing with God.

You serve in the newness of the spirit and you have a new freedom. And then the oldness of the letter, what is that? The oldness of the letter is that you obey because you have to, not because you want to. Your heart is hard, and it's a hard taskmaster. And your proposition is I just need to get it together, rather than to serve the Lord in my spirit by the work of the Holy Spirit.

And you know the newness of the Spirit means that something has actually happened to you, like something real has happened and the Spirit of God has entered your life and there is there's wisdom and love and power that flows from you from the person of the Holy Spirit the word The Word of God is the Word of the Spirit, okay, in Revelation. And the Word of God working with the Spirit of God is this newness of the Spirit. Spirit. William Hendrickson says of this, this liberty is freedom from and freedom for. I like the way he says that.

It's freedom from the obligation to keep the law in order to be saved, and is therefore also a freedom from the curse of the law, which pronounces disobedience upon us. But it is at the same time a freedom for and with a view to, a freedom in order to render service to God in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. Okay, all of this to say, rejoice in your new husband. Do you have a new husband? Are you still married to the world?

Are you still married to the condemnation of the law? Or have you become betrothed to Jesus Christ and at that betrothal you have entered into relationship with the best husband you'll ever have. George Whitfield preached a sermon he called it Jesus Christ the best husband and that is so true. And so to be a Christian is to have a completely new relationship with the law. He's no longer congratulating himself because he's so righteous and so nice.

And he no longer stands under the condemnation of the law, but is set free from the law of sin and death, as the apostle Paul says. So in chapter six we asked, whose slave are you? And now we ask, who is your husband? Your maker is your husband. You know I was going to write out I started writing what he is like what kind of husband is this because there really is no more exalted view of what it means to be a husband than what you find in the Bible.

And the fact that Jesus Christ is your husband should teach every husband what it means to be a husband. And it should teach every believer what it means to have Jesus Christ as their husband and but I only I I wrote down lots of things that he is like as a husband but I just want to give you a few in closing. As your husband, he chose you. As your husband, He keeps you. As your husband, He speaks to you.

As your husband, He leads you. As your husband, He cares for you. As your husband, He forgives you. And this is what it means to serve in the newness of the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, and to understand just how kind God is to flow his goodness, his righteousness through his son into the soul of every sinner who repents. There's no greater husband and there's no greater kingdom than his kingdom.

And so I want to try to be as much like the Apostle Paul as I can and encourage you about the grace of God. And if you don't know the grace of God, come up and talk to us. We'd love to tell you about the grace of God be saved from your old husband he's an abuser but Jesus Christ is a good shepherd would you pray with me Lord Lord we thank you for your boundless grace. We thank you for we thank you for your law for the help it is That it's such a wonderful tutor and Yet we're so grateful that you've released us from the condemnation of the law. I pray, Lord, that every person here in this room would know who they are married to today.

Amen. Thank you.