Our Reconciliation
I know it seems very sombre, but now we can get excited because it's time for the sermon. Who's ready? Yes, glad to hear it. All right. Anyway, let us first begin in prayer. Father, we thank you that you have given us this rich blessing, your word. Father, we have it written down for us so that you can teach us, so that you can instruct us, so that you can speak to us here today, that we can hear you in our ears at this very moment. Thank you so much for this blessing and we long for the day, Father, where we will hear it audibly in our ears as you return, as we see it in the face of your Son Jesus. We long for that day. So pray Lord that you speak to us now, instruct us, teach us, give us hope. In Jesus name we pray, amen. All right. Now, one of the great things that we get to do with our communion, if you go to any other church, a lot of them do it differently. Some of them have little rituals, some of them they might have people at the front, maybe just the bowl that you walk towards and none of it really matters. It's, know, whatever, as long as you get the bread and the wine at the end of the day or juice, whatever it is. then hey, whoopie-doo, that's good. But there's actually something really cool. There's a little thing hidden kind of in the fact that we have helpers go around. You notice the fact, none of you have to hop up to get it. It's simply given to you. And so this is this amazing thing where it's just a little bit of symbolism showing the whole point of what Jesus does. Does he say, well, you gotta come and get me? No, he says, I'm gonna come to you. I am the one that reaches out. He's the one who takes the initiative. And so in that beautiful little thing, granted it's not a biblical command, it's just a little bit of tradition, but it reminds us of the fact that Christ offers Himself to us. We don't go to Him. We do, obviously, in some degree, but first thing He comes to us. And so you see, that is the picture that we're looking at today. The big thing. Now granted, I forgot to tell Dan, actually only doing the first three verses, not all the way to 29. That was my fault. Anyway, next week we'll be doing 24 all the way to chapter two, verse five. um So changing it up a bit. But anyway, so the first three verses we're focusing on here. And it's about one thing, reconciliation. um Michelle showed me a great song last night. It was called the Asian song or something like that. The words that end in Asian. It's a Colin Buchanan song. And he has all these words, justification, sanctification. We have all these words that end in asian, right? All these different words and one of them is reconciliation. And what does reconciliation mean? What's this big word? All it means, two things that were once apart, separated, estranged, coming back together. That's what's really happening in communion. We're acknowledging the fact that as we go through the weeks, naturally there are ways in which we go through things where we try to distance ourselves from God. But then we remember, we have the bread, we have His body offered up to us and we reconcile with Him once again. We confess our sins, we repent and we're united once again with Him. With Him on the cross, we remember we're forgiven. What a beautiful thing. And so you see, last week we were talking about how He is King over all creation. This is His kingdom. And what's happened since the fall? Well, annoyingly, he's had some invaders come in, some people who've tried to take his land from him, his creation. And so, what has he done? He is gone and saying, I am going to reconcile this creation back to... As you imagine, a king has heard the announcement that there are people who have come in, foreign people, who have come to take another king from somewhere else, come to take his lands. But he said, no, this is mine. He has right to all of it. And so he says, I'm going to reclaim it. I will make it mine once again. And so you see, this is the reality. Salvation isn't just for us. It's for all of this, everything. You see how trees die, how everything eventually decays, things fall apart, or even our society itself is just falling apart at the seams. That's because it's been distanced from its creator. And so he has come. He has reconciled it once again. But how is the ultimate way he has done that? through reconciling us. And so you see, this picture of a king going out, once again to destroy the invaders, is a great picture of how Christ has come to reclaim his kingdom. That he has come down to earth to make this place once again his. But this image of a king going out to destroy the enemies doesn't perfectly represent how he reconciles us. Because the problem is, we're the enemies. So if he's coming to destroy us, to get rid of us... Well, that doesn't end well for us, does it? We need another image to help us understand what he is doing to reconcile, because he doesn't destroy us. He reconciles us. He brings us back in union with him. So better, we look at the image of a marriage. Now, if you had the privilege of joining us for Song of Solomons as we went through it, we talked all about this. Because you see, the Song of Solomon... If you wonder what it really is, it's not just some raunchy bit in the Bible. It's not some weird thing about people having fun. Ultimately, what it is about, it is a story about God and His people shown in a marriage. Because you've got to understand that the reality is that so much of God's relationship with us is portrayed in the image of a marriage. It's portrayed in His relationship with Israel. Just think about when you're about to get engaged, you're waiting for the wedding day. Oh, you're so excited. Was there ever a time when Israel was excited? Yeah, when they were in slavery and they were really keen to get out of it. They would invite me into something else, take me, save me, redeem me. And so God came, they were longing for their God to come save them. He came, redeemed them. Where were they married? Where was the covenant formed with Israel? At Mount Sinai. They received the Ten Commandments from Moses. And then, so they're married, they're bonded together. Jesus has wedded himself to these people. God has done that. He said, am you, or so was it, I am with you and you are with me. And then he brings them into this special place of his, this place he has made specially for them, the promised land. And then do they live happily ever after? If you've read the rest of the Old Testament, no. Better yet, actually right after the wedding day, then they go and make another bride, another god basically to go worship. No. They're the worst bride anyone's ever met. Some of you might have stories of people who, you know, have somehow gotten, you know, they've slept around literally three days after the wedding. Those kind of things happen. And this is exactly what Israel was like. Not a happy marriage. In the Song of Solomon, we get this perfect marriage, this ideal, what it is meant to be like. But the true picture we get is of a broken marriage. That is the picture we get of an unfaithful bride who's run off doing her own thing, chasing other fellows. And yet we have God who continues to be faithful to us every step of the way. And so this is the picture that we're gonna go through as we see how we have run away from God, as we see how we have brought back to Him and what we are to do after that. three points basically that we'll go through. But the first one, how we ruined the marriage. So that'll be our first verse, 22, sorry, 21. And you who were once alienated and hostile and mine doing evil deeds. Sorry, I know it's not a full sentence, but that's just the one verse there. So what does it mean to be alienated? Such an interesting word. Easiest way to do it, get rid of the aided of it. We've got alien. Not talking about the extraterrestrial type. All right, not UFOs. What we are talking here is about someone who is not in their homeland. This is like a foreigner. That is what it means. This is simply someone who is not home. But alienation is more than just that. It's not that you're home, but you're not home for a reason. You're a foreigner for a reason, because you choose to be, or because you have because of your choices. You are fleeing an exile. And so you see there, what are we fleeing from? Our relationship with God. We don't want to acknowledge Him that He is our King, that He is our Creator. And so there is another book. There are two books that help us to understand this image of our marriage with God. One, Song of Solomon. The second, Hosea. It gives us a picture of what it is truly like. Hosea 1, 2, read from. For the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to him, Go take yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. So Hosea, a prophet back in the Old Testament and he had a mission, a mission to tell the people what they were doing wrong, to bring them back to God and say, how is he to do that? He was to use his life as a living painting, basically. And what was that painting? God basically said, can block your kids' ears if you don't want to have to explain to them what this is. Go and marry a prostitute, basically. Why? Because that is exactly what Israel was doing to God. They're saying, oh, look at this amazing husband. He's given us the land, many blessings, prosperity. He's brought us out of slavery and we haven't done anything. We haven't even fought anyone. He did all the fighting. He killed them all for us. And then what do they do? Run off. After every other God saying, oh, we want to worship money, we want to worship this God, that God, any other thing except you God, we want to serve that. Even after He'd given them everything. So God there was declaring to Israel, I've married a prostitute, someone who sleeps around. And so, you see, because He gave this imagery because what is the thing that rips apart a marriage? First and foremost. Adultery, right? That's the first and foremost thing. Because when one has bound themselves to another person, they can't therefore go and say, I'm going to bind myself to another. That is exactly what the covenant does. You can't separate that. It shouldn't be separated. But you see, it isn't obviously adultery that we do in terms of our covenant relationship with God. What we do is idolatry. It's loving things more than Him. And you see, it matches up with idolatry. Sorry, a lot of ories in this words, big words. But idolatry and idolatry share what in common. You are loving something more than the thing that actually deserves your love. You pledged yourself to your wife, to your husband, and you're saying, I'd rather love this person more than them. God has given everything to us. All of us are breathing right at this very moment because He loves us. Even as we walk in life as sinners and commit sin, He still gives us our every breath. And then every day we still say, I love these other things more than you though. We are foolish. And so you see, this is the great lesson for us, that as we read this first verse, that we are hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, we are alienated from God, understand we are the same as Israel. We are the prostitute, we are the one that have left God. That is where all of us were. We were hostile in mind. That means your mind refused to acknowledge who God was, that He is your Creator, that you were made for Him. And so what did you do? your mind compelled you to do things that he hated so that you showed that you did not love him. Now, of course, all of us have different views of our life before God. Some of us can't even remember it. Of course, if you've grown up in church, it can be hard to identify the time, the point. That's fine. It doesn't matter actually that we can't identify the point. The simple fact remains that we have to acknowledge this fact before we were saved and all of us have a moment where we were saved before we were, right, sorry, a time between we were unbeliever and a believer, you might not be able to identify it. All of us have to accept there was a time when we hated God. You might think like, I don't remember the time. It doesn't matter that you don't remember the time. The Bible testifies to this fact. Once we hated God and then we received Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, that is what this opening verse teaches us. And so understand, you might think, well, okay, back in the day, I was just indifferent to God. was just, understand, can you just imagine if you walked around your house, just kind of being indifferent to your wife, not really accepting the fact that she's there? That's called hating your wife, all right? Just because you don't pay him any attention doesn't mean you didn't hate him. And so all of us, before we were saved, hated God. That is a fact we must accept. We was distanced from him. There was a cosmic gulf between us and him. If we do not realise, we do not realise the amazing grace that the cross was. We think we just had a few problems, we didn't have a few problems, we were alienated. We didn't know God. So this brings us onto our second point. So you realise, at this point, the marriage is broken. Obviously, yay, I'm talking about us before we were saved. There has been reconciliation that has happened. This is what Christ declares in verse 22. He has now reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. Now, think about a marriage, a marriage that's on the rocks. Ultimately something has happened, something to cause that division, that separation. What are the two things that need to be dealt with? Again, it's not marriage advice, it's very generalized. One. We need to deal with what has happened in the past. There needs to be forgiveness. There needs to be grace shown and then as well. There needs to be an ending to the thing that caused it in the first place. If adultery caused a shift, break in the relationship, but they want to reconcile, obviously you need to end the relationship with the one you committed the adultery with. So you see there are these two things that need to be dealt with, the past and the cause of why it happened. because if we don't deal with the cause, you'll just go back to doing it. And so he says, both of these things, both of these things that are required for our reconciliation happen at the cross. And so this is where we come to our next two asian, caition words, asian, whatever they are. Anyway, big words if you want to call them. These two terms that man, if we just understood them, if we just remembered them every day and what they truly mean, you would solve 90 % of your problems as a Christian. I don't mean like you're gonna solve all your money problems or something like that, but ultimately, at the root of everything, our greatest struggles are because we struggle with God, and it's because we forget these two things. I'll explain them, but justification and sanctification. So one, what does justification mean? These are the two umbrella terms that sit underneath reconciliation. These are how we are reconciled to God. Justification simply means this, that you are in the right, that you have done nothing wrong. that if you were to stand before a judge, he was to examine your whole life, no one could bring any charge against you. No one could say you'd done anything wrong. You're perfect. That is what it means to be justified in a court of law. is a legal term. And so, if you were to stand before God, can I just get a hands raised? Is there anyone who could raise a hand saying that God would have no charge to bring against them? Anyone want to take a stab at that? No? Okay. Very humble people. I appreciate that. There you go. Of course, we know we've done wrong. Everyone can acknowledge, even if you're so absorbed in yourself, everyone can know we're not perfect. We have done at least one thing wrong, I would say times that by about a million. So, how are we to be justified? What can we do? We've already fallen in the pit, we've already dug our own grave. This is the beauty of justification. To be justified not by ourselves but by Jesus. Because what happened, Jesus lived the perfect life. He's the only person who was truly justified before God. But then how did he die? He died the death of a guilty man. Just look at his trial. You can read it in all the gospels. They never actually declared him guilty. They just put him to death. No one ever declared he was guilty. Pilate, who was set there to judge him, simply said, I just don't want to lose my job. So you do what you're going to do. They were unable to convict him of anything, but yet he died the death of a guilty person. Why? Because he took our place. If you know the story in some of the gospels, it talks about this man called Barabbas. He was a man convicted of murder, treason, and a million other things that really aren't that great and probably deserving of death. Yet he was freed. The people chose him. to redeem him, to save him rather than to save Jesus. But you see, there's a truth in that. We are brabbas, we are the ones who deserve to die and yet Christ has taken our place. We are set free, innocent, every single one of us. You see, it talks about in the Bible, it is like this coat, this jacket that we put on of righteousness. So that you understand that as you stand before God, you'll judge. All he can see is the jacket of righteousness. That is Christ's his perfect life. That is all he can see. So every mistake you have made in life, every time you have screwed up, it's gone because you are covered over by Jesus. You are so united to Him that now when God looks at you, He can't see anything but Jesus. And so you see, this is a beautiful thing. Christ has taken our place. He died as a guilty person, so we take his place as the innocent one with a perfect life. So you see, this is part of the solution. All the things that we have done in the past, all the things we do right now and all the things that we will do in the future are dealt with. Guilt gone, paid, done, conscience cleared. So our wrongdoing is done away with, but then we come to our second thing. All of you, should you accept Christ, are forgiven. All of you have done things that nonetheless, I'm sure, plague your conscience, that make you feel bad, clear now, because Christ has forgiven you. But surely we acknowledge, I'm innocent, but I'm still not perfect. That is for sure. And so this takes us to our second point. that we need to destroy the cause of our wrongdoing, that thing that leads us into doing the wrong things. Otherwise, we'll simply return to doing what we used to do. This is what we call sanctification, being sanctified, which I'll talk about in a sec. It is like this, imagine you've just walked out of the courtroom. Like I said, we're in a court of law, we've been declared innocent. You've been acquitted of all charges. You walk out the door, you've got the paper that says, I'm innocent. And then you're sitting there and just thinking, I don't feel that innocent. I don't feel that perfect. I don't actually feel like someone who's been cleansed. And you see, that's true. Here is one of the hardest truths that we face as Christians is that we are told that we are perfect in Christ, that we have His righteousness, that if we go to heaven right now, there is nothing that can stop us entering into those gates. No sin, no wrongdoing. But we still feel like bad people. We still feel conviction. And so see, there is a reality where we must accept I am perfect before God, but He is also doing a work to make me like how He sees me, as in He is making me holy. so he will make us feel innocent. So you see, sanctification is a process of making something clean. It's like just having the turbo thing on the dishwasher. He is just scrubbing everything clean, wiping everything off it. And this is the hard part. Because it is like God has declared, he just sees this shrub, this big bush, this hedge, that it's just an absolute mess. And he's like, That is gonna be a perfect bush. He's still got to clip all the stuff off it. He still has to do the work to it to prune everything. Can you imagine if you were just a tree, just stick out your fingers and someone starts chopping fingers off? That's what it sometimes feels like being sanctified, being cleansed by God, because all we have known is being sinners. But you see, he comes through with this fire that burns all of our old ways. But there is pain. involved. It is this slow transformation where He makes us like Jesus. And you see, this must be done. And better yet, we need the cross for this. Because you see, it is on the cross where Christ, yes, He destroyed the debt that stood against us because we had done wrong against God, but also He defeated the powers that held us enslaved. You see, before we knew God, we could only sin. That was it. We would just sin. We were sinners of nature. You couldn't do anything to please God until the Holy Spirit came in, until you were changed, until you were born again. You could do nothing different. We needed Christ to come and defeat the powers. And so how does He do that? You see, this is what sanctification is about. This is inevitably the thing. When we get saved, what do we say? Well, you're right. I do have to, you know, do a bit better. I do have to change a few things. So I'm going to have a good go at it. I'm going to really try. You know, I've got this problem of, I don't know, whatever. drinking or something like that. I have a problem with drinking. So I'm going to try with all my might. I'm not going to go to those places anymore. I'm going to stop. I'm going to get rid of all of it in my house. Is that what we're meant to do? Well, look, yes, if you have a problem with drinking, that's probably a good idea. But that is actually not the root thing because you see, the whole point is that Jesus reconciles us. So He is involved in the process of sanctification. Getting rid of the things out of your house and not going to the places That's not Jesus doing anything, that's just you. Jesus is the one who reconciles, so you must be involved in the process. So what does that look like? Sanctification is not about finding a perfect system, not about finding a silver bullet to make yourself a better person. What sanctification looks like is that as you walk through this life, you realize, wow, I really can't change myself. And so what do you do? You turn to the person who actually can change you. You turn to Him in prayer. You seek Him in His word. You see, the reality is if you came up with a perfect system to get rid of your problems, you wouldn't think of praying or going to God's word. Because it doesn't bear instant fruit. We don't see how it's really doing it. But the truth is in here and praying to Him, that is where true freedom is found. It is turning to Him, turning to His promises that you actually find the strength to go on. And better yet, it is the constant revisiting of His cross. because it is going back to that place, seeing what happened there that destroys the lives of the devil. Because what does he love to do? He loves to sit there and say, God hates you. God will never forgive you. God doesn't like that you're doing that. You're not doing good enough. The cross destroys all of that. Because when you go to the cross, you see, he's already died for me, he's already forgiven me. every sin is covered over past, present and future. And so it also destroys the lie where he says, God is trying to keep something from you. This is for those who do not feel conviction, but think there's something better. The grass is greener on the other side. Because you see, God has shown such love, such grace. He sent His own Son to die for me. Why would He do that to keep something good from me? He literally gave me His Son. What else could He be keeping from me? You see, the cross, Satan's kingdom is destroyed because He can only keep it through lying to you. It is the truth of the cross. and everything there that frees you. And so then, what do we do now? That is how we are reconciled to God, justification, sanctification, you get those things, man, you've solved so many problems, half of our problems are just forgetting those two things. What do we do now? Verse 23, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel you have heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. So, we've been reconciled. It's happened. You're reconciled with God now. You're one with Him. That's what we're saying when we take communion. He's body is with me. I am with Him. You're reconciled. You're back together again. The band is back together. Yay. Now what are we doing? Making sure with all our might. What do you do once you've been reconciled? Struggle with all your might that you don't become unreconciled again. Because you see there is one out there who seeks to divide us, to bring us apart from our Lord, Satan. That spiritual being who is out there putting lies into our minds. He hates when we are near God. And so here the picture we are given in this verse is of a house. Because you see it's stable, steadfast, not shifting. That is a foundation. It is to be established. So imagine a house built on a solid foundation. The reality is Most of us have had experiences in here with a house that doesn't have a good foundation. You get cracks in the tiles, everything starts shifting, no wall's straight. You need a solid foundation otherwise, particularly in places where the ground doesn't typically stay together, it will hold together. You need a strong foundation. So what is our foundation? Well, it's a foundation, so it's the first thing we do. And see, this is an important thing, because one of the things we love to seek for is that silver bullet. Man, just that thing that is finally gonna set me free from the troubles I'm having in my life. But I'm really sorry to break this to you. There is no higher truth. There is no secret out there which the mature among us know that the others don't. That's solving all our problems. Better yet, we've all got the same problems. We haven't seemed to gotten rid of them. So what is the truth that we need? They're the things we learn in Sunday school. They are the same things that we learn as children that we need to be reminded about. The reality is, the saints who've been Christians for 60 years, why do they have such hope? Why do they have such assurance in God? Because they believe in the exact same things that they were singing in when they were six years old. Those are the exact same things, it doesn't change. You might come to understand it more deeply, but it is not a different thing. And so you see, we build upon this basic understanding, the very things that I've laid out in justification and sanctification. We may not use those words in Sunday School, but they are basic. It is literally the fact Jesus has paid for your sins and He is making you a new person. As simple as that, things that a five-year-old can understand and yet we keep forgetting them. And so you see, we build our life upon that foundation because there are two dangers that face us. Two things that can come to rock the foundation. The first one. Does anyone know why it's a good reason not to plant certain trees near a foundation? Yep, because they got those roots that just, you give them enough years, they'll find a way in. Because they break down the foundation, they put cracks in it. And so you see, this is the same truth when it comes to false teaching. As in lies, things that are not true about God. You see, the truth is in here. in His Word. But you see, we are surrounded by a world that would love to teach us other things about who God is. And so our desire is to become unlike this. This is what we should strive not to be. In Ephesians 4.14, Paul prays that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by those things we believe in, by human cunning and by craftiness and deceitful schemes. You see, the reality is, every single one of us has a caricature of who Jesus is in our heads. All of us are missing some parts. None of us have a whole image, but yet our life is defined by seeking to make that picture more truthful. By trying to discover the lies that we have in our minds and filling it with truth. Because if we don't, those lies will sit there. They will corrode the foundation that we sit upon. They get in there, weave their way in. And one of the most corrosive lies, particularly foundational to these two things that we've just discussed here. We love to switch sanctification with justification and putting them the other way around. First, you are always justified, as in you were made right with God. He sees you as perfect. Then He makes you holy. Why is this so important? like, does this really mean I don't think about justification and sanctification? You actually do. Because every single one of you thinks, why does God love me? Because I did this and because I did that. Because I did this today, because I tried to make myself holy in some way, that's why He loves me. No, that is not the gospel. And we mess this up every day because it's the way we've always lived. It's the way this world works. You work, you get what you earn. And that's not a bad thing, but it's not how it works with God. We need to know the truth. He has saved you. It is grace. It is a gift. You just have to receive it. Receive it every morning. Stop waking up thinking, got to read that Bible otherwise he's not going to be happy with me. Yeah, you should read your Bible, but not because it's going to make him happy with you. You read it because it reminds you that he is always happy with you. It gives you joy. It gives you hope in the day. Because as you read this word, it is not meant to sit there and you're meant to be, all right, there are all the things I'm meant to do. You're meant to read it and say, I know there are things I have to do and I've just found strength to do it all because you have the promises, you have the hope in His Word. So you see the true freedom is knowing. To have a solid foundation is knowing not that God says, love you because of what you have done, but I love you and here is what I have done for you. It is all giving. That is all he does, he gives. And so this brings us to the second danger. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but is the thing we must prepare our foundations for, why we must know the truth when we inevitably run into trials, troubles, things that come into our life, because what do they do? Rock the foundation. The reality is buildings don't really need a foundation unless there's wind. I know, yes, functionally they do need foundations and stuff like that. But the reality is... You can put a tent there on any patch of dirt and it's fine. The problem is you've got to start nailing it down when there's wind, when there's rain, when there's things of that sort. You see it is when the storms come the foundation is tested. Who is the one that sends the storms? God. Every time, every trial, every struggle in your life from God. You got a problem with that? You can come talk to me. We have covered it other times. The reality is God sends these storms into our lives to reveal the truth about our foundation. These storms are a gracious gift from God because one, they either confirm the fact that you're on a solid foundation or two, in His grace, He has shown you that you actually are not. on a solid foundation, that there are cracks. In His grace He has shown you and so now He will show you a way to plug up the cracks, if there's a way to do that, of course. And so you see, the reality is that a biblical relationship, one founded upon truth in God's Word, with our God, when we truly know what our relationship is with Him, what it is based upon, which is purely upon love, not upon what we do, it is the thing. that will get us through sickness, through financial struggles, through family breakdowns, even through death. It is that truth which gets us through. You know that, you've solved 90 % of your problems just knowing who God is and what He has done for you. And so, in conclusion, wrapping it all up, remember what you were reconciled from. You are the unfaithful one. You have run away from God. You have not loved Him as you should have. Remember how you were reconciled through Jesus' death on the cross. He died in your place, not because you did anything. What do we do? Believe in Him. Trust in Him. Repent of your sins. Bring them to Him. Ask Him, forgive me. It is these truths that will keep your faith strong. It is knowing what He did for us and how He continues to work in us that allows us to continue to have the faith to go on, that keeps the foundation strong. And if there are some of us here who do not believe any of this today, know this, we can continue to live a life separated from God. That is a choice we are given. But understand that you are not separated from fully. You enjoy the things He gives to you now. But if you continue to live separated from Him, then you will one day learn what it is truly like to be separated from every good thing that He has given. So we will now conclude in prayer and then I'll invite the worship team up. Father. You have given us this precious gift. Father, that though we were alienated from you, though our minds were hostile to you, though we were doing things that you despised, that you hated, Father, that stirred up your wrath and your anger, that you deserve to punish us for what did you do. You reconciled us. You brought us back to yourself. You call us your children because you sent your son. to die in our place. He died as a guilty man so that we might be declared innocent. He suffered so that we might not. He defeated the powers of sin and Satan and death so that we might be free to serve you and not the things of this world. Father, we were made for you. Help us to live like we are. And so Father, would you help us by the power of your Spirit to live in these truths, to know these truths, would you preach them to us, teach them to us in your word every day? We pray in the power of Jesus' name, amen.