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Romans 6:6-22
6 We know that our old self1 was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free2 from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,3 you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
[1] 6:6
[2] 6:7
[3] 6:16
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Before we open up God's word together, I want to just say a a few words to those who might be listening, to this sermon via podcast. I'm I'm never quite sure which sermon goes out on podcast. First, I just want you to know that we're really glad that you are listening. And also, at the same time, I want to remind you that a livestream or a podcast is not the same thing as coming to church. And so sometimes I have people over the past year, they've come up to me and they started listening to the Redeemer podcast.
Joel Brooks:And, they've said how much they loved it. You know, they might even be in another state. They might send me an email or something like that. Or I bump into them as they're visiting maybe a child who does go to our church. And they say, you know, really honestly, over the last year, watching livestream, redeemers become our church.
Joel Brooks:And although I've appreciated what they've said, I've I've tried to gently respond by just saying, but we're not. But we can't be your church, because you actually need to be physically present with your church. Your church is where you gather together with other believers. Your church is the people on whom you unite your your voice with their voice and song. You you pray with them.
Joel Brooks:You pray for them. You serve one another, and you are served by them. You collectively come together to sit and to listen to the word of God and have the Holy Spirit blow in your midst as a as a family. And so so you can't do that alone. Churches across America have reported coming out of the pandemic about a 40% loss in attendance has been about the average, a 40% loss.
Joel Brooks:And Redeemer is nowhere near, that. But it does show that this past year, Satan has really used this as an opportunity to pull people away from a community of faith. Now I know that there's some people who are listening to this on podcast and they have medical reasons for not being here, and I want you to know that is why we do this. That's why we livestream. That's why we podcast, because we want to be able to serve people like you.
Joel Brooks:For those who are sitting at home, because it's just more comfortable, please hear me calling you back. We miss you and we would love to see you back here. And I do realize coming to church is hard. I'm looking around all these families. I mean, gosh.
Joel Brooks:Minor miracle getting here with your kids, wasn't it? Sometimes not even a minor miracle. I mean, it's a
Caleb Chancey:it's a miracle to get here. It it could be a struggle. And I wanna
Joel Brooks:encourage you and let you We had 3 kids under the age of 5. And, I get paid to come here, so I have to be here every week. Alright? But Lauren doesn't. But she still made it a point to be here every week because she wanted to be.
Joel Brooks:And we wanted to make sure our kids would come every week, even when it was hard because we wanted them to know that coming to church was a non negotiable. It's part of the rhythm of our life. And actually, you plan your entire week around Sunday corporate worship. But that's our one nonnegotiable we had as a family, and I can tell you it was worth it. And for those of you who are bringing your kids here and you have them in kids ministry, boy, they're learning so much.
Joel Brooks:Reagan does a phenomenal job teaching your children about Jesus and fostering and fanning into flame a love for Him. And it's, a lot of times, because I can't sing up here during every single service. So sometimes I go down and I just wander in the rooms. And, and I just love hearing what the kids are learning about Jesus, and you should be encouraged by that. So if you are listening to this via podcast, I'm gonna encourage you to come back.
Joel Brooks:Next week will be a great time to do so. We're having communion. We're gonna take time to pray for one another. Wanna take a little bit more time singing. It'll be a fantastic week for you to return.
Joel Brooks:Today or tonight, we're going to continue our study in Romans. And so if you do have a Bible, turn to Romans 6. I wanna begin reading in verse 6. I know we read this last week, but, we're gonna read read through some of these same verses. I'm gonna read about half of our text now and I'll read half a little bit later.
Joel Brooks:We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. And death no longer has dominion over him.
Joel Brooks:For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Joel Brooks:For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we're under law? Not under law, but under grace? By no means.
Joel Brooks:We'll stop there. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, pray with me. Father, we pray that through your spirit, you would lead us to Jesus, that we would become more like him. Pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But, lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So a couple of years ago and I might have shared this when it happened, right after it happened. But I was at the gym.
Joel Brooks:I was working out, and I realized I've shared a lot of stories about me being at the gym working out. I do that because I I I realize I probably need to. Otherwise, you wouldn't believe it. But I actually was. I was at a gym and I'm I'm working out, and there was a personal trainer there.
Joel Brooks:He's a bodybuilder, and, he is training 3 women at the same time. And, and at one point he looks over at me and goes, Joel, come over here. Come over here. I was like, Grace, don't use me as an example. I mean I just done some push ups and pull ups.
Joel Brooks:I was feeling pretty swole, you know, and, you know, and I'm coming over there. And, he just he just grabs me right here. And he goes, you eat a lot of dairy? I was like, well, I I do eat, yeah, a lot of dairy. And he goes, you get rid of that after you quit eating dairy.
Joel Brooks:And then he did this with his hand. He literally just dismissed me. And so so I just walk back like this, and I began thinking at that that that moment, I need to change. Alright. Something's gotta happen to me.
Joel Brooks:I I can't I can't have this happen anymore. And so I decided I'm gonna do some new kinda workout plan, which I kept delaying and delaying. But I started it about 7 months ago. And I was into a 6 months just really hard, this whole new workout thing, and to make sure it went well, I decided I needed measurables. So before the workout, I weighed myself.
Joel Brooks:I weighed 190.3. Exactly. Then I had my body fat measured, which is, you know, just really embarrassing. So they they they measure body fat, and I was given a fitness score, And I scored at 84. I was like, that's a solid b.
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's better than I did most of my, you know, life and and education. So, so I'll take that, and they're like, why she could score way over a 100. It's like, don't tell me that. 84. I'm a b.
Joel Brooks:And so, then I did 6 months of intense workouts training all of this. And, about 2 weeks ago, I decided to check myself again. How far had I progressed? I weighed in at 190.3. The exact same weight.
Joel Brooks:My fitness score, 84. The exact same. And I I I just couldn't believe. I was like, what in the like after all of this work, and I know some is like, you know, you're you're getting I'm getting older and you're not getting what, you know, age comes into play, dairy comes into play. I mean, I've I still eat, you know, dairy, and I'm sure my diet is just not great.
Joel Brooks:There's a lot of other things there, but the bottom line is you would think with so much work, like having worked so hard, having set so many goals, like, I would have progressed just a little bit more or at least any than I had. But I hadn't, and it was discouraging. And that's how I often feel about my Christian life. There are certain things that I I have hoped that it would progress so much further than I have. There's some sins in my life and they keep coming back.
Joel Brooks:I keep trying to kill them, keep coming back and I keep trying to kill them, and I'm working so hard. It seems like to be this constant theme that I just have to work and work and work and try to put to death these things. And then I look myself in the mirror and I kinda see this, no progress whatsoever. Is this what the Christian life is supposed to be? If you can relate to that, I hope the next few weeks I hope today and the next few weeks will be an encouragement to you because Paul lays this out for us.
Joel Brooks:What is it like to struggle with sin? What is it like to put in so much work and see so little progress? Even the apostle Paul struggled. He gets brutally honest about his own struggles. At one point, he says, the good I wish I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not wish.
Joel Brooks:Says he's practicing the very evil he doesn't wish. He continues to sin after telling all of us that we're dead to sin. There's only one person who has ever walked this earth that has never fallen into temptation, and his name is Jesus. Your Christian life is never going to be a sinless one, But you can make progress. You can begin to sin less and less and obey more and more.
Joel Brooks:And sometimes, it's gonna look like 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but there will be progress. And in these next couple of chapters, Paul is gonna talk to us about what this progress for us looks like, how we can progress in our sanctification, and what we should do when we fail. Where should we go when we fail? Alright. So last week, Paul began addressing these things by raising up a question that the Romans had.
Joel Brooks:It was this, why should one even try to stop sinning if one's saved by grace and not by good works? In other words, Paul, you're preaching grace so much, you've removed the incentive to do good works. Without fear of judgment, why should we do good works? If our good works don't get us into heaven, and our bad works don't get us into hell, Why in the world should I strive so hard to keep away from sin? And Paul answers this question by saying that the reason we no longer continue in this lifestyle of sin is for these two reasons.
Joel Brooks:1, because we're a new person. We're no longer our old sinful self. We have new desires. We're a new person. And second, we have a new master.
Joel Brooks:So we're a new person and we serve a new master. And Paul begins to unpack these two things, and that's what I want us to look at. So let's look at first becoming a new person. Listen. If God was only after your moral, your outward moral conformity, then you wouldn't be saved by grace.
Joel Brooks:He would have given you threats and not grace. God would have bullied you into obedience. Grace is what transforms the heart and turns you into a new person. And so Paul has already been unpacking this for us in Romans chapter 4 when he brought up the life of Abraham. If God wanted Abraham to simply obey him, if he wanted Abraham's, you know, moral compliance, there was a much better way to do it than how God did it.
Joel Brooks:He could've just gone to Abraham and said, hey, I need you to leave, your homeland. I need you to go to the land of Canaan, and if you don't do so, I'm gonna send you to hell. Do you think Abraham would have obeyed? Absolutely. He would have obeyed.
Joel Brooks:Do you think his heart would have been warmed to God? No. I mean, God could have said this. It's like, hey. And I need you to, to not lie about your wife, Sarah, going around saying she's your sister.
Joel Brooks:Next time you do that, I'm gonna give you leprosy. Do you think Abraham would have lied again? No. What if God had said, Abraham, you sleep with Hagar. I'm gonna strip away all of your wealth.
Joel Brooks:You wouldn't have slept with Hagar. I mean, bullying gets results. The threat of judgment gets results, but it doesn't change your heart. Do you think you wouldn't open up your computer and look at porn? If you heard the audible voice of God say, you do that.
Joel Brooks:I'm sending you straight to hell right now. Or you lie or you, you know, lie to your friend or you gossip behind her back. You do that. Well, I'm gonna strip away everything that you know and love. Would you do it?
Joel Brooks:No. You can be bullied into obedience. If God was about your outward moral conformity, that's what he would have done. But he's after your heart. He wants to turn you into a new person and grace transforms the heart.
Joel Brooks:And so what you see with Abraham is, there was this progression as God would just lavish his grace upon him. Remind Abraham of his promises to him over and over. Abraham would sometimes take 2 steps forward. He'd take a step back, but he would keep progressing to what I finally get 30 years after his original call. God can say, I want you to sacrifice your son, Isaac.
Joel Brooks:And Abraham without hesitation obeys. Not because of a threat, but because he trusts God. Abraham has become a new person. His heart's been warmed to who God is. That's the power of grace.
Joel Brooks:And remember, the grace God gives us has power. That's what we looked at last week. It's not just words. The grace of God comes to us in power, resurrection power. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead comes into us, raises us from the dead, and gives us new life.
Joel Brooks:And with that, we're given new desires. We're given a new heart. We don't have to be threatened to obey. Now, one of the ways that Satan is going to try to get you to sin, is he's gonna try to get you to forget that you are a new person. Satan is gonna attack your identity.
Joel Brooks:And the reason I know this is because this is the exact strategy he took to trying to get Jesus to sin. He attacked Jesus's identity. Do you remember Jesus's baptism? You can read about it in Matthew chapter 3. But Jesus, he's baptized.
Joel Brooks:And the moment he comes out of the water, he hears this voice from heaven. And it says, you are my son whom I love. And then the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove and it rests upon Jesus. And what you're given there is this beautiful picture of your own conversion. Remember, you've been united with Christ.
Joel Brooks:You've died. You've been raised up with him in baptism. We talked about that last week. You've died. You've been raised to new life.
Joel Brooks:God says, you are my child. I love you. And then he sends his Holy Spirit in you to dwell. So what you see happen in Jesus's baptism is a beautiful picture of what happened to us at conversion. And the very next thing that happens is this.
Joel Brooks:Jesus goes out to be tempted in the wilderness. And how does Satan tempt Jesus? He attacks his identity. If if you really are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. If if you really are the son of God, then jump off this pinnacle and and angels will come and save you.
Joel Brooks:If you are the son of God. What do you mean? If he's a He just literally heard a voice from heaven saying, you are my beloved child. Satan is wanting him to forget the identity that God just bestowed on him through his word. And that's what Satan does with us.
Joel Brooks:Way before Satan ever dangles in front of us some small little temptation like sex, or your need for acceptance, or how good it would feel to give in to anger, or or how you want every kind of comfort and leisure. But before he ever dangles that little thing in front of you, he's gonna go after your identity. He wants you to forget that you are a child of God, because that's where you're vulnerable. And once you begin to question who you are as a new creation, well, falling to those other little temptations is easy. So when you are tempted, remind yourself of who you are.
Joel Brooks:Despite whatever you were feeling, remind yourself what God has said about you in his word. You are a child of God. You are a new creation. You are filled with my spirit. Sin is not your master.
Joel Brooks:This is true of Remind yourself of these things. And you will believe your way into your feelings. Don't go the other way around and try to feel your way into your beliefs. You believe your way into your feelings. That's why Paul over and over in this section, we don't have time to go through all these, but he keeps saying, know this.
Joel Brooks:Know that you're crucified in Christ. Know that you are alive in him. Know this. He keeps reminding us of what we know. Think about what we know, what God says we are.
Joel Brooks:And there, you'll work your way into your feelings. Any of you struggle with anger over the last year during this pandemic? Any of you? Alright. Y'all struggle with lying.
Joel Brooks:Okay. That that that was apparently, that's what y'all struggle with because every one of you struggle with anger. Alright? It doesn't I don't have to be a prophet to know this. I have struggled with anger a lot over this pandemic.
Joel Brooks:And there have been times that I have unfortunately just given in right to it. The times that I've battled that temptation though, I've battled it and I've won, has been when I've reminded myself of who I am in Christ. And sometimes, I've said it out loud. The times when I'm I'm really tempted to be easily offended. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Or to get really angry. I've stopped and I said, Joel, remember who you are. You're a child of God. Your new creation. The spirit of God, he lives inside of you, and he has given you the power to overcome this.
Joel Brooks:I remind myself of who I am, and I believe my way into my feelings. Remember, Satan's gonna come after your identity. Remind him of who God says you are. Alright. Let's move on.
Joel Brooks:It's gonna take us forever to get through this letter. I'm realizing I'm going as fast as I can. I mean, all I have is time in front of me. If you're a college student, I realize I have a tighter window to get through Romans, but that's when you can listen to podcasts. Alright?
Joel Brooks:That that's when it's alright. Alright. So so Paul's first argument here is, don't continue in sin because you are a new person. His second argument is gonna be, don't continue in sin because you have a new master. So we read this in in verse 12.
Joel Brooks:Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body to make it to make you obey its passions. Now when Paul earlier said that you have died to sin, this is what he means. And he said you died to sin, this is what he means. He means that sin no longer reigns over you. Sin is no longer your master.
Joel Brooks:Now there might be times that you indeed listen to the voice of sin and you obey sin. But the truth is you don't have to anymore. Before you were a Christian, before you were converted, you had no choice. All you did was sin. Sometimes you sinned and you didn't even know it because you didn't even know what sin was.
Joel Brooks:Cause the spirit hadn't woken you up to what sin is. But now you've been freed from that sin is no longer your master. You don't have to sin. You can choose to do the right thing. That's what Paul is talking about here.
Joel Brooks:And then to flesh this out more, he begins using this imagery of slavery. So let's read verses 16 through 19 here. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you're slaves of the one whom you obey. Either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.
Joel Brooks:And having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. And we'll stop there. Paul says that before you were converted, you were a slave to sin. But now, through Christ, you've been set free and you've become a slave to righteousness.
Joel Brooks:As I was reading this, I man, when I came across verse 19, I actually laughed out loud. I mean, Paul's in the middle of his argument about all this slavery stuff, and then he says randomly, out of the blue, it's like, I'm speaking in human terms because of your human limitations. Alright? Or your natural limitations. And I The reason I laugh is because that's Paul basically saying, guys, I know as I'm talking about slavery a whole bunch and using that as a metaphor, I realize it's not perfect, don't email me.
Joel Brooks:I mean, that's that's really what Paul is saying here. I realize I've gotta somehow try to communicate this to you. This is the best I could do. There's human limitations, just deal with it. Okay?
Joel Brooks:So don't email Paul, don't email me. He's using slavery as a metaphor. And, of course, his congregation that he's writing to would have been over half slaves. So this is something that they would have readily have gotten. And Paul says this, everyone has a master.
Joel Brooks:Everyone. If your master is sin, you obey sin. If your master is righteousness, then you obey righteousness. You are either under the reign of sin or you're under the reign of Christ. One of these reigns, one of these masters is cruel, and it will lead to your death.
Joel Brooks:The other master, well, he's gracious and his reign will lead to life. And so you you read this and you're like, okay. Well, we're under the reign of righteousness. That's great. So why do we still sin?
Joel Brooks:I mean, doesn't it feel like at times sin is still reigning over you? Well, why is it exactly that we keep sinning? I mean, why do I still struggle with greed, still struggle with lust, still struggle with with anger, still struggle with this need to be accepted by so many people? Why is that still a struggle in my life if sin is not my master? I mean, sometimes I feel like Satan, when he's trying to get me to do something, he could come up and you just kind of whisper like, hey, now's the time for you to really get angry about something.
Joel Brooks:You know, just I I need you. And I just go, I don't need to hear anymore. Like, I'm gonna go be angry right now. He doesn't even have to convince me. Like, he speaks and I obey, and yet I'm I'm reading here.
Joel Brooks:Sin is not my master. So how am I free from this? I wanna give you, an image that I hope helps you, a a metaphor. I realize you're human limitations. Okay?
Joel Brooks:But, but hopefully, this is helpful for you. And it's an image that comes from Colossians chapter 1, in which Paul says, God has transferred us out of the kingdom or the domain of darkness, into the kingdom of his beloved son. God has transferred us out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved son. And this is the picture I want you to have. Picture this baptismal right here.
Joel Brooks:Water spilling out over it, and this is a river. It's just a deep, mighty flowing river right here in the middle of the stage. And so what you have on this side is the kingdom of the beloved son. Then what you have on this side of the river is the domain of darkness. This is this is Satan's domain.
Joel Brooks:I mean, we have the drums. We have the electric guitars. We have, like, all this, like, you know, the devil's music here, which is how I was raised. Alright. So so this is Satan's domain over here.
Joel Brooks:And this is where you used to live. Satan was your master. Sin was your master. Satan spoke. You obeyed.
Joel Brooks:And he was a cruel master. There was no life. There was no joy. You were dead in your spirit. And then you heard Christ's call.
Joel Brooks:You heard his call. And he went to the river and you died. You were baptized. You went under the water. And as you died, you were risen to new life on the other side.
Joel Brooks:So this is the picture. This isn't talking about your actual baptism. This is the picture of baptism, what it represents. And I'm talking about adult believers baptism because that's right. If you're baptized as an infant, we'll talk later.
Joel Brooks:Okay? But here you have this picture. You're going through the river. You've drowned. And then you were raised to new life and now you're on this side of the river.
Joel Brooks:You're no longer in Satan's Kingdom. You're in the kingdom of the beloved son with a new master who's gracious. He gives you freedom. You can serve him in love and enjoy. There's just one problem.
Joel Brooks:You can still hear your old master. He's just right there. You're not in his kingdom anymore, but you can still hear him. And you have been under his cruel dominion for so long. That when you When he hears you, when he shouts your name, you you snap and you instantly obey.
Joel Brooks:Even though he's not your master, but you've been so conditioned to listen to him. But the only power he has is the power you give him. And so what you need to be doing is is walking further into this kingdom. Surrounding yourself with other believers in this kingdom, reminding yourself of truth, listening to his word, going to him in prayer, listening more to his voice, And then the voice of your old master begins to dim. But you shouldn't be surprised that there's times where he could call out your name, and you immediately turn and you instinctively obey.
Joel Brooks:Why? Because he was your master for so long. And you can still hear him. But you need to remind yourself you no longer live in that kingdom. Martin Luther, he helped me understand this.
Joel Brooks:Martin Luther struggled with a lot of things, struggled with, struggled with manic depression. There's certain sins that were just very habitual in his life, very hard for him to get rid of. And he would just be wrestling with the devil. And I think when he was talking about wrestling with the devil, it might have been the devil. I mean, no one else here, you know, started the Protestant reformation.
Joel Brooks:So I'm not gonna doubt him. So he's, you know, he's wrestling with the devil. Sometimes he would scream at the devil. Sometimes he throw things at the devil. If you actually go to Beeson Divinity School and you go to their chapel, if you look up in the ceiling, there's a painting of Martin Luther.
Joel Brooks:And right by him, there's an ink pot that's down down spilling over on top of the devil's head. Because one time, Satan was tempting him so much, he grabbed an ink pot and threw it at what he thought was the devil's head. And so that's actually, you know, memorialized in a painting at Beeson. But this is what Martin Luther would yell when he would be tempted by the devil over and over. He'd say, Satan, I have been baptized.
Joel Brooks:Have been baptized. And he's not talking about his physical baptism. What he's talking about is I have been united with Christ's death and his resurrection. I've come out on the other side, and I'm a new creation, and I am not in your dominion. I am in the kingdom of the beloved son.
Joel Brooks:Satan, I have been baptized. He reminded himself of who he was. He reminded himself of who his master was. That's how you fight sin. My wife, she's been so good to do this with our daughters.
Joel Brooks:But as they go off to school, and she does this almost every single day. So when Caroline was in the house, she'd say, hey, Caroline, before you go, remember whose you are Natalie, remember whose you are. Georgia, remember whose you are. And she say that because whatever temptation they were about to have at school, whatever battles that they were gonna have at school, the first attack was gonna come against their identity. They needed to remember that they were a beloved child of Christ.
Joel Brooks:And when they were secure in that identity, they were so much stronger to fight the temptations that would come their way. Who were you? Your beloved child of the father. Let's pray to him. Father, we are your child.
Joel Brooks:You have filled us with your spirit. You have made us into a new creation. And we believe it. And will you help our unbelief? Father, I pray that you would continually remind us.
Joel Brooks:You are so good to to remind us of who we are. And I pray we'd surround ourselves with your church, with people who will remind us of who we are. We'll pour out our hearts in prayer and before your words, so we could be reminded who we are. And, Lord, that we'd be reminded that Satan is not our master, but we have a master that lavishes grace and love on us. And I'd pray that we would walk in this new freedom.
Joel Brooks:We love you, Jesus. We pray this all in your name. Amen.