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I'm not sure who Ross was talking about, but it is a pleasure to be here, and may, by the grace of the
Lord, I live up to that introduction. One quick note on the blurb about my wife and I in the, you probably pulled this from the church website.
It says that we've been married for 25 years. If you could just grab a pen and write 28 years. We are, it's a good reminder that we need to update our church's website, and I wanna make sure that these are infallible as possible.
So we've been married for 28 years. I praise the Lord for that. And I'm very thankful and humbled by the invitation to be here with you this weekend.
I've really enjoyed getting to know Ross through NERF meetings and the
Bolton Conference and Simeon Trust workshops. It's just been so encouraging to hear of a, very like -minded church up here in Massachusetts, in New England, where we were just,
I was just talking with, I forget who I was speaking with. We were talking about how the perception of New England is that it is so cold, it is so challenging, it is so difficult, and there certainly is an element of truth to that, but it is always so encouraging to find these beacons of light in the darkness of New England that are seeking to be faithful to the scriptures, faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so it is a great joy to be here with you. Turn with me, please, to Romans chapter one.
Our passage this morning is a, it's a difficult passage. It's not one of those passages that gets printed on a mug or finds its way onto one of those daily calendars of encouragement.
It's not often a passage that is preached at church weekend getaways, but it's nonetheless true.
And it's very, very relevant for this day and age in which we live, because we live in a world that is changing rapidly from the world that my parents grew up in.
If you ever looked at society, looked at culture, and wondered, how did we get to this point?
How have we fallen so far away from a right understanding of who
God is? How have we fallen so far from a right understanding of God's holiness?
How is it that we have fallen so far from a right understanding of God's created order?
Why is it so confusing that we can't get basic concepts like what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is?
If you've ever found yourself asking these questions, the answers are here in the word of God, plainly articulated here in this last chapter, last half of the first chapter of Romans.
Now, the hope of the gospel remains in the backdrop of all of this. Paul begins this section.
Romans really is a consistent theological argument, and it all begins in verses 16 and 17 with the fact that Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it's the power of God for salvation to the
Jew first and also to the Greek. That is the backdrop of everything that we are going to see. It still remains for those who believe, and it remains even now the backdrop for those that are walking in darkness.
Until they draw their last breath, our prayer, our hope is that they will hear the gospel, they will believe, they will turn and put their faith and trust in Christ.
But the fact of the matter is, the potential depravity of sin in the life of a person is infinite.
And apart from God's intervening grace, the wickedness of an individual, of a community, of a society, of a nation can be horribly profound, which is why we praise the
Lord for his grace. We praise the Lord for his restraining grace. We praise the
Lord for churches like this that are pushing against the culture, pushing against the trends in society and saying we will stand fast in the truth of the gospel.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And so that is the alternative to what we are going to see here.
That is the remedy for what we are going to see here in Romans 1. But what we see in Romans 1 is very helpful for us in understanding the day and the time in which we live.
So I'll be going to begin reading in verse 18 in Romans 1 for context. I'll read through verse 27, but then we'll focus our time this morning beginning in verse 22.
So Romans 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.
But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its clarity. We thank you for its truth. Father, we thank you for the potency that your word has to change the human heart through the power of your spirit.
Lord, I pray that you would give us ears to hear from the truth of your word today. Lord, remove myself and any impediments that I might bring to the truth and the power of your scriptures this morning.
Help us to understand and be sanctified through your word. And I pray this in Christ's name, amen.
So in verses 21 and 22, the apostle Paul gives a progression of the mind of the man who suppresses the truth of who
Almighty God is. First in verse 21, Paul says that they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
This is because they did not honor God and they did not give thanks to him.
Therefore, their thinking becomes futile. It becomes pointless, meaningless, incoherent.
And they become lost in the darkness of their hearts. And so you might ask, do they realize this?
Do they know this is happening to them in real time? Do they understand the result of their failure to honor
God? No, quite the opposite in fact.
Because Paul says, in spite of doing this, in spite of the reality of what is happening to them, in spite of how their thinking has become futile, they claim to be wise.
These people who suppress the truth of the knowledge of God believe that this is a key essential to their inestimable wisdom.
They believe that they can't have true wisdom until they throw off the shackles of God. And that's going to open up their minds and give them the ability to really, really understand things rightly.
They've thrown off the shackles of religion, and now, now, they know.
Or at least that's what their futile thinking leads them to believe. They claim to be wise.
They claim it. They claim it for themselves. And truly, this is the only way that they can be considered wise, because God in his word has already designated those who say in their heart there is no
God, as fools. They claim to be wise because they desire wisdom.
They want to be seen as wise. They want to understand the things of the world, but they will not honor
God as God or give thanks to him, even as he himself is the personification of wisdom.
They want their own wisdom to rule and to reign. This is the consistent tendency of man.
This dates all the way back to the Garden of Eden, because what did the serpent tempt
Eve with? Among other temptations, it was a temptation to possess wisdom apart from God, to be wise without omniscient
God's aid and grace. So man claims to be wise, but the problem is their declaration, their claim, has absolutely no merit, no ability.
There's no truth behind their claim to wisdom. And so, because they make this unfounded claim to wisdom, they become one without the very thing they claim to have.
They claim to have wisdom, but they don't possess any of it because they don't have the God of wisdom, and their declaration of wisdom reveals, actually, that they're declaring themselves to be fools.
Now, you don't need an advanced degree to know that being a fool is not a good thing to be, because fools do foolish things.
Fools are often reckless, dangerous, even deadly, and that is exactly what happens to these fools here.
They become fools, and out of their foolishness, they exchange the glory of the immortal
God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things.
And this is truly a horrible transaction.
This is a horrible transaction to make. They see the glory of God in creation.
Paul has already said, they see the power of God. They see His creative power.
They see it in nature and in creation. They know, somehow, spiritually, they know that there is a glorious, immortal
God who created all things. And yet, instead of clinging to the glory of the immortal
God with every fiber of their being, instead of dedicating themselves to pursuing and understanding
Him, they exchange it. They trade it in.
They give it up, and what they get in return absolutely pales in comparison to what they've given up.
This, on a grand, cosmic scale, this is an uneven trade.
They exchange the glory of the immortal God for mere images, images that resemble the creation.
They're not even exchanging it for the actual thing. They're exchanging it just simply for the images. First is the image of mortal men.
They search for glory among their dead ancestors. They trade the glory of the immortal
God, the one who is eternal, the one who will never die, for images of mortal man, man who perishes, man who decays, man who is destined to return to the very dust from which the immortal
God created him out of. They crave, or they carve the creation into images resembling mortal man.
Isaiah 44, 13 says this about those who worship idols. It says, the carpenter stretches a line.
He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass.
He shapes it into the figure of a man who is destined with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house.
And then in verse 17, he falls down to it, he worships it, he prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my
God. Think about the foolishness of that.
Finding a tree that he didn't make, carving out of it an idol, and then bowing down and worshiping that.
Only a fool would invest time and effort and resources into carving an image and then praying to that image that he created.
But is there no better summary than idolatry in all of scripture than these verses in Isaiah? Even worse than trying to exchange in the glory of God for the images of mortal man, they try to find glory in birds and animals and creeping things.
Now, as foolish as searching for divine glory in mortal man is, and it certainly is compared to what they exchange with immortal
God, as foolish as searching for divine glory in mortal man is, at least man has reason and ability out of pure instinct.
But the depravity of man is such that they'll find him carving images of birds, of beasts, maybe even fashioning a golden calf, and then searching for glory in that carving, in that beast.
It's utter foolishness. It's utter foolishness. Considering that God is known, considering that the immortal
God reveals himself, the creator, the sustainer of life, the personification of wisdom, wants his creation to know him, and man says, no,
I'm gonna worship birds and cows. Man rejects their creator.
They seek immortal glory only in what is mortal, what is finite, what cannot bring life, what cannot bring redemption, what cannot save.
One commentator says this, and it says it very simply, they so diminish the majesty and glory of God that they give the title of God to the images of things which are small and tiny.
When you see Scripture talk about God, when you understand God, the words small and tiny do not come into our vocabulary.
And yet, they exchange the reality of this magnificent, glorious God for the small and the tiny.
The trium God of the Bible is anything but. He is, in fact, glorious and majestic to the scale that all of creation taken as a whole cannot compare, and yet, man still makes this wicked exchange of the glory of the immortal
God for the mere image of his creation. That exchange is bad enough, but that's only one of three exchanges that we're gonna see in our text this morning and then tomorrow.
In verse 24, Paul uses one of his favorite words. He says, therefore, showing a continuation in thought from the previous context, therefore, in light of the foolishness of unrighteous man,
God acts. God cannot just sit there and allow his creature, his creation, created in his image, to make this foolish exchange, this sinful exchange, this unrighteous exchange.
He cannot abide it. Therefore, God judges them.
He says he gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.
Now, their thinking is futile, their hearts are darkened, and they've become fools, and now
God, as sovereign ruler over his creation, he can act in several ways towards unrighteous man.
He can, if he so chooses, he can show them grace and mercy.
He can, if he so chooses, take this heart of stone that is looking to exchange the glory of God for mere images of creation, he can take that heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, give them a new heart, he can give them true wisdom, he can give them the fear of the
Lord. He can do that. And I'm sure that's the testimony of many of you here, that at one time, your thinking was futile, but God, in his grace, brought you out of that.
He gave you a new heart, a new mind, a new understanding, a new ability to perceive the glories of God in comparison with the creation.
So God could do that. But God can also rightly, justly, judge unrighteous man.
And this is what we see in these next several verses. We see the judgment of God.
Now, Paul has already said in verse 18 that the wrath of God is revealed, and now Paul is developing that idea.
How, in fact, is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men?
And the answer might seem surprising, but it makes total sense given the evidence that we see throughout all of human history.
The way God judges unrighteous men, Paul says, is to give them up.
He gives them what they want. And that is a form of his righteous judgment.
Three times, first here in verse 24, then in verse 26, and then finally in verse 28, you see this phrase,
God gave them up. He gave them up. Them being those who suppress the truth, those who claim to be wise, but are, in fact, fools in the eyes of God, those who exchange the glory of a mortal
God for those things which are small and tiny, God gives them up. He judges them by handing them over into the bondage of their sin.
And this phrase is used consistently in Scripture when, in judgment, God gave people over to their enemies, or when
God delivered them into their enemies' hands. God gave them up. God gave the Israelites up to the
Philistines. He gave the Israelites up to the Assyrians. He gave Judah up to Babylon. When he did this, he removed his restraining, protecting hand from them, and he gave them up to the bondage of their enemies.
The Assyrians could have come and taken Israel at any point in time, but God was gracious, he was merciful, he protected them until their sins got to the point where he removed his protected hand, gave them up to their enemy, gave them up to the
Assyrians, and bondage followed. It's the same idea here. God gave them up to it.
Now, many read this as the idea of God simply and only removing his protective grace from them.
But the wording here is, technically, it's not passive. God is acting here, and he's acting not just in removing his protective grace.
He is actively consigning unrighteous man in his judgment to captivity.
He is consigning them to the shackles of their own sin. Later in the book of Romans, in chapter six and seven,
Paul will use the imagery of how man is a slave to sin. And so here,
Paul is showing where God gives them up to that bondage. He gives them up.
And just as that phrase appears three times, there are three things specifically referenced that God gives them over to.
And the first is that God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.
And this is gonna be elaborated on later in verses 26 and 27, but the direct connection between sexual immorality and idolatry is clear.
Colossians 3 .5 says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Because unrighteous man suppresses the truth of who God is, they then reject his revelation.
And then in their foolishness, they lose a proper understanding of who they are.
They lose a proper understanding of why they have been created. They lose a proper understanding of what their purpose is.
And so they look for glory in creation rather than in the creator. And so they have now disordered worship.
And so they seek the fulfillment of their own lusts as an act of worship to the creation that they are now worshiping.
Rather than worshiping the creator and glorifying him, they worship the creation, and in their acts of worship, they act in depraved ways.
And ultimately, what they are worshiping is themselves. God gives them over to the lusts of their heart, to impurity and the dishonoring of their bodies.
Because they exchanged, here's another transaction that they make, they exchange the truth about God for a lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen.
So again, there's another very negative exchange, another very poor transaction that is made.
The ones that make this transaction find themselves far, far poorer than they would have been had they originally kept what they possessed.
For unrighteous man does not want the truth about God. He won't hear it. He doesn't want to hear it.
And so he willingly exchanges the truth about God for a lie.
Why would someone do this? It's because they love the lie. They love their sin.
They would rather pursue the impure lusts of their heart than the truth about who
God is. And what is the truth about God that they are exchanging? It's the truth that he is a
God of utmost purity. It's the truth that God has authority over his creation, and the truth that God calls for, that God demands that those who are created in his image also are creatures of purity.
They exchange the truth that sexuality is a creation of God. It is a gift from God, and it's not something that should be twisted or manipulated for selfish purposes if one wishes to be pure before their creator.
It's a truth that God does hold accountable those who act sinfully on the impure lusts of their hearts.
And he does hold accountable those who dishonor the bodies that God gave them, and that they are showing that they are not, in fact, thankful for because they dishonor them.
That is the truth that they understand, even if they don't acknowledge it, but they exchange all of that for a lie.
And the lie is very clear. It's very simple. The lie just says, you should do what feels good.
The lie that says, no one should judge you, no one can judge you, so you do what you want to do.
And not only do it, but take pride in it. Take pride in your dishonoring acts, because ultimately, you are
God. There is no outside God telling you what you can and can't do.
They worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, who,
Paul emphasizes here, is blessed forever. Amen. It's really interesting that Paul throws that phrase in there.
You've got this difficult section of the reality of unrighteous man living in an unrighteous world, an unrighteous man exchanging all these good things about what they know about God, what they should know about him, exchanging all of that for this filth, for these lies.
And so Paul's compelled here to remind his readers that in the midst of this sin, in the midst of this ongoing judgment that God is actively putting upon unrighteous man, he is still to be praised.
He is still to be blessed forever. And all God's people should cry out amen to this.
And this should encourage us to faithfully and enthusiastically and vigorously, zealously call out to the people that are enslaved to their sins, saying that there is freedom in Christ.
There is freedom from this because God is good and he is worthy to be praised. Now to verses 26 and 27, the second reference to God giving them up in more foolish exchanges.
For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
God gave them up to dishonorable passions. And then to avoid any confusion,
Paul elaborates on what exactly he means by these dishonorable passions, both with regards to men and for women.
And he begins with women saying that they exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise, they gave up natural relations and were consumed with passion, a dishonorable passion, born out of the impure lusts of their hearts.
And that passion is for one another, men committing shameless acts with men.
Now, I've heard this, you may have heard that people will try to say that homosexuality is not condemned in Scripture.
That was more of a Leviticus thing, but the New Testament doesn't really speak to or condemn homosexuality.
And so they try to diminish Paul's words here they try to relegate what he is referring to here as a misuse of power dynamics or something else like that.
My friends, there's no way to understand these verses other than as a condemnation of homosexuality.
And not just homosexual activity, even homosexual desire is seen here as sin.
Because Paul uses very specific language, which he uses the terms lusts of the heart, impurity, dishonoring of their bodies, dishonorable passions, shameless acts to describe homosexuality, not just the acts, but also the desires.
And so we read this and if words have meaning, and as followers of Scripture, we absolutely believe that they do.
We believe that God's word is true and authoritative. Then Paul is not only condemning homosexuality here, but he is confirming that when people, men or women, exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, that it's not just sin, it's a reflection of the wrath of God being poured out upon them.
Both in regards to the women and to the men. That is the wrath of God.
Being poured out on them. It's the wrath of God being poured out on a society, on a nation.
Because they're exchanging the natural relations. The way God has made things.
The way God has created things. As creator, as sovereign
God, it is his prerogative to create things as he sees fit and he has seen fit to create things as they are.
Sexuality is between a husband and a wife for the procreation of the species, of humans.
God has given that, it is a good thing, and the misuse of it in this regard is a clear exchange of what
God has given for what is impure and dishonorable. They've exchanged natural relations.
Natural relations reflect the created order of a creator who is blessed forever, amen.
God created Adam, he said it's very good. He is very good. However, his situation is not very good.
He needs a helper. He needs a companion. He needs a helpmate suitable for him.
And so God, in his wisdom, made Eve. God gave Adam someone that was exactly the same but also completely different.
Eve was a human, but she was a woman.
The same, but completely different. She's created in God's image. She's created with the ability to reason, to relate to God, to know right from wrong, just as Adam was, but utterly unique and different.
I'm not gonna belabor the tangible and intangible differences between men and women here this morning.
But the natural relationship between Adam and Eve and the relations referred to involve the difference of a man and a woman coming together as one in the bond and act of marriage.
One man marrying one woman until death does them part. That is a natural relation.
It's natural because God created it. It's natural because God called it good. The sexual act between a husband and a wife is a significant element of this natural relation because it is through this that God's first commandment can be obeyed, be fruitful and multiply.
Relations between women that are contrary to nature cannot obey that command. Shameless acts between men cannot obey that command.
And as such, they are not natural relations. They are not of God. They are contrary to nature.
No matter how loud, no matter how proud people may profess to be in their support of homosexuality, they will never be able to defend it as being natural because the one who spoke nature into existence created nature to operate and function in a very certain way.
And that way is his way. His way is male and female. And when people exchange that, they exchange the truth of God's creator authority, then
God gives them over in judgment. We definitely live in an age, in a day, where we see all of this.
From verse 22 down to verse 27, and it's gonna keep going, we see all of this in our culture, in our media, in our entertainment, in our universities.
We see it in our public libraries. We're coming up on June. Many of you know that June is
Pride Month. You will see it more than you want to.
We see those who claim to be wise telling people to be proud of their sin, to be proud of their dishonorable passions and their shameless acts.
And in that, we see a full -blown rejection of the natural created order.
And it's because unrighteous man hates God, hates his created order, hates his nature, and hates his authority, and wants to worship the creature rather than the creator.
So we see this bright as day, and it should at the same time incite in us a righteous indignation that unrighteous man would so shamelessly flaunt
God's created order. We should be able to look at that and say, this is
Romans 1 in the flesh. This is not natural. This is not
God's created order. This is apart from his will. This is apart from his standard.
So we should have a righteous indignation, but we should also, at the same time, have a deep compassion for the lostness of their souls.
We should have a deep desire to see them repent and find forgiveness in Christ, because the gospel is not insufficient for their forgiveness.
The gospel is not insufficient for the cleansing of their sins. But one thing the church must never do is to cave in on the weight of these verses, to try to defend them away, or to try to ignore them, or to try to reimagine them for a modern audience.
Because our responsibility is not to rewrite the truth. Our responsibility is to herald the truth of who
God is and to call hearers to true worship of their creator, to worship their creator rather than the creation.
We must call them to flee from their error, to flee from the wrath of God. Paul refers to their idolatry as error and as shameful acts.
They must flee from all of that, and they must flee to Christ.
That last phrase in verse 27, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Some have argued that this is the reference to the tangible consequences of homosexuality, disease, and whatnot, maybe.
But the context seems to indicate that the due penalty that they're receiving for their error is the wrath of God that is being poured out on them.
It's the same wrath that is being poured out to them that is God giving them over to the lusts of their heart and their dishonorable passions.
The same wrath that sees their creator give them up to their own wickedness.
And from Paul's perspective, that is a far more severe penalty than any kind of disease or injury that their actions might bring about.
Because their eternal soul is in peril, and their eternal soul is in peril because they have forsaken what they know about God, they have exchanged the truth of what they know for lies and for lust.
This is frankly not necessarily the most pleasant message to preach. When Ross gave me this text,
I was, are you sure? It's not enjoyable to speak about dishonorable passions, about shameful acts, when we're here to worship our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But the fact of the matter is, were it not for the grace of God, were it not for his compassion, were it not for his mercy, were it not for the cross of Christ, where Jesus shed his blood for your redemption, were it not for our loving
God, you could very easily, very naturally seek to worship small, tiny creatures instead of your glorious God.
So this text should move you, it should move you towards gratitude. Gratitude to God for saving your soul, for revealing the truth of the gospel to you.
If you have been preserved from many of these sins, praise God for that.
If you have been saved out of this, praise God for that. Praise God that he is a
God who with the power, the ability, the grace, and the kindness to take sinners enslaved to their sin and shackled to their lusts and destroy those chains and shackles and give you true freedom to follow and obey
Christ. This should move you towards gratitude, it should move you to prayer and to pleading to those who are walking in the wrath of God to turn from their sins, to repent, to find true peace, true fulfillment, true contentment in their creator rather than the creatures.
This passage is a hard, honest look at the reality of the world in which we live.
But in all of this, nowhere are we given instructions not to pray for the unrighteous man that's talked about here, to not plead with them to repent, to not offer them the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We're never told not to instruct them that it is the gospel of God that is the power of salvation for all who believe.
The Jew first, also to the Greek, to the homosexual, to the drug addict, to the idolater, the gospel is powerful to save all who come to Christ by faith because in Christ, in the cross, they can find forgiveness, they can find healing, they can find true joy, abiding joy, eternal joy in returning to their creator.
Pride promises so much and delivers so little. Humility before the
Lord, that is what is truly fulfilling. That is what is truly, that's what they're looking for.
We have the answer. We have what they're looking for. They don't know it, they might spit at you and curse at you and hate you.
That doesn't mean you don't have the remedy for what ails them, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God can do that work in people's lives. He can do it, he has done it. The gospel is powerful enough to forgive and to restore.
There are myriads of testimonies of people who were once walking in the wrath of God, but eventually,
Christ got them. They found grace, they found forgiveness from their creator.
They've put aside their dishonorable passions. The Lord has given them a redo on that exchange, and now they've exchanged their sins and they've received the righteousness of Christ.
They find grace and they find forgiveness, they find life in their creator who is blessed forever.
Amen? Let's pray. Father, this is a difficult passage.
This is a hard reality of living in a sinful, cursed world.
Father, I'm sure there are many that are on the minds of us here that are right now even under the wrath of God because they have exchanged the truth of who you are for a lie.
So Father, we humbly thank you for preserving us, for saving us.
Lord, we thank you for the grace of Christ that is known to us.
And Father, we pray for those that are right now, presently under the wrath that you are just to hold them under.
Father, maybe there even is someone here that is still not fully repentant of their sins, not fully committed by grace through faith to Christ as their
Lord and Savior. And we ask that even today would be the day of salvation for them, that they might turn from their sins and find forgiveness and life in Christ.
And Father, I pray that you would give each and every one of us the boldness to call sin what it is, to identify sin as exactly what it is, and then to call people, to call sinners.
To repentance. We thank you for the power of the gospel. We thank you how it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.
Father, we pray that your gospel would go forward. Pray that it would continue to go forward in this church here,
Lord. I pray it would continue to go forward in this commonwealth of Massachusetts, and in this nation. Lord, may we see sinners truly find hope, life, and forgiveness in Christ.