This morning sermon text comes from Romans chapter 7 verses 1 to 6.

Or do you not know, brethren, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.

For the married woman is bound by the law to her husband while he is living.

But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.

So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man. She shall be called an adultress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adultress, though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ,

so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law,

were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound,

so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

Father, I ask for your help now as we undertake to get as close to the center and the essence of the Christian life as I know how to get.

Because I think verse four and verse six are as close to a summary of Christian living as there is in the New Testament.

And there's a way to live this life it that looks right and make shipwreck of our lives

lives. And so I pray that you'd help me and us to get it right, to see it for what the

Apostle Paul means it to be,

what you mean it to be in him.

So Lord, come please and grant me your assistance and give us a riveted focused attention on your revealed

word and its true meaning in biblical proportions with hearts responding in right affections.

I pray.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

All right, here we are now, two weeks since the last time we were together.

And let me remind you what we did and said there.

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