Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to another Mornings with the Masters.

We're devote ourselves to the Lord daily with you.

We are picking back up with Numering mercies, and I'm just going to take from here.

It says this.

The cross doesn't stand stained with the death blood of the Messiah and the darkness of moral

defeat. It is not the sad symbol of a plan gone wrong. It doesn't preach that the good gets

smashed at evil's hands. It doesn't suck salvation hope out of those who

would believe. The cross isn't the grand symbol of redemption's embarrassment. The cross shouldn't make you

ashamed. No, it should stand at the epicenter of your boasting. Here are the words of the Apostle Paul in Galatian 614, but far be it from me to

boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and

I to the world. In a sin-scarred world, there really aren't many things worth boasting about.

As sinners, rescued from ourselves by powerful grace, we don't have many valid reasons for puffing up our chests.

We're all more case studies of mercy than heroes.

The world around us groans under the weight of its falleness. The history of humanity would be a sick

and dreary story if it weren't for the rough-hewn tree of death on the hill of Galgotha.

It was an unlikely place for a scene of history-changing triumph. The place where they executed criminals seems to be

the last place to go to find hope. The scene where they killed the world's only innocent man

doesn't seem to be a place that excites celebration. But such is the paradox of grace. Death is the doorway to life. Hopelessness is the

entrance to hope. Weakness is the place to find strength. Injustice is where mercy flows. Life comes

to those who deserve death. Defeat is actually a victory. The end is really a beginning.

Out of sorrow comes eternal celebration. The tomb is the place where new life begins.

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