The text for Pastor John's sermon this morning is two powerful verses from Romans

chapter 3.

Romans 3, 19 and 20.

Listen to the Word of God.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.

That every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.

Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

For through the law comes the end of this great unit in the book of Romans on

sin and guilt the Sunday before Good Friday.

Because Good Friday is when Jesus died for our sins.

Good Friday means that Jesus came into the world to die for

sinners and we stand at the end of this tremendous section on our guilt and our sin that stretched from Romans 118 to 320, ready to make a turn now into a long season of gospel reveling in the next chapters of

Romans. And it's good that we're making the turn

here in Holy Week.

I said last week we were centimeters away from it and now we are in my Bible millimeters away from

it in verses 21 and 22. And so I pray for you and I exhort you on this last Sunday of sin and guilt to make it a great gospel preparation in your life for the best news in all the world.

That there is a righteousness that is not our own righteousness, it's not of our making,

it's not of our striving, it is the righteousness of God to be received by faith and it's the only way we will be

accepted with God and have eternal life. But if we don't understand sin, and if we don't understand law, and if we don't

understand justification, and if we don't understand the stopping of the mouths of the

whole world we will not understand the gospel and it will not be precious to us as it ought to be.

And so let whatever feels weighty and heavy and negative in a sermon on sin and guilt be for you a double preparation for dancing.

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