This morning's sermon text is from the book of Romans, chapter 8, verses 1 through 4.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was

through the flesh, God did.

Sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned

sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not

walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. Oh, Father, how much help we need to preach and to hear and to believe and to live in the truth of Romans 8.

There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Father, I pray for your help now.

I pray for a riveting of our attention on the truth and on the Christ of the truth.

I pray that you guard us from the evil one

who is a liar and a deceiver and a distractor and a murderer from the beginning. We renounce him together in the name of Jesus over this sermon and this day, our Lord's day.

Make away for the word, oh God,

to save sinners,

and to purify the defiled, to give hope to the despairing and to stabilize the frightened and to humble the proud and to guide the perplexed and to heal the sick and to reconcile the alienated.

Make a way for your word, oh God, to do a thousand things in this room and beyond. Let it not be spoken or read in vain.

Come, Holy Spirit. Let it not be plucked up by the devil. Let it not be burned up by persecution or stress. Let it not be strangled and choked out by the cares of this world and the pleasure and other things,

but let it find good soil now. Great soil, tiller, God, let it find good soil, and bear fruit 30, 60, a hundredfold.

Be exalted over this message, Father.

I ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

The more I thought about it, and the magnitude of the meaning of verse one, the more I knew I had to linger one more week with you on

verse one and so I apologize for the title that's given in the bulletin which is mine and is not the title I would have

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