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Romans 7:14-25 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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Chapter 7, verse 14.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
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Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
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For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law,
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waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
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Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
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Now, last week I established for you some varying opinions about the perspective from which Paul is writing.
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There are those who believe that Paul is referring to a pre-conversion experience of his life.
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And they take that from the little phrase that nothing good dwells within me.
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He clarified that for us later, what he means by that.
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He means nothing in my members is good.
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The fear, and I believe why some commentators want this to be a pre-conversion explanation of his life,
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is that we live then as Christians as defeatists.
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If we believe that Paul is writing this from his current state as the writer of Romans,
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as he's sitting down to pen this letter,
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then there's a fear of these commentators that we live as defeatists.
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But I don't believe we can understand the text in that way.
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The use of personal pronouns, the content where we are.
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I proved it a little bit more extensively last week.
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Paul is writing of the Christian experience, the experience that he is having.
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J.I. Packer said,
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Paul's not saying that the Christian is as bad as he could be,
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just that he's not as good as he should be.
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So we're on this journey toward perfection,
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this process of sanctification that is fueled by faith.
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And that's where we've been in Romans that Paul has laid out and established for us in many ways
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that we're justified by faith, by grace, through faith in Christ.
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And that is the only way that our relationship with God will be repaired.
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Third, we see then that we are also sanctified by faith.
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We don't begin by faith and are perfected then by our works.
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We're both justified by faith and sanctified by faith.
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However, the faith for justification is a resting faith.
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We place our faith in Jesus Christ and we lean on him and on his righteousness
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to make us right before God.
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But the faith for sanctification is not a resting faith.
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The faith for sanctification is a working faith.
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It has action.
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There is movement.
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Active.
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We see in this text that there is a war that we will wage in our Christian living.
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Do you not feel his anguish?
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I don't do what I want, but this is what I want.
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I don't do it.
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I can't.
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Who will deliver me from this body of death?
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Thanks be to Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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This is our experience as Christians.
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Paul uses in verse 23 two phrases.
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The law of the mind versus the law of sin.
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So we all then possess these laws within our members, within us.
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We have the law of sin and the law of the mind, and they are battling, not in a dualistic way.
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We will have victory in the war.
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But in the battles, they're waging a war for what?
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For the allegiance of our hearts.
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Your heart, as scripture refers to it, is not the muscle that pumps blood throughout your body.
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Your heart is the seat of your desires.
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It's what you want.
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And this may not be consistent with your experience,
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but you always do what you most desire to do.
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Always.
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You have never done anything in your life that you didn't want to do.
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You have also never not done anything that you did not want to do.
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Let me give you an example of that.
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When I was in college, every morning I had class, I rolled out of bed and said,
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don't want to go to class today.
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All evidence to the contrary, I went to class.
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Why?
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Because I didn't want to deal with the consequences of not being a class.
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I didn't want to miss the notes.
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And if I missed the notes, I wouldn't do well in the test.
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And I wouldn't do well in the class.
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I would fail.
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I didn't want to fail.
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So I chose to do the thing that I most desired to do, which is go to class.
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Even though I did so reluctantly.
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You always do what you most desire.
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And that's the battle going on within us, within all of us.
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We are called to holiness.
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There's no doubt about that.
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A careful reader of the scriptures will see that as Christians, it is a requirement of us to be holy.
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Now, praise be to God through Jesus Christ.
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His righteousness has been imputed, has been given to us.
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So as God sees us, we are holy.
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Now, all of you who have placed your faith in Jesus Christ are before God holy.
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Which is what allows us access to him.
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Which is what justifies us.
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That was our term means in his sight.
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But we are also called to live holy lives.
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So we've been justified.
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Now we're being sanctified.
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Leviticus 11.44
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God says, be holy, for I am holy.
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Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2.15
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For we are the aroma of Christ to God.
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Among those who are being saved.
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And among those who are perishing.
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We are the essence of Christ in this world.
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The term Christian was first used in Antioch as a derogatory term.
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Little Christ.
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People were making fun of the Christians for being like Christ.
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Our lives should be characterized by holiness.
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It doesn't mean that we're perfect.
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Will any of us be perfect this side of death?
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Absolutely not.
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But our lives should be characterized by holiness.
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Listen to what J.C. Ryle wrote in his book Holiness.
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The subject of personal godliness has fallen sadly into the background.
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The immense importance of adorning the doctrine of God our Savior.
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And making it lovely and beautiful by our daily habits and tempers.
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Has been far too much overlooked.
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Worldly people sometimes complain with reason that religious persons, so-called, are not so amiable and unselfish and good natures as others who make no profession of religion.
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Yet sanctification in its place and proportion is quite as important as justification.
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Sound Protestant and evangelical doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life.
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It is worse than useless.
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It does positive harm.
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It is despised by keen-sided and shrewd men of the world as an unreal and hollow thing and brings religion into contempt.
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Isn't that where we find American Christianity?
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We say one thing and we do the opposite.
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There are those who don't claim to know Christ at all that really are much more amiable and generous than those who claim to be Christians.
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A great example of this is Saturday night at any of the local restaurants versus Sunday afternoon.
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You ask any server what their least favorite shift is Sunday afternoon.
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Christians, that should be the best shift of work.
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The most generous and lovely people to deal with who give in their tipping.
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The opposite seems to be true.
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He refers to Titus 2.10 in that little quote I just read you, which reads,
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So that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
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That means, I believe, what he's trying to say to Titus, what Paul is writing to Titus,
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is that we ought to, with our actions, highlight the attractiveness of the gospel.
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Draw attention to how beautiful the gospel is.
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With our holy living.
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We come up so short in this area.
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And I believe that's because we stopped fighting.
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We've forgotten that this is the experience of the Christian.
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And that we must fight.
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So what is it that we fight against?
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In this text, Paul clearly shows us the indwelling nature of sin.
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Our flesh.
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We must, number one, fight against our flesh.
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1 Corinthians 9.27, Paul says that he disciplines his body to keep it under control.
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And then in Colossians 3.5, he says we should put to death, therefore, what is earthly in us.
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Number two, we must fight the world.
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The world to our flesh, to who we once were, is so attractive.
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The temporal blessings of this world will lead us astray.
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And we must fight against it.
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James 4.4, James writes,
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1 John 2.15, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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1 John 2.15, John writes,
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Do not love the world or the things in the world.
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If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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We must fight our flesh, we must fight the world, and we must fight the devil.
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1 Peter 5.8, he writes,
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Be sober-minded, be watchful.
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Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
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The devil's not messing around.
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He's won, so to speak, those who don't know Christ.
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Those of us who do, he is out to get us.
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Our victory is sure in our war against him, but he wants to win battles.
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Ephesians 6.11,
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We're instructed to put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
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There's a battle being waged against Christians at all times.
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Even now, in this moment, you might be feeling distracted.
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Fight it, Christian.
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And the goal of that is to get us to be ineffective and non-victorious.
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So how is it then?
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I promised you last week we'd be practical today.
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How is it that we're to have victory in these battles against sin?
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We get into Romans chapter 8, verse 4,
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and we see that as Christians, we're to walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
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And we get to talk about that at length in coming weeks.
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But we have been given some munitions, some weapons to walk by the Spirit, to feed the law of our mind,
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that our desires will be right desires.
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And I want to give you three of them this morning.
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So these are the three munitions for fighting the war on sin.
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Number one, meditating on Scripture.
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Now, meditation on Scripture requires intimate knowledge of it.
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You cannot meditate on the Scriptures if you don't know them.
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In that beautiful chapter in Ephesians chapter 6 about the armor of God, verse 17,
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we're told to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
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Now, the Scriptures are a great grace to us in battling against sin.
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Look at the promises of Scripture.
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In Matthew chapter 4, we see the temptation of Jesus.
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We see that He was led by the Spirit.
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In verse 1 of chapter 4, He was led by the Spirit for what reason into the wilderness?
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To be tempted.
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God allows His people to be tempted for our good.
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It's a process of discipline.
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He is teaching us what we ought to do.
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He's teaching us our desperate need of Him.
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We see the picture of this in Job.
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Job goes to God and asks...
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I mean, excuse me, Satan goes to God and asks for permission to torment Job.
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And it's granted to him.
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God is not the author of sin.
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He's not the creator of it.
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But He does allow it to happen.
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There's comfort in that.
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The temptations that you're experiencing are not unique to you.
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They're given to you for a reason.
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We also see in Matthew chapter 4, the use of Scripture to battle the temptations of the devil.
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We know Romans 8.28.
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I hope you know Romans 8.28.
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For we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him,
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who have been called according to His purpose.
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Your temptations are for your good.
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1 Corinthians 10.13.
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Paul writes,
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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
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I read in the tone, stop whining.
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What you're experiencing is not unique to you.
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Someone in this world has already dealt with the very same thing.
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You're not alone in this.
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The next sentence.
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God is faithful.
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And He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
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But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
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We have to know these things to battle against sin.
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So how do we read this book, the Bible, that's been given to us?
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First, I'd like to say to you, start now.
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Many of you might be saying, but I don't really know much of the Bible.
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How can I gain the knowledge I need to fight sin?
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And you feel overwhelmed by that.
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A house never gets built if the ground doesn't get broken.
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There's a first step to be taken in the work that has to be done.
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Don't be lazy.
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Start now.
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You have great opportunity.
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None of you are as busy as I am.
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I can with confidence say that.
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You have time in your day to read your scriptures.
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You ought to devote yourself to it now.
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Read diligently.
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We don't always feel like reading our Bible.
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We often get distracted by the temporal things of this world.
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Sometimes TV is more attractive than reading our scriptures.
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Read your Bible.
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Do it as often as you possibly can.
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If you even think in a moment, it might be a good thing to read my Bible.
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Notice that your desires are shifting.
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God is granting you grace to do it.
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Do it.
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And read your Bible.
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What was the habit of George Mueller?
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And I've made a habit of my own.
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Until your affections are turned toward Christ.
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If you want to know how I get up in the morning and what I do with the scriptures,
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I read until my affections are turned towards Christ.
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Which is sometimes chapters.
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Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I do not feel like being up.
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I'm in a foul mood.
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And so I read until I am blown away by the goodness of God to me in Jesus Christ.
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Sometimes I read a verse and the same thing happens.
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Let me give you an example of that.
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Psalm 85.10.
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A couple of weeks ago, I was reading Psalm 85 in the morning.
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And my attention was arrested on Psalm 85.10.
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And I didn't even really know why at first.
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But it simply reads this.
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It says,
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Steadfast love and faithfulness meet.
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Righteousness and peace kiss each other.
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And just the beauty of the language stopped my attention.
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And I began to meditate on that.
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And it took me most of the day to really get what I believe the psalmist was saying here.
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In that God is unchanging and is committed to us in his love and desire for us.
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So he's made a promise to be good to his people.
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But he loves to do it.
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And that in the work of Christ, the righteousness that he's given to me, I have been granted peace with God when I was an enemy.
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And my affections were turned toward Christ.
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I'm so glad Wes sang that last song, which I'm not sure he was planning on doing.
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Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
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Look full in his wonderful face.
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I think I'm getting the words right.
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I may not be.
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And things of earth will grow strangely dim in a light of glory and grace.
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So true.
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Turn your affections on Christ.
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That was number one.
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Meditating on the scriptures.
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Number one, munition.
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I'll start with M.
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Wes and I went on a trip this week.
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And he helped me take notes in the car while we were driving.
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And he sent the notes to me.
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And he had made these M alliterations, which I appreciate.
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So thank you, Wes, for that.
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Number two.
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Making prayer a regular practice.
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Making prayer a regular practice.
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In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus gives us a model for prayer.
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A short prayer.
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And an important phrase in that is,
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Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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Christ set an example for us to pray that we might avoid evil in our lives.
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Ephesians 6.18, Paul says,
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We should be praying at all times.
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This is the conclusion of that armor of God passage.
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We should be praying at all times of the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.
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Let me ask you a question.
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What if God answered all of your prayers?
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Would your life look any different than it does now?
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Do you believe that God can and does, in fact, answer prayer?
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And if we pray things in His will, that He actually does what we've asked Him to do?
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Does our prayer life evidence that we believe that?
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Most of you probably went, yeah, of course.
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Yeah.
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Sure.
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But does our prayer life evidence that?
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Do we actually believe that God has given to us as a grace prayer?
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That He uses the prayers of His people to accomplish His will?
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He's given that to us as a gift that we might go to Him and plead.
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That we might have victory in the battles of sin.
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Do we actually believe that we answer those prayers?
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I can say to you, He can and He does do so.
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A constant sin that I deal with, I think I will my entire life, is the sin of pride to seek the approval of men.
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I believe anybody in any type of leadership position is going to do that.
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I get up here and I preach with the purest of motivations.
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And it seems that every week this pride creeps in from underneath.
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I really want you guys to like me and I want to be smart.
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And I want you to really respect my preaching.
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And it's sinful.
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It's utterly sinful.
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So, I take this pattern that we're given to in Romans.
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Paul says, I love the law of God in verse 22.
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Verse 15, I hate what I just did.
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This emotion, this desire I have in me.
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Wretched man that I am who will set me free from this body of death.
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In verse 24.
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And thanks be to God that victory will come through Jesus Christ.
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In verse 25.
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And I pray without ceasing.
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I think that's what Paul was meaning in 1 Thessalonians.
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It's not something that I conquer and I move on in my life.
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And I just have this victory over this desire to be liked.
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But I do it constantly.
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I do it even sometimes as I'm talking.
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I'm saying, God, please, please don't let me still glory from you.
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And so, I pray, Father, I know that nothing good is in me apart from Christ.
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I know that apart from Him, I can do no good thing.
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And as such, that means all glory and honor and praise belongs to Christ.
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How dare I get in the way?
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Wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death.
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Jesus Christ.
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Praise Him.
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I turn my affections back towards Christ.
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I get out of the way.
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That is this process.
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Without ceasing, guys.
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It's a battle.
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We must wage war.
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Number three.
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We've got it.
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Number three, munition.
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We've got meditating on Scripture.
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Making prayer a regular practice.
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Number three.
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Membership in a local church.
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Guys, we need one another.
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If we are going to win the battles of sin, we need one another.
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We need to open ourselves up to the criticism of other believers who we trust,
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which you can't have unless you're in a relationship, in a church,
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so that they can root out all of the sin that we're trying our hardest to hide, ignore, and forget.
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The picture in my mind of rooting sin out of our lives are those pigs that look for truffles.
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Have you ever seen that?
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Truffles are just amazing.
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A little fungus that are supposed to be very, very good and expensive, and they grow underground.
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And they take pigs out, and pigs can smell them, and they root them out.
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They're hidden, but these pigs can root them out and find them and expose them so that the collector can sell them.
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I'm at market.
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That's the picture that comes to my mind.
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I need that in my life.
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I need people who are around me who I'm being open and honest with,
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who can look at me under a magnifying glass and expose the things in my life that do not belong.
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We're growing up in a Christian culture, and we're all really good at playing the part.
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We've been rehearsing our whole lives.
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We know exactly what church people do.
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We know how to put it on.
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We know what to say, what clothes to wear.
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We've got it all down.
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We've got it all down.
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We've got it all down.
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Dress rehearsal for the first 20 years or how old you are of your life.
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You've got to let people into the backstage.
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People have to know who you really are.
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We have a fiercely radical, individualistic mindset in America.
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It's kind of ingrained in us.
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And it's not all bad.
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Many great things have been accomplished because of our individualism.
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But it has no place in the Christian life.
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True Christian living does not happen apart from the context of a local congregation.
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We often only think of sin as the things we're told not to do.
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Do you do that?
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I tend to.
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We often only think of sin as the things we're told not to do.
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But it is also sinful to neglect those things that we are told to do.
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There's two different types of sin.
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There's the sin of commission, doing something that you're told you shouldn't do.
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And there's the sin of omission, not doing something that you are told to do.
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A careful reader of the Bible knows that we're commanded to do many things with and for and to one another.
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How can you do that if you're not committed to a group of people?
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1 John, five times, love one another.
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Love one another.
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Love one another.
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And 1 John is written for the Christian to hold up their life to as a lens to see if they're even really saved.
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How can you love people that you're not committed to?
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That you don't even know?
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Going to church does not mean walking in, sitting down, singing and listening and leaving.
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Church is so much more than that.
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Everything I just said is important.
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It should take place.
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We need to do it.
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But it's not it.
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It's not it.
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So, what should you look for in a church?
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I don't care if you come here.
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Honestly.
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I don't know a lot of you in the room.
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I'm sure I would love you and love to have a relationship with you.
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I want you to come.
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But my goal is not in this, this point, is not to say to you, please help me build Christ Family Church.
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That's not the point of what I'm saying.
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The point of what I'm saying is, for you to have a victorious life, to honor Christ, you need to get involved and committed to a church because you're sinning if you don't.
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It would be unloving of me to sugarcoat this for you in any way.
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You can't wiggle out from what I'm trying to say to you.
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So, as you're looking for a church, what should you be looking for in a church?
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I've got six of them for you.
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Number one.
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Substantive, verse by verse, expositional preaching.
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Substantive, verse by verse, expositional preaching.
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Look for a church that preaches the whole counsel of God.
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Not a church that jumps around to the pastor's favorite topics.
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But that preaches the whole counsel of God.
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We're committed here to verse by verse, expositional preaching for that reason.
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There are some texts that I would so gladly skip.
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There are some Sundays that I pray that I'll get to.
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God, major accident, broken leg in the hospital.
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Any chance someone else can pick this one up?
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It's painful.
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It's painful for me to preach some things.
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It's exposing to my life.
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There's some things that I don't understand.
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I'm not all that intelligent.
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And I have to study and study and study to get what the writers are saying.
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If I wasn't committed to preaching this way, I would skip texts.
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But our preaching should also be substantive.
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It should say something.
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Not a couple of little points to make your life a better life.
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Our preaching should be gospel-centered.
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It should draw your attention to Christ.
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It should call you into holier living.
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So look for substantive, substantive, verse by verse, I suppose you're preaching.
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Number two, look for a church that is missional.
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Many churches, everything they do, and I think even those that aren't intending to do this, struggle with it.
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Everything they do is about bringing people to a building.
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New splash.
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This is not the church.
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Right?
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This building burns to the ground.
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This property gets swallowed up into a sinkhole.
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And Christ Family Church no longer owns property meet-on.
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Are we still Christ Family Church?
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Absolutely.
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There's no question in my mind.
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We just don't have a place to meet any longer.
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We'll have to find a new one.
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A missional church is a church that recognizes that it's here for a purpose.
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And that is to take church to the world.
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To carry Jesus Christ.
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To be that aroma for those who are being saved to the world.
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So look for a church that understands that we're called on a mission.
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Number three.
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Look for a church that has covenant membership and biblical discipline.
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Covenant membership is just our way of saying a deeper commitment than you show up on a Sunday morning.
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And I give an invitation.
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And you say, hey, that was a pretty good experience.
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I'd like to join up.
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And we write your name on a card and put you on a roster.
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And then expect giving of you.
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Right?
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Sad, sad membership goes on in many of our churches.
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The statistics, which I didn't take the time to research in any of them, of Georgia Baptist churches.
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How many names are on rosters and how many people actually are going to church is shocking.
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I would love to get all of that data and compare and see how many people are on rosters at multiple churches.
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I bet that would be a stagnant statistic.
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I've signed up and then off they go.
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And then signed up and then off they go.
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And then signed up and then off they go.
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Church is not fast food, people.
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You should go to every fast food restaurant out there.
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You definitely should do that.
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Please don't be a person that goes to one fast food restaurant and gets one meal all the time.
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What a boring existence.
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But a lot of you treat church like fast food.
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What am I in the mood for?
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This morning.
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I'm going to go to that church.
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They're a little more charismatic.
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I'm going to go to this church.
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They're a little more somber.
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I like the preaching here.
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I prefer the music over here.
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And you bop around for the flavor of the week.
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It's sin.
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And don't go to a church that will let you become a member with that kind of premise.
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Also need a church that understands biblical discipline.
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You want that in your life.
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You want that kind of exposure.
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And if you're going to persist in sin, you want the kind of church that's willing to kick you out because they so love the work of Christ.
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They're not willing to let you shame them.
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And Christ.
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With a habitual sin in your life that you're not willing to work on.
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Look for that.
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Number.
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These are lettered.
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So I'm happy to do the numbers in my head.
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Number four.
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It's really bad.
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Biblically qualified leadership.
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I would suggest to you that you look for a church that has a plurality leadership.
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I don't care the titles that those men have, but a group of men that share the responsibilities of the church.
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And who are biblically qualified.
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Get to know the men who are leading a congregation before you join.
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Number five.
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Content driven music.
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Content driven music.
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Young people.
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Your generation tends to look for experience when you go to church.
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Experience.
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You want to show up and be moved by music.
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It's good for us to be moved.
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When we sing songs.
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But we ought to be moved by the truth of the gospel.
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Not by a particular crescendo in the music.
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I go to lots of conferences.
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I see lots of music sets being put on.
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And the practice for these sets makes me want to vomit.
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Because every little bit of it is rehearsed perfectly.
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The capo being moved.
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That careful capo movement.
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And the prayer that accompanies it.
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Is a cover up for the capo movement.
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So we can move smoothly from one song to the next.
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And keep people moving along.
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And the experience.
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Worship.
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Congregational singing.
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Is about encouraging one another in the truth.
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Right?
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If we ever come in here and all the lights are off.
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So that you can have your own little personal little worship bubble.
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You should go someplace else.
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I love the acoustics in this room.
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Because I can stand at the back of this room.
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And even though the speakers are loud.
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I can hear your voices reverberate out of this corner.
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It's awesome.
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It's really cool.
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If you're a front row person here.
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I love you.
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Thank you for sitting in the front.
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Someday.
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Sit in the back.
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Just to experience that noise.
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That comes out of the room.
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It is such an encouragement to my soul.
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To press on.
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In these battles of sin.
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When I hear people joyfully singing the truth of God.
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Content driven music.
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On the flip side.
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Some of the older folks amongst us.
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Can tend toward tradition.
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I recently went to an old people meeting.
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I'm just going to leave it at that.
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For some travel we had to do.
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And they sang a song that I just abhor.
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Give me that old time religion.
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Give me that old time religion.
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Give me that old time religion.
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That's good enough for me.
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What does that song even mean?
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What does that mean?
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That's idolatry.
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Do it the way I used to always do it.
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Because I don't want any of this new.
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New song.
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Get these new songs out of here.
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Right?
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The war between old songs and contemporary songs.
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So stupid.
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Because every song was a contemporary song at some point.
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Right?
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Except for maybe the songs.
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But anyway.
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I digress.
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All right.
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Number six.
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Look for a church that is about the work of building healthy families.
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Of charging fathers to be the pastors of their homes.
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And not subliminally undermining the family.
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Many churches are doing this.
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And they're not doing it on purpose.
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I don't think that there's any church in America who says,
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We don't like the family.
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So therefore we're going to separate them to all separate parts of our campus on a Sunday morning.
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And we're not going to allow them to interact.
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And we're going to destroy the family as a result.
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None of their goal is that.
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But they're overtly doing that very thing.
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I'm not saying that you have to go to a church that is family integrated.
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I'm not saying that you have to be family integrated to be a godly church.
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Right?
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But the leadership, the men of a church ought to be encouraging the other men of the church.
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Edifying one another towards being the pastors of their homes.
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That is a responsibility and a charge given to fathers.
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It's not given to anybody else in the scripture.
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It's given to fathers.
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It's not given to a children's pastor.
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Or we'll call them a children's minister if they're a girl just so we can skate around.
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That whole issue.
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It's not given to a youth pastor.
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It's not their responsibility.
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It's the father's responsibility.
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And a lot of churches are castrating the men in the way they operate.
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So look for these six things and become a member.
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Commit the church.
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College students, I know that your life is weird right now because you live three quarters of a year in one place and another quarter of the year in another place.
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I would encourage you to be a member of a church in the place you live most.
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You have moved out of the house.
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And that's a good thing.
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You're adults now.
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It's good to not be in the house.
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It might be a good thing for you to never go back to live in your parents' house.
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I did.
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Plant yourself.
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My parents are here.
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Yeah.
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I know.
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I know.
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As God instructed his people when they're in Babylonian captivity, he instructed them to build homes and plant gardens and make a life where they were.
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You're going to squander a rape four years of your life because you don't feel like you're in the place you're going to be.
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Right?
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Right?
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You are.
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God puts you in a place.
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Put down some roots.
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Although temporary, I understand.
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Put down some roots.
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Be involved in a church in the place that you live most.
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Again, I'm not saying Christ family church needs to be your church.
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Although I think that we do these things.
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And we're trying to do them to the very best of our ability.
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So, we see in our text, back in Romans 14 through 25, that this is our common experience, that we battle with sin.
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There's a war going on within us.
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Let me say to you again, we are not dualistic.
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The picture of dualism is that on one shoulder, you have the little angel version of Nathan.
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On the other shoulder, you have the little devil version of Nathan.
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And we just don't know who's going to win out in my life.
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Jesus Christ wins.
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There's no doubt about that.
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The war is sure.
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If you are a Christian, you are being moved towards perfection.
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And one day, you will be finally perfected.
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Okay?
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However, there are many battles to fight.
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And I pray that we're a people that are having victory in those battles.
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And that our lives are characterized by holiness.
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Let's pray together.