Sermon Text:
Galatians 2:15-16
This is the heart of the book of Galatians, and the heart of the Gospel message. We are not saved by what we can accomplish but are declared righteous through faith in Jesus.
Sermon Transcript:
(transcribed with AI)
Well, good morning. It is good to be here with you all. For those of you who might not know me, my name is Jonathan, privilege of being the pastor here and if you have a Bible with you, let me invite you to open that up. You can find your way to the book of Galatians is where we're going to be here this morning, continuing on with our series walking through this book.
Now I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, whenever the TV was on, it was usually one of two things. Number one, if my dad had the remote control, it was going to be sports, it was some kind of sports, golf, football, whatever it was, but if my mum had the remote control, it was some kind of crime show, some sort of murder, mystery, whatever it was. When I was little it was things like Colombo and Murder She Wrote and you know all these kinds a little bit later it became Law and Order, CSI NCIS and every variation that has come from it. I don't know about you. I don't know if you've noticed just how many crime shows there are. I mean there are a ton of these shows that are going through different sort of, you know. Often it's murder, there's a lot of murder shows out there and all kinds of things. There's movies, TV shows, even podcasts. True crime podcast is its own genre with a huge following of people who are listening to these stories of all these different things.
And honestly, it's not really hard to figure out why we would be so interested in them. Make great stories. There's a mystery, there's something to be solved, an obstacle to be overcome. There's all kinds of twists and interesting things that are going to happen during the story. I think probably the true crime podcast is particularly interesting because people think, well, now I'm more prepared, I know what to do, should I ever be kidnapped in the back of a trunk or something like that. But I think there's another reason, and I think it's far more obvious. It's because at the end of the day, things are set right. At the end of the story, justice prevails. The bad guys get caught, the good guys win, order is restored to the world. And even in the stories where things don't necessarily all work out right, there's at least the comfort of knowing, you know, they're not forgotten, people still care, people still work on these things, that justice is still possible in our world.
I think we have this hardwired desire that says, I want to live in a world that actually has justice. That people don't just simply get away with whatever they are doing. And yet at the same time, we also long for a world that is also marked by mercy. Some of the most compelling shows detectives are the ones who can balance both a sense of justice and a sense of mercy within. We have sometimes these very conflicting desires, justice and mercy should be held together.
And I think part of the reason that we love these kinds of stories in our entertainment, in our media, is because God has actually created us to reflect him. God created us in his image to reflect what he is like, and he is a God of both justice and mercy. Those things reflect truly who he is. I think God made us with those longings in our heart, but the question we're always left with is how can God actually have both? How can God actually be just all the way, actually treat everyone equally and fairly, and yet at the same time hold out mercy, forgiveness. How do we hold those two things together without letting one or the other win? And really this morning, that's what we're looking at. We're looking at how does God balance these two things? How is it possible that he can show us both?
And so if you have your Bibles open, I'll invite you to follow along with me in Galatians chapter 2. We're gonna look at just two verses here this morning, but I'm gonna start reading back in verse 14. So Galatians 2:14, it's the beginning of a conversation. So Peter is talking with Paul or Paul is talking with Peter, sorry, Peter here is called Cephas, and so we're gonna read their discussion because it's gonna actually help us answer this question of God's justice. So it's our tradition here, we stand as we read God's word. If you're able to, would you stand with me? Starting in verse 14, this is God's word.
But when I, Paul, saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
As far as the reading of God's word, you may be seated.
Well, as we get into our passage here this morning, we have a little bit of catch-up we need to be doing here. There's a little bit of catch-up because what we are reading here, and I'm gonna single out particularly verse 16, is really the center of this book. Everything that we've been reading so far has been leading to this one thing, and then from here, everything is coming. From it. This is, you know, if you want to go back to English class, this is Paul's thesis statement. This is the main point of the book, and he repeats it multiple times because he wants us to get it. We are justified by faith. That is the point of this book. That is the heart of the gospel.
And so if you've been with us for the past couple of weeks, you'll know this is a letter Paul's writing to the churches in Galatia, and he's just planted them. He planted these churches, and then he left, he set them on their own, and then he started hearing, oh, hold on, as soon as Paul left, a bunch of people entered into the church and they started teaching all kinds of other things. They began to say, you know what? Paul doesn't really know what he's talking about. Did you know he's not even a real apostle. He has no right to go and teach this sort of gospel. In fact, no, what you need to do is you need to start going back and you got to do all these Old Testament laws in order to be saved. That's what you need to do.
And so Paul's writing this letter to correct not only their understanding of the gospel, but he's got to defend himself. If you were with us last week, we looked at Paul's story. Paul kind of gives this explanation, you know, why is he an apostle? What gives him the right to share this. Good news. And so he goes through, he says, look, I was not a believer. I was not a Christian, in fact, I was as far away as you could be. I was hunting down Christians. I was putting them to death, and Jesus himself came, stood and stopped me right in my tracks. And Jesus said to me, OK, your job now, Paul, is to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles. That's what I am sending you to do.
And so Paul's telling the story because he says, look, I didn't come up with this. This isn't my idea, this is God's word. He's the one who gave me this goal, this mission, this message, it's from God. In fact, later on he'll say, he tells us, actually, and then later on I went and I even talked to the other apostles, just to double check, hey, are we on the same page? And they go, yeah. We're teaching the same thing. Paul's not this lone ranger off on his own, you know. No, actually, this is what the whole church is teaching. In fact, the gospel message is God's message, and in fact it even sits over top of the apostles, even corrects them.
Because that's what we're reading here now in verse 14. Peter had started to feel a little bit of pressure. Peter, you have to remember, he was the first person to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish world. It started with Peter. He knew that the Gentiles didn't need to become more Jewish, and yet he was feeling all this peer pressure to actually, you know, suddenly start going backwards. And so he kind of stopped eating with them, and they don't really eat kosher, so maybe I won't do that, maybe I won't associate with them as much, and so Paul approaches Peter and says, what are you doing? You're denying the very gospel we both believe. And so what we're reading here is Paul slightly rebuking Peter, but reminding him of the truth that is central to the gospel that we preach.
And so this morning, that's what I want us to see. Here is the heartbeat of the message of Christianity. We are justified by God through faith in Jesus. There's no shortcuts, there's no other way around. We are saved by faith in Christ. And so this morning we're gonna walk through these two verses, and there are some maybe more technical aspects to it. But my goal is that you would actually have a deeper understanding of what it is that God has done for us in Jesus, where we can actually fix our faith.
So look back with me in our passage. Paul reminds Peter, look, there's no shortcuts to God. Verse 15, he says, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Now, we just got to point out, this is a bit of a weird passage, because this is a conversation between Paul and Peter, but he's writing it to the Gentiles, and we are reading it afterwards. So at the base level we've got this conversation that's happening with Peter and Paul, but Paul's very much writing it with more, with a wider audience in mind. He says, look, Peter, we're both Jewish men, we grew up in the Jewish community. We're not Gentiles, he calls them, he even calls them Gentile sinners.
Now, let's be very clear. Paul is not saying, well, anyone who's not Jewish, they're sinful. Anyone who's Jewish, well they're not sinful. Well, no, that's not his point at all. Rather, what he's really getting at is actually the Jewish people, they grew up knowing God's law. They have, unlike pretty much every other nation on this earth, their culture, their heritage is shaped by God's law. They received his covenants, his word to them. No other group could claim that, certainly not in that way. In fact, this is Paul's argument in Romans chapter 3. No, the Jewish people, they inherited God's promises. So the question is then, well, so are they better off? Are they better than everyone? Paul's answer in Romans 3, he says,
what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. We've already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin.
Paul spends the first 3 chapters of the book of Romans basically making this one point. Everyone is sinful. Yes, the Jewish people, they had God's laws, but they didn't keep them. They didn't actually keep them, they could read them, they could see them, but they couldn't keep them on their own. And even the Gentiles who didn't have God's laws, yet had this sort of moral understanding of right and wrong, still couldn't do what was right all of the time. Everyone is sinful. Paul writes in Romans 2. He says
there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality.
Everyone gets judged. There's no such thing as sort of generational privilege when it comes to God's judgment. No one can claim they have a better standing than anyone else. No, God holds everyone accountable for their works. And really this is Paul's point. He says, look, we ourselves are Jews by birth, verse 15, not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law. Paul's argument is that look, being born Jewish doesn't give us an advantage. Trying to keep the law won't make you right with God. Now we're gonna come back to why God does give the law. That's Galatians 3, that's the whole point. I'm not gonna go into that right now, other than to say that we're not going to be saved by anything that we can do. We're not gonna make ourselves right with God because of the things we've done. No, we've all sinned, every person on this earth justly under God's judgment.
See, this is what Paul is reminding Peter about, reminding the Galatians about that we need to be reminded of. So how are we going to be made right? Verse 16.
Yet we know a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
How are we to be saved? It's through faith in Jesus, not our works. We are saved by faith. There's no shortcuts that you get to take. No one has the advantage when it comes to growing up in the right tradition. Everyone is a sinner in need of grace. It doesn't matter whether you grew up with parents who took you to church every Sunday, or they took you to the liquor store every Sunday. Actually, there are lots of advantages to coming to church. You get to hear God's word, you get to hear the gospel, you get to hear and know who God is, but salvation is not one of those advantages. You don't get saved because you went to Sunday school. You don't get saved because you even showed up at church. You can come here every Sunday. You can come here, you could even be serving, you could be sharing the message of the gospel with those around you, but that doesn't make you a Christian.
Hear me, I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a pastor. I heard the Bible all the time. I was the annoying kid in Sunday school who knew all the answers. And I still had to repent of my sins and place my trust in Jesus Christ. There is no other way. There's no other way, and by the way, that also means if you grew up doing none of those things, you are not excluded. If the only time you ever heard the name of Jesus growing up was when someone was swearing before God's judgment seat, you're in the same place as the kid who grew up in Sunday school every week. No special treatments, no shortcuts. We are saved by faith in Jesus alone.
Now you might have noticed here, Paul actually doesn't use that word saved, does he? He doesn't use the word saved here. Now saved is, you can say that, don't worry. But saved means a lot. It's a very broad tense. No, Paul here very specifically chooses a much more specific word. Picking up halfway through verse 16, he says,
so we also have believed in Christ Jesus. In order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
See, Paul here actually uses this word justified 3 times in verse 16. Again and again, do you understand his point? His focus is justification, and I'm gonna argue here is the center of the Christian faith, the heart of the gospel. What makes us right with God?
So let's understand what do we mean when we say that word justification. Justification, justified, it's a legal term. This is legal terminology, same as if you're in a courtroom and you hear someone say objection, sustained, you know, guilty, not guilty. They're all legal terms. Justified is a legal term. And it means to be declared righteous. To be justified is to be declared or pronounced as righteous. You can think about this, just imagine you're in a courtroom and you hear, you watch the judge and you hear him hit his little gavel, and he says, not guilty. That is a proclamation, this person is not guilty of the crimes that they have committed. In a very similar way, this is how we should understand justification. In fact, Paul uses it like this in Romans 8. Romans 8, he says,
who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Paul uses this idea of justification in this legal proceeding where people are trying to accuse the people of God. What about this? What about this? And God says no, the proclamation has already been handed down, the gavel's been banged already. To be justified is a legal declaration handed down from God Himself. He has declared us righteous.
Now, righteous or righteousness is a very biblical word, and it means far more than just not guilty. Someone can be not guilty of a crime that hardly makes them a good person. It just simply means you didn't do that one thing. Rather righteous has a much bigger meaning. Righteousness is a positive moral standing before God. To be declared as righteous means that in God's eyes he is saying you have actually a perfect moral goodness. See here's the thing, if I say in my eyes, you're a good person. I don't see that much. I can only see a little part of your life. I can't see what goes on in your mind, in your heart, I can't see things in your past or future. I don't know very much about you, and the truth is my bar of goodness is certainly not where God's is. Because God's bar of what makes someone good or righteous before him is far higher than anyone else. It is the standard of perfection. And God can see every aspect of your life. People are worried about their search history, God's got your thought history. Far more.
And so his declaration of righteous is far more expansive. To be justified means we are legally declared as possessing a perfect moral uprightness in the eyes of God Himself. Our record of life contains no more sinful, evil thoughts, deeds, or heart attitudes. To be justified means we are declared perfect before God. That is what Paul says is true for everyone who believes in Jesus, declared righteous. But please notice here, I just used the word declared, declared righteous. Actually, we are not made perfect. So here's where a lot of people get themselves a little bit tripped up, because they say, well, you're a Christian, so clearly you're a perfect person. But actually what God has done here is said, well I'm declaring you righteous, we're not yet made. Perfect or righteous. No, we are sinful people when God places that stamp over our life.
You can almost think about God opening up our file. Here's everything you've ever done in your life, every action, every thought, every word that you spoke behind someone's back, it's all right there. God can see every single part of it, every single wrong thing you've done, and God takes his stamp and puts over top of all of it, righteous. And you think to yourself for just a moment, wait a minute. How can God do that? Isn't that the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever known? Because here's the thing, God's not just simply overlooking a few minor little offenses. This is not, oh, you forgot to take out the recycling, or you know, you threw the green in the garbage, whatever. No, no, God is dealing with major things. Paul himself, he helped people murder others. You even look at the disciples of Jesus, you've got Matthew, he's a tax collector, a paid professional con man who is grifting people out of their money. You've got Simon the Zealot, who we would probably call a terrorist at this point. They were known for going and murdering Roman officials. Jesus is not overlooking little minor things, no, rather he is forgiving, stamping righteous over people who are not. In fact, that is the point. That God has stamped, forgiven, righteous, perfect over people who are not perfect.
So how can God do that? Wouldn't that be the least just thing that God could ever do? See, the question here is answered for us. In what Jesus did. See, Jesus is the answer to the question, how can God actually forgive sinful people? How can God forgive sins without becoming just an unjust judge? And at the cross we see God's answer on display, because at the cross we see the justice and the mercy of God crash together in violent display. Jesus hung on that cross, and God placed on him the weight, the punishment and the exaction of justice for our sins. Jesus paid the price in our place so that when God is declaring us righteous, it's not because he has looked at our file and found no sin, it is because he has looked at Jesus and found it there. Righteousness is found in Jesus. He has paid for all of our sins so that anyone who would trust in him, God stands righteous, not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. That is the heart of the gospel message.
Paul writes in Romans, he says,
but God shows his love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Sins therefore, we have now been justified, declared righteous by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
In Jesus, the love, mercy, grace of God collide with his determination to show his justice, every sin paid for in full. God is not ignoring the demands of holy justice in forgiving sinners, but upholding it perfectly. When we see the cross, we can recognize God is perfectly just and able to justify sinful people. In fact, this is exactly what Paul writes in Romans 3. He says
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation, wrath-bearing sacrifice by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
See, Paul is concerned that we would recognize that God is just when he is forgiving sinful people. God is not ignoring the demands of justice, but rather upholding it. On our behalf.
And so here's the question. That's a lot of very technical detail. So what does that matter? What does all this matter? Jesus has accomplished the gospel. Why does that matter for us? Let me give you 3 answers.
The first is this. There will come a time in your life, whether right now or perhaps in the future, where you will say to yourself, what I have done is so horrible, I can never be forgiven. Whether or not those words ever actually come out of your mouth, or whether it's merely the attitude of your heart, you will come to a moment in your life where you will say, I have done so much wrong, I have done so many things that are so awful, there is no way I am allowed to approach God any longer, and we need to understand that is a lie. Don't believe that lie. The whole point of justification is that God has done what we cannot do, so that any time that we see our sins where that guilt and pang starts to hurt in our own hearts. We are reminded Jesus has already accomplished all of these things. If my goodness was never the reason God saved me, my sinfulness will never exclude me. You need to understand, when we say that our justification is in Jesus Christ, it means there is no sin you will commit that holds you back. Go to Jesus again. Go to Jesus again.
2, why does this matter? When we understand that our justification is in Jesus, you will stop pretending that you're perfect. We have a tendency, perhaps mostly in the church, to pretend that we are perfect. I'm a good person. I don't have any problems going on in my life. Hear me? Justification means that Jesus has declared us perfect and one day we will be perfect in heaven, but it means right now I'm still growing. I'm still trying to follow after God more and more. This is the process of sanctification. That's a whole another big word, it's a whole another sermon that needs to be preached. It means we grow to be more like God, but it doesn't mean we are perfect now. And see whenever we are pretending that we are perfect, pretending we have everything together, what we start doing is we start hiding our sins. I don't have any problems. No, no, there's nothing wrong going on with me, and we hide it, we ignore it, we bury it in the dark where it starts to fester more and more. The irony is the more we pretend, the less we can actually progress and become more like Christ. We need others' help, we need accountability to grow, we need to confess our sins before God. Jesus has done it all, so I can be honest about my failures. And I can learn to fight my sin for real.
Why does justification matter? Because it is our confidence to approach Jesus, it gives us the freedom to repent truly, and third, it gives us the security of our salvation. If it doesn't depend on me, my salvation is secure. Paul writes in Titus chapter 3. He says
he, God, saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
We have the hope of eternal life, not because we've done enough good things, but because of what Jesus has done. Let our hope of eternal life rest fully and completely on what Jesus has done. In fact, from our justification stems every other blessing of the Christian life. How is it that I can come to know and speak with God? Why would God ever listen to my prayers? Because I've been made right because of Jesus. How is it that I can be adopted into his family because we are made right by Jesus? How can I have the hope of eternal life because I've been made right by Jesus? It is all about what he has done. Our justification is the starting place for all of the blessings of the Christian life because our sins were dealt with at the cross.
This is why Paul is writing this book. He doesn't want you to miss what is so important. Don't miss out on all of the joy of the gospel that is found in Jesus. We don't contribute to our salvation, it's what Jesus has done. Justification, our legal declaration of righteousness is because of what Jesus has done on the cross for all who have faith in him.
Paul reminds Peter as they're talking. Of this truth. Look back at me, verse 16. He says,
we know that a person is not justified, declared righteous before God by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
Three times, Paul here repeats, our justification is not by works of the law, it is by faith in Jesus. Paul repeats it over and over again in one verse because he wants us to get the point. We are just or how is it that we are justified? How does this work of Jesus apply to me? It is through faith. It is through faith in what Jesus has done.
And once again, I mean this is another very churchy word that's so easy to misunderstand because we so often associate faith with blindness, ignorance or foolishness. It's blind faith, it's foolish, it's not thinking, just shut off your brain, but that's not what faith is. Faith is trust. Faith is saying I'm trusting something or someone else. If you have a friend that's gonna pick you up for work, you are placing your faith in them, that they will actually do what they have said, that's what faith is. In fact, the Bible very often puts repentance and faith together, because really they're two sides of the same coin. Repentance means to turn away. Faith is what we are turning to.
So again, if I can use my example of someone picking you up. If I say, well I'm gonna trust my friend, I have to turn away from my car. I can't trust my friend and drive myself. If I drive myself, I'm showing, I don't actually trust my friend to pick me up, no, I'm gonna drive myself before he even gets here. OK, you don't trust him. I have to repent of my car, trust in my friend. That's what repentance and faith is. Repentance of our sins means I'm turning away from these things that actually do not please God. I'm turning away from these things that will not save. I will not trust in them, and instead I'm going to place all of my trust in what Jesus has done, in what Jesus did at the cross, that's what I'm holding on to with everything that I've got. I have nothing else that I'm trying to do at the same time. It's holy and completely on Jesus.
You might ask, OK, why? Why does God make it work this way? Could he not have chosen something else? But again, I think God has done this for our good. In fact, what a blessing it is. Let me give two reasons here. Number 1, it means salvation. Our justification is open to anyone. That's Paul's point in Galatians. Everyone who comes to God comes by faith. That's it. There's no test to get in, there's no performance to be done, no special words or rites, rituals that have to be performed. No, it is simple trust in Jesus that makes us right with God. That means there's no barriers either. Doesn't matter what background you came from, what culture you grew up in, doesn't matter the sins you've committed, the question is before you, will you trust in Jesus? Will you trust in what he has done that has paid for your sins and made you right before God? That is the only question that really matters.
In fact, 1 Corinthians 6 is a great example of this. Paul is writing, he says,
do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.
Paul lists all these things from what we would say are very minor to very major, and he says all of these will keep you from God, but that's who you were. And then you trusted in him and what happened? You were sanctified, washed, justified before God. It did not keep you from salvation nor justification in Jesus Christ. Hear me, faith is the only requirement before us. Hebrews 11 says,
without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe he exists, and that he rewards those who seek Him.
Faith is needed, do you trust him? It's the crux of the gospel. Jesus has done it all. Will you trust him? This is a decision I want everyone to wrestle with. It rests on faith, so it is open to all.
Number 2, reason why our justification by faith matters, it means we can rest. OK. If we are made right with God through trust in what Jesus has done, it means we can actually have peace. We don't have to keep working, we don't have to keep striving, we don't have to keep proving ourselves before God as if I have to do enough good things and then God will really love me. No, my justification depends on what Jesus has done that I have through faith. You know what that means I can rest. I can have peace with God. Romans 5 says,
therefore, since we are justified, or sorry, that we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace is the result of justification by faith. We don't have to work, we don't have to worry, we don't have to spend our days in restless anxiety, eating at ourselves all the time, because what if I haven't done enough? No, it depends on Jesus. He has done it all. Rest. You can have peace with God. You can enjoy all of the goodness of knowing and being in God's presence. It is right to simply sit in the beauty of what God has done on our behalf, knowing I do not need to prove myself I have peace with God.
Hear me, we can be confident in the security of our salvation by faith. This is the heart of the gospel message. It's why Paul is writing this letter, so that we could know and understand we are justified before God by faith. No one gets a shortcut. We all come to God the same sinners in need of grace. Doesn't matter your background, your church attendance, or what you've done. God in his justice and mercy has made a way for our sins to be forgiven. Jesus died in our place so that whoever would believe, whoever would trust in him, would be given the righteousness of God, declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus.
Church, let us never forget that news. Let us never forget the goodness of what God has done. Let us hold it out to all who would hear. Jesus is the one who saves. Let's pray together.
Oh heavenly Father, we thank you so much. Lord, thank you so much for the gospel message that does not depend on what we can do. Father, we confess we are sinful people. We have not earned your grace, we have not earned this forgiveness, yet you have so freely given it to us in Jesus Christ. Father, I pray, would we never grow tired of hearing of the goodness of what you have done, of the grace you have poured out, of the peace we can have with you. Lord, I pray, make us ready. To confess our sins, knowing our justification is secure in Jesus Christ, help us to grow to be more like you, to share what this is like so that many others would hear this good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. Father,