Romans 4:13-17

“For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.” As I started to study the Bible more seriously before joining the Lutheran Church and then at Martin Luther College, I always found Romans to be a rather intimidating book, but I recognized its importance, and so I would often stumble through it, struggling to follow St. Paul’s line of thought. To be honest, there are still plenty of places in this book where I wrestle and wrestle to understand St. Paul more clearly. This verse is a prime example, but, although it took me a while to get it, I am glad I did, because it is one of the most beautiful verses in the Scriptures. 

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18-19). If we reject Christ, we stand before God with the law as the sole standard for our judgment, and the law brings wrath, because we have transgressed its commands. Yet God does not judge his faithful based on the law alone, because the faith he has worked in the faithful clings to Christ, and Christ has removed the law as a standard for our judgment. Yes, the law still brings wrath and judges, but its wrath and judgment has been visited upon Christ and not us. The promise to Abraham did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So also, God’s gospel promises to us do not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Where there is no law, there is no wrath, no transgression to be judged. “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). Apart from Christ, there is law, there is transgression, there is wrath before God’s judgment seat. In Christ, there is the promise that comes through the righteousness of faith, based not on works, but resting on grace, so that it may be guaranteed, not only to Abraham, and not only to Israel, but to all the sons and daughters of Abraham who share his faith and thereby have become his offspring. There is no law, not because the law has been nullified, but because it has been fulfilled in Christ, and it has visited its wrath upon Christ, and what is done in Christ and upon Christ is done for the benefit of Christ’s brothers and sisters, the Father’s children through the promise.

Perhaps St. John Chrysostom said it more clearly that I can, “Now if [the law] worketh wrath, and renders them liable for transgression, it is plain that it makes them so to a curse also. But they that are liable under a curse, and punishments, and transgression, are not worthy of inheriting, but of being punished and rejected. What then happens? Faith comes, drawing on it the grace, so that the promise comes into effect. For where grace is, there is a remitting, and where remitting is, there is no punishment. Punishment then being removed, and righteousness succeeding from faith, there is no obstacle to our becoming the heirs of promise” (Homilies on Romans, Homily VIII).

Romans 4:9-12

The question of the salvation of the Gentiles and their place in God’s promise was a serious question for the early Church. Could the Gentiles be saved? If they could be saved, could they be full participants in God’s promise and Church in the same way that the Israelites could? Did they too have to be circumcised? Did anyone have to be circumcises, and, if not, wouldn’t they all be becoming like the Gentiles instead of things working the other way around? Keep in mind that all this came after centuries of separation between Jew and Gentile—separation commanded by God. Yes, many Jews acted out of pride, but many would have had legitimate issues of conscience and stood in desperate need of patient instruction. We see even Peter struggle with this very question in the Book of Acts.

In our reading today, the specific question was whether or not the promise God gave to Abraham was contingent upon circumcision, that is, his identification with Israel, his physical offspring and the children of the covenant from whose lineage the Messiah came. Understanding Abraham was crucial earlier in this book for understanding God’s crediting of righteousness through faith, and now an understanding of Abraham is crucial again. Abraham was declared righteous in chapter 15 of Genesis. It is two chapters before he was circumcised, which probably was a span of several decades. Clearly, if we observe the order, St. Paul shows, the promise and righteousness came long before circumcision. Circumcision did not make Abraham righteousness or create a new status for Abraham before God. Rather, circumcision pronounced what God had already accomplished and was given to Abraham’s children as a sign and seal of the same promise and righteousness God gave Abraham through faith.

It is often much easier to cling to pride in our flesh, in our lineage, in our tradition, or in any number of other things than it is to cling to the promise. Let’s not be mistaken, circumcision was a wonderful thing, a powerful sign and seal given to the Old Testament people of God, but circumcision was not the end. Christ was. May we always take care not to lose Christ in the things designed to point us to him. May we always take care to cling to God’s promise and answer any questions that arise on the basis of it. God has promised us what he promised Abraham and the Israelites: righteousness through Christ. That always comes first. Everything else is chapters later.  

Romans 4:1-8

Imagine if you went to your boss and told him you put in twenty solid hours during your forty hour work week. Would he reward you? That is what we do when we seek to present our works to God, as if he did not deserve to receive them and infinitely more (we always conveniently fail to present the many times we acted against his commands or did not carry them out when we should have). Imagine even if you did go to your boss and could rightly claim that you put in forty solid hours. Would he then have to give you a bonus? Doesn’t he already pay you for forty solid hours and have every right to expect them from you, just as you then have the right to expect to receive your due. There is no gift involved in all this. There is simply work and wages. But St. Paul says God doesn’t count righteousness as a wage, but as a gift, which is a very different thing. When we deal with God, however, we must remember that he has not hired us, he has created us, and for that very reason he does not merely deserve an agreed upon percentage of our time, but all of it in every way.

We do not labor for God to be counted righteousness, because someone who labors for a gift turns that gift into a wage. In reality, no work is truly a good work in God’s eyes, that is a work done by faith, if it is a work done in the hope of reward. Remember in Matthew 25 how surprised the sheep were to hear that they had done good deeds for which the Lord commends? These were not works done in the conscious hope of merit and reward, but rather expressions of a living and active faith.

Your salvation is a gift. Your forgiveness is a gift. You justification is a gift. Rejoice in that, because God does not give and take away like we so often do. God gives eternal gifts received by faith and lost only through unbelief. God never withdraws his gracious hand, although we may push it away through a hope in our own works or a refusal to believe his promises. God has given you a gift. Do what people do when they receive gifts: say thank you. That may seem obvious, but remember for how many years your parents had to remind you to say thank you at your birthday parties and Christmas. Receive God’s gift through faith as a gift, and don’t insult him by pretending it is anything less than a gift and that you can in any way make it more complete. Imagine how insulted your relatives would have been at your birthday party if after each present you had asked, “Now what do I have to do to earn this?” Or, “Now how can I make this gift more complete?” God has gifted you righteousness, mercy, and grace. Believe it, you blessed beggars of God.

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” Rejoice and be thankful, for not only has God given you something, but he has taken something away as well, covering and removing your sins by placing them on Christ and putting Christ on you. He has taken what made you unpresentable to his Father and given you his righteousness to wear to the feast. All this he has done, not to receive repayment from you, but as a gift. Now do what mom and dad always reminded you to do at Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa and your uncles and aunts: say thank you, and as you grow in your gratefulness for the grace of Christ, you will be surprised how that thank you will express itself in ways you never imagined, in ways you may not even notice until someone else points them out, in ways that seek no reward because they just naturally flow from the gift you’ve received.

Romans 3:27-31

“Give me some props.” Many of you didn’t grow up saying that, but some of us did. What does it mean? Give me credit. Feed my ego. “Give me some props.” Why did I think of that now? I thought of it because St. Paul talks about boasting, and all boasting outside of Christ is illusory and shallow—props—like props on the stage of a play. It may look nice, but it is not the real thing. When the show is done, the props are thrown out or burned. When life is over, our boasting is fit for the same trash bin or fire.

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.” Notice, the fact that we cannot boast in the law does not throw out the law. Notice, the fact that we cannot boast in the law does not mean the law does not indeed command God’s will which is to be upheld. Rather, the fact that we cannot boast in the law means that we have failed to keep it and cannot be saved by it. It means that for every work we attempt to boast in, there are several more that testify against us to our shame. The one who confesses this truth upholds the law, because he acknowledges the perfection of the law, his inability to keep it, and the seriousness of the threats and punishments that result from such transgression. The one who boasts in the law or claims salvation by it does not uphold it, because he inevitability robs it of its perfection, stripping it of those commands he cannot keep, pretending it is something trite and unproblematic, playing down the threats and punishments that result from transgression, denying them when he must. Such a person is like someone who claims it is not hard to reproduce a Picasso work, and then proceeds to ruin the original in order to make it easier to copy.

The law is fulfilled in Christ alone, for it is Christ alone that kept the law all his days, Christ alone who submitted as the venomous threats of the law were carried out as physical and spiritual torture on Good Friday, Christ alone who was laid in the tomb that we also might rise from it. There is no middle ground. “It is finished,” or it is not. Boast in works or trust in Christ. Revel in shallow praise or take refuge in Christ’s wounds. Be damned by works or justified by faith. Either way, the law is to be done, in the vain hope of salvation, or as a sacrifice of praise and thanks to the God who has redeemed you. The law has not been negated. It still bears God’s commands and reveals his will. For that reason, it must be kept. The flesh will keep it to avoid punishment and earn favor. Christians will keep it because they love the Lord, and thus they love his law, seeing in it an opportunity to serve their God and their neighbor, seeing in it God’s love for them as he commands the very things that benefit both us and society. The law is not excluded. Boasting in the law is. The law is not rejected. It is fulfilled, but not by us. It is fulfilled in Christ, and it is only in Christ that we can observe it with works flowing, not from pride or self-interest, but from faith and love, with hearts knowing we cannot fulfill it, with hearts knowing that Christ, however, has done so on our behalf. In him we boast. In him, we serve. In him, we offer up our sin-stained works—for even are best works still bear our sin—and in him, the Father rejoices in these sacrifices of praise, which is itself an act of grace.

Romans 3:19-28

Note: This devotion and the next are revised from past sermons Wade preached, so there is some crossover in the verses covered and some themes. 

A conscience can be a dangerous thing. A conscience can bring horrible questions into peoples’ minds. A conscience is what got the Reformation started: a conscience that took the words seriously that there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Someone read this and believed it, because their personal experience confirmed its veracity all too well. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Our Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount: You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Not you must be pretty good, or you must be better than that other guy, but perfect. In that same sermon, He said: I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Outwardly, the Pharisees were the most righteous people of all, but Jesus here says He expects something even more: real, perfect righteousness of thought, word, and deed, righteousness that does all the right things all the time for all the right reasons and with all the right thoughts. Who can do that? Our text answers that: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The Greek for “sinned,” simply put, means to “miss the mark.” This implies that one may indeed be aiming at the right thing, intending the right result, but nevertheless missing the bull’s-eye. It is impossible to do any perfect work that measures up to what God deserves. We cannot woo or bribe God. There is nothing we can give Him that isn’t His in the first place. As sinners, we cannot do a perfect work because we are not perfect people. A murderer may buy his victim flowers for their grave, but he remains a murderer and his relationship with his victim remains severed by his previous evil act. Manure painted up nicely is still just painted manure.

The Greek for “fall short” means “to come too late, to miss, to fail to reach, to be lacking, to come short of.” All of our works come too late. We are born enemies of God, heirs of original sin, and, for that reason, have already missed our chance at perfection and a relationship with the Father. That is why we need Baptism from the moment we leave the womb. A poisoned tree may produce beautiful fruit, but the fact remains that its fruit will bear its poison. The difference between the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and on the other trees in Eden was not necessarily its appearance, but what it bore.

“Almost only matters with horseshoes and hand grenades,” it’s been said. We recognize that in the real world almost doesn’t cut it, yet when it comes to spiritual matters, we often expect almost to be good enough for God. An old black and white television wit rabbit ears is good enough for getting the news and the football game, but how many of us sport such a picture box in our living rooms? Yet, many individuals and church bodies are comfortable making good enough the standard God will use with us on Judgment Day. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. How? I think you already know how. I know God already knows how. A conscience can be a dangerous thing.

But there is something that can be even more dangerous than a conscience. It doesn’t look dangerous. Most dismiss it as harmless and outdated, but it is the most dangerous thing of all. If you need proof, look at how the world has sought to discredit it for the last two thousand years. In our Holy Gospel, Jesus says, If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Luther got a hold of that Word, and something happened. Before he was tempted to hate God, this arbitrary Judge who was going to damn him no matter how hard he tried to be saved, who had given him commands no one could possibly keep perfectly. Rule after rule, sermon after sermon, book after book, demanded righteousness, but none could bring that righteousness into grasp, at least not for the honest conscience and the thoughtful mind. Luther writes:

“That expression ‘righteousness of God’ was like a thunderbolt in my heart. When under the papacy I read, ‘In thy righteousness deliver me’ [Ps. 31:1] and ‘in thy truth,’ I thought at once that this righteousness was an avenging anger, namely, the wrath of God. I hated Paul with all my heart when I read that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. Only afterward, when I saw the words that follow—namely, that it’s written that the righteous shall live through faith—and in addition consulted Augustine, was I cheered. When I learned that the righteousness of God is his mercy, and that he makes us righteous through it, a remedy was offered to me in my affliction.” (LW 54, 308).

This book, the Bible, is a dangerous thing, I tell you. Men and women do crazy things when they discover the grace of God in Christ. That God would become man for me, that God would die for me, that God would rise for me, that can make a heart explode with gratitude and joy. We fall short, but Christ does not. Yes, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but looks what comes next: and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You are justified. The word means you have been “declared righteous.” What you could not be by your own works, God has declared you to be in Christ. Your sin became Christ’s and His perfection is now yours, through Baptism, Absolution, Communion, and the Word. You have been saved by grace through faith, and now, now you can do what you could never do before: you can live for God, as His workmanship, doing what He has divinely prepared for you to do.

A conscience can be a dangerous thing, but the Bible is a dangerous thing, too, and in the best way. For me. God was crucified for me. Forget the all for the moment. You have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But, my brothers and sisters, you are also justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward for you as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by you by faith. You’ve got a conscience. You’ve got a Bible. Your conscience is clean. The Bible is full of “for you”s and “for me”s. In that we have life. In that we have freedom. In that our sins are gone and we are righteous.         

Romans 3:9-20

St. Paul now rejects a third possible objection, or misunderstanding, concerning the gospel. The beginning of verse 9 could read one of two ways: “Are we any better off?” or “Are we at a disadvantage?” What is the point? St. Paul is condemning a view that tries to pit one sinner against another, as if one has better or worse standing before God based on ethnicity or human judgment. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “None is righteous.” “No one does good.”

St. Paul is still combating a view that approaches God through the law, looking for a loophole or something to tip the scales a bit. The fact of the matter is that, while the law drives us to Christ, it is only through the gospel that we can approach God with the expectation of mercy and salvation; it is only through faith in God’s promise of grace. Apart from the gospel, and faith in it, all are under the power of sin. Notice St. Paul says “sin,” the singular. He is speaking of the sin we are born with, the sin that gives birth to sins. Because of this sin, we instinctively sin against the First Commandment, from which all the other commandments flow. Because we do not love God, our throat is an open grave, our feet are swift to shed blood, etc.

Thus, the mouth is stopped. Gone are the excuses St. Paul has rebuffed. Gone is any attempt to find loopholes and tip the scales. All that is left is the awkward silence of the damned. All that is left is accountability. All that is left is a clarity of mind, the worst punishment of all, which sees sin in all its despicability, gravity, and damnability. Will that not be the greatest suffering of hell? Being separated from God and knowing for all eternity that you yourself merited every bit of that separation, that is, being keenly aware of sin.

We cannot justify sin, especially not by the law. We cannot even excuse sin by the law. Rather, we the law rejects any attempt to defend, rationalize, or diminish our wickedness and our culpability for it. The law merely declares the law’s verdict on sinners, the fruit of the power of sin: guilty. And that verdict, echoed by the hammer of the justice’s gavel, rings for all eternity, forbidding anyone to forget it.

But… While we cannot justify our sin, God can justify us, and he has done so in Christ. St. Paul continues, in the passage we will study tomorrow: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” Here is our hope. Here is our salvation. Here is our justification. It is no loophole. Christ’s blood is no loophole—it is God’s justice in all its severity. But… Thank God St. Paul keeps writing.

Romans 3:5-8

If our sinning ultimately brings glory to God by showing forth his justice and faithfulness in keeping the covenant, how can he be mad at us for sinning, in fact, shouldn’t he be grateful for our sinning? St. Paul must have heard that reply before, or he anticipated it, and so he shoots down such logic right away. Unfortunately, such thinking has plagued the Church throughout history. Many have taken the good news of forgiveness in Christ as an excuse for libertinism, that is, sinning without care and restraint. Many have taken the good news that way, and, I would venture to say, unless we need to ring the church bells as each of you approaches on Sunday and proclaim the presence of an unsoiled saint, you have taken the good news that same way at times. The knowledge that God forgives sin has led you to view sin a little more lightly. Knowing that you will have time to repent later has taken the edge off of the urgency of turning from sin now. But how many have died suddenly in such crass and inane thought and been justly condemned for all eternity!

The gospel is not a game. We don’t see who can put off their repentance longest and thus have the most fun possible in life and still be saved, and any attitude that considers sin fun is a hardened attitude that will in all likelihood be unbreakable on a death bed. What makes us think that God is dumb enough to fall for such child’s play? What makes us think that God is so trite? Such thought is abominable and St. Paul apologizes for even having to speak it, qualifying his statement with the not that he is speaking in a human way. Sin is sin and it is not fun and it is not trite and it is not easily escaped. Our condemnation is just when we think and act such ways. Thus, St. Paul writes elsewhere, (2 Cor. 6:2), “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Now is the time of God’s favor, and the gospel announces that fact. Take heart, that the abuse of the gospel cannot negate it. Now is the time of God’s favor—the time for abominable attitudes and thoughts to be forgiven and for minds to be restored and renewed. See sin as sin, and flee sin as sin, because then the gospel will shine all the brighter as the gospel, that is, the antidote for sin and not the excuse for it. Now is the time of God’s favor. Your condemnation is just, but so is your God, and he has punished your sin in his Son. Now is the time of God’s favor. Flee God’s coming wrath and hide in the outstretched arms of his Son, mercy made man.  

Romans 3:1-4

Amen and alleluia! You can’t do it. I can’t do it. Satan can’t do it. No one can nullify the faithfulness of God. St. Paul uses the strongest possible Greek formula of denial here. By no means! God’s faithfulness cannot be nullified. The value of God’s gifts cannot be nullified, even though one may lose its benefits through unbelief. For instance, our riding lawn mower has the power to mow the lawn. If I refuse to believe it an use the push mower instead, I have not stripped it of its power. I have simply robbed myself of the benefits of its power.

Let God be true though everyone were a liar. For the Jew to deny the power of God’s Word of failure, or declare it ineffective and useless because he himself did not believe and obey it, was to call God a liar, the crassest blasphemy. For the Christian to deny the power of God’s Word, or to declare it ineffective or useless because he himself does not trust it to do what God has promised, or because he does not like its effects, is to call God a liar, the crassest blasphemy. Rather than being disappointed in what God’s oracles and gifts have accomplished in the small picture, one must merely step back and look at the big picture to have their disappointment turned into awe. Who can criticize God’s justice and faithfulness when he views history? Has God not spared us numerous misfortunes we rightly deserved? Was God not unbelievably patient with Israel, especially considering her obstinacy and disobedience? Has God not blessed our own land in spite of our manifold wickedness and kept us safe from the tragedies and catastrophes so many other nations regularly experience? Has God not been patient with each of us individually, even in suffering, especially in suffering?

No one can nullify God’s faithfulness. And when we find ourselves trying to do so, the only thing to do is confess our wrongdoing and turn to God, because, try though we might, it is impossible that we have nullified his faithfulness. We may have rejected and denied it, but we could never nullify it. In fact, in our turning we justify him in his words. While that may make it sound like you lose in the process, nothing could be further from the truth, because the triumph of God’s faithfulness always benefits God’s faithful, that is, those who receive his promises and gifts through faith. That’s you, no matter what you fear may have nullified his faithfulness in the past. Amen and alleluia. By no means could you ever have nullified his faithfulness! By no means let us fail to rejoice in that.

Romans 2:25-29

At the time of the Reformation, when some reformers became frustrated with what seemed many times to be a lack of improvement in the moral quality of the lives of their people, they began to question infant baptism, because baptism apparently had little effect on the people as a whole. For the same reason, some would also question the Lord’s Supper. Because of human rejection of God’s grace, they questioned God’s gracious gifts. What did they turn to instead? The law, just like the Roman Church they had battled against did. They confused law and gospel. They allowed human wickedness to nullify God’s goodness.

Circumcision was a powerful sign and promise given to Israel, but circumcision was of little value if it wasn’t received in faith, because a promise is only received in faith, and only faith can see what is not apparent to the human eye, that is the power of the sign and the grace behind it. Circumcision was a powerful sign and promise, but it was also a purchase. God now owned that person. He adopted him as his child of the covenant. If it became apparent the circumcised man persistently lived as a child of the devil instead, then it became apparent that Jew had rejected his circumcision and could only return to it through repentance. God’s promise was not nullified. It was rejected. That is a significant difference. If you refuse a check from a friend, that promise of money is not nullified; it was rejected. The check is still good, but it does not benefit you, since you refused it. In the case of our text, many Jews had rejected circumcision by treating it like magic, making it a law they kept to merit salvation, imagining that the act of circumcision was an automatic ticket to heaven, even if it was not received by faith.

In Colossians, St. Paul writes,  “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” You, like many men and women, have been baptized. Many have rejected their baptism, so that it does not benefit them unless they return to it in repentance. They have rejected baptism, but they have not nullified it. You have been baptized. You have received a powerful sign and promise, marking you as God’s chosen, marking you as his own. Do not, like the Jew, trust in your baptism as a magical thing, as a law you have kept that merits salvation, as a law that you have kept for your child that merits salvation so that you no longer need to raise them in the faith by teaching them everything whatsoever the Lord has commanded.  Baptism saves, but, through it, the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens the faith that receives its benefits. It is an outward act attached to inward faith. You have been baptized. You cannot nullify this fact, but you can reject it. And, if you do, not blame God’s gifts. Blame yourself, and despair of yourself, and return to those gifts you rejected, because while you can reject them, you cannot nullify them.

Romans 2:17-24

What made the Jew different than the Gentile ultimately led to the Jew’s temptation to arrogance and pride: God had revealed his will most fully to the Jew. Thus, the Gentiles were “the nations,” for that is what Gentiles means, while the Jews were “the nation,” the chosen people. But why were they chosen? It was not because they were more holy, more inclined to godliness, better suited for obedience, or closer to the image of God. No, they were chosen to produce the Savior of all nations. They were chosen in Christ, not in themselves. When they failed to remember this, they were given to the hypocrisy and double standards St. Paul condemns here.

We are tempted to the same thing as God’s chosen people in Christ, as the New Testament Israel. How often don’t we condemn in the world and in others what we secretly harbor and desire in our own hearts? How often don’t we forget that what sets us apart from the unbeliever is not our personal holiness, inclination to godliness, suitability for obedience, or a closer proximity to the image of God in and of ourselves? No, we are set apart only in Christ, and when we forget that, when we find room for arrogance or pride in our own flesh, when we fail to see our value in Christ alone, then we have lost Christ and become no different than the “Gentiles,” the unbelievers upon whom we look down.

God has revealed his will most fully to us, but, in so doing, he has also exposed our failure to live according to it. See your value in Christ. Recognize your own weakness, lack of personal holiness, inclination to ungodliness, resistance to obedience, and contrast to the image of God. Recognize these things so that you despair of them in yourselves and find them in Christ, through his blessed gospel. You are chosen. You are holy. You are godly. You are obedient. You are being restored in the image of God. Why? You are in Christ. With this attitude, we will battle the temptation to look down on others and we will be motivated to instead share with them where they too can find what they cannot find in themselves, how they too can go from being lost to chosen. We will point them to Christ, or, better yet, without pointing they will know where to look as they watch our own eyes, fixed on what is not ours on our own but is ours through faith in this Savior.