Hello and welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen has just released a new book entitled In Pursuit of Holiness. Our behavior cannot save us, but God does expect those who follow Him to live holy lives. How can we do that?
Well, Stephen teaches you how in this brand new resource. This book is on sale right now, and I've put a link in the show notes. Get your copy of In Pursuit of Holiness Today.
Now, here's Stephen with today's message. For God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness. Is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4.6. For you were Formerly darkness, but now you are light.
In the Lord. Ephesians 5:8.
So we're giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Colossians 1:12. Living advertisements to the heroic deeds. of the gospel through Christ.
Well, in our last study, we began by. looking at objects Some pictures of items auctioned off for a lot of money. proving that beauty is in the eye of the what? Beholder Since we're sort of on that theme as we continue In the text, I did a little more research and found another world out there of expensive. objects these not so much because You know, they were finally fashioned or unique, but simply because they belonged to somebody that was considered important.
A celebrity Or whatever. In fact, the more I looked into it, the more bizarre it got, and I decided not to bring you any pictures because it was so disturbing. People were willing to spend money on some strange things only because related Belonged to somebody that they revered. I came across it, I will give you a couple of illustrations. One particular item was a.
A mason jar, simple glass jar, was empty. But actually an actress had breathed into it. And they put the lid on it. She had done that during some award ceremony, and it's sold for... for hundreds of dollars.
Another item was a dented Ping pong ball. Famous celebrity was cleaning out his garage, found it sort of as a humorous thing. He put it on eBay and it sold for thousands of dollars and the owner was gushing with excitement that That she now owned a dented ping pong ball once belonged to this. Ma'am. As crazy as these illustrations are, they really do prove a universal truth, and that is that ordinary things.
can be considered valuable. They take on value simply because of the fact of to whom they had once belonged. And I did bring a couple of pictures. Because I thought I could illustrate it this way. I brought a couple items from my.
Study, they're not going to fetch a lot of money. Not anything like a dented ping pong ball, but they are special to me. One of them is a 1595 page out of the Geneva Bible. This particular copy that I have, this is hanging in my office upstairs and down the hallway. That's a treasure of mind.
The Geneva Bible is significant for a number of reasons. One of which is that it was the earliest, one of the earliest English translations. In fact, the Geneva Bible was the Bible that came over on the Mayflower. This was owned and used by the Puritans, John Bunyan, and many. This would have been their Bible.
A number of decades later, when the King James Bible was printed, they copied probably 60% of the Geneva Bible because its translation was so good. The Geneva Bible was the first Bible to add verse numbers. Of course, the letters like from Peter and Paul that you read would be in paragraph form, as any letter you would normally write. They sort of separated it all out into sentences and then numbered them for the students of the Word of God to be able to find them easily. which we certainly appreciate.
To this day. If you take a closer look, and I actually snapped another picture so that you can see in the margins, there's this. Commentary. This is the first time this was ever done. In fact, we refer to the Geneva Bible as the first study Bible.
That's because reformers like John Knox and John Calvin, Theodore Biza and others offered their commentary on each passage, and that was included in the printing of The Geneva Bible. It's interesting that a few decades later, when King James authorized his translation, he insisted that the crown would only cover the cost if they took out those distasteful study notes, we would call them. And that's because the reformers didn't believe, in layman's terms, that the king had the sovereign right to do whatever he wanted. And they would drop that commentary in at certain select passages in the New Testament. He said, You get rid of that, and you can publish this translation, which they did.
And the King James Bible was put into print. For somebody who loves the history of the English Bible, as I do, And certainly the reformers, this particular page Out of the Geneva Bible is a treasure. I brought another picture along. This isn't of inspired scripture, but it is inspiring to me. This is hanging on my door.
uh hanging on my wall just uh right outside my door in my office.
Now this is a page from one of the sermon manuscripts, the top block, and underneath the affidavit of certification. of uh Spurgeon's uh sermon manuscript, one of them. And this is one particular page taken from his His message that he preached in the late 1800s when he preached. His assistant would be sitting in the audience, furiously transcribing every word. shorthand abbreviations, whatever it took.
And then that would be given to him on Monday when he came into the office, and he would edit that. uh manuscript before it went to the newspapers. The newspapers in London And abroad published every word of his sermons, just like the News and Observer will do my sermon tomorrow after I send it to them.
Now, what I find really interesting, in fact, there's a close-up, again, another photograph I took, a close-up of the manuscript. You can see how many edits he made. The black ink is his assistant. The other is his. And I find this, by the way, very encouraging, that a preacher like Spurgeon On Monday, also believed that he could have said it better on Sunday.
So you can see all of the editing that took place. By his hand. And one other thing I'll point out, you may be able to tell it, it's still well preserved. Spurgeon had the habit of writing when he was at his desk with purple ink. And that was His reminder of the royalty of Jesus Christ.
And I'll admit, it's a tradition I've copied of myself. And I think it's a wonderful reminder.
So you can see in the close-up, this page is just edited. by his hand with all of these purple edited comments, which I find absolutely Fascinating proving the truth once again that ordinary things like a piece of paper from an old guy's. Sermon is valuable. if you value the one to whom It belonged. You know, it struck me as I studied the text we're going to look at for the morning.
That this is Basically, what Peter is going to do in describing the church, in fact, I invite you to turn back to chapter 2. We'll pick it up at verse 9 where we left off, but... It struck me that if we were to have the Lord, visit us today if the Lord himself were to stand here and and with us Point out his treasures. He would not be putting up a photograph of an old Bible. He wouldn't be referring to a manuscript sheaf from a preacher of.
A century ago. If the Lord were standing, if he were to come up here, he would point out something extremely valuable to him. He would. Point out You. He would point out You.
You, believer, happen. to be his special Collection. His special collection. Just look at how the believer and the believing church is described in 1 Peter 2 and verse 9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.
A holy nation. A people for God's own possession, you could render that for God's own treasured. Possession. Beloved Jesus Christ would display You! In fact, one day he will, for all of eternity, display the splendid, glorified, redeemed as the objects of his glory and his grace.
1 Peter chapter 5, verse 4.
Now if follow me here if an ordinary object is made special because of the one to whom it belonged. Imagine what that makes you.
Now that you belong. To him. What does that make you?
Now that you belong to him.
Now the world was telling the first century Christians, and Peter's writing, to whom he's writing, it's still saying the same thing to 21st century Christians: look, you're unwanted. You're you're a bunch of nobodies. There's no market value in you. You're worthless. And frankly, that's because they viewed Christ.
Then and now in the same manner, just a few verses earlier, we discovered that the world rejected Christ, the cornerstone. Verse 7. They trip over him. They stumble over him. He gets in their way.
Get out of my way, they would say. Verse 8. But although the world has rejected him, you Believer. have accepted him. He is valued by you.
as precious. Verse 4. And by his Saving grace, we learned he quarried you out of the pit. He dug you out and shaped you and attached you as a living stone to the spiritual house we call the church. Peter is effectively telling them and us: you cannot be worthless.
You can't be without value. You can't be insignificant. Why? Because we, ordinary people, have become special treasure. Because we belong.
To him. Now, let's take a closer look at how Jesus describes through Peter you and me. And in general is church. There are four descriptive phrases. First, notice: you are a chosen race.
Again, Peter, we won't rehearse all that we've learned, but he highlights the redemption of the believer who owes his salvation to the covenant electing grace of God. Which in this text is worth the reminder: you're not accidental, you're not random. You're chosen. You're chosen. And for thousands of years before Peter wrote this statement, this was the language of the nation of Israel, and we to this day call them God's chosen people.
Well, guess what Peter says?
So are you.
Now And we study this at length. They, the nation, still are uniquely God's covenant nation. And we are awaiting. What the prophets declare and the New Testament adds to that the goodness of God is going to be displayed at some point in time during the tribulation and during that period of horror and wrath. They're going to Be brought to repentance by the goodness of God.
They're going to be reconstituted as a nation, and they will welcome back the one they pierced the second time He comes, and with us they will welcome Him as their Messiah. Romans 11, along with Zechariah chapter 12. Twelve. But now here, Peter uses this phrase to describe the New Testament believer. and church.
We are His chosen. Rates. The word race Here in this phrase, maybe it's translated in your Bible's generation, chosen generation. It's a word that refers to people who belong to a common ancestor. It's a word referring to people who have a common Origin.
And we do, don't we? We do as a church. You've been born again? By faith in Christ alone and inducted into the family of God because you received Him, John chapter 1 and verse 12.
So all of us. In here, who believe happen to share the same origin of the new birth, pointing back to our shared ancestor. as it were. The Lord Jesus Christ. I'm enjoying reading a little commentary on 1 Peter written by Juan Sanchez.
An Hispanic pastor in Texas. Who accepted my invitation recently to speak this summer at our summer series? And so you'll have a chance, and I will too, to meet him. But I've enjoyed his. This evangelical commenting on these texts, and he writes this, and I thought he wrote it well.
He said, Peter is informing us that the gospel has created then a new race. One race. Made up of people from every tongue, tribe, social, and economic standing, and cultural variety. I like the way he puts this: God has chosen the unalike. and made them into one new family.
And when the gospel is the only way to explain the assortment of people. Gathered in an auditorium, worshiping together the glory of God. is destroyed. I like that. An assortment of people.
And aren't we ever? I mean, how do you explain this, by the way? How do you explain the church? An assortment of people from all kinds of backgrounds. He explained it in the fact that we share a common ancestor.
We share the same life. by our union with Christ Jesus. Because of that we have the same family name. The same family name. Taken from the one who gave us life.
And if you study, by the way, the origin of that family name, it's a term the church didn't come up with. It was coined in the first century by combining The Greek name of the Messiah, Christos. And adding, as they would in that generation, the Latinized ending and coming up with Christianity. In Rome, people We were often called by the name of leaders they adored and revered. In fact, during the days of Peter, when he's writing this, you had the Augustinia, you had those that followed Augustus.
You had the Herodinia, those who followed Herod, they revered him more than the normal individual might have followed or supported him.
So the term Christiani was coined by the Roman citizens living in Antioch. as a derogatory term for people who followed a dead man.
So they viewed it. And they wanted to label them. Those who followed the man who claimed to be the Christos, the Messiah. In fact, by the time you arrive in church history at Acts chapter 11, where this term first appears is a designation given by unbelievers for the church, and it wasn't a compliment at all. But 1900 years later, we love that name, right?
And they did too. I'm sure it marks them a little more obviously than it does us because, unfortunately, people claim the name who have nothing to do with Christ. You're a Christian because you're not a mass murderer. And we love the name Christiani. We revere it.
We hate to see it dirtied. We hate to see it misused. We want to revere it. Hold it high because of whom it represents. We're a little troubled when people use it.
uh for themselves when it's clear they don't. They don't know. We love it. And we love to run into people who love the name as well, don't we? Genuinely.
I was in the store a couple of days ago, and the guy behind the counter recognized me, and he hollered, Hey, Reverend. We kind of got it got caught up there. Auto parts store. I'd met him a year ago. First time I'd gone in there, I needed help with the battery.
And he came over and was working with me. And I could tell after 15 seconds, you've been there too, haven't you? You can just tell. just tell. Demeanor Vocabulary, I mean that's the way it ought to be, right?
And I'm thinking, You know, this guy is a... This guy's a Christian. You know, he would never let his phone ring in church. For one thing, I'm sure. He would turn it off.
He's a mature believer. All of you are reaching for your phones. Please do. And I was thinking, you know, I got to ask this guy. And I wanted to.
Now, typically, what I do is I'll come out with a line that's something like, where do you go to church? That's my way of moving from auto parts to justification by faith alone in Christ. We get to that point. I don't know how you do it. But before I could ask him what church you went to, he stopped and he said to me, hey.
Are you Christian? And I said, I am. And he said, Oh, I am too. I said, I could tell it. I knew you were.
And he said, I knew you were. And I said, I knew it first. You know, a little Christian competition going on here.
So here you have this black man. And this very pale white man. Celebrating together in the auto parts store as if we're brothers. Why? Because we are.
We are brothers and we share a common ancestor. We are members of a new race and we happen to share the same family name. Peter goes on to tell us We're not only members of the same race. Notice, he says, we're royal priesthood.
Now, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but. This would have been a puzzling expression. They would have puzzled in the early days. over the offices of Jesus As both kingly and priestly, because in the Old Testament you didn't combine the two, they were separate. Royalty had nothing to do with priesthood.
In fact, the king that dabbled in it was in trouble, deep trouble. In Israel, the offices were separate. In fact, they would have been puzzled by Jesus a descendant of David through the royal line of Judah. Claiming then the right of priest, of high priest, which came from the tribe of Levi through Aaron. They just weren't connected.
Well the answer Simply was the Jesus Christ Priesthood was derived, appointed, assigned, according to the book of Hebrews, chapters five and six, not from Aaron, but from Melchizedek. And if you're old enough in the faith, you know he appears in Genesis chapter 14. There's not a lot said about him, but he's the combination of this royal priest, and he shows up to bless. Abraham. And in that, he foreshadows the blessing of the coming royal high priest.
So we, in union with Christ, As children of God, have inherited from Christ The right to be both royal And Praises. You have, in a sense, royal blood flowing through your veins. And you can fulfill the functions of New Testament priests, offering, as we've studied in the past recent days, the living sacrifices. Your body, thanksgiving, service, evangelism, worship. Praise and more.
In fact, the best is yet to come. John the Apostle describes in the book of Revelation in chapter 20 and verse 6, he combines the two and he says to us, the redeemed, you shall be priests of God and will reign with Christ for a thousand years. We can't even begin to imagine. And we haven't been given much information. But it is going to be amazingly glorious.
As we serve him. directly face to face. and reign with him.
Now, Peter goes on to add another descriptive phrase to the treasure of God who are his children. Peter calls the church, notice third, a holy nation. The word nation is ethnos. The original language gives us our word ethnic. It's a word that refers to a community of people that are held together.
by the same laws The same Customs. And Even more importantly, the same Interests.
Now remember the word holies attached to it. is telling haggias it means separated under god We're a nation belonging, separated unto God, but holy very ruggedly simply means different. And are we ever? We, the church, are a different nation. Than the nations around us.
In fact, the church. is at her worst when she is like the nations around her in interests. And even laws. The church is at her best. when she is distinctive.
In her interests And even in her Laws. The laws and customs and interests of this holy nation are often at odds, not always. But often at odds. With the culture and the customs. and the interests.
of the nations around us. God expected that to be so. The early Christians to whom Peter is writing would have already violated a number of cultural norms. In their own generation, they they would have viewed everything differently. Marriage Parenting.
Virtues They would have viewed humility entirely differently. Rome thought it was weakness. It's something we want to mirror in our lives because it is One of the chief attributes of God the Son, who had this attitude of humility when he came. Most of the early believers reading this letter from Peter would have. Probably already disobeyed one of the twelve tables of Roman law.
that decreed, and I quote, deformed infants shall be killed. In other words, in order to keep the Roman bloodline as superior as they thought possible, deformed infants weren't given a chance. To live. Even Seneca, the brilliant tutor of a number of Caesars. who lived during the time of the apostles.
Defended and abortion was rampant, but so was infanticide. We haven't gotten there yet, and I hope we never do, but he defended infanticide by writing these words: quote: We drown children who at birth are weak. and abnormal. This is true in other parts of our world to this The very day, obviously, the value of human life. Is raised by the presence of the gospel, and in its absence.
Human life becomes Pretty much worthless. People are used. By those that have greater power or authority. I found it interesting to discover in my study that in the latter part of the second century, a church leader by the name of Clement, he was known as Clement of Alexandria. He wrote that the Roman government and its citizens were known for saving and protecting young birds and other animals while lacking any moral regard about abandoning or aborting their own children.
See, the church comes along and she's different. In the way she values life. In fact, Plato argued that it should be the right of the city-state to force a woman to have an abortion to control population.
Sounds like Plato and Planned Parenthood would have been great friends. Aristotle, by the way, even argued the same thing in this regard, which effectively created an industry around abortion. The early Christians were at odds. With the devaluing of human life and the elevating of animal life, just as many countries today, including our honor, and I've said it before, but it's. A great place to repeat it in our own country today.
It's a violation. You're going to pay a fine. If you knowingly crush the egg of a pre-born eaglet, You can crush A pre-born life. Human life. Listen to this.
Alvin Schmidt catalogued this in his Historical book, rather stunning book entitled How Christianity Changed the World. I recommend you get it sometimes. It's been out for eight years or so. He writes this: in A.D. 379 Church leaders publicly condemned the practice of selling aborted babies to the manufacturers of beauty cream.
Listen, the gospel doesn't just elevate the value of human life. It means That for those of you that wear Christiani on your sleeve, you're going to be at odds with your culture. No matter what country you're in, at some point, it's going to be obvious your interests are different, your laws are different, your customs are different. Peter writes, it ought to be, don't forget you are a. A holy By the way, would you notice in that text, he doesn't say you, the church, are a successful nation.
You are a wealthy nation. You are unappreciated, thanks to You are a protected nation. No, no, none of that. He simply said. As if to say, above all things, make sure.
You're a holy. Nation. Which means you're going to be different. The abs. We're a people for God's Um Possession.
I like the old King James translation of this phrase: we are a peculiar people. I think it fits a lot of us, doesn't it? The word peculiar, though, in Old English, simply means to be uniquely possessed by another. You could paraphrase it. We are people of God's private.
Possession. I like the idea of collection. We are part of his private Collection. And We happen to be in that collection. Has it ever occurred to you that you happened to be his treasure because he was willing to die for you?
He didn't purchase you with a lot of money or the right connections. Peter's already told us, we were not purchased. We were not redeemed by perishable things like gold or silver, but by the costly.
Okay. Blood. of Jesus Christ. He died to make you a part of his private collection of believers. And you owe everything about your significance.
Everything of value. is related to the fact that you belong To him. That makes you worth more than just being a normal dented ping pong bull. He belonged to him.
So the final question is pretty simple. What are we going to do about it? I mean of all this is true. And it is and more. What should our response be?
Well, Peter answers that with a purpose statement. Notice verse 90 and the latter part: so that, here it is, here's the purpose statement, so that you may proclaim. the excellencies of him Who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The verb for proclaim. Or declare is a compound form that only appears here in this text.
It means to make widely No. to advertise. I like that rendering. You see, you're not just his special treasure to sit on a shelf. or on your desk.
You happen to be his advertising campaign. to go out in public and advertise Who you are and to whom You belong. Paul wrote it this way: We're to advertise, as it were, that we've been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Colossians 1:13, Peter says, It used to be darkness. And now it's light.
It's as if he's saying that God in His grace threw on the light switch. And when the light of the glorious gospel We shed abroad in our hearts, our eyes opened. To the value of Christ, and now in union with Him, we have discovered we have great value. and significance. 2 Timothy chapter 1.
Verse 10, I found it interesting that one of the mottos of the Reformation, in fact, you're hearing a lot about that because this is the 500th year. anniversary of the Reformation. One of their catchphrases We would call it today a motto. was in Latin, of course, ex tenebrus. Lux.
Out of darkness, Light. And that's because the darkness of false teaching Had surrounded, enshrouded the church for centuries. There are many reasons we call it the Dark Ages. It's one of them. But the light of the gospel of Christ was turned on by brave men and brave women who were no longer going to follow the customs and interests and even the laws of their culture, even their church.
And they flipped on, as it were, by the grace of God, the light switch, returning courageously to the truth of sola scriptura, the scriptures alone, and the gospel light blazed forth. Hack to change the face of Europe. Europe did not create Christianity. Christianity created. Europe.
With all the freedoms that we to this day still enjoy. Only God can do that. Only He can call us out of darkness. He has to do that, He does the calling, did you notice? Hindu is light, and what does he call that light?
Marvelous. Magnificent light. He says, So we delight and desire, then we're advertising, having been brought from darkness to light, and what are we advertising? Ourselves? No.
We're advertising the excellencies of Him. We're not sitting around talking about having what a treasure we are. We're talking about him. We're bragging about him. We're exalting Him.
In fact, the word for excellencies is informative. Uh one Greek Scholar has put it in his linguistic key, which I enjoy reading along with the text. He writes that this word refers not only to God's virtues, which would immediately come to mind. but to his ability to do heroic Deeds. I got a great illustration of that, by the way.
A week ago or so, my wife and I babysat two of our grandkids for two days. I'm not sure who babysat who. Actually, my wife did all the heavy work, but our three-year-old grandson, Nicholas, You know, I i it was it was one outfit after another, dressed up like his favorite superheroes, and he had bits and pieces of little costumes. He had the mask of um Of Spider-Man and his favorite, he had the helmet of Iron Man. That was his favorite.
Now, Papa, this is what Iron Man can do, and he'd have me practice. You know, you do your hands like this, it kind of sends out energy rays to knock people over. And I tried on him, and it never worked. It never knocked him down or slowed him down. But it was one superhero event after another.
Now, unless you think that, you know, My three-year-old grandson is worldly. He also quoted the Ten Commandments to me in Hebrew. Uh At least that's what it sounded like to me. But one thing was obvious to me, in fact that it came back to my mind and rather convicting, there are times when I'm not nearly as excited about Jesus Christ as my grandson is about Iron Man. I mean, how are we doing on this advertising campaign?
Should we talk about them? Should we say something about him? I don't know. It might offend somebody. Might ruin our lunch date.
Oh God. You have taught me from my youth, and I will declare your wondrous works, David said. Psalm 71:17. It's as if he said, You got some time? Let me talk to you about his heroic deeds.
I will tell of all your wondrous works. Psalm chapter 9 verse 1. Listen, if the people in your sphere of influence only knew about God's. Heroic deeds by what they heard from you, what would they know? Yeah.
Would they be completely? In the dark. At this point, Peter evidently thinks it's a good idea. To remind us of some heroic deeds. First, he wants us to remember that God has miraculously included us.
Notice, verse 10: for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. I mean, how miraculous is that? You once weren't.
Now you are. How'd that happen? Pretty heroic deed by our gracious God. You at one point didn't belong.
Now you belong? Just like that. By faith in his son, you've received him and you've become children. of God, John 1. 12.
Peter evidently thinks it's a good idea for us to remember who we once were. Word that evidently deepens our resolve to be advertisements of his glory. Do you remember your life? Before Christ He wants you to think about it. Don't get buried by it.
But he wants you to remember it.
So that you can echo the motto of the Reformation. And I can remember. I was in darkness. And now I'm in the light. For God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness.
Is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4.6. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light. In the Lord, Ephesians 5:8. And so we're giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Colossians 1:12. I mean, we can't even imagine how much light is going to have to do with our future. Father's house? Brilliant light, the glory of God, our own bodies and garments, shining ones we will be. We're living advertisements to the heroic deeds.
Of the gospel through Christ. Secondly, Peter not only reminds us that God has miraculously included us, he wants to remind us that God has miraculously pardoned us. Notice the latter part of verse 10. You had not received mercy. But now you've received mercy.
Okay. Just like that. How often can we take that for granted? Do you remember? You were under judgment.
Your verdict hopeless? But then God called you out of hopelessness. and into his mercy. Mercy is that which rescues us from everything we deserve We are a living advertisement campaign to our world that we have been. Ben pardoned.
From our crimes. Maybe you've seen on the news These recent days, we've watched the outgoing president of the United States end his tenure. with the tradition That that I like. I really do. Whether you agree with everybody that he pardons or not, you can go online, you can see their names.
You can scroll through it and their crimes, the time they've served, and now what they're getting out of it. I like the principle. Of this. And so on the last day of his presidency, he pardoned 78 people. They had no other way to get out.
But the President pardoned them. The Apostle Peter wants us to remember that the King of heaven has included us by grace. He has pardoned us all. He has the right to do that. He has the office by which he can perform that.
And aren't you glad? Here is the verdict against you. Here are the crimes you've committed. And because of his death for you and your life in him, he says, you get out of jail. And that one is forever.
Pardoned. By his mercy. British commentator wrote here at this text, I'm enjoying reading, he's still living, how a widow once appealed to Napoleon for mercy for her son, who had committed some crimes against. That empire and against Napoleon and It was a personal case of Napoleon's, and he stubbornly refused. He told this woman, he responded to her, Your son does not deserve mercy.
And she responded wisely, if. He deserved it. It would not be mercy. And mercy is all I ask. And he pardoned their son.
And our Lord? What heroic grace. And mercy. An old Puritan prayer put to music not too long ago. Says, mighty yet merciful, how could it be?
The high king of heaven extends grace to me. My sins, they were many. And I'm not done setting, by the way. My merits Or none. And I still don't have any.
How about you? But you are the mighty. Get merciful. One, justice And power are held in your hand, but you stoop to shoulder the shame of man. This holy mystery is hard to believe.
Forgiveness shown by royalty, mighty. yet merciful. How could it be? The high king of heaven Extends grace. To me.
My sins were many. My merits We're done. You Are the mighty yet? Merciful. What?
That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline. org.
