November 3, 2019
Psalm 32
I’ve Got You Covered
Pastor Bryan Watson
Good morning.
Before we begin our sermon time, let’s start with a word of prayer.
For our sermon today, we’re going to work through Psalm 32. It’s a short Psalm, only 11 verses, but I think you will find that it is packed full of deep and rich theology. Let’s begin by reading through this Psalm together:
1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord "- and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
6 Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to You while You may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.
7 You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord 's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him.
11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!
Before we work through the text, I think it’s important that we understand the context of this Psalm. When I was a new Christian, I would come across the Psalms, and I would kind of look at each Psalm as its own separate entity, unrelated to any other scripture. Some of the Psalms were encouraging. Some were confusing and left me scratching my head wondering, “What was THAT all about?” But the fact is that every one of the Psalms was written by a specific person at a specific time in a specific circumstance, and yet ALL were inspired by God. We will understand scripture as a whole better if we can understand the context of each individual Psalm. Psalm 32 is no different.
First of all, we need to understand that Psalm 32 was written by David. It is called a penitential psalm, which means that in the Psalm, God is disciplining somebody and bringing them to a point of repentance.
Psalm 32 is actually a follow-up to Psalm 51, which, in turn, is based on 2 Samuel 11 & 12. So if you are reading through the Psalms from 1 to 150, you will read Psalm 32 before you read Psalm 51, but in real life, David wrote Psalm 51 BEFORE he wrote Psalm 32. So, to get the context of Psalm 32, let’s take a real quick look at Psalm 51 and 2 Samuel 11 & 12.
Psalm 51 was also written by David after he was confronted about his sin concerning Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah. These events happened in the book of 2 Samuel, Chapters 11 and 12. As you may recall, one day when David’s army was out at war, and David was supposed to be with them, he stayed home. I guess he called in “slick”. That’s when you call in sick, but you’re really not. It’s a “slick” day. David ventures out on his roof for a breath of fresh air, and looks down from the palace, and sees Bathsheba taking a bath on HER roof. David finds this “interesting”, and despite the fact that he is already married to several women, and Bathsheba herself is married to one of David’s most loyal soldiers, Uriah, David commits adultery with her, and she gets pregnant.
David tries to hide his adultery by making it look like the baby is Uriah’s, but ultimately that doesn’t work, so David has Uriah killed. That way, David can marry Bathsheba, and the general population isn’t any the wiser. In fact, David is probably looking pretty good in the eyes of his subjects. “Look at this great man. He marries the widow of his loyal soldier and adopts his orphaned son. What a guy!” David thinks he got away with it, but there is Somebody Who knows what is going on. Who do you think that is? God! And God is NOT happy.
God tells the prophet Nathan to go and confront David, at which time David repents and seeks God’s forgiveness. He writes Psalm 51, where we hear these well-known words: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your free Spirit.” (Psalm 51:10-12)
This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching psalm of sincere repentance and mercy. David goes on to say, “Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, so that sinners will turn back to You.” (Psalm 51:13)
That is where Psalm 32 comes into the picture. From everything I can tell, David wrote Psalm 32 in a fulfillment of his promise to God to teach sinners about the truth of their sin and the salvation of God.
So, just to recap, Psalm 32 is based on Psalm 51, which in turn is based on 2 Samuel 11 & 12.
So, now that we understand the context, let’s dig into the text.
1. First, In verses 1 and 2, David begins teaching about the Lord’s ways immediately, by recognizing the God’s mercy. He says, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.”
Yes, David knows the joy of having his sins covered by the only One who can truly cover them so that they will NEVER be uncovered again. It is a relief beyond measure to David to have his sin debt cancelled by God, as the Lord no longer counts it against him. David recognizes the weight that is lifted when a person is not holding onto any deceit. Proverbs 26:24 says, “Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart;” The Bible links deceit with hate, and that is a terrible burden to bear.
2. Next, in verses 3 and 4, David recognizes sin’s poisonous effect as he describes his own wretched condition when he was trying to hide his sin. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long,” he says. “For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”
David tried to cover up his sin just like Adam and Eve tried to cover up their sin. But you can’t cover up anything and expect to keep it hidden from God! The Bible says in Isaiah 29:15, “Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord , who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know?’” God knows.
It reminds me of a joke I heard about a pastor who woke up one exceptionally beautiful and sunny Sunday and decided he just had to play golf. So he told the associate pastor that he was feeling sick and convinced him to lead the service for him. Then he headed out of town to a golf course about 40 miles away.
This way he knew he wouldn’t accidentally meet anyone he knew from his congregation. As he was setting up on the first tee, St. Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from Heaven and exclaimed, “You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?”
The Lord sighed and said, “No, I’m not.”
Just then the pastor hit the ball. It shot straight toward the pin, dropped just short of it, and rolled up and fell into the hole. IT WAS A 420 YARD HOLE IN ONE! St. Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, “Why did you let him do that?!”
The Lord smiled and replied, “Who’s he going to tell?”
As Charles Spurgeon said, “God does not permit His children to sin successfully.”
We laugh at the joke, but David certainly didn’t think his condition was very funny. His hidden sin was eating away at him until he was almost physically disabled. He was in pain. He was physically weak. He felt like his bones were rotting on the inside. Listen, God is not going to let His children sin successfully! It’s going to eat away at us, even if we try to pretend it won’t.
Now, I’m not saying that every physical ailment is the result of God punishing us. But I AM saying that if we ARE intentionally hiding some secret sin, we will NEVER be able to hide it from the One who really matters. So we may as well just deal with it because it is going to eat away at us.
3. Next, in verse 5, David recognizes confession as the antidote to his condition. Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord "- and You forgave the guilt of my sin.
When God sent Nathan to confront David about his sin, to his credit, David listened. He didn’t get mad and have Nathan executed. He didn’t make any excuses for his sin. He didn’t try to justify it, or blame Bathsheba for it. He just confessed. The Bible says in 2 Samuel 12:13, “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’” Upon David’s earnest confession, God forgave David and put away his sin.
It was probably a relief to David that he had been confronted, because all this hidden sin did was fester like a boil. That may be why God took so long to confront David. We know that it was approximately a year after David’s adultery with Bathsheba when God finally sent Nathan to confront David. We know this, because the child they had conceived was already born when Nathan spoke with David. David was good and ready to have this burden lifted from him. He was ready to put away his pride. With sin eating away at him that long, it’s likely that he even stopped praying, because his guilt was overwhelming.
4. David continues with his teaching by recognizing God’s protection in verses 6 and 7. Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to You while You may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
No longer did David try to hide his sin. Instead, he himself was now hidden in the Lord. Hidden from the disaster that awaits those upon whom God’s judgment falls. Hidden from being overtaken by circumstances. David didn’t say “if” the waters would rise, but “when” the waters would rise, they would not reach him. By returning to God, David knew that God would protect him from trouble, that when the waters rise, as they will, that God would shield him and protect him. David still had to bear the consequences of his sin. His family went through turmoil:
There was incest and rape between siblings. David’s son Amnon deceived and then raped his own half-sister, David’s daughter, Tamar.
David’s son Absalom, who was Tamar’s full brother, murdered Amnon in an act of vengeance for his sister.
Later on, Absalom was killed in an attempted coup against David.
Another of David’s sons, Adonijah, attempted to steal the throne near the end of David’s life, and David’s son Solomon eventually had Adonijah executed.
The law of sowing and reaping still applied to David. Sometimes we think that just because we turn to God for forgiveness that we should be exempt from the consequences of our actions. That is not what God promised. But, God DID promise forgiveness and deliverance and restoration of our spirits, and He DID promise to sustain us and strengthen us when we do go through stuff, whether it’s a consequence of our actions, or just the reality of living in a fallen and cursed world.
What a beautiful thing it is to be surrounded with God’s song of deliverance. Show me a power that can cut through that! When God’s song of deliverance surrounds us, not even the devil can touch us, because we are hidden in the Lord!
But, did you catch the warning in David’s statement? This is so important, and if I don’t stress this today, then I am failing you as a pastor. David said that we are to pray to God WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND. This implies that there is going to come a moment where it is too late to seek God. A moment where your fate is sealed. If you don’t seek God before the moment of your last heartbeat, then it will be too late in the moment after. And we see in the news every day, another group of people who didn’t realize that their last heartbeat was upon them. I’m not trying to be a fearmonger, but if I don’t tell you what the Bible says, then what are we here for??? Please don’t be fooled by some heretic that tells you that everybody goes to Heaven no matter what happens here on earth or what their spiritual state is when they die. That is not what the Bible says. The Bible says to seek Him WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND. We can’t say that we weren’t warned.
5. Moving on, I believe that in verses 8 and 9, David recognizes God’s response. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.
Simply put, when we place our hope and trust in Jesus Christ, one of the blessings we receive is the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, teaches us and counsels us. Now, that doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is going to make every little decision for us… like do we take the perogies or the cheesy potatoes at the potluck today? Common sense says you take BOTH… and skip the mincemeat!
But the truth is, the Holy Spirit WILL and DOES provide guidance when it comes to protecting us from sin. If we are being honest with ourselves as Christians, we often feel that nudging of “don’t do this” just before we do something questionable. We feel that nudging of “I need to call him or her.” “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go,” God says.
And He tells us to not be like an animal that needs to be controlled with a bit or a bridle. God loves us enough that He will put a bit in our mouths if that’s what it takes to get our attention. Personally, I’d rather come of my own free will.
6. David concludes this Psalm in verses 10 and 11 by recognizing the blessing that comes from obeying God. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord 's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!
When we turn from our wicked ways and return to God, God’s love surrounds us, and His love is unfailing. We have a reason to sing and be joyful, whatever our circumstances, because His love will sustain us.
In a congregation this size, I know full well that there is at least one person who is going through this right now. You are feeling all wasted inside, right to your very bones, and you know it’s not a medical problem. You know it’s a sin problem and you’ve been trying to hide it, and you can’t. Like David, you are good and ready to have this burden lifted from you. You can’t cover it. But God can. Seek Him while He may be found!
I’m not here to judge you. But I am here to help you dig up the sin that is causing you to feel like you are rotting on the inside, and I want to help you carry that to the Cross. Let Jesus cover that mess with His blood. Let His forgiveness wash over you, and let His love surround you. No more rot. Sin’s time is done. It’s over. This is YOUR time to be forgiven. Now come and receive it! If you would like to talk about this further, come and see me after the service. I would love to talk with you and pray with you and we can seek the Lord together.
Amen. Let’s pray.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 17, 2019
Ephesians 2:4-9
Cheque, Please!
Pastor Bryan Watson
As we move into our sermon time, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Most merciful God, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Help Your people to receive Your message with open ears and open hearts. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
Our text for today is from Ephesians 2:4-9. I’m going to read it fairly slowly so that we can absorb what we are reading. Think carefully about each statement, and we’ll unpack it as we go through the sermon.
4 But because of His great love for us, God, Who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
One of the ongoing topics of discussion among Christians and non-Christians alike is the concept of grace. Are we going to Heaven because we are good, or are we good because we are going to Heaven? We struggle with this, I think, because as a society we deal with the practicality of the economic cycle. In order to obtain goods and services, you must pay for them. In order to earn wages to pay for goods and services, you must work to produce goods or services that other people pay for. The idea of something for nothing doesn’t work for the masses over the long term. And so our minds are conditioned that the Heavenly economy must work the same way.
And, in a way, it does. Through the sin of Adam, right down to our own rebelliousness and disobedient behavior, we have created a debt. A sin-debt. And God, in His perfection, requires the debt to be paid. But He looked at our situation and understood that we are unable to pay the debt, because the debt requires perfection. Not just in our physical behavior, but in our hearts; our motives. I can’t do this. You can’t either. And if you just thought to yourself that you can reach perfection, then you just lied to yourself and proved my point. The debt still needs to be paid, and we can’t do it ourselves.
Enter Jesus. Being fully man, Jesus has the legal authority to pay man’s debt. Man’s sin-debt had to be paid by a man. But no mortal man is perfect and therefore no mortal man can pay the debt. Because He was God’s Son, Jesus is also fully God. Therefore, He alone was perfect, in His thoughts, words, and deeds. He was without sin. Therefore, He was the only one who could pay our debt.
And so, while the economics of “something for nothing” doesn’t work, the idea of philanthropy DOES work. Philanthropy is a big word that really means, “generous giving.” For example, our congregation paid for a new transmitter for The Rock radio station. That’s philanthropy.
Going back to our sin situation, we can’t pay for ourselves, but the debt still needs to be paid, so Christ did it. It was a gift to us, but it wasn’t something for nothing. It cost Christ His life, and His blood. It cost Him agonizing hours of betrayal and torture. It cost the Father His Son. And They did it for us.
Not Cheap Grace
But we need to be careful that we aren’t abusing this gift as “cheap grace,” which Dietrich Bonhoeffer discussed so passionately in his book, The Cost Of Discipleship. My two-sentence description here doesn’t do it justice, but essentially, it is this: Cheap grace means accepting the payment for my sin debt without being changed in my heart, and without that change reflecting itself in my conduct. It means that I just keep on living like I was before I was a Christian, because, “Hey, God’s just going to forgive me anyway.”
I heard a comedian once, in his attempt to mock Christianity, actually hit the nail on the head with his description of cheap grace. In his routine, he told the story of a little Christian boy who was jealous of another boy because of his new bicycle. He knew that being jealous was wrong, and he knew that stealing the bicycle would be wrong, but finally he came to a conclusion that would bring him peace. “I’ll just steal the bicycle,” he thought to himself, “and then tomorrow I will pray for forgiveness and everything will be OK.”
Cheap grace says that we can keep doing what we’re doing, because we’re going to be forgiven anyway. Bonhoeffer says, “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ…”
Costly Grace
Costly Grace, on he other hand, “is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and it is grace because it justifies the sinner. It is costly because it cost God the life of His Son. It is grace because God did not reckon His Son too high a price to pay for our life.” – Bonhoeffer
As the Bible says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
We believe in Jesus, and He saves us, and in response, we die to ourselves and follow Him. Our acts of righteousness can’t save us, as if anything needs to be added to what Christ did on the cross. But our acts of righteousness, our response as believers, is to follow Him, and the evidence of that is in our obedience to Him. John 14:15 says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This is a RESPONSE to Christ’s redemptive act, not the CAUSE of it.
And despite our best efforts to live for Him in response to His love, we are still going to fail. And He knew that. And He provided for that. The Bible says in 1 John 2:1-2 – “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Propitiation: the work of Jesus Christ on the cross by which He satisfied God’s holiness (or wrath) so God could extend mercy to lost sinners.
In other words, the sin debt needed to be paid in full, and Jesus was the one who satisfied it.
Simply put, we wouldn’t need an advocate if it was possible for us to be good enough. We could just be good enough!
Let me illustrate with a story. Imagine going for dinner with Jesus. You can have the most wonderful conversation with Jesus, discussing many things. You realize how much you enjoy being in His company. In fact, Jesus invites you over to His place after dinner to relax and enjoy some fellowship. At the end of the dinner, the waiter brings the cheque, and says, “Is this all together, or separate?”
You want to impress Jesus, and show Him how important He is to you, so you tell the waiter, “It’s all together, I’ve got it.” Jesus smiles at you and gently puts His hand on yours, preventing you from picking up the tab. “Actually,” He says, “unless I pay for dinner, you can’t come over to my place later.”
“Then at least let’s go Dutch,” you say. “I should at least pay for my dinner.” “You don’t’ understand,” says Jesus. “Your money is no good here. You cannot pay for this meal, because all that you have in your wallet is counterfeit. It is only My money that will work here. I am the only one who can pay for the meal.”
At that point, you have a decision to make. You can either allow Jesus to pay, and then you can both go back to His place and enjoy dessert and fellowship, or you can insist that You will pay for yourself, in which case you will be arrested, and will probably be forced to do the dishes, in Hell’s kitchen, forever, where you will be punished and tormented.
This whole idea that we can’t save ourselves is supported by today’s text.
Verse 4
In verse 4, we read that God’s grace and mercy is BECAUSE of His great love for us. That means it’s not because of anything we do. It’s all about His love. In fact, 1 John 4:8 tells us that “God is love.” His grace and mercy toward us are merely extensions of His own personality.
Mercy is “not giving us what we do deserve.” Eternal death and punishment. Hell.
Grace is “giving us what we don’t deserve.” Forgiveness. Life. Hope.
In fact, God is rich in both mercy and grace. Verse 4 tells us that God is rich in mercy. Verse 7 tells us that He is rich in grace. This is heartily summed up in Romans 5:8 – “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He didn’t die for you and me because we were worth dying for. He died for us because He loved us.
If our works could possibly be enough, then Christ died for nothing. It wasn’t necessary.
Verse 5
Verse 5 says that He made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. We were dead in our sins. Dead people can’t do anything. Except be dead. In order to be made alive again, somebody has to do that for us.
What blind man has ever given himself sight? What paralytic has ever made himself walk? These were all acts of mercy.
What sinner has ever saved himself? None.
John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
To borrow a quote from R.A. Torrey, “The judge may love us and want to help us all He can, but He has to obey the law. The only solution is that someone qualified can come in, obey the Law, fulfill the righteous requirements of the Law, and set us free.”
Verse 6
Verse 6 tells us that God has raised us up out of our sins and seated us with Christ in the heavenly realms.
We are like Lazarus in John 12:1-2 in that we were dead, but were raised to life by Him so that we can enjoy sweet fellowship with Him. – “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for Him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with Him at table.” Lazarus didn’t raise himself up and seat himself with Christ. Nor will we raise ourselves up. Jesus has to do that for us.
And because of what He did for us, “Our physical position may be on earth, but our spiritual position is ‘in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’” according to Warren Wiersbe.
Verse 7
In verse 7, we see the reason for God’s grace and mercy being poured out upon us. It is “in order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:7) God wants future generations to know about his love and mercy, and so He pours it out upon us as a message to future generations. It is for His honor and glory.
Verses 8-9
In verses 8 and 9, Paul reminds us again that it is by grace we have been saved, through faith. It is nothing that we have done. It is not by works. Isaiah 64:6 says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
Like Peter walking on the water in Matthew 14, he was only able to do this as long as he put his faith in Christ and kept his eyes upon the Lord. When he started thinking that he had to do it on his own, he realized that the wind and the waves were too much for him, and he started to sink. But Christ reached down and pulled Peter up. If it wasn’t for Christ’s act of mercy, Peter would have slipped beneath the surface into the shadowy depths.
Conclusion
The heart of the matter is simply this: “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). We didn’t initiate it, He did. After all, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) It was God who reached out to us first.
Don’t get sucked into the trap of thinking that we have to somehow be “good enough.” We can’t be good enough. We will never be good enough. “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)
Maybe you’re sitting here today, and you’re thinking that God is out of reach because you can’t do enough to please Him. Maybe you are feeling that your best is never good enough, or you will never score enough points, or that every time you get a little bit of momentum going in your personal life, somehow you mess it up, and you have to start all the way back at square 1.
Can I give you a bit of encouragement? I just want to close by reading a parable that Jesus told from Luke 18:10-14.
10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.
12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Do you see yourself in either of those men? Do you see yourself in the Pharisee who incorrectly thinks that His good works have secured his position in Heaven? Do you see you yourself in the tax collector who recognizes that his good can never be good enough, and He falls on the mercy of His Saviour?
If either of these is true of you, can I invite you to come and speak with myself or Pastor Dennis or Pastor Nate after the service? We would love to pray with you and speak with you about how you can experience God’s grace, and allow Him to look at the waiter and say, “Cheque, please.”
Amen, Let’s pray.
Father, how grateful we are that You have made a way for us to have our debt paid, when we are unable to pay it ourselves. Please help us to understand that we can never be good enough on our own, but that we need Your grace. Help us to pursue righteousness, not because we think we can earn our way into Heaven, but because we are grateful to You for making Heaven possible for us in the first place. Remove from us the agony of pursuing something we can never achieve, and instead fill us with the inexpressible joy of a people whose debt is paid, and whose sin is forgiven. In the name of Christ our Saviour and Redeemer we pray, Amen.