Message - Righteousness

Hello, his hands.

It is great to be back with you.

I'll admit that when Justin contacted me earlier in the week and said he wanted me to uh see if I could get free to fill in on Sunday, and I said I'd be happy to.

But he texted me verses that I knew Madison had just preached on last Sunday.

How did I know that?

Because we listened to the message too.

And it was such a good message.

If you didn't hear it on Romans chapter 5, then I invite you to get on the app or get online and listen to it.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Very powerful.

I admitted to Madison this morning when I was with him that I took notes, and I don't normally do that on most preachers nowadays.

But um, solid stuff.

And so when Justin asked me to preach on a particular verse in chapter five, I text him back and said, Yeah, but we're already moving on to chapter six.

And he eventually texts back and said, No, I I've got a specific verse I want you to look at.

We'll look at it in just a moment.

I said, You want me to go over the same section again?

And I thought he had lost himself.

So I want to tell you a quick story.

I was uh it was over 20 years ago.

I it was my first international mission trip as a preacher, and I was in the the remote jungle of Rwanda.

Uh our guide was taking us in this small land cruiser uh across the dirt path through all this jungle.

We passed the grass huts of the people where they live.

We got to this stone wall kind of building thing, no roof, and that was the church.

And uh there were hundreds and hundreds of people gathered there already singing and praising.

And I had been assigned by the host bishop a particular verse in scripture, so I preached on that as best as I could, and that many-hour service ended.

On the way back, I turned to him and said, What do you want me to preach on here back here in two days?

Because I knew I'd be returning.

He said, Oh, Fred, the same verse.

My first thought was, You can do that?

There's something more to say about the Bible than one message?

I'd never done that in my life.

And then, much to my surprise, he asked me to preach on the same verse the third time.

I wondered if he thought I hadn't covered enough.

But what I found was that each time that we go deeper and deeper in the word, we get those pearls of great price.

So I wouldn't presume at all to correct anything that Madison said.

His he saw the word so deeply last week about how when we're in that early stage of our fallen nature, we're always trying to cope with life.

But there's so much more when we trust the Lord, isn't there?

There's so much more.

So I I want us to be looking at this specific verse in just a moment, but I want to share with you that there's something else that that we have in common.

Jill and I have in common with Madison and his wife, and and uh because he mentioned, if you remember last week, that uh their firstborn son just had his first birthday.

Do you remember we all clapped over that?

Uh and my, our firstborn son just had his birthday this week.

Except he just turned 40.

So Jill and I are in that crisis of having a 40-year-old child, which doesn't make any sense for us at all.

If you haven't gotten to that point yet, you you you know what I mean.

Um so I'm bringing a vastly different perspective to these verses than Madison, because I've been try trying to figure out how to keep on coping and yet moving into the new life of trusting the Lord for many decades now.

And so what I want to share with you is the challenge that Justin gave to me, and that is to go deeply into Romans chapter 5, verse 17.

Romans 5:17

So that'll come up on the screen now.

And uh I if you have your scripture with you, I invite you to look at it.

For if because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

There's a whole lot there, my brothers and sisters.

And if if we can consider this verse for a few moments today, I want to invite you to consider the whole rest of the New Testament.

We'll just open up in a deeper and more profound way for you.

To illustrate what I'm talking about, uh, I brought along some a painting.

And it's a it's a very attractive, I think, painting of a of an eagle looking after her baby.

And uh, isn't that kind of a precious little thing?

And when you look at it, it's it certainly shows a mother protecting her child, but if you just look at it slightly different, if you just flip it, it's an entirely different perspective.

And and so much in life is like that.

If we're just looking at life in a particular way and trying to figure it out and make sense of it, well, good luck.

But if you flip it through the eyes of faith, then everything begins to become clearer.

Now listen to, again, back to this verse, listen to what Paul teaches us.

Because of one man's trespass, that is Adam, death reigned in that one man, and death reigns that therefore in us.

That is, before we come to Christ, we are the walking dead.

Now, you you may be sitting here and never heard that before, and and you want to argue with me.

I'm just saying that's what the Word of God continually tells us.

That we have the grave clothes all on us before we meet Christ.

It's why Jeremiah can say that God's going to make a new covenant with us, chapter 31.

That Ezekiel in chapter 36 says that we're going to get a new spirit.

That in Romans 12, Paul says we have to be have to be renewed by our minds.

And throughout Scripture, it's receiving the Lord into our hearts.

It's why he can tell Nicodemus in in John chapter 3 that he has to be born again.

John 3 · chapter mention

There's this new birth that we have to experience, otherwise, the only thing we deserve is death.

And anything else we convince ourselves we deserve is a lie.

Now, I I will uh trust that that probably isn't as comforting as you wish it were this morning.

But anything, anytime we try to convince ourselves we deserve a new car, we deserve something, we deserve some clothes, we deserve uh a burger, whatever, that doesn't fall into the eternal language of Scripture.

Our fallen DNA is that we deserve death and we are the walking dead.

However, because of the glorious love that our Lord has for us, he didn't leave us in that condition, did he?

And so we gather in the name of Jesus today to celebrate that his son came for us and birthed in us something else.

A whole new creation, a whole new way of living life and being about the business that he is in, and that is life.

That we then reign in life.

Whoa! That we no longer have to deal with all the consequences of death and the brokenness and the pain and the hopelessness and the confusion of life, because there's something more.

God is always doing something new because he gives us the privilege of reigning with him in life.

Now, if if the language of reigning feels a bit awkward for us as Americans, let me give you another example.

Because it's the business of receiving authority to rule.

Most of you don't know that just a few weeks ago I picked up a new job.

I am now the assistant track coach for the middle school at King's Academy.

Now, after you say, Fred, how did you possibly do that?

Let me just mention that when you have two granddaughters who go to that school and they call you and say, Papa, will you be our track coach?

What do you say?

So I'm now the assistant track coach at King's Academy.

So after I did went through the athletic director and the coach and all the rest, I they asked me to show up at the practice right away, and I understood exactly why they wanted assistance.

Last year, they the middle school track team was seven strong.

This year's fish 29 children.

And so you can imagine the greeting I got from Coach Brown when I reported to her and told her that I was her assistant for the season.

And what I told her right off the bat was, Coach, I don't want your job, but I'll do anything you tell me to do.

And she said, Super.

Can you get the kids warmed up?

And I said, Absolutely.

And over the last few weeks, I've I've taught them how to pass the baton, how to start with starting blocks, how to draft behind a runner in front of them until they pass around the final curve.

All the things that attract runner and field exercises now with hurdles and the rest of it, all they have to learn.

All of that authority is given to me by the coach.

I'm only her assistant.

Now there's certain things that I don't do.

I don't decide what children run in races.

I don't decide who is in what relay passing the baton to which child.

That's all done by the senior coach.

I don't even do any of the paperwork, thanks be to God.

But I tell you what, when I got to the first meet last Saturday and reported to the field and had my t-shirt on that I was the track coach for King's Academy, I was escorted down into the field where all the action was.

You know, I didn't sit up in the stands as a pop-up or join the parents who were there.

No, I had authority to go right on the field because I had been given that authority from above.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

It's just like teaching your kids how to drive.

And sure, you might let them drive your lawnmower, or you might on a weak moment give a 14 or 15-year-old a chance for the keys if you're in a big parking lot or a big field.

But you see, once you authorize them to get a learner's permit, there's another level of authority.

They can't do whatever they want, but they're still still, they're having significant power to reign.

When they get that license, of course, they think they can do anything and go anywhere they want.

And then there's a new set of boundaries that have to be given to them, not only by law, but by parents.

Does that make sense?

You see, at each level we reign and have authority, that is proper permission, to exercise a particular way of influence, a way of authority.

What verse 15 of chapter 5 tells us is that when we have surrendered to Christ, when we have confessed, as Madison taught us last week, when we have confessed to Christ, and the act of that is baptism, we begin a new way of living, no longer reigning in death.

We're now reigning in the abundance of life that Jesus gives us.

What does that look like?

Well, I've wrestled with that for about 40 years of ordained ministry, and I want to go through a long list for you.

You see, I'm a guy who likes uh anachronyms.

I really do.

I love anachronyms to help me to understand the basics of life.

For example, joy.

Jesus offers you.

J-O-Y.

Jesus offers you joy.

Do you get it?

Got it.

Good.

Uh hope.

Hold on to the promise of Emmanuel.

That's how we find our hope.

Hold on to the promise of a man.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

I learned the one on grace from a teenager when I was first a youth pastor.

Because I asked the kids as we gathered there on that Sunday night, I said, hey guys, what do you think grace is?

And one of the teenagers said, It's God's riches at Christ's expense.

And I went, Well, that's a keeper.

I thought I was here to teach them.

You know how it goes, don't you?

God's riches at Christ's expense.

What we're told in verse 50 in verse 17 of chapter 5, because of one man's trespass, death reign through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace reign in life.

So how do we begin living this new life that God has for us?

We begin depending on the authority of the grace that's given to us.

We begin realizing that everything in life, even the challenges and the struggles, are part of God's riches for us because He's in the midst of redeeming everything.

Does that make sense?

You're not responding.

You still there?

Okay.

See, grace is that gift that we have so we can experience the life that is Christ.

And so we can begin looking at life not through the perspective of what can I collect, what can I own, what do I need to worry about?

But I'm an instrument of grace.

But going further, he says there's something else that we receive to have this authority for life.

And he said it's the free gift of righteousness.

Righteousness.

I gotta tell you, I've heard a lot of my friends preaching on grace.

I don't think I've ever heard a heard a message on righteousness.

Uh but you won't be able to say that after today.

Because that's what Justin wants me to invite us to consider.

So I've made an anacronym, righteousness.

And I want to invite you to cons to celebrate with me all of the gifts the Lord gives us so we can reign in life.

The R, I I have come to realize that that the Lord gives us permission, his authority, to be real.

We don't have to play the game of life anymore.

We don't have to try and impress anybody.

We don't have to pretend that we're somebody that we're not.

In fact, I don't even have to impress you.

I don't have to be clever, I don't have to be wise, I don't have to be smart, I can just be real.

You understand how freeing that is, don't you?

Uh Jill and I were out to dinner with good friends last night, and uh this business executive was sharing how something had gone wrong with his um with his group at work.

He gathered everybody together and he started the meeting by apologizing to them.

He took full credit for the problem and he said, This will never happen again.

I promise you.

Since then, his his team has just accomplished um records in how they're working together, how they're enjoying the company, and how they're they're they're just doing their work well.

And what we all talked about over that dinner was because he was real.

We don't have to be perfect, we don't have to know all the answers.

We don't have to have figured it out.

If you watch news for TV for more than two minutes, you know you're never gonna figure it out.

We might as well just recognize that we can be real in Jesus.

If we're hurting, we can admit it.

Make sense?

You know, I wish I had my all of life together and I wish I figured it all out, but I gave that up a long time ago.

I'd much rather be real.

So when my dear friend, father of my daughter-in-law, called me this week and said, Fred, I need you to pray over me.

I'm not gonna make it through the night.

I began to weep with him.

Life's hard sometimes.

You don't want to say goodbye to a dear friend of over 20 years.

But you gotta be real, don't you?

Christians are not called to play the game of the world that everything's fine.

No, it's not.

There's times that life really sucks.

Can I say that here?

Okay.

But but okay, but let's move on.

It doesn't stay there, does it?

Because the Lord is always redeeming, he's always making us new.

That's his great job.

And that's one of the things he doesn't give away to us.

He doesn't give us the permission to make everything new because what we would do is we go, you're all set.

No pain, everything's fine.

So, no, just be real.

Just be real.

That's what we really need.

People won't play the game anymore about life.

Uh, the the eye of righteousness, uh, I I've really found that that I really admire people who live lives of integrity.

Don't you?

That what they claim they believe on the outside is what they're living on the inside?

And that I can't be long to Christ on the outside if I'm not spending time with him on the inside.

If you haven't got an act of prayer life, if you're not committed to the Word of God, you're still living in the old nature.

You're not realizing the life that the Lord wants to pour into you so you can pour into others.

It's to be a person of integrity.

It's being a person of generosity.

Don't you just love being able to give to something?

Oh, I'm talking way beyond the tithe of your uh of to his hands, which I hope you're all doing.

That's the minimum standard biblically.

I'm talking about all the other giving that we get a chance to give to because we're so blessed as a people.

And if you're not sure about that, come away with me on a mission trip and see how many of the world live.

And I know because of my contact with in a lot of places in the in the world, I know we have people who are hungry in America, but there's a whole nother standard when you're in East Africa or India or Pakistan.

Because there people are starving to death because COVID has prevented food from getting into the villages.

And so we have the privilege of being generous.

My son is our financial advisor, and I contacted him a couple months ago and said, Son, I uh I want to draw a little more out of our limited retirement fund.

Can we do that?

And he said, Well, yeah, Dad, we can probably figure out something.

Why?

And I said, Well, it just your mom and I would like to have a little bit more money each month.

And he said, Yeah, we can probably figure that out, Dad, but I know you're just gonna give it away.

And I replied, and there's something wrong with that.

No, I'm not talking about being irresponsible.

But I am saying that one of the ways we reign in life, one of the ways we reign in righteousness is that we are a generous people.

That we want to give away our time, we want to give away our resources, we want to bless others because we've been blessed by the king.

Does that make sense?

That's how we rule.

We rule in generosity.

We say, Yes, I can help there, yes, I can help here.

I wish I could help here, but I'll pray that you get blessed.

Did you see how exciting it is to reign in life?

Who wants to reign in death?

Who wants to still have those grave clothes?

Remember when Jesus brought Lazarus from the grave?

First thing he said is, untie him, let him go.

He doesn't need those grave clothes, and neither do we.

We can be real, we can be people of integrity, and we can be people of generosity.

Why?

Because the Lord is generous to us.

But of course, it doesn't stop there.

There is the invitation to humility.

That classic quote, I forgot who first said it, but there's no limit to what can be accomplished if people don't need to get credit for it.

You've heard that one, haven't you?

To just not worry about who gets credit.

To just do what's right because you know it's right.

Just be available and see how God brings life into that situation.

And what I find it, it it doesn't mean you have to have all the answers.

It just means you're available.

You're just available.

I had one of the middle schooler um kids uh on Friday complaining to me that he didn't want to run the hurdles.

And I said, you know, I don't blame you, I didn't want to run them in high school either.

And he looked at me, certain I would take him off the team, and I don't have that authority to do that.

Uh what I said instead was, so why don't you just do it because your team needs you to?

And he said, Oh, that.

Now he's all of fifth grade.

I've got a, you know.

I said, Can I tell you a little story?

He said, Sure, coach, what is it?

And I said, Well, I went to seminary for three years.

I finally got to the church, I was a youth pastor.

And you know what the first job I had to do was?

He said, No, coach, what was it?

I said, changing a toilet seat in the boys' room.

And he started laughing, and I said, I'm serious.

I knew how to do it, and I could fit in that little room.

I did it because there was a need to do it.

But I said, Do you know what happened after that?

He said, What, coach?

I said, All those teens wanted to be around me.

Because they knew I would do anything for them.

Would you?

Are you known as someone who was Do anything in the name of Christ because you don't need the credit.

And then, of course, we get to the truth component.

Do you realize how what a privilege it is to know that there's a right and wrong in life?

That truth is not all relative as our culture thinks it is now.

That there are right and wrong, the word of God is very clear.

And it's also very clear that truth is embodied in Jesus.

And that we can embody truth because he gives us that authority to reign in his righteousness.

And it involves truth.

Yes, speaking truth in love, as Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 4, it doesn't mean we stop loving people.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

It isn't that we use truth as a hammer to beat up people or trying to convince someone that Christ is real so we get upset and start arguing it with them.

That doesn't work.

Speaking through experience, that doesn't work.

But truth and love, whoa.

What a powerful combination.

What an authority to rule with truth.

That one day we're going to be home.

Our destination is clear in Christ.

Isn't that wonderful?

We wish we could determine the circumstances of how we get there.

That's not up to us.

We don't have that authority.

But we do have to, we have the authority of knowing the truth.

One day we're going home.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Okay, but there's more than truth.

I invite you to consider that one of the great gifts the Lord gives us in righteousness is that He's with us.

Emmanuel, God with us.

Do you know in the early church for centuries they argued over the nature of who Jesus was, literally fought battles, killed over this issue of who is Jesus?

And what they came to realize was the only reason the cross makes sense is when we grapple with and embrace the incarnation, that is the birth of Christ.

That God became man for us.

And that God, who was man, went to the cross for us.

And when he conquered death, he had life to give, and he gave it to us.

And what he said was, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

Now y'all go, and I'm with you always.

That isn't just a nice thing to say, it's a given reality.

You know, there's times on that on that field coaching those middle schoolers, now four days a week, and I'm really comforted knowing the senior coach is right over there.

You know, I really I can go that far and I say, uh, coach, what do you want me to do now?

It's the same with God.

I don't want to serve a God who's distant and far away and waiting for some results.

Do you?

I didn't hear you.

Did you have any?

I know what you got masks on, but did do you hear what I'm saying?

Isn't it just wonderful to know that God is with us?

He is really with us.

Jesus is here, and he's with us when we go, and he's even at the destination.

I don't know if I told you uh last year or whenever, but uh one of my teenagers in my first youth group, uh, she decided to take a year off after high school, not go to college, and she flew to Cyprus to be a missionary.

Pretty bold thing because she didn't speak the language.

But she felt called, she knew the Lord wanted her there.

So she got in that plane and she turned to me and she said, uh, when I saw her years later, and she said, You know, Fred, that was one of the scariest moments of my life.

I was flying away as an adult just out of high school without my parents, not knowing anybody on that island except who I was to report to.

I didn't even know the language.

And she said, Then it hit me.

God was with me.

He was with me on that plane and me waiting for me when I got there, and it would be enough.

It would be enough, Emmanuel.

God with us.

Is that how you face life?

You see, if you face life in that way, that you are living with the authority of life.

Pretty cool, huh?

But it goes further.

Um the privilege that we have to live for others.

That we don't have to live for ourselves.

Wow.

I wish I had learned that.

I wish I'd learned that in church when I was young.

I wish I'd learned that, that we get to live for others.

That we are blessed to be a blessing.

Everything we've received is only so we can bless others.

Does that make sense?

It's a wonderful way.

Moms, you know this living for your kids.

But recognize there's a time when those kids are gonna grow up and they're gonna leave, and some of them are gonna turn 40.

And that's a whole nother ballgame.

So you might as well just decide I'm gonna live for whoever the Lord puts in my life, kids now, grandkids later, people I work for, people I work with, people on the streets, people overseas, people who need help, people in the church.

I'll just live for others.

You know it's very freeing, and you sleep really well at night because you don't have to agonize over the things you can't control.

How what authority do you have to live in righteousness?

You have you have the authority of Christ to live for others as he lived for us and still does.

But it continues.

That we can be useful.

That we don't just sit back and look at everybody else doing it.

We can get our hands dirty, as we say.

We can get involved in teen ministry, we can get involved in uh in children's ministry, we can we can help out where there's a need, and we can actually do something.

We can pack food boxes for the needy in Cherokee, we can care for an orphan or a widow.

We can get clothes for those in need, we can help someone with a rent.

Jill and I were attending a memorial service just yesterday for one of our old friends, and and story after story after story of people who got up to the mic was this is what he did for me.

And there was no reason that he paid for that car bill.

There was no reason he taught the daughter how to drive a car.

It was no reason he except he sought to live and share life in Christ.

He was very useful.

But it goes on.

We we uh have the privilege of this authority in righteousness.

And it really is a gift to be a servant.

Jesus taught on that over and over and over again.

Don't you just love what sirens does in this church?

And how there's a need, trees go down, there's some disaster, and Warren and the team are off and running.

If you've never taken part in a sirens project and seen a disaster area and you've got your chainsaw in your hand, you're not living.

Just a great thing to do.

Love joining them.

But that's why I work at SERV.

SERF International.

Last year we did we got eight and a half million meals to the needy.

I I hope this year we get over 30 million meals to continue to do our part here in Cherokee County of feeding the world.

Because that's what we're here.

We're here to serve.

Now, by the way, if if you um if you can't remember 16 points from a sermon, that's all right.

I can't either.

That's why I write them down.

Um I thought I'd give a test when we're over.

If you can get more than five, you get to go to heaven early.

If you only get three, then you stay another 10 years.

No, not no.

What you can do is use the His Hands app, and it's already there.

Or you can pull out your phone when we finish and take a picture.

But I I do want to suggest to you, this isn't just things I've I've sought to share with you today because I'm trying to be creative.

This was my agony with God over 40 years of ministry, trying to figure out what does it mean to be an instrument of righteousness.

So these words are precious to me.

And I really believe if you risk letting them touch you, you will be amazed at your life.

The end, uh, that one was easy to be honest, uh, and that is that we have the chance to be noble.

I know that word isn't used much in our culture anymore because it gives the the hint of nobility, and that's the last thing we Americans ever want is that someone's better than somebody else.

But you see, the language of nobility, and that language noble means it's someone who's living a higher standard for others.

That you're always choosing the higher ground, that you don't use the street language because everybody else is.

You choose a better language, that you don't do what everybody else does because everybody else is doing it.

You always have a more noble character.

Does that make sense, guys?

I'll say that to the guys especially, because we have a lot of temptations to do things that are not healthy, are not good, and are not modeling for others.

We have a chance to be noble in Christ.

And after what Christ has taught us and done for us and gives us the least we can do is live a life of honor, don't you think?

To live a life of honor.

Yes, the the E to be an encourager, to just come along and pick somebody up.

I loved it when one of the middle school boys, I'm at the finish line when they usually finish their race.

He kind of collapsed over the race, and I caught him with one arm and he said, Coach, coach, coach, I can't breathe, I can't breathe.

All right, son, it's all right.

Walk with me, I'll hold you up, and let's go get some sweats on so you get warmer.

You're gonna be fine.

And I'm very proud of you.

You ran a great race.

But coach, I've never run this fast in my life.

That's right.

Your personal best.

Good job.

It doesn't take a lot to encourage people.

If you realize you're living for them and not for yourself, you're living for Christ, not for yourself.

You've been given authority to be an encourager like Barnabas was for the Apostle Paul.

To just be there and be available, to encourage people to pick someone up.

You see, the word encouragement in the Greek is an interesting one.

Uh it comes from the Greek word paraklatos.

It's what Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit.

If you are an encourager of others, you are working out the Holy Spirit in your life.

It's the authority God gives you in righteousness to do that, to encourage others.

If you discourage, it's from the pit.

It's the old nature, it's the darkness.

When you walk in a room, people should know there's somebody who encourages me.

And if it's not a smile because I can't see it with the mask, then it's a it's a it's a fist bump or it's a it's a hug on the side, or it's a, hey, by the way, I was praying for you.

See, now in retirement, Jill and I have more time for prayer, so we pray for a lot of people each day.

I love going up to someone saying, Boy, it's good to see you again today.

I go, Oh, Fred, we haven't seen each other.

And I said, Oh yeah, I saw you in prayer two hours ago.

How much taller that person will stand.

And because they know someone's behind scenes lift and run up.

Encourage somebody.

Encourage everybody.

It's the privilege we have of reigning in righteousness.

It's how we give away life.

There's a lot of essays.

I I chose uh scripture, because if you're not grounded in the word, you're gonna you're gonna this list is much too hard.

Uh daily getting into the word.

If you don't know what study to use, there's zillions of them online.

There's great ones online.

Just stay in the word.

If you don't know where to start, read Psalm 23 until you've memorized it, then read it another month or two.

Get grounded in the word so the Lord can feed you.

And then you're gonna begin to see life from his perspective and not your own.

You're gonna be seeing where where life is needed to be given, and you end up giving it away because that's the righteousness you've been given in Christ.

And yes, it's all for the savior, isn't it?

It's all for the savior.

Whether we're behind the scenes, whether we're writing a check, whether we're watching something on TV, whether we're talking to a friend, whether we're writing a note, it's all for the savior.

Isn't it?

Or are we just kind of going through motions here on Sunday?

I've used a few illustrations from track.

It's taught me in life.

I don't want to sit on the sidelines.

I want to be down on the field.

Don't you?

Don't you want to be able to have your family gather at your grave and say, Oh, what a woman of faith she was.

How she was such a blessing.

What a strong man of faith he was.

What an encourager for all of us.

And when you stand before the Lord and then quickly drop to your knees, don't you want to just say, Oh Lord, it was all for you?

So that he can say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Righteousness is not just a religious term, it's a way of life, it's a way of giving life because Christ has given life to us.

Shall we pray?

Let's pray.

Blessed and holy Father, we thank you that through your Son, our Savior Jesus, you have bestowed upon us grace and righteousness, that we do not reign in death any longer, but we reign in life.

Now, as we prepare for the celebration of baptism, may we know and remember our own baptism and the privilege we have of reigning in righteousness through Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen.

God bless you.