Dr. Kevin DeYoung | The Most Important Advantage

Sunday Morning, June 14, 2026

Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

The Most Important Advantage
Romans 3:1-2

YouTube Video

Download our mobile app

Transcript

As we come to Paul's letter to the Romans, let's pray for God's help. 

Give thou the hearing ear. Fix thou the wandering thought, that those we teach may hear the great things that thou hast wrought. Speak thou for us, O Lord, in all we say of thee. According to thy Word let all our teaching be, that so thy lambs may know their own true shepherd's voice, where e’er he leads them go, and in his love rejoice. Give us those ears to hear. I pray that by your Spirit you would give me the voice not of my own, but speaking through me the voice of our good shepherd and that we his dear lambs would hear his voice and be led into green pastures, to lie down beside still waters, to know his comfort – yea, even though we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, to know that you are with us. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

We come this morning to Romans chapter 3. Some of you have been reminding me of the math as we go along. This is our 16th sermon, so we've been averaging right at eight sermons at chapter. So, that's 108 sermons. But, yeah, chapter 8's a big one. Chapter 9's got a lot of things. Maybe we'll make up some ground in 15 and 16. But, I've been encouraged – at least the people, those of you who think we're going way too slow have been nice not to tell me that, and the ones who are happy for the pace have told me. So, trust that you're being fed as I'm being fed each week. This morning, just two verses. Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. 

“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.” 

We know that there's lots of difficult terrain in the book of Romans, and chapter 2 has already had its share of difficult passages and different interpretations. And you might think that then there would be something of a reprieve before we get to the end of chapter 3, and we have all of that dense, glorious theology of justification and the imputation of Christ's righteousness and justification by faith alone, and that's coming up at the end of chapter 3 into chapter 4. So, you might think that we have some easy going here in chapter 3, but we do not. In fact, these first eight verses many commentators think are the most difficult of Paul's logic to follow anywhere in the whole book of Romans. Now, thankfully, for this week at least, these first two verses of the eight are relatively easy to understand. But the whole sequence of argument from 1 to 8 is Paul dealing with a number of counterarguments to everything that he's been saying. Paul's been making the case that not just the Gentiles, but the Jews also, will be judged by God, and they will fall under the condemnation of God unless they have the righteousness of God that comes by faith, and it will not come by obedience of the law. It will not come by any ethnic or special religious privilege. Paul has made absolutely clear to these religious insiders that their Jewish heritage will not save them on the day of judgment. They cannot claim that they are better than other people. And so it is with us. We cannot stand before God and claim that we are his favorite people or that we have a special relationship to the law or we have a special mission to the nations or that we've heard sermons on the great commission or even that we gave of ourselves to be missionaries. You cannot depend on any religious ritual or symbol to save you. Circumcision by itself will do you no good. Now Paul did say earlier that yes, if you have circumcision and you keep the law, that's something. So, it's not that the Christian faith is devoid of symbols or rituals or traditions. The Lord Jesus gave us two signs and seals, two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper, and they're essential to the wellbeing of the church. But Paul is talking about what can you depend upon when you have to stand before God? 

And you can imagine how this unrelenting series of arguments might produce from his Jewish listeners a series of counterarguments. In fact, you imagine – remember, this is Paul writing in maybe the late 50s AD – he's had many years of evangelism in the synagogues, the gospel to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And in many places, he would go, and he would start there among the Jews until they kicked him out, or he would do evangelism in the synagogue. So, you imagine after many years Paul has had lots of people form a line after the service and say, “what about?” or he's had recent converts who have asked him these questions, or he's maybe had people who have tried to kill him who have brought up these very questions. If you add up the question marks in verses 1-8, there are nine of them, at least in ESV. We deal with a series of questions that Paul has in his mind, probably real questions that he's heard from Jews over the years. And in these first two verses, we have the first two questions. And these two questions are really asking one question. They are saying, "Well, Paul, if Israel is under judgment like everyone else, was there any point at all in being a Jew?” You see that there? What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? And to that question, you see Paul's answer, somewhat surprising, in verse 2. You might think, given everything in Paul's logic so far, that the answer to that question might be, “You're right! There's no advantage. You stand before God. It doesn't matter, Jew or Gentile.” It's all about faith, which is true in the sense of judgment, and yet he says, as far as their religious heritage, has there been any advantage? Absolutely! Much in every way. 

Paul's saying, “Good question. Actually, there's a ton of privileges that the Jews have had, a ton of advantages.” And then he does what no English teacher would want you to do in your essay. He says, "First of all" – that's how you could translate “to begin with” – and first of all, I got a long list. Here's number one, and he never gets on to number two or three or four. He never goes beyond number one. He just gets lost in his train of thought and all the other questions that are pouring in. Now, he will come back in chapter 9, verses 4 and 5, and he will mention about the adoption and the covenants, and he'll mention some other of the privileges. But here he says, "Oh yeah, I got a long list of advantages that the Jew has had." And let me give you first of all, and he never gets past the first one. It's as if someone said, "Okay, Paul, you only can give one answer. I want you to tell me what's the single most important privilege that the Jewish people have enjoyed." Now, don't give me a semicolon. I want one thing, not part A, part B. I want one answer. Okay? Just one. And Paul says, that's easy. There is one privilege that has outshone all the others. They have been entrusted with the oracles of God. And what does Paul mean by this somewhat unusual phrase, the oracles of God? Well, you're familiar with what an oracle might be, and they certainly were in the ancient world. You might go in a temple, and you want to hear from an oracle that's a mouthpiece of heaven to earth. It's a mouthpiece of divine knowledge. And they had many so-called oracles that were false oracles. But they're very familiar with this idea. Where do we go to hear the voice of God? There are only four times in the New Testament that we have this phrase or something like it. Acts 7:38 in Stephen's sermon. Remember last week, I connected the dots with Stephen's sermon, and here again is one of the connections, probably, in Paul's mind, because this is one of three other instances. Stephen said that Moses and our fathers received “the living oracles” on Mount Sinai. So, certainly that means the law, but means more than that. It means the revelation of God's spoken, and then in stone written down, word. Hebrews 5:12. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. And then the third instance besides Romans is in 1 Peter 4:11, “Whoever speaks, let him do so as one who speaks the oracles of God.” 

So, these four passages, and at least in three of them, it's likely that they referend to the written down Scriptures. There's a famous scholarly article over a hundred years ago written by the great theologian B.B. Warfield. You can get it in the book Inspiration and Authority – it includes it there. He has a famous article called “The Oracles of God” where he talks about this very phrase, and he traces it in Greco-Roman literature and Jewish literature, and he concludes that this phrase refers to the Old Testament Scriptures. He says in Romans 3:2 it certainly refers to that. In Hebrews 5:12 it probably refers to that. In Acts 7:38 it likely refers to that. And in 1 Peter it may not refer to that. But three of the four, and he says certainly in Romans 3:2. Think about how this phrase operates here in Romans, because you might say, well, why the Scriptures? Might it just be the prophetic utterances of God? Well, we know that he's not talking about just the law, because so often in chapter 2 there's been a reference to the law. If he wanted to just say, “You know what, your privilege is you got the law,” he would have used the word law again. But he doesn't. He's using something inclusive of that Mosaic covenant, that law they received, but broader than the law. And then think about this word we'll come back to at the very end, the Jews were “entrusted.” How are you entrusted with something? Something was handed to them. A deposit was given to them that was theirs to then steward and maintain and teach to others and pass on. That kind of trust can only be found in something that is written down, not merely in a verbal tradition or a series of stories that they might know, but written down, entrusted. Paul, in other words, equates the Scriptures with God himself opening his most hallowed lips. It's amazing. 

If any of you heard from God today, wouldn't it be amazing? I mean, you'd say, "Mother, father, husband, wife, pastor, I heard a voice." Now, we might say, "I don't know. Are you a Presbyterian? I'm not sure you–,” but here's the point. You already heard from God today. You got up, and you read your Bible, or if you didn't have time to do that, you at least got two verses of it this morning and some others in the service. You've heard the oracles of God. Where do you go? You don't have to go to the Delphic oracle. Where do you go to have a portal from heaven to earth, to know what God thinks, what God has to say? Paul equates the written-down Scriptures with the very oracles of God. And think about – so just think for a moment – of all the things, Paul is answering the question, what advantage has the Jew? What good has it been all of these years? All of the privileges, but all of the heartache, all of the hardships. What advantage has it been? And Paul says, "Much in every way," and think of all the things he might have listed, and he only gets to one. He might have said, "Oh, you know what your privilege is? Remember the call of Abram. He was a pagan. He was an idolator. He's of the Chaldeans. And remember that advantage. Father Abraham, God called him, and he sent him, and he went by faith to a land and promised it to him. Or what about Isaac? Sarah's womb was as good as dead, and when they were both old and well past the age of children, God gave them a son. And then remember Abraham was going to sacrifice that son? And in a kind of resurrection, there was a ram in the thicket. And then the growth of the 12 tribes – seemed like there would be nothing. Seemed like every patriarch had some difficulty having progeny, and yet they end up with 12 tribes, and then they grow. Or what about the providential care of Joseph in Egypt, that he just happened to be taken into Potiphar’s house, and he just happened to be thrown into prison. Then he just happened to ascend all the way to second in charge of Egypt. He just happened to receive these dreams. Despite what Broadway tells you – “any dream will do” – that's a good, that's a fun song, Donnie Osmond. And that's the exact opposite of what the story is about. It's about God's providential care. He might have said that, or he might have said, "What advantage has the Jew?" Oh, remember the story of Moses, the basket in the bulrushes and Pharaoh's daughter, and then the burning bush. The plagues – surely the plagues – the angel of death passed them over. You want to talk about what privilege the Jews had? Their firstborn were spared in Egypt, and then he led them out on dry land and parted the Red Sea, swallowed up his enemies. And then he led them by fire and cloud. He fed them. Oh, what advantages we had. We had manna and quail. We had water from the rock. Who else gets water from a rock? We had provision for 40 years of wandering. And not only that, but we had the tabernacle in the midst of the camp, and later we had the temple when the ark of the covenant and the glory cloud filled it to represent the very presence of God on earth. God was in the midst of us. And remember, we crossed the Jordan River, and that water parted, and we went through, and we marched around the city, and the walls of Jericho came a tumbling down, and God gave us the nations of Canaan into our hands? Or what about the great stories of Gideon and his 300 men and their torches? Or what about Samson and all of his victories? What about the establishment of the kingdom under David and the lavish wealth and expansion of the kingdom under Solomon? Or do you remember all the miracles that took place with Elijah and Elisha? The miracles of provision and an axe head floating and oil that never ran out and taken up in a whirlwind and a chariot of fire. You remember that? And we were brought back from exile, and we had a second temple, and God has preserved us for 2,000 years. 

There's a lot of things that could have been in the list. Paul mentions one. None of that. He mentions none of that here in chapter 3. He may have had all of that in mind when he says, "Are you kidding me? You don't think there's been any privileges given to the Jews? No advantages? You don't think we have any great stories? You don't think that God has favored us?” He may have all of that in his mind, but he only mentions one advantage – the supreme privilege, the great privilege of all religious privileges one might have. They had the Scriptures. Why were the oracles of God such a privilege that he would mention first and only this as their advantage? Well, just think about some of the reasons. Number one, it meant that God spoke to them. Now, we saw in chapter 1, theologians call that general revelation. Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” We saw in chapter 1 that in creation, we can see his invisible qualities, his divine nature. We can see that there's a God and that he's powerful. And often in Romans 1, there's the language of knowing. There's things that even the Gentiles know, things that non-Christians know, that pagans know, and yet they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. There's a seed of divinity is what Calvin called it. So, there's a sense that they have a foggy sort of notion. There's a conscience to tell something about right and wrong. They can see from creation that there must be a god. There are some things that can be revealed, but not like this. General revelation – but they did not have what the Jews had, this special revelation. They did not have in a written-down book – through the prophets and then written down – that God himself opened his mouth and spoke to them. 

Think about if you know some famous person, and you get a selfie. Why do people get – people used to have you sign things, and now it's selfies, because you can go and show everyone, “Look who I know! Look who I met!” Now, I don't know a lot of famous people. To clarify, I know church-famous people, which is not famous people. I know a couple of athletes. I know a lot of people who know some more famous people. Like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, two degrees of Kevin DeYoung. I know some. I was recently at a meeting in DC, and there were a number of people there who know the vice president. I don't. I don’t know JD Vance. Whatever you think of JD Vance, that's a remarkable thing that you might – I mean, if you got a… Now, I actually do get those – I get texts all the time. It just seems like all the politicians that text me, it's an urgent appeal that they need money right today. You ever got those? So special. If you got a direct text from the president or the vice president, first you might think, "Hey, is this a secure line? I don't know.” But if you were in some chat group, you'd probably tell some people. You wouldn't believe who was on this messaging with me. During the golf tournament in May here at Quail Hollow, we reconnected with a family friend twice removed. I can tell you about the story later, but he was one of the caddies for one of the very famous golfers. You would know the golfer, not Scottie Scheffler, but a different one. And super nice guy, Christian. And he came over for dinner. And my boys thought it was so cool – okay, I did too, a little bit – but so cool to have dinner with the caddy of a famous golfer who was just down the road golfing that weekend. And if you meet someone famous – hey, can I get your picture? Sometimes can you record a short video for my kid? Why? Because you want to put it online. You want to show your friends. You want to say look who I met, and you're going to just – that story, anytime it comes up, might be five years from now, and someone says want to go miniature golfing – hey, speaking of golf, did I ever tell you about the time? Because you met somebody important or someone who knows someone who's famous. How cool. You can get direct messages from God anytime. You have the oracles. The Jews, of all the peoples, they had the oracles of God. God himself had opened his mouth to speak to them. So, the first privilege is that God had spoken to them. 

The second reason this is such a privilege is he had spoken only to them. They were the only nation on earth. Deuteronomy 4:8, “What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I'm setting before you today?” Or Psalm 147, “He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation. They do not know his laws.” The Jews were meant to say, look at how privileged we are that we, this little sliver of a people here along the Mediterranean Sea, a slight regional superpower for about a generation, but mostly a thoroughfare that other kingdoms would come and go and try to trample us over. And yet, they alone, for all of those years, of all the peoples on the earth, had the voice of God among them. 

And here's the third reason why it was such an advantage. It wasn't just that God spoke to them. He didn't just speak and tell them a joke. They had, from the oracles of God, they alone were told the way of salvation. Did you notice back in Romans 1, with all that can be known about God in verse 19 because he has shown it to them, his invisible attributes – namely, what can be known? We can know his eternal power and divine nature. Elsewhere we read about the conscience, and there's something that can be known about the law of God. We have some sense of right and wrong. So, the Gentiles could know there's a God. He's powerful. He's eternal. Maybe even that he judges right from wrong. They could know that. But you notice there was nothing in Romans 1 about a revelation of the mercy of God or the love of God. Nothing about the new birth from God. Only the Jews for those years were told plainly about their sin, about their need for a sacrifice, about their need for atonement, about the way of repentance, about the new birth, about faith, about forgiveness. Yes, they had been given such an advantage. 

And a final reason for this privilege – number four – in the oracles of God, they were told about the Messiah. That means they had been given these great and precious promises. It meant that they of all people could have a sure hope, an anchor for the soul. They knew that the world was just not spinning out of control or somehow out of God's reach or that it was just going to go in some sort of cycle of new birth like some Eastern Enlightenment religion, but it was moving somewhere. And God himself would send his Son, a son of David, a son of Abraham, born of a virgin, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and this Meshech, this Christ, would come, and he would save his people. And not only his people, but Isaiah said it would be too small a thing that he should be a savior for the lost tribes of Israel. He would be a light to the nations. He would be an open door for the Gentiles. They alone had this hope, had this word of the Messiah. So, just when Paul imagines the Jew, and surely he had someone wait in the line after he did one of those synagogue conferences, and a long line queued up, and some people probably said, "Oh, thank you. That was – I really appreciate that, Paul." And other people maybe wanted to sock him in the gut, and then some people had some angry questions. And surely one of those questions was, "Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What you're saying about us Jews, that we also will face condemnation apart from the righteousness of Christ, that we're in the same position as the Gentiles – Paul, I don't know about this. You're saying there's no point to being a Jew?” You can imagine Paul there, so fierce and strong, maybe he put his arm around that friend and said, "Oh, friend, let me tell you, we have had many, many privileges.” “Name one.” “I'll give you one. We alone received the oracles of God. We only had God speak to us, and he told us the way of salvation. He told us about the Messiah. Nowhere else in the world – we alone. 

And now, church, to think about this greatest of all religious privileges, which was bound up in one people in one corner of the world, in one nation for all these years, now exploded all around the world. Have you ever stopped to think about the profound privilege you have to hear from God in the Scriptures? Now, that may seem very old hack, and if anything is true about a Protestant church or Reformed church, it's that it's anchored in the Bible, but don't take any of this for granted. There is a reason we put the Bible at the center of this sanctuary. There's even a reason, and I know there's many churches that, you know, they don't have a pulpit, or they have a plexiglass, or they got a little music stand, and people get saved in all sorts of churches. So, that's not the only way to ever do things, but I'm just telling you there's a reason why we got this big pulpit. We had another one. I had this one designed. It is for people 6'3”. It's a Dutch pulpit. It's very large. It's not as big as the one at Sovereign Grace. That's the largest pulpit in the whole city. But there's a reason what is center, what is literally center, in this church is the place from which the oracles of God go forth. This word, this Bible. It always just irks me when even some beautiful buildings – Presbyterian church – and they got the pulpit off on the side. Just put it right here where it belongs. The Word. For all of the problems that can exist in Protestant churches, Presbyterian churches – we have our issues – but this is still true. There is no other branch of the church than in Protestant, evangelical churches that will put as much emphasis on knowing, studying, and being immersed in the oracles of God. Many of you may retire somewhere else. You may graduate from school and go live somewhere else. If you move somewhere else, or you go to some other church, or heaven forbid something just doesn't fit here, and you move on to another church – that happens all the time. Would you at least be certain to do this – to find a church that will put the oracles of God at the theological and literal center of everything they do? Not an altar. Not an undefined mystery, not a ritual, not a symbol, not beards or suits or robes or candles or the music or a spiritual experience generally understood, but the oracles of God. It's amazing. 

It's amazing how much instruction in the Bible many of you have had. Now maybe it's the first time you've ever been in church. We're glad you're here. Maybe you're not a Christian. Maybe you're a new baby Christian. Glad you're here. Hope you'll keep learning with us. There are a whole lot of you – might be a thousand of you in this room – who have had more Bible in your life than 99.9% of people who have ever lived on this earth. May it put a smile on your face – not a sort of “I'm so tired of Bible, Bible, Bible, living in a bubble.” There are people around the world who would give everything to live in the Bible bubble you live in, to put the center of everything. It's amazing the access to the Bible we have. Look at – I got this big Bible there. There's another one down here. There's a third one. I don't know how long I'm going to preach. There's all these Bibles. How many Bibles? Really, if you don't have a Bible, take the one in front of you home. There's Bibles in front of you. There's a Bible in every hotel room. You probably have dozens of Bibles in your home. If you don't have a Bible, you can go on your phone. You can go to any online retailer. It's probably – they're probably knocking at your door right now, waiting. Three-hour delivery. Just relax. I'll be fine. Don't need Cheerios instantly. You can get a Bible. Do not take for granted this amazing access you have to the oracles of God. 

William Tyndale was killed in 1536. He was the translator responsible for the first New Testament printed in English. The King James Version was largely derived from Tyndale. The ESV stands in the tradition of the RSV and the King James Version, and so we still have a whole lot of Tyndale's words that are coming through to us. When attacked by a priest for his belief in translating the Scriptures into the common language, because the Catholic Church at the time said, "No, the people cannot be trusted with the Word" – well, the Jews were entrusted, but no, you cannot be trusted – you need it in Latin. You can't get it in a language that you know. He replied, "If God spare my life, before many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of Scripture than thou dost." And the Lord made good on that word. It cost him his life. Died by strangulation. His corpse was burned in the city square. His last recorded words, “Lord, open the King of England's eyes.” What a time to be alive. What a land that we live in, with all of our problems here in the United States of America, that you have access to such an embarrassment of riches. You can read the Bible in your heart language. You can have it on your phone. You can listen to it in your car. You have almost certainly more than one in your house. You and I are such a privileged people. You want to talk about privilege? You want to talk about the privilege in life? It's not money. It's not looks. It's not color. The greatest privilege is that you have been given access to the oracles of God. What an advantage. 

Young people, many of you will have the same story that I had. Christian parents, Sunday school, youth group, morning church, evening church, Bible, Bible, Bible. Never knew a time when I didn't know Jesus. Never knew a time when the Bible wasn't a part of my life. You don't have to think, "Oh man, I wish I had a cool testimony. Maybe I should do drugs for a while. That'd be great." Well, praise God. He saves people from every sort of walk of life, but there's a reason that people who are saved that way want their kids to be raised your way. You don't have to do the hard way if you can have this blessed way. So, I hope, young people here listening and put down your crayons for a moment, whether you're five or 15 or 21 years old. You grew up here. Maybe you go to a Christian school. You've been homeschooled by your Christian parents. And you've had all of this knowledge, and there's a danger. The danger is that you might have just enough of the Christian religion to inoculate you against the real thing. That's how an inoculation works, or at least my primitive medical mind thinks that's how it works. 

Friends, never lose sight of the advantage that you have. Do not be like too many who grow up in the church and become some of the hardest critics of God, the ones most critical of the church, most bitter, most self-assured that God has given them a raw deal in life when they have somehow forgotten that they have the greatest privilege any child on this planet could ever have, to be introduced from earliest age to God himself speaking. We are so favored, and I can just come to the Spiderman theology at the very end: with great privilege comes great responsibility. 

So, I said I would come back to this word that you see there in verse 2. Doesn't just say the Jews had the oracles of God. They did. They were entrusted. Friends at Christ Covenant Church who have been given so much. What a place. What a wonderful body of believers by God's grace. And I trust for 45 years now, 30 in this space, but 45 years since the establishment of this church, the Word of God has been faithfully taught from this pulpit or where it existed down the road or when they met in the gym. What a privilege. And with it comes a stewardship. Paul will say elsewhere that he was a steward of the mystery of God. That's what ministers are. Ministers are given the gospel mysteries. And that means, in large part, it's why they study. It's why they go to a place like RTS. It's why they take years, hopefully do it in person, get a degree, learn the languages, so they can for a lifetime be a steward of this book entrusted to the ministers of the gospel. Best job I know anywhere. But notice it doesn't just say that the priests, the Levites – it says the Jews as a whole were entrusted with the oracles of God. That means it's not just the teaching elders, the pastors, the ministers. It's the whole community of the redeemed were entrusted with God's words, that we might protect them. Got people here who do apologetics, people here who defend the authenticity of the gospel and the Scriptures, that we might preserve them. Now, for many, many centuries that meant by hand, literally, people copying out the Scriptures. Now, some of you have been or are engaged in the work of Scripture translation or dissemination or creative ways through the internet and computers and apps to get the Word of God to people who don't have immediate access to it. 

Protect, preserve, and promote. We promote the oracles of God through preaching, through sharing, through social media posts, through witnessing, through reading and memorization and your study and your learning and your singing and your passing on to the next generation. Let us always be a Bible people. One of the best definitions, not my own, if you want to say what do we do in a worship service? What are we aiming at? What should you look at if you move from here, you go to college, you go to find a church, what should you look for in a church? We want a worship service that prays the Bible, sings the Bible, believes the Bible, preaches the Bible, sees the Bible in the two sacraments. That's what you want. A Bible worship, a Bible people, a Bible focus. Because only in the oracles of God can we know the way of salvation. Only through this special, inscripturated revelation can we know the gospel, the good news that Paul introduced in chapter 1, the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first – do you see that? See how Paul's coming back? – and also the Greek. You don't think you had a privilege, Jews? This good news came to you first, for like 2,000 years before everybody else had it. And some of you have had it your whole life. If you're at this church, I trust you will always have it here and from this ministry and this pulpit, and through it you will know the Lord Jesus Christ. John 6:68, when Jesus asked Simon Peter if he also was going to leave him when some took offense, Peter gave this response: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.” Let's pray. 

Gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for the immense privilege that is ours in a church like this. Forgive us. It becomes very commonplace. Especially forgive us when we become complainers. We think somehow that the Word and the Scriptures are dull or lame. Spare us from such blasphemous thoughts. Give us such tender hearts that we may always see and savor the blessing that is ours, to be given access to the gospel, to know Jesus, to hear from you, to have the oracles of God. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.