Gospel Prism

We began our study on Paul’s letter to the Romans in our small group. Boy what a powerful letter on the greatness of the Gospel of grace, it almost brought me to tears on the first night. We’re actually using Tim Keller’s study on Romans. You just pay for the rights to make copies and you can download the PDF from Redeemer’s site. It has an over 350 page leader’s guide with a 53 page participant’s guide. It has been rich already with a great section where Keller quotes Martin Luther.

Here’s a tidbit from Luther to Keller to me:

For human beings by nature, when they get near danger or death, do not see anything by what they have done to be righteous, how worthy we have made ourselves; we defend ourselves by recounting our good deeds and moral efforts. But then the remembrance of our sins and flaws come to mind, and this tears us apart, and we think: “How many errors and sins and wrongs I have done! Please God, let me live so I can fix and amend things.” But the real evil here is that we are obsessed with our own power to be righteous, and will not life up our eyes to see what Christ has done for us, to prepare a righteousness to be received.