Moving From Death to Life - Ephesians 2:1-10

Good morning again. Very excited to be with you today on Love Your Neighbor Day. Very exciting. We get to do lots of awesome projects this afternoon, and we've already started with some goody bags. If you haven't done that already, you can still have time afterwards. But maybe more importantly, for some of you, happy six, seven day. Is that still a thing? Is that still cool? Six, seven? Okay, no, it's not cool. And I made that joke a while back. If this day was like 3 months earlier, the world might explode, right? Like, that was so huge, not that long ago. And I think about how funny it is, how things have their cultural moment. Like, why does a random number have a cultural moment, but it's not the first time. Some of you remember 21? For some reason, that was funny. We think about other cultural things. Like, I mean, dabbing was fun for a while. Shannon still dabs, Ashland dabs, but she's in Spain so she can't make fun of her. Other things, we think about like, man, superhero movies were like the biggest thing for so long, and now they're kind of, I don't know. Maybe they can make a good superhero movie still. We think about there's different fashion that goes in and out. I remember in high school, I was trying to make fanny packs cool again. Uh, I didn't. I did not make them cool again. They made me even more of a dork, so that was awesome. But another thing that was, like, when I was growing up, that was really big and had a cultural moment was more of a theme. It was kind of a different one, but it was zombies. Anybody remember, like, zombies were everywhere not that long ago? Video games, TV shows, movies, comic books, they were gross. They were nasty, kind of scary. My mom hated them. So naturally, me as a teenage boy loved them, right? Me and my brothers, I have 4 brothers. We watched all this stuff together. We played all the video games together. And one thing that me and some of my siblings really liked was the show The Walking Dead. Any walking dead fans? Okay, they went on too long, right? They should have ended it probably a few seasons early. But it was really good. We really enjoyed it. Every Sunday evening, we'd gather together and we'd watch it. Here's some spoilers here. You've had a lot of time to watch this, so don't worry. I'm going to spoil a lot for you. But the 1st season, they're starting the camping kind of together, they're staying away from the zombies, and they're going, they need to find the cure, right? Like every good zombie movie, they have to find the cure. They're going to a local CDC kind of headquarters. Like if there's going to be a cure, if there's going to be safety, it's going to be at that place. So they're traveling there. They lose some people along the way, right? And they get there by the skin of their teeth, and they show up, and there's one lone scientist in this building, and he's been looking for the cure, and they're like, he thinks he knows the answer, right? So they're trying to figure it out. They're hanging out. It kind of goes for a really long time, and they're feeling pretty hopeful. But instead of feeling hopeful, they end up feeling very dreadful. The scientists found out that there is no cure in that the infection, as opposed to many zombie shows, isn't just through contact or being bit, it was actually viral. And that actually every human is infected, and that it doesn't matter how your life ends, you will be the monster that you fear. So the verdict came down, that every human being is terminally bound to become what they fear. They now are the dead men walking. The show actually is called The Walking Dead because of the people that are now walking, that will eventually be what they fear the most. Today, we're going to read a similar verdict in Ephesians. It's not about zombies, but similar that Paul is saying that we are dead men walking in our sin, that there is a verdict that's been handed down to us, that all are dead in their trespasses and sins. But unlike the walking dead, where there is no cure. For those who believe in Jesus, we've already experienced the cure, that Jesus has raised us from the dead, to live with him forever. So if you have a Bible, be in Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, verses one through 10. Paul writes, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked. following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body, and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word. Lord, it is life to us. Lord, it is also convicting to us. It straightens us out. It helps us to see that we are not who we think we are. Lord, we are in such a great need of a savior. And Lord, we thank you for texts like this that show us the depth of our sin, but the height of your mercy. God, I pray that you would use the scribbles on this page to bring yourself glory, that we'd be built up, that those who are dead in their sin would hear hope, and that they would in turn be raised to life in Christ. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. So the 1st point we're going to see are is that all are dead in their trespasses and sin. Paul purposely uses the word dead. Being dead is a state of being, right? Either you're alive or you're dead. I was watching Seinfeld, actually last night, and he was talking about dead. You can't be more dead. You can't die, and then get, you know, another wound to you and be more dead when you're dead, you're dead. So Paul here is saying, when you're dead, it's the last thing. There's no hope. There's no chance of coming back. You are dead in your sin. This is sinful human nature. Our ancestors in the garden of Eden, pass down this nature through the ages, pass down a sin nature through the ages. Adam and Eve acted as our representatives in the garden. All of humanity. summed up in our ancient ancestors in the 1st two. All of humanity were represented by Adam and Eve. similar to the representatives that we have here in our country, right? We have representatives who represent our city, who represent our state, who represent our country. It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. They are your representatives, and the council that is in Washington, or the council that is here locally. They are our representatives. And when Adam and Eve, as our representative, chose not to trust God, to not obey God in the garden, and to take from the tree of knowledge, the one tree that they weren't supposed to take from, all of sin was passed down to us. They formed a divide between humanity and God. And now that separation has been passed down through the ages. God said, when you eat of this tree, you will surely die. And surely die. They did. They died a spiritual death immediately. They are now separated from God in their sin. And they also died of physical death. When we talk about we are being dead in our sin. We have this spiritual death, although we live and we breathe, we are in our sin, spiritually dead and separate from God. No hope. The only the dead man can do no good thing. A dead man can do nothing. Now we, as the children of Adam and Eve, are born into this state. We're completely separate from God. And now all we do in our actions is actually earn death. Romans 6.23. Paul teaches the same thing. He says, for the wages of sin is death. And a wage is something that you earn. It's the paycheck. The paycheck we get for the life that we live apart from Jesus is death. We rightfully deserve death in our sin. It's the paycheck that we receive. But what we see here is that our nature is not inactive, that it's actually active. We don't simply have a sin nature, but we act sinfully. The dead walk, right? Like mindless, fleshly, evil zombies, sinners mindlessly follow the desires of their own flesh in mind to their own destruction. They are choosing this by pure instinct, of their own nature, to follow along in sin. Paul uses the word trespass here. This trespasses. We know this word in a different sense. We don't typically think about this as a Bible term, but when we think about trespassing, We're like, okay, no trespassing on the sign, right? There are signs posted on fences and doors that you are not allowed to go into this place. Adam and Eve were trespassing when they were talking with the serpent and questioning God's truthfulness. They went where they were not supposed to go when they ate the tree, ate from the tree that was off limits. They trespassed past the guideline that God had placed. The dead, the dead in their sin, they trespass. They have no regard for boundaries or guidelines. They're like a zombie crawling over a keepout sign, right? We see this in the movie, that they naturally just crawl over, that no regard for it. We see this in our world. We see this in ourselves. We see this in our world. We see that scientists. They want to claim that they're at the biological keepout sign of the reality of 2 genders, 2 sexes, doesn't exist. They trespass. We see in secular culture that wants to barge in the door, the definition of marriage between being between one man and one woman and covenant together before God. They're trespassing. Political parties are trespassing over the line of the sanctity of human life, on both sides, that they would say that one life is more valuable than the other, of a preborn, or the life of somebody who's from another location, is worth less than the person who lives here. There's all sorts of trespassing that is happening. We can make this personal as well. We can stop looking at others. We trespass. When we decide that we're in charge of our own lives and we keep God at a distance. God, you can come in and help me with whatever you want, but I'm going to do what I want. I am in charge. Last week, Tyler said that God isn't the 1st on the list. God is over the list. He is sovereign over the list. He creates the list. We trespass when we make God part of our checklist. We trespass when we make him something simply to accomplish instead of someone to have relationship with and follow. It says trespasses and sin. And sin is a more encompassing word than trespass. It means to miss the mark. It's like shooting an arrow at a target and missing entirely. That's sin. I've missed. Romans 323 teaches us for all sin and fall short of the glory of God. The target's there, God's glory is there. We fall short. We miss. This literal missing. We're not good enough. We can't be good enough. Humans want to hit the target. We want a life that we can accomplish. Tyler, again, a few weeks ago, said we want a Christianity that we can accomplish. We want to be the one that hits the target. We want to be the one who is good enough. Humans want to hit the target, but we can't. Maybe a question you may ask about this, of all being born in sin, all are sinful. Maybe a question is, what about good people? Not everyone is evil, right? I know evil when I see it. We think about Hitler. That guy's evil. But my neighbor, yeah, they don't believe in Jesus, but man, they make me cookies sometimes. They love my kids sometimes. What about them? Are they are they evil? Are they just as bad as everybody else? The Bible teaches us that there is none that are good. Psalm 14, 2 through 3 says this. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, any who seek after God. They have all turned aside. Together they've all become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one. Our problem isn't that we do bad things. Our problem isn't that we don't do enough good things. Our problem is that we aren't good. Our very nature, our very reality apart from Jesus, is that we are not good. We miss the mark, not by our actions, but by our nature. We fall short. We are by nature children of wrath, deserving of the death that we are being paid out by our actions and our nature. All are dead in their trespasses and sins on our unable to be good enough to save themselves. The Bible describes that humanity has a natural bend towards sin. We've talked about this before, that if you have a straight line and I'm trying to point at something, it's easy to point, but if there's a natural bend, I'm always going to point a certain direction. And when we think about sin, we have a natural bend towards sin, a natural bend towards the wrong choice. Matthew describes this as the wide gate that leads to destruction. Matthew 713 says, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. The gate that leads to destruction is wide. And all humans in their sinful nature find themselves on this road, on this path, in this gate. This is where it's easy. It's easy to find. Humans in their sin are like zombies. They're mindlessly following the desires of their flesh in their mind to their own destruction. Paul says you are dead in your trespasses and sins. But we're not in a vacuum. It's not just us who are against the Lord. We also have an enemy, an enemy who doesn't want to stop us from doing something but wants us to keep doing bad things. He says here that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and whence you once walked following the course of the world, the broad road, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience. The prince of the power of the air. This spirit, this is the enemy. This is the adversary. This is the devil, that he is scheming, that he wants you to continue down the path of destruction. We know this from Adam the Nief story as well. He whispers, whispers almost truths into your ears, drawing you away, a sound almost right. And they went to, he wants to lead you further away from God. He wants you to feel more that you are the one who's in control of your life. The enemy he desired for Adam and Eve to die. He desired for Adam and Eve to disobey, to be separate from God for forever. He wants to keep the dead buried. He wants to keep humans hopeless. He wants to keep them feeling strong, that they can accomplish it on their own. He lies. He's an adversary. He doesn't want to stop us. He wants to unleash our sinful nature and capture it. So humans are separate from God forever. First Peter 5 A, it says this, it kind of sums it up. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The devil doesn't just want to tempt you. He wants to kill you. And he is scheming day and night trying to tempt you in a very personalized way. The enemy cannot make you desire something. Those are within, but he can dangle the shiny object of your desire in front of you, waiting for you to swipe. He does, he works for the desires of our bodies in our minds in a personalized way that leads us further down the path of destruction. We know all about algorithms in our day, right? He knows the perfect algorithm for your life. The perfect thing to keep your attention. The thing that he knows that you desire, the things of human nature, sinful nature, he wants to constantly keep your brain in a stasis of self-satisfaction, self-empowerment, and self sin. He wants to kill you. He wants to distract you. He wants you away from God. He wants you to be numb to God's correction, to be numb to God's mercy. He wants to end your life. He is your enemy. And God finds faults and sinners because we have sin inside of us, but visible sin allows us to see that we are not good. Our acting on those desires is merely the evidence of a sinful nature within us. All humans are dead in their trespasses and sins and willfully walk to their own destruction. But read on verse four, but God, being rich in mercy because of his, of the great love which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace, you have been saved. He is rich in mercy. Sinful humans, we have incurred a great debt, a debt that is deeper than the ocean. We saying it earlier, a debt that we could never pay and live. The debt that we owe will cost you your life. The debt is further. It's a hefty paycheck of death because of our sin. But God is rich in mercy. His mercy extends beyond the depth of human sinfulness, and his mercy extends into the grave and raises us up to life. His mercy is far exceeding to our sinfulness. His mercy is more. His mercy is more than our sin as great as it may be, he is richer than our sinfulness. Mercy means to not receive something that we deserve. We deserve death. We deserve punishment. We've earned death and wrath in our sin. We should be punished, but instead, God, in his kindness and in his love, decided to send his own son in your place, to send his own son, to show you mercy, and to show me mercy, that we would have forgiveness of sins, and it would still be paid for. God is too just to let sins go unpaid for. So he sent his own son to die for you, that you would have mercy. He placed punishment on Jesus and placed his sinlessness on us. 2nd Corinthians 521 says this, for our sake, he made him. Jesus, to be sin, who knew no sin so that in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. Our sin is placed on him on the cross. And his sinlessness, his righteousness has been placed on us. He's in the grave. We have been seated with him. He took our punishment for us. He took our sins. He took our sinfulness. He took the very nature that caused us to not be good in God's eyes, and he placed it on himself. That's why on the cross. He says, why, or why have you forsaken me? He has placed his own goodness on us so that now when God looks down on us, he no longer sees people who have turned astray, people who do not do good, he sees his son's righteousness on us. So now what? Can I mess this up? Did he wipe the slate clean that now if I mess up again, I have to do the whole rigmarole again, right? Look what he says here, it says, by grace, you have been saved in verse five. and verse eight. Verse 8 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is your not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Salvation is a gift of God, not a work of man. It is a gift. A gift is something that has been given to you free of charge. With no contract, with no strings attached. My wife just had a birthday. So wish her a birthday if he hadn't, but me and the kids decided one day when she was gone to go to a store and buy her a gift, we bought her some nice shoes that help her feet. She's pregnant and runs after 3 babies all day and her feet hurt, right? So we're like, we're going to get her some good shoes. So we did that. We surprised her. She loved it. And I gotta say, I crushed it. It was great. She loves the shoes, she wears them all the time. So thank you. Thank you. But imagine this. I give her the gift because I love her. and we love her. But a couple days later, she makes me upset, and I say, give me those shoes back. Or you need to pay me the price of those shoes. First off, that's not a good thing to do, right? That's not how you do that. But at that moment, those shoes are no longer a gift. Those shoes are now an item of transaction. She now has to purchase that from me. There's a reason why Paul uses the word gift here. and not transaction or not the item that you've purchased. A gift means that it's been given to you in the God who never changes, the God who never lies, never intends to take it back. He's given you a gift, that is yours forever, and that you now hold it by grace. If you didn't earn it, to keep it. If you haven't earned it to get it, you don't have to work it to keep it. It's a gift. He has given that to us. The gift of grace in Jesus is given free of charge. The God who does not change, does not intend to take it back. The salvation is received by faith, not earned through works. God saved sinful humans by the gift of grace through faith. In Christ, you are forever righteous in his presence because of this gift. And to receive this gift, you only have to trust that it's been given to you. You only have to trust that your name's on the wrapper, that God has given you a gift that all you have to do is receive it. We also see this, that the living that God has raised, that they are raised to sit with Jesus, raised to sit with Jesus. Verse 6 and 7 that says this. And raise this up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. When you put on your, when you put your faith in Jesus, God raises you from the grave and doesn't just sit you on the earth, he raises you to sit in the heavenly places in Christ. Why? He says it so that in the coming ages, he might show everybody the immeasurable riches of his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. The same blessing that the son gets, we get. I wanna illustrate this. I've said this before. I have 5 adopted siblings. And it was an incredible time in our life. So I'm one of nine, which is kind of wild. I was the oldest in the house at the point because all of my older siblings have moved away. And my parents worked at a children's home. So these kids lived there and I was best friends with them. It was awesome. But they were 18, 17, 15, 13, and 12. And if you've ever heard about adoption, maybe you've adopted yourself or done foster care, typically the rule of thumb is as they get older, there's more opportunity for difficulty, behavioral problems, right? Now, my siblings had that before we even adopted them. The reason why we adopted them because it came in a moment of crisis, that one of my older brothers got upset, that one of the bosses at the home that we worked at, didn't do what he said he was supposed to. So my brother, being my brother, takes a shovel and smashes his window in this car. So not the right way to do that. And then he runs away. We have to call the cops and he gets captured, right? And it brought back home, and the threat at that moment was, you guys have been doing this for how many years, now we're going to separate you 5 different ways. This is the 1st time in like 8 years that my that my siblings were brought home to be all together. So my parents and I, we love these kids, and that seemed cruel. So we thought, we are going to make them ours. We are going to be, my parents said, we're going to make them our kids. They're gonna be my siblings. So, but they had behavioral issues. My little brother, for one, had a lot. He would tear up his room when he got in trouble. He would scream horrible things. He would say, really terrifying things. At one point, my mom cleaned out his room and found a lot of weapons. He would run away from home. He'd run away from school, and it was a mess. One night, my mom caught him looking at something he wasn't supposed to be looking at. And my brother decided to smash his phone to smash my mom's phone, chased my mom down the stairs, pushed over, some furniture, broke some furniture, was threatening my dad. So my mom comes, he gets me and my other brother to come downstairs to help. She's crying. She's frightened, and we don't know what's going on. We've run downstairs. My brother is threatening my dad. He goes over, pushes over a TV, a 2nd TV. My brother goes in and gets him in like a full Nelson. I got Connor in one of those last week, but a fool Nelson. And then he finds a hammer on the wall and he starts swinging at my brother's head with a hammer. We eventually throw him on the ground. We put his hands behind his back. We get his feet against his back, and we lay on him until the cops come. The cops come, they handcuff his feet, they handcuff his hands, they put a spit mask in a bite mask on his face, and they take him off. Terrified. My parents, I have never seen my parents cry like that. I've never been that scared for my parents lives. And besides that moment. He's taken to a facility. And you know what my parents do? They go and visit him at the facility. Every day. His time there is over, the behavioral treatment that he was getting ends, he wasn't any better, but some things were different. What do they do? They bring them home. My parents could have given up. My parents could have said, this is enough. My parents could have said, we're taking you somewhere else. But my parents said, this is my boy. I'm not going to give up on him. We love him. There was discipline that was obviously needed. But he sat at our table because he was my brother and he was their son and he loved them. We are seated at the table of God in Christ. We are dead in our sins. We are unworthy of love. We are unworthy of the place that we've been given, but in Christ, by grace. We have been placed at the table of the king, brought from the grave and sat in the place of honor in heaven in Christ forever. Our God is the Father, the good Father, and those who have been saved by grace, have been seated with him forever. We're part of his family. We belong to him. We bear his name. Just as my brother did not deserve a seat at the table. His actions deserved punishment. We deserve punishment, but still, he sits this with him. In Christ, we who are children of God, we will fail, we will stumble. We will fight, but we're seated in the place of blessing to receive the immeasurable riches of grace and that he can show that to all the world through Christ. We are in the place of honor. No longer are you dead and wandering mindlessly to your destruction. You are living and seated in the place of blessing in Christ, never to return to the grave. You've been given the gift of grace in Jesus that will never be taken from you. And lastly, he says that we are new creations in Christ. He says, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You who were once dead, who were mindlessly following your belly, your eyes, your mind, your pride, your ego, whatever you want to say, you have now been transformed into a new creation in which God has laid out a path for you, that you would now walk in, that you would no longer walk down the road of destruction, but you'd walk in the narrow road of life. You even made new in the image of Jesus, and you are continuing to be made more in the image of Jesus. Previously in our sins. We had to follow the desires of our body, but now we can follow the path that he's given us. As limited humans. We still have a bend towards choosing sin. We still need God's help in everything. And he gives it. He gets a spirit within us. He lays out the steps before us, and he's asked us to walk in them. And we're seated at the seat of blessing forever. As a new creation, you have a new path in Christ. He lays out the steps for us to follow. He leads us into eternal life in Christ, step by step. He is walking before us, and he is with us, leading us to do good things that are pleasing to him and not pleasing to us. We are hopeless in our sin, and we could never please God. But God in his infinite mercy and grace has decided to see that it was good to save sinners and to place him in the seat of blessing, that we would have salvation for him with him forever. You are saved by grace through faith. You can't earn it. What you earn is death. What he's earned is life. All you have to do is receive it. Now what? What do we do with this? I got 3 points here. The 1st one is to know the steps that are being laid out by knowing the one who laid them out. It says that we have a path laid out before us. How do we know that path? We always ask that question, what's God's will in my life? How do I make this next step? What do I do? I would argue that you are primarily called to a relationship with Jesus and not to know exactly what to do? He has laid it out before us. So in order for us to know the path that's been laid out. We need to know the one who's laid the path out. In John 15 five, Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. As we hold on to Jesus and know him. He bears fruit. He makes his path known. He makes himself known, and we follow along. This week we had a really cool moment. Kyle was at my house. We were just talking, hanging out. And then out of nowhere, I hear, ding dong, on my door. I get a lot of people at our door. I thought it was going to be roofers for a second, but it wasn't. I opened the door and there's 2 nice ladies. And she hands me a card and she says, do you know that you can live forever? I was like, yes, yes, I do know that. And she asked me some other questions, can you read this? I was like, yeah, so I'm reading it. I already know. These are some J-Dubs. Some Jehovah's Witnesses, right? And I was like, this is awesome. I haven't done anything to earn this. They're just at my door. So they're asking me all these questions. I'm answering this. They're like, oh, this is so surprising. I've never heard anybody answer like this before. I was like, really? That's wild. And I, um, so they said, is there a time when we can come back and talk? I said, absolutely. Next Monday, 7.30, that's when we put our kids to bed, you can come back to our house. And they said, that's great. And they walk away, they were super nice. And I walk in, I tell Kyle something, and it's true. When we planted the church, I was just full-time church planner. Then we realized I needed to go and actually work full-time somewhere else as well. So I'm working at the school. A big problem in my heart and that time was, Lord, if I take this job, I'm not going to be able to do ministry like I was. I'm not going to have the freedom to do ministry like I was. You know what the Lord has done? One, he sent Mormons to my house and Jehovah's Witnesses, and I have a Muslim neighbor who, because of the Mormons were at my house, have now asked, hey, what are the differences between Mormons and Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses? I said, great question. Let's meet this. We can talk about it. He's trying to find a day to do that. I have not earned a single one of these, but God is laying out of path for his own ministry to take place, and they're coming to my door. It's awesome. And in the middle of all this. We baptize 3 people. We've had more ministry. We had people here in this room who are excited about evangelism and want to go share the gospel with other people. I learned the Lord is teaching me this. That ministry is not about how much we do. It's how much he does and how we follow. He is teaching us that it's about what he does and not what we do. So we need to know him more. We only bring a little bit of bread, a little bit of fish, but he's the one who multiplies. So in order for us to know the steps that are being laid out, we need to know him more and allow him to do his work. Number two, we need to stop living like the dead. Stop living like the dead. You've been raised from the dead and seated in the place of grace in Christ. He's laying out good works for you to walk in. Why are we still holding on to areas that are dead and fruitless, that are ways of the world. What areas of your life are you holding so tight to? God, you can have everything, but I'm going to keep this. God, you can have everything, but I'm gonna keep doing my own thing. What areas of your life are still dead. What parts are you holding onto? What's the dirt of the grave that you need to wipe off? And how can we continually live like him? Galatians 524 Paul writes again, and those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. As a new creation, you are to live in the good works that he's laid out, and to be crucifying the flesh, the ways of this world, the ways that lead to destruction daily, giving them over to him so that Christ grows more in us. We say this often. Our relationship with Jesus grows as Jesus grows in us. And that means looking less like the world and more like Jesus. We continually move to our sin to the cross daily in Christ and we pursue life, not death. And then finally, have you placed your faith in Jesus? Have you actually placed your faith fully in Jesus for salvation? Are you the one trying to save yourself? Or have you truly received the gift of grace that he's offered? All of us are born as people of wrath? The Bible says that in our sin, you are not only dead, you are an enemy of God. You are dead in your sin. You can't do anything to save you. The death of your sin is too much for you to pay and to come out alive. You're hopeless. You need a savior who pays your price for you. And Jesus has done that. He takes your sin and pays for it with his own life on the cross. He took your place in the grave and he died, but he rose again alive, forever, victorious over sin and death. Now he gives life to whoever believes in him free without charge, by grace. There is a gift being our. offered to you. Will you accept it? Will you accept it? Let's pray. God, you are good and gracious to us. You have saved us by mercy and by grace through faith. Lord, thank you that it's not up to us to save ourselves. It's not up to us to keep salvation for ourselves. Lord, thank you for the adoption that you have given to us that you've extended to us. Lord, I grieve over my own sin. I grieve over the sin of all of us. Lord, where we continue to jump back in the grave. Lord, would you today make us more like Jesus? Would you today give us clarity on the areas that are still dead in us? Would you give us clarity on the areas that we are clinging to with great strength, pride, sin, Lord? Would you kill the sin in us? Would you be glorified in this church as we go and do good works today? Lord, let it not be about us. Let it not be about north and riverside? Let it be about the God who laid it out before us. God, you are good, you are gracious. Jesus' name. Amen.