Let's pray. Father, I bow before You this morning. Lord, we do thank You for meeting with us. I think of the song we just sang. Lord, You are an amazing God. Lord, Your Gospel is amazing. Lord, thank You for revealing Your Son to us, Lord. Showing us truth so we would be able to know You. We're eternally grateful. Father, I need help this morning as I open up Your Word. I pray that You would help me. You would attend the message today, Lord. Help me, I pray in Christ's name. Amen. If you have your Bible this morning, would you open to the book of Titus, chapter number 2. the book of Titus in chapter number 2 this morning. Forgive me for not continuing with our study on the Scripture from 2 Peter, but the Lord just quickened this to my mind this morning. So, we're going to share from Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2 beginning in verse number 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things. Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. You know, there are many places in the Scriptures, in the New Testament primarily, where we find concise statements of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are some wonderful places. Some of my favorites, John chapter number 3, for example. Everybody knows the famous verse, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Or perhaps Romans chapter number 3, where the Scripture reveals, But now the righteousness of God has been revealed. So many of these kinds of places in the New Testament that just give us a nice summary explanation of the Gospel. And it's good for us to see these statements in these compacted texts of Scripture. And for today we have such a text here in the book of Titus. There's enough truth in this passage to save the worst sinner in the world. It's all here. It's all here. Now, just by context, the Apostle Paul is writing to a young man by the name of Titus. That's what this book is about. It's a wonderful little book of the Bible. Only three chapters, but it's a great little study on, really, on the church. In chapter 1 of this book, you learn a lot of great truth about leadership in the church. What's that supposed to look like? Men are called to lead the sheep of God, the people of God. And so Paul lays that out to Titus. Titus is a man who's on the island of Crete and he's going to give him some instruction on how to carry out the working of the church on the island. And so he says, you need to go onto this island and you need to set up elders in the churches there so that order and function can take place and so that there's leadership given to the people of God. Then you come to chapter number two, and he begins to talk about behavior in the church, and how are the different groups of people supposed to behave. And he talks about older men, and he talks about older women, and he talks about younger men, and younger women, and explains what community life in the church is supposed to look like. He talks about the roles. And then of course at the end of chapter 2, the text that we've read this morning, he begins to ground all of that in the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And then chapter 3, he speaks of how now the gospel is to go out into the world. And he tells people you're supposed to behave a certain way as you live out in the world, so that the gospel can be proclaimed as we're missional, as we take the gospel to the world. So we have leadership, we have behavior inside the church, and then we have the role of the church outside of the church. That's the book of Titus in a nutshell. But again, here you come to chapter 2 and you find this amazing, compacted little statement that gives us so much truth about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll notice there in verse number 11, the first thing that he speaks about is the grace of God. Notice that verse again. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation. I want to talk about a few things today that grace brings. You know, when we talk about the concept of grace, we're talking about God's unmerited favor. I hope you know what I mean this morning about unmerited, or on the other side, merited. What does that mean? Well, if you merit something, it means that you earn it, or you deserved it, by virtue maybe of something that you did, or something that you accomplished. But unmerited means that you're giving something that's bestowed to you that you didn't deserve, that you didn't earn. Someone just gave favor to you. You know, when you read through the Scriptures and you begin to study about what God has done for sinners, the Bible teaches that God's plan of deliverance and God's plan of redemption and God's plan of salvation is fully and completely by His grace alone. In other words, when we look in verse number 11, we see that it's the grace of God that brings salvation. He tells us, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. You know, when you go back and you look in the book of Genesis, in chapter number 3, you see that great description. of what happened to the human race. The Bible teaches us that God created everything. He created man as the climax of His creation. And there was a relationship there of God being the authority and man being accountable. And then chapter 3, that disastrous chapter where man rebelled against God. He didn't believe what God had said and he bought into a temptation that came from the enemy. And from that point on, the human race has fallen into sin. Been completely dominated by sin. Everyone is born into this world with a wicked and corrupt sin nature. And we sin because we're sinners. We're not sinners because we sin. We're sinners by nature. We have a corrupt heart. We've inherited that fallenness from our first parents, Adam and Eve. And as you begin to read from Genesis chapter 3 through the pages of the Scriptures, you see story after story, account after account of man in his fallenness and sin. As a matter of fact, when you come to those great sections in the early part of Genesis and you think of the flood, what is it that the scripture tells us? That the wickedness of man was before the Lord. The Lord looked down and he saw that the thoughts and the intentions of a man was wicked continually. That's all he thought about was wickedness. Things haven't changed much today, have they? You know a lot of times we think of the flood and we see the little Noah's Ark boat, the little cartoon and all that. Listen, the flood was a day of wrath. It wasn't the little cartoons that are painted on walls and shown to people. It was a time of wrath where God destroyed the earth with the exception of one little family. But then after the flood, what happened? Wickedness continued to increase on the earth. You read the story of the nation of Israel, wickedness after wickedness after wickedness, and sin upon sin upon sin. You know, the amazing thing about the Bible is it diagnoses the territory accurately, doesn't it? We find the men of the world looking for solutions to all the problems, trying to diagnose all of the things that are out in the world, and they miss it because they don't have the proper perspective that's given to us from the Holy Scriptures. It's the Word of God that teaches us the problem with the human race. And that man has fallen into sin. And I want to tell you today that man's sin is so bad that he never would have gone looking for salvation on his own. The Bible here tells us that it's the grace of God that has appeared. It's the grace of God. God was the prime agent and the prime mover and the one who was behind salvation. Man didn't go looking for it. He didn't go on a quest looking for it. The Bible tells us that man is at enmity with God, that he shakes his fist at God, that he doesn't care about God, that he has no affection, he has no love, he has no internal desire at all for Almighty God. He suppresses truth. He doesn't want God in his mind or in His thinking. And so in the grace of God, the scripture tells us that God's grace has appeared bringing that which men would never have gone to look for, which was salvation. Aren't you thankful today that the grace of God, that the God who has been offended by our sin cared enough about us to bring salvation? And of course, how did He do that? Well, the unfolding story of the Bible. Again, back to Genesis chapter number 3, the Scripture tells us that there would be a seed that would come from the woman who would crush the serpent. And the unfolding of Scripture is the story of that coming One, that coming Prince, that coming Messiah, that coming King, that coming Savior. By the time you come to the New Testament, we find His name. It's the name Jesus. John the Baptist saw Him coming and he said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. None other than Jesus. And God's salvation by His grace has appeared in the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ comes into the world and He lives a life that no other human being could ever live. He lived perfectly in accordance with the law of God. The scripture says that He was born of a woman, born under the law, subject to the same standards that God has over your life. But the difference is that Jesus kept all of those things perfectly. The God-man. You know, we don't have to gaze into the law of God very far before we figure out that we've messed it up pretty bad, haven't we? Think of those Ten Commandments that used to hang on the schools and on the walls and in the courthouse. Don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't murder. All of these things. And it doesn't take us long to gaze into that law to see guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. I failed here, I failed there, especially when you look at the standard that Jesus gave to the Ten Commandments when he said, you've heard it said, don't do all of these things, and you're only thinking of it externally, but God says this law applies all the way down to the heart, to the affections of the heart. You've heard it said, don't murder, but I say, if you have hatred, You've heard it said, don't commit adultery, but I say, if you look with lust, you're guilty. Anyone today want to claim innocence? There's only one who could claim innocence. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes into the world. He lives a perfect, sinless life, subject to the law of God, never violating any of the laws of God, but upholding the standard perfectly. enters into His ministry, proves so many things about Himself by the things that He did and the things that He said, and then He endures His passion and He goes to the cross and He dies on the tree. We begin to read the epistles in the New Testament and they give theological explanation to those historical events. And we find that Jesus was dying on the cross not for sins that He had committed, but for sins of others. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians that God made Him Christ to be sin who knew no sin. So that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We thank God, verse 11, that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation in a person, in Jesus. That Jesus came to the earth on a great rescue mission to deliver men and women from their sins. He died on that cross bearing the wrath of God and the penalty of God for sins of His people. He was buried and three days later He came up out of the grave and that resurrection, that is the stronghold, that is the citadel of the Christian faith. That resurrection proves that Jesus Christ was sinless because if He'd been a sinner, He'd have stayed in the grave. The wages of sin is death. Jesus did die a substitutionary death but He came up out of the grave and the only reason, the only way He could is if He was sinless. That's why He didn't stay there. That resurrection proved His perfect and sinless life. So that we would look upon the Lord Jesus Christ and we would see in Him is the only means and the only way of salvation. Paul tells Titus, Titus you need to understand and you need to tell the people. that the grace of God has appeared. The whole reason you're being left on the island of Crete, the whole reason that I'm an apostle, the whole reason that God has called preachers and teachers of the Word of God, really can all be boiled down to this simple statement in verse 11, that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation. That's really all we do week after week, isn't it? As we tell sinners that God has sent salvation, and we tell believers that God has sent salvation, Oh, we might look at it from different angles and from different viewpoints, and we see it from different passages of Scripture, and there's a lot of truth that builds, but that's the fundamental message today. That's what we preach today as a church, is that God and His grace has provided salvation for sinners. And it's not something that you merit. It's not something that you earn. It's not something you can purchase. It's not something that you can work up. It's something that is only given to sinners by the grace of God. So the grace of God brings salvation. Now notice in verse number 12, and I want you to see secondly that the grace of God brings transformation. Look at that very first word in verse 12, training. Do you see that? The grace of God brings salvation and it trains those who've experienced it to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. You know, this is one of my very favorite verses on sanctification that can be found in the New Testament. It's just jam-packed full of truth. It really holds the whole message together. You know, I think part of the message today of the modern church that's missing is this concept that salvation does so much more for people than just deliver them from condemnation, although it does that. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have peace with God through the justification that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And for a lot of people, even if they get that right, that's where the message stops. But there's this whole other world that the Scripture speaks about in terms of people who have encountered the grace of God. And it's this transformative thing that God brings about in the life of the redeemed sinner. It's right here very clear in the text. It says that this grace of God that has brought salvation bears an effect in the lives of the people who have encountered it. It's training. God's grace trains us to do certain things. A minute ago I talked about man and sin because of the fall. You know, a man in his natural condition as he sins, he gets used to his sinning, doesn't he? I mean he just sins and he sins. He finds every way possible to sin. He enjoys his sinning. The Bible says men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And so men just live in those caverns of darkness. They don't like the light. They don't care about the light. They don't want to come out of that. They just get used to sin and they're trained to sin. They just sin, they sin, they sin, they sin. And then all of a sudden the grace of God and salvation comes along redeeming a person, putting a light down in that dark cavern, pulling them out into the light, causing them to see the glory and the excellence of Christ. And now all of a sudden, BOOM! There's this massive change that takes place in the life. Transformative change. I've given the illustration many times, but I think it's fitting to use here today. When we think about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Scripture teaches us, again, that it's transformative in that you cannot have an encounter with Jesus in your life not be changed. Imagine a man coming to Cracker Barrel to meet someone for a dinner. Let's say that I was going to meet you for dinner at Cracker Barrel. You have an hour off for work, and I say, let's meet at 12 o'clock. So you get there at 12 o'clock and you're waiting on me and it's 12.15 and I don't show up. And then it's 12.30 and I don't show up. And then it's 12.45 and I'm still not there. And then finally, at five minutes to one, I show up in Cracker Barrel. And you're sitting there and you're looking at your clock and you're saying, I gotta go, I gotta go back to work at one o'clock. I've been waiting here an hour for you and I'm standing before you and I'm kind of looking like I do now. I've got my suit on, I've got my shirt pressed and tie on. Everything is fixed to the best that this old boy can fix himself. And I'm standing before you and I say, I'm so sorry that I was late. Let me tell you what happened. I was on the way here to Cracker Barrel and I pulled out on the highway in my car and all of a sudden I smashed into a log truck. And the log truck flipped my car about three or four times and I ended up in the ditch and they had to come and get the jaws of life and they finally were able to get me out and then I was able to make it here. Now, if we're standing in Cracker Barrel and I spin that story to you, and I don't have a mark on me, you're gonna look up at me and say, what? Kyle Reeder, you are a, come on class. You're a liar. Because you can't have an encounter with a log truck and not have some marks in your life to prove that you've had that encounter. And so it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man encounters the Lord Jesus Christ savingly, he's going to begin to show marks in his life that he has had such an encounter. Here our text tells us that the gospel trains us, here's these marks, to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. You see, you take a man who is in his sin, who is unredeemed, that does not have a reconciled relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is living in those words, ungodliness and worldly passions. His whole life is marked by it. He loves his ungodliness. That's all he does is live in ungodliness. He's constantly giving in to worldly passions. He loves the world. He loves to lie. He loves to cheat. He loves to steal. He loves to fornicate. He loves to be angry. He loves to be mad. He loves to sin. He loves to live in ungodliness. He loves worldly passions. But here the Bible teaches us that if a man encounters the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in salvation, he is going to begin to renounce that ungodliness and those worldly passions. You've heard me say it a million times, but he's gonna begin to say no to all of the ungodly things that he used to say yes to. Furthermore, that he used to be in bondage to. You see, the Scripture teaches that a man in his sin is in bondage to that sin. That he's captured by that sin. That his affections are for those sins. He loves those things. That's what he wants. That's what he craves. That's what he desires. And you step back and you say, how in the world could a man whose life has been marked by all of those things, drunkenness, and fornication, and drugs, and hatred, and all of the rest of the sins that you pile up in a big old pile. What kind of explanation could you possibly give for a man being delivered from those things? Do you think a man can just kind of pull himself up by his own bootstraps and work up change in his life to that degree? Absolutely not. He may be able to work up some external changes that fools some people on the outside, but the affections and the loves of his heart never change. And then you come into the household of faith. Maybe you're outside in the sense that you don't know God, but you look at other people and you say, you know what, I remember this guy. And he used to be wicked. He used to be a drunkard and he used to beat his wife and he used to yell at his kids and scream at the dog and kick the cat. And now look at him. Now look at how he's changed. He doesn't do that anymore. He never went to a church house and now he comes to the church house and he sits there with his Bible open. And he never did that before. How do you explain that? There's only one explanation for that. And it's right here in the text that the grace of God that brings salvation has a way of training effectively or effectually a man to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. And then on the positive side, on the flip side, that he says yes to self-control and to living uprightly and to live a godly life in this present age. You know, the current state of affairs in our own world, it's so ungodly. I mean, just look around. Just look at how ungodly things are, just in our own country, in our own nation. Just think of all of the wickedness that abounds. How in the world could someone in such a cesspool of all of that wickedness, and just name the sin, just start naming them and they're out there on the open square. How could a person who lives in such a cesspool of sin ever expect to say no to all of that? And to totally be flipped around and say yes to godliness and righteousness and holiness? Things of virtue and beauty. How do you explain that? How could that possibly happen? You know, we sin so much we don't realize we sin. It's like a fish. He doesn't know that he's wet because he lives in the water. We live in sin. Our culture swims in sin. How do you pull a man out of that and keep him out of that? Right here the text tells you. And it's the only real way. It's the grace of God appearing, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-control, upright, and godly lives in this present age. We say no to what we used to say yes to, and we say yes to what we used to say no to. The grace of God brings salvation. The grace of God brings transformation. Thirdly, the grace of God brings anticipation. You notice here in verse number 13, the grace of God continues to produce some things. Here it says that we are waiting for our blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. who gave Himself for us, to redeem us from all unlawlessness, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works." Notice that statement again in verse 13, we're waiting for our blessed hope. What is our blessed hope? It's the Lord Jesus Christ who is our blessed hope. We're waiting for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this point because I spent two weeks just previously Talking about all the details of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's good to be reminded, isn't it? You see the Christian lives in an already but not yet tension, don't we? We have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ. We've received some amazing things in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Scripture teaches that there is this anticipation that more is coming in the future. You see, the believer is living in anticipation, ready to see the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter said that he saw that second coming glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. When the second coming glory and the second coming kingdom glory of Jesus was given a preview to him. You see, that's what we long for. That's what the true believer looks for. And this is in Scripture and God has set it up this way because God doesn't want us getting too comfortable here in this world. God doesn't want us to live as if this is our final dwelling place. You know, I think again, one of the terrible things that's happened to American Christianity today is that we haven't talked about this tension of the already and not yet, and people have just gotten so comfortable living here and now. As if this is where it's at. As if this is the resting spot. Christ is coming again. And the Scripture teaches that the believer, that our heart, the heart that has been changed, that pants after the Lord Jesus Christ, longs for the day when we see the Lord Jesus. By the way, just let me say today, that's a good test for you to think about today. As you said in the pew, ask yourself the question, do I long right now in my heart to see the Lord Jesus Christ? Is there a panting? Is there an anticipation? Almost in the sense if your spouse had been away for several months and you longed to see them come home. Do you have that kind of anticipation and delight in the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you can't say that you do today, you have to ask the question to yourself, why don't I anticipate with delight and expectation and joy? There's a couple of explanations for that. Number one, if you're a true believer, it could be That you're too earthbound. That you're thinking too much about this earthly world. Maybe you're too caught up in the things of the world. But then on the other hand, it could also prove today that you don't know this Jesus. And so you have no affection and you have no desire to see Him face to face. And perhaps, maybe, instead of great anticipation and excitement to see Jesus, there's actually more of the anticipation of fear and dread. That He's not your beloved. but that you'll see him as a king who's gonna take vengeance. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Are you a happy subject to the Lord Jesus Christ? Where's your relationship to him only as a sinner? It's a good question to ponder this morning. You need to ask yourself the question, as you look in verse 13, are you waiting for the blessed hope for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ? You see, the Bible teaches for the true Christian, God's grace that brings that salvation and transformation is also going to produce this anticipation. Fourthly, God's grace brings consecration. God's grace brings consecration. We're waiting for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, verse 14, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people, now notice this, a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. God's people, the true people of God, are zealous for doing good works in the name of their Savior. We don't do good works because we expect to get something back from the person that we're trying to help. True salvation brings about a kind of sacrificial service that expects nothing in return. The desire is to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ and the world that causes us to be zealous because we want to see the Lord Jesus Christ glorified. That our Father would be seen by our good works. That He would be glorified by the things that we do. You see, God, when He saves us, changes everything about us. All of our motivations, all of our desires. We have different reasons to do the things that we do. Don't we? God saves, He redeems us, and here's the same statement or the same idea that He said back in verse 12 when He talked about training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. Here in verse 14, that salvation that God gave to us, that grace that came in Christ, verse 14, to redeem us, what did it redeem us from? From lawlessness and to purify us. There it is. Being saved from the negative things and being delivered to the positive things. Saying no to lawlessness and yes to purity and holiness. Why? Because we are a possession of the King who redeemed us. You understand today, if you're a Christian, that Christ paid a price to redeem you? That He bought you out of the slave market of sin and so He owns you? And so the message of the Gospel is that this grace changes us to the degree that we want to be totally consecrated to the Lord Jesus. To live a life of holiness and godliness, zealous for good works. Are you zealous for good works today in the name of your Savior? Do you have a motivation in your heart today to glorify God by the things that you do? I'm not talking about just glorifying God when you come together corporately on Sunday morning. I'm talking about what goes on Monday when you go to work. I'm talking about what's the motivation when you're sitting at work and you're doing what you're doing. Is it to glorify God in that? I'm talking about parents when you're sitting with your children in the home. Do you discipline just because you're tired of hearing all the bickering and the crying and the screaming and the yelling? Or are you disciplining and training those children for the glory of God because you want to see Christ revealed in your children in their salvation? Are you training them to follow the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you living for the glory of God in your relationship with your spouse? You know, it's interesting when you come to the Scriptures, think of Ephesians and Colossians, for example. After the Apostle Paul speaks of all of these glorious things about the Gospel, there are all of these ways in which the Gospel infiltrates even the most mundane areas of our life, doesn't it? Why? Because God's grace produces this. It produces salvation and transformation and anticipation and consecration. Christ is Lord over every single element of your life. Well, lastly, what we're doing this morning, we see here in the text that the grace of God results in proclamation. Again, think of the scenario here as you have the Apostle Paul training a young man in the ministry, and he's telling him all of these wonderful gospel truths, and he says in verse number 15, Titus, you are to do what? You are to declare these things. You are to exhort And you are to rebuke with all authority and let no one disregard you. Notice that again. Declare all of these things. Declare all what things? All of the things that pertain to the grace of God. All of the truths that surround the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the instruction. All of the training that's found in the Word of God. Declare all of these things. Teach these things. Preach these things. Exhort people. Press it upon the consciences of the hearers. Bring out the implications of the Word of God. And smack it home so people can understand. And so they see what the Word of God is teaching. You know, we need strong truth today coming out of the pulpits. We need clarity today coming from those who proclaim the Word of God. We don't need men-pleasers who try to tickle the ears of the people. We need truth to sound forth once again. You know, Alexa de Tocqueville, he was, I believe, a Frenchman that came over to America. And of course, he wanted to try to understand what it was about America that made it so great. America was booming and being prosperous and so many amazing things. And so de Tocqueville came over and he thought he'd write about it. You can read his writings today. It's called Democracy in America. And de Tocqueville came over and he said, you know, I went out to the farmers in the fields and I didn't find America's greatness there. He said, you know, I went into the towns and into the villages and into the business districts and I didn't find America's greatness there. I went around and I talked to the different people and I didn't find America's greatness there. Ah, but then I went into the church house and I found that men thundered out righteousness from the pulpit and it was there that I found America's greatness. You see, it's the righteousness and the truth that comes from the Word of God that people need. Listen, if you're outside of Christ today, what you need is the message that's been being proclaimed today. The message of God's grace for helpless and hopeless sinners who can't find their way, who can't fix their problems, who can't reconcile themselves to God, who can't save themselves from condemnation and hell. You need the grace of God that has appeared in Jesus Christ bringing salvation and transformation and anticipation and consecration. And you're hearing it today through the word of proclamation. And I exhort you today, if you don't know the Lord, call out for that grace. You know, you can't merit the grace of God or else it wouldn't be grace, but you know what you can do? You can ask for it. You can ask for it. In the beauty of Scripture, the Lord Jesus said, anybody who comes to me, I'm not going to cast him away. I'm not going to turn him away. Do you know the Lord today? That's the question of the hour. That's why we preach the text that we've preached today. Have you encountered the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know Him? Do you know Him? Has your life been changed? Are you experiencing ongoing transformation? Has the grace of God taught you to say no? to ungodliness and worldly lusts, and yes, to godliness and righteousness and uprightness and self-control. Is there deep affection and love for the Lord Jesus deep down in your heart? Do you long to see Him? Do you love Him? Do you love Him today? Let's pray. Father, we thank you today for this wonderful, wonderful passage of Scripture. Lord, thank You for helping me to speak it today. Lord, I pray that it's been clear and helpful. Lord, I pray that You would, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, quicken the cruise of this text to the sinner and the saint alike, Lord. Lord, for those who may not know You today, Lord, I pray that You would show them the glory of Your grace and Your kindness in Jesus. And Father, for the saints, for the Christian, Lord, wherever they're at in their journey, whether they're just starting out in their journey or whether they've been walking with You for quite some time, Father, I pray that You would take the truths of the passage and just give joy in the heart, Lord. Lord, we find joy just in being reminded of truths that we already know. And I pray that that would be our experience today, Lord. Father, we bow before you this morning recognizing your goodness and your kindness to send the Lord Jesus to save us. And Father, we say today, yes, that it is all of grace that we never would have sought you out, that no man seeks for God, that no one desires you, Lord, but you desired us and loved us and cared for us enough to send the ultimate sacrifice, your Son. Lord, we see your marvelous love today. in Jesus Christ. And we also see the satisfaction of Your justice and Your holiness, Lord. You didn't compromise Your holiness to forgive us, but You upheld it by pouring out wrath on Jesus so that then You could turn to us and be gracious and kind and merciful. And Lord, in that we see Your wisdom. And so Lord, for all of these things, for all of the attributes that we see of You in the Gospel, Lord, we bow before You and we worship You, Lord. Father, I pray that you would save sinners and mature saints. Give us a good Lord's day today, Father. I pray that we will have a whole day of rejoicing, that it would just be a day of joy. We pray it all in Christ's name, amen.