Luke, chapter three, beginning in verse one in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrarch of the region of Tura and Trachonitis and Licinius Tetrarch of Abilene. During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zachariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain shall be made low and the crooked shall become straight and the rough places shall become level ways. and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. He said, therefore, to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him. You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come their fruits in keeping with repentance and do not begin to save yourselves. We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from the stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the actions laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire and the crowds asked him what then shall we do, and he answered them. Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, Collect no more than you are authorized to do. Soldiers also asked him, and we what shall we do? And he said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages. Thanks be to God for his word. Let's pray. God, we praise you for your mighty work of salvation. We praise you for your word. Your spirit that that brings life and salvation to dead hearts, as we've just heard, and we thank you now, Lord, that we can read and study your word and we pray that your spirit would open the eyes of our heart and show us. Your mighty work of salvation in your son, Jesus Christ, and may you be glorified as we as we. Consider that and rejoice in that salvation in Jesus name. Amen. I love in this passage there in. Verse two, when it says the word of God came to John and we just heard the power of the word of God, even through radio to save lives and. In this account, we see how active in living the word of God is that it came upon God's chosen mouthpiece, the prophet that he had raised up John the Baptist to proclaim it. And then you think about what a privilege it is that we have the word of God here to read. And we have the spirit of God to to apply and enlighten the word of God to us. And so as I begin today, I just want to thank God and cast that vision for us that while we're we are studying the same word of God that came to John back then. And now we have the privilege of getting to hear it proclaimed and seeing God do mighty things through it, just like he did back then. So, what a joy that is. In the first two chapters of Luke, we've heard Luke introduce for us John the Baptist and then also Jesus and their lives have been intertwined and he's been bouncing back and forth between the way God has worked in miraculous ways in their conception and then in their birth. and now here in John three we fast forwarded to now they're they're grown adults and in God's timing. It's time for John to begin his public ministry and then which will lead directly into the public ministry of Jesus Christ and so now we're seeing their lives converge once again, and we're seeing them do John the Baptist specifically today. We're seeing him do what God has raised him up to do, and that is to prepare the way to point people toward the Messiah, Jesus Christ. So there in verse one, as I was reading it, and as I was studying this passage this week, you know, Luke lays out all these different rulers. And if you're like me, as you're reading that, you know, you're almost kind of like, OK, you know, he's saying, OK, when Tiberius was the Caesar and when this guy is this guy and you're like, all right, look, I get the point, you know, but it's a time and time again. He mentions, I think, seven rulers in here. And really, what Luke is doing is he's just setting the context. right. He starts out broad. He starts out with the Roman leader, who's the Caesar, and then he he continues to narrow it in and talks about who are the different leaders in the in the area of Palestine there, and then he goes all the way down into who are the religious leaders talking about the high priest. And again, he's he's setting the context. We know that Luke was a historian. We saw when we began this study through the gospel of Luke, that he carefully investigated things and carefully studied and placed things together to show the accuracy of it. And so by him lifting all these people, we know that this is taking place around the year eighty twenty nine. OK, so all of that is the context for when John the Baptist begins his ministry for when the Word of God, which for the most part had been silent. Right. I mean, we saw little glimpses of the Word of God and at the birth of Jesus, you know, I can feeling the spirit, feeling Zachariah, the spirit, feeling as Simeon. But for the most part, the Word of God had been silent for over four hundred years. And now in God's timing, the Word of God is once again active and breaks through the silence and comes to his chosen instrument, John the Baptist. So there's the context. And in providing that context, again, I'll just say in passing, and really John Lever's testimony kind of reminded me of this, that, you know, by giving us that historical context, it reminds us of that these are true accounts, right? As we read the word of God, this is not just fables. You know, like you shared, this is not just theological teaching pieced together with mythological characters or made up characters. I mean, these are real people in real places. And Luke is a good reminder of that because of his detail to history here. So today, the message is on the salvation of God. The salvation of God, that what a what an important topic for us to consider what the word of God came to John and he preached about the salvation of God. We didn't read this far, but you look down in verse eighteen of this chapter. It talks about how John preached good news to the people. He was preaching good news. He was preaching about the salvation of God. And so today, that's what I want us to consider. We're going to consider three things that John teaches us about the salvation of God. So there's three points in your outline in your bulletin there. I will spend most of our time on point number one, just so you're aware of that. So in verse two, we see that God is at work The Word of God has come to John. Now, that might catch your eye if you're familiar with the Old Testament, because that's the same kind of language that God uses in the Old Testament when he raises up prophets, the Word of God coming to them. He talks that way with Zachariah and Jeremiah and some of his other prophets in the Old Testament. And so here again, John the Baptist is like the last in the great line of Old Testament prophets. The Word of God has come to him. God has raised him up to proclaim the Word of God, to point forward, just as all the prophets did to point forward to the salvation of God. But John is unique in that the other Old Testament prophets, they were pointing forward to something that they themselves would never see in this life because it would be hundreds of years. But here, John is getting to proclaim it and point forward to it. And he's going to see it because he's a contemporary of Jesus Christ. He's going to be able to proclaim about the coming salvation of God. And he's going to be able to point to it and say, there it is. There's the salvation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, he'll say. So John is a unique. Bridge here is the last of the Old Testament prophets. God is at work. His word is speaking through his prophet now. So three points about the salvation of God today. I'll just jump right into point number one, where we'll spend most of our time. The salvation of God comes through repentance. John the Baptist, that's a big lesson I want us to see today from his ministry, is that the salvation of God comes through repentance. Look at verse three, the way Luke kind of summarizes, in a way, John's ministry. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So you see, his message was a message of repentance. Repentance means, if you're ever wondering, how do I define repentance? The one word I would hope you associate with repentance is turning. Turning. Repentance means to turn from sin and to turn toward God. And we'll develop that definition a little more as we go along. But if you remember back in Luke, chapter one, verses sixteen and seventeen, when the angel Gabriel told Zachariah what that he was going to have a son and what his son John's ministry would be, he said it this way. Luke one, sixteen, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children in the disobedience to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord of people prepared. They see that the turning. That's what he's doing proclaiming a message of repentance. He's proclaiming to people that they need to turn from their sins and turn to God in repentance. Now Luke tells us here in in chapter three that he proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So John was was proclaiming repentance and he was promising people the forgiveness of sins in response to their repentance. And then he was commanding them, telling them to demonstrate the sincerity of the repentance by being baptized in the Jordan River. And later, we're going to see John give specific applications of what this repentance should look like. What does it look like to turn from sin? But for now, I just want us to see that his overall message was one of repentance. John powerfully proclaimed this message of repentance. And by God's grace, especially as we read the other gospel accounts, we know that crowds of hundreds and thousands of people responded to this message of repentance. I mean, crowds of people flocked out to John who wasn't in Jerusalem. He wasn't in a real convenient place. He wasn't where you would think all this would be happening. He was out in the wilderness. But yet scores of people are coming to him to be baptized. They are responding to this message. God is at work. And so, now in verse four here of chapter three, Luke describes this, describes what is happening, describes this response to John's message as a fulfillment of prophecy. So look what he says here in verse four. He quotes Isaiah chapter forty, verses three through five. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall become straight and the rough places shall become level ways and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. So, in the book of Isaiah, the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, Isaiah is prophesying to the people of Judah and telling them that because of their unfaithfulness to God, because of their disobedience, that they're going to be captured and led into exile by the Babylonians. But then, even before that has happened, right, I mean, even before that has actually taken place, in chapter 40, beginning in chapter 40 in Isaiah, God in his grace already tells them of the deliverance that is to come. So beginning in chapter 40, you kind of have a shift in the book of Isaiah as God speaks of, yes, you are going to be captured. You are going to be led into exile, but I am going to come and I'm going to deliver you. And it's in that context that this passage that Luke quotes and is attributed to the ministry of John takes place. So in chapter forty of Isaiah, it speaks of God coming to deliver his people. It speaks of the salvation of God coming, and it's God himself who comes. And so the picture here is one of maybe if you've seen movies, you can kind of relate to this a little bit. But the picture is of that time when there was someone important, like an important ruler coming to town. They would prepare the way for him, right? You know, they would would clear a path, make it straight, make it broad, make it easy for him to get here, make it to where he can come and arrive with all the grandeur, with all the glory that he deserves. It kind of reminds me of the expression we use, rolling out the red carpet for someone, right? Well, that's what these verses are talking about, is that God is coming to deliver his people so Let's make a way for him to come in the way God is making a way for him to come is through the preaching of John. You see what Luke is declaring and all the gospel writers declare is that John was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 predicted there would be a voice in the wilderness who would it through his preaching would prepare the way for the Lord. And John was that voice. He was in the wilderness and God had raised him up to prepare the way for the salvation of God to come. This passage is being fulfilled. John is preparing the people for the coming salvation of God. And who is he preparing them for? He's preparing them for Jesus Christ. Right. Jesus is that coming salvation. But what I want us to see now, we'll get back to the fact that it's Jesus himself. But what I want us to see in this point The salvation of God comes through repentance again. Think of this road. Think of this pathway. You see what this passage is teaching. It's saying that the way God comes, the way God comes to deliver the highway that the salvation of the Lord comes on is a highway of repentance. That's what this is teaching. You know, remove all the obstacles, level the hills, fill in the valleys, make it to where the salvation of the Lord arrives to his people. And the way that happens is through repentance. A repentant heart is the one who is ready to receive the salvation of the Lord. So that's a key truth to take away today. The salvation of God comes through repentance. Right. And Jesus taught this. Jesus said it is the sick who needs a doctor. Those who are self-righteous, those who are not convicted of their sin, those who see no need of God's deliverance, they're not going to be saved. They're not going to cry out for mercy. They're not going to receive God's salvation. No, God's salvation comes to those who are burdened by their sin, those whom the Word of God has cut to the heart and laid bare, and they sense their guilt before a holy God. and they recognize their need for mercy, and so they turn from their sins. They forsake their rebellion against God, and they cry out to God for mercy. Have mercy on me, God. I'm a sinner. I need your salvation. That is how God's salvation comes to a person. It's through repentance. John's preaching prepared people to receive the salvation of God, because he proclaimed the Word of God, which Hebrews 4 tells us is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from its sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. So you see, that's what John's message was doing. He was he was declaring who God is, who they are, and they were cut to the heart. The word of God exposed the rebellion to God. The word of God declared that their sin would soon be punished by the wrath of God. And so God's message to them was repent. How important it is for us to realize that that when we proclaim the gospel, this is the message we must proclaim. We cannot sugarcoat it. We do people no favors when we just say God loves you and and Jesus died on the cross. And so it's believe in Jesus. Right. If that's all we say. Then apart from the, you know, the grace of God, which we know is required anyways, they won't be saved. The salvation of God comes through repentance. We must also say, God is your creator. He is holy. Jesus is the exalted ruler of the universe. You have sinned against him. You've not worshipped him. You don't you don't serve him and bow to him like you need to. And so God commands all people to repent. The wrath of God is coming. The judgment of God is coming. And it's when God awakens a person to see their need. And again, that's not the whole story, as Jan reminded us of, right? It's not just only fear, but yet that is a part of it. You know, God uses the teaching of the coming judgment of God to open people's eyes, to see who they are before God. They're laid bare before whom they must give an account, Scripture says. So salvation of God comes to repentance. So, let us not sugarcoat the gospel. Let us not reduce it to just the bare minimums. We need to proclaim a whole gospel, lest we leave obstacles up in the way that would obstruct God's salvation from coming, because his salvation comes through repentance. Now look at what Look at what John says to these people who are coming to him. Right. You've got all these crowds coming to him. And Luke tells us in verse seven, he says to the crowds who are coming to be baptized, doing what he had said, you brood of vipers. Who warns you to flee from the wrath to come their fruits in keeping with repentance and not begin to save yourselves. We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees and every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So John's ministry teaches that important truth that salvation comes through repentance, and then he teaches us some important things about repentance, and here is one of them. And you might jot this down, that repentance is for everyone. Everyone needs to repent. There are no exceptions, because what he's saying here is there were people coming to God or coming to John. There were Jews coming that I don't know what exactly what their motives were, if they were just trying to look good in front of people, if they were just wanting to be a part of this exciting thing that's happening. But John, through the Spirit of God, knew their heart. He knew that they were not truly repentant. He knew that they were not coming to God desiring to be changed. And so he says, you brood of vipers, he was saying, you're like snakes who are fleeing a brush fire, you're trying to escape God's wrath, but you have no intention of truly seeking God to change your evil nature. And by calling them a brood of vipers, he's bringing to mind Genesis 315, where God says, I will put enmity between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed. And ever since then, we realized that because of the fall by nature, man is born a sinner. Man is born enslaved to sin. He's born a follower of Satan himself. And so here are these Jews coming who were confident in their own religious heritage And they're thinking, oh, I don't really need to repent. Right. You know, I mean, I'm going to kind of go through the motions here. I want to be a part of this, but but I'm I'm all good because I'm one of Abraham's children. I'm a physical descendant of Abraham. And John is saying, no, you brood of vipers don't think that God, just because you're a physical descendant of Abraham, don't think that that means you don't need to repent. You do, because God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones if he wants to. God had made a covenant with Abraham that through his offspring, all nations will be blessed and and everyone is a children, a child of Abraham is the inheritance of that promise. And he's saying, don't don't rest in your Jewishness, don't rest in your upbringing, you need to repent. That's his message. Everyone needs to repent. No one is immune to it. And what what a word we need to hear today, not that we're resting in something like Jewishness, but how many people do I talk to? And when the topic of of salvation and the topic of Christianity or their testimony comes up and it's the first thing they go to and pretty much the only thing they go to is their upbringing is. Well, you know, I was raised in a Christian home where, man, you know, my grandfather, he was a he was a minister. My parents, man, we were in church every every time the doors were open, we were in church. And that's what they're looking to, as as the basis of their salvation. And that's essentially what the crowds were looking to that that John is rebuking here. He's saying it. No, salvation comes through repentance. You need to truly recognize your need of a savior and personally repent and believe and not be resting in your upbringing, your heritage. And so let us not make that same mistake as well. Repentance. So this, again, helps kind of define repentance for us. Repentance is turning from sin, or you could even add this repentance is turning from self-reliance and turning to God for his mercy. Maybe it's not upbringing. Maybe maybe you're what you're relying on is just your good your morality. That's another thing people will look to when they think about, am I a Christian or have I been saved or do I need salvation or whatever they look to their morality? And John's message was no, you need to repent. No one is good enough. No one is born into the family of God. All must be saved through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. So repentance is turning from sin, turning from self-reliance and turning to God for his mercy. It's solely by his grace that we're saved. The next thing John teaches us about repentance is true repentance results in noticeable change. Again, back to what he said here. Look at verse eight, bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And then beginning in verse ten, you have these these people who are coming to John who truly are seeking to repent. And they're like, what shall we do? And he gives each one specific instructions of how it should make a difference in their life, how there should be a noticeable change in their life. You've got the crowd, you've got the tax collectors, you've got the the the soldiers And he's saying, if you are truly repenting, then you need to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Repentance should produce a noticeable change. Repentance is not. Oh, good. I'm forgiven. I didn't want to go to hell. I'm glad I got that taken care of. Now I can live the way I want. No, repentance is truly a turning from a changing of one's direction. Turning from sin or turning from living for myself. and a turning to God, not only for mercy, but now a turning to God that now I live for God. That's why I've been saved. That's why God has created me is to bring glory to him. And just as we read in Titus two, just as we heard in the testimonies today, when someone has truly been saved, it should produce a change in their character. There should be a noticeable change. And so this is important for us to understand. Salvation comes through repentance. And repentance produces noticeable change in our life. This is what the Bible teaches. This is what Jesus taught about the prodigal son, that when he's an example of repentance, he did not stay in the pigsty after he came to his senses by God's grace. He left the pigsty and went to his father. The Thessalonians serve as an example of this as well. In first Thessalonians one nine Paul thanked God for the Thessalonians for how they turned from idols to serve the living in the true God. See, they had truly repented. They had changed their lifestyle. They quit worshipping idols and instead worshipped and served God, their creator. We know Luke accompanied Paul on a lot of his missionary journeys and Acts twenty six twenty when Paul is before King Agrippa. He's been sharing his own testimony and and listen, listen, what he says in verse twenty, that's twenty six. Paul says, I declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. See that that's what the gospel is. So just as John read in Ephesians 2, we're not saved by works. No, it's solely by the grace of God through the finished work of Jesus Christ. But once God saves us, we do good works. We're changed. We're transformed. We're a new creation. And so this is important for us that the Bible calls us to examine ourselves. And so something I'd want us to take away from from John's ministry here is Do I see fruits of repentance in my life? Do I see fruits in keeping with repentance? Do I see deeds that I'm performing, as Paul says, in keeping with repentance and faith in God? Not am I perfect, because we're not going to be again, as John Lever's testimony pointed out, but he was changed He still failed. He still sinned. We all still do. But he was a new person. God had changed him. And so another way to ask that question is what area of my life is affected by Christ? Again, I was just struck by how practical John's teaching was to the crowds, right? He was saying, don't go out and collect more than than is owed to you. Don't extort people. I mean, this should where the rubber meets the road. Your repentance should affect your life. And so ask yourself, How am I different from my unsaved neighbors? What what area of my life is different? Is it just that I go to church on Sunday? I mean, that that's that is important. I mean, that's different. You're going to come into worship here. God's word. But what area in my conduct is different? The salvation of God comes through repentance. That was Paul's point again in second Corinthians seven ten when he distinguished between godly grief and worldly grief, he said, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. So salvation comes through repentance and repentance is not meant to be a one time thing, by the way. And that's how God initially saves us. That's the highway that God's salvation comes to us initially. But then in the Christian life, as as we stand, as we fail, we continue to repent. If we're in Christ, then his blood has covered all our sins, but we should still repent of sins as they're committed in order to keep our fellowship with God intimate. And as I thought about that connection between salvation and repentance, I was thinking about how that affects us as Christians. And again, I'm just wondering, I can't point to chapter and verse about this, but I'm just wondering here, could it be the reason we are not experiencing more victory in our lives? Is because we're not repenting. You see what I'm saying? God says that when Christ saves us, we are delivered from bondage to sin, sin is no longer our master, we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to Christ now. We are still going to stumble and fall. But I wonder if some of us are stumbling and falling more often because we're not repenting of sin anymore. The daily saving power of God in our life is not reaching us because we're not repenting. We just kind of learn to live with sin. We're just kind of complacent about it, we just kind of accept, well, that's who I am, that's what I'm going to do, or maybe even worse, some of us kind of still cherish a little bit. Right. There's some things we still like to toy with. May that not be the case. May God lead us to daily repent of our sin. May God help us to actively reject sin, cling to the cross and continually turn to God for his power in battling our sin. I pray that we would daily experience the salvation of God. The saving work of God in our lives, in our victory over sin. All right, so that was point one. The salvation of God comes through repentance and point two and three. I'll do very quickly. Number two, the salvation of God is critical because the wrath of God is coming. We'll see this again next week as John describes the ministry of Jesus more. But again, just notice that he describes the wrath of God. He says, Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? What is wrath? That's a God settled response against sin. God is a holy God. He must punish sin. He's patient now. He's withholding his his final judgment. But one day his patience will end. He will unleash the fury of his wrath and judgment against all sin and wickedness. And on that day, there will be nowhere to flee. You see, now we can still flee God's wrath. Now we can still be saved from the wrath of God that should be ours. Everyone who is still in their sins can turn to Christ. On the cross, Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God for all those who would turn and believe in him. And he satisfied God's wrath by his life, death, and resurrection. That's why God raised him from the dead, because the payment was accepted. He had paid it in full. But we need to run to Christ. He is the one who delivers us from the wrath to come. That's what Paul says in First Thessalonians 110. Jesus Christ is the one who delivers us from the wrath to come. So I urge you to flee the wrath of God. If you've never turned from your sins and trusted in Christ, you never repented. And experience the salvation of God. Then you can. By God's grace, his kindness will lead you to repentance through the Word of God. And you can escape God's wrath by turning to Jesus Christ. Point number three, the salvation of God is found in Jesus Christ. That leads us right to this final point. Paul says Jesus Christ is the one who delivers us from the wrath to come. And that's what John's ministry shows us. We're talking about salvation of God. Make way, prepare a way for the salvation of God to come on this highway of repentance. Well, who is it that is coming? Who is it that John was pointing toward? Well, he's pointing to Jesus, right? That was his whole purpose. He was the forerunner. Isaiah's quote says, All flesh shall see the salvation of God, and that salvation of God is Jesus Christ. So I just say that point, because I fear sometimes when we talk about salvation, we may make it this nebulous thing, you know, some mystical thing for which we have to search. No, the Bible says salvation, the salvation of God is found in a person. is found in the person of his son, Jesus Christ. He died on the cross and rose again to secure that salvation, and now is the risen and exalted Lord Jesus freely gives it to all who turn from their sin and turn to him in faith. You see how this definition of repentance is being fleshed out. Repentance is forsaking your sin, turning from sin, turning to God for mercy. And then it's turning to God and placing your faith in the salvation. He has provided his son, Jesus Christ. That's how the salvation of God comes to you. It's in through faith in Jesus Christ. So are there any here today who are looking for salvation? You're searching. You're longing to know forgiveness of sins. And if we were to ask you, you'd say, yeah, I'm kind of on a journey. I'm kind of searching right now. Let me just point you to who you're searching for. It's Jesus, right? It's not a religion. It's not any other man-made thing. It's Jesus Christ. That's where the salvation of God is found. So turn to him. Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus. Now, for us believers, for us who have already trusted in Christ as our Savior, what should our response be to this? I've already mentioned about continuing to repent in our life. But one final takeaway would just be for you to praise God, praise God for his glory, praise God for his glory that is seen in his salvation. Again, as you piece all these things together, when you look at how Isaiah originally writes it, He talks about all flesh will see the glory of God. And now in the gospel writers, as they as the Spirit leads them to reference that and quote that they say all flesh will see the salvation of God. And so I was thinking those are really two ways of saying the same thing, aren't they? The glory of God is seen in the salvation of God. So as you look at your own life, And you think about what, as you reflect on your own testimony, as we've heard testimonies today, praise God for the glory of his grace, his glory that was seen in saving you. The glory of his power is the word of God came to you in whatever situation in a powerful way and gave you life. The glory of his kindness that opened your eyes and led you to repentance, scripture says. That's the highway we need for the salvation of God to come, and God's the one who paved the highway for us by opening our eyes and giving us the faith and repentance that we needed. Praise God for his son, Jesus Christ, who secured our salvation through his suffering and death. And praise God for the glory of his grace. in forgiving our sins and giving us eternal life. God, we praise you for your glory. We praise you for your son, Jesus Christ. We pray, God, that you would continue to demonstrate the glory of your grace, the glory of your kindness in leading more people to repentance. Oh, God, even in this room, Lord, any who are who have never turned from their sins and place their faith in Jesus, any who are who are holding to something other than your grace and mercy for their salvation, whether it be their morality or their religious upbringing. Oh, God, please show them how spiritually bankrupt they are. Show them how they need to repent. And we pray you'd be glorified as you add to your number those who are being saved. May you help us to walk in the Spirit, Lord, and continually be conformed to the image of Christ and bring you glory. In Jesus' name, amen.