Well, if you've got your Bibles and take them and turn them to Ephesians chapter two, and you'll want to keep them open there. I wished I could have played with you at the gym. It was fun to watch you. I heard the winners in the basketball. I heard which team won that. I didn't hear who won the volleyball. Okay, all the tall guys. That makes sense. Okay. You did? Okay. Well, congratulations. It was fun watching you and enjoyable. So now, look forward to coming together to one of the passages that you're probably familiar with, but it is a very rich passage in terms of trying to understand how it is that we're saved and why we need this grace so much. So let's read. We're just going to read the first 10 verses of chapter 2. And you were dead in the 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 we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is the word of God. Let us go before him. Father, I pray that you would keep our eyes open, that you would keep them open just in terms of attentiveness, that we would not be sleepy. I pray that you would open them from their blindness if they are blind. I pray that you would open them even further if they are open to the riches of your grace this evening. Be with me, be with the hearers. May your spirit attend. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We've gone through all that we have in Christ this morning, and he's all excited. And speaking of the wonder of grace, and now he comes to reminding us, and again, this is all reminding the Ephesians of their first love. And in order to do that, he kind of backtracks into their BC days, their before Christ days, in order to display why we need grace, why we're saved by grace and not works. The catechism gives a definition of grace. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. Unmerited means something you didn't earn. If you get a merit award, it means you did something in order to earn that. So they used to give that, I don't know if they still do in school, but you get some merit award. It means you achieved a certain standard, a certain grade, you completed enough of the task, and you would get that award. So in this day and age, if you get a paycheck, you earned it. The number of hours that you worked, They multiply it by the wages that you're supposed to get, and you get those wages. And that's what we're used to. That's typically all that we get is something by merit. In fact, all other religions, except for Christianity, except for the Gospel, teach this. If you're going to be okay with God, you're going to have to do something to merit it. There's gonna have to be something you do that he's gonna say, okay, now I'll let you into my heaven. But the good news of the gospel is very different from all other religions. It's not what we do, and if you understood the language when we read it, what was, you know what tense is? Too late for English class, right? We're getting away from school this week. So it's all in the past tense. Meaning it's already happened. So it's not what we're doing or what we have done, it's what Christ did. But we're not used to that. But the Bible teaches grace alone and not works. How many have ever sung the hymn Amazing Grace? Everyone, right? I would say 80% of Americans have sung Amazing Grace. So the question, though, that I ask is, are you amazed by grace? You know, the story about Amazing Grace is about John Newton. He used to be a slave trader. He ran from God, he cursed, he swore he was a sailor and ended up in the whole slave trade. An abominable career. an immoral man who knew better, grew up with a mom who told him better. And when God opened his eyes, and he did open his eyes, that the only hope for him was not that he had been a good enough person. How do you be a good enough person if you're a slave trader? Was that the gospel was true. And so that's the writer of that hymn, and that's who wrote it. This was a man who understood. He was truly amazed by grace. Now that we sing it, we have to ask our question, are you and I amazed by grace? And if we're honest, I'm preaching the sermon, so I'll tell you, I'm amazed by grace. I've been saved now for, it's too late for math too, right? 36 years, so longer than most of you have been alive by two. And I feel like just now I'm beginning to be more and more amazed by grace, that God would save a wretch like me. It's hard to get it as well as we should, but we have to. To be amazed by grace, is it just a word that we use? Give us grace. Thank you for your grace. Amazed by grace. Or is it clickbait to you? You know what clickbait is? It can get you in trouble sometimes, right? But clickbait, there's some headline, right? It tells you about something, and you're like, I've got to know more about that. And then they try to put something out there that, well, For us who know the gospel, the word grace ought to be clickbait. I want to know more of that. I need to know more of that. I need to think more about it, to look into it more. How we think of grace is determined by how much we think and look at ourselves, how much we then think of Christ, It will influence whether we're amazed or not amazed by grace, whether we say, yeah, Christ, yeah, I need grace, or grace is amazing. So you think about clickbait. Did you hear about the guy who died and came back to life? I think if you saw that headline, you're like, I probably ought to click on that. I probably ought to find out who this guy is. And sometimes you have stories and then you read and you're like, oh, well, he was flatlining on the table and then the doctor did this and this and this, right? But wouldn't you be interested? Paul wants us to know, and he's telling us about this grace here, that in every one of our stories, if we are in Christ, that is our story. And you think about the different headlines in terms of our desperate need, you know, man gets in car accident. You're like, eh, that happens all the time. Man pronounced dead at the scene of the car accident. You're like, well, that still happens far more than I wish that it did. Man pronounced dead at the scene of the accident comes back to life while in the casket at the viewing. You're like, what? But he's linking us to Christ and the grace. Remember I said grace has a face. He said what he's done in Christ in raising him from the dead. This is it's not just a good story is the reality of what Christ did and what he does in the life of a believer man dies and comes back to life. A problem with being amazed often comes from our lack of knowing or understanding or really wanting to consider how big of a problem that you and I really have with our sin and our trespasses. And so he gives us the truth about our condition apart from Christ, our BC days, and then reminds us of our condition in grace in order that we might again be amazed by what happened to us. I understand that a lot of you know this, but I also understand if you really think about what we're talking about tonight, this is a really tough pill to swallow. You know, when your mom gives you medicine, sometimes she gives you the little one that's chewy and tastes good, and then every once in a while, they'll give you that vitamin that looks like the horse didn't want to eat it. Chapter two of Ephesians, if we really understand it, is that pill that is very, very difficult to swallow. I recently had a friend who had, they just had their first baby, and the cutest little baby. I told him, my daughter was adorable. I don't know, second maybe years, like really cute little baby. And they're so excited. And they're so enjoying it. And they, they went for like the three month health checkup. And I'm like, go everything. Okay, you know, everything. And he's like, Oh, we're waiting for a call from the doctor. And then the call from the doctor came. And the doctor says something's wrong in the test. And now the story doesn't get dramatic after that. You're all like, well, what's going to happen? There's still tests to be run and results, but the baby, we believe, is going to be OK. But you could just sense, like, that was a really tough pill to swallow. How mean of that doctor. Why would the doctor call and give these people who are perfectly happy where they are bad news about their little baby. You and I know why, right? Because there's something wrong. And if there's something wrong and there's a cure for it, then what better news than the doctor saying, hey, something's really wrong. And part of the pill to swallow is that some of you may be perfectly happy where you are tonight. And when you look at what God's word says, the reason it's a tough pill to swallow, you know, why are you messing up my happiness? I'm very happy with my life. I'm not trying to be a mean doctor any more than the word of God is trying to be mean to anyone. It's trying to get you to look at the great physician's diagnosis. The word of God is perfect. It knows you better than you know yourself. And so it says, look into this mirror and see. And for us that are Christians, it reminds us that before we were in Christ, we were dead in our sins. And that's the same message to any of you that are outside of Christ. What the Bible says is not that you have a little problem that a Tylenol is going to fix. You're dead. Have you guys, so my wife, I really wish she could be here. You'd like her better than you like me anyway. Wonderful. I do, I like her better than I like me. But her favorite movie is Princess Bride. So I hope some of you have seen that. If you haven't, she's gonna tell you, you need to go watch it. And if you think it's a kissing book, it's not. So. It's an older movie, but it is interesting. But anyway, if you haven't seen it, then you're gonna get a lot. No, there's Wesley the Dread Pirate Roberts. So it's for guys and girls. But he's the man in black and he wears a black mask and he's caught and he's tortured. And so he's in this torture chamber and they've sucked the life out of him and his friends, Andre the Giant is one of them, I don't know, and his friends come and they find him and he's dead. And how can this story end? So they pick him up, and this is the girl part, you know, true love doesn't die, so we're gonna pick him up, and we're taking him to Miracle Max. So they take him to Miracle Max, that's Billy Crystal, if you have any movie knowledge, but anyway, they take him to Miracle Max, and Miracle Max looks at him, and he says, there's a difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, there's only one thing you can do. Go through his pockets and look for loose change. But with mostly dead, He makes a miracle pill, and it is a horse pill, sticks it in his mouth, gives it to him, and then he begins to come back to life, and they invade the castle, and they win, and you'll have to watch the rest of it. But the reason I bring that up is not to bring up my wife's favorite movie, it's to bring up this idea of mostly dead, because that is the predominant view theologically of the condition of man in pulpits, in pews, in bars, wherever you are. Big name, we call it semi-Pelagianism. You can write that down, look it up, study it on your own if you want to. But it basically says that we have fallen, so we're admitting we sin, we mess up. That's what we'd rather say than we sin or we mess up. But there is a requirement. We're going to have to give grace because we messed up, but there is enough, just enough spiritual good in us that we can incline ourselves to the things of God. So that's what we call semi-Pelagianism. We're affected. but there's just enough good in us that we can incline ourselves. So if you're sitting here and you go, yeah, I'm really messed up, but I'll just decide for Jesus, I'll make a decision, I'll be better, I'll do better. There's just enough that you can incline yourself to the things of God. But is that what we just read? And it's been deemed wrong, heretical in centuries past. It's not what the Bible teaches. There is a big difference Between semi-Pelagianism and the gospel, there is a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. And Paul is very clear. You're all dead. Now, there's a there's a logical problem with that, isn't it? Because every one of you here tonight is breathing. And I saw you running around a gym today. Yeah, I'm not dead. But the other theological problem is you remember when Adam and Eve were in the garden and God told them if they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, what's going to happen to them? They'll die. They ate of the fruit. Were they dead? No, they hid from God. They covered themselves with fig leaves. Were they dead? God's word is true. So what we think of in terms of dead and what is being told in that, the reality of where Adam and Eve were before the fall and after the fall is the reality of you and me. We do, we breathe, we move, we have our being, but we're spiritually dead. We do not move towards God as Adam and Eve no longer move towards God. We don't do spiritually alive things. We don't want to come into His presence. We don't fellowship with Him. We don't love Him. And the Bible teaches this. This isn't just Paul's theology. You remember the prophet Ezekiel? My mom used to sing a song and I don't remember it. Maybe somebody in the back can remember it. I'm not sure but it went, Them bones, them bones gonna dance around. Them bones, them bones gonna dance around. Maybe nobody joined in. Okay, we're good. They didn't bring me here to sing anyway. But God uses the prophet Ezekiel to give a vivid example of all dead. He says, a hand of the Lord was on me, brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of the valley and it's full of bones. What a weird thing for the Spirit of God to do. He wants to give him a visual of the hearts and the lives of the people of Israel, the people of God at that time. He said it was full of bones, so he leads me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very, very dry. And he said, Can these bones live? What would you have answered? No. He says, Sovereign Lord, you alone know. And he said, well, what I want you to do is I want you to prophesy to those bones. Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Think they heard? And he says, I will make breath enter you. and you will come to life, and I will attach tendons to you, and make flesh come upon you, and cover you with skin, and I will put breath in you, and you will come to life, and then you will know that I am the Lord." And Ezekiel prophesied, and the bones begin to rattle, and the tendons begin to form. and the skin begin to form. It's a unique thing to be a preacher of the gospel because we go to valleys of dry bones and we preach. And what Ezekiel describes physically, God has to do spiritually. He has to put the spiritual tendons. He has to breathe spiritual life in. He has to put the spiritual skin around so that people who would not move towards God now will move towards God and know that He is the Lord. And He can do it. But what a difficult thing, I'm sure, for some of you to hear. Your problem isn't that you just need to be a little better tomorrow. It's that there's nothing you can do to save yourself. You know, if you go to the doctor and he says, you have cancer, and it's all through your body, I guarantee you he is not gonna prescribe for you Tylenol. Even if you're like, well, I know you say it, but I think I'll take some Tylenol. Seriously, that's how a lot of people, they'll read something like this and they're like, well, I'll take the Tylenol. I'll just read my Bible tomorrow. I'll just go to church more. I'll do." The doctor is not going to tell you if you have cancer if you just live cleaner or do therapy you're going to be okay. No, he's going to say you are going to need a cure from outside of your body. The Bible's our mirror, it's the great physician, it's telling us how things really are. You need grace. Now, if I could, a lot of times at our retreat, when I do the testimony and the interview, I ask them, if you could go back and tell yourself anything at 16 years old, what would you go back and tell yourself? And I think one of the greatest things that we really struggle to believe, yes, the amazingness of grace, and we'll get there. But when we talk about believing the Word of God, one of the greatest things that I think we struggle to believe is that the wages of sin is death. Every time. If you eat of the fruit, you will surely die. The wages of sin is death. Your anger, It's not a little problem. It's going to have a lifelong consequence of death that is going to follow it. Your lust of your eye is not a little problem. It's going to ruin your marriage. It's going to ruin relationships. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. Your pride, your pride may keep you because it may keep you from even believing what is put before you in a mirror tonight. Why? This is death. Why does your pride separate you from friendships and relationships and separate you from your parents? Because there's death involved. That's what death does. The spiritual death. It separates us from God. It separates us from one another. It creates this immense wake of consequences and problems throughout an entire lifetime. It was just one little mess up. No, it's not one little mess up. It's exactly what the Word of God said it is. The wages of sin is death. And I know when we hear this, we don't like this pill, but you know that when I say that you're dead in your sin and your trespasses, I guarantee you, you have felt that death at some point in your sin. You try to brush it off, but the Bible's true. We have to understand, we have to let the mirror be there. And it doesn't tell us that so we can simply feel bad. And I'm not telling you that just so you feel badly tonight, but to be honest and let you know how bad of a condition sin and trespasses really are. And until we realize that, we'll never truly see how amazing the gospel in grace. If you still think you're just mostly dead, then Jesus didn't need to die. And Jesus didn't need to rise. Secondly, you're enslaved by the devil. What does spiritual death look like? And he's just continuing to try to describe that. He says you follow the course of this world. You follow the prince of the power of this air. You were lived to the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. You're enslaved to this prince who is this prince of this power of the air, it's the devil. Your spiritual death, your living to God, you're dead in that way. You're a dead, you're not a slave to righteousness, you're a slave to sin and you're a slave to the devil. But it's not against your will, it's according to your will. We saw that even in the garden. Adam and Eve looked, they saw that the fruit looked good to the eye, the devil said, how about you do this? Well, there was a battle of worship going on in the garden with that, and that's what happens in our own lives. The battle, are you gonna follow God or are you gonna follow the devil? They thought they were making their own decision, they were making their own decision. But all of a sudden, everything changes and there's this enslavement. And so while it's difficult when we talk about being enslaved to the devil to also understand that it's also a description of what we want to do. You don't click on that website and then say, well, the devil made me do it. But at the same time, you do it because you're enslaved. You can't not sin. You don't fight with your sister and then say, well, the devil made me do it. You wanted to do it. You wanted your way. You wanted whatever it was. You don't like that TV show that you know you shouldn't like because the devil made you do it. You wanted it. Can you stop all those desires? That's really what he's saying. The problem is you can't even stop all those desires. You can't put them to death. You can't just live free. You can't just live free from lust and greed and covetousness and pride and laziness and lying and gossip. Any more than a slave in the olden days could have just woken up one morning and said, I want to be free. You're in bondage to the father, your father, the devil. Thirdly, you're disobedient to God. You were made to love God. To love, truly love, is to obey him. Love the things that please him, hate the things that he hates. Peter Jeffries, that little commentary, I recommend opening up Ephesians. For the believer, obedience is not simply a matter of following a set of rules. So true obedience, I don't know if your parents taught you, it's doing what you're told the first time and doing it joyfully, right? Something along those lines, that's what parents are supposed to teach, that's what the Bible teaches. It's not just doing a set of rules, but it's doing a set of rules as a loving response of a redeemed soul to a heavenly father. And the unbeliever, Jeffrey says, can know nothing of that. So you can keep some of the rules so that you can keep away from some of the consequences. Like I'm going to guess, just by looking at you, most of you aren't strung out on drugs right now. I don't know one of the consequences of drugs, right? So you can keep some of the rules, but why did you do it? Because you don't want to get caught. You don't want to go to jail. You don't want other people to think poorly of you. You didn't do it out of a loving response of, I have a father in heaven who loves me and cares for me, and I want to be filled with the spirit. Unbeliever can know nothing of it. Now, some of you, that might be very true of you because you're a Christian. It is very true of you if you're a Christian. The Bible says here that the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience is the title that is given to those that are dead. You can go to church, you can follow rules so you can get more if you want, but you don't obey out of response to love. And God is so worthy and so wonderful. But unbelievers don't wake up that way, do they? God is so wonderful and so worthy. What can I do to display that this morning? in our sin and those of us, no, we know that was not the way we walked, was it? How can I get away with doing the least amount and getting the most of my way is typically the way every sinner wakes up every morning. Fourth, you're sinful by nature. Your problem is not just a few acts. Man is born with a sinful nature. You're not a sinner because you said a bad word or you tell a dirty joke. The Bible says you tell a dirty joke or say a bad word because you're a sinner. It's not that the words came out. No, that's not what I meant. That's not in my heart. He said, no, the problem, the word came out because it was in your heart. We want to make it the other way around. But the problem isn't that you're a sinner because you did a few things. The problem is you did a few things because you're a sinner. It's your nature. The reason you talk back to your parents is not what makes you a sinner. It's because deep down you are a sinner. You don't like their authority in your life. You don't want their authority in your life because you don't want God's authority in your life. You don't want anybody telling you what to do. Not at that moment, at least. And the problem isn't that moment, it's the deep down moment. It's the deep down reality. And so we are tempted to think we can just clean up a few things and then God will love us or we'll be lovable, but God, he looks upon the heart. Isn't that funny? I mean, that's the way society talks now, the language that you hear that, you know my heart. That is the last place you want people to look. I think one of the worst things in the world would be if I had a sign and it's like, revelations of my heart. And yet, God looks upon the heart. We can clean up the outside pretty well. When Jesus looks at the Pharisees, everybody, you know, the Pharisees weren't bad people in their day according to everybody else. Most of the people look at the Pharisees and go, those are the religious people. The problem was Jesus came in and go, you're whitewashed sepulchers. What does that mean? You look good on the outside, but I look upon the heart. And deep down, there is great problems. You need to be born again. Fifthly, you're under the wrath of God. The people of Israel, they had a really hard time figuring this out. We still have a hard time figuring it out, but they had a really hard time figuring out, because we talk about the wrath of God, and that's one of our greatest problems and our greatest needs, is that because we are sinners, because we're under the curse, there has to be a punishment. So there is not just spiritual death, but there is going to be physical death, and there's going to be punishment for our sins. But they had a really hard time figuring out why God wasn't happy with them. What on earth could they do to please Him? And maybe you're there as well. But you remember in Micah, they come before God and they go, what on earth is going to please this God? What if we brought a thousand rams? So they think they're being extreme here. What's going to make, what if I bring 10,000 rivers of oil? What? I know. What do you want, God? You want me to kill my firstborn? What an awful shot at a God that saved him out of Egypt through the Passover, right? And we know the verse, he says, oh, he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, to love mercy, to act justly, and to walk humbly with your God. That was too much. Dead bones don't love mercy, act justly, and walk humbly with their God. We want mercy, don't we? We don't like when other people get mercy. We don't love God's pleasure given to those people who don't earn it, not by our nature. We're jealous of that. Remember the parable where the people start the day working and they get a full day's page and pay wage and then the guy comes in at the halfway point and he gets the same pay and then the guy comes in the next hour and right before the end of close and he works for an hour and he gets the same pay as the guy who's been there all day. God gave each what he said he would give them, or the master did. Everybody's jealous of everybody. That's the way we are when people get things we think They don't get that pleasure. They don't get that. We don't love doing what God says. We're selfish. We don't love walking with him, not humbly. We think every time we do something, halfway, God owes us. I remember the coach, was it Dean Smith of North Carolina? Those of you who like basketball, legendary coach, and one of his was, don't expect praise for doing something you were expected to do. I mean, every time I half-heartedly do something that God Almighty told me to do, I don't get rounds of applause. We obey God very pridefully. We love going our own way. Well, things don't look very good for us. That's not a very good diagnosis, is it? We're getting ready for our youth retreat as well, and this was just fresh in my mind. So we make books just like your folder, but we have to fold pages in half and then staple it, a couple staples, and it makes a booklet. It's not that complicated. You have to have a special stapler for it, and so it's called a saddle stapler. More than you asked for. It's free. But the stapler's not, but the information was. You put that on there and you staple. And our young people do that for us and for all the other youth. And we do that. We just did it last weekend. So we were doing that. And one of our staplers, we have two of them, was jamming. And so you get out the paper and you look up the troubleshooting guide. And under jam staples, all it said, remove out deformed staples. That was the advice. Throw away all the deformed staples. Cast them out. Remove them out. That's exactly where you are at the end of verse 3 in Ephesians. Cast out. I mean, what do you do with a bunch of dead bones? What do you do with a bunch of deformed staples? You cast them out. And you and I would say, but tell me it doesn't have to be that way. What can man do to be saved? And then we find the best two words in scripture. But God. That's the turning point and the only hope, but the surest hope that you have an offer of grace from God. God being rich. We could stop there and go, what is he? It ought to say God being rich in wrath throughout all the deformed staples. But no, God knows our hearts. He knows our diagnosis. It says, but God being rich in mercy. R.C. Sproul says the minute you start thinking God owes you mercy, you are no longer thinking about mercy. God knowing fully our condition, God knowing fully our helplessness, God knowing fully our deadness, breathes life into dead bones. Many balk at a salvation that's all of God. But if you understand your condition, if you understand your heart, if you understand what scripture says in the least bit about you, you have to understand what should a just God, what should a holy God do with a whole bunch of rebellious people? We read that in Genesis chapter six, is it six? Close enough, the flood. Six Babel or the flood? Somebody help me out. Both? Okay, six, the flood. Justice is judgment. But what we read in the gospel is that this God is also rich in mercy and he doesn't send a flood. He sends his son before the flood, before any judgment comes, to be a better ark. There's a beautiful picture in the flood, and the flood represents the judgment of God, and the problem is that you and I, in our understanding of where we are spiritually, we think a bunch of people were knocking on the door saying, hey, let us in, let us in, let us in, and God's like, no, no, no, no, no. The problem was, nobody was knocking on the door. They were making fun of Noah for making it. They were making fun of Noah and his family for having anything to do with it, but when they were shut up in the ark, they were saved. The ark represents Jesus Christ. And the problem is none of us are by our nature knocking on the door of Christ saying, hey, I desperately need you. No, we're all running away. But God, being rich in mercy, breathes life and grabs sinners from hell and saves them from their sins. Not people who are good enough, but when we were dead in our trespasses, Not when we had done anything to merit it and gain His attention because we weren't doing anything. And our temptation is not to see our need of grace but think we deserve saving because we're homeschooled or because we go to church or because our parents are Christians or because we're not as bad as somebody else. We see ourselves as people who God should love, maybe need a little tweak. God knows exactly what we need. And he sent his only begotten son. Remember what the people said, what is going to please God? If I give my firstborn, he said, that plan is fully in motion and it's not your firstborn. I will accept the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. I will give you my firstborn. the only begotten Son of God to die on the cross in your place for your sins that you might have life. So God, by grace, saves people who need saving. He raises the dead. He does exactly what he said he would do in Ezekiel. Now it's time for dead bones to dance around. How can you not be amazed by grace? What does it say that he does for us? He tells us that he makes us alive. We need a miracle. Good news. God is a God of miracles. One. Do you believe the scripture that what you need is a miracle? Two, do you believe scripture that that is what has happened to you? That's where Paul says, but God, the best news you could ever have, then you are no longer spiritually dead. You are made alive as Christ is alive. You have a new heart and a heart for God. That's the hard part, because did anything change? A lot of people can't necessarily see a visible change, not like you got out of the casket, right? But man, does not salvation remember back? And that's what Paul's saying. You remember when you were first saved? Wasn't it like you got out of slavery, got out of a casket, got out of a huge debt? It's because of the miracle of God, you were made alive. Grace is the difference between death and life. You were raised up, he tells us. He doesn't leave us in our condition. He gives us a reputation that's new and perfect. He gives us a standing that is before him. He treats us like he treats his son. He raises him up and he raises us up. Can you believe that God would love you like he loves his son? You have to believe it, but you're also, no, I'm amazed by it. Jesus, all that we have in Jesus, perfect, perfect hero, perfect righteousness, perfect patience, perfect son, perfect, keep going down the list. Surely God doesn't love me like that. No, he does love you like that because he loves you in Christ. So he raises us up to heavenly places, he brings you where he is, he brings you into the holy of holies. That is how pure Jesus makes us. You no longer belong to earth, you belong to heaven, you're a new citizen. He seats us with him. This term is linked to us, linking us to Christ who is now seated in heaven. His enemies are his footstool. He has finished it and he has sat down. He's saying that sin and that death that is finished and Jesus has sat down and you are seated with him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful salvation. It is the good news. It's the only one that saves. And he tells us that he gives us this so that he will show us the immeasurable riches of his grace. So we can be amazed by grace in Jesus, not by works and not by self. That is why the gospel is called good news. Wouldn't it be the worst news in the world if somebody stood over those bones and just said, be better? That's the gospel so many think they need. Imagine if I went to a funeral and started preaching to the person in the casket, do better. Would you obey a little better? I know it's silly, isn't it? Tell somebody in a casket, try harder. If you really understood yourself, that is the worst news in the world and it's the worst gospel in the world. It's not good news at all. You know, when my brother was born, I remember the stories about it because I was only about four. And you don't know the severity of it when you're four, but then when you hear it later, it means something to you. But my mom remembers being on the medical table, and she almost bled out. She hemorrhaged when she had him. And she remembers hearing the doctor saying, we're losing her. She's going. She said it was like the most out-of-body experience she's ever had, because she's laying there on the table. She can do nothing. She's hearing them talking about her, but there's nothing she can do. Imagine if the doctor said, Sue, you just need to try a little harder. Be healthier. No, the doctor had to save her, because he was rich in medicine. Had to be someone outside of her. If you're spiritually dead, which scripture says you are, you don't need medicine, you need mercy. But God being rich in mercy. Are you dead tonight? Have you allowed God's word to take your vital signs and it's just, What do you do? Let me tell you, if you have eyes that see that you're a flatline this evening, cry for mercy. Don't cry your works. Don't cry you'll do better. Cry out, God have mercy upon me, a sinner. And he delights to save sinners. Seek him while he may be found. Are you alive tonight? Then you are his workmanship. God's at work in you. Created for good works that were prepared beforehand for you to do. He's at work in you. The good things that you do are coming from the miracle of the life of God and grace. We shouldn't even be proud in our good works. We should be amazed that grace is still at work in me. Oh, God's Word is true. Oh, His promises are true. And what good news that is to us because if we didn't do it and we're not doing it in that sense of saving ourselves and earning it, then it means we can't lose it. I think it was John MacArthur that said, if I could do anything to earn my salvation, I would surely lose it. He knew himself too well. But the good news of the gospel is we didn't do anything to earn our salvation, that God did it and God doesn't lose. And he will not lose you. So walk in that grace. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would help us to see the mirror of your word and see who we are, that the vital signs that were taken would be heard. For some, they might hear the beep of the flatline of their life for the first time and cry, God have mercy. And for others, that we need to be reminded that we might be amazed by grace, that you would save us while we were yet sinners. And you have raised us up with Christ. May we walk in it. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.