with that. Well, dear ones, if you will grab your Bible with me and turn to our scripture text. This morning, our scripture text is Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two, our text will be verse four and five. Ephesians two, verse four and five. And as always, let's read verses one to 10 together, because again, this is one sentence. This is one thought. This hangs together, as it were. Ephesians chapter two, verse four and five. The title of this morning's sermon, By Grace and Grace Alone. By Grace and Grace Alone. Ephesians two, verse four to five. We'll start our reading up at verse one. Friends, the word of God says, 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 were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy. because of the great love with 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 the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not 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, and we should walk in them. Dear ones, this is the word of God. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Father. As we come to your word this morning, we thank you first for your word. Father, you have given to us a true lamp to lighten our steps, to lighten the world around us so that we might see clearly who you are, who we are and the world in which we live. Father, we pray by your word, open our eyes this morning to see you in your glory, in your goodness. in your grace. Father, we pray that as we meditate and explore the riches of your loving kindness towards us in Christ, that Father, you would again overwhelm us with gratitude, with thanksgiving. We pray that by these truths, you would stir us up to love you more, to serve you more faithfully, to rejoice in you, Father, deepen our joy in you as we proclaim the riches of your glory. Because, Father, you save sinners by your grace alone in Christ Jesus, Father. Receive the glory, dear Spirit, please bless these words, guide me as I open these scriptures because, oh God, it is only you who can enable and equip us to speak, to understand, and to live the truth. Father, we are wholly dependent upon you. We ask your mercy in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Friends, worship God. Worship God who saves sinners by his sovereign grace alone. Difference in in painting. In the history of art, there was the Hudson River School. And this school of artists was based in New York State. And they were commissioned to paint landscapes of the American West. And as the West was being explored, as As people were trying to encourage people to move out to the West, this Hudson River School, these guys would paint beautiful pictures, beautiful vistas of the American West. Guys like Thomas Cole, they would paint these beautiful landscapes. And what distinguished the Hudson River School was their use of light. The light, often of the sun, would be used by the artist to guide the viewing, to direct the attention of the looker to the most central elements. They were renowned for using the sun to illumine and to spotlight, as it were, the key aspects of the landscape. But in order to do this, they would also take dark clouds and shadows and they would use these dark clouds to accent, to contrast the light. And so this darkness was used to bring further attention to the light and what the light was illuminating. So dear friends, it is the darkness of our natural state as rebels against God, that should showcase all the more brilliantly the light of God's grace to save us in His Son. And friends, today we will trace those beams of God's mercy as they lead us to see His grace. And so friends, here in verse four, we'll look at verse four and five together. I want us to take the whole of verse four for our first look. Verse four says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. All right, now friends, remember, as we're taking a verse, we have to remember the context. This is the most important principle of biblical interpretation, context. You've heard it said in real estate, location, location, location. What's the most important thing in real estate? Location. The most important principle in biblical interpretation is context. And so what that means is we look what's behind and we look what is ahead to understand the verse that we're seeing here, okay? So what has come before? Well, verses one to three, Paul has been painting for the Ephesians their past, their spiritual biography, as it were, their history as rebels against God. And as we've seen, this is not just the natural state of the people, the church at Ephesus, but this is our natural state. So what Paul is detailing in verses 1 to 3 is our spiritual biography, our past. If we are indeed in Christ, this is who we were But for some of us today, it may be where we still are. And what were those things that Paul said about us? Well, remember, Paul said that we are all by nature in a state of spiritual death. We are alive biologically, but we are dead spiritually. And we remember that Paul made that point so emphatically because he wanted us to understand that we are completely hostile to God, completely unable to contribute or bring about our own redemption. In our spiritual deadness, we must be made alive by the power of God in order to come to Christ. And so we saw that by nature we are spiritually dead. Of this spiritual death, we produce works of sin and evil. So out of our sinful nature, come sinful thoughts, sinful words, and sinful deeds. That is, this original sin, this spiritual death, this fallen human nature, that is the spring, that polluted fountain from which all our iniquity flows, all of our trespasses, all of our evil and wickedness. And so we talked about how sin's not just on the outside, it's inside. And it's nothing that we can scrub clean with good behavior. It's nothing that we can eradicate by the right kind of training or discipline. It is our nature. It's who we are. And then we saw the effects of this, like ripples going out as the polluted spring of sin, of our sin nature began to flow and overflow. Paul began to explain to us that We were slaves to sin. We were slaves to the devil because our desire was to do his bidding. We were slaves to our own passions, our own wicked cravings and lusts and desires. These were producing in us all manner of ungodliness. And so what Paul has been doing in these first three verses is he has been driving home how helpless how hopeless, how hostile we are to God, so that we understand, against this black backdrop of our sin, the brilliant radiance of the grace of God, that He would reach down and save sinners as we are. Friends, again, you will never understand grace. You will never understand the gravity of the gospel. You will never understand the rich and redeeming love which the Father has for you apart from understanding how dead in sin and trespasses you once were. And so in verse four, we get the prescription. Verse one to three was the diagnosis. He was diagnosing our sin and rebellion and helplessness. Now in verse four, he gives us the Prescription, the treatment. What has God done? Well, verse four, look again. But God. But God. Pause there for a moment. Now that's a conjunction, right? It's joining two statements together. And we see here a contrast where we are living in sin and rebellion and hostility to God. God is doing Something else. God is the one who must take the initiative. He must initiate our salvation. But God, being rich in mercy. So God takes the initiative to save. Out of what? Paul explains to us what motivates God to save sinners. What is it that drives God? What reasons does God have for saving such wretched rebels and sinners as we are? It's not in us, friends. It's in Him. And Paul wants us to get the point that it is God of His own mercy alone. which drives him to save. This is the motivation. But God, being rich in mercy. So God graciously initiates our salvation. Give him thanks for that. You were not seeking for God. He sought for you, O Christian. And this was of his mercy. his merciful character. Notice again how Paul says that. He says he is rich in love. That means that God is wealthy in loving kindness. He is abundant, impatient, long-suffering with sinners. Friends, this is part of the character of God. This is part of who he is. This is part of how he relates with fallen human creatures as we are. He is rich in mercy. Being rich in mercy. Now friends, let's think a moment about mercy. Mercy is by definition undeserved. When somebody goes before the court and they are asking for mercy. They're asking not for something that's deserved for them, not that they earn. They're asking for a reduction of their sentence. They're asking that the court, the jury, would give clemency. So mercy is by definition undeserved, friends. Friends, I want you to remember this. Sometimes we think that God owes us mercy, that God owes us forgiveness, that God is obligated to forgive. We even have an expression in our own, in our own talking, to err is human and what? To forgive is divine. And we just think, well, I'm a sinner, I sin, but God is God, so He forgives. But friends, God is never obligated to forgive. God is never obligated to give mercy. Friends, if God condemned every single one of us to the eternal hell we deserve for our sin, all we could say is God is just. God is holy. God is good. And friends, I want you to understand this, that God's mercy at this very moment attends every aspect of our being. It is the mercy of God, the goodness of God by which we draw another breath. It is the richness, the goodness of God by which we enjoy fellowship with one another. Friends, it is the mercy of God that we are allowed to breathe and to live another day. Friends, God's forbearance and mercy means that even rebel sinners as we are, who are deserving of hell, he postpones. That judgment hasn't come yet. If you're sitting in this room today and you are estranged from God and you are not reconciled to him by faith in Christ, it is by the mercy of God that you are not in this moment sent to eternal condemnation. Friends, Mercy is undeserved. It is not obligated. And friends, if you ever think that God owes anybody the right or the possibility of redemption or salvation, you're not talking about mercy. You're talking about justice. Mercy is never obligatory. Mercy is the free choice of the one who chooses to be merciful. So friends, remember, your redemption was initiated by a gracious God. He was seeking for sinners as we are. And this came not of any good he saw in us, not of any deed he saw that we would do, but it was out of his merciful character. Exodus 34. Verse five to six, remember this is the great passage where God proclaims his name. And I want you to think about the richness of God's goodness. Exodus 34, beginning at verse five, the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful. full of mercy and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Friends, God's holy character is the root of redemption. Out of his own merciful heart flows streams of kindness, love, and goodness. And now again, friends, we see how God is good and merciful to all humanity. We talked about that, how God gives good gifts. Scriptures say he causes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. We call this in theology, God's love of benevolence and beneficence. Very briefly, it means God is benevolent. He is good-willing towards the world that he's made. When God looks upon a fallen human race, he wills good for us. He wills us and his inclination towards us is one of good, one of mercy, one of longsuffering and forbearance. And more than that, God's love is beneficence. It is good doing. He does good in all these innumerable blessings which he showers. But I want you to see here, friends, in verse four, that in the context, Paul is speaking not of his mercy in general, his universal mercy to humanity. He's talking about his redeeming mercy. and a saving love that motivates God. It is a redeeming mercy that is intended by God to save all those whom He bestows it upon. So friends, this mercy is a mercy of redemption. It's effectual. God is rich in mercy. He is, as we see in verse four, because of the great love with which He loved us. Paul gives another explanation, another motivation by which the Father seeks to save and redeem sinners as we are, that he is great, he has a great love. Now again, that love, Paul uses the word agape, and oftentimes when Paul uses that, he's speaking of the most faithful, deep, steadfast love, the equivalent here is that of the Old Testament of steadfast love, that hesed. What God, how God loves is He loves with covenant fidelity. Now friends, you and I know, we are exposed to relationships all the time where we have friends who love us for a year, two years, but 10 years down the line, they don't want anything more to do with us. We even know of relationships, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, where that love wanes and withers and fades away. And friends, we know even in the best relationships we have now, with folks we truly love and they love us, sometimes that love is mixed. Sometimes I don't love my wife the way that she ought to be loved. Because friends, remember the very model for love is God's own steadfast love, the love which He loves. The Father loves His Son perfectly, steadfastly, unchanging, unceasing, loyally. That is the kind of love that God sets upon his people. He sets upon you, dear Christian, loyal love, faithful love, unchanging love, a love that is effectual and is able to bring about your full and perfect redemption. And that love never withers or changes It never suffers mutation because it is God's own, holy, faithful love. Because of this great love. Friends, again, this is not little love. This is not medium love. It is great love, exceedingly powerful, strong, and effectual love. God graciously initiates our salvation out of his merciful character and of his own redeeming love. And again, friends, God is not obligated to set his love on any. And he's choosing to love the unlovely. He's choosing to love the rebel. He's choosing to love the sinner. He's choosing to love those who are hostile to him. Because this great love is set on us. It is a sovereign, willing love. So friends, again, You weren't seeking for God. I was not seeking for God. None were seeking for God. But it's God who sought his people. It's God who initiates our redemption. And if he initiates it, friends, then that means it's his. He governs, he oversees, he is effectual to bring about all his saving purposes. So what can we say? We give thanks. We give thanks to God. We praise him for his mercy to save. So verse five, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Again, Paul looks at verse five, this first clause, even when we were dead in our trespasses. Paul reminds us again, who were we? Who are we all by nature? We are dead. spiritually dead. Now again, what does this deadness mean? Well friends, it means that we are a corpse. It means that we are not mostly dead, not a little bit alive, not merely dead, not just sick. It means we are completely without any ability to contribute to or incline to our own salvation. Friends, again, it's not as though we are the drowning man falling under the waves and all we need to do is grab hold of the gospel as it's thrown to us like a light. like a lifesaver. Friends, the Bible says it's even dire, it's even more urgent because we are down at the bottom of the sea, a corpse, unable to do anything. And God must come and give life. God must regenerate. God must make us new. So even when we were dead in our trespasses, Friends, again, God didn't choose to love the lovely. Friends, we are not loved because we are lovely. We are lovely because we are loved. Friends, because you are loved by God in Christ, you are lovely to him. beautiful, spotless, blameless, pure, and acceptable. And friends, this is not who we were by nature. We were spiritually dead, and of that spiritual death, there was a hostile heart. Friends, remember, the sin that's on the outside has its root on the inside. What comes out of the mouth is the produce of the heart. Remember, Jesus is talking with the Pharisees, and he says, Pharisees, I know that you are scrupulous when it comes to law keeping. He said, Jesus says, I know that you are so meticulous in observing the commandments of God that you'll even go beyond that and you'll try to wash cups and dishes and dining couches. But Jesus says, you guys don't get it. It's not what's on the outside coming into a man that defiles him, it's what comes out of a man that defiles him. because it's what comes out of the heart. Murder, sexual immorality, theft, all manner of evil, that is what makes a person unclean. So friends, sin's root is within, it comes out of the mouth, the hands, and the feet. So guys, friends, God is not loving the beautiful. You know, it's, It's easy to love friends, people that are lovable. We know this, don't we? We know the kids in children's ministry who are just very kind, very big-eyed, warm-hearted. Every time they see us, they have a smile on their face, and they're just easy to love. We know kids that are easy to love, but we also know kids that aren't easy to love. We know children that are difficult, and defined. We know, children, that it seems like every time we're in an interaction with them, it turns into argument, it turns into fighting, it turns into all manner of unruly behavior. And friends, in the flesh, it's so easy to love the lovely. It's so much harder to love those who are difficult. Now friends, the Bible says that we, we're like those unlovely children. We're like an unruly inmate, constrained in the straitjacket, continually devising ways to harm our God. Friends, God is loving his enemies, his enemies who do nothing but purpose plot and perpetuate evil against him. Friends, again, Paul wants us to see what grace What mercy He has shown us. Because He was loving us when we were living in open defiance to Him. Again, trespasses, even when we're dead in our trespasses, what that means is that spiritual death produced trespasses. And we know trespassing, we know it means to go where God has forbidden us to go. That sin by nature, is defiance and a rejection of God's boundary setting. We say, God, you don't have the right to tell me where I ought to go and how I ought to live my life. You don't have the right to govern me. I, my own autonomous self, have the right to define for myself what is good, right, true, and acceptable. Friends, sin by nature is a quest for autonomy. We want to throw off the yoke of God live life on our own terms. And so that's why the Bible paints it and says trespasses. Because friends, we so often sugarcoat our sin. We'll call it a mistake. We'll call it an accident. We're very good at rationalizing and mitigating our guilt. And so what the Bible does is the Bible shows us in living color what our sin truly looks like before God. It's trespassing, it's jumping outside the boundaries that he has set. It is a direct defiance of his rule, of his goodness, of his wisdom, of his glory. So friends, do you recognize that? This morning, do you recognize who you are by nature? Do you recognize how lost you were, how rebellious you were? And do you also recognize how God took the initiative to save you? Again, friends, if we understand how God is sovereign in his salvation of sinners, that ought to revolutionize the way we think of salvation. And God sought us, that God chose to love us. So friends, Humble yourself before God, who chooses to save rebels as we are, who are spiritually dead, hostile from the heart, and living in open defiance to God's rule. Second part of verse five, made us alive together with Christ. So here we are by nature, spiritually dead in our trespasses. We have no moral ability to respond to the gospel. Every time the gospel is proclaimed to us, we reject it because we have nothing but hostility to God. What must God do? God must take the initiative. He must regenerate. And that's what Paul means here. He makes us alive by his resurrecting power. He makes us alive together with Christ. Now let's think about that for a moment. Christ was raised from the dead 2,000 years ago. So what does Paul mean here? Well, he means that when he comes and gives the new birth, he gives new life. And this new life is the life of Christ, is the resurrecting power of Jesus by which we are raised from the dead spiritually. And we have a hope of a physical resurrection. bodily resurrection to come, made us alive together with Christ. This is one whole word here, alive together with, this is, the idea is God is raising us with Christ, we're sharing in Christ's resurrection, sharing in his blessing, sharing in his honor, sharing in his power. So friends, again, When we talk about how God saves, we talk about the new birth. And I've spoken to you many times that the new birth precedes logically and produces effectually faith. That in the Scriptures, it's not you believe and are born again, rather you are born again and therefore believe. The new birth is the cause which produces the effect of faith. The new birth is God's sovereign work. He does it by himself alone. We are passive. We are dead corpses who must be raised from the dead. But when we are made alive in Christ Jesus, that instant we are born again, faith is birthed in the soul. New affections are given to us by God. And the Christ we once rejected is the Christ we now embrace. And so in the same instant we are born again, we come by faith to Christ and we are joined to him. through the instrument of faith by the power and ministry of God the Holy Spirit. So this union with Christ happens instantly. We are born again and then we are joined to Christ. And we share in all the benefits of Jesus. We share in his righteousness. We share in the blessing of his cross where our guilt is pardoned and his righteousness accrues to our account. And on that basis, God counts us to be just, so he made us alive. Friends, a miracle happened when you believed. A miracle happened when you came to Christ. God brought life from the dead. God raised you unto new life in Christ. You were born again unto faith. You were made alive with Him. And this life was not just a one-time deal. It wasn't just you got life when you were born again and came to Christ, and now you could lose that life or forfeit that life. No, that life is yours forever, because again, it's the life of Jesus. It's His own eternal life. Friends, let me ask you something. Can Christ die? Can Christ ever be dethroned? Can Christ ever lose His station? No, friends, that same life which is Christ, the Father has given to you who are in Christ. Friends, what joy that is. You have been made alive together with Christ. You share now in His eternal blessedness. You share now and forever in His eternal fellowship and acceptance before God. Oh yes, dear friend, on our own performance by who we are. We do remain sinners, but we are now by station, by identity, by the new birth, we are saints. We are reckoned to be holy in Christ. So friends, never forget that. Never forget that. Friends, the gospel lets us understand ourselves in two ways. And remember, Luther got to the very nub of this when he said, the Christian is simul justus et peccator, which means we are at the same time both sinner and saint. Dear friend, if you are in Christ, you are still a sinner. We still sin against God. Never believe that you will ever be perfected in this life. You are pursuing perfection. You are growing in grace. It is progressive. But you and I will never arrive at perfection in this life. That is for glory to come. You and I are by nature sinners. We still sin. There still comes out of this fallen humanness sin. That's why we lie, cheat, steal. That's why we still sin against God. But this sinful nature, we are sinners, but we are also saints, righteous, counted righteous before God. That's your status, friends. God has, through union with Christ, by faith in his name, he has made you alive, and you now share in the life of God, the life of Christ. And so you stand forever as acceptable before the Father as Jesus is acceptable before the Father. You're clothed in Christ's righteousness. Friends, God cannot love you any more or any less than he does right at this very moment. If you are in Christ, you are loved with the same steadfast, holy affection that the Father has set upon his own beloved Son. So, friends, what that means is your identity in Christ should make you quick to repent of sin. When the Holy Spirit brings sin to mind, your identity as a child of the Father, as redeemed in Christ, as bought by His blood, should spur you on to quick repentance and faith and trust in His Perfect redemption. And it should also, friends, spur you on to live more and more for the glory of God. You are alive with Christ. You're no longer held prisoner by your sinful passions. You've been liberated. You have life, you have freedom in and under Christ. Friends, all of the blessing of your redemption is in Jesus. He is the exclusive fountain. Never forget this. There is no redeeming grace of God which comes outside of Christ. It is in Christ that we are saved. And that's why, friends, it's by grace. So friends, trust the Father who saves us in Christ alone by uniting us to Christ, raising us with Christ, and granting us to share in Christ's eternal life. And then here in verse five, at the very end, it's almost like a postscript, but really what Paul is doing here is he's helping us draw the lines and connect the dots. Friends, this is what teachers do all the time. They try to distill it down and leave you with the, with the key takeaway point. So this is what Paul says we need to take away from this. By grace, you have been saved. That's what you need to know. By grace, that's, it means through grace, what is grace? Free and unmerited favor. God doing for man what man cannot do for himself. And again, friends, your life is attended by grace. There's nothing that you have that you did not first receive. God, by His grace, sustains our entire lives. But this grace, this redeeming grace, is God's setting His love, His redeeming love upon His people. By grace, you Ephesians, by grace, you Christian, by grace, you disciple of the Lord Jesus here at First Baptist Church, Jenny Lynn, have been saved. I want you to notice that, have been saved. That's in the past tense. The scriptures will speak of salvation as a past event. You have been saved as a present. You are being saved as an ongoing thing and also as a future. You will be saved. And what Paul means here is that you have been saved. You have been delivered. This was something that God accomplished for you in the past that has ongoing effects in the future. But dear friends, let me ask the question. What does Paul mean? From what have we been saved? Friends, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that go around where people really have different ideas about what man's true danger or peril is. But the Bible makes very clear that the most dire danger that man faces is a holy God. The most present peril for you, oh man, still hard of heart and rebellious against God, is that there is a God who judges. There is a God who will call us to account for all the works that we have done, for every word we have said, for every thought that we have thought, and for every deed that we have done. Friends, the most dire danger that a sinner faces is not prison time, It's not cancer, it's not illness, it's not tragedy or poverty. The greatest peril that man, the sinner, faces is a holy God before whom he must give an account. And that is the danger from which we must be delivered. And friends, only the God who judges the world in righteousness has the power to save us from himself. Friends, God saves sinners from himself. He saves sinners from his own righteous judgment. And he does so not by negotiating his righteousness, but by satisfying his law's demands. Friends, when God acts out of this merciful character, there's still judgment. He's judging Christ in your place. He's punishing Christ for your iniquities. He's charging to Christ's account your crimes, your guilt, your treason, and Christ upon the cross forever endured the wrath of hell that we deserve. Friends, that mercy came at a cost. That grace had a price tag. God would satisfy His justice. He would remain righteous. And recall, friends, that at the garden, here Jesus knows the hour of his passion is at hand, and Jesus is terrified in his humanity. He is so upset and so terrified of what is to come on the cross, that the cup of the Father's wrath would be poured out for him, that he would drink that judgment to the very last drop. And you recall that this consternation of Christ was so intense that there in Gethsemane as he prayed, Father, all things are possible for you. If it be your will, let this cup pass from me, but if it not be your will that it pass from me, unless I drink it, not my will, but yours. As he prayed, and he prayed, And he prayed, he sweat drops of blood from the sheer intensity of his praying. Friends, what terrified Christ was not the crown of thorns, it was not the beatings and scourges that he would endure from the Romans or from the Jewish Sanhedrin, though those were painful and those were necessary in order to fulfill the Scriptures. The Scriptures say that the Messiah would be rejected by his people and that he would be crucified by the Gentiles. All of this was necessary to fulfill the promises and prophecies that God has made. But what was the most terrifying moment for Christ was when on the cross, he who knew no sin became sin for us. Friends, on the cross, Jesus bore our sins. He bore our guilt, He drank to the last drop that cup of wrath for us so that we could be saved, that we would be delivered, that we would be rescued from the wrath to come, and more than being pardoned, we would be reconciled to God. We would now in Christ begin to enjoy the life, the love, the joy of fellowship with Him for which God created us. So friends, When you think of your redemption story, remember, and perhaps many of you can do this, I know in my own life, as best I can tell, when I was about nine or 10, the Lord awakened me to understand He was holy and I was sinful and I needed a Savior and Jesus alone saves and that He was my King and I needed to repent and believe upon Him. And so I, at that moment, the rudiments of the gospel came home to me. But friends, even if you can remember that moment when you called out to God for mercy, what the Bible is saying is that what was behind that of your coming to Christ was the sovereign grace and mercy of God. It was God who made you alive and brought you savingly to the Lord Jesus because He set His love upon you. And he said, I would have her, I would have him. I have chosen to be merciful to them. Friends, what can we say in light of that? There is no room for boasting. This should cause us to worship, to praise, to love and to adore. It should also equip us and prepare us to serve for God's glory because if God saves by His grace alone, That means our children and grandchildren whom we love, this is how they will be saved, by the grace of God alone. And so we preach the gospel to them because the gospel, the word of the scriptures is the means by which God will bring faith. We share the gospel with them, we model life and godliness, but then we get on our knees and pray that God would be gracious to them. that he would do what only he can do and save. That's what we do when we go out into our community and we serve and we share the gospel. We're praying, God, be gracious to them. God, have mercy upon them because it's God who saves by his grace alone. So friends, let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you that you are the God who saves. We pray, Lord, teach us to appreciate your grace, to relish, your love to rejoice in your faithfulness. Father, you save sinners in Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray have mercy upon us. Cause us to treasure you more, to serve you more, and to glorify your name. Father, all this we ask in Jesus' name.