Please remain standing and turn with me in your Bibles. Please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2 and we'll read the first 10 verses. Ephesians chapter 2. beginning in verse 1 and we'll go to verse 10. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit, who now works in the sons of disobedience. among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Let's pray. Father, as we come to this text and consider the glory and richness of Your grace, We confess, having read chapter 1, Lord, that the Apostle himself seems to be trying to explain territory that is just too deep and profound for his vocabulary. He tosses in all kinds of adjectives and words of description to emphasize the greatness of Your grace. And he uses words like riches and greatness and excellencies. Lord, we know, Lord, What he is saying here is something that we will not even fully appreciate in the fullest extent until we're in glory. But Father, we ask that You would give us a taste of Your truth now. Lord, help us to understand Your grace toward us. Take away any blinders. Help us to see, Lord, the truth of the matter and what You have done in our lives. And we pray that it would come upon us with such great power and understanding that it would affect our very lives, that we would leave here today changed in great ways, ready to cast ourselves into full service of Christ in whatever sphere of life You have us. So we look to You, Lord, and ask You to bless us. We ask for the blessed gift of Your Holy Spirit to quicken and renew us with Your Word. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. Having considered the wrath of God last time in our series on the attributes of God, I want to now take that bridge over to the grace of God. And when we consider the grace of God, we're reminded of that glorious virtue, that real virtue of our holy God which leads Him to show undeserving sinners His unmerited favor. It is a real and true character quality that is embedded in the heart of God. which compels Him in the direction of showing kindness to the unworthy and the ungodly in accordance with the real and true love that He has set upon them from before time even began. To be sure, grace does not precede love. Those whom God loves and has loved even before time, He shows grace. but grace meets His beloved ones when they are naturally unlovable and diametrically opposed to everything that God is and stands for. And the glorious thing about God's grace, brethren, is that the Scriptures teach us that it runs deeper than His wrath. Now, I say this for two reasons. First, because God's wrath is often held back and delayed as He patiently deals with the ungodly. The Scriptures tell us that God is slow to exercise wrath. He is quick to show grace. The book of Jonah contains a wonderful message of both wrath and grace, but grace prevails in the end in that context, does it not? Now brethren, this is not to put God at odds with Himself as if He were struggling with some inward tension. It just means that within the sphere of God's holiness and His personal goodness, we find Him patient and willing to endure with sinners for a time, oftentimes even showing great patience to those who are unelect, to those who are damned. However, what does this mean for those who continually receive such grace, even in a general sense, and yet refuse it right to the end? Do they not add to their condemnation and build upon the weight of their coming judgment and the measure of God's wrath that they will receive? What a terrible day when the unsaved, who have lived long and have heard the Gospel, and who have been recipients in some great way of the common grace of God, while having continually rejected Christ, what a horrible day it will be to see them face their judgment. Secondly, brethren, God's grace runs deeper than His wrath. Because nowhere are we told of the riches of God's wrath. But we are told of the riches of His grace and mercy. As we've seen in Ephesians 1 and 2 already. God is rich in grace. Now brethren, I want you to consider that for a moment. Do you want to know something that is wonderful and incomprehensible about our all-holy and righteous Creator? I hope that you were here last time to hear about the wrath of God, and if not, you might want to hear that message, because it helps as a preface to this. But there's something wonderful and incomprehensible about our all-holy and righteous Creator. You see, brethren, He could have no element of grace in His character. Grace is always undeserved. It's unmerited. It's not something that is warranted. And yet, He could remain perfectly lovable and righteous without grace. Apart from His grace, angels would still adore Him for His righteousness and for the glory of His being as a Creator and an infinite, eternal, all-powerful, sovereign Lord over all things. He could righteously condemn and judge all sinners and rebellion. And the angels could say with sincerity, Amen, Lord. You're doing the right thing. But, there is something even more profound and glorious about this living, eternal God who has no beginning and no end, and that is the fact that He doesn't simply have this element of grace in Him, but that we're told He is rich in grace. He's not simply gracious. But we're told over and over again of the riches of His grace such that He would move to the extent of sending His Son into the world to bear the wrath and shame that sinners deserve in order to justify the ungodly, our smallest, of sins, if we can use that kind of language in some sanctified sense. Our smallest of sins warrant His just wrath. A simple look of the eye, young people, in some lustful way towards someone who is not your wife or husband is enough to condemn you in the sight of this holy God. A simple white lie is enough to condemn you and to cast you into outer darkness because of who this God is. And yet, we are born into this world laden with sin from head to toe, with no desire to naturally serve this God. We serve ourselves from birth onward, before a work of grace takes place. We send out the terrible and dark stench of ungodliness from our earliest days. And we continue on in this direction as creatures created by a holy, infinite God and Creator. And yet, He endures it. And His love is already fixed upon us from before the world was created. And His Son became the object of His own wrath and hatred in order that He might purchase us from the condemnation that our sins deserve forever, so that we would become His beloved adopted children, brothers and sisters of Christ, so that the One who is all just, who is all holy, who is all righteous, could actually justify ungodly sinners. He is rich in grace. Our God is rich in grace and mercy. This is a reality that takes even the angels themselves and brings them into the school of God's character as they behold this glorious reality of His being coming out in His treatment of the ungodly. They are schooled. when they behold God's grace. And they marvel at it without ceasing. But we, brethren, are the very recipients and the benefactors of that grace. Perfectly holy, unsinful angels don't need grace. It's not required. They're righteous. Sinful angels who have fallen will not have grace. There's no redemption for them. There is no Christ to pay for their sins. Christ did not die for them. Ought not our chorus of praise to drown out even the praise of the angels then? Our God is rich in grace. Well, following a lengthy section in chapter 1, describing everything that God has done for us in Christ in accordance with His divine will. The Apostle Paul violates all kinds of grammatical laws there. If you read Ephesians 1 in the original language and you're an English teacher, you would probably get an F. But the reality is when the Spirit of God takes hold of you and you are obsessed and you are caught up in the glory and majesty of God for what He's done for you, the rules of grammar tend to go out the window. following that lengthy section. where he writes about all that God has done for us in Christ in accordance with His divine will concerning our election, our predestination, our regeneration, our adoption, our sanctification, and our future glorification. The Apostle then reminds us here in chapter 2 that our salvation from beginning to end, from its planning to its enacting and accomplishing, is wholly and completely a product of God's free grace. Notice those words in verse 8. For by grace you have been saved. God has rescued us from our lost, dead spiritual condition. He has delivered us from our earned condemnation and anticipated judgment. He has plucked us out of the world and the sway of the world and brought us into His church. He's brought us into His grace solely and completely on the basis of His free favor. There are no, but you were something positive in any way, shape, or form in this equation. There's nothing that we could stop and look back in our salvation and look at the Word of God and even experientially look at all of it and look and assess it and say, okay, but at least there was this in me. Because it doesn't exist. Unless you want to talk about negative things. We are saved because God is gracious. And His grace meets us, we see in Ephesians 1 and 2 here, meets us in accordance. It is hooked on to something. It is attached to something that precedes our existence, even the existence of the world. His grace meets us in accordance with an election that has been determined before the foundation of the world where we're told God has set His love upon us, then in Christ. We were born sinners. We lived and functioned just like the rest of the world. We remember those days, don't we? We still see the remnants of that in us. We were chasing idols and under the sway and power of the devil. Chapter 2, verses 1-3. I don't know of a more perfect description of the way that I lived before I was in Christ. It's just so wonderfully written right there. I say, Paul, I feel like you were right there watching my life. And then God, we're told, in verse 4. And then God stepped in and regenerated us. The electricity was off. We were dead in our sin. And God turned on the electricity. And He opened our eyes to the truth. For by grace you have been saved. And that grace met us through the vehicle of our faith, which itself was a gift from God, wrapped by the Holy Spirit, and deposited into the depth of our naturally faithless dead souls. Where did you get that faith? For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Brethren, I want you to go into your own homes for a moment in your mind, or your safety deposit boxes, or wherever your valuables are, your wallets, whatever it might be. I want you to take of your greatest treasures in your mind, brethren, and say that you will give them to your worst enemies. To those you know hate you and despise you and want nothing to do with you. I want you to imagine giving unhindered access to all of your worldly possessions, to your bank account, your credit cards, your checkbook. Give that to the most wanted and hated terrorist or criminal in the entire world. All of that pales, pales compared to the way in which God has gifted you with His grace and the necessary faith to access it. doesn't even measure anything close to the grace that God has given us. And the gift of God's grace, brethren, what's so wonderful about it is it's organic in its nature. It's not simply a simple object. It's not something that you just... a one-time blessing or a simple object that God gives you. It is a spring that wells up in the soul and produces a river of life. It is a seed that takes root in the soul and branches out in every direction. It regenerates. It cleanses. It saves. It works. It changes the leper's spots. It sanctifies. And it doesn't stop doing what it's supposed to do until Christ Himself in all of His morality and His perfect character is fully formed in you. That's the power of His grace. Notice those words. in verse 10, because that's what Paul is saying here. Here is the outworking of grace. For we are His workmanship. He is the skilled carpenter. He is the designer. And we are His workmanship. We were ruined. We were nothing but dead, useless materials. But it says, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. created anew, a new heart, a desire to serve, a desire to be a part of His church, things that bored us terribly in the past, things we wanted nothing to do with, things you and I, if we go back and talk to our former selves and say, here's where we are, they would laugh at us and say, I would not step foot in that building. These things happen now. Because we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so, brethren, to what credit do we attribute any measure of good works that we do? To what credit do we attribute any improvement upon our holiness and our desire to overcome sin and any sense of victory we achieve or progress? To what credit do we attribute any motivation, let alone the act, any motivation of good that drives us? It is all of the grace of God. All of it. Brethren, Anything good that we do whatsoever. And you know, man does not want to hear this, does he? Naturally. We want a stake in some sense of this. We're doing something of our own. Anything good that we do whatsoever, anything we do which is pleasing to God, let's say it that way, is a direct product of His grace that is at work in us. To be sure, our sins belong to us. They're already there. Even what's remaining, they're already there. They belong to us. Our sins are that which we do apart from grace. But anything good that we do is all of grace. And God, enduring the sins that we still struggle with and commit, is evidence of His grace still toward us in that He permits it as He is dealing with us and sanctifying us patiently and graciously in making us more like Christ and showing us by our sins that we depend upon Christ today and tomorrow and every day as much as we did when we were first saved. And that is why, brethren, there is never any room for boasting in the heart of the true Christian. That's why there's never any room. If there were anything that we can say, but you know what? I did this. You know, pastor, I was in the pew that day. I came with my friends. We all heard the Word. And I responded, I, I, I. Why is it that most of the people over here in the church, these people seem to be drifting or not doing much, and I'm out evangelizing, I'm doing these things. Anything positive. is all of grace. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Brethren, if anybody were to properly expound chapters 1 and 2 of Ephesians to come with an honest and clear mind and to be open to what it says, it is impossible to read these words with any sense of honesty and to come out an Arminian. Our salvation has nothing whatsoever to do with our works, other than to say that our works are a product of it. And they prove it. And they evidence it. And that's why there are commands to examine ourselves in light of what Scriptures say, to see if that work of grace is in us. And even then, God has created us unto these good works, and He has prepared them for us beforehand that we should walk in them, that we should perform them. He's prepared them. You see, brethren, we can never boast, can we? Do you have knowledge? It's all of grace. Do you have wisdom and understanding? It's all of grace. Do you have spiritual gifts? It's all of grace. Do you have holiness and Christian virtue? It's all of grace. Have you been used to bring 10,000 people to Christ? It's all of grace. It's all of grace. Shall we boast then, brethren? Let us boast if we're going to boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we be filled with pride? Let us be increasingly and jealously proud to see Christ receive every ounce of glory for all of His good work in us. Do you find yourself hungering and thirsting after the things of God? Do you find yourself desiring to live a godly and a holy life? Do you find yourself being repulsed by the things you once hated? Praise be unto God. That is grace at work in you. It's not you. Now brethren, before we close with some concluding thoughts, I want you to consider one more important matter about the grace of God, and this will kind of bring us to the end here. as it's seen in our text. Notice again the opening few words of v. 8. And I think we tend to forget this. We memorize. Most Christians know Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, right? We quote those words. But v. 8 begins with the word for, which generally, as the general is telling us, that this is not the beginning of something that Paul is saying, but it's attached to something else. It's meant to confirm what he's already said about something when he says this word for. Oftentimes, the word for is stated as a means of confirming or solidifying whatever the author has just said. In this case, brethren, In the beginning of chapter 2, Paul has begun to open up the reality of our regeneration, where in time, God, we are told, as we were walking with the rest of the world, the course of this world, under the power and influence of the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. He was working in us at one point in time. And now Paul tells us about the reality of our regeneration where in time God has intruded upon our lives with His quickening grace so that we who were caught in the deceptive trance of pursuing worldly things and lust with everyone else, when we were under the power and the sway of the devil, would be made alive in Christ. He regenerated us. He gave us life. And verses 4-7, Brethren, are an essential hinge pin that links this reality of our regeneration with what we have been going over in v. 8 and following. You can't lose v. 4-7 and just go to v. 8. Notice v. 4 and following now. But God, we were lost. We were dead. We were under the power of the devil. We were following the course of the world. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses. God made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come, a purpose is coming up here, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved. What is Paul saying here, brethren? Namely, that God, who is rich in this virtue of mercy, has loved us with such a great love. Now sit on that for a while. God has loved you beforehand. with such a great love that it has compelled Him to go to the extent of making us alive in Christ even when we were completely dead and without any spiritual inclination toward Him. We weren't partly good. We weren't hanging on by a thread. We weren't not as bad as we could be. We were dead. He made us alive together with Christ. He raised us up together with Christ. And He made us sit together in the heavenly places with Christ. He has done everything, in other words, brethren, to plan, prepare, secure, and execute every aspect of our salvation in Christ. requiring nothing that would depend upon our own wills or desires, because dead people tend to not have a will to do anything. They're dead. It's all of God's work in us when we were at our worst. And dead, not just dead, but dead in a particular sphere, in a sphere of sin and lostness and idolatry with the rest of the world. And brethren, we're told, as Paul goes on here, that He has done this so that in the ages to come, God might carry the whole package of what He has done for us to our consciences and hearts so that He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. so that God might reveal to us in a very real and experiential way the reality of His goodness and His grace. And not just His goodness and His grace, but the richness of that goodness and His grace, specifically as it is shown in what He has done for us in Christ. You see, brethren, God wants us to be thoroughly blown away and full of awe. as we behold not just this attribute of grace in His Person in some general sense, as if we say like with someone else, oh, well, Joe is such a nice guy. This is a decent person and this person is generous. No, brethren, He wants us to be thoroughly blown away and full of awe as we behold not just this attribute of grace in His Person in some general sense, but the exceeding riches of this grace, especially as it is seen and the kindness that He has tangibly shown us who were completely dead in sin and without any hope from our standpoint whatsoever. See, we have God's Word to tell us of this reality, brethren, but as we look upon God's Word, we can identify the reality of what He says by looking specifically at our individual lives. In other words, you know the mess you were in spiritually. We were ungodly. We were lost. We were blind and dead and without hope. We saw the world through the lens of the world and through the lens of our own lust and our own self-serving desires and our own pride and our own arrogance. We were stuck in a position of absolute contradiction to the righteousness and holiness of God. You may not have committed an act of fornication. You may not have murdered. But you yourself were as wicked as anyone else because you did not serve and adore and worship the true and living God. You were One who elevated Yourself and other things. We were stuck there. And He did everything unimaginable to reverse all of that without any help from us whatsoever. Without anything that he could point to and say, well, you know, at least so and so or these people have this much that I can look at. He had to look completely at Christ to obtain that motive. Why did he do this? Here's the mystery. Because he loved us with so great a love. because He loved us with so great a love. And that's why Paul comes to verse 8 and kind of concludes with this summary statement and uses the word for and says, for by grace you've been saved. You see, brethren, we are meant to look at all of this. We're meant to consider the reality of our salvation all that it cost God, and to what extent He went to secure it. We're meant to ponder these things in the light of His holiness, and in the light of our unholiness to the point that we say over and over again, and this isn't robotic, this is sincere, it has to be when you consider the reality of it, that we would say over and over and over again, the love and grace of God are beyond understanding. They cannot be reached by the mind's eye. The extent of His mercy carries us even beyond the complexities of this awesome creation. As glorious as this creation is, and I know when I think about anything from the insect to my own living person that I exist, to the universe, to the trees and the plants and the earth and so on, I say, what a great God we have! But brethren, the extent of His mercy carries us beyond the complexities of this awesome creation that He's designed by speaking, and it carries us beyond the universe into the infinite place of wow and amazement. It's beyond. We can never wrap our arms around the depths of God's love and mercy and grace toward us, brethren. No scientist can sit there with his test tubes and his chemicals and dissect it and put together the equation that gives us an understanding of this. But as we try, as we reach out as far as our finite minds and hearts can take us, with an infinite distance more to travel. The Apostle wants us to take it all in, all of that amazement. He wants us to take all of the love that fills our hearts as we consider that God loves us in this way. And He wants us to harness it and to release it in the direction of serving Christ and His church. In other words, He doesn't want us to just be bottled up with that love. He wants us to offer praise, and He rightfully deserves it. But He wants it to pour out, to take that energy and to pour it out into action, into pursuing holiness, into pursuing the good of the church, into pursuing the lost who are still outside of Christ. You see, brethren, He wants us to ponder the riches of God's grace. He wants us never to take it lightly and to pass it over as if it were poor or minimal. And He wants to let it drive us to lay our whole lives onto the altar of that grace, ready and willing to serve Christ with everything that we are and have in Christ. You see, God's grace is not like the successful TV series. The new show comes on and everyone loves it and is excited about it. And this is the greatest show that's out there. And it has a sense of longevity. It goes on for years in season 2 and 3 and 4 and 5. And finally though, it gets to 8 or 9 and people say, okay, I think we're tired of this now. And they have to come up with something else. God's grace should be something, brethren, that never runs out of seasons in the hearts of those who have experienced it. It should be as overwhelming and as joyful today as it was, even more so, I would say, than when we first experienced it. Because we have more understanding. We have more knowledge. We have more of an understanding of what that grace has done in our lives than we did when we were first saved. And brethren, this grace ought to lead us to cry aloud, Lord, my sacrifice is too small for such an infinite grace. Multiply my feeble efforts. Build a bigger altar so that what you have done for me in Christ will be seen by all. Let me be a billboard for His glory. I have been a billboard for my own glory for far too long. Let me be crucified with Christ so that by my life others will find Him." You know, when we do something in life some kind of a recorded accomplishment or success. We've done something that's pretty big, whether it's a graduation or whatever it is. We've achieved some kind of thing in life. There's a sense in which we like people to see that and appreciate it. We enjoy that. We'll multiply that times 10,000 and that's the way we should be toward what Christ has done for us. To say we are jealous for people to see what He has done. And the only way they can see it is through us and through His Word and how His Word is lived out in and by us. Well, brethren, then let me close by asking you a question. How do you measure the grace of God? What weight or amount or value could you ever put on His grace? Most are perishing in their sins in accordance with the just and righteous condemnation that is due to them and which we rightfully deserve, were it not for Christ. The holiness of God is pure. It is good. It is righteous. It is infinite. It is uncompromising and rightly so. The wrath of God is fierce and it justifiably consumes all ungodliness. And out of this world of trillions of people throughout all the ages, you are one of God's elect. In spite of all that you would do in your lifetime, and you've done some horrible things, haven't you? God has loved you. with a great love from before the foundation of the world. You say, wow, I wish I never did that. And God says, I knew you were going to do that before I even created the world. Not to take that lightly, but just to get an appreciation for the fact that it's not beyond His grace. He went to the expense of sending Christ into the world. to bear your shame, your condemnation, your judgment, your wrath, because His justice cannot be compromised one iota. It must be fulfilled. He bore it all. And then in time, when you were right smack in the middle of your rebellion, You were running in the very opposite direction of God with everyone else, and He grabbed you by the soul, unzipped you, entered you, regenerated you, showed you your sin and your legal stance before Him because of your sin, and made Christ known to you. And even then, you would still not have responded. unless He had given you the faith that is necessary to believe into His Son. so that you would obtain eternal life and the adoption that comes to all of God's elect in Christ. And even then, if God didn't secure you with His grace, if it wasn't an ongoing, river-producing grace that branches out and is conforming you to the image of Christ, if it stopped at some moment and left you to your own desire and power and abilities, you would go off stray. But it brings you all the way. into His glory. And now, you are set to be decked out in glory with every rich blessing that comes with the inheritance that belongs to Christ and His saints. You're going to stand in the eternal palace of God. as one of His adopted children, beholding His glory, rejoicing in what all of this is really all about, in the glory of Christ. And until we get there, in this life, He is stripping away the mess that you and I have made. He is purifying what we have defiled so that we will be fit for that day. In this fear of a glorious and yet fallen creation where most are perishing, I ask you, brethren, how do you measure the grace of God with respect to your salvation? How do you measure? Can you put a price tag on it? Can you come up with a starting bid and put it on eBay? Can you bundle it all together and put it on a scale, some kind of a great scale and weigh it somehow? Well, brethren, it is God's desire and it is more than proper and right that you constantly spend time pondering His grace toward you and keep going until you have exhausted Him. And brethren, in other words, keep going forever, because you'll never exhaust Him. Are you too busy to make that your daily practice? Prayerfully plummet the depths of His grace, brethren. Look for the clear manifestations of it in His Word. See how it applies directly to your own personal life. And let it set you on fire for His glory. Let it move you to sacrifice and to take risks for His glory. Your time is short and you have the unique opportunity of making good use of God's grace in a way that you will never be able to do again when you leave this world. Eternity is a long time. Your 70 or 80 or 90 years or less, or maybe even much less, are so, so short. Make an investment and take the grace of God toward you. And let it light you on fire so that others will see Christ in you and in your life. Matthew 5, 14-16. I'm going to close with this verse, these verses. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let Your light so shine before men that they may see Your good works and glorify Your Father in heaven. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much for your abundant grace. We try to describe it and we find ourselves inadequate. How can we take the reality of a grace that comes from a love that you have for us from before even the world was created When we can't even answer the question, why would you love us? For we know, Father, that you are not saving everyone in the world. In fact, the Scriptures clearly teach that the road to destruction is broad and most, many go in by it. And the road to life, the road to the gate of life is narrow and there are few who even find it. To think that we are on that narrow road because we are in Christ. when the rest of the world is hardened and continuing on the path that we were on, and to know that the only difference between us and them is your grace, because you loved us, not because we were better than they were, we've even done worse things in many instances, but you loved us in Christ. Father, we ask that you would put these wonderful truths into our hearts, Help us not to lose sight of them. Change us by them. Help us to meditate upon Your grace every day of our lives and Your goodness. To pray, Lord, and think about who You are and what You've done and this attribute of Your grace. And may it set us on fire so that we would endure, so that we would be lights even in a difficult environment, perhaps at our jobs or our homes or in society, or whatever we might go through, we might be prepared to live for the glory of Christ. And Father, we ask for those who don't know You this evening. We pray for those who don't know of Christ in truth, who don't know Him in truth. We ask, Lord, that You would meet them with this grace tonight. We pray that You would bring them to their knees and that they would lose sleep and cry out to You and seek You until they have found You, until they can be sure that they are in Christ and that this grace is operative in them. O Lord, we ask that You would do these things for Your namesake. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.