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Ephesians 2:1-10
2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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—3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body1 and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.2 4 But3 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you
Joel Brooks:have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We'll begin reading in verse 1. 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.
Joel Brooks: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 and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith.
Joel Brooks: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, that we should walk in them. This is the word of the Lord.
Connor Coskery:Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:If you would, pray with me. Our Father, I pray that in this place, we would come to a greater understanding of just how amazing Your grace is. A greater understanding of Your love that You have lavished on Your children. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away, and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may Your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So far in this letter to the Ephesians, Paul has been talking about being chosen before the foundation of the world or being predestined for adoption or being redeemed by the blood of Jesus or being forgiven or having a glorious inheritance. But now in chapter 2, he's gonna wrap all of those things up into just one word, saved. As Christians, we have been saved.
Joel Brooks:And now for those of you who are not Christians, perhaps you are here and you're just exploring the faith, You've heard that buzzword before. You've heard Christians use this word saved. Perhaps you've seen it on billboards or bumper stickers. Jesus saves. Turn to Jesus and be saved.
Joel Brooks:And you've always wondered, well, what exactly is meant by that? Well, this is where you would go in scripture to really understand what it means to be saved. You've probably also heard the word grace attached to that. That we're saved by grace. And sure enough, Christians love to sing about grace, amazing grace.
Joel Brooks:Some Christians even name their children Grace. We are all about grace. If you're wondering what grace is all about, this is the text to look for to understand grace. How we've been saved by grace. But, first, a question is probably popping up in your mind when you just even hear the word saved or salvation.
Joel Brooks:You're thinking, so what exactly am I being saved from? Why exactly do I need salvation? What's my condition that I need to be saved from? And so that's the first thing that Paul is going to address in chapter 2, is our need to be saved. And so, he starts off by describing our present condition apart from God.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 1 again. He says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. The human condition, apart from God, can only be described as dead. Human kind is not merely sick, injured, or wounded. Mankind is not just kinda rough around the edges.
Joel Brooks:Paul says, no, we're we're spiritual corpses. We are dead. And you find this throughout scripture. It's why you read in John chapter 3 that we cannot see God, or in John chapter 8 that we cannot hear God, or in 2nd Corinthians 2, how we cannot understand God, Or in Psalm, 49, how we cannot or we do not seek after God. People who cannot see or hear or understand or seek after, that's just describing a dead person.
Joel Brooks:We don't have the senses that somebody alive would have. We're not awake to the realities of who God is. Paul summarizes our conditions perfectly in Romans chapter 3 when he says this. He says, no one is righteous, No, not one. No one understands.
Joel Brooks:No one seeks after God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good. No, not one.
Joel Brooks:That's the condition of humanity. Our primary problem is not that we struggle to to find happiness or that we struggle to find meaning in our life or that we struggle with loneliness. The primary problem of humanity is this. We're dead. We are spiritually dead.
Joel Brooks:We're not alive to God and therefore, we don't receive the life giving joy that comes from His presence. And can I just give an aside to this? I'm convinced that the primary reason that the Western church is so anemic, so anemic has nothing to do with some kind of invasion of liberalism. It has nothing to do with maybe, technology becoming part of the church or the fast paced society we live in. The reason that the western church has become so anemic is because it's full of dead people.
Joel Brooks:It's full of people who actually need to be converted, Who need who need to come alive. And there's no amount of lights. There's no amount of smoke machines or theater seats. There's no amount of loud music or some hip new program that can make people become alive. What's needed is the gospel needs to be preached and then the spirit of God comes and He blows over dry bones and He raises people to life.
Joel Brooks:And that's something that the Western church needs now more than ever. It's simply the gospel proclaimed and God raising the dead. We don't need new programs. Beside end. Paul goes on here to describe what being spiritually dead looks like.
Joel Brooks:In the next two verses. Look again with me, at the first three verses here. 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, and the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. Spiritual death, here as being described by Paul, looks a lot like slavery. Looks like slavery.
Joel Brooks:Paul says that the natural condition, our natural condition apart from God is one that, in which we are enslaved to the ways of the world, we're enslaved to Satan, and we're enslaved to our own desires. He spells out all three of those things right here. But spiritual death looks like slavery. The word follow here, don't don't think of how we use that term in English, follow. Like, we're following someone because we need directions or we're following somebody on Twitter.
Joel Brooks:That's not the word follow. We're not following Satan on Twitter. Alright. This is talking about we have been captured by this person. We've been captured by the world and by Satan and by our own desires.
Joel Brooks:They are our masters and we follow them because we are their slaves. That's what spiritual death looks like here. So let's look at these three things. The first thing that we have been enslaved to is what Paul calls the course of this world. Or some of your translations might say the spirit of this age.
Joel Brooks:Basically, this is Paul's way of saying sin is the very air that we breathe. It's the very air that we breathe. The world is so fallen that when you sin, you just fit right in. If you're righteous, you stand out. But if you sin, you're right at home.
Joel Brooks:I was recently talking to somebody about this. I was sharing my faith with them and we're talking through all these points about the gospel. And And he disagrees with some of these, but it was here when I talked about how the world is broken and how our hearts are depraved. He said like, I gotta stop you there. He goes, I really, I really feel like people are basically good at heart.
Joel Brooks:And that the world is basically a good place. I was like, really? Like, of all the arguments, this is gonna be the hill you die on? Because I literally have all of human history on my side for this one. Name me just one time, just one time in all of human history when we were not killing one another.
Joel Brooks:Name me just one time in human history where the strong were not oppressing the weak. Name me just one time in all of human history where we we're not abusing either sex or money or power. The world is broken. All of human history testifies to the broken nature of the world and the darkness of our hearts. It's the power of the age, of every age, the spirit of the age.
Joel Brooks:It's the very air that we breathe. We're largely unaware of this, because it's the very air that we breathe. I remember when I first, at least I could first remember being aware of the brokenness of this world, the depravity of hearts, is really just walking the halls in high school. Walking the halls in high school, you would hear every kind of course, crude, sexual joke there was. Then you would see all this bullying.
Joel Brooks:And then you would, you would see though or hear the women gossiping or talking behind each other's backs in just the meanest possible way. You would see how a person's looks are honored or valued way more than a person's character. And this would just go on all through the halls, and then after school you go into the locker room and all the talk there was purely just making women objects. And then you would go to practice and you would exhaust yourself. You would come home that night.
Joel Brooks:You'd stay up late doing homework past your bedtime. You wake up the next day and you're doing it all over again. And you quickly realize that the world is actually hostile towards righteousness. That sin really is at the very culture. It's the very air that we breathe.
Joel Brooks:To be righteous makes you stand out. To sin, you just blend right in. That's what Paul means when he says it's the spirit of the age. It's the spirit of every age. Next, in verse 2, He says that we follow the prince of the power of the air.
Joel Brooks:This is a reference to the devil or a reference to Satan. There is a real spiritual force. A real personal spiritual force that is working hard for your destruction. That's what Paul is saying here. And we could land here for quite a while, but actually, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna punt that, all right.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna punt that because we're gonna deal with that in so much greater detail in Ephesians 6. And really, what I wanna do is move to the next thing we're in bondage of and land there, because it's actually the most important. The third and the greatest thing that we're enslaved to is our own desires. If Paul had just told us that we were enslaved to the course of this world, alright, or just told us that we were enslaved to the devil, then then we would have felt pretty sorry for ourselves because there were forces outside of our control working against us. And poor woe is me caught up in this sinful systems.
Joel Brooks:But Paul, here he says, it's not just the outside influences over you. You're the real cause of this sinfulness. Sin is not something that just happens to you. It's something that comes out of you. And really, it's these sinful desires that have led to a fallen world and the power of the devil.
Joel Brooks:So in verse 3 here, he he talks about this. He, Let's read verse 3 again. He says, as among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. Now, the word flesh here, the Greek word is sarx, it's it's not talking about this. It's not talking about skin or flesh.
Joel Brooks:What it's talking about is your self centeredness. It's your self centered human nature. That's your flesh. The default of the human heart is to always think about itself. So you go through all of life thinking, what do I have to gain from this?
Joel Brooks:How does this friendship benefit me? How does moving here help me? If Does taking this job, how will it benefit me? And you go through all of life just just the way you relate to others is how does it affect me? Is this going to be to my advantage?
Joel Brooks:I've said this before, but one of the obvious ways that we see this is just through group photographs. So you have a group photograph and you see it. And who's the only person you look at? Yourself. And so, if everybody else looks beautiful, but you kinda have that crooked smile, then you're like, this photograph stinks.
Joel Brooks:We gotta take the photograph over. That's your sole evaluation for whether the photograph is good. The best photograph is actually when everybody else looks terrible and you look fantastic. That's that's the keeper for you. That's our radical self interest.
Joel Brooks:Self centeredness. Now, self centeredness can manifest itself in many ways. We typically think of self centeredness as manifesting itself in what we would call evil ways or immoral ways. Those who are self centered, they can be unkind. They could be hurtful.
Joel Brooks:They could be evil. They're gonna lie. They're gonna steal to get their own way, maybe even kill to get their own way. They don't care if they have to hurt others to get what they want. And we think of that as how self centeredness manifests itself.
Joel Brooks:And it certainly does. That is a way in which self centeredness manifests itself. But self centeredness can also make you an extremely moral person, Perhaps even a religious person. And you're fueled not by love for God, but you're fueled by love for self. And this is especially true in the Christ haunted south where where for you to to kinda be a moral person, it might be a way of just getting what you want.
Joel Brooks:You all know that if you act good and you act nice, a lot of times it'll get you what you want in the end. One of the best illustrations I've ever heard concerning this came from Elizabeth Elliot. And Elizabeth Elliot, she told this parable. She said, Jesus got up one morning and he gathered the disciples around and he said, I'd like all of you disciples to pick up a rock and to come follow me. This is not in your bibles.
Joel Brooks:Don't try to find this. Alright. It's not there. So all the disciples, they pick up a rock and they start following Jesus. And Peter, he gets this little rock and he's like, alright.
Joel Brooks:And he just kinda puts it in his pocket and he just follows Jesus. And after an entire day of following Jesus, when they come to the end of this day, they are worn out. They are tired. They are hungry. And so Jesus says, alright.
Joel Brooks:I want everybody to get out that rock. And so they all get out the rock and he prays a blessing and the rock becomes bread. And he goes, there's your dinner. And you have James there. He's like, you know, he's eating whey.
Joel Brooks:John's just eating whey. And then you have, like, Peter with this little corn muffin. And that's all he has. And he goes to bed tired. And he goes to bed hungry.
Joel Brooks:And the next day, Jesus, he he gets up and once again says, alright. I I want everybody to pick up a rock and follow me. And so everybody's picking up a rock and this time, Peter's like, you you know, Peter's like, he's got the rock. And so all day, he's just doing this and he's following Jesus. At the end of the day, they're once again, they're tired, they're wore out, they're hungry.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus said, I want everybody to get out their rock. And Peter's like, mine's already out. You know, he's always holding this. It's like, I would like for everybody to throw it in the lake. So he throws it in the lake.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus says, good night. And, Peter's just looking at Jesus. And Jesus looks at Peter and says, Peter, just who were you carrying the rock for? Who were you carrying it for? Now on the outside, Peter looked.
Joel Brooks:Boy, he looked incredibly moral. He looked a And you guys, I'm doing way more than all of you. But it was just fueled by self centeredness. It was still all about Him. Our religious devotion can be just another way that that manifests itself.
Joel Brooks:Our religiosity can. A morality can. But our hearts are still enslaved to our every desire. Now, Martin Luther, he describes this as the curvature of the soul. The curvature of the soul.
Joel Brooks:Those of you who were at our theological talk back a couple of months ago with Doctor Timothy George, he expounded on this, and he talked about what the curvature of the soul is. It was actually Martin Luther's definition of sin, that the soul is so curved that it curves completely back in on itself. It can't help but thinking of itself at all times. How does everything benefit me? It thinks of my needs, my wants, even at the expenses of others.
Joel Brooks:And once again, this could lead to being a very religious, moral person, or it could lead to being an immoral person. But it's still slavery. It's still spiritual death. Think of the happiest moments that you have had in your life. The happiest moments.
Joel Brooks:Maybe the birth of a child, or if you wanna go shallower, you know, a football game. You know, your team wins a championship, you know, and you're watching this great play and you're like, ah. I mean, you're just, you're so excited. And at at that happy joyful moment, I guarantee you this, you are not thinking about yourself. You're you're what we call completely caught up in the moment.
Joel Brooks:Not caught up in yourself, but you're caught up in the moment and you're you're looking at glory and you're in a way you're not thinking of yourself at all. Nobody goes to the to the edge of the Grand Canyon, stands there, and and thinks, I am awesome. Nobody's thinking about themselves. They're thinking of the beauty and the glory that's in front of them. And when they think that and they're taken outside of themselves, you're actually filled with joy.
Joel Brooks:Now, think of the opposite. Think of the times you've been most depressed. The times you've been most anxious. It's probably the times you can't get out of your head. You just keep thinking about it.
Joel Brooks:How does this affect me? How does Why did this person act this way? Why did they say this? This is so unfair to me. You can't get out of your head.
Joel Brooks:Your soul is curving in on itself. And to deny, to keep curving in on yourself is to deny yourself the presence of God. And when this continues for all of eternity, you know what the biblical word for that is? Hell. The endless curvature of the soul.
Joel Brooks:That's what Paul lays out here. We're enslaved to our own desires. So we're enslaved to the course of this world. We're enslaved to the devil. We're enslaved to the flesh, our own desires.
Joel Brooks:We're spiritually dead. So what hope is there? That's where we come on verse 4. But God. Let's just stop there.
Joel Brooks:These two words, they need to be starred, highlighted, underlined, whatever you do. You go ahead, do it to all of chapter 2. It's fine. And that's not even my favorite chapter in Ephesians, but it's a glorious, glorious chapter here. But those two words, but God, are 2 of the most glorious words that humanity has ever heard.
Joel Brooks:But God. Thank the Lord we don't read but you. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if you read but you? Nothing good in scripture happens after a but you. You'll read things, but you were unwilling to listen, but you disobeyed me.
Joel Brooks:But you refused to turn from your evil ways. But you oppressed the poor. But you killed the poor. Or kill we're killing and we're oppressing the poor. Or you have Jesus saying things like my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you, you have turned it into a den of robbers.
Joel Brooks:That's what the but yous of the Bible are all about. You're not gonna get this, but you you really surprised me. You know? I I thought I thought I had you pegged. I thought but, you know, you really surprised me.
Joel Brooks:You don't find that in the Bible. You you don't find that, but you really pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and made something of yourself. I don't know how you did it, but you you were able to turn your heart of stone into a heart of flesh. You will never see someone's spiritual condition change after a but you, but yet we put so much effort in that. However, when you come across the words, but God, everything changes.
Joel Brooks:So Noah in Genesis 8, he's on the ark. He's looking out at the floodwaters everywhere, and he's wondering, are the floodwaters ever gonna go away? Is God's judgment ever gonna cease? And we read the words, but God remembered Noah. And He caused his wind to blow over the waters.
Joel Brooks:And that but God teaches us that God never forsakes, He never forgets the ones that He loves. In Genesis 50, we have Joseph many years after his brothers, threw him in a pit. His brothers sold them into slavery. And now his brothers stand before him and he's looking at them and he says, you meant this for evil. But God, he meant this for good.
Joel Brooks:And we see how the but gods can even take acts of evil, acts of destruction and turn them into acts of salvation. The but gods of the Bible can even turn death into life. And so you come across Psalm 49, which is all about death and destruction, and it says even the wise are going to die. Even the fools are going to die. Every man's just like the beast in the field.
Joel Brooks:They're going to die. But God, He shall ransom me from the power of Sheol. We just opened up with Psalm 73. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God, he is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Acts 10, they killed Christ by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him up on the 3rd day.
Joel Brooks:Over and over again throughout scripture, when you hit the but god, you see death turn to life. Or the but God provides forgiveness for sins, but God but God demonstrates His love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5. You could go on and on. There's a treasure trove in scripture of the but gods. I don't know if there's any greater though, than what we find here in Ephesians 2.
Joel Brooks:But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you've been saved. But God. The but God has made us alive together with Christ. In other words, that just as God raised up Christ from the dead because we are so united with him, we have been raised from the dead.
Joel Brooks:We've been spiritually raised from the dead now and we will be physically raised from the dead in the future. And all of this is entirely the work of God's grace. Verse 5. He says, by grace you have been saved. Verse 8.
Joel Brooks:Once again, by grace you have been saved. You did not earn it. You didn't hold out your resume and see if God was impressed with it. You didn't hold up your grades you made in school and said see, see, now do I get a reward. You did absolutely nothing for this.
Joel Brooks:That's grace. Paul even goes on in verse 8 to say for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. Even your faith, even your ability to believe these things was a gift from God. You can't even boast about your faith.
Joel Brooks:Everything is a result of God's grace. He does it all. You do nothing. I heard a pastor put it this way. He says this.
Joel Brooks:If you want to relate God's relationship to us in human terms, then it's this. He is the one who starts the conversation. He is the one who sets up the date night. He is always the one who is romancing. He is always the one who makes the house clean.
Joel Brooks:He is always the one who makes sure the yard is done. He is always the one who makes sure the dog is fed. He is always the one who goes out in the cold and warms up the car. He is always the one. He is always the one.
Joel Brooks:Now this is hard for us because there is not a person here who is in a relationship like that. No one has ever been in a relationship like that. Our relationships work tit for tat. I'll do this for you. You do this for me.
Joel Brooks:And that's why we have arguments about, well, I thought I took out the garbage last time. Now it's your turn. That's how we relate to one another, but here God says no. I do it all. As a matter of fact, do you want to know exactly what you contribute to salvation?
Joel Brooks:Because, you know, we all want to pat ourselves on our back. We all want to hold at one little thing. But let me tell you your contribution to salvation. You provided the sin. You provided the sin that needed to be forgiven.
Joel Brooks:Now pat yourself on the back. Alright? That's our contribution. We do nothing. God does it all.
Joel Brooks:This is why Paul says here, every reason we have for boasting has been stripped away. Every reason. Now, this is glorious news for us. For those of you who think you have sinned too much, you've done too much evil, you are too far gone, You need to hear the but God who could turn even death into life. Everything changes when God steps in.
Joel Brooks:I used to hear my old, preaching pastor, he would always say, do not put a period where God has put a comma. It's not just you're dead in
Jeffrey Heine:your sins. You're dead in
Joel Brooks:your sins, comma, but God. It's not that you've just train wrecked your life, period. So you train wrecked your life, comma, but God. God steps in, and he could take that train wreck, and he could turn something beautiful out of it. What glorious words.
Joel Brooks:Verse 4 says that He lavished essentially, lavishes this grace on us because of the great love in which he loved us. The great love in which he loved us. Keep that in mind as we've been talking about all these different theological terms, being chosen or being predestined or being redeemed. Undergirding all of that is really the love of God. That's what this is about.
Joel Brooks:You should never talk about those things outside of the love of God. Husbands, if your wives ever ask you, why do you love me? It's a loaded question. Think carefully. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Why do you love me? And perhaps, you say something like this. You think, because you're beautiful. Wrong answer, by the way. Because you're beautiful.
Joel Brooks:She's thinking, I'm beautiful now, but my beauty will fade. My beauty will fade. And if you say, because of your wit. I mean, I our conversations are just so intellectually stimulating. She's thinking, well, they are now, but what if I what if I get dementia at some point?
Joel Brooks:What if that changes? Or if you say I I love you because of your your moral character, your beautiful inside. And she might be thinking, but what about if I make a terrible decision? What about if I go astray? The answer that everyone longs to hear is this.
Joel Brooks:I love you simply
Jeffrey Heine:because I love you.
Joel Brooks:I just love you. And there's nothing you could do to make me love you any less, and there's nothing that you could do to make me love you anymore. I just love you. The biblical word for that is grace. Unmerited grace.
Joel Brooks:Amazing grace. That's the love that God has showered upon us. There is literally so much more here in this passage. We've gotta end. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Let's quickly look at the life that we are saved to. The life that we are saved to. Let's go to verse 10. For we here are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. You could translate this, for we are God's masterpiece.
Joel Brooks:I read a modern translation that said, for we are God's poem. I like that. We are God's poem. But essentially, it's this. That God doesn't make junk.
Joel Brooks:Alright. He doesn't make junk. And when he put you back together, when he made you alive and he he made you into a new creation, you're a masterpiece. He's not embarrassed. He's not tucking you in some corner.
Joel Brooks:He's not hanging you up in the laundry room. But you have a place of prominence. He's not ashamed to be called your God because you are His masterpiece and you are beautiful. By God's grace, we've become a new beautiful person. And then he goes on to Basically to say that now that we are no longer trying to earn His love, we are now free to share His love and to live out His love.
Joel Brooks:We have been created for good works. Now we have meaning. Now we have purpose. Now we're not trying to gain the approval of God, but we're actually been freed, and we can really live a life out of love and devotion to Him. And this is our purpose.
Joel Brooks:It's planned for us. God, had your purpose in mind before the foundations of this world. So that's our immediate future. Maybe our present future, if that makes sense. Our, I wanna say distant future, but it might not be.
Joel Brooks:As found in verse 6 and 7. We'll end here. Christ raised us up with Him and seated us with Him into heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. I honestly don't know what to add to this. Paul describes the riches of God's grace, and he says that they are immeasurable.
Joel Brooks:Like, there's there's just no way to measure these. These they're they're endless. Literally no end to it. That's why we have an eternity. Because every day, a new grace will be given to us.
Joel Brooks:And we wake up the next day and another grace will be given to us. And then another, literally wave after wave after wave. You will never be bored in heaven because every day will be a new grace coming to you because God can't exhaust his grace. It's immeasurable. And we spend all of eternity receiving this grace.
Joel Brooks:Amazing grace. I don't I don't know what to add to this. All of this is possible on the cross. It says we're seated in the heavenlies with Christ. We were seated in the heavenlies because Christ was seated on the cross.
Joel Brooks:We're treated as Jesus deserves because He was treated as we deserve. Said the cross of Christ, we have found our redemption. The cross of Christ is where we find the blazing center of God's glory, and we find amazing grace for us. Let's pray through these things. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Lord, my words fail, and so I pray through your spirit, you would press them into the hearts of every person here. Free us from the course of this world, and from the devil, and from our own sinful desires. Those who are dead, I pray that you would spiritually wake us up. Make us alive in you, Christ. And may we forever sing the praise of your glorious grace.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.