Saved by Amazing Grace

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Gift of Salvation

I want to clear on to you this morning that he is risen. He's risen indeed. Praise God. Today's verse is from Ephesians chapter two, verses eight and 10, but we're going to read verses one through 10.

So when you have that reading, please stand for the reading of God's word. Again, Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse one. As our main message for the reading and preaching of the word of God this morning.

And thus says the word of God 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 and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

And we're by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love of 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. And this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his worksmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

The Historical Reality of the Resurrection

You may be seated, Lord, on this most holy and solemn occasion on the Lord's Day, which we get to recognize and celebrate not just once in a year, but all Lord's Days. We get to celebrate the resurrection of our risen king and our savior and our redeemer, even the Lord Jesus Christ.

We ask God that you would help us now in this moment to lay aside every sin, every stumbling block, every high and lofty idea and thought. And let's bring everything into the captivity of Christ onto his obedience.

Lord, help us to set aside these things that would so easily ensnare us and to look at this morning intently at the face of Jesus Christ, who is the hope of glory in his name. We do pray. Amen. Well, beloved, we're here this morning to commemorate a very special occasion and in fact, a historic occasion.

The most important historical event, I would say, in the history of humanity. We're here gathered along with brothers and sisters all around the globe to celebrate and commemorate and remember the greatest day known to man.

The day that death itself died. Two thousand years ago, there was a man by the name of Jesus Christ. He came on the scene and he changed everything. You may ask yourself this morning, well, who is Jesus Christ?

I want to first thank you for being here this morning, here in attendance and to give your attention to this important discussion. According to the Bible, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. He grew up in a small and obscure town in Israel called Nazareth.

Jesus would grow up in poverty, learning likely the trades from his father. His earthly parents and was likely working alongside his adoptive father, Joseph, who was a carpenter at the age of 30. Jesus would be baptized by a man by the name of John the Baptist, where in front of many witnesses, God, the father and God, the Holy Spirit anointed and confirmed the man, Jesus Christ, for the ministry of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus would gather and confirm 12 disciples, many of whom were unspectacular, uneducated rejects of the world and began going around and declaring among Israel, the kingdom of God has come. During Jesus earthly ministry, he heals the sick.

He opens the eyes of the blind. The deaf begin to hear the lame begin to walk. The multitudes are fed. The demonically oppressed are delivered all in his name. Jesus also, and more importantly, begins to teach people everywhere around Israel about the kingdom of God.

He begins to demonstrate by his many miracles and his teachings what the world will look like under the reign of God's kingdom. His disciples begin proclaiming that he is the long awaited messiah of the Jewish people, the one who would sit on King David's throne, the one who would subdue the nations with an iron rod.

And Jesus enters into Jerusalem, culminating his ministry there, where the crowds greet him and begin to say, Hosanna, Hosanna. Save us, we pray. King of Israel, son of David. Only for a few days later, for the same crowds that welcomed him, who cried out his name, who cried for his salvation, now crying for his very own death and condemnation by the hands of Pontius Pilate.

Pilate would then bring the accused Jesus Christ and the falsely accused of Jesus, of being a lawbreaker. And they bring them again towards Pontius Pilate. And Pilate had him flogged and beaten within an inch of his life.

Yet, as he stood before the very crowds that ushered him as king, they're now demanding for his blood. Up to Calvary's hill, up to Calvary's hill, he is led and stripped naked and crucified by two thieves.

The end. Indeed, this was the end for many before and after Jesus. Religious and secular hucksters and imposters who claim to be divine, who claim to be messiahs. You see, the authorities that conspired against Jesus thought that by killing the man, they would be killing the movement.

And they were right. There was no way Christianity would survive with a dead, defeated messiah. And like so many before and after him. Who came and claimed to be messiah, who claimed to be a revolutionary.

They all died. And so did many of their movements. But what the authorities did not take into account. Is the man whom they were crucifying was indeed the author of life itself. And it was not possible for death to hold him down.

So on that glorious third day, light broke through the darkness and bursting forth into glorious day was the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. This event. The resurrection of Jesus from among the dead is the most significant event in human history.

It is not mere religious fable, nor myth, nor mythology, but it is indeed a fact of history. The resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Without Jesus being raised from the dead, there would be no Christian church today and likely no Western civilization.

It is because of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead that you and I today can have forgiveness, redemption, salvation, and will one day join him in resurrection, life and glory. The story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the story of amazing grace.

It's the story of God's love for you and me. In our main text this morning, Ephesians chapter two, verse eight through ten. It was my task not to deviate from our sermon series, but to also inject the narrative and the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead into this amazing story of amazing grace.

And what else could there be but the story of amazing grace being the story of Jesus himself and his glorious resurrection from the dead? It says in verse eight, for by grace, you have been saved through faith.

Saved by Grace Through Faith, Not by Works

I want you to think about that for a moment. For by grace, you have been saved. To sum up where we've been so far in the second chapter of Ephesians, we opened up a couple of weeks ago in Ephesians chapter two, verse one, where it tells and Paul was reminding the Ephesian Christians of what their state was before Christ.

That they were dead and their trespasses and sins, that they were following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, who is Satan, the devil. The Bible then tells us that they were called children of wrath like the rest of mankind, desolate, reprobate, maldeformed sons and daughters of Adam.

All of us have inherited the sin nature from Adam's fall. But God being rich in mercy, he did something marvelous. He did something incredible. He did something that only God could do and provide. And he made us alive in Christ.

You see, there are two resurrections that we want to concern ourselves with today. First and foremost, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which opens up the opportunity for us to have life and life in him.

And the life that he offers is he's offering it to you today and even now. And maybe many of you here today have already experienced that and are living it. But it's being raised spiritually from the dead.

That's the work that the gospel does in our lives. God raises us from our lowly, broken estate and makes us a child of God. And he seats us at God's even at his right and left hand where we are living with him.

We are reigning with him both now and in the life to come in the world to come. If you're following along in today's sermon and the inserts in the bulletin, salvation is a gift. I want you to know that today, that salvation is a great, a great gift from God.

And it is by his grace. That we receive it. The statement made parenthetically in verse five is repeated and expanded and expounded on. Questions that should arise. Why can the life of heaven be possessed here and now?

How can the spiritually dead be raised? How can a son of wrath become a son of God? And the answer is clear in verse eight. For by grace, you have been saved. Through faith, through faith. And it says this is not of your own doing.

It is the gift of God. On this resurrection Sunday morning, I want to remind you of the gift that God has given us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that through his life, his shed blood on the cross, by means of his glorious resurrection from the dead, he now opens the opportunity for you and I to receive grace and mercy.

What a phenomenal promise. What a phenomenal hope we have in Jesus, because by the grace of God, you have been saved. You realize this, that salvation is a gift. We just had a birth in the church with Pastor Owens and and his lovely wife, Sarah, and now they have eight children.

Praise God. You know, the greatest gift that a mother could give her children is the gift of life. And the gift of love. And those are two things that we see happen immediately is that bond is created as soon as that child is born, and even before the child is born, just great love and affection for the child.

And once the child is brought forward into the world, you gauge upon that child and all that you can meet it with is unconditional love, grace, appreciation. You know, one of my favorite songs that we will, God willing, sing at the end of this service is in Christ alone.

And one of my favorite lines from that song is from life's first cry to final breath. Jesus commands my destiny. Jesus. See, life is a gift. And God has granted all of us here in this room the gift of life.

But there's a greater gift that God is offering in its life without end. It's eternal life. A life in which you will never die nor see decay. This is the life that God is offering and has made possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Jesus Christ, when he was on the earth, resurrected a good dear friend of his named Lazarus. Lazarus died. He was put in a tomb and Jesus comes forward and he says, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me, though he should die, yet shall he live. He asks, Martha, do you believe this? And her response was, yes, I believe. I believe my question to you this morning is, do you believe in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ?

He is the one who was raised from the dead, and he shall be the one who will raise the dead in him. Again, in the same way that a mother provides life and unconditional love to her children. So God has extended the greatest gift that he can give, the gift of his only son, even Jesus Christ, our Lord, and by whose resurrection from the dead, we can have eternal life and receive this unconditional love.

There's a great quote by A .W. Tozer, and he says the following, the love of God is manifested brilliantly in his grace toward undeserving sinners. And that is exactly what grace is. God's loving, flowing, God's love flowing freely to the unlovely.

So before we get to the good news, the bad news, as we learned several weeks ago, was that you are unlovely. You are a sinner. You are in need of a savior because of the poverty and the fallenness of your own heart and life.

And this is why God's love is so amplified. It isn't because he saw just a cute little newborn baby and extended love and mercy, but instead the true condition of humanity was this, is that you were a robber.

You were a thief. You were a blasphemer. You were an adulterer. You were all the things that God's law warned us about. And yet he meets us in the resurrection of Christ with love and mercy and unconditional love and mercy toward his creatures.

This phrase that we see in Ephesians 2, 8, for by grace, by grace, God's unconditional love and kindness is expressed in this beautiful phrase. Why is grace so amazing? Because it is a gift that we receive by faith.

I want you to write that in there if you haven't already. Salvation is a gift from God by his grace that we receive by faith. And since it is a gift. There is no aspect of it that we can merit. There's nothing that we can do to earn salvation, that we can earn this free gift.

Many believe and many religions teach that the means by which you could have a prosperous, fulfilled life, maybe even onto eternal life is by doing, by behaving, by doing the things that the religious doctrine or book or teaching say that you must do.

There's a perceived law that must be observed and upheld and kept. And then God will love you. We mentioned last week as well how there are some even in some religious doctrines. One of them pointed out was that in Mormonism and their own book of Mormon says that you are saved by grace after all that you can do.

So it's essentially you raise your hand as far up as you can reach and God will do the rest. Friends, the resurrection of Jesus Christ teaches us something different about God and about his character and nature.

And it's not that we can do anything to merit to reach out to God, but instead that he has come and done it all in himself in the personal work of Jesus. I want you, if you can, turn to Galatians chapter two, just a book before Ephesians.

Chapter two, verse 16. Notice what the apostle Paul talks about when he refers to the doctrine of justification. It says, and yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified. No one. Now, what does it mean to be justified?

The word justified and justification are words denoting the idea of being made righteous, declared righteous. So the problem of humanity is that we are not righteous. Therefore, righteousness must either be earned or given, in this case, imputated, given to the believer.

And the Bible teaches that there is no one righteous. No, not even one. Everyone has gone their own way. And so no one can be declared righteous by observing the law, by doing good works, by being the best person that they can be, by watching Oprah, by reading how self-help books.

There's no way, no means by which you can be righteous. The only means that God has provided for our own righteousness, for our being declared righteous, being justified is faith in Jesus Christ, because Jesus on that cross paid the price for our redemption.

He was holy and blameless, never sinned, never fell short of the mark, never felt short of the glory of God. And he observed God's law perfectly. And because of his righteousness and because of your faith towards him, he can now apply his righteousness to you.

It is by faith in Christ alone that one can be justified. It is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, on to the glory of God alone. Amen. In Ephesians chapter two, in our main text, we're reminded of the gift of amazing grace.

Remember this, that you don't and can't, in fact, measure up, earn it, work for it, salvation, justification. It's totally free. It's totally free. Matter of fact, Romans chapter 11, verse six says that if it were by grace, it could not be by works.

If it were by works, then grace would no longer be grace. Understand the power of grace and why grace is so amazing. Because again, even at its very word, as we learned last week, the word grace means undeserved kindness, unmerited favor.

It's undeserved. You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. But he gives it to you freely in the person of Jesus. Now, grace, salvation, justification. It's free, but it's not cheap. It's not cheap. It costs of God's own son.

It costs of the very life of the Lamb of God from heaven. So therefore, it is of infinite value. It's not cheap. And Ephesians, again. Chapter two, verse eight were to remind you of this text, for by grace, you have been saved through faith.

My question and maybe the question you may have this morning is faith in what? Faith in who? Why is faith the mechanism that God has chosen for the salvation of his people? Again, Paul is demonstrating the mechanism for us to be saved.

It is by grace through faith. But whose grace and faith exactly in who? At the very heart of any conversation surrounding the salvation of man is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is gospel? You may ask.

The word gospel simply means good news. There is good news. The word gospel in the Greek has this connotation of a messenger going forward into the city square and declaring victory, declaring good news from the king.

And friends, I stand here in this pulpit to declare to you good news from the king that death has been conquered. Sin has been vanquished. There is a means and a way for God that God has provided for you to have peace with him.

Peace even now. This is certainly good news. And Paul goes to explain to great lengths in explaining the good news, the salvation, the good news that brings us to salvation. In first Corinthians chapter 15, if you can turn there, please.

In first Corinthians chapter 15, Paul says in verse one,. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received in which you stand, by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. So listen up. This is the gospel. This is the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel that saves, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

This is the gospel that Paul preached. This is the gospel that we preach, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you were following along in today's teaching, you can write that in there.

What the gospel is, is faith in Jesus's death, burial and resurrection. This is the gospel of our salvation. There was one gospel that saves. There was one name that saves. There was one grace that saves.

And there is one hope to which we have been saved to. And it's the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, Jesus is unlike any person who has ever lived. Think of all the religions in the world.

Think of all the religions and the religious leaders who founded them. You have great, large religions around the world. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. You have Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses. You have various sects and cults all around the world.

Thousands of them with different deities and doctrines and leaders. Now, what's unique about every world religion as all of their founders lived and died. Jesus Christ is unique in that Jesus came born of the Virgin Mary.

He was God and human flesh. The Bible says in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory, the glory of the only one from the father, full of grace and truth.

This Jesus lived the life that you and I could not live. He was holy, righteous, never sinned, never fell short. He was excellent in every way. He lived the life that you and I could not live. He died a death that we deserved.

He died, though he was holy, blameless and righteous. He was nailed to a cross next to two thieves. He died as a criminal. His face was spat on. His back was beaten. His face was slapped. And on his head was not a crown of glory and of jewels and of gold, but instead what was placed on his head was a crown of thorns.

The thorns that you and I deserved was placed upon the head of our savior. And because of that, he was also hoisted up, exalted over the city of Jerusalem, not on a throne, but on a cross, a Roman form of execution.

And he bled and he died for you and for me. On that cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. All the sins that you've ever committed, all the sins you will ever commit were nailed to Jesus on that glorious cross.

But Jesus, unlike other religious leaders, though he died, his body was then taken off the cross. He was laid in a tomb. Three days later, the world will change forever because when the disciples came to examine that tomb, he was not there.

And the report that came is that he is risen. He's risen indeed. The savior is unlike any other religious leader. Muhammad is dead. Buddha is dead. All the leaders, Charles Hayes Russell, the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, all of these religious leaders lived, died and are dead.

Jesus Christ stands as Lord of history and he is alive. He's alive. Not only is he alive, the Bible says that the grave could not conceal him. The grave could not hold him. He arose over death and Hades and ascended to the right hand of the father where he lives now forevermore as our high priest.

And we await the culmination of our salvation and his second coming when he will break the sky and will come forth of the host of heaven to establish a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell forever.

Church, can I hear you say it again? He is risen. He is risen indeed. Praise God. And Ephesians, our main text in Ephesians chapter two. And verse nine, Paul goes on to say this about our great salvation, he says in verse nine, it's not a result of works.

Why is it not a result of works? Brothers and sisters, because Jesus Christ has done the work. He did it. He accomplished it on the cross before he gave up the ghost. He says it is finished. It's finished.

He accomplished it. He then gets all the glory. And verse eight and verse nine of Ephesians, too, says not a result of works so that no one may boast so that no one may boast in the next bullet point in the teaching.

I want you to write this in. There is no room for boasting. There's no room for boasting. What is to boast? Boast is to take pride in something or to glory in something. The King James Bible would say to glory and to boast in.

What then, if this marvelous good news results in salvation by grace or faith in the resurrected savior, what room is there for boasting? What room do you have to receive the glory to take any glory for yourself?

This is the difference between a monergistic and synergistic salvation. Who gets the glory? Who makes the decision? Is it me who I made a decision for Jesus, therefore I get the glory because I raised my hand, I walked down the aisle.

Or is it God who gets the glory because he raised your dead hand from the grave and he raised you up and seated you in Christ? God gets all the glory. So therefore, there's no room for us to be boasting.

There's no room for us to add to the finished work of Jesus. It is finished and it is finished for our own good. And it is finished onto the glory of the savior. Again, the boasting points inward while grace points outward.

Boasting seeks the glory. Grace gives the glory. The regenerate person acknowledges that they have nothing to offer God, nothing that could appease his justice, nothing that could remove our stain of sin.

No amount of works will impress God. Not how you talk, not how you walk, not how you dress, not your degrees or your pedigree. Nothing that you bring can atone for your own transgressions and sins. And Isaiah 64, verse four, you can read this in your own time, verses four through eight, but Isaiah 64, verse four, it says all of our deeds, all of our works that in righteousness are like filthy racks before him.

There is nothing that we can do apart from the saving grace and work of Jesus Christ to atone for our sins. You will not impress him. There's nothing that you can do, old creature, to impress him other than humble submission and acceptance of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Salvation is a total work of God. I want you to write that in there as well, if you haven't already. There's no room for boasting of salvation is a total work of God. Romans 3, 27 says the following. What then or then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded by what kind of law, by the law of works? No, by the law of faith. There's no room for boasting in the Christian faith. There's no room for us to receive the glory. We are image bearers of God.

And the proper place of an image bearer of God is to is to act sort of like a mirror. We are to be mirrors reflecting the glory of God into this broken world. That's our duty. Our duty before God is to is to be image bearers, to reflect the glory and the majesty of who he is to a world that's watching.

Titus chapter three, verse five says the following. He, God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

God is the one who gets all the glory and salvation because he saved us, not because of any works done in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, the great mercy, the great love with which he loved us.

And he regenerates, he washes, he renews by the Holy Spirit. It's the triune God who gets all the glory, the father who predestined and sent forth his son, Jesus Christ, God, the son into the world to die as an offering for sin, to be raised on the third day, to be seated at his right hand, who then sends the Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune God to be the indwelling presence of God in his people.

God gets all the glory. It's all his. What then? Is the result. Verse ten of Ephesians two. For we are his worksmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Good Works as the Fruit of Salvation

Just over the last several days, actually, on Friday, Pastor Conley and I met with Jehovah's Witnesses. Some of you know, I grew up as one. And every year there's one particular event that they celebrate.

If you know Jehovah's Witnesses, they don't celebrate Christmas, Easter. They don't celebrate holidays. They don't celebrate birthdays. But the one thing on the calendar is called the memorial. And they do so every year on Nisan 14, the Jewish calendar, where they tried to commemorate the death of Jesus.

And they have a very weird ceremony. And in this talk, this elder gave, he very clearly laid out how one can be made right with God. First thing he said, you can start attending meetings regularly and learn how to understand the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses.

Then you can start to apply the Bible truths in your lives and then you can become one of us and and then you'll be on the right team. And then hopefully if you just keep doing good enough, if you keep doing right enough, you'll earn your way to paradise one day.

What a far cry from the message of hope and salvation we have in the gospel that salvation is not of our own doing, is not of works, but it is indeed the gift of God. There's no way for us to merit this, friends.

You must understand this. But what is marvelous in this gospel as well is that we are his worksmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. You see, when you speak about grace to an unbeliever, it's very hard to imagine, to wrap their minds around the complexity, but also the simplicity of grace, that you, though not being deserving of it, God extends it to you in the person of Jesus.

He extends mercy. And in this world, we are taught to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to be hardworking, independent. And that's the way that we will make a living. That's the way that we will earn our keep in this world.

And so to then say that something will be freely given to me, nothing's for free. And it's true. Jesus paid it, but he offers it freely to you. One of the things that distinguishes Christianity from Jehovah Witnesses, from Mormons, from every other religious group is this.

We believe that you are not saved by good works, that you are saved onto good works. And the difference being very important, and the key here is this, that good works is the fruit of salvation, not the root of salvation.

The root of one's salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. And out of genuine faith and repentance in Christ, one then grows into the stature and the fullness of Christ, and they do good works. Not to be saved, but because you are saved.

Imagine this, an unsaved person cannot do good works. Isaiah 64, Romans 3, all very clear text that teaches that a man in his own righteousness cannot possibly please God, cannot possibly do good works.

He may do good works that would be outwardly accepted by the world. Crossing an old lady across the street and things of that nature may be acceptable and may look good to the world, but God sees your heart.

Man cannot see your heart, God sees your heart. The biggest difference here is that again, works are the fruit of our salvation. We're not saved because of our works, we're saved onto good works. It's a world of a difference.

Because you are his worksmanship. Another way of translating this, as some translations have done, instead of using worksmanship, they've also have used the expression masterpiece. You are his masterpiece.

Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It is then with confidence, brothers and sisters, that we can look forward to the outward expression of our faith, knowing that because of Christ's resurrection from the dead, God has made us his worksmanship or his masterpiece in Christ.

Now, this is creation language, this is garden language, this is language that originates in the Garden of Eden. Just as God created man in his own image in the garden to be his crowning achievement, to have dominion working and tilling the land to spread his paradise, so now God is pleased to fulfill his purpose of Eden, to spread heaven on earth through you, his masterpiece.

Only through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus from the dead can a wretched child of wrath become God's masterpiece, doing the good works that he prepared beforehand that we should walk in.

What a brilliant, beautiful description of the good news of Jesus Christ that Paul gives us here in Ephesians chapter two, verse eight through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of yourselves.

This is the gift of God so that no one may boast and that you were created as his worksmanship in Christ Jesus for good works, which God by his sovereign hand prepared beforehand that you should walk in them.

The Call to Believe and Walk in Resurrection Power

Friends, my invitation to you this morning is that if you have not come to know the most important person who has ever lived, Jesus Christ, you can know him today. There is hope, there's life, there's salvation, and the Lord Jesus Christ extends his nail pierced hands to you this morning and he calls all men everywhere, God commands men everywhere to repent and to trust in him.

My hope and prayer is that you would do that today, that you would trust in him. And for you, dearly beloved Christian who have known him, who are in him, may you continue to walk in him and the resurrection power that he grants.

My last text for us this morning is from Romans 8, 11, where the word of God by the words of the apostle Paul says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

God will enable in you by the same spirit with which he raised Jesus from the dead to do that good work that he prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. May you walk in them. May you know him.

May you know him today and the power of his resurrection. Being saved and transformed by amazing grace. Let's pray. Marvelous Lord Jesus, you are indeed the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

You're the one who, by means of your perfect obedience, purchased for God an eternal salvation and redemption unto your elect people. Lord God, I thank you that you have given us the greatest gift that you could ever give, the gift of your son, Jesus Christ, who bled and died for me and for the saints.

Lord God, we now turn our hearts and our attention to the hope which you offer us in the gospel, that you have saved us by grace through faith, that you've transformed us, transferred us as from sons of darkness, sons of wrath, to now be children of God, co-rulers and inheritors of the promises.