It's good to have you in worship with us this morning. Glad that you're here to worship our risen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're happy to have you if you're a visitor with us. We ask that you fill out the card that's in the pew in front of you or check us out on the web. And we've got tons of information on there. Sunday school recordings of Sunday school classes and also the sermons over the past few weeks. And we invite you to check out the website for information. One thing I wanted to call your attention to this morning. We are coming up on our 60th annual World Missions Conference. So you see these banners hanging around our sanctuary. So as you came in this morning, I hope you have some sense of I am not just in Chattanooga worshiping the Lord Jesus, but it's not just me in this sanctuary, but there are people North America, South America, Europe, China, Asia, Oceana, all over in Africa, worshiping the Lord Jesus. So we come to celebrate that this coming week, starting this coming Saturday night, Saturday afternoon at 4 o'clock, we have a special treat from the Belarusian national Christian choir. We'll be here performing and singing praises to God, also singing a few songs with our choir in Russian. So if you see it, if you speak Russian, you'll be able to understand those songs and sing along with them. They'll be hearing some terms that you've probably never heard before. So I invite you. I'm excited to bring my kids to that. When do you ever get to hear a choir from Belarus sing in Russian? So I encourage you to be here Saturday evening at 4 o'clock. And then our missions conference will go on through the week, each afternoon and evening throughout the week. So I pray that you'll get involved and come here, mission reports, to encourage our missionaries, and also hear some great preaching as I selfishly am excited being from Knoxville to hear John Wood preach next Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Monday. So we look forward to that. So I ask that you, if you're like me this morning, you came in as a pastor. I'm getting myself prepared to lead worship and thinking, all right, Robert, you get to get your game face on here. And I'm fretting through kind of thinking through the worship service on my own. And then as I was reading through it, I came across the confession of sin. And it hit me like a load of bricks. When it says a fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. And I begin to realize I come as a pastor, not in my own strength to lead you into the throne room of God to worship, but I come in the power, the Holy Spirit, and by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So as you came in this morning, I hope you didn't come. Acting as if you had it all together. Because this place, in many ways, is a hospital. For the sick, for the brokenhearted, for those who need encouragement. So pray now that you take just a few moments of silence to prepare your hearts, to worship the Lord Jesus, that he would reveal his love to you this morning as we worship him. You please stand for our call to worship. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Declare his glory among the nations. His marvelous deeds among all peoples. The word of God tells us to sing a new song to the Lord. I believe we do so in at least two ways. One, when we sing a new song, a song we've never heard before. Last week, our choir taught us a new song and we're going to sing it after the prayer of adoration. But there's another way to sing a new song. And that is as the Holy Spirit deepens your understanding of the gospel. You're singing a new song to the Lord with a more full understanding of how great he is and what a wonderful God he is. Let's pray together. Father, we come to adore you. We come as your people to make our morning prayer. We come Lord as people who are excited to be here. We come here as people who've come because other people have made us come. We come here as people who know that in this culture, it is socially appropriate to attend church. Lord, our doors are filled with people who have come for different reasons. But deep within our heart, Lord, we know we're here because we hope. We hope that you are the God that you say you are. And we pray that you would manifest your glory in our midst today. And so we make this our opening prayer, our morning prayer, a prayer of adoration where you have been faithful to us. And we worship you in the name of Jesus. Amen. We hear you sing so well. Thank you for pouring out your hearts to our great God. He's worthy of our praise. Our affirmation of faith is from the apostles' creed. If you were with us last week, you remember I divided this actually into three questions, what you believe about God, the Father, what you believe about God, the Son, and what you believe about God, the Holy Spirit. This morning we'll recite this in our more traditional way, but please remember that we are worshiping a triumphant God. God, the Father, treasures you. God, the Son gave his life for you and God, the Holy Spirit comforts and converts you even now. So Christian, what is it that you believe? I believe in God, the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sit it on the right hand of God, the Father, Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen, you may be seated. As you look at our affirmation of faith and the apostles' creed, you'll notice that we've placed parenthetically the word universal in the phrase Catholic Church. We belong to the Catholic Church and that all believers belong to Christ, the universal Church. We are different than the Roman Catholic Church and that when we confess our sin, we as believers believe that we go directly through the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. We need no other intermediary between us. We humbly with tender hearts honestly recognize that we are sinners. It isn't that we don't go to a priest because we don't need help. We go to the one great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ for our help. And so, believer, I would ask you to take these moments and confess your sin together with me, saying, right, just Father, I'm undeserving, but look to you for tender mercy. I confess my sin, my frequent and willful sin. A fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. The chambers of my mind contain foul images. At times I feel that there is no fruit in me. Just thorns and thistles. Dead leaves that the wind blows away. Save me from the love of the world. Save me from what is natural to fallen man. And let Christ nature be seen in me day by day. Lord have mercy on me. Please take these moments and silently confess your sin to the Lord.
Lord Jesus, we come to you this morning. Having confessed our sins, not coming, pretending we have it all together, but purely coming, entering into the throne room of heaven because our great high priest, Jesus Christ, intercedes for us. Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to save sinners, such as I, such as all of us joined, within the sound of my voice, or thank you that you came to save the sick. We have confessed our sins, and indeed you are faithful and just, and forgive us our sins, and you cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you give us the promise of Philippians 1-6. And as by your grace that you began a work in us, and Lord Jesus, we pray for your grace to continue and for your work to carry us on to completion. O Lord, we worship and thank you for the assurance that we have that we no longer stand condemned, but are declared holy and righteous. Because your son is holy and righteous. We stand in Him alone. Amen. This morning we have a privilege of celebrating baptism, River Jerry Harwood will be leading us. I would at this time invite the Sari's to come in. Daniel and Lucy Sari, there they are, are entering. The Sari's are a real special family to me. When I was early on in my faith, their home was the first truly Christian home apart from my own. I think I had ever entered and been welcomed into. Daniel's been a good friend. It is so enjoyable to watch he and Lucy follow the Lord so faithfully and all they do. Elder Scott Brown has joined me. We also want to welcome Chloe and Luke, hey, grandparents Colin and Pam Williams and Steven Sue Sari. We're so thankful y'all are here this morning. Baptism was instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the Lord supper shows the faithful perseverance in your faith and the Holy Spirit. So baptism recognizes entrance into that community of faith. It is the seal of covenant grace, the engrossing into Christ and our union with Him. For your mom and dad, it teaches, you're calling here today that you're going to teach Maxwell, David, Sari, the Word of God, instruct him in the principles of the faith. Pray with and for this child and set an example of piety before him, bring the child up in the admonition of the Lord. Ultimately, we baptize both infants and adults in the faith because this baptism is not about his profession of faith. It's about God's promise made to him. I wear a wedding ring on my finger and if you recall, your wedding vows, if you're married, this wedding ring or the vows my wife made to me with this ring, I thee wed. In the same way, this baptism marks the promises of God and it is our prayer that he grows up never knowing a time when he doesn't know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. To the parents, do you acknowledge your child's need for the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit? Do you claim God's covenant promises, his behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation as you do for your own? Do you unreservedly dedicate your child to God, promise and humble reliance upon divine grace that you will endeavor to set before him a godly example, that you will pray with and for him. You will teach him the doctrines of Christianity and you will strive by all the means of God's appointment to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To the congregation, I would ask if you're a member of this church, you would simply respond in the affirmative by saying that yes, you do. Though you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of this child, do you? Let's pray, we've got them all, that's excellent. Father, I pray in your sovereign grace to be poured out on the life of Maxwell David, sorry, that he may never know a moment when he does not know you as his personal Lord and Savior, that as he grows in his faith and his parents, it might become his own and be embraced by him. Now are you gonna come see me, huh? Hey, you okay? Here you go. We're gonna go over here, mommy and daddy are just right there, okay? We'll turn so you can still see him. Yeah? All right, you're not gonna like this either. Maxwell David, sorry. I baptize you in the name of the Father in the name of the Son and the name of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Father, for the sweet child, precious child, your child Lord, we pray that your covenant promises might be so real to him. And the moments of joy and blessing when he knows what it means to worship you and the moments of your corrective discipline where he knows what it is to follow you faithfully that you would be with him, make his days long and prosperous and make them prosperous in the faith of his parents. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, while you all can't come and hold the cute child, I would encourage you to stand and greet those around you in the name of the Lord. So good before the Lord this morning, not only for the beautiful covenant child that is known or missed, but we want to pray specifically this morning for our missions conference that starts up this coming weekend. So we will take those things before the Lord this morning. Let us pray together. Lord Jesus, we do come to you now. We have just witnessed one of the beautiful visible pictures of the gospel that we'll ever see, this side of eternity. Lord, for a child to receive baptism to be a part of a covenant community that points to the floodgate of promises that now become maxes. Lord, the blessings that He will receive, we are thankful, Lord, for the means that you give families, the means that you give churches to be encouraged and strengthened as we see those promises come true in his life. As we, as a congregation, come alongside the parents to encourage them in the midst of this. Lord, it may well be a Sunday school teacher, a vacation Bible school, a youth ministry, the preaching of the word week after week. You have so many means that you bring grace into our lives. We are thankful. Lord, may we not take them for granted even. The means of grace that you're going to give us in this mission's conference coming up. Lord, we praise you and we thank you for the hard and diligent work of your saints. This mission's committee that has brought this together. Lord, thank you for the celebration that it will be and the encouragement that it will be to all of us. Lord, we pray for Sandy and her team that will be bringing all these things together during the week and we pray for John Wood, for Christian and for Tim as they preach your word this week. That we would be encouraged by it. When we pray for this Belarus team that will start the conference off on Saturday and with a great concert of encouragement and what a great strength and encouragement it will be to us to see those from another part of the world singing praises to you in their own language. Lord, we thank you for that. And we pray tonight, or this morning that this mission's conference would not just be a mark on the church calendar. It wouldn't be a mark in the great history of this church is the 60th conference that we've had. Lord, all that aside, we pray that this conference would be a conference that would awaken your people and that would stir our hearts. We pray that some of the people in the midst of this mission's conference would be changed in their hearts and they would become missionaries themselves. Well, we pray that even if you do that in a few, we pray that in every one of us, you would stir in our hearts that we would begin to live more mission lives. It would be missionaries at home, to our children, to our spouses, it would be missionaries at school, to our friends, to those who are lost, it would be missionaries at our workplaces, more that would be missionaries and our places of recreation because we have our kids and our families involved in different activities throughout the week, we pray that we would see those so much bigger than just the practices in the games that we would see them on a heavenly perspective on a global scale of you building your kingdom and you placing us precisely where you want us to build up your kingdom. May you open our hearts this week during this conference that we may see how beautiful the feet are that bring good news to the poor, that we may be a great encouragement to our missionaries who are doing that very thing. Lord, we all could give an account this morning of those people in our lives that had significant impact on us to show us the gospel and the truth of Christ or those are the people with beautiful feet who have brought us good news. Lord, you have called us to do the same so I pray you do that this week in our own hearts. And Lord, lastly, we pray for our missionaries who are jumping from place to place on furlough trying to straining and raising support and being encouraged and traveling and seeing family, Lord. We pray that this week for them at First Pres, would be a great time of refreshment, a great time of encouragement and that we as your people would lift them up in prayer and in praise this week. Lord, we pray that you would begin that good work in our hearts that you would change us from the inside out and that every part of our bodies is we hear this conference and hear your word preached in the reports that we would leave on Wednesday evening at the end of the conference with the gospel oozing out of every part of us, that we would leave here changed. Oh Lord, break through the hard soil of our hearts. Till it up with your gospel, may the spade be shoved in deep and the roots be planted deep. Even this morning, as we hear of the great work of grace in our lives, or may it bring nourishment and beauty
and may fruits grow and bloom. And as we walk out into this world, people will look and see the brightness of Jesus Christ in his glory. Lord Jesus, we pray for you to work that in our own individual hearts and we pray that you would work that in the hearts of the people of First Presbyterian. May we change Chattanooga and may we change this world because we ourselves have been changed. It's in the glorious name and the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen. This is an ocean that leads, I cannot see
while going through this world of war.
This has to lead as I go.
This is me, Chattanooga, that. I hope you're ready to open God's word. If you'd please stand, I'd like to read the first 10 verses for us of Ephesians chapter two. We stand out of reverence to God's word. We stand because we're saying God, if you will show it to me. And if you will empower me with your spirit, I will follow you. So I thank you for standing. 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 has now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, it 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. 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. You may be seated. If anyone ever asks you what you believe at first Presbyterian church about salvation, you shall say we are saved by grace, saved by grace. We are saved by grace. What do we believe? We believe that we are saved by grace. You know in Nairobi when I go and preach we have this wonderful opportunity and every person who steps up, they don't have a pulpit, they don't have a beautiful, beautiful chancel like we do. Their choir looks a little different than our choir and they sing differently as well but all to the glory of God but the people step up, they take an old worn out microphone and they say hello, my name is Tim Tinsley. I'm born again and everybody says amen. And then they say thank you Peter, I'm almost there and then they say and then they say praise the Lord and everybody says amen and then they say praise the Lord again and they say amen and we're gonna do that this morning. Hello, my name is Tim Tinsley and I'm born again. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord again and the reason they do that in their church everywhere they go is because they believe they're saved by grace. The most important thing for you to know about them isn't what they do, isn't where they live, isn't how much money they make, it isn't how prestigious their educational career has been. It's that they're born again saved by God's grace. And Paul really wants us to understand that as well. In fact, he sprinkles this throughout the book of Ephesians but especially here in chapter two, he drives down on the fact that we're saved by grace. And so I wanna make it clear to us this morning that we're saved by grace, we're saved by pure unadulterated grace. If you try to add anything to grace, you ruin grace. If you try to make a compound out of grace, you defile grace. If you seek to add works to grace, you defile it. God's grace is pure, unadulterated, and all alone, it's from him. There's a man in our church who gives me jars of honey. Good old East Tennessee honey. And I love it. I eat it on everything. It's delicious. He didn't mix it with anything. He didn't mess with it at all. He just dug it out, put it in a mason jar, and brings it to my office and I eat it. It's pure. That's what God's grace is. It comes to us from him and it's pure. It's given to us. And I wanna give you a few definitions of the word grace. Grace is God's unmerited favor. When you think of the word grace, I want you to think that it's something you cannot earn. It is unmerited blessing from God. Somebody came up with a way to think about grace by putting a word with each letter of the word grace. God's riches at Christ expense. G-God are riches, A-at, C-Christ, and E-expense. God's riches at Christ's expense. And so God pours out his grace on his people. He gives it to us as a manifestation of his own character. You have to recognize that God's grace is an outpouring from a gracious God. It makes sense that a gracious God would pour out his grace on his people. It's dynamic. It's an entirely generous act of God on his people. I want us to recognize that Paul isn't satisfied with simply saying we're saved by grace through faith. He won't stop. He keeps pushing it. And I want you to notice in your Bible, in the next few verses how Paul unpacks what it means to be saved by grace. Let's just work our way right through the text. Verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. Now if you're taking notes, you might just simply put as a heading, we're saved by grace through faith. And then underneath it, Paul starts stacking up his evidences. He starts stacking them up and as he stacks them up, the very first words out of his mouth is, it's not your own doing. If you had any doubt about grace, no one thing. It's not your own doing. It isn't going to come up out of you. It's not something in you. It's not your doing. It's something that's going to come upon you. The theologians, the old theologians called this an alien righteousness. Alien because your righteousness had a different source. It came from outside of you. It's not your own doing. And so Paul starts stacking this stuff up because he doesn't want the people who live at Ephesus. And I don't want the people who live in the Chattanooga area to be confused. We're saved by God's grace. It does not come up out of us. And then Paul keeps going. He doesn't stop. He keeps stacking. It's like some of you who check on my knee. Some of you come up to me and say, well, how are you doing? Passion, I'm fine. And they say, well, what about you knee? How's your knee doing? I said, well, my knee's doing fine. Thank you for asking. And then your next question. And then I know it's out of love. Your next question is, are you doing your rehab? And then I said, well, yes, ma'am. I am doing my rehab. And then after I tell you that I'm doing my rehab, you say, well, after your rehab, are you icing it? And it's just you won't let go. You keep coming. Now, I know you keep coming out of love, but you keep coming. You say, have you ice it after your rehab? I said, yes. I said after my rehab. And then after I say, yes, I've ice it after my rehab, you bring what you believe to be the pounding final trump card. You say to me, are you doing too much? Now, you mean it out of love. I feel loved. I feel it. Now, I want you to know that Paul means it's out of love. He's not calling you stupid. He is laying it out so that we don't miss it. And I'm just going to keep stacking it up so get ready. I'm going to stack the wood. I hope the spirit lights it in your heart today. He says, for by grace you've been saved through faith, it's not your own doing. Secondly, it's the gift of God. It's a gift from God. It's an exorbitant gift. You know, in America, we've been taught to be very careful about gifts, because some gifts have strings attached. In fact, some translators of the Bible, they add a word to this passage. They say it is a free gift of God, right? They want to be redundant. They want to overpower you with the thought. It's a gift with no strings attached. It's not like, oh, if you come over to our resort, we'll sit down and tell you for an hour and a half about the time share. And then you get a free round of golf. Well, that's not free in my book, right? I sat through your meeting and now you're giving me a round of golf, but I paid for it with an hour and a half of my time, right? That's not like this. This is a free gift. This is given to us from outside of ourselves, from a different source, with no strings attached, we are saved by God's grace. It's a gift. You can't earn it. If I came over to your house and I cut your grass, and I said, no, no, no, I don't want anything for you. You go, oh, I'm going to give you $10. Well, you know what? You just got your grass cut for $10. You took away my pleasure of giving you a gift. I just wanted to give you a gift. Do you know when you do not receive a gift properly, it insults the giver? I believe that we insult our God and Father and Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit when we do not appropriately receive his free gift of saving us by his grace. It's insulting. If I gave you something and you said, oh, Tim, that's too much. Here, you're my pastor. You can't give me that. Here, here, what, what did that cost you? Let me, let me contribute to the payment of that. Doesn't that sound horrible? Yeah, it's sickening. That's what we do. When we tell God, I'm not saved by grace. Oh, come on, hey, I can give. I can, I can do my part. He said, it's not from in you. It's from outside of you. It's a gift. He's not done. He goes on and he says, not a result of works. Do you think they just didn't get it? He just keeps stacking it up, not a result of works. And then so that no one may boast. Could you imagine a person who really understands the depth of their sin and the beauty of their savior boasting about their salvation? And I would say, yes, I can't. I see it on TV when people give their testimony. If their testimonies are about their sin, not about their savior, whirling them, I was lost. And if they go and talk about all the depths and despair of their sin and then at the end, and Jesus saved me. Now, if you'll just write your check, the reality of this is we can't boast about anybody but Jesus. If you find yourself saying any boastful word about anything that has to do with your salvation that doesn't have Jesus Christ in the center cut of the fairway, you don't get it. You don't get it. And you don't believe the gospel. What's hard for us is it's hard for us to know how bad we really are. And it's almost impossible, I would say, impossible for us to believe how much God has done for us. That's why Paul went to great lengths to explain that this is a work of the Holy Spirit. You cannot self congratulate yourself on your salvation. It's from the Lord. It requires this passive and yet grateful reception. Now, many people say that it's difficult to measure the depth of God's grace and his love. But I don't believe that's completely true. I believe that as we begin to see the depth of our sin, we must know that God's grace and love is deeper than the depth of our sin. For God's grace is greater than our sin. And so in some way, when we look at the depth of our sin, we define an aspect of God's love for us. We know it's greater than the depth of my sin. You know, the Apostle Paul didn't treat this lightly. He went over in Romans chapter three. He's laying out his argument in Romans and he's setting forth this concept that no one is righteous apart from Christ. And he hits the Gentiles first to which all the Jews say, that's right, amen. That's right. Those Gentiles, they're simple. They need a Savior and then he said, and you do too. There's no one righteous. And then for you looking, Romans chapter three, I want you to see how Paul stacks this up. Verse nine, what then? Are we Jews any better off? In other words, do we have a righteousness that the Gentiles don't have? He says, no, not at all. For we've already charged at all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin where under this weight of sin, every man, woman, child is under the weight of sin. He goes on, Romans three, 10. He's quoting from the Old Testament. It is written, and you might just want to add up these negative comments. I've come up with 17. I don't know what you might write in your Bible. He's answering the question, is there anyone righteous? Verse 10, none is righteous, that's his first answer. Two, no, three, not one, four, no one understands. Five, no one seeks for God. Six, all have turned aside. Seven, they've become worthless. Eight, no one does good. Nine, not even one. Ten, their throat is an open grave. Eleven, they use their tongues to deceive. Twelve, the venom of snakes is under their lips. Thirteen, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Fourteen, their feet are swift as shed. I could go on. He stacks up 17 explanations of a negative saying, no,
no one is righteous, not one, no one. You know recently, my wife and I had a visitor from Texas and this young man called and said that I want to come up and I want to talk to you. Well, this young man happens to be dating our daughter Sarah. And so he called and said, are you available Tuesday, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I said, I'm available. And he said, well, I'd like to fly up and I'd like to take y'all to dinner and talk to you about something. Now, if you don't know what he's talking about, you don't have a daughter. And so he comes up and we have a great evening but I'll tell you one thing, I would have no problem looking at that boy squaring a face and saying, you don't look like anything that's ever gonna take my daughter out of my home. No, get out of here. Don't come back. Don't even think about it. I'll whip you on the way out the door, right? As a daddy, you can stack them up, right? Well, we had the privilege of looking at Lane at the end of that evening and saying, this is great. You have our unreserved blessing. We're so excited that you love our daughter and you love our Lord. God bless you as you take our precious daughter and you love her with the love of Christ for the rest of your life. And if you don't, I know where you live. That's what Paul's saying. Paul's saying this gospel is so beautiful and it is so everything in my life that he has no trouble telling us how deep our sin is. He doesn't, he doesn't flinch. He doesn't say it's, oh, it's maybe politically correct or call someone a sinner. Look at his words here. Look in verse 12 of chapter three. He said, all have turned aside. That's a word from, this is quotes from the Old Testament and that's a word about a camel train that gets lost in the desert. They've all turned away. They don't know how to get back is the implication. And then he goes on and says together, they've become worthless, worthless. Could you imagine somebody in a political debate turning to their opponent and saying, and by the way, Senator, you're worthless among other things, right? We don't use that language. Why would Paul use that word? It's a Hebrew, it's borrowed from the Hebrew. It means when sweet milk has turned sour and I used to teach that sour milk was good for nothing until 1985 in Charlotte, North Carolina when a lady told me it was good for something. And so I went back and I did some more study and I found out that what he's saying is once sweet milk has become sourd, you can't make it sweet again. And what Paul is saying is once you've sinned, you can't fix yourself, you can't change yourself, you can't try hard enough. It takes this work by God's grace that comes down in the form of Jesus Christ and he works in our hearts and changes our lives so that we believe in him and it says that we become his workmanship. His workmanship, you're so beautiful to the Lord. You as an individual, you're beautiful to him. He fashioned you, this is the word, this idea of being made, his workmanship. When we purchased our rings and Dallas, we went to a fine craftsman and we had him take a beautiful precious metal and we had him formed and fashioned into our rings as Jerry referred to for his ring that Heather gave him. It's this beautiful handcrafted personal special. That's what you are to the Lord. You are handcrafted through the work of the Holy Spirit. And you know what, you really have one job. I know in church work we give you a lot but really you have one job and that is to celebrate God's grace. Don't try to earn it. Don't try to prove that you really who you are. Just celebrate God's grace. Speak of this gift and how much he means to you. That's what we're called to do. Some people call it witnessing. We can develop a class to tell you how to do it but the bottom line is how many brides had to go to a class so they could tell you about their engagement ring. My daughter Sarah, I don't remember training her how to tell me about her engagement ring. But oh baby, there it was. Look at it Papa, see the pearl. Oh, I love it, look at this, look at that, look at that. That's what we're called to do. If you're saved by grace, that's what you do. You're not gonna believe it, you're not gonna believe it, you're not gonna believe it. I'm saved by God's grace. Look at this, it's just America, isn't it? I didn't do it. In fact, I don't have the power within me to do it. I can't take any credit for it. It's not something that's earned, it's a free gift. He gave it to me, I boast about him. That's what we do, we boast about him. So you got homework this week and your homework is to celebrate the great gift. That God has given you. You might wanna dust off something that you haven't uncorked in the past. You might wanna go to one of your favorite restaurants. You might, I could tell you a million ways to celebrate. But I want you to celebrate this great gift that God has given you because we are saved by grace and we are his workmanship. Let's pray together. Father, you are so kind to grab the Apostle Paul in the power of your spirit and to place him in a, even a prison. And now through this, this focused time in his life, your spirit has written, his written letters, and you've written this letter, this letter that you sent to Ephesus. And now we have the benefit of hearing the Apostle in the power of the spirit, tell us we're saved by grace. If we add anything to it, Lord, we ruined it. If we try to add an if or an and or a but, we don't get it. And we certainly can't believe it. Oh Holy Spirit, would you allow us to see once again that we're saved by grace and by grace alone? And this week Holy Spirit, I pray you would well up within our hearts in such a way that we would celebrate. We would celebrate and receive this wonderful gift that Jesus Christ came to save sinners just like us. We pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Would you please stand for the benediction? This is not a good word for me, it's a good word from the Lord. Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause his face to shine upon you. Be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace both now and in the life everlasting. Amen.