Thank you, brother. Well, it's
an honor and a blessing to be here and to meet you and to be
able to bring God's word before you. And I pray the Holy Spirit
of God will take it and, oh, not here, take it and make it
effectual. And I just pray that the Lord
will bless the message and that we will be blessed by it. We're
gonna be reading from Ephesians chapter two. The scripture says,
and you hath be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. This scripture brings forth that
when we're born into this world, we come into this world dead
in trespasses and sins. We're physically alive, but spiritually
we're dead. And the reason being is we fell
in Adam in the garden. When Adam fell, we all fell with
him. Therefore, we're now His seed. And we come into this world dead
in trespasses and sins with no real understanding of who God
is. And no understanding of really
who Christ is. Even if we've heard about Him,
we don't really understand who He is. And so this is our state
when we're born into this world. dead in trespasses and sins.
And it says in this text in Uethy, quicken. That means to be born
again. The Lord Jesus Christ said you
must be born again to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And that's
a spiritual rebirth. It's called regeneration, but
it's a spiritual rebirth. An operation of God, it says
in the book of Colossians, where we're made alive, that dead spirit
is made alive. And now we're given faith to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. See, natural man, we can't believe
on Christ. And we can never gain favor with
God by anything we do. So God sent his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, into this world to die for his people. Oh, it's wonderful news for sinners. I stand before you as sinners
saved by grace. And Norm and Nancy were sinners
saved by the grace and mercy of God. And we were born dead in trespasses
and sins. But one day, God, the Holy Spirit,
quickened us. And we were made alive in Christ.
And now, because we've been given faith, now we worship him. I
didn't seek the Lord before he saved me. As a matter of fact,
I was running as far away from him as I possibly could. But
he would love me, and this is the thing. He lovingly draws
us to Christ, lovingly. It's beautiful. The scripture
says here, where in times you walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
So before a child of God was saved, you couldn't tell the
difference between, they was just as lost as anyone else. Just as lost as anyone else.
And it took God, an operation of God, it took God to lovingly
draw us to Christ. And we're born again and again
by God's power in order for us to worship him. and we were in the darkness of
our sin. We didn't think anything was wrong. We thought we were
good people. And then we find out that the
scripture says there's none good, no, not one. There's none righteous,
which means to be in a right standing with God. No, not one. But all through the preaching
of the gospel, I present to you today a savior, A Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior of sinners. There's no other
way to be saved except through Christ Jesus, our Lord. And when
he shed his blood on Calvary's cross, he purchased the eternal
souls of his people. Out from under the law of God.
And you know, he wasn't no mere man. He was God in the flesh. He was the second person of the
Trinity sent by the Father on this mission. The scripture says
he came to save his people from their sins. And being a sinner, saved by
Christ, I'm still a sinner. I'm so thankful he did that.
So thankful he did that. Oh my, it says, among whom we
all had our conversations in times past, in the lusts of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." God's
people were deserving of the wrath of God just as much as
anyone else. But God, in His mercy and grace,
chose us in Christ. And then Christ came here to
redeem us. My, it's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. And
he did it. Don't ever listen to somebody
when they say, God's done all he can do, the rest is up to
you. That's not true. Christ did it all. He did it
all. He saved his people from their
sins. And the scripture says that we can know that we have
eternal life. How do we know? By trusting on Christ and him
alone. As Norm said, there's no other
way. The scripture says, neither is
there salvation in any other. There's only salvation in Christ,
in Christ alone. You know, we can't be saved by
our works, even though we're wired that way. We're wired that
way by birth. We think, well, I'm a good person.
No, we're really not. And then we think, well, I can
work my way to heaven or do things to gain favor with God. Nothing
we can do can gain favor with God. The only way we have favor
with God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do you know him? Have you trusted him? He's the only savior of sinners.
And I'll tell you what, we who are God's people, we proclaim
he's the savior of sinners. He saved me. He saved me. Wonderful. It doesn't matter
how black your sin is. It doesn't matter how horrendous
it was. Christ can make you whiter than
snow. His blood is cleansing blood. It cleanses us from all
our sins. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. It says, In verse four, so he's
told us we were dead in sins. He told us we were just like
the other, everybody else in the world, dead in sins. And
he says this, but God, but God. You know what God's rich in?
Mercy, mercy. It says here, but God, who is
rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us. God's
people find out that God's loved us from eternity. We never knew
that. That's great love. And God loves
his people so much that he sent his son into this world to die
for them, to shed his precious blood for them. It's absolutely
wonderful. But God is rich in mercy for
his great love wherever he loved us, even when we were dead in
sins. Didn't want nothing to do with God. Even when we were
dead in sin, didn't want nothing to do with God. Drinking sin
like water. Happy and contented in our sin.
Oh, I thank God, there's a God here. Even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together. That means to be born again.
To be born again. And it's the work of God, the
Holy Spirit. And it's wonderful. And he says here, by grace you
are saved. So that's the first mention there
of by grace we're saved. And the grace is the grace of
God in Christ, showing to sinners. Scripture says that God has forgiven
sinners for Christ's sake. And because of Christ, isn't
that wonderful? Now someone might say, well,
how can I be saved? You know what the scripture says?
Just look to Christ. Look to me and live, it says.
That's all. Just look to Him by faith. And that's God-given
faith. If God gives you faith, you're
gonna look to Christ. And it's casting our whole self
upon Him as the forgiver of all our sins. is our only righteousness,
or the only way we can be in God's presence is to be righteous. Well, we can't do that because
the scripture says there's non-righteous, no, not one. But in Christ, the
believer is righteous by the work of Christ, all because of
what he's done. That's why the scripture says,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy. Again, there's mercy, yes, his
mercy. He has saved us. He saved us by His mercy. Do you know all that a sinner needs
is found in Christ? Isn't that wonderful? It's found
in Him. He provided it all. Salvation, everything. Redemption, it's all found in
Christ. Righteousness, it's all found
in Him. I like to say God put all His
eggs in one basket. That's Christ. That's what he
did. People tell you, don't put all
your eggs in one basket. Well, I'm gonna trust in the one who
God put in his basket. That's Christ Jesus, our Lord.
All mine. Then it says, he raises up together
and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. When
a saint of God dies and leaves this world, they're immediately
in the presence of God. And when I say saint there, that's
not someone made a saint by the church, because no church can
make a saint. That's God's people. That's the people that Christ
redeemed with His blood. They're called saints. Isn't
that wonderful? That's wonderful. And all that
means is to be made holy. That's all that means. Or God's
people are made holy in God's eyes through Christ. It's wonderful. that in the ages to come he might
show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. So the only way that God shows
his kindness to sinners is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. So
I ask you, who's your hope? Who's your hope for salvation? That song we sang, Abide With
Me, that's a beautiful song, I'll tell you why. Do you know
that song was written two weeks before that composer died? Two
weeks before he died, he wrote that song. Isn't that wonderful? What was he doing? He was just
trusting Christ, wasn't he? He knew death was coming, and
he was just trusting Christ for all his salvation. He hung his soul on a nail in
the sure place, which is Christ Jesus our Lord. And it says that
in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. God's
people are monuments to the grace of God. They're his jewels. I mentioned that at the services
we had. They're precious jewels in the eyes of the Lord. It's
wonderful. And then he says in verse 8,
a verse which is well known, but he's repeating again, because
in verse 5 he said, by grace you are saved. Now the Holy Spirit's
going to expand on that a little bit. And he says, for by grace
are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It's a
gift of God. And he says, not of works, in
verse nine, lest any man should boast. You know, we humans like
to boast. But in Christ, there's nothing
for us to boast about in our salvation except the boast in
Christ. He's done it all. He's done it
all. He came from heaven. He was born
in a lowly manger. Raised up, in his 33 years old,
he was crucified. But you know what? In that span
of time, he lived a perfect life. A perfect life. He's absolutely
sinless. All we are is sin. From the top
of our head to the bottom of our feet, we're sinners. So Christ
lives a sinless life. You know who he did it for? His
people. Those he was gonna redeem. He's called their substitute. Two things, two things I hope
you get from this message is substitution and satisfaction. Christ was a substitute of his
people. He died in their room and place and the wrath of God
was poured out upon him in their room and place. And he shed his
blood to ransom their eternal souls. When did he do that? 2,000 years ago. And he, you
know, and think of this too. I want you to think about this.
All of God's people's sins are forgiven, past, present, and
future. All of them. All of them. I've had people
ask me, well, Wayne, how can you say all your future sins
were covered? Because 2,000 years ago, every
one of my sins was in the future. And Christ paid it all. Isn't
that wonderful? That's wonderful. And then he ascended up into
heaven. Scripture says he was raised for our justification.
That shows that God was satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ.
So he was a substitute of his people, and God's satisfied with
that sacrifice of him giving his life for his people. And
he's raised up, and now he sits at the right hand of the Father.
He's king ruling right now. He's in full charge. And that's
a comfort for God's people, because we rest our souls on the one
who controls the whole universe and all things in it, visible
and invisible. And it's absolutely wonderful. And it says, for we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them. Monuments of the grace
of God, monuments. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ
said this in Matthew, the book of Matthew chapter 11. He said this, come unto me all
you that labor and are heavy laden. Have you been trying to
work your way to heaven by something you do? Just stop. The Lord says, come unto me. Are you heavy laden with work?
Are you even heavy laden with guilt? The guilt of your sin
or our sin? Come unto me, he says. Come unto
me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. And I will give
you rest. Rest. That's rest for our souls.
That's actually rest from our labors there. And then he says
this, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. So
rest from our labors, right? I can't save myself, but Christ
keeps us safe sinners. And soul rest by trusting in
Christ and him alone. Oh, what a savior. And you know,
he's never turned anyone away that's ever come to him. Never,
never. He can save to the uttermost
those who come to God by him. He can save to the uttermost,
and he does. He does. I pray that God will
give you faith, give you grace and mercy, and give you faith
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only savior
of sinners. Go to the north.