In Christ - Made New

In “Made New,” part of the In Christ series, Tyler Lynde opens Ephesians 2:10–13 and traces the journey from “far off” to “brought near.” He celebrates signs of spiritual hunger in our day, yet he presses beyond headlines to the heart of true renewal. Drawing on Jonathan Edwards, Tyler names the marks of a God-breathed awakening: deep conviction of sin, genuine repentance, a growing love for Jesus, and lives aligned with Scripture. That kind of grace doesn’t just stir a moment; it reshapes a life.

Tyler lingers over Paul’s claim that we are God’s workmanship—His poema—created in Christ Jesus for good works prepared beforehand. Grace comes first, then works follow. Saved by grace through faith, not by works; yet grace produces obedience and the fruit of the Spirit. This newness is not private inspiration but public transformation: peace that steadies us in trial, kindness that softens neighborhoods, integrity that changes workplaces, and mercy that meets needs in our city. A church alive doesn’t outsource love; it lives it.

He also highlights the first command in Ephesians: remember. Remember being separated from Christ, alienated from God’s people, strangers to the covenants, without hope and without God. Remembering keeps humility fresh and gratitude loud. Then comes the hinge of history—“But now in Christ Jesus…”—and the distance closes. Not by hustle or religion, but by the blood of Christ. Jesus bridges the divide we could never cross, makes enemies family, and seats believers with Him so they can walk in the works already on their path.

With pastoral clarity, Tyler urges both comfort and action: if you feel far, Christ draws near; if you’ve been in church for years, don’t forget what you were saved from; if you’re asking what to do next, begin with prayer, worship, remembering, and simple obedience. Good works are not the ground of salvation, but its consequence and evidence—fruit that remains across generations.

This message offers a clear map for anyone longing for renewal: receive grace, remember your rescue, and walk as a living poem of God’s craftsmanship. Watch and be encouraged to let revival begin where pride ends—at the cross—and to let personal renewal become public witness for the good of your family, your neighborhood, and your city.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Reading Ephesians 2:10–13
• 1:45 Prayer And Framing The Theme
• 2:29 Signs Of Revival And Why They’re Not Enough
• 6:39 True Revival: Repentance And Transformation
• 10:44 Revival Changing Culture And Community Care
• 13:47 God’s Work Among Gentiles In Ephesus
• 16:44 We Are His Workmanship, Not Mass Produced
• 19:47 New Creation In Christ And Good Works
• 23:13 Works Do Not Save, But They Follow Grace
• 26:02 Remember Who You Were Without Christ
• 29:12 Separated From Christ And God’s People
• 32:20 Strangers To Promise And Without Hope
• 36:19 Without God In The World
• 39:08 Personal Reflection On Grace And Temptation
• 42:09 Brought Near By The Blood Of Christ
• 46:10 Positioned With Christ And Called To Good Works

Transcript

Tyler Lynde: 0:03

Are you ready for the Word of God this morning? Good. It's ready for you too. So you're in good company. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2, verses 10 through 13 this morning. We're in a sermon series called In Christ, and it's the study of the book of Ephesians, and we're breaking it into two parts. So the first part is about our identity in Christ, and then the second part we'll look at next year, which is the second half of Ephesians, which is all about our purpose in Christ. But today we're going to be focusing, like I said, on Ephesians 2. Um, last week Kelly did a great job of helping us to understand the blessed fact that we who were dead in our sins and trespasses have been made alive unto God by grace through faith. Is that your story? Amen. We can be thankful for that. Today we're going to look at the fact that in Christ we've been made new. We've been made new. So let's read these verses. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for this wonderful word. Lord, we are so excited always to encounter what it is that you want to say to us through the word that you caused your Holy Spirit to uh to be placed upon men who would write these words down. Jesus, we thank you that you are the word of God. And so we ask that these words would come alive to us today. We ask that you would help us to process them, that we would understand them in better ways than we have before, and that we would uh implement them in our lives so that our lives would be changed forever because of these powerful words. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. So I want to start off this morning by giving you some really good news, some encouraging news. Are you ready for that? That I'm sure there's lots of lots of other kinds of news that you've heard recently, but you've probably heard some of this already. But I'm excited to tell you that it looks like we could be worldwide looking at a the beginning of a possible revival. And I I I've used my words carefully, I'm using my words carefully, but it looks like there are some key indicators that are helping us to see that it seems like the Lord is moving in powerful ways and that he's drawing people to himself. And some of the indicators of that are that this last year Bible sales are up by about 40%, 4-0% worldwide. That's a massive change. Come on, amen. Also, Christian app downloads, and I'm kind of mixed on this one, depends on which app it is, right? But they're up by 80% year after year over year. Christian music streams are up 50%. Thousands of college students are being reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ recently. There was an event at UT where thousands of young people proclaimed the name of Jesus together in praise and worship and praying out and crying out to God for this nation. People, especially younger, younger people, look, all you folks over there, thank you for for all of them. People, especially younger people, are going to church for the first time or coming back to church after they've been gone for some time. Amen. These are good things. And there's a heightened emphasis on prayer and worship. We're seeing a heightened emphasis on prayer and worship. We even heard it in some of the things that were spoken this morning that God is telling us that these two things are vitally important when it comes to uh preparing the atmosphere for God to move in a way that he desires to move when it comes to revival. But as good as all of this sounds, it's not quite good enough. And I'm gonna tell you why. It's not quite good enough. Jonathan Edwards, one of the ministers that God used in the first great awakening here in the United States in the 1740s, described true revival as a sovereign work of God that was marked by deepened conviction of sin. There was a deepened conviction of sin that led to repentance for sin, realizing that all of us, if we get what we deserve, we deserve the wrath of God. We deserve punishment from God, and yet God in Christ Jesus made a way for us to be made new. Amen. So we must see on the heels of all of the other great indicators, which I'm so excited about, and I want more of them, but we will know that we're seeing true revival when we begin to see people confessing their sin, repenting of their sin, turning away from their sin. We will also see a heightened love for Christ, a heightened love for him and all things related to him. It won't be about us. It will be about him. To him will be all of the glory and the honor and the power and the praise. This is what true revival looks like. It looks like repentance of sin. It looks like a heightened love for Christ. And it also looks like transformed lives that are aligned with scripture, not with just what somebody says on the internet or what somebody thinks is a good idea, lives that are transformed to the point that they are lived, the lives are lived based on what scripture teaches us. These are true signs of revival that brings about the kind of transformation that changes nations. My friends, these are the things that I'm asking that each of us as a part of this church that we begin to pray and ask God to begin to move in such ways that these things will be preeminent. Does that make sense? It's not enough just to get around Christianity, it's not enough just to listen to Christian music, it's not enough even just to go to church. We want lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit wants it even more than we do. Aren't you glad? And so we have the privilege of walking with him and working with him as he desires to bring about this kind of transformational moment in the culture in this generation. He also noted, Jonathan Edwards also noted that personal transformation that people were experiencing poured out into society. In other words, it was not contained within the four walls of the church. It began to change and transform the culture and the society around the people who were being influenced and transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Bars who once thrived and taverns who were once well visited began to close down, not just because of business, but because the hearts of those who were owning these places of business were beginning to change. Crime began to diminish in locations where the Spirit of God was moving in ways that caused people to repent of their sins, to put their faith, hope, and trust in a living Christ and began to live out the values of Scripture. Things began to change. Poverty was alleviated in regions that experienced true revival. You know, we're hearing all kinds of things in the news about the government's role when it comes to taking care of those who are in need. And we're not here to argue that, but I want you to I want to tell you that a church alive with the power of God and filled with the Spirit of God and that is experiencing revival will be able to care for the needs of the community. And that's the way that God intends it, and that's the way that He designed it. Amen. And I just want to say to you, if you know of people who through this time in our country end up with not having enough food in their cupboards, we want you to tell us about it. We want you to let us know because we as a church want to be able to step up and help however we can. So please let us know. Come to one of the elders, send us an email, let us know, okay, if there are needs that come up that need to be met. We, Trinity Community Church, want to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. Amen? So going back to our passage now, I hope that was a good intro for us. Paul in this passage highlights the fact that God is doing an amazing work among the Gentiles. You got to think about how radical this was, how amazing this was, that God had busted out of Jerusalem that the Holy Spirit that had come on the day of Pentecost, and everybody was there together and they loved it so much that actually God allowed persecution to come to Jerusalem for what reason? Not just not to cause harm to the church, but to cause the church to do his work, which was to be spread out throughout the nation, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So there's an amazing work being done among the Gentiles. And this Ephesian church is no exception to that. In fact, they're experiencing a full-on revival. All of the things that we talked about in the beginning of this talk, they were experiencing firsthand. But he gives them some keys on how to keep things in the proper perspective so that the work that God is doing in them and through them will produce fruit that remains in their lives and in the lives of others. How many of you know that that's what God judges? He's the judge of fruit. He's not the judge just of words, he's not the judge just of heart. He's the judge of fruit. And we want fruit that remains. Amen. We want generational fruit. And that's what I'm so excited about this morning. Having having uh, you know, uh Noelle's grandmother and and Jordan's grandfather here standing on the stage with us and celebrating together generations. I don't even know how many generations that is. Now I can think of it, is it three, four, four generations representing? That's what we want. Fruit that remains in the kingdom of God. So let's look close more closely at this passage. The first thing I want you to look at is we've been made new on purpose. It says, for we are his workmanship. We are his workmanship. Now that word in the Greek is poema. Poema. Can you think of what English word we get from that? Poem. Yeah, we get the word poem from poema. And so um scripture isn't just talking here about literary art primarily, right? But highlighting God's amazing works of art when it comes to those that he has brought from death to life. How many of you know God is the creator? He's a workman, he is a handyman, he's a his handiworks are amazing. The work that he does is literally out of this world, right? And his amazing works of art he wants to display. For those who may be struggling with believing that you have any intrinsic value, we heard some of those words this morning. Some of you dealing with depression, fear, anxiety, worry, self-doubt, all of those things, I'm here to tell you, God doesn't make mistakes. And God is a mastercraftsman, he's a workman. We are his workmanship, right? So um, if you're dealing with those things, God has handcrafted each and every one of us. We are his workmanship. We have not been mass-produced. But I heard that you could get a robot to come to your house to do your chores, you know, to fold your laundry and all of that. But the problem is that the robot has to be controlled by somebody in an office that is literally like doing the action that the robot has to follow. So it's like if somebody's already having to do the action to make the robot do the action in my house, can't we just take the middleman out and let that person leave the office and come to my house and fold the clothes? I don't know, it's worked for centuries, but we feel like we need to make a change, right? But God didn't mass produce us. We are not mass produced, we are individually made, and we are fearfully and wonderfully made. You see, we are God's new creation. We are God's new creation. It says that we were created in Christ Jesus. We are his new creation. Paul uses similar language in describing this newness of life as we find in the original creation account found in Genesis. In fact, in another one of Paul's letters, the book of Romans, he uses the same word, poema, in Romans chapter 1, verse 20. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. That word made is that same word, poema, that we read in Ephesians. So they are without excuse. So Paul is speaking here in Romans 1 of the original creation. God said, Let there be light, and there was light, and on and on and on, right? So all of those things were good. All of those things were examples of his handiwork on display. The same God who spoke galaxies into existence also regenerates dead sinners. That's the good news. The same God, the same spirit that breathed life into Adam as he was a pile of mud on the ground and caused him to be a living person, breathes life into the unregenerate person, making them alive unto God. We are his new creation in Christ Jesus. We have been born again. We have been made new. And the the verse that I'm sure many of us are thinking of is 2 Corinthians 5, 17. It says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, and behold, the new has come. How many of you know that you're not who you once were if you are a follower of Jesus Christ? You once were this, and now you're this. And how did that happen? It didn't happen because you willed it so, or because you fought hard enough, or because you were strong enough in your own power and might to cause it to be done. How many of you know you you became that way because the Spirit of God breathed on you and caused you who were dead to God to be made alive unto him? This is good news. This is good news. See, we are new, we are God's new creation, and God intends for his new creation to do good works. To do good works. It goes on in verse 10, Ephesians 2, 10, for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Now make no mistake, the verses immediately following, verse 10, make it clear to us that good works don't save us. Right? Let's just remind ourselves of those two verses, eight and nine. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. So we didn't save ourselves, we couldn't save ourselves. We could there are not enough good works that we could do to please a perfect holy God, and to to to uh build a bridge across the divide that was caused between us and our heavenly Father because of sin. We couldn't do it, we couldn't accomplish it, we couldn't make it happen. But this verse speaks to the fact that those who have been transformed by God's grace will perform good works. We will perform good works, such as living obedient lives. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Followers of Jesus will obey the Lord, and we will obey those who are in authority over us. How about living fruitful lives? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Thank you on them all. Right? We will live those kinds of lives. Good works that we do based on the fact of what Christ did for us and our faith in what Christ did for us, good works will come from that. Does that make sense? The purpose of God's creative activity is not merely to have a people. It's great to have a people. As if he were constructing a work of art. Like if he just had a bunch of people and he just put us on a wall and said, just hang there nicely. Would you smile for me? You know, you're just hanging on the wall and he just points to, you know, he's far removed, but he just points to us and says, Hey, look at my work of art. Aren't they wonderful? Aren't they amazing? They're just hanging around. They're just hanging around, they're just they're just there, they're just displayed, they're just, I want you to see who I am by what I did, right? He could he could have done that. It would have been maybe right for him to do that, and yet he chose not to do that. This new creation, the new creation that he's created within us, is to be active and productive like the creator himself. He created us in his image and likeness. We are called to be like him by the grace of God and through the work of the Holy Spirit, and not perfectly until Jesus returns. It's like I have to give all these caveats, right? But it's true, it's absolutely true. We are created in God's image to be like him, to act like him, to talk like him, to walk like him, to work like him, right? To rest like him. Usually get a few amens on the rest one at least, right? By the way, he doesn't rest, he doesn't have Cheeto stained hands while he's resting. Oh my goodness, anyway, I don't know where that came from, but we'll move on. John Stott's words are not too strong. Listen to the words of John Stott. Good works are indispensable to salvation, not as its ground or means, but as its consequence and evidence. Salvation should create good works. True conversion in a person's life will be seen by the fruit that is that is produced. And the fruit that is produced is not really for our own consumption. How many of you know we benefit when we produce love? But who else benefits? Everybody. How about joy, peace, all of those things that we talked about? When we produce the fruits of righteousness, the fruits of repentance, when we do the things that Jesus asks us to do and commands us to do in scripture, by the grace of God, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, revival comes, change happens, people take notice. I know that some of you have experienced this when you're going through something very difficult in life, and you show up in work and at work, and people know what you're going through, and yet somebody comes to you and says, How is it that you're so peaceful in the middle of what you're going through? What do you say when somebody says something like that? Jesus, sometimes that's all you can say. Jesus. Because we're so grateful for what Christ has accomplished for us. This should be our natural disposition. As much as being disobedient was the natural disposition of our lives before Christ, obedience should be the natural disposition of our lives since Christ. We have been changed, we have been transformed by the power of God. Paul goes on to encourage his readers, we should never forget who we were without Christ. We should never forget who we were without Christ. We've been made new on purpose, but we should never forget who we were without Christ. It says, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Paul had this unique ministry vantage point, didn't he? He was a Jewish man who grew up in a Roman province. He was from Tarsus, and so he knew both sides of the coin. He knew what it was like to grow up under Roman law and Roman rule, and yet still be a student of Scripture and student of the Old Testament. And he he grew up being trained to be an attorney, a law attorney based on the Old Testament. But how many of you know all of that changed one day on the road to Damascus when all of a sudden Jesus appeared to him and called him to change, to be transformed by the power of God and to be made new. So Paul is, God is calling Paul to reach the Gentile people, and yet his heart is still so drawn to his brothers and sisters who are Jewish. We see this in the book of Romans in such beautiful ways. Paul takes entire chapters of the book of Romans to explain to each group how they are really not advantaged when it comes to uh to being right, being made right with God, that there still has to be this element of grace that comes through faith in order for them to be transformed, to be changed, to be made right with God. Right? And so he's doing that here in this passage as well. He's talking to the Gentile people and talking about this this gap that they face. And the Holy Spirit uses this diversity between Gentile and Jew to allow Paul to bridge the gap between them. And we're gonna learn next week that we're all called to be one new man in Christ Jesus. And I'm not gonna linger there, although I'd like to. Remember who they once were so that they could appreciate who they are now. And he uses this word, therefore. This is so old. My dad used to say this, but I'm gonna borrow it. When you see the word therefore, you have to ask yourself, what is it? See, I'm not the only one. Generations, will you pick that up and run with it for us? They're all like, nope. That's so dumb. Anyway, there's a connect, it's a connecting word, right? So it's connecting the former thought to the new thought, right? So therefore, there's a reason why that this is placed here. The first command, I want you to catch this. The first command, up until this point in time in the book of Ephesians, it's all been about what Jesus did and who we are because of what Jesus did. Hasn't that been good? Haven't you been amazed at the words of God that have that were given to Paul by the Holy Spirit to write in the book of Ephesians? Haven't you been changed and transformed by realizing that you have an identity in Christ that's far different than maybe what you imagined? Far greater for sure than what we could know up to this point. But now the corner turns just a little bit. And the first command in the book of Ephesians is to remember. To remember. Interesting. It wasn't yet to go out and do great exploits, although they were called to good works. Before you perform these good works, you must remember. Remember, Paul spent all of his time, like I said, speaking to them, establishing the fact that they have a new identity in Christ. And these Gentile believers were encouraged to remember the desperate condition they found themselves in before grace came calling. How many of you have been in the church for 30 years or longer? Raise your hand. I don't mean Trinity, I'm just saying in the church. Raise them again. Look around you. Folks, we need to remember. We are called to remember. We're no less called to remember than the Gentiles were in this passage in Ephesians chapter 2, right? So let's look at this. They should remember how far they were away from Christ. We're going to see five different categories of things that they were called to remember. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. They had no claim to Christ, they had no connection to him, they had no interest in him. This was their story. This was the reality of their condition. There was nothing of Christ that they were drawn to before God opened their hearts. And how many of you know that that is not just their story, but that is all of our stories, as we as we were once fully surrendered to the God of this world. That was the first thing. And then secondly, they should remember how far they were away from God's people. It says that they were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. They were excluded from citizenship in Israel, even if they lived within that land, they were excluded from Israel. And so they had no natural pathway to be considered the people of God or from being a part of God's purposes. They were on the outside looking in. This was the condition of the Gentiles. And these were the things that Paul is telling them that they need to remember. The third thing is that they should remember how far they were away from God's promises. It says that they were strangers to the covenants of promise. They were excluded from the covenants that God had made with his Jewish covenant people in the Old Testament. As proof of this, Paul describes the fact that they were called the uncircumcised by those who were circumcised because they shared no signs of the covenant in their flesh. There was not even a mark on them that made them even appear as if they could be considered part of this other group. They were completely separate. They were completely isolated. They were completely outside looking in. Paul is speaking here of the covenants that God made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and others. These many covenants that he made with his people. And what was the singular promise? You notice it says the covenants of promise. What's the singular promise that all of those things had in common? That there would be a king who would sit one day on the throne of David and that he would rule and reign forever and ever and ever. And that king's name is. Boy, one Sunday I'm going to ask you that question. You're going to yell it out. And I'm going to be like blown back. It's going to be like one of those commercials where somebody's surprised and their hair goes back on them. You know. Yeah, exactly. Some of you grew up in a church like that where there's some hair flying around. Last we learned at Servants Heart that Mark baptized the hair off of somebody. So you gotta be careful. Watch out. When a revival comes, all bets are off. Things happen. Not enough hairspray in the building. So the singular promise is the Messiah that Jesus would come and in whom all the covenants find their fulfillment. In Him, He fulfills all of them. Thank God. And Gentiles up to this point have not shared in these covenants, nor have they been included in God's special relationship to Israel. And as we dig down deeper into this place of realization concerning what their condition was, the next one is they should remember how far they were away from the Christian hope. It says that they had no hope. They had no hope of escaping eternal punishment by which a holy God sends those who are unholy away from his presence forever. They had no hope that there would ever be a moment of change or transformation where they would be included instead of excluded. They had no hope in the flesh or in the some formula that they could follow. They were hopeless. How many of you know that we live in a world that is hopeless? Hopeless breeds contempt and anger and rage and division. People without hope live like that. And that's exactly the way the Gentiles lived. That was their MO. How many of you know that 1 Thessalonians 4 13 tells us that we don't need to live like that? But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. I'm tempted to jump in there now, but I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait because the scripture waits. Next, it says that they should remember how far they were away from God Himself. Not only did they have no hope, they were without God in this world. Does not mean that they were atheists. If you know anything about Ephesus, you know they were not atheists. They served a lot of little gods made of stone and different things. They were all giant temples that were built to the different gods that they worshiped. And yet they were without God in this world because there's only one capital G. And that's the one that they were without. They did not have the God of the universe. The culture of the world in which they lived was isolated from God and what he was doing. Completely isolated, completely foreign to them, like something they had never known or never experienced. And then this realization hit me. This is me. This is my story. And I even thought a little deeper than that because to be honest with you, and I thank God for this, I don't remember my life without Jesus. I was born again at the age of five years old in my bathroom, brushing my teeth. My mom asked me, Tyler, you've been going to church with me, you've been going to Sunday school. Jesus is real. Do you want to put do you want to believe in him? And I said, Yes, mom, I want to believe. I want to put my trust in him. And I prayed and I accepted Jesus into my life. But I'm here to tell you that I have tasted of the forbidden fruit of disobedience and rebellion in my life. And I want you to know this. I want no part in it. I know enough. I've tasted enough. I've experienced enough. I've fallen from grace enough to understand that I do not want that stuff to have control over me. And that's my encouragement to all of us who have been churched our whole lives. We read stories like this, we read passages like this, and we have a hard time connecting with them because all we remember is being in church and being Christians and being followers of Jesus. But I'm here to tell you but but for the grace of God, there go I. Because I've been bought with the price, and I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. I understand what the scripture means when it says that like a dog returning to its vomit is someone who returns to their sin. I don't know about you, but the promise of sin never delivers. It never delivers what it tells you it's going to deliver. Lust is never satisfied. One lie always leads to another. This is our memory. This should be our remembrance. This should be the things that we are focused on when it comes to making sure that our attitudes stay right, that our heart stays focused, that we continue to do the things that we believe that God wants to see happen in the culture as well. You see, we were all far off from Christ. We were far from his church. We were far from the promises. We were far from the Christian hope and from God Himself. And therefore, we were far from everything that's good. Every good and perfect gift that comes from God. We were removed from. We were far away from those things. And even if we've only experienced that in moments in time where we've fallen and had to run to our Father and say, Father, I've sinned. Would you please forgive me? We still know what it's like. We should know what it's like to be able to remember and to say to ourselves, I don't want to leave my father's house. You see, we've been made new on purpose and we should never forget who we once were, and we've been bought, that's not the right word, we've been brought near in Christ Jesus. We've been brought near in Christ Jesus. It says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. This is a magnificent bookend that Paul provides to this little snippet, these three or four verses here in Ephesians chapter 2. He's communicating to the Gentiles something very powerful, and he's communicating it to us as well through all of the centuries and generations. The plight that they had suffered of estrangement and distance has been solved because they'd been brought near and now they belong. They'd been brought those who had been far away and had no place to belong, have now been brought near and given a place to belong. The human plight, like I said, is caused by sin, which separates us from God, and real life only comes from Him and is to be enjoyed in His presence. The only solution, the only solution to this problem is not religion, it's not trying to be good enough, it's not anything that this world has to offer. The only solution to this problem is to be close to God. Sin has separated us from a holy God, and there has to be a bridge that's placed so that we can cross the great divide. And how many of you know we didn't cross it first because he came to us? He came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who in the carnation incarnation left the beauty of heaven and came to this earth and put on flesh and bone and moved into the neighborhood so that he could be one of us and yet without sin. And through all of his life being obedient and doing the things that we don't do, he did that on our behalf, he did that in our place. And then that would have been great enough, but it wasn't enough because the sin of this world was too much, and there had to be punishment because of the sin that had been committed. And so the same Jesus, who had done everything perfectly his whole life, took upon himself all of the horrors of sin and disease and death and hell and the grave, and was nailed to a rugged cross that you and I should have been nailed to. Can you hear the pounding of the hammer on the nails as Jesus is hung on a cross and in his dying breaths prays that we would be forgiven? What kind of God does this? Only ours. Only one. There's only one God that does this. Don't let the world lie to you. Don't let the world say to you, oh, we're just Christianity, it's just one of many, my friends. Christianity is the only one where God came down from heaven and did everything that Jesus did so that we could be reunited in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. He's the only one. He, the incredible cost of his own blood, which he shed in our place, was for our benefit. God's grace overcame our plight of sin and established us who would believe firmly in the heavenly realms with Christ. Not only are we left here to our own devices after we're saved, but positionally we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, and everything that heaven has to offer is at our disposal. Not for us to command God or to try to tell him what to do, but to empower us to be his disciples here in this life and to tell other people this merry, glad, great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those are the good works that we're called to. In conclusion, my time's out. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. There's something else that we're not supposed to forget. There's something else that we're supposed to remember, not just where we came from, not just who we were without Christ, but who we are now that we've been made alive by Christ and with Christ. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Let's stand to our feet. Father God, my first prayer this morning is for those who recognize their lives currently are just like the Gentiles were. And they are far from you. Father, I pray that in this very moment that you would awaken them to the truth that makes them free. Father, I pray that by your Holy Spirit that you would open their eyes of understanding. They could see clearly that Jesus is the savior of the world. And not only is it the savior of the world, but he can be their savior. Father, I pray that you give them the ability by your grace to speak to you right now, to acknowledge their need, to confess their sin before you, and to ask you to be gracious and merciful to them because of Jesus Christ, and to forgive them of their sins. Father, help them to put their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus Christ, who is not among the dead any longer, but on the third day rose again and is alive forevermore. Lord, I pray that that would be their story even today. And for the rest of us, Father, we pray that you would cause revival to happen in our hearts, Lord. That we would truly be those who understand that God doesn't make mistakes, God's not in the accident business, but God, what you do, you do well. Every act of creation in Genesis, you said it is good. And then when you created mankind, you said it's very good. This is your heart, this is your desire. We're your people. So, Father, I ask that you would help us in Jesus' name to do the good works that you've called us to do. And in so doing, that we would first remember, remember the state of our lives without you. Remember what it was like to be distant from you, even if we've only experienced it from moments in time when we have sinned and fallen from you. Father, we ask that you change us. Change us, O God. Convict us of sin so that we might repent. Help us to honor Jesus as supreme above all, Lord God, as the sovereign authority in our lives. And help us, Father, to be concerned about what scripture teaches above everything else. Help our our our ears to be open to truth that's based on the scripture, what's in the word of God. And Lord, in doing these things and remembering these things and walking as people who are aware of the good work that Jesus has done, would you help us to glorify you among the nations? The people would see the good works that you enable us to perform and glorify our Father which is in heaven. This is our prayer. This is our humble prayer today, Lord. And we come to you with all sincerity, asking you to meet us where we're at. We pray these things in Jesus' mighty name. I pray that the Lord would bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, that he would lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace in Jesus' holy name. Amen.