Spiritual Blessings

Well, as Tim likes to say, God uses crooked sticks for his glory, for his kingdom. You're looking at one right here, okay? I think my stick's shaped in a letter Z, so it's pretty crooked. But I thank God for the opportunity to share his word this day. I thought for many years I'd like to preach sometime. I look forward to that until these last six weeks.

And it's, I've kind of, dread's not the right word. I mean, it feels like the right word, but it's an awesome responsibility. So I just ask your prayers as we look into the word today. Let's pray. Thank you. Father, you are a loving God. a just God, merciful and long-suffering.

And we praise You today for those attributes that You possess. And as we look into Your Word, we pray You would open our hearts and our minds to receive it. Speak through me, Father, what You want us to know and to hear. We know, Father, Your grace is sufficient for us. We know, Father, that your Son has given himself for us. So we ask you, God, to help us as we discover these truths again.

As we look at what the word tells us you have given us and our responsibility to heed what you have entrusted it to us. So God, we just pray for your blessings now upon the service. Pray that your name would be praised. In Jesus' name, Amen. I'd like for you to turn to Ephesians Ephesians chapter 1. One of my favorite all-time passages.

That's one reason I'd like to speak from it today. It addressed to all believers It a hope It also a warning So let's go through verses 1 through 14 of Ephesians chapter 1. Apostle Paul speaking, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus. grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. in him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with the promised holy spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory As we see in Ephesians, Paul is the author of this letter and he was imprisoned in Rome when he penned these words and he wrote them to the believers in Ephesus Now this church if you remember was a very young church inexperienced church that Paul had established He been there for three years He pastored the church for three years. After Paul, Timothy came along. For almost two years, he preached, he led that church and he was facing false teachers.

Okay? They had begun throughout the church, even some elders were proclaiming false doctrine. They named two of them. Paul names Hymenaeus and Alexander. He refers to them in his first letter to Timothy. Now, Timothy, remember, Timothy was being taught by Paul.

Just Timothy was like Paul's adopted son. So Paul was really writing this letter to the Ephesians, and also he wanted to encourage Timothy. Now, if we look at 1 Timothy, we see the kind of things that was going on in the church of Ephesus, kind of teachings. There is myth, genealogies. When things come in and filter in to what the church is supposed to be, what the church is supposed to speak, you know, you can kind of promote speculation.

And especially in a young church, young in the faith, it can cause them to sway. I think we can relate to that in our society today. You can sway from the truth. So Paul writes this letter to encourage and to warn believers, to warn us, not just the Ephesians, to warn us, to remind us of our innumerable, immeasurable blessings we have in Christ. To remember who we are. what's been given to us and that's what we see in these first 14 verses now I know I'm speaking to most of you that have heard these words hundreds and hundreds of times and can I offer anything new to you No I can Except to remind you of who you are in Christ I think we all need to be reminded of that daily.

In this world today, you know, you see people that don't know where they're going. you see people taking leave of absence or sabbaticals to find themselves, to go far away, to just roam. What is my purpose here on this earth? Or they're wanting more than they already have. They're not satisfied with the life they have. There's got to be more to it. But we, as believers in Christ, can know who we are.

Paul tells us in this letter. These spiritual blessings in these verses, God has lavished them on us according to His grace, to the riches of His grace. And we know there is no limit to His grace. He's lavished these blessings on us. These are just a few that we're going to look at here. so first of all what is a spiritual blessing i found one definition says god has pronounced good things for our benefit okay that's one definition spiritual blessing god has promised good things for our benefit i also like the one that says they are initiated by God Christ is a mediator of these blessings and they are conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit what do you see there? you see the Trinity, right? spiritual blessings the Trinity is involved in these blessings that God has bestowed upon us and as we see in verse 3 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Who has He blessed? Those in Christ. We've heard this phrase many times. In these verses alone, I counted about ten times at least Christ in him is used in the beloved who is Christ. Paul uses this phrase many times. All the apostles use it.

I should say all the writers of the letters, the epistles, Peter. It's a term for a Christian, people who believe in Jesus Christ. You know, the word Christian, it's another word for Christian. Christian is only used two, three times in the Bible. Do you know that, the word Christian? Paul uses, when you see Paul or Peter say in Christ, he's talking about you and me, believers in Jesus Christ.

Okay? So we got that. But you go through these verses and you see it mentioned many times. So when you see those words, he's talking to you and me. Believers in Christ. So, how are we in Christ?

What's that mean? I mean, I tried to explain it as being believers, but how are we in Christ? How does that work? Well, I found some illustrations that are not my own. So I'm going to read them. If any of you have read Union with Christ, you know, the men went through this book last winter, I think, which I encourage you to read.

I know Pastor has pushed this book too. I encourage you to do that, read this book. It really can explain a lot better than I can what it means to be in Christ, to be unified with Christ. we're going to look at one that is let me see if I can find it here folks first of all we're going to look at what it means to be unified in Christ this is the speaker of this book the writer of this book saying this is his example his illustration when I was in junior high school I played football on an organized team for the first time And my size gave our team a distinct advantage because I was the smallest player on the field I was so small, in fact, that when I had the ball, the opposing team had a difficult time tackling me because they couldn't see me.

In crucial situations, when we had to have the yards, our go-to play was called refrigerator right. in honor of you know who remember the refrigerator perry used to play for the chicago bears coach jr set andrew the biggest guy on our team in front of me as a blocker and the quarterback handed me the ball with andrew leading the way one man made a way for another i was completely obscured by his strength and powerful work, but running to freedom. Everything that was supposed to hit me hit Andrew. He blazed a path for me against hostile forces.

He made a way to glory. I was hidden in him. That's what we are in Christ. Christ has paid the way for us. We are hidden In Christ and his work. Another way we can look at it is Christ is our representative.

We are in Christ, a union in Christ, and he is our representative to his almighty father. I have an illustration for that too. Christ is our representative that means we participate in his triumph let's take an example from the Old Testament remember a couple weeks ago or a month ago when Tim spoke on David and Goliath if you look at that story there were only two warriors that fought that day even though there were two entire armies gathered there, huge armies.

And Goliath said in Samuel 17, Choose a man for yourselves. Let him come down to me If he is able to fight with me and kill me then we will be your servants But if I prevail against him then you shall be our servants and serve us. So we all know what happened. David won the victory, but it was credited or imputed to those he represented. you could say all Israel was in David even though they didn't participate in the battle in the same way Christ represents those who put their faith in him so we're kind of getting an idea what it means to be in Christ to be hidden in Christ we also have some scripture references that can explain it a little bit better than I can.

Galatians 2.20. Let's look at that if you have your Bible. I've been crucified with Christ. It is I. I no longer. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me in the life I live, in the flesh I live by faith, in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Romans 6.4 If you want to write these down, you can. We were buried there. We were buried with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the joy of the Father we too might walk in newness of life. Ephesians 2.4-6 excuse me Colossians 3.1 if then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is sealed at the right hand of God and Ephesians 2 I did have that one down 4-6 but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he has loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, our sins.

He 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 being crucified with him buried with him raised with him seated with him in the heavenly places Being in Christ also means Christ is in us. How does that happen? It's the Holy Spirit. When we were saved, when we believed the Word of God, believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we receive the Holy Spirit.

I'd like for you to turn to John. Well, John 13. Talk just a few minutes about the Holy Spirit. That's Christ in us. The Holy Spirit. Christ in us.

I'm just going to hit a few verses here. Remember the disciples before Christ was crucified? Had a lot of questions. And they were a little bit confused. If you look at verse, John 13. 33, John 13, 33, Jesus speaking to His disciples, little children, yet a little while I am with you.

You will seek Me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. Alright? Now let's jump down to chapter 14. let not your hearts be troubled believe in god believe also in me in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so what i have told you that i go to prepare place for you and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and will take you to myself that where i am you may be also And then he says, and you know the way to where I am going.

Thomas said, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way? Again, he speaks of leaving the disciples here, and the disciples don't know what he's talking about. Okay? Let's jump down to further on in verse 14. Verse 18, chapter 14, verse 18.

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. So he's talking about leaving the disciples, but not leaving them alone. Okay?

He will not leave them as orphans. He will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with them forever. Then in John 16, verse 7, Jesus says, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. So they're really mixed up here. What advantage is it to them if Jesus leaves them?

What would be better for the disciples than to have Jesus beside them, having him within them? And that's what we have. In the book that I just referred to of a union with Christ, the author says concerning the Holy Spirit our union with Christ is real but invisible we must use the eyes of our hearts to look not at what is seen but what is unseen when temptation comes you can say that's not who I am anymore I'm in Christ and Christ is in me we are not left with our own resources Jesus dwells within us We are in Christ.

We need to remember who we are Christ is in us He will never leave us He will never forsake us Let's look at the first spiritual blessing. I realized when I started doing this message that each one of these is a message in itself. So I'm just going to hit them just a little bit and get off of them because I can't do it all in one sermon. And I don't want to preach again.

I shouldn't say that. The first spiritual blessing we see for those in Christ is in verse 4. even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. The first blessing, spiritual blessing, He chose us. And when did this happen? What's it say in the Scripture? Before the foundation of the world.

I don't know about you, but that boggles my mind. to know that God chose us, His people, before the earth was even formed, before we were made, He knew us. He chose us. I can't explain this. I even look back at some of Pastor Tim's notes and what he had to say about this. You can't be totally explained. He tells us what we need to know.

All the rest is by faith. In Deuteronomy 29, secret things are known only by God. They belong to the Lord, our God. So we don't know everything. We don't know how God can do this. But we can rest assured that He has. and as his chosen, he calls us to himself.

By God sovereign election those who are saved were placed in eternal union with Christ before creation And the Bible tells us that no person received Jesus Christ who has not been chosen by him Romans 8, 29. For those who God knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Romans 9, 11-13, Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

She was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. What's that mean? God chooses who he wants, who he has ordained as his children. You see him choosing Abraham over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau. He chose Judah out of the 12 tribes and family of David for the Redeemer to come.

God chooses who he desires. John 6, 44, as we talked about, unless He calls you, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day. So, I can't explain it any more than that. God has chosen us before the foundation of the world to be blameless in Him, holy and blameless. and if you are chosen, you will respond to his call.

You know, Peter, or not Peter, but John the Baptist, came before Christ telling the world to repent, but the kingdom of God is at hand. Then Jesus came, repent, and you shall be saved. You know how you're chosen? you will respond to His call You know when I was a kid I got saved when I was 15 I think 16, I can't remember for sure. I didn't know what I was doing.

I mean, I knew I believed in Jesus Christ, my Savior. But being chosen, being elected, I never learned that then. and I remember we used to have revival services every year, maybe once or twice a year. You know, pack the pew night, pizza night, do anything to draw the people in. I remember that week, God was speaking to me every night. Every night, of course, we used to do altar calls.

You guys remember altar calls? Where sometimes you felt obligated to go down the aisle even though you didn't want to. Well, this night, this whole week, I didn't want to, but I knew I had to. I knew God was calling me. And I waited until the very last night, the very last Sunday night. And that's when God called me to His throne of grace.

And my brother's here today. We both went down the aisle that night and received Christ. Christ had called us. And we've responded to him. So, how do you know? I know I'm chosen.

How do you know you're chosen? You'll respond to his call. I found a song in our hymnal. We've never sung it. I've never heard of it before. But it kind of talks about being chosen.

The title of it is on page 54, by the way. The title of it is, My Lord, I did not choose you. My Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be. My heart would still refuse you had you not chosen me. You took the sin that stained me. You cleansed me, made me new.

Of old you have ordained me that I should live in you. Unless your grace had called me and taught my opening mind, the world would have enthralled me to heavenly glories blind. My heart knows none above you, for your rich grace I thirst. I know that if I love you, you must have loved me first. The great, great words there to a psalm. It really explains what it means to be chosen.

God chooses us, we don't choose him. We respond to his call. I want to encourage you, when you sing, just like that hymn, when you sing the hymns in church, so many of them have the gospel message in them, in just two or three verses, you can see the whole gospel message. Sing them songs as praises to God. As the Scriptures is revealed, even through them, words of song.

I encourage you to do that. The next thing we look at is, since we've been chosen, we're holy and blameless. How can that be? No one is holy. God sees us as holy and blameless only because of the work of Jesus Christ. To be holy is to be like God, moral purity, perfect in goodness and righteousness, and blameless, expresses the freedom from guilt of our sin.

You're not guilty before God. You're blameless before God because of Jesus Christ. Scripture to back that up. Ephesians 2. Let's look at that quickly. Ephesians 2.

Just turn the page. And you were dead in the trespasses in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince and power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. Because Christ gave Himself for us as a Lamb unblemished and spotless we are made righteous in Christ According to 1 Peter 1.9, we have been given His unblemished and spotless nature. Even though this is our position in Christ, sadly enough, this isn't our practice. But because God declares us as holy and blameless, we should strive to live lives here and now that reflect Him, His holiness and blamelessness.

One more scripture. Well, I just covered most of it, but it says in 1 Peter 1, 18-19, you were ransomed from the feudal ways you inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb. without blemish or spot. You know, during the Passover, when the Israelites came out of Egypt the night of the Passover, they sacrificed a lamb.

The lamb was perfect, spotless, no blemishes. That's how our Lord Jesus Christ is. And it's done for us. Spotless lamb to cover our sins. now let's look at adoption real quickly that's the next one next spiritual blessing verse 5 in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will we are God's children as believers we are now a part of his family we all know Romans 8.15 it's a signature verse of this church for all who are led by the spirit are sons of God for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry by Abba Father You know what Abba means Daddy Papa That our relationship to God because of Christ It's a sense of intimacy, relationship free of fear or anxiety.

So God has imparted His own distinct nature to His children. Now we have adopted children here. We have parents that have adopted. We have parents that have been adopted. Parents that have adopted children can love those children every bit as much as their natural children. Can even complete them, complete equality, give them complete equality in the family life, in resources, and even in inheritance. but a human parent can't impart his own distinct nature to an adopted child like Christ does to his children.

We have God's distinct nature being adopted by him. What a wonderful spiritual blessing that is. and why has God done this for his children for the praise and the glory of his grace Jesus talks about his father gladly giving up his kingdom to put his glory on display he has chosen and adopted us before the foundation of the earth so that we are so that no human being could receive the glory for himself. God has adopted us.

Nobody else. We belong to no one else but God. Our salvation is only of him. Of him only. Everything that exists, the reason for everything that exists is the glory of his grace. That's why we need to live our lives in everything we do to the glory of God.

He has chosen us. We are His children. We owe everything we have to God He didn have to choose us but He did This glorious grace which is undeserved loved, which is undeserved, loved, and favor from God, has made it possible for sinners like us to be accepted by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. and because we are accepted in Christ we are loved beloved of God therefore we are children adopted children of God the Father you know I said a few seconds ago that this glorious grace that God has given us is undeserved love and favor we don't deserve it I like what Charles Spurgeon has to say about this he says he speaking of Christ did not come to save us because we were worth the saving but because we were utterly worthless ruined and undone he came not to earth out of reason that was in us but solely and only out of reasons which he fetched from the depths of his own divine love His grace.

Let's move on. I know I'm going to run out of time. Quickly, let's look at redemption. Verse 7, In Him we have redemption through His blood. What's it mean to be redeemed? You know, when I was referring back to being a kid again, we used to go to the grocery stores with my mom and dad and we used to get redemption stamps anybody remember them? man I guess I am old some of you got to remember that Jim, Hope, you guys we used to go to the grocery store and according to the amount of groceries you purchased there they would give you a bunch of stamps They were called redemption stamps.

And when you collected a bunch of them, however many you needed, you remember Gene, all right. You could take them to a store. In Marion they had stores there, redemption stamp stores, believe it or not. Green stamps. Green stamps. Okay.

I guess there isn't more people here the same age as I am. But the purpose of that was you would trade those stamps for something of value, of equal value. A toaster, you know, a lawn chair, any kind of housewares. No, because kids, we thought that was great, you know. That was super. it didn't take much to make us happy back in those days but that's something I remember but that's what redemption stamps were but what's that got to do with that's nothing to do with the redemption we have received in Christ sure there's an exchange made in Jesus blood for us the Bible teaches that redemption is more than just exchanging one thing for another of equal value.

Our redemption as believers is only made possible by Jesus Christ and His shed blood. We also see the word ransom used in the same way used in Scripture, which means a payment demanded or paid for the release of a prisoner or a captive or a hostage. We all know what a ransom is. But there is no redemption without shed blood. Hebrews 9.22 Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood.

And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Romans 3.21-25 through 25, but now the righteousness of God has been made flesh apart from the law. Had been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith You know people don want to hear about blood Preachers don't preach about blood.

The blood of Christ is our hope. Our redemption is in that blood. You know, there's a song that says, when I was doing this sermon, there's so many songs that came to my mind, but there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from where? Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain. There's power in the blood of Jesus Christ.

So redemption comes from the blood of Christ. And why is that necessary? We've just seen that in Romans 3. we're all sinners. No one is righteous. Only through the righteousness of God. Mark 10.45 tells us, for even the Son of Man, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.

In Ephesians 2.13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So now by His blood, we belong to Christ. We are accepted by God through His atoning blood. And along with that, the primary result of redemption is the next part of this verse forgiveness of our trespasses forgiveness of our sins even though it's undeserved on our part forgiveness for us is free and complete we have the freedom from the guilt of sin now and throughout eternity and what God say in His Word about our sins that we be remembered no more He will not bring them up We cannot be accused of those sins We are not guilty.

He has forgotten those sins. Hebrews 8.12 tells of the new covenant that will be established and has been established in Christ. And that God, in both of these texts, also in Jeremiah 31, promises to be merciful towards his people and will remember their sins no more. We also read in Psalms 103, and also Isaiah 4, 44, 22, and also in the prophet Micah, they tell us that God will cast out all our sins to the depth of the sea he has taken care of them through his son which means we do not dwell on our past sins that have been forgiven do we do that? do we still dwell on what God has already forgiven us for? we don't need to do that God has forgotten them why can't we? and there's also that doesn't even though God has forgiven us forgotten our sins choose not to remember our sins sin still happens right we're still living in a godless society in a world that turns its face on God and we still give it in temptation we still fall but 1 John 1.9 tells us we are faithful to confess our sins he is faithful to forgive us cleanse us from all unrighteousness we don't need to ask God to forgive us because we need Jesus Christ he's done that for us but we still need to ask God to forgive us when we fall why? because unconfessed sin leads to separation.

It leads to hindering our worship to God. We need to remember that Unconfessed sin needs to be taken care of and God will do that And it's not just something you might want to do every six months. If you look at the Lord's Prayer, Jesus refers to asking forgiveness in the same sentence as He gives us this day our daily bread. But he's looking at that as a daily routine, folks.

I shouldn't say routine, but we should be doing it constantly. Because we know, even though we don't sin, and maybe not sin in action, we sin in our minds. It's the same thing. We need to confess that before God. We don't want to hinder our fellowship with our Father. We've got a couple more to do here.

I don't know. I don't have a clock. Does anybody have a time? I don't want to run late. Can I hear what time it is? Oh.

Okay. We also have insight and wisdom. God has given us that, a spiritual blessing. We know what God has prophesied through his prophets. has told us through his prophets. We know what's going to happen at the end of time. We know our future.

Natural man does not know that. God doesn't impart his wisdom on natural man. He doesn't impart his wisdom to us, to his children. You know, man thinks he's so wise. He's not wise in the eyes of God. his thoughts are foolish to God but his thoughts natural man's think they know everything you know the smartest people in this world they don't know they don't understand life they don't understand the reason we're here the famous French philosopher I guess he's famous I never heard of him before but I read a quote from him that says this universe is indifferent.

Who created it? Why are we on this puny mud heap spinning? infinite space, I have not the slightest idea, and I am convinced that none has the least idea. This is from a smart man. Jesus said in Matthew 11, he gives us insight on understanding the needs. You know, what God gives us through his word, the insight on how to live in this life every day, how to address the problems we have and how to do that in a godly manner.

There's so much more on this, but I'm going to go to the last one. Our inheritance. Last spiritual blessing is an inheritance. Jesus is a source of this inheritance, this divine inheritance. you notice that Paul doesn't say we will obtain it but we have already obtained it he's so confident in this inheritance that he speaks of it like it's already been received how can we know that how can he be so sure of it when we believed in Christ after hearing the gospel of our salvation we were sealed by the Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire it.

You have the Holy Spirit in you. You have assurance of Christ. You have the assurance of your salvation. All of His promises will be fulfilled Every promise you know I heard somewhere this week there 8 promises in the Bible Every one of them will happen. We can rest assured in that. Salvation, peace, forgiveness, everything is fulfilled in Christ.

Heaven, our home in heaven, what is Christ also belongs to us. You know, they used to seal the documents with a signet ring, I guess. They called it. They made it official. This is what he's talking about here in this passage. The Holy Spirit is a guarantee of our inheritance. we were sealed with a promised Holy Spirit.

We have that hope. We have that assurance. There's so much more on inheritance. There's so much more that we need to understand and realize what God has given us through His Son that we will have, that we can look forward to. We have hope, folks. I wanted to do the next part of the sermon about those of you here today who have never come to Christ.

You've heard the Gospel through these verses today. We're all sinners. Christ is our hope. We are accountable to God. God made us. He can tell us how to live.

We are accountable to Him. But we have sinned because of Adam All have sinned We come into this world defying God In a manner of speaking, we are defying God because we're sinners. God cannot tolerate sin. You know, the world talks about hell. They don't believe it. they like to picture hell the way they want to see it. You know, you hear people say, well, I don't mind if I die and go to hell.

All my friends are going to be there. Or they're not going to want to be there. He's not going to want to be there either. Hell is a real place, folks. The Bible explains it so well. A lake of fire.

There's no relief. but the worst thing about it is God will not be there God will not be in hell I don't want to I'm not trying to preach fire and brimstone believe me I'm not but hell is a real place folks and it's not a place that we want to be I'm so I have so much respect for the veterans in this country that served I served but so many of them gave so much but when you see please believe me I'm not putting down anybody here but when you see a veteran wearing a jacket that says when I die I'm going to heaven because I spent my time in hell you don't know what he means you don know what he talking about I know what he went through was horrible I know some of the things that happened But you can compare that to hell Just because you're a good person, you're not going there. You go there because you believe in the work of Jesus Christ as your only hope. Believe that today, folks.

That's what I'm going to leave you with. Our hope is in the Lord who gave himself for us just pray Father we've seen what you have given us in Christ the inheritance we have being adopted as your children the forgiveness of sins the redemption by the blood of Jesus the wisdom you have imparted to us that even the smartest people in this world cannot understand Father we're most thankful for your son and I pray God if there's people here today that may have been coming to church for years and years and listened to the word every week and never have never come to Christ God we pray that you would work in their hearts and for those of us Father who love you and cherish you may we take these words as an encouragement to us to live for You, to remember who we are in Christ. Father, You have given us so much.

We give You so little. But we thank You, Father, for the shed blood of Your Son who has cleansed us from all unrighteousness. We pray these things in His name. Amen.