Grab your Bible, 2nd Corinthians, chapter 5. This is going to be maybe one of the most enjoyable messages I get to give because sometimes it's like, man, Jake, you're really convicting us. This is just all good news this morning. So if you're visiting, you've picked a great day. If not, it's still a great day to be reminded of the gospel. We're going to talk about salvation and the work that God accomplishes for us through Christ. And this is fun to talk about. I just want to give you a forewarning. There's several amen opportunities, okay? So stay on your toes, be bold staying out there. 8 o'clock was disappointing. I'm just going to say 8 o'clock was really disappointing. But I believe in you. This is going to be good news, and I want us to get it and receive it now. The urgency behind a message like this is a lot of people misunderstand salvation now either you have people who just. They just don't know. It's like, I've never heard that before. I didn't know. I didn't really. I mean, I know about church, I've heard of Jesus, but I never knew how all that worked on the cross. And it's just new information. And then you got other people. It's like, I know enough about it. Like, I know sin, Jesus, cross, salvation, forgiveness. Like, I know enough about it, but completely miss the whole point of it all. We can tend to think like, I need my sins forgiven so I can go to heaven, which are important aspects of the gospel. It's just not what the gospel is about. And we tend to make it all about forgiveness in heaven. But that's not the. That's not the point. So here's what the first thing I want you to understand. Salvation is about reconciliation. Salvation is about reconciliation. We have been separated from God. We were made to be in relationship with God. The discontentment, angst, brokenness that we feel is a result of being separated from God. Our soul longs for God, and only God will satisfy our soul. So the whole point of forgiveness is to be reconciled back to God, that He is our maker and we're disconnected from him, and our salvation is about being reconnected to him. Yeah, there you go. We got already an amen. It's starting off good and strong here, at least in the front row. It'll work back. It's contagious. Now, a lot of people, even though they may understand that salvation is about reconciliation and forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Kind of get that don't know or don't really know how salvation works. They don't understand, okay, I know Jesus dead on the cross. How does that reconcile me back to God? Like, what's the. What happens there? They don't understand it. So I got two purposes this morning. The first is to help us understand how, like, let's get in and study it a little bit. Like, what did Jesus accomplish on the cross? How does it reconcile us back to God? We want to better understand that. And the second purpose, which is for a greater purpose or underneath that is worship like that, we would be stirred up in our awe and gratitude towards God of all that he's done for us. In fact, I heard a pastor say recently that most Christians don't sing Amazing Grace with the amazement they would have if they really understood how they got saved. I don't want that to be true of us. So I want us to understand, like, how did we get saved? What all has Christ accomplished on our behalf? And hopefully to awaken worship. Because, like, maybe you've never heard this before and the lights come on and you're in awe or at least to increase worship. If you're like, I've heard all this before, I know it. Great. I hope this is a refresher to your soul where you're stirred up all the more on how awesome our God is. So this is where we're going. Here's the question. How are sinners, broken people reconciled back to a holy God? Now let me give you the answer. It's not going to be surprising, but it's going to raise some other questions through Christ. All right, we're reconciled back to God through Christ. John 16, or, excuse me, John 14:6. No one comes to the Father except through me. That's Jesus talking. And you see even the goal of salvation, to come back to the Father. That's the goal to get. Not to get to heaven, but get to God to get back to the Father. And nobody gets to the Father except through Jesus Christ. How, how exactly do we get to the Father? Through Jesus Christ. Now, let me put it this way. I'm going to give you kind of a statement that we're going to dig into a little bit and try to understand some words in this statement. So here's what. If you're a note taker, you can write this down. Sinners are reconciled back to God through God's atoning, transforming and transferring work of Christ. Now, those words matter. We're going to look into them. But this is what I'm saying sinners, that's you, in case nobody's ever let you in on that one, are reconciled back to God through God's atoning, transforming and transferring work of Christ. So let's try to understand that. And understanding that is life changing. All right? I don't want to oversell that. It's life changing and it's eternity changing. So let's seek to understand it. Second Corinthians, chapter five. We're actually going to kind of look at some verses we already looked at, and we're going to look at them again next week. So this week is just part one. It's the work of reconciliation. Next week is going to be part two. It's going to be the ministry of reconciliation. So you'll see phrases in here like, he's entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation. We're ambassadors of Christ. We're trying to persuade others. So before. Before we try to lead other people to Christ, we need to understand what did Christ accomplish that we're trying to let other people in on? So today we're just looking at the work of Christ. And I'm just going to tell you right off the bat, we're getting into some big words. We're going to talk about expiation and propitiation and double imputation and regeneration. And some of you are like, you lost me. This isn't so we can feel smart, but this is so that we can understand, okay, what did Christ accomplish on our behalf? And understanding what these terms mean give us a deeper understanding of how. How great our salvation is and how much Jesus has accomplished for us. So I want us to understand that. Ready? All right, verse 14. We're going to start there. For the love of Christ controls us. Because we've concluded this, that one has died for all. Therefore all have died. And he died for all. That those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake, died and was raised. Now, we looked at these passages a few weeks ago, and I said, we're coming back here, right? We're coming back here. And there's a phrase that I want us to notice. It's the first phrase when he talks about what he's concluded. And that is one has died for all. And all of those words are important. All of those words are communicating something. Now, the all doesn't mean universalism. You know what I mean when I say universalism? The view of universalism is that Christ died and his death saves everybody. No matter what you believe or conclude about Jesus, he just saved everybody on the cross. It's like he says all here, but that's. That's not what he means. Like, that kind of viewpoint, it's just not compatible with what's clearly taught throughout Scripture. Now all have died, all are condemned, like all are sinners. Like that is universal. Like, we all have struggles. Like, we all do things we wish we hadn't done, say things we wish we hadn't said. Like, nobody's, what, perfect? We're only, what, human? Like, yeah, we're imperfect, flawed human beings. Like that is universal. But all aren't saved. In fact, he clarifies that in verse 15. He says, and he died for all that. Those who live. So now he's kind of saying, who am I talking about? I'm talking about those who live. This group of people that live are those who conclude, if you go up to the top of verse 14, of who Christ is and what he's done. Those people who put their faith in Christ. So those who live. When he says all, he's talking about all who believe, all who believe. There are those who live that come to faith and live for Christ. Now, the way Paul puts it, though, is he does it this way on purpose because he's making a point. He says, one has died for all. And he's contrasting one and all to show the sufficiency of Christ sacrifice. That's necessarily a sufficiency of scope, but the sufficiency to accomplish what he set out to accomplish, like Christ's sacrifice is sufficient to save all those who believe in him. You don't. You don't need more sacrifices. His sacrifice is enough to do it. In fact, this is kind of talked about in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 10 says, and every priest stands daily at his service, offering, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices. Bulls, goats, sheep. Like they would have their. Their sacrificial system, which can never take away what. Yeah. Now, it can teach you about sin, it can teach you about holiness, it can show you the need for forgiveness, but it can't take away your sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice, what was the single sacrifice? Himself for? What sins? Because that was sufficient to deal with sins. Then he did what? He sat down at the right hand of God. Another way of saying, like, it's done, it's accomplished. I can sit down, I can rest. It has been accomplished. And he sat down for our sins. So Christ's sacrifice is sufficient to do and accomplish what he set out to do for all who believe His Sacrifice is sufficient to give us newness of life. Now, what exactly is getting accomplished, though, on the cross? So we looked at the first word and the last word, one and all, but really the meat is in the middle. Has died for. So what's Paul saying when he says has died for? Well, has died is past tense. And he's saying, referring to Christ's death on the cross, he's saying that happened like that was an event in history, and that event occurred, accomplish something. That event accomplished something. And it was. It was already done. It happened. And the working of that event was the working of death. Like death was issued, consequences came out, punishment was issued out. And this is known as the atonement. The atonement, in fact, atonement, just a base definition, is atonement is an effort to make something right or to make something that was wrong right. So, in fact, I even heard this used correctly by a commentator. Watching football. You should watch football. You can learn all kinds of good theology. So there's a lineman who missed a block, and then the next play, he jumped off sides. So, like two plays in a row, he really botched it up. But the third play, he made this amazing block and kind of sprung the runner. Big run, big play. And the announcer said, oh, he really atoned for his last two plays. That's like, he gets it right. Like, it's this idea of you did something wrong or you messed up and how are you going to make it right? So if you, like, forgot your spouse's birthday or your anniversary, and it's like, okay, how are you going to atone for that? Like you did something wrong, how are you going to make it right? Now, religiously speaking, that word atonement is refers to a sacrifice for sin. Sin's wrong. How are you going to make that right? How are you going to fix that? In fact, in the Old Testament, they had the day of Atonement. It was this day, this big festival celebration where they would make a sacrifice that represented the sins of the community, the sins of the nation that they acknowledged. We need atoning for our behavior, our shortcomings. We need forgiveness. Because sin is the offense between imperfect people and a holy God. Like sin is the obstacle between a relationship, a close relationship, a right relationship between a holy God and broken people, sinful people. So how do you remove that obstacle? How do you atone for that division? Well, do you go to church? Will that do it? Do you give some money? Will that do it? Do you just stop drinking? Would that do it? Do you just Try to be a nicer person. Would that do it? Would you volunteer in the nursery? Would that do it? Like, no, no, those things. Don't do it. But Christ, because this is what he says has died. And then the next word is really important for, like, he died for all. And this is what it's become known as substitutionary atonement. So he's not making atonement for himself. He's making atonement for others. He's making atonement for you and me. He's our substitute for atonement that we couldn't do on our own. He stepped in and took our place. Are you guys getting this? This is good news. Like, you have a debt you couldn't pay. You have sins you can't atone for, but Christ can. Like, he steps in in our place and does something we can't do. It's a substitute. In fact, I tried to teach my kids this one time. They were all in elementary school at the time. We were living in Arizona. Marce was gone. She was out of town for some reason. I had all the kids. So it's dinner time. So I was thinking, what's the hot and ready pizza place? Little Caesars? Yeah, it's like, hot and ready. Let's do that. Five bucks. It's a large. That's how we were living. So pull up, get a parking spot right in front of the store. And I told Mo, he was in the front seat with me because he's the oldest, he's still in elementary. I was like, stay in the car. I'm going to go right in here and I'm going to get some pizza. Stay with your sisters. I'll be right back. He's like, no, I want to do it. Go with you, dad. It's like, no, you need to stay in the car. This is where your sisters are. I'm right there. I'll be right back. Do you understand me? Yes. Okay. So I get out, I go in there, and I'm standing in line, and I got my spidey sense, my dad sense. And I look behind me, and Mo's standing right there behind me. And I look at him. It's like, get in the van. You know, you do like that public yell to your kid, like, get in the van. And he knew, like, okay, he's in trouble. So he went right back to the van. I get my pizza. It's hot, it's ready. They're true. That was right. And we get in the van, and he's kind of already tearing up. He knows he's in trouble. I was like, mo, you deliberately disobeyed me. I told you to wait in the car, and you didn't do it. You left your sisters here. It's like, when we get home, you're going to get a spanking. And that's when the waterworks really started to come. But he's a pastor's kid, so he knows what to do. He said, dad, can I have grace? Right? I was like, you trying to abuse, like, throwing out these Bible terms. Like, I'm just going to be happy that you said so. I was like, okay. I was like, do you, Mo, do you think that's how grace works? Like, just forget it. Like, never mind. Is that. Is that what Jesus did for us? Is that what his grace is? Like, just forget it. He's like, no. I was like, well, what did Jesus do for us? He's like, he took our punishment for us. Great pastor's kid. Like, he's got it down. I said, that's right. I said, I tell you what, Mo, when we get home, somebody deserves a spanking, but I'll let you spank me. I said, but I'm mad, so you better bring it. Right? So what's it going to be? You're right. Am I going to spank you or are you going to spank me? And he's just like, he didn't know what to do. I got this option before in his life. Like, he's all confused, and then from the backseat, Johnny yells, I'll spank you, dad. And it just kind of lost it. There was, like, the lesson. It was always so close, but then we lost it. But it's a substitute, right? Like, Christ takes our place and he atones what we can't atone for. He is our substitute. Now, how exactly does that work? Like this, taking our place. When he takes our place, what exactly does he accomplish that leads to reconciliation? Because our sin is not just a bill that needs paid. It's an offense that needs reconciled. It's not just about paying a bill. Like, we've offended and broke a relationship. So how does what Jesus do accomplish or mend a relationship? Well, this. There's two aspects to atonement I think are helpful to understand. One is expiation, and the other is propitiation. So expiation means the removal of sin. It's the removal of sin which. Which what Christ does on the cross. But there's more to it than that. But. But if you understand, expiation is just the removal of sin. So think of it like this. Let's say I don't know who we got over here? Zach. What's his buddy next to you? Daniel. Zach and Daniel. Let's say, you know, when you preach a lot, you're bound to say some things that get you into trouble sometimes. So let's say I say something that really upsets Zach and Daniel, and they decide they're going to egg my house. Just an illustration, guys, right? And they wait till the nighttime comes down and they go. Which is really foolish. Do you know the price of eggs right now? I mean, I wouldn't do that. But they egg my house. And I look out the window and I see them egging my house. And they see. They run off and they go get ice cream. Because that's what you do after you egg somebody's house or something. I don't know. And they're sitting there talking. And Zach loved it. He's like, that was awesome. But Daniel, being a little bit more mature, he's like, I don't think we should have done that. Feeling kind of shame. I mean, Jake didn't deserve that. So he said something we didn't like. He says a lot of stuff we do. Like, in fact, I love Jake. Like, it's really kind of coming to you. So they feel convicted, and they come back to my house and they begin to clean it off. They clean off the egg from the setting, which is hard to do from experience. I got some suspects. I'm just saying they clean off the egg from the side of my house, and I see them do this. Well, that's nice. And that's the removal of the sin. Like, that's the sin on the side of my house. You came back, you removed it, which is great. And that's as far as a lot of people's understanding goes. I'm a sinner. Jesus went to the cross. He paid for my sin. He took my sin away. But here's the problem. I'm still offended. I'm still bothered that you would do that. Why would. Like, every time I see him in the grocery store now, I'm like, dudes, that egg my house. Like, thanks for cleaning it up. But why do you do that? There's still an offense there. Like, it's not just. It's not mended, it's not reconciled. So is that how God looks at us for eternity? You the guys that egged my house? Yeah. My son had to clean up your mess, right? And you're there, you're in heaven, but it's not right. It's still awkwardness between you and God. Like, if it's just expiation, if it's just the removal of sin, we still have a problem. But this is where propitiation comes in. So propitiation is a word that Paul uses in Romans chapter 3. He says God put forth Jesus as a propitiation by his blood. So he's talking about the death of Jesus Christ being a propitiation. That's awesome. What's a perpetuation? Well, propitiation is an offering or a payment that fully settles things. What do I mean by fully settles things? Propitiation is the term that speaks to the removal of an offense or the removal of wrath, or the removal of anger. It deals with the emotion. So to make someone propitious is to make them favorable towards you. So Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't just take our sin away, it takes the wrath of God away. Or it deals with the anger of God towards us or the offense of God towards us because of our sin. Guys, you got to get this. Jesus Christ on the cross doesn't just take sin away. He takes away the offense. He changes the way that God looks at us. It completely changes the way that God sees us. Are you getting this? Look at verse 18 and 19. It says all this is from God, who, through Christ, God, through Christ, reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We'll talk about that next week. Then verse 19. That is like, let me further explain this in Christ. Remember that phrase, in Christ, In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. And get this. Not counting their trespasses against them. How awesome is that? Now what does he mean by not counting his trespasses against him? It's like, I'm not looking at you as two people that just egged my house. I don't see you as just the sinner. I'm looking at you differently. It changes the way that he sees us. I'm not counting you as that person. I don't look at you and just see sinner, offender. I remember what you did in college and I remember what you did and I know what you did that nobody else knows. Like, they don't look at you. God doesn't look at you that way because of propitiation. The offering of Christ was so sufficient. It didn't just deal with the sin, it dealt with the emotion. It completely removes the offense and there's safety as a sinner in Jesus Christ. Like, it completely changes that. So, guys, get this, look at me here. This is important. If you are in Christ, God is not mad at you, he's not disappointed in you, he's not frustrated at you. If you are in Christ, the way that he sees you when he looks at you is he sees the righteousness of Christ, like he accomplished that in your behalf. Are you getting that? Do you understand the safety there is in Jesus Christ as a sinner? Think of it like this. There's some areas that have frequent wildfires that just do tons of damage, sweep across burn homes. It's a major threat. Well, if you live in those areas, they'll have what they have called a burn zone. They will pre burn an area of ground and if a wildfire comes, you can go to that area and you will be safe from the fire. Why will you be safe from the fire in a burn zone? Because it already burned. It's not going to burn again. It already burned, folks. The wrath of God was already poured out on Jesus Christ on the cross. And you can go to the cross and be safe from the wrath of God. There's safety there. It's already been poured out. Or in our legal system we have a law called double jeopardy. You can't be tried for the same crime twice. Well, on Calvary on the cross, there was a trial. All of humanity's sin before God and a verdict was made. Guilty and judgment came down. But it came down on Jesus Christ. And if you are in Christ, your trial already happened. If you are not in Christ, you have a trial awaiting you. Tracking with me on that. But there is safety for sinners in Jesus Christ. But there's even more to it than that. Not only is there the atoning work of Christ, where the removal of sin, the removal of offense, changing the way that God looks at us, but also the life giving work of Christ, the transforming work of Christ. Look at verse 17. Michael covered these passages last week, so we're not going to spend time here. But he says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Like this is the same conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus. If you want to live forever, what do you got to have new life, you need to be born again. Not a physical life, but a spiritual life. That's what Paul's talking about. You're a new creation, you've been given spiritual life. It's sometimes referred to as regeneration. You've been made new by the work of God and you have this new standing or a new position. So the scriptures talk about both positional holiness and practical holiness. Positional holiness is, hey, because of the work of Christ. This is your new status. When God looks at you, this is what he sees. This is your standing. You are fellow heir with Christ. Amen. Awesome. It also talks about practical holiness. Be holy because I am holy. And don't be too quick to disconnect practical holiness from positional holiness. They're different but connected accomplishments. Because the Spirit given to us, this is earlier on in chapter five. That is a guarantee about our future, that he's given us a spirit as a guarantee. That's our positional holiness. But that spirit is also a fruit bearing spirit. That changes. So if you're a new creation in Christ, you got new passions and new desires and new hopes and new ambitions and a new worldview and a new purpose. Like he says it, that he's concluded that I don't live for me anymore, but for the one who for my sake died and was raised again. Or I look at people differently because of this. I don't look at people according to the flesh as I once did. Like it changes your life. There's transformation. So I'm going fast here. The work of salvation, or let me put it this way, the work of reconciliation involves the removal of sin, the removal of offense, that's atonement, the giving of new life, that's transformation. But also the giving of righteousness. That's transferring. The transferring work of Christ. Look at verse 21. That's one of the greatest passages in the Bible. It says for our sake, he made him. Let me stop there and just kind of drive this point home. He made him. Who's he? God. Who's him? Jesus Christ. God made Jesus Christ like He initiates this salvation. Don't look at God. And sometimes we can fall on this like God's this wrathful judge. But loving Jesus Christ comes in and saves us from God. No, God sends Jesus Christ to save us back to God. God loves you. And it's evident in Jesus Christ. And God made him. This is. God initiated this. In fact, if you look at verse 18, all this is from God. What does all this mean? All of it? All of it. All the new creation, all the concluding that life is not about me. Every work that leads to you being a new creation is God. He initiates salvation. He is the first mover and he saves you from beginning to end. You don't save yourself by using what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. He saves you through that and he has pursued you. It's Amazing Grace, Right? And this is clear in this passage. But he says, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him. There's that phrase again. In him or in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God. Now, this is what's called double imputation, and I want to explain it to you, but I need two volunteers. Okay? There's one. I need you to come up on stage. There's two. Come on up. Give my hand. This is risky because every service I'm like, what if nobody volunteers? And this is going to be. What's your name? Larry. Larry Kennedy. Larry Kennedy Kyle. Okay, which one of you wants to be Jesus? I'm a little old. Okay. Well, I mean, he was before the foundations of the earth. So you're Jesus. It's just an illustration. Don't let it go to your head. And Larry, Your Larry. So here's your name tag. Oh, my head's too big. No, you're good. Okay, so when we talk about reconciliation, do you see how this isn't compatible? You have a sinner in righteousness, so God and his perfection is not compatible with sinners and our sin. There's brokenness here. Now, even if you don't know this language in scripture, you still feel your shortcomings as a person and everybody, no matter how religious or irreligious you are, you try to deal with this. You try to justify yourself, or you try to compensate for that by doing all kinds of different things. So you might think that it was arts and crafts at work today. You might say, I'm a pretty good person. All right? I'm a good dad. I'm a good worker. You know, I'm helpful to people. Like, I'm a pretty good person. You can make other conclusions where it's like, let me say, like, I give. I mean, not a lot of you can say that, but some of you can say that, give money. I helped, you know, I helped my neighbor when she got her hip replaced, or I helped my kids out a lot, or I'm helpful in the community, or I volunteer places. You might say, like, I recycle. That's a good one. Sorry, you're starting to wait. Yeah, yeah, it does get weighted. Or you might be like, I've never. Right. I never. I never killed anybody. I've never cheated on my taxes that I'm aware of. You know, I've never, you know, robbed somebody. Like, I've never done whatever. You fill in that blank that makes you feel better about yourself. You just be like, I'm successful. It's a tough world. And I've put myself out there and I've worked hard and I've done it, and I'm pretty successful. That makes you feel better about yourself. Oh, here's a good one. I voted right. Get your sticker. And I voted the right way, right? So it's like, you can feel good about that. You know, you're a good citizen. You just might be like, I work hard. I'm a hard worker. There's a good, honorable trait, and you can kind of put all these things in, but no matter what you put on top, it doesn't change the fact of what's underneath. Like, all of this doesn't change that. If you got a speeding ticket, if we go an 85 and a 35 and the cop pulls you over and you're like, but I serve in the nursery. He's not gonna be like, I'll knock 10 bucks off. What else you got? Like, it doesn't, like, compensate or balance out the scale. So all of this doesn't undo this. Okay, let's see if we can get them all off. Oh, this is great. This is great. Yeah. So you still have this problem, but what does our passage say? He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. It's double imputation, right? So it's going to get better. It's going to get better. Our sin was imputed onto Christ on the cross. Christ's righteousness was imputed unto us. But Christ beat sin, Satan, and death on the cross rose again victorious in righteousness. And now you have what? Compatibility, Reconciliation. That's what salvation is about. And now you understand double imputation. So you all get stickers. Okay, Give him a hand. Thank you so much. Hang on. We gotta say. And the people said, amen. Amen. Amen. All right, guys, give. Yeah. Thank you, guys, so much for volunteering here. Here's what I want us to understand. The good news is your sin has been dealt with, but not just your sin. The wrath of God has been dealt with. The offense of your sin that God feels has been dealt with. His righteousness has been imputed to you. When God looks at you, he doesn't see a sinner he's frustrated with or disappointed in. He sees Christ. All that is awesome. But here's the question we have to ask. Why? Why was my sin forgiven? Why did he not only deal with my sin, but deal with the offense? Why did he give me the righteousness? Of Christ. And the answer is reconciliation. Salvation is about reconciliation. You were made by God for God, and you will only be satisfied in God. And with through Christ we get God. He's better than anything this world can have. And forgiveness is not just about getting you to heaven. It's about getting you back to God. So here's what I want you to remember. We can enjoy God forever through God's atoning, transforming and transferring work of reconciliation through Christ. And it really is about enjoying God forever. And that it's only possible. Nobody comes to the Father except through Christ. There is no other name given unto men under heaven in which they must be saved other than Jesus Christ. But there's been given a name. There is a way to the Father. And it's through the atoning, transforming and transferring work of Jesus Christ. How awesome is salvation? How awesome is salvation? So here's my invitation. Run to the burn zone like there's safety for you in Jesus Christ. Or here's the invitation from this text. If you go back up to verse 14, here's what he says. We have concluded this. I would invite you to make those same conclusions. I want to invite you to conclude that you have sins that need atoning that you can't atone for. And no amount of good acts that you try to do is going to undo the sin that you've done and the ways that you've offended God. You need forgiveness, you need redeemed, you need made new. You need propitiation. And you need to conclude that Jesus Christ is the sufficient Savior you need. And you need to put your hope in him. You need to trust in him. And not just for forgiveness so you can feel less guilty. And not just so you can go to heaven someday when you die. But you can be reconciled back to your maker. Because here's the dream church. Someday this life will fade away. And everything that you think is important and you've lived for is not going to matter at all. And you will stand before God. And our God is holy. He's a consuming fire. And you can chuckle your way through this service like it's not a big deal. But I'm telling you, someday you're going to stand before a holy God. And it could be the beginning of your eternal damnation or it could be the first day of your reconciliation with your maker. This fire's coming, but it's already been poured out on the cross of Jesus Christ. And if you run to the cross, you will find safety there because he is a sufficient Savior. His grace is enough and through him he doesn't look at you with disappointment or anger or frustration. He sees the righteousness of Christ so that you can enjoy him forever. And if we get that, then maybe we would sing Amazing Grace with some amazement how incredible it is that he saved a wretch like me and maybe we would get that this life is not about us and we would live passionately for him. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to your greatness that we've heard about grace and salvation and the cross and it's been so familiar that maybe just doesn't land anymore. Let us never be a group of people who can talk about the grace through Jesus Christ flippantly and not get stirred up, moved, excited knowing that that salvation that you have offered has changed everything in us. You have given us a hope. So help us sing like saved people. Help us live like saved people all for your glory. Pray this in your name. Amen.