Praising God for His Glory and Grace

Verses 6 and 7 is where we're at today, and I'll be preaching on this subject: praising God's glory and grace, praising God's glory and grace. We have a lot to be thankful for. Those of you who ask how I'm doing, I often reply to you, "Better than I deserve." If we added up all of our sins and they were counted against us, we would be so far indebted to God. His glorious grace abounds towards us, and I'm thankful for it, aren't you? So we're going to see some reasons today in the text why we need to praise God and praise His grace and praise His glory.

And so in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 6 and 7, from the Legacy I'll be reading here in just a moment as we unfold these passages. Now I hope to be able to get to all the information that I've studied, but if not, you'll have to come back next week as we go through the verses. Ephesians 1:6 says this, "To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed on us in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches—" and let's pause for a prayer. Lord, thank You for sharing with us Your Son, that He died on the cross and rose again for those who would repent and believe and have their sins forgiven. God, I pray that You would help us to understand how to please You and how to praise You today. In Christ's name, amen.

In this one long Greek sentence from verse 1:3 to verse 1:14, Paul mentions praising the glory of His grace three different times. And in this, he praises, first of all, salvation. And then he praises God's sovereignty because God is working all things according to the counsel of His will. So that's praising God for your salvation and then praising God for His sovereign control over everything. That is a peaceful doctrine. That helps us to live in peace and rest and be comfortable with the fact that God is in control. And then thirdly, Paul praises the fact that the Holy Spirit has sealed you for eternity. So this is past, present, and future praises here.

You're praising God for the fact that He predetermined those who would be elected unto salvation. And so you praise God for saving you. He didn't have to. He owes you nothing, but you're indebted to Him and He saved you. Now, not only do you praise God for your salvation, but you praise God for His sovereign control. Thank you for working all things in the counsel of Your will, God. And then you praise Him not only in the present tense, but you praise Him in the future tense for the fact that He already has everything already worked out and you are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise and you know where you're going. Heaven is your home if you have repented of your sin and placed your faith and trust in Him. So you can praise God for the things in the past. You can praise God for the will that's being worked out right now in your life, and you can praise God for all future things.

And so the ultimate purpose of salvation is God's own glory. That is the ultimate, the highest purpose, the manifestation of His glorious attributes, the bright display of His glorious grace. We are then to be a reflection of God's glory. We're not glorious in ourselves. Your spouse knows that. We're not glorious in and of ourselves. We know how rotten we are, how wretched we are, but we have the ability to be in Christ and to reflect this eternal glory. We can be conformed and transformed into His image, and praise God when people see Christ in us. Praise God when they hear something that is scriptural coming from our lips.

Now there's verse 7 that mentions the riches of His grace. Let's look at verse 7. "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace." And before we get to the riches of His grace, remember that redemption is through His blood. In chapter 2, verse 13, Paul visits this idea again. Chapter 2, verse 13 says, "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." You who were formerly far off, way off in your sin, indebted to Him, have been brought near by the blood of Jesus.

And so it was according to the richness of Himself that He decided to extend mercy and grace through His kindness to reach so far off to get you and me. And so He descended from heaven, from glory, down to earth and into this wretchedness of us and pulled us out. And so in our poor condition, in our penniless condition, we had nothing to offer Him. It was the riches of His grace that paid for us. But more than in our poor condition, it's almost as if if you were just penny poor, you're in a pretty good position considering. But we weren't even in a penny poor condition. God rescued us. We were in an indebted condition, that we were so far in debt that we could never pay the debt that we were in pre-conversion.

And so we need to realize that being poor is having nothing, but being in debt is worse than being poor. When you are indebted to something, that's worse than being poor. It's a shallow example, but follow this train of thought: that to have debt monetarily that you could never pay back is in comparison to your personal sin very shallow. But follow this train of thought. Just say that you went to 50 different countries and you bought 50 different mansions at a percentage of 50%, okay? The interest rate being 50%, you got 50 mansions in 50 different countries, you could never pay that back. You could work a thousand lifetimes and you'd never be able to pay back your debt.

But that's shallow in comparison to how indebted we are, born into a depraved state. We don't even comprehend how far Christ had to descend to get us.

Speaking of mansions, many who have mansions here on earth are way worse off than the penniless, poor, homeless person on the street because of how far they might be in debt. Those who have extreme debt are worse off than the people that are just poor and homeless. At least they're dead even.

I'm telling you that our debt with Christ, when we are born, is so far that we can't even comprehend it. We could never pay back the debt, much less every little sin if it were to be added up in a price tag to be put on it. You could never, in a thousand lifetimes, in a million lifetimes, pay back that sin debt. It took the rich grace of God to be able to pay what you could never pay. And so we could not pay our sin debt if we lived a million lifetimes. You could do good work, you could be perfect for a million lifetimes. You could be a good person, you could do righteous deeds over and over and over again for 10 million lifetimes and you would never be able to pay back your sin debt. It took the rich grace of God to be able to pay your sin debt. And so praise God's glorious grace. Praise Him for extending His riches way down far to us. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus, that though being rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich."

And so now we have been brought from worse than nothing to more than something, being in Christ. I mean, God literally reached down into the garbage dumps to get us. And think of the worst types of garbage, seeping together and seeping together. And if you lived in the garbage dump and ate garbage and you were just full of garbage, that's not even close to describing how far Christ had to come in to get you. Sin is terrible. And our righteousness—the best that you can possibly do—is equated to filthy rags, compared to what your sin is like and how far off we really are.

If you see this, that God reached down deep into the indebted hole of sin and shame and guilt to get you, homelessness is a high position in comparison to this depth of debt. And so God is amazing.

Not only is He amazing, but He's also in control. And I want you to realize that God stooping down to those depths reveals much about Himself, much about His glory, much about the fact that His love and His attributes—His mercy, His holiness, His kindness, His benevolent willingness—shows us the ability to save to the uttermost. And so do not look inside of yourselves and say, "I was good enough to be saved." Don't look at someone else and say, "They're too far off to be saved." It's God's ability to save. And when we see someone covered up in sin, you think to yourself sometimes, "They're way too far off, they're in too bad a shape, they could never come to Christ." Well, it's to God's glory to save to the uttermost. Those who are the farthest off and those who have been in the deepest of sin and have become regenerated—they've been converted, they've been saved—praise God the most, because they've come the farthest and God has transformed them more. The praise is more. And so we need to understand this.

So who takes on such indebted wretchedness? Do you invite these filthy sinners into your home? Do you embrace their garbage, their lifestyle? Do you embrace all of their addictions and the flies and the demons? Do you bring all of this into your life? Do you bring all of this contagious stuff that could just turn your household upside down? No, but Christ does. Christ does. And so we lead them to Christ and we give them the gospel and we share with them that it doesn't matter how wretched you are. In fact, we just really don't even comprehend how wretched we really are. And it's by the rich grace of God that reaches down to the farthest levels, the deepest valleys, to save to the uttermost. And that reveals a lot about Him. And that glorifies Him.

So do you realize that it glorifies God, in how much His intentions are to condescend from heaven down to this hellish atmosphere, that it shares with us about Him and who He is. And just on a minute scale, don't you think much of missionaries who go to places where they can't even speak the language and they live in mud huts. They give up the luxurious lifestyle here in America. Missionaries, they go in the midst of a depraved people and they share the gospel. Don't you think much of them? You think, "I could never do that." Well, they are more like Christ, and you are more like Christ when you are going to the uttermost. And when you are evangelizing and discipling, this is what Christ did and we are becoming more like Christ. It glorifies God when we go like He did.

The Bible says that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And so from a perfect heaven to a sin-saturated earth, to save, not only to save, but to bring us into dwelling with Him. In Ephesians 2:22, we are made into a dwelling of God. That blows my mind, to think that He would take something as wretched as I and bring me inside of Him. We are made and conformed into a household of God, a dwelling. Ephesians 2:22, "In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." Verse 21 talks about how you're a sanctuary, a holy sanctuary. And then in verse 19, you're talking about again how you're God's household. This whole transformative process brings absolute glory to God.

You know that you cannot do this externally. You cannot legislate morality. You can't force people to be good and have it stick. You can set them on the right track. You can do everything you can. And human nature, people will always go back to what they know and who they are. You can give a homeless person a bath and give them a mansion on a hill and they will make it look like the slums in no time.

The heart change is what has to happen. When someone gets a heart change, then a person no longer acts like they're homeless because they have heaven as their home. They have a Father and they clean their act up, and it's from the inside out that desire is there. And so we dangle the carrot, so to speak. We show them the gospel. We bring them. You cannot force this thing externally. You just show them the glory of God. And by you praising God for your salvation, for the fact that God is in control now, for the fact that you have confidence in where you're going—praising God, praising His glory, praising His grace—draws lost people out of darkness and into the glorious light. You just need to share the gospel. God does the saving, we do the sharing. And so when we are faithful to do that, which we are supposed to do, it reflects God's glory and His word does the work.

You know, we wonder why there's so much sin in the world. Yet without sin, God in His glory would not be on display. And so you can think to yourself too, the depths of depravity on display in this world is kind of an inclination of the heights of holiness in heaven and the glories in heaven. Some of the atrocities on the face of this planet are simply incomprehensible. But it gives you a glimpse of the depth of depravity of sin and how far Christ has to go to be able to save to the uttermost. And it gives you a glimpse of how high the glories are in heaven. And you really will not be able to understand this until you get to glory.

Praise God because of His glory. His grace is on display because of how wretched sin is. And He has now the opportunity to save, the opportunity to be gracious, the opportunity to be kind. Romans 5:20 says, "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

And so think to yourself, it's the power of the gospel and the salvation. And wherever there needs to be salvations, that's where we need to be going. Wherever there needs to be God's glory, that's where we as image bearers need to be going. The ultimate and the climax, the summing up of all things in Christ, is the glory of His grace to be seen and praised. For God's glory to be seen and praised is the climax.

And so in verse 6 here in Ephesians chapter 1, it says, "To the praise of the glory of His grace." And in this doxology—or this, perhaps, this parking for a moment, just to praise God—because it's mentioned three different times in this long sentence, in this long praise, in this long declarative doxology of who God is. Paul praises God in this. And it is bringing the necessity of praising His glory to the surface, because that's what Paul is doing here. And so publicly praising God's glory is the issue. And so in verse 6, it says to the praise of the glory of His grace. And so the ultimate, the highest, and the grand reason for our election unto salvation, unto sanctification, unto eventually glorification, is the glory of God. God's glory—that is the highest reason. So this glorious process gradually brings more and more glory to His name. And so God is working out His plan from eternity past in us now, which will continue into eternity future.

Philippians 2:12 says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." And I want to talk to you for just a moment here about why we should fear and tremble in regards to working out our own salvation. And salvation is a large defined term. It's not just the moment you were saved, but the word salvation theologically encapsulates both eternity past when God elected and predestined you to be saved. But salvation also means when you were saved and how you are being saved and how you will continue to be saved. And so this idea of salvation and working out your salvation—not that you work to get saved, but when you are saved by God's grace, you work out your salvation. You work out that little subcategory of sanctification in your life. You put the effort in to deny yourself and take up the cross and follow Him. Jesus said in Matthew 4:19, "If you follow Me, I will make you fishers of men." And so it's being molded, it's being made. You're going to have things chipped out of your life, and you're going to be disciplined and you're going to be guided and you're going to be spoken to and you're going to be encouraged and you're going to be corrected and refined. And you're going to be rebuked as part of sanctification—embrace it. Saved people want to know where they are out of line with God.

And saved people want the rebuke if they step out, because they don't want to end up in the sin ditch. Saved people desire truth. And so work out your salvation with—the Bible says in Philippians 2:12—fear and trembling. And I've got to ask the question, why fear and trembling? Well, it's because of God's glory. Glory in Hebrew is kabod and it means weight. And so the weightiness of God's glory is at stake because when Christians are not reflecting Him, you're diminishing His glory. But when you are being sanctified and being washed by the word, you are cleaner and you are better reflecting the glory of God.

Glory in Hebrew, I said it's weightiness. It's a fundamental idea that's traced throughout all of the scriptures, that is the manifestation of His divine attributes. It's God in and through you. And it's God on display in the universe and how He is sovereignly in control of every minute movement of the planets. It's God's glory on display on earth with all of the rivers and all of the mountains and all of the sunrises and sunsets. It's glory, it's glorious. All of these things are being manifested and made plain. It's the understanding of God's divine attributes and His perfections. Glory is a visual representation of who God is doing and it indicates the possession and presence of Himself. And so when you are overwhelmed with awe, then you are comprehending some of God and it's glorious, it's a wonderful, wonderful moment.

And at that same time, you are more aware of your personal unworthiness and your personal sin than any other time when you are in the glory of God, when you're in the presence of God. And so it's a weighty thing to be in the presence of God because His holiness and His glory is such that we are not. And it exposes and it refines us and it causes us to be in fear of the Lord in a healthy way, not in a negative way.

And so Ephesians 2:21 says that we are growing into a holy sanctuary of the Lord. And as we are learning how to reflect more of His glory, to be more sanctified in this, then it causes us to have a healthy fear of the Lord so as not to diminish His glory and to make Him unhappy with us. We want to please Him. It's our aim, the Bible says, to be pleasing unto Him. And so we who get these weighty concepts, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling because we are His workmanship and we do not want His glory—we want to praise His glory. We want to brighten His glory. We want all the nations to know about the glory of God. And so by doing this, we are continually being made into the image of God. We're being transformed, the Bible says in Romans 12:2. We're being molded, Jeremiah 18:4 says. We're even being pruned in our life, John 15 talks about. We have been grafted into Him, Romans 11:17. And so therefore, Ephesians 5:1 says, "Be imitators of God as beloved children." It's for His children that we are being image bearers or imitating Him.

So be an expression of God's glory by praising Him, praising His glory, giving credit where credit is due. Don't take credit—give credit, give glory, praise Him publicly. Praise God's grace and His glory. When it's on display, call it for what it is. Be a truth bearer in all that is glorious and be an expression of God's glory by being holy. In Ephesians, he opens up in verse 1, saying "to the saints"—and saints should be, may I say, saintly. Saints should be holy. The very word saint means hagios, holy, separated ones. We're consecrated to God. So when the world sees one who is becoming more like Christ, our sanctification is on display. Our progress in becoming more like Him is on display. You should not be the same person now as you were four or five years ago. Your progress in Christ should be evident to those who are around you. And if you are still the same person as you were even just two or three years ago, I would say to you, get in the word, stick in church.

Get the friends around you that will help you in Christ. Listen to more preaching—good, solid biblical exposition. Get rid of the secular stuff in your life and bring in solid hymns of sound doctrine that praise His attributes and are aimed at Him. Get rid of the shallow Christianese music that makes Jesus your boyfriend. Get rid of all the stuff that acts like Christianity but is not. And here's how you tell, by the way: if a song is all about you, then it's secular.

But if it's all about Him, then it's spiritual. And you need spiritual songs that are aiming your heart and mind at Christ. Not at you—you're not the end all. That's the Robert Schuler health and wealth gospel that has plagued our country, making God into a Santa Claus as if He exists to give you gifts. Who are you? Remember, you're wretched.

You don't deserve anything, but by His rich grace He has lifted you up. And so now you praise His glory. You understand these things, you're growing in Christ. And so we who are consecrated to God, public in the world, but yet without becoming worldly—we need to be in public on display, displaying His grace. In fact, we must be public about our faith. We must shine for His glory. It's us who reflect Christ. Christians do that. And we spread the gospel.

The scholar Francis Schaeffer said 40 years ago, "The church"—and I quote—"the church has failed for the last 40 years." You do the math. 40 years ago, Francis Schaeffer said, "For the last 40 years, Christians haven't connected their spirituality to the spheres of life. They've separated their spiritual life from all spheres of life." That's what he's saying. "And too many are afraid to speak out for fear of rocking the boat." End of quote.

And what Francis Schaeffer identified was the fact that people go to church and act like a Christian, but they live however they want throughout the week. And they've separated their Christianity from how they are on the job and how they are at home, and how this hypocrisy—it's not heavenly. It causes a diminishment of God's glory. So this is an extreme diminishment of God's glory, so opposite of verse 6 in Ephesians 1:6: "To the praise of His glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed upon us in the beloved."

And so our Christianity is not condensed into a compartmentalized lifestyle as if we go to church. No, we are the church. We live on display daily. Why do you think it is a qualification for a pastor to have his household in order and to manage it well? It's because he has on the inside of his house a way that he is, and he must be the same way in private as he is in public. He's the same, he's not hypocritical, right? And so the proving ground is at the home and in how far and who he is in private.

Now, when it comes to glory and glorifying Him, oftentimes I want to just touch on this subject briefly: Christians get confused in the area of suffering. And I want you to turn to 1 Peter 4 with me and see how glory and suffering are linked in the scriptures. 1 Peter 4, verses 12 to 16. And they talk about the trials of our faith, and James chapter 1 does as well. But here I want you to see a connection between these two concepts.

How glory is inseparable from suffering. Think of the cross—Jesus Christ on the cross at the peak of His glory. All right, 1 Peter 4, verse 12 says, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for the testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exaltation. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a troublesome meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be put to shame, but is to glorify God in his name."

And we often pray, and we often praise God best when we're suffering. Oh, when things are good, we do our own thing. We ignore God and we go along our own merry way. We don't pray like we are desperate for Him when things are good. But when things are bad and we are suffering—oh, let me tell you, you will stop everything in your life and you will seek Christ. God, help me. This is a blessing for you. The trials of your life are more precious than gold. You have a whole heap of gold, and it's nowhere near worth as much as a suffering, a trial in your life, because it makes you more like Christ. We need to be tried. We need to be refined. We need the circumstances of our life heated up so that we can be refined. We can get rid of everything that doesn't matter for eternity.

Tertullian said this: if a Christian is pointed at in a negative way, he glories in it. If he is dragged into a trial, he does not resist. If he's accused, he makes no defense. And when questioned, he confesses. And when condemned, he rejoices. This is the Christian lifestyle. We are literally sacrifices. We are literally on display to be martyred. We are following Him and becoming more like Him, and He gave us an example of all of these things. He was a lamb taken to the cross as a sacrifice, and we too—our lives exist to bring Him glory. And in our sufferings, we glorify Him most.

And so we must be in public where there are wretched sinners ready to point at you, ready to accuse you, ready to point out that you are a Christian and to say all kinds of awful things about you. But did not Jesus say in His first sermon, they say all kinds of awful things about you for My namesake, that you're blessed and that you are accounted among the prophets? He covered all of this in the very first sermon. Christians, listen to me. Have a theology of suffering from heaven, not a worldly worldview of suffering. God does all things for His glory and your good. Romans 8:28. And it's okay to cry out to God and say, God, I don't understand, but I trust You.

It's okay to say, "I don't understand, I don't get it," but don't leave it there. Say, "God, I don't get this. Why? I don't understand, but I trust You." Demonstrate your confidence in God's sovereignty and His control and His working all things according to the counsel of His perfect will. And so this glorifies Him. But if you're down and depressed, you are not glorifying Him.

So I say, fellow believers, in a day when God's glory is being diminished, I want us to resolve to rightly replenish God's glory where it has been diminished. And so you go where God's glory is not—where it has been diminished—and you glorify God in those places. It's the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it's the most blessed thing you'll ever do. It'll try you to no end. It'll cut to the heart. It'll hurt like nothing has ever hurt before, but that is your opportunistic circumstance that God has sovereignly placed you in to glorify His name. Don't shrink back. Be salt and light. There is a remnant that will be saved, and it takes the gospel being proclaimed publicly for people to hear the gospel. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And how will they hear without a proclaimer, without a preacher? How will they hear? Well, they must hear in order for them to be able to respond to the call. So we need not to be cowardly in our walks. We need to be bold. Christians are bold. Christians are not cowardly.

Revelation 21, verse 8—I want you to see that there are no cowards in heaven. When you're saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're given a new nature, and we're bold for Him, and we're willing to sacrifice for Him. We understand things theologically, not merely experientially on earth. We're now renewing our mind to understand things from a biblical worldview, not an experiential, worldly worldview. We have a long transformative time before us. We have to continually yield ourselves to God's processes and His ways. And one of the number one things, when you become a Christian, that you need to ascertain and hold on to is a boldness in the faith.

You remember the story of the woman at the well—she got saved, she became a bright light for Christ and tore through town and told everybody about this man named Jesus who knew her past and is the Messiah. And so look in Revelation chapter 21, verse 8 with me and see a list here of those who are going to the lake of fire.

And whenever there's a list in the Bible, the item that is first takes more precedence than the rest. And this list is very interesting. And so when you see, like, a list of the apostles or the disciples of Jesus, you see the first on the list is Peter—he was the leader. All right, and anytime you see a list in the Bible, oftentimes it gives you an indication of what is important because of what's up front. Okay, in the Old Testament genealogies, you have the patriarch who was mentioned first. And the list goes on and on and on. But here is a list of those who are going to inherit hell as their eternal destination, okay? It says in Revelation chapter 21, verse 8, "But for the cowardly and the unbelieving and the abominable and the murderers and the sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." You die once here, but if you are not saved, you will die again and go to hell. But if you've been born again, you will die here, but you will never die again.

Here at this list, you see the cowardly is listed first. And for Christians, you've been made into a representative of Him, and it takes boldness, it takes courage. You are no longer to be identified as a coward that shrinks back. Paul said, "I did not shrink back from declaring everything that was profitable unto you." And so we see this all throughout Scripture. Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 6—be strong and courageous. The Bible says in Joshua 1:6, Joshua 1:7, be strong and very courageous. And so he adds the term very. You're not just to be courageous—you're to be very courageous. And obviously, if you are required to be very courageous, then you need to be in public circumstances that require you to be very courageous. It takes courage to be a Christian, but God enables you to have this courage. But we step into this by faith. It's not that you are not afraid—you step into it and God empowers you when you need it. It's amazing, it's a walk of faith.

The Bible also says in Joshua 1:8, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. It takes courage to speak up. And Joshua 1:9, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. God is with you." And so you have a promise that God is with you whenever you need courage. You can depend upon that. And so if you are going to praise His glory, then you will be public and courageous with your faith. With your faith, you will be public and courageous. There are no cowards in heaven.

Now, publicly praising His glory—here's my advice: burn with passion for God's glory now, and don't end up burning later.

Psalm 24:7–10 says, "Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift up yourselves, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is He, this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts, He is the King of glory."

Glory—what exactly again is it? When we praise God's glory, we magnify and honor and sing and even testify of His wonders, of His beauty, of His immense power, of His complete authority, of His ability to save to the uttermost, of His absolute purity and greatness, of His total perfection in all of His divine works. You bring glory to God and you praise His glory when you're just simply talking about Him and you're sharing and brightening the ideas of Him. You're illuminating God. Psalm 115, verse 1 says, "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory."

Guys, we've got a real problem in Christendom today with worship bringing the glory to the worship leader. Okay, we don't need moving lights and spotlights bringing and lifting up mankind and womankind. We don't need the drums to be lifted up in the air with their face on the screen. We don't need guys with a guitar being zeroed in on and the camera getting tight on him and everybody's like, "Oh, he's so cool." We don't need that.

We need worship that ushers us into the presence of God, where we can lift our countenances up to Him. Our worship leaders are essentially invisible. We worship in one accord. We worship Him in spirit and truth. Our minds and our hearts are focused on Christ. We're not distracted with entertaining items like flashing lights in secular cities. You use all of these gimmicks to get your attention and to enamor you and to entertain you.

Cut all of that out and be at the feet of Jesus. Divert your attention from the things of this world unto Christ. Be overwhelmed with His glory. And in order to do that, you must be able to truly worship in the Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, not in secular entertainment.

The same thing for preaching. We live in a day where preachers think they've got to tell all kinds of funny jokes to get your attention, and they've got to keep up with some type of entertaining cadence of preaching to keep your attention. I've been told that people's attention span is only so much and so you've got to cater your sermon to that. Really?

Whatever happened to growing in Christ, right? Whatever happened to the word washing you? Saved people love verse-by-verse, expositional preaching and teaching. And they flee from all of this garbage. If you see a preacher coming up here with a basketball or some type of illustration trying to entertain you, run from that.

Guys, the word is sufficient. The word is enough. We don't need distractions. We need to be pointed to Christ. We need the word—sufficient. We need God in all of His glory. We don't need anything worldly. In fact, you don't need worldly illustrations. You just need scriptural illustrations to point to what is. Those are the most powerful illustrations. That's how we understand. You believe the Bible is sufficient—then the stories and the illustrations and the things that we have illustrated for us in the Old Testament are best. Did it work out well when Abraham told a lie about his wife? No, right? We see these things on display. We need God in His glory to speak to us in those ways.

And then, so you truly enter into His glory. And so I'd like to end up now back in Ephesians and the fact that nobody has to go to hell. You have a Redeemer. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 6: "To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed upon us in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood." Listen to me. To be redeemed means that Christ paid for your sin debt and He freed you from bondage. All of your sin, all of your guilt—He took it on and He paid for it. Now He gives you life and freedom, life and liberty in Christ. Joy unspeakable, a wonderful life in Him. So much so that you even perceive the trials of this life as more precious than gold. You see how your mind has been transformed by awful trials. You see your trial, you see your suffering as akin to the suffering of Christ, and how that brings God much glory.

In regards to this wonderful idea of being redeemed through the blood, listen to Leviticus 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." This is the doctrine of atonement in the Old Testament, and it is clearly explained in the New Testament. And it's only by the shedding of blood—Hebrews 9:22 says—that there is any remission of sin. You can't use dollars to pay for sin, right? You can't use good works to pay for sin. The only thing that can pay for sin is what?

The blood of Jesus. It is pure, it is holy. It is the only thing that has the worth and the merit to be applied to your sin debt: to pay for where you have erred, to pay for your debauchery, to pay for all the depraved things you've ever thought and done, to pay for the sin state that you were born into. It's only by the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament, the concept of shedding blood was synonymous with death. And so what it is, is the death of Jesus. That is the substitutionary payment for your sin. He died for you. Your curse of sin carries death. You must die.

But Jesus stepped in and He did it for you. He did it for you. This is so amazing. And I'd like to say to our children, let's take these grand concepts and let's boil it down to something perhaps that you may be able to even better understand. And so I would ask you, have you ever gotten into an argument with your sister or your brother?

Have you ever fought back and forth and you got really mad at him? You're like, "Oh, I'm gonna get him back." And say you go out of your mind and you go grab some chemicals underneath the sink, some cleaning chemicals, and you put it in their water, and on a hot day you give it to them and your sibling dies. Now you're guilty of murder. The Bible says the soul that sins shall die, and the one who kills will be killed. Now you must be killed. You have killed your sibling. You got mad and upset and you've killed one of them.

And now according to the law, you've killed somebody—you must die. The death penalty. Biblical in the Old Testament and even today in our legislative system, you've got to die because you killed your sibling.

But wait, Jesus now steps in and He says, "I'll die for you." (Congregation laughing.) I'll die for you. You don't have to pay for your sin. I'll die for you. I'll substitute My riches and My grace and My worth, My pricelessness. I'll do that for you. If you would just simply confess and believe and be saved.

Let's pray together. Lord, we thank You so much for these wonderful truths in Your word. And I pray, Father, at this sober moment, that we would be who we are. We would act like Christians. And at the same time, Lord, if anyone has not been born again here by the blood of the Lamb, by placing their faith in the substitutionary payment that You have freely offered to those who would repent and believe—God, I pray that they would come to You. God, I pray that by Your Holy Spirit's power You would draw souls low into comprehending their sin situation, that they are in a position that they cannot get out of. They can't work for a million lifetimes to do enough good deeds to earn their way out of this sin debt. They cannot, Lord, pay any amount of money to pay You off. They must die because the soul that sins must die.

God, I pray that You would help us here to see many drawn unto true salvation. And so if there be one here today that has never been saved by Your glorious, rich, marvelous grace, I pray that they would come to You. I pray that they would run to You. I pray that they would break down and confess, "I know I'm a sinner, dear God. I can't even pass two of the 10 commandments without seeing that I am a sinner. I know that I am—God, please forgive me. I believe that You died on the cross and rose again for my sins. Please save me."

God, I pray that You would save souls here at Beulah Baptist Church. You would continue that wonderful work, Your wonderful work of extending grace to the undeserved. And Father, for those who have been saved, I pray that they would continue to follow You and be baptized biblically, that they would honor You and glorify You by publicly displaying, through biblical baptism, through immersion, that You have taken them from the grave, from a dead state, and raised them to the newness of life. God, I pray that we would have many saints come to continue to be baptized here at Beulah Baptist Church. Thank You for Your wonderful work there, and that they would be members of this church and learn how to study Your word and to go forth and evangelize and disciple and make disciples. God, may we glorify You in these ways and more. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.