Count Your Blessings (Part 2) - Ephesians 1:1-14

The 1st time I ever left the country was January 1991. I was a freshman in college. Never traveled outside of the U.S. before that. Never been on a mission trip before that, and I had the opportunity to go with a group from my college on a mission trip to Haiti. And it was real eye-opening experience to go to any other country, especially to go to a place like Haiti. I remember my 1st kind of memory. I was getting off the plane, and standing waiting on the guy that was supposed to meet us, and I felt a little tug on my shirt, and I turned around. There was a little boy with one leg, with a little homemade wooden crutch holding out his hand, begging for money. And that was my first glimpse at the poverty of this country. And I grew up in by what would be American standards, poverty as a kid, but had never seen poverty like that. And such devastation there in the country. And we traveled up 1st place, we went with this orphanage, and we were hanging out with these boys or girls, this orphanage, and just thinking about their circumstance, to be not only in one of the poorest places in all of the world, but to be an orphan in one of the poorest places in all of the world. And that night we were talking together, they knew a little bit of English, and they were singing some songs, they knew a few songs in English. What surprised me, they knew a very simple song that was kind of popular at the time, that they sang that night, and we sang that with them. And I don't know if you remember the song. You had to go back to like the 90s, probably the last time you heard this song in church. It was popular in the late 80s, early 90s. The song, give thanks. Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the holy one, give thanks because he's given Jesus Christ his son. Remember that old praise song? So, Greg, you remember that? Remember the chorus? And now, let the weak say I am strong. And let the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us. That was such a moving moment to hear these little boys or girls, poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak, the most marginalized, disadvantaged group of kids you could ever be with, and to hear them sing the words in English, let the poor say I am rich, let the weak say I am strong, because of what the Lord has done for us. My mind went back to that moment. All those years ago, when I was reflecting on our text that we've been in last week that we'll be in again this week, as Paul, the writer of these words, is recounting the spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus, that by earthly standards, these kids would not appear to be blessed, but they could sing of the blessing of Jesus in their life because of the spiritual blessings that they have in him. And no matter what life throws our way, no matter what we're facing today, we can look to the blessings that we have as the followers of Jesus. What we're looking at here is the book of Ephesians. If you want to begin to make your way there. It's on page 976 of the Bible under the chair in front of you if you want to borrow one of those, grab that, turn to page 976. You'll find that near the back of your Bible. It's a letter that was written by a man named Paul, who was a missionary of the early church. It's written during the 1st century to a group of Christians in the city of Ephesus, which is modern day Turkey, but began to be circulated around the whole region, and ultimately it was God's plan for this letter to become one of the epistles of our New Testament. And we're starting off looking at these 1st 14 verses, particularly verses 3 through 14, which is one big long run on sentence in the original language, the Greek language. This is one real long sentence. And so we're kind of breaking that down into two messages to kind of dissect all that's in here. Paul is writing this from prison. So it's right it from a place where you would say, by earthly standards, you might not consider this guy to be so blessed. He had been rejected by those he tried to preach to. He had been beaten on many occasions, persecuted everywhere he went. Now he finds himself in prison, and he writes these words, 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, from prison, he writes these words of praise. Praise be to God for his blessings in our life. Some scholars suggest this became an early doxology or hymn of the early church, a way to seeing the blessings of God in their lives. These are blessings that are found. The Bible says here, in heavenly places. Now I said last week, I'll remind us again this week, when you see this phrase heavenly places, don't think location, think dimension. It's not that these are blessings that are in heaven and we're not going to get them till we die and go to heaven, but they're blessings of a heavenly nature, of a heavenly dimension. We live our lives in this world, but our minds can be focused and fixed on the spiritual life that we have in Jesus. Paul would later write in chapter 2. God raised us up and seated us in heavenly places, even though we're on this planet, we're seated in the heavenly places in Jesus. And in chapter 6, he's going to talk about a battle that we face, not against flesh and blood, but against 612 says against spiritual forces in heavenly places. There's a spiritual battle that takes place. It's a spiritual dimension of our lives. He told the Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven. He told the Colossians that we're raised up with Christ and should set our mind on things above where Christ is. And so we live our lives in this world today, but our minds, our eyes should be fixed on eternity and on the spiritual realm, the spiritual dimension of our lives. And so these verses are incredible encouragement as we walk through this life today. I don't know what you're going through today. But my hope today is that these verses will give you a reminder of the promises we have in Jesus, that if you're in Jesus today. If you're a follower of Jesus, you've trusted in him. He is your Lord and Savior. You'll be reminded today of the blessings you have in him. And if you're not a follower of Jesus, that you'll see what he's done for you in these blessings he's poured out on us. I don't know what you're walking through. Just today. I talk to someone who has a family member going through a family crisis. And just the difficult season they're walking through. I prayed right after this service, there's a couple in the 1st service, they're in town because their two-year-old daughters in Children's Mercy Hospital, and they may be here for several weeks, trying to figure out what's wrong with her. Their world has turned upside down. You may be walking through a difficult and dark time right now. You look around, you say, I don't feel blessed right now. I don't feel blessed because sometimes you look at blessings. We think, oh, I'm blessed with a home. I'm blessed with my health. I'm blessed with my family. What if all that's stripped away? Would you still feel blessed? Maybe today you don't feel blessed? Maybe today you don't feel very strong. You don't feel very rich. You look around you and it seems like God is blessing other people with the blessings that you wish you had. Maybe you wonder where God is because you're praying for his blessing in your life, and your prayers are going unanswered right now, and you wonder if he's hearing you. There's a great reminder today that no matter what our blessings in the short term look like, that as fathers of Jesus, we have something far greater. We have spiritual blessings from the Lord. Let's jump in and talk about these. Last week, we noted 4 of them. Today we'll note 4 more, but let's just review real quick. Last week we noticed that we are chosen to be holy and blameless. verse four. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. He chose us. He chose us not on the basis of goodness he saw in us, but he has chosen to save us, chosen to make us holy and blameless. That holiness is the result, not the basis. He didn't look at you and say, you are blameless. I choose you. He chose to save us, and as a result, we are blameless. before his eyes. We also notice that we're predestined to adoption. Verse 5. He predestined us as for he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. When we put our faith in Jesus, we became children of God, we became the adopted children of God. We left behind our life of brokenness to live now as children of the king as greater than any earthly blessing that we can desire or seek. Third, we talked about how we are recipients of his grace. Verse 6, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. He poured out his grace on us. We get his grace instead of what we deserve because of our sin. And then finally, we noted how we've been redeemed and forgiven in verse 7. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. This is a phrase for the 1st century world of slavery. Redemption was the price paid to rescue a slave out of captivity out of bondage. And here he says, Jesus has done that. With the blood, his blood shut on the cross, he rescued us from the bondage we range. See, he put all this together. What an incredible thing to know today. We can stand forgiven and blameless before God as his adopted children. He's rescued us out of slavery, not by anything we've done or could have done, just simply by his grace, he has saved us. I was talking to someone a while back, a young adult who was talking about the debt that they were in, and talking about this massive student loan debt that was such a burden on them, and maybe you've been there, maybe you're there right now. And I said, how big is the debt? And they said, well, it started at this number, but now it's this much. Well, this much number was higher than the, it started that number. And I said, how did you borrow this much for college? And now you owe this much. They said, well, because I went on and got my master's degree, and the loan went into forbearance or deferred during that time, and the interest kept piling up. And so I wasn't paying on it, it was getting higher and higher. And now I'm making payments, but if they've negotiated this minimum payment, and the minimum payment is less than the interest that's piling up. And so every month, when I make a payment, the debt gets greater and greater. I thought of that when I think of this passage, aren't you glad that the debt just gets wiped out by Jesus, you don't have to work this thing off. Because you'd be in that spot spiritually. we all would be. If you had to work off the spiritual debt, the sin debt, by your good works, will get deeper and deeper and deeper in the hole every day of our lives. Because we can't work this off. We needed God to step in with his grace and forgive us. Step in with the blood of Jesus and ransom us from the slavery we were into sin. And just by his mercy on us, to cause us to be the children of God through our faith in Jesus Christ. So if you're following Jesus today, you can know that you're walking blameless and redeemed and set free because of Jesus. Let's continue on on the list that he lays out here. The 5th blessing we have is that we have the truth of God revealed to us. Where the truth of God revealed us. Notice verses 8 and nine. Well, let's pick up in verse 7 and then get there. The end of verse seven. He says, according to the riches of his grace, verse 8, which he lavished on us, he poured out on us his grace, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purposes, which he set forth in Christ. God has made known to us, his wisdom and insight, and the mystery of his will. Verse 8 says, he showered on us not only his kindness, but also his wisdom and his insight. And verse 9 says, he made known to us the mystery of his will. Now, what does that mean? We see that word a lot in the New Testament, or the phrase a lot, the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of his will, the mystery of his plan. When you see that in the Bible, this is how you define that. Anytime you see that word mystery in the New Testament, it is something that was once hidden, but has now been revealed. Anytime you see the word mystery, it's referring to something that at one time was hidden from us, but now has been revealed to us, a little different than how we use the word today as a mystery that you still can't solve, a puzzle you still can't figure out. Well, the Bible says, this is something's been revealed. Don't you love it when you when you when you hear secret news that someone else doesn't. not mean in a gossip way. I mean in a fun way, like when I hear that someone's having a baby, and I find out my wife doesn't know, or I find out that someone got engaged, and my wife doesn't know, or I found out we've made a love connection in our young adult ministry, and my wife doesn't know about the date that happened last week, and I found out about the date, and I get to come home and say, you won't believe who's dating, or you won't believe who just got engaged. Or guess who's pregnant. I got the tea that she wants me to spill, right? And she's like, I get to reveal to her a mystery that she doesn't know. It's really cool when you get to be the one that gets to reveal them, you get to hear the mystery. One of the greatest moments in our life was when our 1st kids told us that they were every time when our kids told us they were having a baby. Each time was what they would reveal to us, we're having another baby, and it's exciting moment for us, that this mystery has been revealed to us. How much greater is it? The creator and sustainer and ruler of the universe has let you in on a mystery. He's revealed his plan to us. He has decided to tell us the mystery of divine truth, something we would be incapable of coming to know on our own. He has disclosed it to us. And what the Bible says, that God has made known his plan to us in Jesus. He's revealed himself to us in Jesus. For the dawn of time. Humanity has attempted to understand the spiritual heavenly realm. You go all throughout history, any place in the world, someone has looked up at the sky and thought there must be something more beyond this world. And they tried to figure that out. Anybody ever been to Chicago before to the field museum? It may have been the field museum. Chicago is one of my favorite cities to visit. That's one of my favorite museums. Bob, you've been there. I'm a plaque reader. I read all the plaques. You are too, and my wife hates it. She just, she rolls her eyes. She's always on a bench, like around the corner waiting on me. Well, I got to go to Chicago, and I sent my wife and daughter off to the American Girls store, and they had lunch with dolls. And that gave me the day to wander around the field museum without anybody holding me back. And what I remember about reading all the plaques, all the exhibits. was how every culture throughout history has tried to figure out God. You look at the, you go to the ancient America's exhibit, and you'll learn about the Mayans and the Aztecs and the temples they built, trying to get to God, trying to understand God, trying to encounter God. You go to the ancient Egypt exception, and you learn about the mummification practices of the ancient Egyptians to try to help them cross over into the afterlife, into the next world to come. You go to Native American section and learn about the rituals and the ceremonies of Native American tribes, try to understand the spiritual world beyond this physical place where even the evolution exhibits, the evolving planet. I look this up, I remember this section, and they talk not just about biological, the theories of biological evolution, but how religion and spirituality evolved. So all throughout history, we've been trying to figure this out. And the quest continues today. Go to Barnes and Noble today and find the spirituality section. and book after book of trying to discover spiritual truth. There's books on world religions, books on uh, Near Eastern or Eastern spirituality. There's books on meditation and mindfulness. There's books on feng shui. Just if I could arrange the couch right, I would have better spiritual energy in my house. We're trying to figure this thing out. There's something beyond this world. How do we solve this? And here's what we get to find out in this text today. That God has chosen to reveal spiritual truth to us in Jesus Christ. that God has revealed himself, in the person of Jesus. That what is religion? Religion is a ladder. Every world religion, every spiritual concept is how do I climb up to God? How do I, by my ritual, by routine? by my efforts, by rules, by whatever it is? How do I climb up to God? Then Jesus says, no, God came down to you. God came down to you. It's not about climbing up to him. God came down, took on flesh, and lived among us to point us to him. Jesus came to reveal God to us. If you're a follower of Jesus today. You have been the recipient of spiritual revelation from God as he's revealed himself to you. I was listening to a podcast a couple weeks ago. And the host asked the guest, what is the greatest piece of advice you've ever been given? And I love this. He said, never take directions from someone who hasn't been where you're trying to go. That's good advice for life, really. Never take directions from someone who hasn't been where you're trying to go. And so if someone hasn't hit the goals you're trying to hit. They're probably not the right person to seek advice from. someone who's achieved that and then ask them how they got there. I thought of that advice implies to a ton of life, but I love it in this context, who are we going to look to for spiritual direction, but the one who came from heaven to earth to reveal God to us? Jesus came from heaven, took on flesh to live among us, and ascended back to heaven. If we want to know about heaven, Jesus is the best tour guide. If you want to know about God, you look to the one who was God in the flesh. What incredible blessing that through all out the history of humanity, people have tried to figure out God, and you and I have today access to the spiritual revelation of Jesus in God's word. What incredible blessing. Second, Today is that we've obtained an inheritance. Some of these blessings are current blessings we have received as grace. We have been set free from sin. We have access to spiritual truth in Jesus. There are also future blessings. One here is in verse 11. In verse 11, he tells us that in him, in Jesus, 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, we have an inheritance. This points us to our future inheritance in Jesus. As his adopted children. We are entitled to an inheritance. Colossians 112 says God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. We have a couple of rental houses. And over the years, I would go to fix things that would break, work on these, and or someone move out, we'd go fix it up, to get rid of the next person. And I would take the boys with me. And one day when they were little, we're driving to one of these rental houses. And Mason said, Dad, I hate having to work on these rental houses all the time. And I said, I know, son, it's not a lot of fun, but you need to learn how to do this. He said, why? I said, because one day I'm not going to be here anymore, and these will be yours, and you need to know how to take care of these. He said, what do you mean, dad? Where are you going? I said, well, son, like, one day I'm gonna die. And the stuff that I own, you're going to get, and you're going to have to know what to do with the things that I love. And Micah goes, dad, stop, stop. I said, what? He goes, I don't want to talk about this. make me sad. I said, I'm sorry, son. I want to talk about you dying. I said, okay. And Mason goes, whoa, whoa, wait, real quick, though, which house do I get? What do you say? I'm gonna miss you, dad, but what am I getting when you're gone, right? Because someday I'm going to be gone. And whatever I own, whatever's left, I stumbled upon a book a couple months ago called Dying with Zero, the author says we're leaving too much money behind, we should spend our money faster in retirement. So, uh, there may be nothing left after I play that out in retirement. We'll see how it works out. But if I die and there's anything left, they're going to get it. They didn't work for it, every dollar in my retirement account, every dollar in carries retirement account is there because we went to work and work for it and put it there. Our house we bought. We've kept up. If we die and they get it, they put nothing into any of this. And they're gonna just get it. They just get it because they're my children. And it's just theirs. That's what we have in Jesus. Nothing, we did nothing to earn this. We do nothing to deserve this. But because Jesus died on the cross, and we are now children of God. We get an inheritance as the children of God because of what Jesus did for us. We must not lose sight of this in the day in which we live. Uh, that things won't always go the way we want them to go. What incredible thing it is to think that we have an inheritance that we don't deserve, that we didn't work for simply because God has made us his adopted children through faith in Jesus. Next, blessing we have is we have the Holy Spirit. We've been given the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, verse 13. In him also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promise Holy Spirit. So here's what happened. You heard the word of truth, the gospel, what is the gospel? Gospel just as a word that means good news. You heard the good news, that Jesus died on the cross for you, that Jesus rose from the dead, and through faith in Jesus, you can be a child of God. You heard that good news. Then he says, you believed it. And because you heard it and believed it, you were given the Holy Spirit of God, it was promised for you. And where was it promised? And John chapter 14 tells us what happened in the hours leading up to the arrest of Jesus. And the final words that he shared with his followers. One of the things he said is, I'm about to leave, but when I do, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to help you when I'm gone. And then he died on the cross, he rose from the dead. After his resurrection, he ascended back to heaven, and right before his ascension, he said that I'm going to depart now, and I'm going to give you, send you the Holy Spirit to empower you to take this message to the rest of the world. So give us this promise. And now we see it's available to all who believe. Verse 12, he said, we were the 1st to hope in Christ might be the praise of his glory. In him, you also, when you heard the gospel of your salvation. You believed. What's the we and the hymn? The we was referring to Jewish believers. We, Jewish followers. Saul, we discovered that Jesus was the Messiah, and we put our faith in him. And now you Gentiles, non-Jews, you got to put your faith in him also, and everyone who put their faith in Jesus has received the promised Holy Spirit. You were sealed in him. What does that mean, sealed? In the ancient world, they used a seal as a symbol of ownership or authenticity or authority, often a wax seal. You might be on a signet ring. You'd have some sort of image that you'd press into the wax or maybe some of their stone or metal implement, that you could press into the wax and make a seal. They'd use this on a lot of things. It would be stamped on documents, on letters, on goods, it might be you're shipping something on from one city to another, and you'd put your seal on that crate to say, this who this belongs to, so it wouldn't be tampered with, say, no, who owns that when it gets to the other side? We have the seal of the Holy Spirit. And we do the same thing today. Think about it. It's a practice, we continue 2000 years later, a brand on livestock, said that's who this these cattle belong to this ranch. A notary. You have a document, you want officially notarized, that this thing was signed. Your birth certificate has a seal on it, an embossed stamp probably, saying this is a legitimate birth certificate, a wedding license. When I do a wedding, I don't know if you know this, that there's 2 parts to it that I fill out. And one, I tear off and give to the couple that's really worth nothing. Just, it's just sentimental keepsake. The other I mail, hopefully I get to the mailbox. And fear is always, I'm going to forget to mail it and you're not married for years. But I mail it to the courthouse, and then the courthouse mails you back the official one with the seal. This is official. This is certified. He said, that's what Jesus, that's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit brands your life. Stamps your life, notarizes your life. And bosses on your life, the authority and ownership, and authenticity that you are a child of God. That's what the spirit does in your life. You belong to God. You are marked by the presence of his spirit. You have the Holy Spirit in your life. The Bible says so much about the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us understand the teachings of Jesus. The Holy Spirit guides us. The Holy Spirit gifts us for ministry. The Holy Spirit empowers us to share our faith. The Spirit convicts us of sin when our lives start to go astray. The Spirit helps us when we're weak. In fact, the Bible even says the Spirit helps us when we pray, even when you don't know how to pray. You ever gone through something, you're not sure he even know what to pray for. And you say, I don't know what I don't even ask. The Spirit of God helps us in our prayers to God. If you're a follower of Jesus, you've been blessed with the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit that is stamped on your life to show the authenticity of your salvation, the authority of God in your life. We had the presence of his spirit. And then finally, we have assurance of our salvation. We have assurance of our salvation. Look at verse 14. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we have this inheritance come in our way. The verse 11 talks of our inheritance in Christ, verse 14 says, the Holy Spirit guarantees the inheritance. In fact, I like to read the Bible in a lot of other English translations when I study it. It's so easy to do now with Bible apps like U-Version and websites like Bible Gateway. You can just pull up 30 different translations and read it. I read several every time I study, and I noticed that many translate, the phrase guarantee is down payment, maybe your translation you have says down payment. The Holy Spirit is the down payment. A lot of things come my mind. I think of like, you ever bought a house before and you put down earnest money? You said, I'm making an offer on the sum of your, I'd see some faces that are shopping for houses right now. You put money down. You say, I'm really, really serious about this offer. Here's some money to say how serious I am. If you put a down payment on something you want to buy that says, I'll put this down, I'll come back. I thought of something that probably half the room is never done. I bet 75% of the room is never done. Has anyone here put something on layaway at some point in your life? Okay, there's a few people, handful. Lay away. That's back before credit cards were real common. You want something you own the money you say. Have you done that before? Okay. You say, here's a little bit of money now. Hold it for me, and I'll come back later with the rest of the money, and I'll get it. That what the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is God saying. Here's a little bit of my blessing now. But later I'm going to come get you. And there's a whole lot more to come. It's just a down payment, a deposit on all that God has in store for our lives. that we have the, the, the promise of, the assurance of salvation, that God would not give us, the down payment of his Holy Spirit only to abandon us now. Whatever you're going through today, whatever difficulty you're facing, whatever trial your face, you can trust, that God has stamped his Holy Spirit on your life, and he has given as a deposit on your life, his Holy Spirit. He will not abandon you now. What do we do with this? Oh, we often in our sermons with the question, now what? What do we do? How do we play it? A lot of times it's 2 or 3 action steps. I'm gonna give you one, okay? I give you one thing you can do this week. we can all find a way to do it. I don't expect you to memorize and remember all 8 points of this two-part sermon over the last 2 weeks. What I want to challenge you to is pick the one that you needed to hear. I'm a guess of the 8 that I listed for last week, for this week. There was one that you felt, man, I needed that promise. I need that hope. I need that encouragement. So no matter what life brings your way this week, we can claim the promises of these blessings, no matter what you're facing. There's a there's a promise in these 14 verses are really 12 verses here that we unpack that you can claim today. Are you struggling with guilt and shame? Claim that 1st promise that God has made you holy and blameless. That the guilt of your past is wiped out. You are blameless in his eyes through your faith in Jesus. Are you feeling lonely, overlooked, forsaken? Claim the promise today that you are an adopted child of God. You fear your life will never measure up. You'll never be good enough, claim the promise today that you are the recipient of God's grace. It's not choosing to love you based on how well you can live your life, but he has chosen to pour his grace out on you. Are you struggling with temptation? Is there a sin, you're wrestling with this week? Claim the promise that you've been redeemed. He purchased you out of slavery. You were no longer a slave to sin because of what Jesus did for you. Are you searching for truth, claim the promise that Jesus is the revelation of God's truth to us. We can discover God in the person of Jesus and in the word he's given us. Are you discouraged because life hasn't turned out how you'd hope, claim the promise of that eternal inheritance beyond this life. You feel weak and powerless claim, the promise of his Holy Spirit in your life. Are you plagued with doubt, claim the promise, that the doubt, the spirit is a down payment. God will not abandon you now. In other words, turn your eyes to Jesus. I was looking at some different scriptures, kind of cross references some things and came across this in Romans eight. I love, I kind of highlighted its underlines and things here. I love how it parallels everything you says here in Ephesians one. For God, you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. You've been purchased out of that. But you've received the spirit of adoption as sons. You've been adopted by God. By whom we cry Abba, Father. The spirit bears witness, the spirit of our life, with our spirit that we are children of God, and fellow errs with Christ, there's our inheritance, provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. Now look at how he concludes all this. You're set free from slavery, you're adopted as a son, you have the Holy Spirit, you're an err with Christ. Then he says in verse 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Whatever you're going through today. It pales in comparison to all that God has poured out on you in a spiritual blessing. That's a meaningful verse in the life of our family. My son, Mason, he's back there in the prayer corner today. If you want to go back and pray, he's back there to pray with you. He's got this tattooed on his arm. Romans 8, 18. How old were you? 18 you did that? 19, okay? Um, And then when his daughter Oakley, so you know Oakley's story, she was born at 818. And we've always made that connection between dad's tattoo, 818, and Oakley's birth at 818. We lost her 14 hours later, and this verse is on her tombstone at the cemetery. Romans 818. No matter what you're going through today, we know that all the sufferings, all the trials, all the difficulties of life will pale in comparison to the glory that will be revealed to us, because of the blessings of Jesus Christ. So turn your eyes on Jesus this week. We're going to sing that song to close. Oh soul, are you wearied and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There's light for a look at the Savior, life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. If you are a follower of Jesus, turn your eyes to him this week and be reminded of the grace of the redemption, of the adoption, of the inheritance, of the presence, of his spirit, in your life, whatever you're facing. If you're not a follower of Jesus, all this is available to you. When you turn from your life of sin to trust in Jesus, to receive his grace, to receive his redemption, to be adopted into the family of God, because of what he's done for you, would you pray with me? If you are not a follower of Jesus, I want to invite you today in this moment, you can turn to him. Right where you sit, you could say, Jesus, I realize now there's nothing I can do to earn salvation. My only hope is you. I want to get off the ladder I've been climbing and put my faith in you and trust you, a relationship with you. Right now, Jesus, I'm turning from my sin to trust you to follow you. If you are a follower, maybe today you'd say, Jesus, help me to Trust your grace, trust your redemption, trust your spirit, to trust that I'm an adopted child. What is it that God wants to remind you of today? Take a moment and talk to him. Jesus, take our eyes off of the challenges of this day and fix them on you. Remind us that no matter what we walk through, we walk through it as your children, we walk through it, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we walk through it, with the hope of a future resurrection, that we're no longer slaves to sin, we've been set free. We're no longer destined for your wrath because of your mercy. Pray the believers would walk in peace and comfort and joy this week, knowing that, being a reminder of that. And for those who are not followers, that they would see your blessings and they would turn to you. Let's walk in these promises this week, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.