Well, scripture contains all kinds of truth and it comes to us expressed in different ways. Sometimes there are warnings and rebukes. Sometimes there are exhortations, sometimes some very, very great encouragements. Surely this letter that Paul wrote to this company of believers, this gathered church there in Ephesus in modern day Turkey, that this letter conveyed to them and was always intended to convey beyond them to us, some very, very great encouragements. And the title tonight of the sermon is Such a Great Contrast, looking at Ephesians 2, verses 1 to 10. And the contrast is actually established there for us to encourage us. It was meant to encourage the believers there in Ephesus. And it was, in a sense, preparing for the further things that Paul is going to say about Gentiles and Jews. that all are in the same boat, started off in the same place and are now in the same place. If they're believers, there's no distinction. He's going to make that very, very clear that we all belong. And the reason we do is all down to God. There's the one who's made all the difference and has done it irrespective where you begin in life, whether they're in the terms of those days to great divides, whether you're a Jew Whether you're a Gentile, matters not in the end. And Paul establishes a contrast. Both start in the same place, but both end up in a completely different place because of the work of God. That is a huge encouragement. And doing it all where we see But there are great spiritual truths. We've seen plenty of them already, haven't we, in chapter one. And the pace at which they come at us, these truths, doesn't slacken off as we come into chapter two. And as Paul has set out the big picture and located us as believers and people in local churches into that bigger picture and shown beyond it and prayed very deliberately, explicitly for the people, that they may get the big picture, grasp that it takes us well beyond the here and the now, and that there is power that is available to the Lord's people to go on through the here and the now to get to this future hope and glory, which is the ultimate destination, the ultimate end for what God is doing and intended to do through what Christ did on the cross. in it all, and in this passage we've just read, which we could, I'm sure, preach hundreds of sermons, if you will, on this. We're going to move really quite rapidly through it and just draw upon the sense of this great contrast. But you will see, particularly in the first four and onwards, that the words are just loaded there with the love of God. It's spoken of, the love of God, verse 4. His mercy, verse 4. Grace, verses 7 to 8. Kindness, in verse 7. And the words there, slightly different meaning, but they all kind of gather together and help to explain each other, give a certain aspect, but all of it is showing us goodness of God, and that comes through, and everywhere it comes through, everything. Everything that happens for us as Christians, for us as believers, everything that has happened, everything that will happen, is all of us against the backdrop of the great love of God, the great mercy of God, the great grace of God. You can interchange the terms and draw each kind of slight nuance that each term has, but Each of them speaks to us of great mercy, great kindness. And this comes to us, not in a kind of small measure, as if this is too good. These things will spoil us. And if you drink too much of this, this rich kind of potion, it will surely spoil you. It will ruin you. It will make you go off beam here. You need to be kept down a bit. But no, no, in fact, Paul doesn't sort of sort of give it out in little doses, but it's great, overwhelming amounts of this are just piled in upon us and upon his readers. And as I say, we keep mentioning, don't we, he's not writing this, sitting in great comfort somewhere and where just the surroundings speak to him of love and and kindness and mercy and grace. He's in a prison cell. And I imagine some of the guards are not particularly pleasant. Some of them have actually been converted. So it's like mixture. But the environment is not one that automatically kind of speaks to you of kindness or speaks to you of mercy. And knowing that Caesar is there and thereabouts going to deliberate on your case. Well, you couldn't exactly rely upon him to deliver perfect justice. So there was Paul, but undaunted by his circumstances, he saw beyond the prison walls and the gates and the guards and the chains and everything, saw beyond all of that and some of the unpleasant people that were in the prison besides and could see the great big picture and behind all of that, the love of God. Well then, the first heading, once upon a time, once upon a time, where we see in verse two, this is which you once walked, the past, the past tense. Not that Paul is going to dwell on it long. He's going to give us three compressed verses, packed actually with detail. We can't do it justice, but packed with detail of statements about human nature outside of God, what it is. Human life pared down to its essentials, but what it looks like, what it is when you haven't been converted. He's saying to them, that's where you were. writing here with view when he talks about you, he perhaps has the Gentiles there, and look down at verse 11, therefore remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh, but he's not going to sort of leave the Gentiles as feeling that they were the most awful of awful people, because he's going to include his own background people, Jewish people, in the same thing. So verse three, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves. And Paul is not saying, well, there we are, you poor things. That was your lot. We were in a slightly better place than you. In some sense they were. but when it came down to the essentials, not at all. Same story. And that is where all began. Once upon a time, Jews, Gentiles, the same, and of each, they were by nature. This is something that followed as light follows day, that what they attracted to themselves in the eyes of God, what it required of God, was his wrath. It required that. It didn't sort of require and demand his love, that if you looked at all of these people, they just demanded really his wrath for their disobedience, for their sinfulness, for their attitudes, for everything that they denied God, that they refused to give to God. And the verdict is that they were children of wrath. And Paul is saying, and we were by nature Jewish people. We had all the things we had, we had the law, we had covenants and the promises and the worship and the tabernacle and the temple, the prophets, all of those things, the covenants, we had it. And yet we didn't listen and we could not rise to those things because we were just as the others, just as the others, just as the Gentiles. And we were in the same boat. That is where we were. That's how bad it was. And In these three verses, he's really, in a way, piling it on there. This is how bad it was. And we have to hear that. We have to realize that. That's how bad it was. Pre-conversion, before we are Christians tonight, this is how bad it is. That the descriptions there are not at all flattering to humankind. They're not meant to be, they can't be. Because we are seeing here, this is the verdict of God. and how we stand before him. And we do surely completely underestimate what sin is in the eyes of God. We underestimate just what it's done to us, what it did to us before we were converted. Sadly, it still does to us as converted people. And therefore we cannot make of conversion a small thing and say, well, there we are. And so many places and churches wave you through, you just have to I don't know, in some places, speak in tongues, you're waved through, or make some kind of vague affirmation of faith and you're waved, waved in as if it's no big deal, this, and it's basically saying, well, sin's no big deal, actually. It's an easy, easy route out. And there you are, you're in, home and dry, and that's nice. And then it's one that why those people never seem to change, why they never seem to produce anything, why they never understand anything. And so, well, it may be because they missed something here. They didn't realize what actually God's view of them is and what therefore is the view that we have to share about ourselves as part of the whole work of God to bring us to repentance. So Paul doesn't dwell on this at length. He thinks in other places about his past. We look to that on occasion and kind of lists the his accomplishments and then demolishes those accomplishments as being as rubbish. But it is pointing out to us that it's good to recollect actually what was. It's good just to remember where we were, what was the situation that we were in. And to shut up, to realize just what a bad place it was that we were in. And Paul is demonstrating the awfulness of it because he's going to make a great contrast in a moment. And it's not as if he's dredging up sort of details. You'll notice when he gives his own testimony, he doesn't spare himself. The people that died at his hand, he owns it and confesses it, but he's not going to go in all of the details of it. He'll mention it, what needs to be mentioned. And having mentioned it, he moves on from it. It's not dwell there, he would say. So we're not to be morbid or kind of somehow fascinated by sin, our own or that of others. And Paul is here giving us an outline, but an outline that is full of significance. And the word that comes to us there, it springs off the page to us, is that you were dead. You were dead. You were living, breathing, you were thinking. You did a lot of thinking before you were a Christian. You may have done a lot of living and those were amazing things as a non-Christian. But actually, when it came to the things that count in the eyes of God, Dead. Dead. And dead in something. It is as though you were in a kind of environment that just choked and suffocated and just kept you in a state of death. And that was the state of being in trespasses and sins. And into this God acts, that's the bus of verse four, that there is this making alive. That is part of the contrast, isn't it? And it's a pretty big contrast. You can't really produce more of a contrast between something that's dead and that's then alive, but that is a huge contrast. And that is the contrast that he's making here, the reality of human nature, it's dead. In the eyes of God, there's nothing there. There is nothing that draws him, nothing that makes him sort of sit up and take notice of us. All he finds in us in the final analysis before we are converted are our sins and our trespasses. That's what he sees. And those things render us in his eyes as dead, that we are not those that he is sort of drawn to and relates to in that way. But that is where we need him to act. He has to do something to the dead. He has to quicken them. He has to make them alive, which he does in his own way and according to his purposes. And it really did need something. because if his justice spoke of us as dead in trespasses and sins, as inert, as disabled, as utterly beyond in and of ourselves, any kind of response to him, then he would have to bring the response into us and would have to put within us the life that could then relate to him. And this is all part of what God in his great mercy undertakes for us. When it speaks of trespasses, well, they would think of specific breaking of the law, particular commandments broken, various ways in which we cross lines, various ways in which boundaries that God had spoken of, just somewhere within our consciences where we've crossed over those. And sins, well, that speaks of us falling short of the mark. If you fire something at a target, the arrow doesn't reach, it falls short of the mark. Well, that's where we are. That's what we accomplish in our deadness. That's the best that deadness can do. It can not reach the mark. It can't produce nature of life that would satisfy God, that would not attract his wrath, but would attract his blessing. And so there is his declaration of us and the evidence of that deadness. Well, it may be somewhat disguised by energy, zeal of whatever kind. It may even be fostered within the life of something called a church, maybe plenty of goings on and happenings. But if the people are not actually made alive in Christ, then whatever it is that's happening is essentially dead. It's not relating to God. It can't relate to God because it is not in the end glorifying to God. It's bogged down in its own deadness. It's unable to rise above its own nature. And therefore you might describe it in that way that there we are unresponsive, drowning, suffocating in our sins. No way in which we can sort of break the cycle. And of course, what's described here, our walk, that is our sort of way of life, according to the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air, we couldn't do anything about any of it. We were trapped in it and had no kind of inner resources, no resolves, no will that we could bring, no desire to change this and know how to change this. It simply was not there. We were unresponsive. Not even on a life support. It needed more than a kiss of life to us. It needed something to be done to something that was already dead. And so this is really quite remarkable what God should do. And we couldn't see it. And that's so much the tragedy of sin. It's so deceitful. You can't see how bad it is. You excuse yourself. You always have pride kind of coming in and saying, no, that won't do. I can't hear that about myself. I won't believe that. And it tries to drown out what God is bringing through to us. We can't see our best interests. We can't make ourselves alive. We need divine input and life. And as Paul describes what deadness looks like, what it's sort of this living death that is pre-conversion, well, it is this way of life, this walk. It is the general habit, the overall purpose of what we are doing. And in the end, Paul sums it up by saying, well, it's the course of this world. He's not complimenting this world. He's not thinking of this world in a happy way. He's thinking of this world as something opposed to God, as having within it its whole philosophies and its aims and its ambitions, what it hungers for, what its big, big values are. They're against God. may bring God in at places, but he's subsidiary, sort of down second, third, fourth place in the list. He's not at the front and top of the list. It's other things that are working, what the world approves of. And within that, well, we have to say, as we said this morning, actually, to the children that They're the devils at work. The devils at work. That's the prince of the power of the air. It's as though the air around us is not a sort of neutral environment. The ether carries ideas and suggestions and temptations and they find us out of the clear blue sky. And that's the devil's work. He's operating in that environment, putting out philosophies, putting out false religions, sending messengers with their messages to try to destroy and defeat the purposes of God. And so we find very infectious ideas. I don't think COVID-19 and this is much, much worse than this. The ideas, they kill the soul. They destroy the spiritual life. They keep us in deadness. And that is what the devil would have us do. Mention the world with its bad ideas and its bad aims. And where does the world begin and the devil end? Well, there's a good question. They kind of intertwine in that way. And beyond that, well, we look in our hearts. It's not as if we can blame our environment. We blame the world for this. We blame the devil for this. because we have to then look inside ourselves. And what do we find? Our flesh. Verse three, this is our flesh. We live out all that we live out in this wider context where the devil's at work and there's the world pumping out bad ideas. But well, all of this kind of comes together because of our own desires. We kind of like this stuff. We kind of fall in quite happily with what the devil is showing us and we're quite satisfied actually with the world because it appeals. Because of course, what is the world but the summing up of a lot of other people and the lusts of their flesh and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind and putting those ideas out there. And of course, because they're the products of simple minds. appeal to other sinful minds and they catch on there because there is happening within the heart an ongoing rebellion. Our lower nature, lust of the flesh, that's the base of things, the ugly ugly things, adultery and uncleanness and immorality, jealousy, anger, violence, cruelty, think of all those things. And then Well, not only the desires of the flesh, but of the mind. The mind is a working phenomenon there. Clever, clever stuff it comes up with. But in the final analysis, that too is its own lust, its own clever sins and philosophical sins and intellectual sins, but sins nonetheless. And for all the intellects and for all of that, they often just resolve down some pretty sordid and basic things in the end. So a lot of clever thinking, a lot of clever words, but it's all just the same old, same old. Sin, righteousness, immorality, sex, whatever the usual, usual things are. And what they attract is the wrath of God, that they all break his commandments, affront his great character, his dignity, his honour, are an injury to the world that he has made, indeed to the wider cosmos, and therefore that is the reaction. Second heading, but now. So having painted a very negative picture indeed, and having stated it as it is, and described it as it is, and painted it there in unflattering colours, but getting down to the nub of it, but there. And you'll notice that there is God's name, not mentioned at all in verses one to three. This is the world getting on without him. Now this is what happens when he works and when he quickens. The words are supplied in verse one, you he made alive. That's the implication of what Paul is saying and we get this very clearly as he then goes on to describe what God then does. It's as bad as that. We had nothing. We have that God, that hope in the world. We had nothing that we could do, that we could bring to it, nothing that we could add to this to sort of help ourselves out of this, it was dead. And we were just the walking dead. There was nothing happening there. What was in our hearts, what was in the world, what was in the devil, all of it was just sort of working to produce in us disobedience and therefore the wrath of God. But then. And if the contrasts, well, the first established facts about us are very negative, then the next established facts are very, very positive. And there are more verses to be spent on those than are to be spent on the other things. And Paul is very, very eager them to know just how great the work has been done for them, just how stupendous, life-transforming, how altering of the entire place and status of those individuals who have believed that are now seen in the eyes of God. And in this, there There is deep mystery, isn't there, dear friends? There is deep, deep mystery because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses. You mean then that though justice and we were just as the others, we're children of wrath, yes, oh yes, yes. But then do you mean also that God had love for those people and would quicken those people? Yes, that's what it's teaching also here. And who can comprehend that? In the purposes, and in the mind, and in the sequencing of things, in the great plan of God. But that's what he does. And it has to be like that, because there was nothing we could do about it. We were there. And if God didn't do something himself toward us, do something in us, to us, through us, then we would still be in verses one to three. And we might go to church, but it would make little difference to the people we were because we would still be going home and basically for the rest of the time living out verses one to three. And we might be very respectable in doing it, but that is still the essential verdict of God upon it. It needed God to do something, and he makes all the difference. So if God is not mentioned in the first three verses, he is everywhere in the next verses, taking us up to the end of verse 10. This is what he does. And what does he do? Well, there's everything that he does. And it just adds one thing to another, to another, to another. and just follows a logical sequence and takes us to great things, final things. but we can see that he is making us alive, made us alive. He quickened, he regenerated, he took something that was dead, even though we were smiling and laughing and getting on with life and probably thinking we're doing absolutely fine until God began to work in us and to be pouring out his spirit upon us. And then we saw we weren't so fine and we began to desire salvation. And all of this came from him. This is making us alive. This is a quickening. This is breathing life that isn't there into people, individuals, people. And then they see things differently. And they are different, actually. They've got new nature. And that comes in towards the end of this particular passage. And things then are on a totally, totally, different course. It's putting it slightly differently as in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and in verse 6, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It says it's God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. That's what we live through, we live in darkness. had no clue we were hopelessly, helplessly fumbling around, light shone, and when did it shone it into our hearts? And when did he give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? And if he hadn't have commanded it, if he hadn't have said, let this happen, let there be light, then there would have been no light anymore than there would have been a creation. So he does that, he quickens. And part of that quickening is that we die to ourselves. We see the wreckage and the need that we have of forgiveness, and we are made willing to repent, and we are made willing to trust in Jesus Christ. We're seeing the glory of God now in the face of Jesus Christ. We see his centrality, and we know that we have no hope outside of him. We trust in him. And then it goes on because if he has made us alive, then he raises us up together with him. We are raised up in him. This is the new life now that we are living it. And the new life is patterned on him. on his resurrection, that as happened to him, so happens to us in a large measure. And we ourselves then are brought out of our death, brought out of the tomb of sin, brought out of the grave that our trespasses have left us in in the sight of God, and we rise up to newness of life. So Romans chapter six, just to read a few verses from there, afore and following. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, our old man was crucified with him. The body of sin might be done away with, we should no longer be slaves of sin. And really that's going to be developed elsewhere within this letter, including the last couple of verses. So we raised up, we now are functioning, living people. We now have got a new purpose in life. We're now seeing the world differently, seeing God differently, seeing Christ differently, ourselves differently, other people differently. And we're now in a position to begin to serve God in that. Within that too, future hope that we're not thinking well this is great for this life but is that it? No, there's more to come and there's glory to come. Christ's resurrection, this new body. We didn't believe and suddenly have a new body. It's probably still got the same health conditions that you might've had before you were converted, or the same heights and the same spots and blemishes, whatever else that you've got, now I've got. No, that didn't change, but it will all change one day. And there's the hope of glory to come. We were raised up to that. So this newness of life, oh, and it was more, because not only that, but he's made us, notice the language there, he's made us. As if to say, you sit here, You don't sort of just go in and sort of choose the seat for yourself. You come here for an evening service. There's only a number of places you could choose to sit there. Nobody has to come up and say, we're so full, you've got to sit here. But he makes us to sit here. You sit here. And he's not barking an order in that. He's sort of deliberately placing us, why in some way quite remarkable, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And when we're not sort of sitting on our own as well, going to Royal Derby Hospital there with Andrew on Thursdays or sat in the kind of entrance lobby area and the chairs also still spread out there and one chair here in splendid isolation and then another chair over there and we just need a pair of binoculars to see the other person, you know, it's still kind of like that. Where we're seated together with him. We're like side by side with him. Because of course he rose from the dead and then went into glory. So he's now in heaven. He's reigning, ruling there. And Paul's already talked to us about that and what his titles now are and what he's doing and how he's acting on behalf of the church. ruling over all things, that's what he's doing. And we are there with him. In the sight of God, we are there with him. Well, sure, we say one day we sure will be there with him. We will be in glory. No great promises about what we will be doing with him in glory. I might read a few of them in just a moment there. But in a sense, we are already seen as being there. So when we're sitting at home or sitting here in church, we're actually in the eyes of God, we're already sitting there as though the whole thing is completed because in the end it is all of God and he will guarantee the end as he guarantees the beginning and guaranteed the one from eternity past and guarantees the other into eternity future, undertakes for it all. It's all but God. It is rich in mercy. And then all that follows is aspects of his mercy, quickening, raising us up and then placing us in a situation that is just beyond the reach of the prince of the power of the air that has no, no kind of contact point with the world. absolutely safe, absolutely secure, and a position of extraordinary authority and extraordinary privilege, that we should be anywhere near him, that we should be seated anywhere in the heavenly places together with him, that we might think, well, I'll just be satisfied to be sort of sitting out in the foyer there, you know, don't mind a bit of the cold air blowing, I'll be fine with that. No, as soon as you're seated with him, you're beside him, you're sharing with him how that works with millions of people seated together with him in the purposes of God, that is not too great a problem for him to solve there, I'm sure. That is what now is. So it's going to be in a fuller sense and the kind of most visible sense, but it's as good as accomplished now, more happy, but not more secure as the glorified spirits in heavens. The top ladies hymn says it, and it says it pretty well, I think, that we're secure in that position that we will have today as we will be. Come what may, come devil, come lust of the flesh fighting at us, come the world with all its worst that it can do, but it won't make any difference, not as we read it here in the Bible, because it's already as good as done. We're already seen as glorified. God's eternal purposes and seeing the end from the beginning, the beginning from the end, then it's already done and we're already there, we're already in heaven and we're seated with him and that we're meant to think and Paul is sitting in his prison cell thinking I'm seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You're at work tomorrow, you may not be sitting, you may be standing or you may be about your other occupations there at home sorting out the washing for the week or Getting on with something there, well, we were seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, actually. And at the computer screen or in the car or wherever you might be, or just there sat in the kitchen. And that's actually in God's eyes and in the final analysis and where it really counts. Just as what really counted before was that we were bound up in the world tools and Satan and just having the lusts of our desires there, crushing really any better and spiritual hopes we might have had. Well now it's completely opposite, great contrasts and now we are seen as there, beyond the reach of harm, outside of all of these evil agencies and we are safe. Revelation has a Some promises there to the churches, which kind of carry this through and take us to the final point. So Revelation chapter two, and this was spoken to the church of Thyatira that wasn't doing brilliantly at all. But it says this, and he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels, as I also have received from my father. ruling and reigning. That's part of what he's doing as he's seated. Well, we read this here, apparently that's what we will be doing when we are finally seated there. And Revelation chapter three, verse 21, again, spoken to the church that wasn't doing well, they weren't allowed to see her. But at the end of the things our Lord says to them, he says to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. You're going to sit with me on my throne. Well, I guess probably there, if you and I were given an invitation to sit with King Charles for a couple of hours or something, I dare say we might, we might say, count me in. I've got some things to say. I have, count me in. And we might count that quite a, quite a moment. There you are, look on the doormat tomorrow and the post comes and they're not on strike and there it'll be, the invitation. Oh, I'm on my way for that, you say. Well, I've got something better for you here on the authority of God's word. You're actually going to sit, I am going to sit with him on his throne. I know, and it is as good as done, as we read in Ephesians chapter two. There is more, that in the great plan of God, what he's doing for us, the good he's doing in us, is actually there to have an impact on other people. Other people are going to read in us the exceeding riches of his grace, because what we have received will commend God to them. That mercy that we've received, we can encourage them, seek mercy also. Mystery of God's election, don't ask me how it all works out in that, but we can commend that mercy of God, that grace of God, that kindness of God. because they can see something's happened here and that something commends God, tells us how wonderful He is, that He saves sinners and gives them then this. And we say, Amen, that is what He does. And these are exceeding riches. Paul is ever using languages. There isn't he that is is going beyond we've seen it in the first chapter and verse 19 for instance there the exceeding greatness of his power well here it is the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus and you can do the number count for yourself in these verses four to 10, just how many times he mentions Christ Jesus. It's everywhere, or him, a shorthand for Christ Jesus. Everything is down to him. It's due to him, his power, his life, his throne above, him doing what he's doing. And well, we're told in my final heading, gotta be brief, look at the time indeed, living by the new nature, living by the new nature, that this quickening, this raising, isn't simply something that therefore we just pass through this world and all these things are true and we hear about them on Sundays, perhaps, and we sing about them in our hymn books, perhaps, but we live then out of that new nature. for this that we have been given, this salvation by grace, and it's not something we worked at. Faith isn't something that grows naturally within our hearts or the gift of God. We're not anywhere here any boasting. Now that we say this, we have been brought from a walk previously where we walked according to the course of this world, now We're gonna walk in the good works that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Different direction now, different goings on. This is under totally, totally new management, aims, purposes, where we're looking towards who we're wanting to please in all of this, what our heart's desires are in all of this. This has changed. And this is, again, this is all the gift of God. We're his workmanship. Do you see this? What all this is saying, we are his workmanship, made alive. That was his workmanship. Raised up with him, that was his workmanship. This being put in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, well, that's him. That's his work has brought us that. On the cross, it brought us that. This gift of faith we have, that's his work as well, actually. That's his power, supernatural, Holy Spirit, working in dead people, makes them alive. Miracle. Yes, that's his workmanship. And the workmanship isn't then just to give us something wonderful just to talk about and think about. It gives us something wonderful to live, live out and live out according to what we have received in this great contrast, we received this new nature. Now his workmanship, so all the above, all that we were the course of this world, prince of the power of the air, the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind now canceled. The power of those things now, are actually cancelled. We can live now differently because of the Holy Spirit's help, because of what we have in Christ. And so now there is a new creation. New things can be created. The old nature is creating bad things, but the new nature creates good things, good works. And some of those works may be very similar to the works that you did in your work before. Actually, you get up at the same time, switch on your computer and you're doing this, get your toolbox out and, you know, because your Christian plugs don't suddenly change, they need a lot of work and they don't always happen quite as you want them there. And you get on with that, but there's something different because you are different. And you now have a background, a surrounding that is the love of God and his mercy. There is something different about your world than mine. And it's all because of his love. That's the backdrop to it. And work can be very frustrating. Thorns and thistles still grow and perspire and all these things are so, and we, Can't offer to our young friend here that childbirth is just going to be a breeze. There still will be pains and difficulties like that. But we approach everything now with hope and expectation in God, faith in Him. We have Him in view in everything that we do. His glory now becomes something important to us to honour Him. That is now really important to us. We want people to think well of Him and not find something in us that makes them not think well of Him. And we meet with help from heaven, kindness and grace and mercy that didn't just convert us, but now helps us live in the new nature and do the things that we now do differently, to think differently, speak differently, react differently. We often talk about that. That's now how it is. So yes, we still have to do what we do and comply with regulations and obey the laws of the land and to do things there and cook things by the recipe and leave them in the oven for whatever length and time it says, yes, yes, nothing in that way has changed. But everything in which we think about it, how we approach it, what it's all part of, that has changed. And that's because we are now his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And Paul is going to go on in more detail to describe what that kind of life will look like, what it won't look like. So things that look more like they belong in verses one to three of Ephesians 2, he's going to say, no, not. But those things which show that God is at work in us, that that great contrast is coming through in the people that we are. Paul is going to say yes, yes and yes to those things there. So such a great contrast. Well, I've talked at length. but I could have gone on talking, there's just so much really in this passage that we could look at, but I'm sure to your relief I will stop there and we will sing now our final hymn which in our hymn books is number 491, Arise My Soul My Joyful Powers, 491.