Several weeks ago, we started what's known as the Prison Officials, which include Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. All of these books were written by the Apostle Paul while he was in prison, which makes the content even that much more powerful. When we think about first century Christianity, and oftentimes people say, well, that was a highlight. Things were going great. Christianity was going strong. Folks, it was under severe persecution. The Apostle Paul, who wrote a good percentage of the New Testament, spent a great deal of time being horrible persecution that he went through, most of which the average person would have said, forget it, I'm not gonna do this. He was beat up, he was shipwrecked, he was put in prison, treated horribly for his faith in Christ, but yet he was a chosen vessel of God to preach the good news of salvation and to disciple believers and to write a great portion of So that's what we've been going through and we'll continue to go through these books verse by verse. I want to remind us very quickly about what's happened in the past week, a little bit longer. Some of these things that should grab our attention. At Union Grove Baptist Church, we don't shy away from current events and what's taking place because current events give us a picture of what's taking place in our world. It also brings out the fact that people need the gospel of Jesus Christ. My friends, the government will not change the heart. The police department will not change the heart. The armed forces will not change the heart as much as we appreciate all the above that we just mentioned. But there's only one way for the heart to be changed, and that's through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So when we see these things taking place, it's a reminder we have much work to do. We just, of course, it's been permeating the news, the New Orleans New Orleans terrorist attack that took place. Again, when we look at what was the purpose of that, what was the motivation behind that, we look at those that don't know Christ. We have those that are antagonistic toward Christianity. They're supporting, in this particular case, the Muslim religion, the Muslim faith. And folks, it's dangerous, dangerous things. That's why we've been praying for a change if you will, in the administration at the federal level to start getting these nonsense things under control. But folks, again, we can deport people, we can put people in jail and in prison, but the only thing that will change their hearts is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Imagine if this person who got into that pickup truck and began to drive it through the streets of New Orleans, killing multiple people and injuring dozens more. Imagine if somebody would have gotten to him with the gospel a few months earlier. Imagine if that person's heart would have been changed. Imagine if he would have bowed the knee, if you will, to Jesus Christ and received Jesus as his personal savior. I will guarantee he wouldn't have done what he did, but it's too late for that. The alleged suicide explosion in Las Vegas that just took place, which of course that's still open investigation, but a person in a, interestingly enough, an Elon Musk made Tesla, driving in front of the Trump Tower and blowing it up. Supposedly he was a conservative. I have no idea what that message was, but it's just unbelievable things that are taking place. The same day of the New Orleans deal, the day after, we read in the newspapers, the media put out about a shooting, 10 people shot in New York. Well, because it turned out that it was gang related. It was a gang funeral and attended by opposing gang members. which is not uncommon at all. They began to shoot into the crowd. Fortunately, none of the 10 that were wounded died, but that just dropped off the face of the earth because of the New Orleans attack. Folks, things are happening. These are horrible things. The gang shootings are just as horrible. It's wrong. It's dangerous. And these are the things that should be getting our attention in 2025. Now again, we'll get to the scriptures in just a moment, but we're setting the context for the Bible passage that we'll be looking at. 7,000 people die worldwide every hour. 7,000 people die worldwide every single hour. Over 60 million people die worldwide a year. 60 million. Now folks, that's a lot of people. I doubt that you know 60 million people. And when you start to think about that vast number of people that die every hour, the vast number of people that die every year, without the majority of them, without knowing Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, it's an awesome, horrific thought. On the good side, 132 million babies are born worldwide last year, 132 million individuals. Those 132 million babies that were born, every single one of them needs to hear the gospel of Christ. Every single one. 3.6 million babies were born in America. Our church has been participating in that number recently. We've had three new babies just in the last several months here, and praise the Lord for that. But you know, those three young babies and the other babies that are brought into our church family, Do you know that they have a fighting chance? Do you know because they have moms and dads that care about Jesus Christ and love the Lord, those babies have a good chance of coming to Christ? The majority of people come to Jesus Christ when they are in their younger years. Moms and dads have a tremendous influence. When we hear testimonies up here, when people join the church or get baptized, And they'll talk, many of them have talked about that maybe they went to Oana, maybe they went to Sunday school, they heard the gospel and they went home and they started to talk to mom and dad. By the way, moms and dads, do you know the gospel? We give it every single week here. It should be pretty simple to you. But if your child came to you right now and said, mom, dad, I heard this thing about going to heaven. Can you explain it to me? Do you know that that is the best time in the world for you to explain it to them and give them the gospel of Jesus? 31% of people in the world call themselves Christian. 31%. Now that means they could go to any church under the sun that's called quote unquote Christian. However, we've known and I've put it out there many, many times from Barna and Pew Research that in all essence, about 4% of the world's population holds to a biblical worldview. Because you walked into Union Grove Baptist Church or any other church that has the word Christian on it does not make you a Christian. As we talked about earlier before we took communion, the only way to become a Christian is to put your faith and trust in Christ. And coming into this church building does not make you a Christian. It means you're searching, maybe, to be a Christian. It means you're embracing, maybe, what a Christian is. But the only way to be a Christian is to put your faith in Him. Well, 31% of people call themselves Christians. That means, at a minimum, 69% of all people are not Christians and openly will state so. Do we have a job to do, ladies and gentlemen? We do. Our church, along with every other Bible-believing church. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, for the love of Christ, what's that word? Love. The love of Christ compels us because we judge thus, that if one Jesus Christ died for all, then all died. And he, Jesus Christ, died for all, that those who live should live no longer for, uh-oh, uh-oh. As a Christian, who do we live for? It's tough. It's a tough statement, and God makes it over and over again in Scripture. If you put your faith in Christ, those who live that have put their faith in Christ, that's what he's talking about here, should no longer live for themselves. but for him, but for Jesus, who died for them and rose again. What is the essence of spiritual revival? We touched on this last week. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. Here's the essence of having revival in 2025 in our hearts. Rejoice always. Find the good. Listen, folks, I know there's plenty of bad, I can talk about bad till the cowboys come home. I open the message with a bunch of things that are tough and harsh and going wrong in our country and internationally as well. And God said, listen, no, for the Christian. Well, let me see, what are we talking about in Ephesians chapter two, verse one, when we opened up this morning? Rejoice in the Lord always. Why? Because he made you alive. And he said, rejoice always. And here's a key element of revival. Pray without ceasing. Every moment of every day, from the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep at night, every single thing should be bathed in prayer. You're like, I don't have time to get on my knees and pray about everything. You don't need to get on your knees to pray about everything. You can be driving to school. You can be driving to work. You can be walking through your home. You don't have to get on your knees. You don't have to close your eyes. And if you're driving, I suggest you don't do that. You can talk to God. God does not give us a specific position we must be in for him to listen to us. You can't pray without ceasing if you are, if you will, locked up in a literal position, but God does say pray without ceasing every moment, every day, no matter what it is, no matter what the difficulty is or the blessing is, pray without ceasing. In everything, give thanks for this is what? The will of God, God's will. You wanna know what God's will is? He said you ought to be thankful. That's the essence of spiritual revival. Well, last week, very quickly, we went through five specific things that I just wanna rehearse very quickly. Five things that Paul prayed for the Christians, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, biblical literacy, know the word of God. My dear friends, if you only come to church on Sunday morning, and that's the only time you crack your Bible, you in all likelihood will fail this year. Did you hear me? The Bible must be a continual ongoing project. The Bible talks about sanctification. The definition of sanctification is the continual ongoing process of becoming more like Christ. The spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge. Paul says you need that. He said you need the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? And what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe? My dear friend, again, I'm basically the coach. This is not game time. Many of you watch football or other sports. The coach gets into the room before the guys and gals get out on the field and says, here, listen, this is what we got to do today. You gotta go out there and blank, blank, blank, get it done. It's not the game. This is the coach time. Folks, the battle isn't in this room. The battle's outside the four walls of the church. The battle's in the hearts of those that you will meet within the workplace and the school place and others. And if you're not prepared, if you're not spending time with the Lord, if you're not involved in prayer, if you're not involved in Bible study, You're gonna fail. It's just impossible because we're in a spiritual battle. Spiritual revival is impossible without spiritual understanding. Are you reading your Bible every single day? You say, Pastor, I don't have time. You don't have time not to. I don't care if it's five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, whatever you can fit in, you can find the time. Turn off the TV for five minutes, read the Bible. Turn off your podcast for five minutes, read the Bible. Turn off whatever it is that you do for entertainment and read the Bible. I'm sure your wife or your husband or your children will be happy to give you five minutes to read the scriptures. And I would encourage you to read a much more than five minutes a day. But boy, start something. You want a New Year's resolution? How about let's open up our Bible and read it? How about instead of listening to nonsense on the radio day and night, night and day, TV day and night, night and day, how about using that cell phone for something besides video games? Uh-oh, now we're getting dangerous. How about putting on a Bible app and maybe listening to while you're driving or while you're walking or whatever you might be doing? How about listening to some Bible on a Bible app and giving God some time to speak to your heart? None of that other stuff, even though it might be good stuff, nothing is gonna do what God's word can do for you. Biblical literacy produces a spiritual, don't worry, it's only water. Biblical literacy produces a spiritual focus on the Lord. We talked about this. When you have biblical literacy, when you're in the scriptures, when you're bathing yourself in God's word, what will it do? It will affect your spiritual outlook on life. It will affect your outlook on families, friends, and your finances, everything involved in every single part of your life. Well, here's where we ended up at verse 21. We're gonna pick it up there. We're not gonna get very far today, but let's take a look. Paul's specific reasoning in his prayer. Why did Paul just pray for those things? Why did he say you need biblical understanding? Why did he say you need knowledge in God's word? Why did he say you need to be in tune with God and he? Verse 22, Ephesians 1, and he, God the Father, put all things under his, speaking of Jesus' feet, and gave him, Jesus, to be head over all things to the church. Now wait a second, what is the church? The body of Christ, rightly stated. Yes, this is a local New Testament Bible-believing church, but what we're talking about here, when we're talking about the church in this perspective, we're talking about the term, if you will, the church universal. He's talking about every single person that's put their faith and trust in Christ, regardless of what country they live in, no matter of where they live, no matter what they do, every single person that has put their faith and trust in Christ, we are part of his what? His body, which by definition is the church. It's his body, it's the fullness of him who fills all in all. Well, couple of quick things, Christians, are individual members of the church. Now, I'm not talking about church membership like we talked about earlier today. What we're talking about is when you put your faith in Christ, you became a member of what? The body of Christ. And who is the head? Jesus is the head. There's a living, dynamic connection between Christians and Christ. You see, when we look across just our crowd here this morning, Every single person that's put your faith and trust in Christ is part of that same body. That's why it's so important that we work together, that we're cohesive. I talked a little bit earlier about having some surgery coming up on Tuesday where, of all things, they're gonna pull my eye apart. Now imagine that in the body of Christ. I don't know who the eye is in here, but somebody here's the eye. Somebody hears the cornea. Somebody hears the retina. Somebody hears the iris. Somebody hears the lens in the eye. And every single piece must work together in order for you to get what? Proper vision, if you will. Proper direction. And that's what God's saying. Every single one of you is so important. Your giftedness is so important. God gave each and every one of you things that you can do that nobody else in this building can do. And God said, listen, there has to be this dynamic connection between Christians as well as Christ. The head, Jesus Christ, controls the body and keeps the yielded body functioning properly. That's what he's saying. centric, Christ in the center of everything we do. Well, again, very quickly, the doctrinal things that we have looked at so far over the past several weeks. We talked about the sovereign election of the Father. God has called us. He has put us in specific places. He has, if you will, predestined us to future things in glory. The redemptive work of Christ, which, of course, we talked about during communion. The sealing of the Holy Spirit. Every single one of you that puts your faith and trust in Christ, the moment you trusted in Him, we looked at Ephesians 1, 13 to 14, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you. Some folks get, if you will, confused and they're like, well, you know, can I lose my salvation? Will God ever take away my salvation because I did something wrong? And God says, no. Now you may not deserve it, and I may not, But God said, listen, when you put your faith and trust in Christ, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you. And Ephesians 4.30 will remind us when we get there, that do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you are sealed. You're sealed. And we looked at that in verse 13 and 14. Then we also been talking about the guaranteed blessings in Christ. So very simply, if we wanted to put it on a simple as possible scale from what we've gone through, It basically starts, the same concept we went through with communion this morning. You hear the gospel. You had to have heard it or read it. Somehow the gospel had to get to you. You understood the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the fact that he died for sinners. Then what's the next step? As he goes through Ephesians, you not only hear it, but what? You have to believe it, accept it, receive it. Then after you receive the gospel, what are you? You are sealed by the Holy Spirit. And what do we have? A guaranteed inheritance. Well, very quickly, when we get to Ephesians chapter two, I don't think we'll get past the first couple of phrases here this morning, but I wanna remind you that you've been made alive. You've been made alive. You're no longer dead in trespasses and sin, Christians, you've been made alive. I mean, God put new life in you. You say, oh, pastor, I gotta be honest. I don't feel like it. I feel some defeated sometimes. I feel pressured sometimes. I feel like things aren't going well sometimes. And God said, well, how about reading the book and remembering once again that you're alive? You see, when we keep feeding garbage in, what do you get? Garbage out. When you put the good things in, you get good things out. When you spend time with the Lord and rejoice in what He's doing, and you pray without ceasing, and realize that you've been made alive. Yes, okay, we all go through tough things. Some of you go through unbelievably tough things. Some of those watching on the internet right now that are shut in are going through unbearable things. But God says you're alive. I've made you alive. Colossians 2 verse 13 says, "'being dead in your trespasses "'and the uncircumcision of your flesh, "'he has made alive together with him, "'having forgiven you all trespasses.'" Folks, that's good news. I'll be hearing people going, yahoo, amen, praise the Lord. Why? Because when you remember where you came from, do you remember where you came from? And I mean, Jesus Christ came into your heart, the Holy Spirit came in and he redeemed you, he changed you, he forgave you, he took away all those sins that were on a sheet that looked like this, covered with sinful things, and he changed it around and said, here's what you look like now. It's all gone, it's clean. having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. He took our list of sins, he put them up on the cross, he nailed them there, and said, it's paid for. It's paid for, it's all done. Listen folks, isn't that something to be excited about? Isn't it something to know that in the future, not only are our sins forgiven, Not only can we have a right relationship with God, not only are we alive with him, but we'll also spend what? Eternity with him in the future. Very quickly, and we'll stop with this section, spiritual rejection. We stood condemned. We stood rejected. Dead. Dead. No life, nothing there, totally gone. He said, he made alive, but where were we before you came alive? He said, you were dead. Did you catch that? Those of you that are grammarians, that's past tense. In other words, what is he saying? He said, before you put your faith in Jesus, you are dead, dead. What does a dead person do? Nothing. What do they relate? Nothing. What do they say? Nothing. What can they accomplish? Nothing. And you say, well, I take exception to that. I did a lot of things before I came to Christ. In God's eyes, you were dead. It's useless. All your righteousness is as filthy rags. There's nothing good about it till you come to Christ. And he said, listen, I want you to be happy this morning. He said, you were, past tense, dead in what? In trespasses. Well, what's the difference between trespasses and sins? close to each other. The trespass literally means a violation of a moral standard. We violated God's standards. We got violated His moral law, if you will. Those were trespasses, violating the law. And sins, basically, harmatology, which is the doctrine of sin. And what does it talk about? Sin is missing the mark. Well, if you put, I don't want to say an animal, I'll just say a target back there. You put a target up, and you scope in on the target and you fire and you miss the target, that's sin. You miss the target, you miss the mark. Whatever you were shooting at, your sights were off, the things were wrong. And he said, when you were living in trespasses and sins, you were dead. What else does he say? The spiritually dead have no life. They're unresponsive. The spiritually dead must hear the word of God, which brings transformation to those who will listen to and accept biblical truth. We know the verse backwards, forwards, and upside down, Romans 10 to 17. So then faith comes by what? Hearing, and hearing by what? The word of God. In other words, get out those Bible apps, start playing them when you're riding, when you're walking, when you got time. Read the word of God, listen to it. It's what will change your life. You see, there's nothing else that will change your life the way the word of God does, nothing on this earth. The spiritually dead have no life. The spiritually dead means a person is unresponsive. You cannot resuscitate those who are spiritually dead. I mean, when they're dead, they're dead. It's done, it's over. And God looks at the spiritually dead. And every one of us was there at one point. And there's no way on this earth for God to do anything with us except to what? Basically resurrect that which is dead. We'll look at these three verses and stop. Remember the account of Nicodemus coming up to Jesus and Jesus starts to talk to him. He was a Jewish guy. He was a Pharisee. He was a religious man. And he's confused and he's trying to figure out who Jesus is. Jesus told Nicodemus he said most assuredly I say to you unless one is born of water and the what and The spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God now. What is he saying? Now we just had as I said a couple of babies in in the church That's born of the water The little baby is if you will, in mama, surrounded by fluids. And when the, if you will, the water breaks, the baby comes out, it's born. Unless one is born of the water, but wait, wait a second, Nicodemus, they've gotta be born of the spirit too, the Holy Spirit. You can't get into the kingdom of God, you can't be with the Lord unless you've been Born again, because why? Before you're born again, you're dead in your trespasses and sin. Bible says that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Every single one of you, under the sound of my voice today, were born of the flesh or you wouldn't be listening to me. But you're dead if you don't know Christ. He said, yes, you were born. You have a fleshly body. But that which is born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is Spirit. And he said, do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born again. Why? Because we're dead in trespasses and sins. And the only way to get that life is to be born again. Now listen, most of you know this. This is pretty simple things. We're getting into the heavier stuff next week, or in two weeks when I'm back. What does Jesus mean to you in 2025? What does Jesus mean to you in 2025? How much time are you going to spend with the One that we call our Savior, our Lord? How much time are you going to give to Him? How much time will you relish in prayer? How much time will you give to Him in understanding and becoming biblically literate? How much time will you do in telling your family and others and loved ones and friends and workmates and so forth, the greatest news ever given to mankind, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners? Listen folks, and I'm going to pound this this year, It's 2025. God has given us a wake-up call. We have been complaining, rightly so. We've been upset. We've not been happy. There were so many things happening in our country and internationally. We've been screaming about socialism. Marxism, communism, and a turn towards that which is against biblical standards. And based on what we believe is going to happen, those things will not be an issue over the next four years. We fought globalism because God's against globalism from Romans 13. And now all of a sudden, We've got to reprieve, at least it appears so. What are we going to do with those next four years? Oh, we're safe for four years. We don't have to worry about the church getting shut down. We don't have to worry about people saying you can't witness it at your business. Oh, we don't have to worry. We're good. Let's eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow we'll die. It's all good. No, my dear friends, I'm saying that like a mighty army of God's people, it's time for the next four years that we rise up like never before. I'm saying that we need to take advantage of a good thing. I mean, wherever you are, wherever you go, it's get this gospel out. Let's keep working. Now, I know on a big day, this place is pretty well packed out, but I see some empty seats this morning. I think we got a little bit of work to do. Let's keep doing it and just keep doing what you've been doing. I love what you've been doing. You've been bringing people in. Some folks have come to Christ. Others are being discipled. Things are going in the right direction. And God says, you were dead in trespasses and sins. How about realizing that we're alive in 2025? Let's get busy. Let's get busy for God. Let's keep getting folks. the gospel, let's keep bringing folks to church, let's keep discipling young people, let's get that youth group built up, let's get the teenagers in here, the young people in Awana, let's get the men's Bible studies, ladies Bible studies, which by the way starts up again this Tuesday, right down here at the mezzanine, let's get busy for Christ and all God's people said.