Book of Romans chapter three. We're gonna begin reading in verse 19. And I'll stop at verse 28. Romans chapter three, beginning in verse 19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all of them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting, then, It is excluded by what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. I conclude our reading this morning. Pray for me this morning that the Lord would be honored today in what's said Last week, we told you that, I told you that I wanted to preach on the gospel, and do that as simply as I know how, and I pray the Lord would help me to do that again today. And so last week, we talked about the bad news of the gospel. If you know what the word gospel means, that doesn't make a lot of sense, because the gospel means good news. But before something can be good news, we have to tell you the bad news. And so last week, I told you that, especially if you're younger, if there's any good thing that you could get and learn from coming to the house of the Lord, it would be to know the gospel. And beyond all the stories that you learn in Sunday school, the center of the scriptures is the gospel message. And so the gospel reveals to us, first, ourselves. That we are sinners by birth, that we are sinners by choice, that we are perpetrators, we are not victims, that we did not perpetrate light, sin, things that can easily find a remedy or be glossed over. But the scriptures that preceded our text were all quotes from the Old Testament that revealed God's unequivocal declaration that man without God is hopelessly lost in sin. You and I are sinners at our core. This scripture began that there is none good. No, not one. There is nothing good about us. And our attempt to grasp and to paint pictures of our own goodness is just more evidence of our sin. that we compare ourselves by ourselves and thus look to find something worthy of being blessed by God with salvation and with a relationship with Him. And yet the climax, I believe, of this chapter, or at least of this section of Paul's writing, is when he says that now we know in verse 19 that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law that every mouth might be stopped and all might be guilty before God. That every mouth would not be excusing themselves, justifying why they are the way they are. but that every mouth would be silenced as we stand before God accountable to Him. And lost friend, I would tell you today that there is a day where you will stand before God to give an account and the case that He has against you will silence your mouth entirely. You will have nothing to lay before God that warrants His forgiveness. And yet now the scriptures realize, in the book of John chapter three, that even in this moment you stand in a state of condemnation. A few years ago I went to my aunt's house. They owned a house up on Lake Michigan. I had never been inside a condemned house before. And we had to go in, we had to have masks on, and it was disgusting. Have harsh winters up there, and they had bought it a long time ago, and had planned on renovating and doing things, and they never got around to it, and it began to have leaks in the roof, and years passed. Deep, harsh winters. Pipes froze and bursted, and water flooded into the place, and there was mold all over. There was animals that had gotten in and had nested in there, and there were a few things that they wanted to get out. And so, we went in very carefully, and it was a house that was condemned. only awaiting destruction, but already in an inhabitable state. A state where we could not live there. Where we could not find warmth, or anything related to life could not be done in that house. And I tell you today, if you're lost, you are in a state of condemnation. The life of God cannot dwell within you until something in you is changed. And so the Scriptures reveal that you're in this state of condemnation and that God, through the proclamation of the gospel and through the giving of the law, is meant to silence every voice, that all might stop giving excuses and stand as they are, guilty before God. And the scriptures here told us that. That's the bad news of the gospel. And it's what makes what I'm about to say really good news. One of the things I did not expect as I got older was how as you get older you discover further the depth of human sinfulness. Can you just learn about yourself? How far that can go. And there are times which, in that discovery, there's this thought that just strikes through my mind like lightning. Why does the Lord want to have anything to do with us? You see the fickleness of human beings, and you see the pettiness. You see the incredible ability to have God's blessings compounded over and over, and then immediately the heart to be carried away without restraint towards sin. Just that quick. You see the disinterest of yourself over God and righteousness and holiness and goodness after soaking and basking in the richness of His blessings and goodness. And there are times where it's just striking, Lord, What is man that you are mindful of him? Why? Why not just walk away? Why be so heavily involved and heavily concerned with these lowly creatures? And sometimes that reality in my mind is so stark and real that God has concern for our well-being. And I am struck by not only his concern for our well-being, but that as the scripture before this said, his concern is not contingent upon our initiation. So what didn't happen was we found ourselves in this lowly state, and then we began to recognize our plight and our pain and our state of condemnation. We recognized the end result of our sin, and then we said, you know what, as a result of this, I need Him. but rather that God initiated His love towards us despite our disinterest in Him. I'm thankful this morning for the initiating grace of God, that God pursues us. that if that is one of the richest expressions of his love, is his initiating pursuit of mankind despite man's disinterest in him. Not only man's disinterest as though it was neutral, man's outright rejection of him, God still initiates his love towards us despite finding nothing good in the creature. This morning, I want you to know that if you're lost today, that God is looking to save you. God wants to save you. This morning I want to try and be really clear, because I have feared at times that The way that being saved and salvation is talked about is made it seem like in the minds of lost people, and maybe I'm misplaced in this, but it's a genuine concern that God has some object called salvation that He is holding from them, and that if they grovel just enough, And you hear it sometimes reiterated in people's testimonies, and it concerns me. I was determined no matter what that day I was getting it. I feel very… conflicted about such words. Because it might imply that it was through human strength that you were able to ascertain something that God was determined to keep away from you. But that is far from the case. A, there is no striving in men, and I think I know what they're trying to say, and there is a sense to which I am sympathetic to those expressions, and I would never micromanage people's expressions, but only in so much that it could create a stumbling block in the hearts and minds of lost people. God is not withholding a thing from you. Salvation is the restoration of fellowship with God. You are being restored back to fellowship with Him. A fellowship which has been broken due to your sin. You have sinned against God. You have violated his law. You have violated the conditions of his fellowship. And as I have said often, we all set terms of relationships with people. And when people break the terms of our relationship, if they violate things that we have set up, as prerequisites to fellowship with them. We cut off relationship with them. And God does the same, except his standard for fellowship is far greater than ours. So he has broken fellowship with you. And you and I became disinterested in him, consumed in our own sin. And so God initiated a way for us to be brought back into relationship with one another. And that is through and by the person of Jesus Christ alone. Listen, I wanna be a Jesus preacher, don't you? I wanna sing about Jesus. I want to talk in my home about Jesus. I want to preach about Jesus. I want to think thoughts, good lofty thoughts about Jesus. I don't want to talk church, religion. I wanna talk about Jesus Christ. Because everything that we have that is good descends not from Moses, not from John the Baptist, not through all the men and women that have testimonies of faith whereby we can learn, but all of their voices come together in perfect harmony to esteem that man, Jesus Christ. And lost friend today, listen to me, you're not trying to obtain some inanimate object that you might get a card that when you die you can present before God as some passage, as some ticket into heaven. You're looking to be reconciled to God through that one man, Jesus Christ. through placing your faith in Jesus. He, the person who lives and breathes in this very hour on the right hand of God in heaven, he is the one through which you will find eternal salvation in him alone. Why? Why Jesus? Well, that's the good news. The good news is all about Jesus Christ. You see, God saw our condition. He saw the state of our condemnation. He didn't have to act. There was nothing twisting his arm. There was no coercion, and he didn't like some little lost puppy that you find sympathy for. You see a lost puppy out on the side of the road, and you pick it up, and you see it's mangy, and it's hungry, and you just feel bad. And sometimes, for some people with a bleeding heart, they just, they can't let their heart get away. They're gonna feel guilt. and they love that creature in this redeemable, this way that there's something about the creature that has some drawing to them, and they feel like almost this compelling that they have to respond, and if they don't, they can't live with their conscience for not picking up this little creature. Listen, there was no compelling constraints on God to make him do something. God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, and I won't even finish the part of the verse yet. While we were yet sinners, he initiated, but it came at a high cost. You know, I'm not impressed with the generosity of billionaires in proportion to what they have, right? Like if a person's a billionaire, and they give a million dollars, that's like you or I picking out a dollar. And so, I don't want us to have this thought that you know what, God should just go around. He could have created someone. He could have created some angelic being. He could have done something, and yet in comparison to what He owned, it was a very little value And listen, God didn't do that. God didn't create or God didn't see to some righteous man, woman being born and saying, you know what, I'm gonna send this person on my behalf and that person is going to die and then I'm gonna resurrect them through my power and somehow, though it wouldn't be possible, they could be a justifiable substitute for sin. He didn't do that. God gave His only begotten Son. The eternal one, the divine one, the perfect and holy, the self-sustaining one, Jesus, his son. He gave him, that's what the scripture says, it's the most famous verse in the Bible, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Not to the appreciation of people, not to the applause, And so Jesus was born of a virgin, untainted. I'm not gonna take time to explain it at the moment, but the virgin birth was very necessary. He had to be born of a virgin. And yet, there's so many things that I wish I could talk about. Because God is so good in the gospel, you know? Like the news is so good. And the further I dive into just the gospel story, the more that I am, my mind is blown by who God is and what he has done. Because words cannot possibly describe the goodness of God that was found in the person of his son Jesus. If you wanna know something to study for the rest of your life, study the gospel of Jesus Christ. Really try to find out what exactly did God do when he sent his son? He came in the form of a virgin. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that he was tempted and tried in all points as we are, yet without sin. I love, I'm so thankful for that. It, because it builds this kinship with the person of Christ that is indescribable. You know, throughout history, there's been great attempts and there still is today to say that Jesus was not God. And so we must in full force reveal through the scriptures that Jesus was in fact God. But in so doing, let us tread carefully with our words. And I can't explain this, but I know it to be true that as much as He was God, He also was man. And there's great comfort, I find, in the humanity of Jesus Christ. There's great relatability. There's not a place that I can go in my thoughts and in my feelings and in my life experience, there's not a place I can go that Jesus himself has not been. He knows what it's like to carry the weight of sin, though he himself never sinned. He knows what it's like to hunger and thirst. He knows what it's like when the physical life begins to impact the spiritual mindedness of his people. He knows what it's like to fight the temptations that come from distraction. The cravings to satisfy the flesh. He was tempted in all points just like we are. And here's an incredible thing about Jesus. I tend to believe that not only did he experience the same temptations that we do, but his temptations far outweighed our temptations. That Satan himself had a personal vested interest in making sure that Jesus fell and sinned against his father. And so I believe that all the demons in hell, while Jesus walked this earth, that Satan was preeminently focused on the person of Jesus Christ and tempting him to sin. And so he was tempted worse than us. I used to think, just to think how proud that I am, I'll just confess it to you, when I was younger, if I just tried, I'd hear the preacher say, you can't go one minute, you can't go an hour without sinning. And the pride in my heart would rear up and say, an hour? Just an hour? I bet if I tried really hard, and that was the focal point of my thought, I could go an hour. It's only laughable now after having tried at times not to sin really hard and finding myself far, far, far incapable of such a feat. Jesus, every moment of every day, he didn't sin. That's amazing. Every moment of every day, Jesus did not sin. You would think today, I believe we have a, I don't know what to call it, a pseudo-Christian culture. I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to say. Where there's sort of a system, still left intact to some degree, where Righteousness is meant to lead to reward. So maybe in your home you would say that if you obey your parents, generally speaking, your parents bless you more. It's a way to teach you reap what you sow, and we want you to, excuse me, yes, you reap what you sow, so we want you to sow obedience to authority and sow righteous deeds that you might reap rewards. And so you would think, you know what, Jesus is gonna be incentivized because if he lives a perfect life, then God will just bless him and he'll experience no pain, no suffering, that he will be immune from all the things, all the pains that would normally beset a human being. But you know what, that was not within the plan of God for the person of Jesus. Rather, Jesus came and all of His righteous life had an aim. It was to glorify His Father and to impute or to give His righteousness to you. That is the aim of God and the person of Christ and His righteousness. Jesus lived a perfect life every moment of every day. And he did it in order to impute to you righteousness, that you might be able to have fellowship with God. And so I can rejoice today and I can worship Jesus today. Listen to me, I think we should worship Jesus about as many things as we possibly can. Worship Him at Easter for His resurrection. Worship Him for His crucifixion. Worship Him for His incarnation. And worship Him for the everyday perfect life that He lived that you and I are now beneficiaries of. He lived perfect every day. a lamb of God that was given and found spotless and blemishless, all for one purpose, to be sacrificed. Listen to me today. I stand, I can stand without guilt before the throne of God. because of the righteous life of Jesus Christ. When I come before Him, listen to me in prayer, it is not dependent upon my own righteousness. You know why people say in Jesus' name at the end of a prayer? That's not just some kind of a byline to conclude your prayer. Mean it. Embrace it. What you're saying is the only reason I have standing before God The only reason that I can be heard from you, Father, is because of the righteousness of your Son. And so I am asking these things, and please receive these things in the name and in the righteousness of your Son, Jesus of Nazareth. Hear me this day because of Jesus and his righteousness, Not because today I found myself to be a little better than what I have in the past. Not because I've emerged from these dark clouds of discouragement of sin, and I've now, for just a few moments of time, feel like I've been spiritually minded. Now I have this standing before God. Listen, now and always, you and I, based upon our own righteousness, never have standing with God. It's only because of the righteousness of Jesus. I can stand before Him and come even boldly before Him because of the righteousness of Christ. And so imagine that every day that you walk into prayer, bring with you His blood. Be conscious that that is what gives you entrance into the throne room of grace, is that you have His blood that has covered you and sanctified you and allowed you to come boldly before Christ, or rather before God. That's what the scripture here grabbed my attention in verse 21. It tells us of all the sin. And all the world may be guilty before God. Every mouth might be stopped. Then it gives these beautiful words, but now. Oh, there's a hard pivot, isn't there? Oh, we're plunged into the abyss, the swamp of sin. But now in the person of Jesus. So what did Jesus do that is at the heart of the gospel? Well, God took all of our sin. Every vestige of sin, every little lie, every bitter feeling, all the way to the greatest sins that mankind has ever known. And they place them on the perfect Son of God. Can you imagine what that weight must have felt like? Imagine his soul, the soul of Jesus. And the sins of the world has been credited to his account. And there he is. Friends are forsaking him. False trials with false witnesses are accusing him. And from our human mind, you know, When you read a narrative, you put yourself in the shoes of the person, right? So no doubt you've put yourself in the shoes of Jesus and you've thought, man, standing before Pilate, how nervous I would be. Man, hearing them cry out, crucify me, how horrible that must have been. And I know that's true, but I don't think the weight of Calvary was found in those things. I think the weight of Calvary was that one who had never known the weight of sin was finally required not to just get a small taste, but to be all at once consumed by the weight of sin. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? He'd always known perfect harmony with the Father. He'd always done righteous things. He had always thought righteous thoughts. And then all at once, Jesus has bearing down upon his soul sin and the feeling of condemnation that was due to the whole human race bearing upon him. You know, I'm reminded of this moment. Our own inability to conceive of things so great that we get lost in the abyss. You know, you do that with numbers, right? You start counting and then people start saying numbers and they're not even real. They're just words because we can't comprehend the depth. I think of all the things that mankind cannot comprehend, be it the depth of the ocean or the far, farthest reaches of the galaxies, be just how intricate the design of God was in the creation of man and all the complexity of the world. Our minds cannot fathom not one of those things, or get close to conceiving of any of those things, but of all the things that mankind is unable to conceive of, it is the perfectly divine carrying the weight of the sins of mankind upon him. Nobody can conceive of what Jesus felt that day. He felt it all. All the pains of hell fell upon the person of Christ for people who couldn't have cared less. People who delighted in his pain. You and I. Us. Jesus. took upon himself my sin, and he died because of my sin. And lost friend today, he died because of your sin. He felt broken. Just kidding, Adonai. Do they mock? Do they ridicule? And yet, he was obedient to the will of his father until the very end. I can't imagine, you know, would I weigh down cares and concerns Suddenly my concern for being obedient to the Father is completely gone. Just completely gone. I feel justified to sin because of the weight that I'm carrying. And Jesus didn't do that. He stayed obedient until the end. And he died. He died. God died. I can't, I just can't fathom it. I just can't, I wish I could. I wish I could better understand because then I think my heart would be all more compelled to worship him and I pray that God would help me to conceive better, that he would give me of a spirit more to understand what it means that Jesus died for us. And lost friend, I think the lack of conviction today could be very often because people have gotten away from what Christ did. All the descriptions of hell, all the descriptions of all the things that people try to coerce and move lost people with, I think if we could better pray that they would understand what Christ did, their weight of sin would be heavier, and their recognition of the goodness of God would be so clear to all of us that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, and that alone. And the... The highest part of his goodness is found that day on Golgotha, when he gave of himself under the weight of sin for the well-being of those who cried out, crucify him. Today, lost friend. God wanted you to be reconciled to him to such an extent that he killed his son that you might be able to be made reconciled to God through his son. So what do you have to do? What are the conditions for forgiveness? You don't have to live good, I can tell you that much. And if you're gonna try to do that as like a plan B, let me tell you, when you get to the judgment throne, your voice is gonna be stopped real quick. Because God looks at your righteousness as filthy rags. They have no standing in the court of heaven. And so plan B is not being a nice guy, living a good moral life, neglecting your standing with God until accidentally, not according to your plan, God requires your soul this day of the fool who continued to put off and put off and put off. He said, well, just in case, I did good deeds. One of the biggest themes of the Bible, it is not by man's righteousness that you have any hope to get into heaven and be reconciled to God. You know, God has set it up to where repentance and faith are necessary to be reconciled to God. You know, the older I get, the more I see in the scriptures and in life in general, pain, that all of those things that we seek and escape from, are so often powerful tools in the hands of the Almighty to prompt us closer to Him. I pray today if you're lost and you aspire to do great things, I hope God would bring failure in your life that it would prompt you to Him. Because what I find in myself and most people is that brokenness, it's brokenness. And I hate brokenness, I hate feeling broken. I hate the insecurity it brings, the discomfort it brings. I hate the sleepless nights that it brings, but I find in brokenness is when my desire for the righteousness of Christ is the greatest. And I stray when like that son who was given his inheritance early, You know, I just go out, I just live according to the dictates of my flesh. At last, friend, I worry about your success in the same way. Not that you would not experience pain, but that you would experience all the thriving that you ever wanted. And in that, you would drift and you would wander farther and farther and farther away from God and never come to know the righteousness and fulfillment that is found in the person of Christ and being reconciled to God. So my prayer for you is that if it requires abject brokenness in your life, I pray God would send it. Because listen to me, there is nothing greater than being reconciled to God through the person of Jesus Christ. There is nothing like it. There is nothing like knowing God because of Jesus. Not that I obtained this thing and I can carry it to heaven and demand in. It's that I have been made a new creature in Christ Jesus because of the sacrifice of his son. Lost friend today, I want you to know God. I want you to know the affection for Christ that is found because you know that what he did is the only hope you have and is the only reason to live. But you gotta hate your sin, you know? Like I feel like today there's such a softness and I'm included in this, so this is not a, parents can be so soft to kids, and we wanna let them have the best of both worlds. You know, sometimes we just can't do that. Sometimes it's the brokenness they need to feel. It's the weight of sin and guilt without the pampering on the other side, that it's all gonna be okay. No, it's not gonna be okay. No, it's not gonna be okay if they don't find life in Jesus Christ. It's not gonna be okay, and it's not gonna be okay for all of eternity. And you can go out and succeed in this world, and your parents will applaud you, and your friends and your church friends might applaud you, but if you don't have life in Christ, it means nothing, nothing, it means nothing to you. You'll pine away in regret for all of eternity. And there are people in the billions today that are pining away and all they want is life in Jesus. It's all they want. They want to know him. They cry out in desperate despair, please, I want Jesus. And yet there is no light there. He is light. Oh, the scriptures tell us, why is hell dark? Because Jesus isn't there. And why is heaven bright? Because Jesus is there. Godly sorrow works repents. I hope you feel sorrow. I hope your soul is crushed just like Jesus was. I hope it's shattered into a million pieces. I hope you find yourself in a place of deep, deep anguish over your sin and what you did to Jesus. I do, I want you to find yourself there. I love it when I go there. I don't, but I do. I love it when my words reach a state where I can't talk anymore to God in prayer because there's such brokenness within. And I feel that today. I just want people to know God. And I'm afraid that you're not going to. I'm afraid you're gonna leave this place and you're gonna go home, you're gonna turn on your TV, you're gonna pop open your smartphone, you're gonna get your video games out. that you're just gonna idly pass the grace of God right by. You're gonna go to your careers, those of you that are older, march off off to college, really believing you're doing something in life, really believing you're gonna change the world, you're gonna find the climax of life over there. I can promise you on the authority of God's word you won't. You gotta find the world that's just broken, that sin offers just sand, just a mirage, just a mirage. That's what so much of American culture is, it's just a mirage. You just stuff as fast as you can. It's like we have this cornucopia of food and all these things and we run around and we shove it all in. All the while we're emaciating, we're just falling apart, dying inside without the person of Christ. But every once in a while we hold up what we have. We say, look at me, look at what I got. I think we do that not just because of the applause of others. Because we have to convince ourselves that the life that we have lived has some value. Because we couldn't live thinking that we were just passing through this little slot of life that we have. And it was all meaningless without knowing God. But that's the truth. That's the truth. You have nothing without it. I think of people who die that are wealthy, have achieved everything, and you know what happens at their death? None of the things matter. They all get to the same place, the greatest doctors and the greatest hospitals and the best care in the world could ever offer, and they all get to the same place. We all die. So God calls us to repent of our sins. Repentance isn't sorry. You know, I think if I could give you a piece of parenting advice, who am I to do that, but here you go. Don't just accept sorry from your kid. It teaches them the wrong things about the Bible. Sorry. is so often a power word of manipulation for us to get what we want and not pay for our sin. Repentance is something altogether different than just saying, I'm sorry, now let me get what I want. My dear brother that just died here a couple of months ago, I remember the first time he told his testimony was the first time I'd ever heard this before, and it came from somebody that was not religious, so it wasn't this copycat. He had prayed and prayed and prayed for clarity about his standing with God. He had prayed and prayed about knowing where he stood before the Lord, and he just was confused. Finally, according to him, the Lord revealed to him that he was definitely lost. So he prayed and he prayed and he prayed and nothing. He got so desperate. To hear his words, he said to the Lord, Lord, I realize that I have nothing about me that is good. And if it would glorify you more, to throw me in hell, and let me burn forever, that you would be uplifted. Lord, so be it. I don't understand. I mean, that's something that's, maybe he didn't know what he was saying. I would guess that's the case. He hated his sin. and what it had done to God. My words are not gonna get you into heaven, but lost friend, have you ever apologized to God for what you did to his son? Have you ever tooken on you the guilt? Now you can't do it yourself. That's just another thing that's amazing about God. Even the repentance. Necessary. We can't create on our own. It's initiated by God. In other words, this. You hear my words today, and you say, okay, repentance is necessary. I'm gonna repent. So everything in you, you do all you can. I'm gonna really repent hard. So you make a list of all your sins, and you dwell on all your sins, and you feel bad. And you turn on every sermon that could possibly make you feel bad, and you say, you know what? I wanna feel sorrow. to start feeling this mountain of guilt. And in that mountain of guilt, you start saying, what? I'm gonna repent of all my sin. Good luck with that. That's just how weak you and I are. That's the reason why when people start saying, I determined I was gonna do that and I got saved, that's what I worry about. You can't repent necessary enough to satisfy God. You don't have enough. You don't have the ability to, and so that's one of the amazing things about God, is that he sees even in our weakness to do the right thing, we are so helpless, we still can't do it, and so he helps us by granting us sufficient repentance. Man, you know, If Jesus wasn't God, he'd be awful tired, wouldn't he, because of all the things he has to do for us. We repent of our sins, and we put faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. You know, I've been long, and I don't really care. Faith is trust. I think that's a word that You as a young person, you need to realize faith is trust, trusting someone, not trusting a thing, trusting someone. You must believe that he is first. I think a lot of young people have a hard time, I think a lot of people have a hard time with that, that God is real. Why? I can't help but believe it's because all the fantasy you see, you just blend it all together, and Jesus is just another one of many superheroes. No, he's not. All that's fantasy. He's real. What he did was real. And you have to trust him with all of your heart. Everything. Listen, when I get to death, there's no plan B. It's Jesus or nothing. That's it. There are days when that scares me a little bit. if I'm just being real transparent, and there are days where I'm ready to storm the gates of death because I realize the sufficiency of trusting Jesus. This morning, when a person repents and believes in the finished work of Christ, to the satisfaction of God, There is something that happens to a person. It's a lot more than getting out of hell free card. Everything about you is different. That inward man that loves sin is born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed. You have the righteousness of Jesus Christ dwelling within you. And not only now do you have the right to be in fellowship with God, God himself takes an abode in your heart. I love him. I love him today. I love that in me dwelleth no good thing, but in him dwelling in me dwells all good things. That I have him dwelling in me. That he's made me new. That my affections are different than what they once were. That I'm saved from sin and from all the consequences of sin and I'm reconciled to God and now I have not a condemned house, but a deed to a better house, a deed to an abode that I'm going to take up in heaven in the presence of God. And there's nothing that I or anybody else can do about it. I love that part of it too. Aren't you glad? if you've been saved, that we are eternally secured for all time. Praise God for that. Praise God that I am secure, I'm safe. I'm safe, sometimes it feels like a dream. It can't be that good, but it is. I'm eternally secured in the person of Christ. This morning, if you're lost, there is good news and it's found in Jesus alone. I pray, I pray God's Holy Spirit would grip your heart today. I pray you would come to know God.