I wish I could memorize the words to that song as quickly as she sang them because that last refrain just captures so beautifully when our world is shaking, when our life is breaking, we are safe in His hands, we never leave His hands. Now let's just be transparent this morning as we start. I think you probably agree with me that life can be pretty daunting at times, can't it? major responsibilities at home, at work, at church. Then the large unexpected expense hits and there's more month and there is money and the pressure begins to mount. Suddenly, one of the kids get really sick. Life is beginning to resemble a dirt sandwich and every day is another bite. You're really starting to fill up with anxiety. Everything starts to take on this kind of dark tinge. Your mood is descending. In fact, you're a Christian, but you're depressed. You know it, there's no denying it. And then your husband loses his job, or your wife gets cancer. And you begin figuring that God must really be angry about something toward you, but you're not really sure what. Life has kind of begun to resemble Mount Everest. You're standing at the base, you're looking up at 26,000 feet in the air on the north face and all you're seeing are icy temperatures and hurricane force winds and then finally when you reach the top, the death zone where there's no oxygen at all. You'd love it if there was a world class guide to guide you up this mountain of life and what is happening. Well, men and women, we have the universe-class guide. We have the God of all grace to guide us in the traumas, in the trials, in the difficulties, in the challenges that are life. In a passage where Paul is talking to people about monetary giving, an interesting place to find a remarkable promise, we learn, as the screen reads, that grace is Christ's supernatural sufficiency for life in this natural world. We learn this from a wonderful promise in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8. And you're welcome, and I urge you to turn in your Bibles to that passage. It's on the screen. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work. May have abundance. for every good work, as the New King James Version puts it. I wanna try to capture this verse of Scripture in just a single sentence, and I think that we can do it. It's not a long verse, but let me put it in my own words here for us this morning. His grace for you is his great unwavering promise to you. Grace is a major theme in the New Testament. In fact, the term for grace, charis, occurs 156 times in as many passages. It is the expression of God's love toward us. But getting a full grasp or understanding what is bound up or wrapped up in this idea can be magnificently liberating. What we have in this statement in the Scriptures in 2 Corinthians 9-8 is a promise that is like a window. I've not found a passage anywhere else in all those 156 passages that tends to sort of capture and outline what is true about grace everywhere else in the New Testament. Think of it this way, it is a window and it's a window in a room that is marked the treasure room of grace. and we can look through this window and see together the many, many expressions in the New Testament of what the nature, the character, the effects, the very embodiment of this grace is for us as believing people. And I'm gonna take us along the way through that verse and look through that window And as we look, we're gonna ask and answer four very important questions this morning. that I hope will open up the riches of the inheritance which we enjoy in this thing called grace. You know the gospel of Jesus Christ in the New Testament is called the gospel of grace. You know that the God in the New Testament is called the God of all grace. I mean, men and women, in a sense, with this term, we capture what we are and who we are and what Christianity is for us. as believing people. So let's begin to look through this window in 2 Corinthians 9 and 8 and ask a first question and answer it together. What really is this grace? All of you have a muscle in your chest that's about this size, fist size. And if you live until you're 70 years old, that muscle is going to beat 2.5 billion times without you making it happen, without you thinking about it, and it's gonna consistently pump five quarts of blood all through the veins and arteries and capillaries in your body. Grace is the very lifeblood that courses through your spiritual heart and life, sustains you and strengthens you, enables you. You've heard it described as unmerited favor. That's a good beginning point. You probably over the years have heard grace described as an acrostic. G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. Another good idea and a good expression of what grace is. It takes us a little further down the road, but now let's look into this text, into this window, and get further help to understand all that we can understand about this incredible unmerited favor, these riches that we enjoy in Christ. It is something from God, this text of scripture tells us. God, it says, God is able to make all grace abound toward you. Through the Lord Jesus Christ and his work for us on the cross, John chapter one, verse 14 says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And just two verses later in verse 16, it says, and from His grace we have received. And grace upon grace, the key, the absolute Nexus of how we get this grace is the work of Jesus Christ for us on the cross. It is through him, it is from him, it is by him. John Bunyan, the famous Baptist preacher who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, suffered because of his proclamation of the word in the 17th century. Wrote these words in another work that he penned when he said, thou son of the blessed, What grace was manifested in thy condescension. Grace brought thee down from heaven. Grace stripped thee of thy glory, O son of God. Grace was in all thy tears. Grace came forth with every word of thy sweet mouth. Grace came out where the whip smote thee, where the thorns pricked thee, where the nails pierced thee. Here is grace indeed, grace to astonish demons, grace to make angels wonder, grace to make sinners happy. Like the vine for us, we must be connected as branches to receive the inflow of the grace of Jesus Christ every day of our life merited on his great work on the cross for us. What further is this grace? It's something with many facets. Now I have all my adult ministry life worked with people in the 18 to 22 year age, 22, 23 age range, and some now 24, 25, but it's a very common experience for me to see a young lady come into a classroom who has been transformed since the last time I saw her. And she has what I call the crooked elbow disease. You know, she starts holding, well, let's see now, it would be this hand, holding her hand in a certain position so the light, and you know, even resting her hand a certain way on the desk, rather conspicuously, so the light catches something fantastic that has been bestowed upon her by her fiance. It is a beautiful diamond. And I'll tell you, there is a trend. The guys are just going nuts these days on diamonds, big diamonds, beautiful diamonds. And the light strikes the diamond and the facets just make it glitter magnificently because the one who loves her has put that promise of all the future benefit of his life for her on her finger as a symbol. It's many faceted. Now just imagine, and you'll have to imagine, a hundred carat diamond cut with magnificent facets capturing the light in every imaginable way. Well, men and women, that really is what grace is like. It makes us wealthy. And it is so multifaceted. And this is actually what this passage says, this promise says. God is able to make all grace a many-faceted grace. be imparted in our lives. Listen to the words of 1 Peter 4.10 as a commentary on this idea. The Scriptures say, "...as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." The many faceted grace of God that has been bestowed upon us. We have this incredible richness and capacity because of what has been bestowed on us, this manifold grace. Now, it's also something, this text says, that is abundantly available to us. Because God is able to make all grace what? Abound toward you. There's no lack of ability. There is no unwillingness on the part of God. You would sooner exhaust the oceans of water or the heavens of stars. You would sooner exhaust the very nature of God than you would lack the grace that you need as a Christian because you are in Jesus Christ. He is willing, He's ready, He's wanting to abound in it toward you. He is, 1 Peter 5.10, the God of all grace. So it is from God. It's many faceted. It's abundantly available. And I'm talking about for us as Christian people. But it's something else. It's something which enables. Now look at that text of Scripture again, that promise again, and notice the wording. This is one of the most sweeping statements you'll find anywhere in what Paul has written. He's given us this grace, God is able to make all grace abound toward us. What does it say? That ye always having all sufficiency in all things may have abundance for every good work. What superlatives? Always, all sufficiency, all things, abundance. So you can do what? You can have abundance for every good work. This grace enables, it enables. consistently and completely as we need it. I remember one point in particular early on in my ministry life as a young man, father of four little children, a new professor, pastoring a church as well, and I remember being very overwhelmed. In fact, feeling very weak, very desperate, Didn't feel like there was enough time, enough energy, enough anything to do what I was called upon to do. You've found yourself in those positions before. Probably everybody sitting in the room has found a circumstance in life like that. But in my desperation, I started searching through an exhaustive concordance. I looked for the word power, I needed it. I looked for the word strength, I needed it. And that search brought me to a passage of scripture just a few chapters beyond what we're looking at in this magnificent promise. If you turn over just a few pages to 2 Corinthians chapter 12, you'll find an incident where the apostle Paul was suffering a physical malady. And in fact, it's described why and to what extent. In verse 7 of chapter 12, 2 Corinthians, he said, lest I be exalted above measure." I mean, Paul had received incredible revelations from God, something that could have inflated his ego to the point of making him absolutely useless to God because he was so privileged in what he had learned. And so he experiences this great trial. He says in verse eight, concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. If you look carefully at that statement in verse nine, The Bible says my grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in weakness, and Paul responds by saying therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon you. Men and women, grace and strength and power are equal equivalent terms. We're finding a definition here of grace. It is the strength of Christ imparted to us. It's God's daily undeserved supernatural power through Christ administered by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believing people to address our weaknesses, to address our deficiencies, our infirmities, our necessities. It enables. Oh my, that changes everything. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 7 says that we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Do you feel weak? Do you feel infirm? Do you feel unable? Do you face challenges and difficulties that seem to be beyond you? Well, welcome to the Christian life. But welcome to the Christian life of grace that abounds and that is available, that strengthens and empowers. Now there's another question that we want to ask and answer. And that question is how central really is this grace to Christian living? And what you've been hearing so far certainly has set us up to come to understand this, but the teaching of the New Testament is even more profound than you can imagine on this. It's as if the New Testament literally puts this in bold print, underlines this over and over again to teach us about the centrality of this. The centrality of this in our prayer for other people. Now you can follow right along with me if you'd like to. I'm going to take a quick journey for you. And if you want to be paging through these references, you can do that. But listen as I read to you. I'm gonna start at the beginning of Paul's epistles, 13 of them, with the book of Romans, the very first one in the English Bible. In chapter one, verse seven, he says, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So in the invocation, the opening prayer, he requests grace for the believers in Rome. When you go to chapter 16 and verse 24, at the end of the book, you find him praying the benediction and that benediction reads, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. You move just right over to the next page to 1 Corinthians chapter one and look at verse three at the invocation, his prayer. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And you move to the end of that book in chapter 16 and consider what is said in verse 23. And again you find Paul saying in the benediction, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. In 2 Corinthians, the very next chapter, in chapter one, in verse two, Paul prays, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And in chapter 13, the end of the book, verse 14, in the benediction, the final verse, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen. Well, interesting, right in the very first three letters, the invocation and the benediction, grace to you, grace to you, grace to you, grace to you, but you turn one more page right to Galatians chapter one, verse three, and guess what? Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. You go to chapter six, verse 18, the final verse of the letter in Galatians. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen, and men and women. If I go to the next book in Ephesians 1, 2 and 6, 24, invocation benediction. Philippians 1, 2, 4, 23, invocation benediction. Colossians 1, 2 and 4, 18, invocation benediction. 1 Thessalonians 1.1 and 5.28, invocation, benediction. 2 Thessalonians 1.2 and 3.18, 1 Timothy 1.2, 1 Timothy 6.21, 2 Timothy 1.2, 2 Timothy 4.22. Titus 1.4, Titus 3.5, Philemon, only one chapter, verse 3 and verse 25. Invocation and benediction in every letter of the apostle Paul. Grace to you, grace to you, grace to you. I would say it's central to the prayers that we are to have for other believers. This is clearly emphasized by the apostle under inspiration. but it even broadens out beyond this. To literally be central to every dimension of spiritual experience for the Christian. I doubt that there are many in this auditorium that could not quote Ephesians chapter two, verses eight and nine. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. It is saving grace. It is central to our salvation, this power of God to transform us. I've witnessed that in the most unlikely circumstances with the most unlikely people in my ministry life, where God just reaches down and transforms and saves someone. It is sanctifying grace. When you look in 2 Peter 3, 18, that book ends with this exhortation, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's grace to suffer, grace to endure. We saw what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12, verse nine. When the Lord Jesus said to him in the midst of a thorn in the flesh that was a tremendous affliction for him, he begged three times to be delivered from it, and the Lord said, my grace is sufficient for you in this physical suffering, in this difficult situation. Whenever I come to this, I think of a man named Francis. I met him in Zambia. I learned his story. Francis was a successful electrician, and he was prospering in a very poverty-stricken culture in Kitwe, Zambia. He had gotten out of the slums, had his own home. He contracted HIV, which is prevalent in that country. God began to work in his life powerfully. When he heard the gospel of Christ preached by an American missionary, he was born again, he was saved. He hungered and thirsted after righteousness and after the word. God's grace was at work in his life. And Francis came to the point, I met Francis, where he chose to leave his prosperity, his profession as an electrician. He literally moved back into the sabbatic compound characterized in the words of the missionaries a place of demons, drunkenness, adultery, perversion of every kind. He moved back in the place, had a home there, built a church there. I preached in this man's church. I saw the ministry to scores and scores of people that he was having. What happened to Francis? I mean, Francis was living a life of suffering and deprivation in a very difficult circumstance. And in the midst of it, he was abounding in joy. He was abounding in service. And you know, that's far away. That's in a foreign country. And that's a real dramatic example. But it isn't any different, really, than the suffering that many of you are encountering in your life circumstance, family, physically, personally in some way. And God's grace is suffering grace. And it is grace for dynamic service. I love the words that you find in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10, where Paul, in the middle of that resurrection chapter, He talks about his own conversion. He says he was an apostle born out of due time. In other words, his salvation was a surprise to everybody. And then he says this, a little autobiographical note in verse 10. He said, I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Now there's an interesting description of his own life by a man who today has his name invoked over and over again in Lord's days as we're reading Scripture that he penned what we would call the first great missionary serving Christ. You know when I hear somebody has served faithfully in a support position in a church for 20 years Or I stand in the presence of a woman whose teeth taught children in Sunday school for 50 years as I have. Stood in the presence of women like that. When I meet a brother like I did on an airplane flying back from Orlando, Florida just a few weeks ago, who for over 40 years was a faithful serving deacon in an independent Baptist church. When I meet up with people who have faithfully loved their families, their husbands, their wives, and brought their children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, and their children have gone on for Christ, men and women, I rejoice in the dynamic service that is made possible in people's lives by the grace of God at work in their life. Perhaps not on a mission field or in a church or as an evangelist at all. You know, those guys don't make up local churches, except a few guys. It's made up of people who get grace from God to do what needs to be done, day in and day out, week in and week out, in the fellowship of the saints, and do it effectively for the glory of Christ. Well, the Word of God teaches us that grace is essential for reaching our full potential. Looking at our text, 2 Corinthians 9-8, the Bible says, He always, having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance to every good work. That is constant potential. That is complete potential. No wonder the writer of the Hebrews says in Hebrews 12, 28, let us have grace whereby we serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. So if we're gonna reach our full potential in serving the Lord Jesus Christ, it's gonna be by grace and by grace alone. It's gonna be by this impartation of this supernatural enablement through the sufficiency of Christ in our day-to-day life and experience. But now, if this abounding grace, this sufficient grace, this power, this strength is available, it's so abundant, then we have to ask a third question. Why are some Christians strong by grace and others not? God is able to make all grace abound. That's what the text says. And with that ability is implied His willingness, His desire that believers have it. So how do we get it? How do we get this? Is this reserved for just a certain special class of people? No, not at all, according to the teaching in the New Testament. It is for every Christian. Well, the reason some people have it and others don't is that some have a humble, receptive heart, and sadly, others don't have that. Like water, men and women, grace flows down to the lowest place and pools and gathers there. There's a statement in Proverbs 334 that's quoted twice in the New Testament with reference to grace and this idea. It's quoted first in James chapter four, verse six, where James writes, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." He's addressing Christians. He's addressing believers. He resisteth the proud, but gives grace to the humble, quoting Proverbs 3.34. And then Peter quotes Proverbs 3.34 in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5 and 6, where he says, Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves to the elder, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you in due time." There it is again, quoting Proverbs 3 verse 34. God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble, humility in young people, humility for older people, The key is to have, as Psalm 51, 17 says, a broken spirit, for a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise. It is humility, it is contriteness of heart, which is fundamental to this blessing. Matthew 5, 3 says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That is humility. That is having a right assessment of yourself honestly before God. Humility is not denigrating who you are and what your gifts are and your capacities are. It's recognizing what you really are and what God has done for you as a child of God. But it's also recognizing all the weakness, all the frailty, all the inclination to take the missteps, to do the wrong things. It's combining those things with a balanced, sensible view of yourself. that subordinates yourself to God, and as a person, subordinates yourself to other people that you should be subordinate to, as this passage teaches. But what is most critical is that the Lord says, if you are self-dependent, if you are self-exalted, if you are arrogant, If you think you've got it all together and you can handle it all, you get the stiff arm of God. God resists the proud and gives grace unto the humble. Well, we can continue to answer this question by understanding that some, some believers take advantage of the established means of grace and others don't. God has established certain golden pipelines, if we want to put it that way, through which the oil of grace is going to flow into your life. If you avail yourself of these means, you'll have grace, you'll get grace. You'll know this enablement and this strengthening in time of serious need, in times of service and suffering. What are those means? This will sound familiar to you, but maybe connecting them with grace will not sound as familiar to you. Listen to what Paul said to the Ephesian pastors when he met with them on the way back at the end of his third missionary journey as he was heading back to the home base. In Acts 20, 32, he says to them, I commend you unto God and the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among them which are sanctified. He calls the Bible the word of grace. It is the means through which grace flows to us as it is alive, as it is powerful, as it is pulsating, not just paper with ink on it configured in words and paragraphs, men and women. It pulsates with life. Jesus said in John 66, 663, the words that I've given to you, they are spirit and they are life. They are full of grace. they impart strengthening to us, like food, like water. And then, another means of grace. In Hebrews 4, verse 15 and 16, we have the wonderful assurance that we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, and then let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. How do you get grace? You come to the very throne that is called grace and you ask for it. Lord, I need planning grace. I need fathering grace. I need mothering grace. I need grace to do this service. I need deaconing grace. I need teaching grace. I need grace to live my life today in a harmonious way with the people I work with. I need grace to know how to manage the business that you've given me, God, and handle the professional decisions that I have to handle. You asked God specifically for grace tailor-made to meet those needs that you face day in and day out as you come to the throne that is called grace, to the one who is the source of all grace, who is ready and willing to give you all grace to meet the needs that you face in your life. But there's another means of grace, another source of grace. And it's found in Ephesians 4.29. Ephesians 4.29 says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. You, by what you say, can be a source of spiritual grace, strengthening, enabling to other people. When you walk into this assembly, what you say, how you communicate one to another, literally can make a serious difference in the life of people. One of the things I try regularly to pray before I come to church, while I'm coming to church, before I leave my home, but while I'm in the car, Lord today please give me an opportunity with somebody just to say an encouraging word to them, something that will lift them up, something that will help them, a communication that will build them. And God says that will happen. That's my part of being part of the body as a believing person. But that's not all there is about you and me being a source of grace to others. 1 Peter 4.10, says that every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. You have been empowered by God, by grace, to serve, to help. You have abilities, capacities, gifts, and God has suited you out with these by grace according to 1 Peter 4.10, by which you can serve other people in the fellowship of believers, whether it's through the ministry of music, and the words that you sing, and your presence, and your expression, and the dynamic nature of it that so ministers to our hearts, or it is that Sunday school teaching, or it is some other ministry of service, of help, that God has empowered you to do. You are a source of grace. for other people. God has ordained us as disciples, according to 1 Corinthians 10, to bear much fruit for him, for his glory. And we can do that by grace. But what will be the results of a grace-filled life? Well, they will be remarkable. As we've learned and talked about, an incredible capacity to suffer in what looks to us as just impossible He would be embarrassed if he were present if I mentioned this, but I firsthand have known John Vaughn for many years. Former pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Taylors, serving the Lord faithfully with the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship now as an evangelist. Do you know the story of his life? This man had a terrible house fire. His daughter Becky and his wife Brenda were horribly burned when Becky was very young. the surgeries, the medical treatment, the disabilities that resulted from this years and years and years. The sudden and unexpected death accidentally of one of his sons just a few years ago. the subsequent passing away of Brenda because of an illness contracted as a result of all the surgeries and the medical treatment. This is a pastor. This is a faithful servant of God. And men and women, he just kept on going. And he keeps on going. And I have often said to myself, how on earth Does he do this? He's primary caregiver to his disabled daughter who's 30 years old. I mean, she's a remarkable young woman. I know, Becky, but men and women, there's no way to explain it. But grace, and with a cheerful spirit, and listen to the man preach, and I'll guarantee you, you'll be blessed, you'll be encouraged, you'll be strengthened. a wonderful communicator of the revelation of God. By grace, incredible capacity to suffer, and by grace, incredible capacity to serve. I already quoted that text concerning Paul, that he labored more abundantly than them all, but not himself, he said, but the grace of God that is with me, yes, traversing thousands of miles. In the New Testament world, on foot, by ship, undergoing unbelievable rigors over 10 years in 30 cities in the ancient Roman Empire. And you know, men and women, he's just a model of what I've seen replicated over and over again in the lives of people who don't burn out. I'm thinking of Brother Ed Nelson right now. Pastor for 35 years in a Baptist church in Denver, Colorado. He had ministry before then as a missionary and as an evangelist. And then he retired from the pastorate and spent 10 years going back and forth to Russia, serving as a missionary in Russia. And when he got back from that, in his mid-70s, he planted a church in Tucson, Arizona. and then went on pastoring that church for many years and is still preaching. And he's over 90, I think, at this point. 92 is the number that pops into my head. I heard him preach just a year or two ago. That's grace to endure in service. Well, grace really is amazing. And his grace for you is his great unwavering promise to you. It's remarkable how one event, one act, one sermon, or one hymn can immortalize a man. John was orphaned when he was seven years old. He was made an apprentice on a British naval ship at the age of 11. That's what they did back then. He later became the captain of a slave ship. I've read a biography of John. He was a very bad man. Wicked. Wicked in his treatment of the slaves when he shipped them back and forth from Africa to the New World. Wicked, wicked, wicked. In the midst of a sea storm, he cried out to God and he was saved. He became a beloved pastor and writer and he wrote a hymn. The hymn was called Amazing Grace, and it is amazing, men and women. It unravels the mystery of spiritual victory for weak and frail human beings who have been redeemed, who endure triumphantly, abide faithfully, suffer patiently, serve abundantly for the glory of God. God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance unto every good work. Resolve to live a grace-filled life. I invite you to stand to your feet with your heads bowed and your eyes closed as we conclude our service this morning. Matt's going to lead us. He's going to lead the musicians just in playing How Can It Be, a couple of stanzas of this song. And we'll conclude our service here in just a moment. But as they play softly, I'd like you to bow your heads in prayer. How can it be that we would enjoy the grace of God as we have as believers? I'm urging you to resolve to live a grace-filled life. I'm urging you to purpose afresh, to avail yourselves daily of the means of grace, to resolve to live a grace-filled life every day. As you're standing there this morning, it may be that the Spirit of God is just clearly touching your heart. and as a testimony to His working in your heart about living a grace-filled life and availing yourself of the means of grace to do so, you want to testify by uplifted hand that you affirm before Him it's your purpose to do those things. As God has spoken to you this morning, just lift your hand wherever you may be in the audience about this. Amen, with all these testimonies, lift them up, leave them up. Yes, yes, I want to live a grace-filled life and I am determined to more readily and fully avail myself of the means of God's grace, others to whom God has spoken. What a beautiful testimony. What a beautiful testimony. Leave your hands up, would you please? Folks, just open your eyes. Leave your hands up. Open your eyes. Look around. The God of all grace is faithful to minister to us by His Spirit.