Who You Say I Am | I Am Enlightened (May 5th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Open to Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Perhaps you are a fan of philosophy and history.

Maybe not, but maybe you are.

And if you are, maybe you're familiar with the Enlightenment.

Right?

You've heard of that before.

It's also known as the Age of Enlightenment, which was an intellectual, it was a philosophical movement beginning in Europe and then spreading to America in the 1600 and 1700s.

Now, if this is kind of right up your alley, or maybe even if it isn't, you've heard of the major figures involved with the Enlightenment.

It's guys like Voltaire and John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and David Hume.

It's Immanuel Kant and Isaac Newton and Thomas Jefferson, guys like that.

Now, really simply put, okay, the Enlightenment was about the rise and the celebration of human reason, right?

The rise of intellect and skepticism about things like truth and about how things were done, you know, and questioning things like the monarchy and why have we always done it like that?

Skepticism towards uh religion and the rise of empiricism, which is really that knowledge is derived from the senses, that which you can see and taste and touch and smell and all of that.

With this came the rise of science and the uh a growing secularism across culture uh with it.

You know, all of those things, all of those things, as as author Brian uh Dungen put uh notes, were considered like the essential ways, the ways to improve humanity and achieve true like knowledge and freedom and happiness.

Now, the word enlightenment or to enlighten, it really just means to understand.

To have insight or uh to be informed, to become aware of something that I wasn't previously uh aware of.

Now, why am I saying all this?

Why are we talking about the enlightenment today?

This isn't philosophy class, is it?

It's not history class.

Some of you are shuddering as I talk about this.

Well, the reality is the scriptures tell us, okay, way before the enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, by the way, the scriptures tell us that as Christians in Christ, we are enlightened.

We're enlightened.

Woke if you're a millennial, right?

That's that's what it is, right?

We've we've been given insight, we've been, we've been uh given understanding, we've been informed, we're aware now of well, a lot of things, a lot of things.

Let's look at this right now uh from the scriptures, from Ephesians chapter one.

I'm gonna read it, follow along.

We're gonna jump into uh starting in verse eight here and read through verse 10.

It's talking about grace, grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Lord, we thank you that um you have uh made us aware of so much, Lord.

At the end of the day, we know um we know how everything is going to go.

We know, we know some of the mysteries of life that uh as Christians we have such a privilege and honor to know these things, Lord.

Uh the world is out there searching for these things and and can't find them.

They don't know.

And so, Lord, we thank you that you have revealed these things through Jesus, through the gr uh, through the gospel.

Lord, I pray that we would come to appreciate uh just what you tell us, uh your goodness.

We appreciate how the world is going to end and how it is good news for those who are in Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray that we would rejoice in these things.

I pray that you would uh instruct our hearts with these things.

I pray that we would respond appropriately as a church to these things here today, Lord.

So, God, speak through your word, speak through this great scripture, we pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, I've heard it um said before, and maybe you have too, that the most important question you could ever ask is, who is God?

Right?

Really foundational key question: who is God?

A.W.

Tozer is famous for having said, what comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.

Right?

Which really leads to you know the second most important question, uh, which is uh who am I?

Right?

Who am I?

What is my identity?

Who am I truly?

Well, that right there, that's the question that our current series is seeking to address.

And so we've been looking at the first 14 verses of Ephesians chapter 1 for the answer to that question.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

This amazing little section of the of the Bible that tells us who we are in Jesus Christ.

Okay, as much as the world and the world's value system wants to inform you of all of those things, uh, other people that you know or maybe look up to, even celebrities, you'll look to them to inform us who who are we and and and what makes us important and and cool and all of that.

I mean, we've got an enemy out there, Satan and his forces, they're trying to tell us who we are and they're whispering lies at us constantly.

Right?

Even us, we will tell ourselves that our identity is found in all kinds of things other than Jesus.

Things like our achievements, right?

You are your successes, you are your failures.

Some of us carry that heaviness around with us all the time, and we see ourselves that way.

We often want to tell ourselves that we are our hobbies.

Right?

I am a hockey player, I'm a fitness buff.

Right?

I am those types of things.

Vocation, that's another thing that really informs our identity a lot.

I think maybe especially for men, we are our job.

We are what we do.

Right?

For some of us, it's we see our identity as our victimhood, right?

Of something that was done to us or something we perceive has been done to us, and so we carry this victim mentality, it's completely your identity.

Everything that you approach in life is seen through that grid of your victimhood.

For a lot of us, huge in the world, we've talked about this before, our identity is so tied into our body type.

Right?

I'm I'm I'm skinny, I'm a twig.

Right?

I'm overweight, I'm ugly, I'm therefore I'm not lovable.

And and again, we carry that with us.

We are we are sometimes our relationships.

I am this difficult marriage.

I am single and unable to find somebody.

Listen, as much as our as our fallen flesh just so easily attaches ourselves to these things, right?

Our uh we look for identity in these types of things, and they're just they're so frail, right?

We know this.

They they they can fall apart, they're they're not they're not built to to inform our identity, nothing uh like that whatsoever.

As much as we want to go after those things, though, even as Christ's followers, we go after them, God is like, no, uh-uh, not not who you are.

None of that is actually who you are.

As your loving, you know, all-powerful creator, God's like, I'm the one who gets to tell you who you really are.

I inform your identity, I give it to you, you simply receive it.

And only what I say and what I give you through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ will fill your soul with the type of security that you desperately crave.

And so, thus far in our series, we've seen that in Christ, if you're a Christ follower here today, we are faithful.

Your faithfulness isn't dependent on you and your ability to follow God's law perfectly.

News flash, you can't.

Right?

Your faithfulness is something that God imparts to you through Jesus Christ.

Because he is faithful and you've received that by faith, you are now faithful.

That's how God sees you.

In Christ, we are blessed.

We have so much, we've been given so much.

In Christ, we are chosen.

We are chosen.

And then just last time we discussed these things, we saw that how in Christ I am redeemed.

I am redeemed, I am transformed, I am being transformed.

And then today, of course, we're gonna see that in Christ, you and I, we are enlightened.

All right, I am enlightened.

Now, our verse today, okay, it doesn't, it doesn't use that actual word, enlighten or enlightenment or anything like that, but that's really the gist of it.

And I mean, we're gonna see it here starting in verse 8.

Take a look.

This is again, it's referring to the grace previously mentioned in in verse 7.

You see the end of verse 7 there?

The riches of his grace.

That's God's grace given to us, which he, verse 8, which he lavished upon us.

We actually took a quick peek at this verse uh last time, and we saw how that that that word lavished means over and above the number.

That's God's grace towards us.

He's just like like dumping it on us constantly, over and above, you know, what we deserve, that's for sure.

He lavished upon us his grace in all.

Now, here's what he lavished upon us, here's what he gives us in in superabundance.

Look what it says.

It says, wisdom.

That's what his grace gives us.

It gives us wisdom.

Now, what is wisdom?

Wisdom is more than knowledge.

Wisdom is knowledge applied.

Right?

It's not good enough to just have some knowledge and some know-how if you're not living in line with that, right?

God gives us, by his grace, he gives us wisdom.

It's application of knowledge.

He gives us, it says there, an insight.

So the ability to perceive, right?

The ability to perceive wisdom and insight.

It says making known to us.

Okay, so you put those, basically those three things together, all of that together, and you see that we've been enlightened, right?

We've been informed of some things.

God has given Christians the immense gift, see it that way, the immense gift of not of not just information about something, but also the ability to truly understand, to truly see.

We perceive something that we didn't perceive or we didn't comprehend before we got saved.

Okay, we can we have insight now to all of these things.

Now, what exactly has he given us this wisdom and insight into?

What has he made known to us?

Well, it tells us in the next part there, it says the mystery of his will.

The mystery of his will.

Now, that word mystery, we've discussed this a few times before, but that that word mystery means something previously unknown that's now been made known.

That's usually what the word mystery means in the New Testament.

Okay, so Paul, who's the author of this here, he's saying that that God has revealed to us what God's will is.

Right?

We we know his his will now.

Now we're gonna we're gonna drill down, we're gonna mine down on this here in a minute, but for now, let's just keep working our way through this, okay?

Okay, it says that he's made known to us the mystery of his will, according to whose purpose?

His purpose.

According to how he sovereignly saw fit to lay it all out, to do this.

All right, keep going.

It says, which he set forth or or presented before us in Christ.

In Christ.

So you see that?

God revealed his will to us in and through the person of Jesus, through through the gospel, through which you and I have the benefit of, through the scriptures.

We have a benefit of seeing that all in front of us.

I love Romans 16, verse 25.

Romans 16:25

Just listen, it says this.

It says, Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel, Paul says, which is the biblical gospel, and the preaching of who?

Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed, and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all the nations according to the command of the eternal God.

Okay, Jesus is the awesome, awesome revelation of God's mystery, of God's will, of God's God's plan.

Now, again, though, for what purpose?

Why did God reveal his will through Jesus?

Well, verse 10.

Take a look.

It says, as a plan for the fullness of time.

That's referring to the end of all time, the end of time as we know it, as God's appointed time that he has fixed, that he has set in place.

We don't know these dates, we don't know these times, but God does.

He sovereignly has this all figured out.

Keep going, it says, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

So, okay, God enlightened us as to his will by giving us Jesus, all right, to ultimately unite all things in him.

Meaning that God's overarching plan, or God's overarching purpose is to completely restore and fix the created order of the entire universe, okay?

Things in heaven and things on earth, it says there, which has been, we know this, it's been in complete and utter disarray.

It's been corrupted, it's been rotten ever since sin entered the picture, entered the world, way back in Genesis, through our original parents, Adam and Eve.

I love how Francis Fulkes puts this, and we're gonna have this up on the screen.

He says uh two things.

He says, through sin, endless disorder and disintegration have come into the world.

But in the end, all things will be restored to their intended function and to their unity by being brought back into or back to the obedience of Christ.

And he goes on to say this.

He says, For Paul, the essential mystery was the way in which God, through Christ, brings men and women back into fellowship with himself.

More than that, it is the way in which he brings into a restored unity the whole universe that it has been disordered by human rebellion and sin.

Pretty incredible.

Now, now, that God will do this on its own, is it's remarkable, right?

It's astonishing that God has this plan for the universe, for you and I, and and everything that He has made.

That on its own is is is wild to us.

Okay, that He lets us in on this plan is like is like a whole whole other level of remarkable and and and staggering, right?

It is.

I mean, just think about this.

Think about our own you know everyday life.

Right?

We're so guilty as a church, as Christians, of taking for granted so many things that are ours in Christ Jesus.

I mean, think about think about prayer, right?

You ready to feel guilty?

Think about prayer.

Right?

We we have an ability now to come before the God of the universe in prayer, to to talk to him, right?

To to bring our concerns before him, to like to plead with him, to bring our pain, to bring our our joys, our sorrows, all of that before before the God who created us, who made the whole universe.

And yet so much of the time we're like, I don't have time for that, I gotta get to like cat videos on YouTube.

Right?

We do.

Right?

We do we we push aside that amazing thing, we take it for granted, and we we we're too busy.

And and I don't feel like it, and we're bored with that, and we haven't, we haven't we kind of toss it aside.

Well, if we take something like that for granted, this thing here we're talking about this morning might be one of the biggest ones.

Right?

God has literally told us his master plan for all of time.

Right?

He's told us it, he's he's let us in on, he's given us wisdom and and insight, he's made known to us the life's great plot line.

Right?

He's he's revealed, he's illuminated our eyes to see his will for everything, how everything is gonna go.

And yet, isn't it like horrifyingly convicting?

Like this is how I feel about it.

How how little I seem to care about this.

Right?

Do you sense that yourself?

How how easily we even chafe against it?

Oh God, you laid it out that I you know I'm to be redeemed, I'm you're gonna work in me, you're gonna exhume my sinfulness, and you're gonna heal me, and you're gonna use me in ministry powerfully and do all kinds of amazing things, and how uh it's crazy that we want to like fight against that.

Thanks, Lord, for telling me that.

Thanks for calling me graciously into that, for forgiving me constantly, but you know what, I still want to make life about what I want it to be about.

Right?

We we chafe because of our pride in all of this.

How often do we stress over various, I mean, and often trivial things in life, right?

And and stress about and just fail to view these things in light of God's overall spectacular plan to make all things new and to restore, like the ending is good for us.

Do we know this?

And we stress about all kinds of little things and question God's goodness and question whether or not it's actually gonna work out in the end.

It it does.

God tells us this.

In Christ, you and I are enlightened.

We have access to everything that God has decided we need to know.

Because Jesus, because of the gospel, because of the holy word of God has revealed these things to those who are saved in Christ.

All right, we're enlightened.

Now, let's get a little bit more specific and maybe a little more detailed here.

I said that we would drill down on what God's given us wisdom and insight into, what exactly he's made known to us.

You know, so what are the specifics, one of the finer points maybe of the mystery of his will.

Again, we know that the overarching will is you know, the big picture plan is to redeem and restore, you know, the entire universe and all of that.

He's making all things new, as Revelation chapter 21 tells us.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

Right?

He's gonna create a new heavens and a new earth.

Isaiah lets us in on that in Isaiah 65, again, Revelation 21.

But again, what you know, within the grand umbrella purpose of all of that, what are some of the more specific examples or the different ways that that he's enlightened you and I in Christ?

Well, you can jot these down here.

In Christ, I'm enlightened to know six things.

In Christ, I'm enlightened to know first one, what God is like.

Incredible that we know this.

Colossians 1, verse 15 to 20 is uh is an amazing passage, and in there, I won't read all of it, but in there it says this, he referring to Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

Colossians 1:15–20

Through Jesus, we get a picture of who God is because Jesus is God.

It goes on to say, for in him, Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

Right?

And through him to reconcile, reconcile your, you know, to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Isn't it amazing to think that because we know Jesus, we know what God is truly like?

Do you realize that that the world out there, they they do not know what God is like?

First of all, they don't know that that God is real, they don't know that he exists.

Some some say that he doesn't, some are not sure about that.

Others who think there is a greater power or a God out there or or what have you don't know what his character is like.

You know, we know that he is loving, we know that he is gracious, we know that he is merciful.

We see that he is kind to his people, that he pours out grace.

We also see that he he takes sin seriously.

Right?

He doesn't act like it's not there.

He he he he takes it so seriously that he was willing to die for it, for us.

The world out there thinks that if there is a God, he's this disinterested cosmic force who doesn't have any interest in being part of our lives.

Or they say they see him as this angry, vengeful God in the sky shooting lightning bolts down at us.

Or they see him as this overly permissible God who doesn't actually take sin seriously at all.

And and really he's more like a butler to us in anything we want, we we just need to ask him for, and he's gonna make our life you know healthy, and we're he's gonna make us wealthy and all of that kind of stuff.

The world doesn't know what God is like.

We do.

In Christ, this is what we've been enlightened to.

Here's the second thing.

In Christ, I'm enlightened to know the hope of my salvation.

This is no small thing.

Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 3 and 4, he said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a, here it is, living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Church, it's amazing to think that we know what our only hope is.

We know what the solution to our estrangement from God is.

Jesus.

We know that's not found in anything else.

We know that Jesus Christ alone forgives my sin.

You go, well, how do how do I make that my own?

How do I make that hope my own and cling to that?

Well, if you don't know Christ, 1 John 1, verse 9.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Again, the world doesn't have any true hope.

It doesn't have any cure to hold on to as to what's wrong with them.

And I think everybody deep down, we know that we are we are flawed in some way.

And so we try to fill our lives with all kinds of things to try and you know fill our hope tank, so to speak.

And they don't know that it's found in Jesus Christ alone, through forgiveness, through the through the cross and resurrection.

And I would just encourage you now, if you're sitting here and you don't know Jesus Christ and you're looking for hope on a soul level and all kinds of other things, stop chasing after those things.

It's found in Jesus.

It says, confess your sin, admit your sin before him.

Trust him as your Lord.

Trust that he lived the perfect, perfect, spotless, pristine life that you could never.

That he died in your place.

Trust him today.

In Christ, I'm enlightened to know my true identity.

Now, obviously, this is what this whole series is about here, and this is what these 14 verses in Ephesians are about, and I won't spend a lot of time in this, but Peter says again in 1 Peter chapter 2, 9 and 10, he says, but he saw referring to in and through Christ, URA, this is identity stuff, a chosen race.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He says, We're a royal priesthood, we're a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

He goes on to say, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The world doesn't have the first clue as to what makes a lasting, rock solid identity.

And so we try and fill it with women, we try and fill it with money, we try and fill it with busyness, we try and fill it with pleasure.

That's where I'll find my identity.

It's all empty.

We know who we are because the scriptures tell us, because God gives us our identity.

Fourth thing, in Christ, I'm enlightened to know my purpose in life.

Isn't it amazing to think that we actually know how we're supposed to spend our days?

What we're supposed to invest in, what we're supposed to do.

Matthew 28, 19 and 20, this is familiar to you.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

This is what Jesus says to his disciples.

Go therefore, make disciples, tell them about me, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

First Corinthians 10, verse 1.

1 Corinthians 10:1

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Right?

This is our purpose in life, to bring glory to God no matter what we do.

This is it.

Right?

The world again, it's floundering.

It's floundering, looking for purpose in life.

We know what our purpose is.

Incredible.

Fifth one.

In Christ, I'm enlightened to know how to grow, how to how to be transformed, how to how to work our way through our problems and our sinfulness and all of this stuff.

Romans 8, 26.

It says this the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses.

The Spirit.

Now, this verse specifically is about prayer, but but also true generally in the sense that the Holy Spirit is our helper.

He is the power we need to grow and to transform as a Christian.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 10 says, But by the grace of God I am what I am.

1 Corinthians 15:10

And his grace towards me was not in vain.

And he says this on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me.

Right?

And so Paul, he's striving in his, in the energy that God has given him, but he understands that really what's going on is the Spirit of God is enabling him to serve and to grow and to transform and all of that stuff.

Right?

We need the Holy Spirit to grow.

We need God's grace to grow.

That's how we that's how we thrive as Christians.

We've been enlightened of these things.

The world thinks, unbelievers think, that the key to changing and growing and and improving is to somehow find that strength within ourselves.

Think positive thoughts.

Get rid of toxic people in your life.

Think all about all of these things.

Again, itself.

Right?

That's how I will improve.

If I just figure it out.

We know that we have no strength within us.

Christians know this.

We've been enlightened to understand our true nature is that we were fallen and completely at the mercy of Jesus Christ.

We need his strength, we need his power.

Pretty amazing to know how to grow.

The last thing that we know in Christ, I am enlightened to know is how it all ends.

Again, we've referred to this.

We know that Jesus is coming back.

Amen.

We know that there will be judgment.

We know that those who have have rejected Jesus Christ, it will be eternity in hell.

We know that those who have trusted him by faith will be heaven.

Will be eternity with him.

There'll be glorified bodies, no more sin, no more tears, no more death.

Right?

Our verses today, verses 8 to 10 tell us this.

2 Peter 3, verse 12 and 13 say it as well.

2 Peter 3:12

It says, waiting for the hastening of the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved.

This is intense, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Yeah, and the world doesn't know what's in store for us once we die.

They don't know.

They think it's just, it's nothing, it's over, it's done.

Or maybe we stand in front of God and and hopefully he'll you know weigh our good deeds versus our bad, and he'll decide that our good deeds outweigh the bad.

Unfortunately, if we do any bad deed, we do even one, we're thoroughly corrupt, and no amount of good behavior balances that out properly.

Right?

The world doesn't know what's in store.

There's no hope in that.

We have hope because of how it all ends.

We know it.

You think about you know all of these things, and you begin to realize just how much you know we've been enlightened in Christ.

This insight, this wisdom that he's given us, I mean, what a privilege and and what a joy it is.

How helpful, you know, for you and I to know that we've been given wisdom and insight into this.

That God has made known to us the mystery of his will.

But as much as it is a privilege and it is a joy and it spurs us on and it is very helpful to us so that we know how we ought to live, listen, it's also a massive responsibility, isn't it, church?

Right?

It is.

One that requires a certain response on our part.

Or maybe you would even say multiple responses.

And so you can jot these five things down, and then our time this morning will be done.

Because we've been enlightened of these things, we should respond.

Okay, first one, with deeper repentance.

Is it not right that we would consider the fact that God has told us how this is all gonna go?

That He has saved us, He showed us how to how to live in a way that pleases Him, He's given us purpose, He's given us identity, He's given us all of these things.

It should lead us to quicker repentance, it should lead us to deeper repentance.

John Piper reminds us that true repentance doesn't just deal with our failure to behave the right way or do the right things.

True repentance deals with our failure to love God.

An example of this, if I can illustrate this, it is very possible to repent, so to speak, though I would not say it's true repentance, it's very possible to repent of something like a sexual sin.

Say your problem is watching inappropriate shows on TV, on Netflix, on Amazon Prime, what have you.

You could easily say, this is this is wrong that I would do this, and I am now gonna change my behavior and not do this.

And so on the outside, your behavior has changed, but is it possible to change while your heart is not changing?

Because if we were to think deeply about a desire to watch inappropriate things on TV or online or on our phone or what have you, the real issue is that we love our sin.

We love it.

That's why we do it.

We love how the temporary pleasure that it brings us.

And when we give in to those things, when we go down that road, what we're doing is fail, failing to love God.

We're elevating our love of sin over the love of God.

You see that?

And so true repentance is really getting below the surface of the behavior that needs to change and getting down to the heart that will influence lasting behavior.

You ever wonder why you have maybe tried to repent of sin and then you know within a short amount of time you're going right back to it?

It's because you're not dealing with the failure to love God.

That's really what it is.

And so as we think about all of these things, we think about what God has enlightened us to.

Let's repent deeply.

Let's repent honestly, let's have the courage and the boldness to look our sins square in the eye because we know that we've been approved of by Christ.

He's not gonna reject us.

We can face that because we know we have his love.

And he wants to forgive us.

He will offer that for he always offers that forgiveness to us.

So because we've been enlightened of these things, we should respond with deeper repentance, but also with growing confidence in Jesus.

Growing confidence.

You ever found, and maybe this is true of your week, and maybe a lot of your weeks, is that you find that life is just challenging and you kind of get beat up by it, it's hard, and I'm I'm wrestling with a sinful flesh, and I'm wrestling with just a lack of desire, and I don't really care about the things of God, and life is difficult, and it can get very discouraging, can't it?

It really can.

But we need to realize here as God has enlightened us to things like, hey, I've sent you my helper, I've sent you my Holy Spirit, I will, I will give more grace to you.

That should that should encourage us, that should help us to see that it's not up to me to change myself and fix myself.

The Lord will do it in me.

Yeah, it is gonna be hard.

The the scriptures don't, you know, they don't pretend that it's not going to be, but they also say very clearly that that God is there, that he is working in you, and you can't see it, you know, in the day-to-day thing, but over time you should be able to see it.

Be encouraged, have confidence in your Savior.

That should be growing in us, that God is working.

We should respond also, third thing, with increased motivation and urgency to evangelize.

As we think about the fact that Christ is uniting everything, things in heaven and things on earth in him.

As we think about the the end and how this is moving towards something, and the judgment is coming, and Jesus is returning, and heaven and hell are very real realities, it should it should spark in us a desire to let a dying world know about this, don't you think?

Right?

It should, it should motive, it should give us boldness.

It should give us courage.

I think it should give us urgency.

You ever heard people talk about?

Well, you know, before you can evangelize people, you have to like get to know them and you have to build a relationship and you have to become BFFs with them, and that's gonna take years and years and years.

Really?

We're not guaranteed tomorrow.

Right?

I have no problem with becoming friends with people that we're evangelizing.

But we need some urgency here.

Because the days are evil and the Lord is returning.

We should be motivated by this, not driven by guilt, we should be driven by love.

God loves us, He wants to show that love to others through us.

Let's get going.

Evangelism.

Let's go for it.

We've been because we've been enlightened of these things, we should respond fourthly with heartfelt gratitude for what God has done.

Not complaining, complaining about every little thing.

No thankful hearts.

What do we have to complain about?

We got we got nothing.

I'm so shocked and appalled at how quickly I complain, how quickly I whine about something.

In that you know, simple moment, I it is a failure to be grateful to God for what he has given me.

He's given me so much.

It's a failure to rest in his sovereignty.

We should be so grateful.

There is no room for for bitterness in a Christian's life.

We've been forgiven of much, we've been called to much, we are promised much.

We've been enlightened of these things, we should respond with thanksgiving, heartfelt, not just words from the heart.

And then, final thing here, I think this is pretty obvious, because we've been enlightened of these things, we should respond with more passionate worship.

More passionate worship.

I gotta tell you, I was so blessed even just this morning to hear you sing, to hear you sing loudly.

That's one of the ways that we worship Christ.

It's through singing.

To be honest, I think as Christians, there is just no excuse at all for lethargic worship.

There isn't.

The Lord is awesome.

The Lord has let us in on everything here, and and and and we know him.

We have every reason to praise his holy name, not just on Sundays, but as you're thinking about his goodness, pray to him, how great he is, worship his name.

As you sing, as you think about how you spend your time and your money and and and the gifts that God has given you, use these as acts of worship to him.

We should be filled with passion.

We should be filled with energy and joy about these things.

And listen, of course, as always, we're gonna have an opportunity to respond with that very thing right now.

We're gonna worship him, we're gonna sing.

Let me pray and then we'll get to that.

Lord, we thank you for your immense grace that you have lavished upon us, Lord.

We thank you that you have enlightened us.

You have awoken our hearts and our minds.

Lord, and with all of these amazing realities that are ours, that this is our identity, this is who we actually are, we know, Lord.

I I pray that we would sense the joy in that.

And Lord, I pray that we would also feel the kind of the weight of responsibility in that as well.

Lord, I pray that we would dig deeper into you, not into our own strengths.

We would cry out for more grace, more boldness, more courage to follow you.

Lord, I pray that Jesus and everything that you are about would become what our lives are about.

That the things of earth would grow strangely dim.

Lord, that the passions of this world would become sour to us.

Because, Lord, you are everything.

Lord, I pray that you would help us.

I pray that we would not be discouraged in these things today at all.

Lord, I pray they'd be quite the opposite.

I pray that we would be fired up.

I pray that we'd be filled with joy.

We pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.