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Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. My sermon text today is taken from Paul’s second letter, his second epistle, to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5.17. In order to fill out the context a bit, I’m going to begin reading at verse 11. Again, you’ll find this on page 1148 in your Pew Bible. 2 Corinthians 5.17 is what we’ll be focusing on, but I’m going to read from verse 11 through verse 21, so let us hear God’s Holy Word.
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known
to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves
to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer
those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if
we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For
the love of Christ controls us. Because we have concluded this, that one has died for
all, therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer
live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore,
we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to
the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ,
God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,
God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to
God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our
God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of the word.
O heavenly Father, we thank you that you have spoken to us, that you have given us a sure
and certain and reliable word in the holy scriptures, which are a lamp unto our feet,
a light unto our path, a guide to our way. We would pray, heavenly Father, that by your
spirit that you would illuminate our minds and open our hearts this day, that we might
receive wonderful things from your word. And we pray that you would grant me, your servant,
the grace to speak forth and declare your word with clarity and power this day. We pray,
heavenly Father, that Jesus would be exalted in our hearts and in our midst. We ask all
of these things, heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen.
Congregation, you may be seated.
Title of my sermon this morning is Foundations of Faith. This is the second part focusing
on the life everlasting, and there’s a couple words that children can be listening for today
in my sermon, the words eternal, life, new creation, and union.
Well, dear ones, on the last Lord’s Day, we began to consider the biblical basis for
the final affirmation of that great Bible-based creed of the church known as the Apostles
Creed. And that final, glorious, hope-filled, life-transforming affirmation is in these
words, I believe in the life everlasting. I believe in the life everlasting. Brothers
and sisters in Christ, in that final affirmation, we as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ
declare and bear witness to a hopeless dying world that death, the final enemy, has already
in principle been defeated and will ultimately be defeated in the end. We have good news
for a lost and dying world, a world that is subject to death and hell and condemnation,
and that good news is that death will not have the final say. In fact, God’s Word teaches
us that death will be swallowed up in victory, and in principle already has been swallowed
up in victory, and that we as God’s people will reign with our Lord in life and in glory.
Scripture testifies that life, life with a capital L, life in its glorious, superlative
consummate sense will prevail victorious in the end. As our sovereign, triune, covenant-making,
covenant-keeping God establishes His final permanent consummate dwelling place among
His people forever in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells.
And as we, His people, behold our resurrected Lord Jesus face to face in luminous glory
and in inexpressible uninterrupted joy. That’s good news, isn’t it? One day, brothers and
sisters, do you ever think about this? Every day that passes is a day closer to that day,
that final day, when you will look your Savior in the eyes and you will see your Lord face
to face in unimaginable glory and joy. What makes this good news possible? Well, friends,
all of this was made possible by the glorious, miraculous, supernatural, physical resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. Jesus of Nazareth, our incarnate Lord and Messiah,
God’s chosen and anointed King. For Jesus has finished the work and He has conquered
sin, death, the devil, and hell once and for all and forever. But, friends, on the
last Lord’s Day, we also considered that this life everlasting, this divine gift of
eternal life, this is a gift that doesn’t just have to wait until the future for us
to enjoy it. Indeed, friends, there is a very real sense in which even now, even in this
present age, we believers, by sovereign grace, can begin to experience the life everlasting.
As we saw, Scripture teaches that there are already not yet aspects to God’s gift of
salvation in Christ. And when the Scriptures speak of eternal life, they’re not merely
speaking of our future life with God in heavenly glory. Although that, praise God, that’s
a wonderful aspect of the gift of eternal life, that we have the prospect that we will
dwell with God in heavenly glory forever. But, friends, in Scripture, this terminology
of eternal or everlasting life speaks to life in union, communion, and fellowship with our
sovereign, triune God. What is eternal life? Eternal life is knowing God. Knowing God is
enjoying personal communion, fellowship, and friendship with him in Christ. Friends, that
life eternal begins in our souls the moment we sinners become new spiritual creations
in Christ and are brought by sovereign grace to a personal saving faith in Christ as our
very own Lord and Savior. If you’re here today and by the grace of God you have received
and rested upon Christ and Christ alone as your Lord and Savior, having been born again
by the Holy Spirit, you have received the life everlasting, at least in its initial
first installment. You have received the life everlasting, the gift of eternal life. And
that gift that you have received now in its initial installment, you will enjoy forever
in consummate glory when the Lord Jesus returns and brings you to be with himself forever.
And so to consider this present or already aspect of God’s gift of eternal life, I thought
a most appropriate passage for us to consider this morning is this very passage from the
Apostle Paul’s second epistle to the first century church in Corinth. Now, if you’ve
ever tried to read through 2 Corinthians, well, you know if you’ve read any of Paul’s
works, Paul’s letters, that Paul was an intense personality. He was a brilliant man and God,
you see how God sovereignly and providentially prepared him and fitted him to be the apostle
to the Gentiles that he was called to be. But the Apostle Paul’s second epistle to the
Corinthians is probably one of the most deeply personal, if not the most deeply personal
and emotional letter that he penned under the Spirit’s inspiration. I mean, you read
through 2 Corinthians and it’s like Paul is just so transparent, so bluntly honest and
he wears his emotions on his sleeves, if you will. Well, in this letter, there are a number
of major pastoral issues or concerns that Paul addresses in this God-inspired letter
of 2 Corinthians. And one of Paul’s major concerns in 2 Corinthians is to defend his
ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ and also to defend his personal integrity against
those who were attacking his integrity. He was defending his apostolic ministry and his
personal integrity against the charges and slanders of certain false apostles who had
infiltrated the Corinthian church. In our text for this morning, Paul is explaining
his gospel ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And remember that term apostle means
spokesman. In order to be an apostle with a capital A, you had to be a witness to the
resurrected Jesus. You had to have seen Jesus after his resurrection from the dead and you
need to have been personally appointed by Christ. And that’s, brothers and sisters,
that’s why anyone who today in the 21st century claims to be an apostle is actually a false
apostle. There are no apostles, at least not in this biblical sense, around today. I understand
that there’s a more generic sense that the term apostle can mean messenger or missionary
and certainly we can speak about it in that less, that more informal sense. But in terms
of a biblical apostle, as were the 12 plus Paul, there are no such apostles today and
anyone who claims to be such an apostle is a false teacher headed for hell. They’re false
teachers with false gospels and do not listen to them. Do not give a cent of your money
to them. That would be like giving your money to the devil. Anyways, I’ll try not to get
off onto that tangent too much, but friends, you can tell I get fired up about this a little
bit, don’t you? But friends, so Paul is trying to defend his integrity and his apostolic
ministry. In verse 18, he describes his apostolic ministry as what? As the ministry of reconciliation.
Why does he describe his apostolic ministry in those terms? Well, he describes his ministry
in those terms because the gospel message, the good news about Jesus Christ brings about
reconciliation between the infinitely holy creator God and sinful humanity and it does
so through the instrument of God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the instrument
or means of faith, we receive the benefits that Christ has won for his people by his
obedient life, his atoning death and his glorious resurrection from the dead. Now in the midst
of explaining his apostolic gospel ministry, Paul reminds his readers in verse 17 of that
glorious truth. He says in verse 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old
is passed away, behold, means pay attention, the new not will come, but has come. Speaking
of the already not yet aspects of our salvation, we are already new creations in Christ. This
power packed statement in verse 17 follows from what Paul had said in the previous verse
about his own Christian experience. He explains that before his conversion to Christ, he and
those like him viewed Jesus from a worldly point of view as the NIV translates it in
verse 16. In other words, before the apostle Paul was converted to faith in Christ, how
did he view Jesus as a pharisaical Jew prior to his conversion? Like many of the other
Jews of Jesus’ day and of the days of the early apostles, Paul had viewed Jesus as just
another messianic pretender, a false messiah, someone claiming to be the messiah, but not
truly the messiah. But what changed? What changed? Well, because of the transforming
gospel message of Christ’s death and resurrection, and especially because the resurrected Jesus
himself appeared to Paul in glory, Paul saw Jesus face to face in his resurrected glory
on the road to Damascus because of this. Paul no longer viewed Jesus in this way from a
worldly point of view. Instead, now he saw Jesus of Nazareth as who he truly is, namely
as the promised messiah, God’s chosen and anointed king, the Christ, the son of the
living God, the only God-appointed savior for fallen mankind. Paul now had a new face
on Christ because he was a new creation in Christ. Have you ever tried to share the gospel
with unbelievers, family, friends, co-workers and what have you, and you can bring the most
convincing argumentation to the table, but unless the Holy Spirit is at work in their
hearts and gives them the eyes to see, they might understand it at an intellectual level
but they’re not going to get it until the Spirit effectually calls them to faith, until
they become new creations in Christ. Paul has a new perspective on Jesus as a converted
apostle now than he had before his conversion because he is a new creation in Christ. And
what was true for him is true for anyone who is in Christ as we’re told in verse 17. My
dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we again approach this text of Holy Scripture,
let us pause to reflect upon the fact that by the sovereign grace of God we are new creations
in Christ and let us consider some of the implications of this powerful gospel truth.
The first point in your sermon outlined by way of application that I want to draw your
attention to. Brothers, sisters in Christ, believer, realize that you are a new creation
in Christ. You are right now, if you are in Christ, if he is your Lord and Savior, you
are a new creation in Christ. Think about what that means. Well, in order to understand
the significance of what it means to be a new creation in Christ, it’s important to
at least have some idea of what Paul means when he talks about being in Christ. If you
read the corpus of Paul’s writings, the body of his writings in the New Testament scriptures,
you realize that this terminology, in Christ, this is one of Paul’s favorite phrases. And
he uses it to describe the believer’s relationship to Christ. One Bible commentator puts it this
way, union with Christ summarizes our experience of redemption. Believers are elected, justified,
sanctified and glorified, quote, in Christ. Here Paul focuses on the momentous significance
of the believer’s union with the Savior. The great Reformed theologian John Murray,
in his classic book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, explains it this way. He says
union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation, not only
in its application, but also in its once for all accomplishment in the finished work of
Christ. So friends, I hope you can see the significance and the importance of this doctrine
of the believer’s union with Christ. But what does the Bible mean when it talks about us
being in Christ? What does this union with Christ, what’s the significance of it? The
great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge explains it this way. He says to be in Christ is the
common scriptural phrase to express the saving connection or union between him and his people.
They are in him by covenant as all men were in Adam. They are in him as members of his
body through the indwelling of his spirit and they are in him by faith which lays hold
of and appropriates, that is takes to themselves, him as the life and portion of the soul. He
goes on to say this union is transforming. It imparts a new life. It effects a new creation
This expression indicates not only the greatness and radical nature of the change effected,
but also its divine origin. It is a divine work, in other words, one due to the mighty
power of God. It is therefore called a creation, the commencement of a new state of being.
And so if you’re a Christian, if Christ is your Lord and Savior, if you are united to
him by faith, you are a new creation in Christ. Now, we don’t have time to get into all of
the ins and outs of what it means to be in union with Christ, but let me mention there
are in the scriptures reveal that there are various aspects to our union with Christ.
There are what we might call the legal aspect of our union with Christ and spiritual or
mystical aspects to our union with Christ. First of all, our union with Christ is a legal
union in the sense that God as the judge of heaven declares us to be righteous in his
sight. The moment the spirit calls you through the gospel to trust Christ as your Savior,
God as the glorious heavenly judge in the courtroom of heaven, the gavel of God goes
down and he declares you to be righteous in his sight. This is what justification means.
Justification is the opposite of condemnation and it’s a legal term. In a courtroom case
today there are two possible verdicts. Either the accused is what? Guilty or innocent. Declared
to be justified or not guilty or to be condemned. Guilty. And this is what is focused on, for
example, in our passage, Paul focuses on this or mentions it in verse 21 where he says in
verse 21, for our sake, for the sake of we believers, for our sake he, the Father, made
him Christ to be sin, not that Jesus became sinful, but Jesus was made to be sin who knew
no sin, Jesus was sinless, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is speaking to our legal union with Christ. In Adam we are guilty. In Adam we are fallen.
In Adam we are condemned. But in Christ we are forgiven. In Christ we are adopted. In
Christ we are justified, declared righteous in the sight of God, not because we are righteous
in ourselves, but because of Christ’s perfect everlasting righteousness imputed to us, credited
to us, received by faith alone. So the moment that the spirit opens your heart to receive
Jesus, to trust Jesus, not only are your sins imputed to him, he died for those sins 2,000
years ago and he said it is finished, he’s paid the penalty for your sin, but his perfect
everlasting righteousness is credited to you. There’s an exchange, a great exchange. He
takes your sins and pays for them and he gives you as a gift his perfect everlasting righteousness.
And that is why Paul says in Romans 8 verse 1, passages like that, there is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ, you need not
fear condemnation. God has justified you and God doesn’t go back on his verdict. It’s
not that you bounce back and forth from a justified to an unjustified state, sort of
like a ping pong ball going back and forth. Many of our Arminian and Wesleyan friends
for example view salvation that way, justification that way. You can be justified one day, unjustified the next and then you can get re-justified the following day. That’s not how God works
in justification. Justification is a once and for all and forever and irreversible,
unchangeable declaration of God. And that is why passages like John chapter 5 verse
24, I love this passage, just going to read that briefly to you. John 5 24, Jesus says
this, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me
has, not might have, may have, will have, but has, right now, has eternal life or what
the creed calls the life everlasting. He does not come into judgment, why? But has passed
from death to life. He’s already passed from death unto life eternal. And so we have legal
union with Christ. But we also have a living or spiritual or mystical union with Christ.
And this mystical union pertains to our progressive sanctification. When we are united to Christ,
we are united to him legally, but we are also united to him spiritually. And his spirit
abides in us and works in us, enabling us more and more to die unto sin and live unto
righteousness by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul touches upon that aspect of our union
with Christ in passages like Romans 6 verses 1 through 11, where he says we have been united
to Christ in his death and resurrection, which is signified and sealed in our baptism. So
friends, what does it mean to be a new creation in Christ and how should it or how does it
impact your life as a believer? There’s many things that could be said about this, but
by way of application, let me mention four ways that being a new creation in Christ impacts
your life. First of all, believer, you who are in Christ, you have a new representative.
You have a new covenant head and representative. And what’s his name? His name is Jesus Christ.
You see, because of the fall of mankind in Adam, in the real historical Adam, the Bible
teaches that Adam was a real historical man, Adam and Eve were real, and Adam represented
us. He was the initial God appointed representative of the human race. When he fell, we fell in
solidarity, in covenant solidarity with him. And therefore, sin, we receive a sin nature
from Adam. God doesn’t create you sinful, by the way. God doesn’t create bad stuff.
He created you in his image, but you became a sinner because of your covenantal representative,
your federal representative, Adam. You are fallen. We are fallen in him. But now, if
you are in Christ, Adam is no longer your covenant head and representative. If you are
in Christ, he, the second or last Adam, is your representative. As Paul writes in that
famous passage in Romans 5, beginning at verse 12, he says, therefore, just as sin came into
the world through one man, that would be Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread
to all men because all sinned, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given,
sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even
over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the
one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many died through
the one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace
of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many, and so forth. We see that comparison
and contrast between Adam and Christ. Christ is the new Adam, the final Adam, and he is
our representative, brothers and sisters. If you are in Christ, you have a new representative,
a perfect covenant head and representative, the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, if you are
in Christ, you have a new relationship to God. You are no longer a guilty and condemned
sinner whom God relates to as an offended judge. God is very patient and forbearing
and long-suffering toward those who are outside of Christ. He causes his Son to shine on the
just and the unjust. He sends the rain on the righteous and the wicked. He is a good
God, a kind God, a patient God, and yet his basic attitude towards those outside of Christ
is an attitude of holy anger and righteous indignation. And that is how he viewed you
and me when we were outside of Christ. But if you are in Christ and thus have received
the gift of the life everlasting, you have a new relationship with God. You are no longer
a guilty and condemned sinner whom God relates to as an offended judge, but you are an adopted
son or daughter of God whom God loves as the apple of his own eye. I am reminded of that
wonderful passage found in John chapter 1 verses 10 to 13 where the Apostle John writes
about this, and he says in those verses of Jesus, the Word made flesh, he says, He was
in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came
to his own, that is, he came to his fellow Jews, and his own people did not receive him.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children
of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. If by the grace of God you have received Christ as your Savior, you have
a new relationship with God. You are a child, a beloved, blood-bought, adopted child of
God. So you have a new representative, you have a new relationship with God. Believer,
you have also in Christ received a new disposition from God. See, before Christ saved you, you
were dead in your trespasses and sins, not just sick or injured or incapacitated, but
you were dead, spiritually dead, dead to the things of God, as we are told in Ephesians
2, 1-10. Before your conversion to Christ, before you were in Christ, you were dead in
trespasses and sins, but now in Christ, you are no longer dead in your trespasses and
sins. You are no longer a willing subject of Satan and the ungodly world. Now you are
alive unto God through Jesus Christ, and if he is your Savior, the deepest desire of your
heart is to please your loving Heavenly Father and to love the Christian Brotherhood. That
love is not always as deep or as intense as it perhaps ought to be. We all struggle with
sin, we continue to struggle with sin, but God has put within your soul, if you have
been born again by the Spirit, you have a new disposition, a disposition that hates
your remaining sin and longs for hungers and thirst after righteousness. I just want to
read what John the Apostle says about this in 1 John 4, verses 7 through 11. In 1 John
4, verses 7 through 11, he writes this, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from
God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does
not know God because God is love. And then he gets specific, he makes it clear, he’s
not talking about sloppy agape, he’s not talking about ooey gooey emotionalism. Here he defines
it, he says, in this the love of God was made manifest among us that God did something.
What did he do? That God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through
him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love
one another, and we will by the grace of God. And then skip down to verses 20 and 21, it
says, if anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does
not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment
we have from him, whoever loves God, must also love his brother. So you have a new representative,
you have a new relationship with God, you’ve received a new disposition from God, but believer,
you are also headed for a new destination. Before your conversion, before you were in
Christ, you were traveling down that broad road that leads to destruction. You were traveling
the way of the world, the flesh and the devil. You were traveling the road of self-justification,
of trusting and relying upon your own works and labors and efforts, the way of trying
to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. But now that you are in Christ, you are on
that narrow road that leads to life. And that narrow road is, of course, the way of faith
in Christ and Christ alone. Beloved, you were headed towards eternal punishment in the lake
of fire, under the just righteous wrath of the infinitely holy God, as he would direct
that wrath against all who are in sinful rebellion against him. But now you are headed for the
glorious new heavens and new earth, where in righteousness dwells the ultimate life
everlasting. Why? Because Christ has redeemed you from your sins. You are forgiven. You
are justified. You are in him. Now that you are in him with a new covenant head, with
a new relationship with God, a new disposition toward God, and a new destination from God,
now if that is the case, live your life for the Lord.
And that brings me to my final point of application. Dear ones, take to heart that all things have become new for those who are in union with Christ. Not just some things, but all things have become new for those who are in union with Christ. Again, as Paul says in our passage for today, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, anyone, not just Jews who believe in Jesus or Gentiles who believe in Jesus, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come.
Again to quote from Charles Hodge, Dr. Hodge writes, old opinions, views, plans, desires,
principles and affections are passed away. New views of truth, new principles, new apprehensions
of the destiny of man, and new feelings and purposes fill and govern the soul. However,
let’s get real here. This is real. I’m not denying that. But maybe you’re scratching
your head. Maybe as I’m preaching this, you’re thinking to yourself, pastor, okay, I’m a
Christian. I’m a believer. I’m a follower of Jesus. He’s my Lord and Savior. But I got
to tell you, pastor, if I am a new creation in Christ, if all things have become new,
if the old has passed away, why do I still find myself falling into those old sins that
dominated my life before my conversion? If I am a new creation in Christ, if all things
have become new, why do I still have to contend with my old sin nature? Or others of you may
wonder, well, pastor, if all things are indeed new, why do I still have to contend with
this aching, aging body of mine and with sickness and disease? Or if all things are new, then
why do Christians living before the second coming of Jesus have to experience and undergo
physical death with all the sorrow and grief that it brings with it? Are all things indeed
new? Well, friends, we need to understand, again, the dynamic of the already and the
not yet. All things are new in principle. All things are new in prototypical form in
terms of initial installment. But one day all things will be new in consummate glory.
Christ’s death and resurrection have dealt the death blow to the old fallen order in
Adam and have brought us powerful glimpses of the glorious age to come. By the word and
spirit of God, we get a foretaste of the glories of the age to come. Whenever a sinner is born
again by the Holy Spirit, it is as if there is an in-breaking of the age to come and we
get that spiritual foretaste of the glory to come. A foretaste that wets our spiritual
appetite for the heavenly glory yet to come. Wets our appetite even more than the wonderful
food that awaits us might be wetting your appetite at this very moment. And don’t worry,
we’ll be getting to that soon. But friends, even though Satan and his old order are in
principle defeated, the effects of the old fallen order continue to remain in this present
age. We still feel the effects of the common curse. And these effects of the old order
will only be completely done away with when Jesus ushers in the eternal state. The life
everlasting in its consummated permanent form. So yes, all things are indeed new in principle
and in initial installment in prototypical form, but all things are not new in the ultimate
final sense that they will be new one day. But until that time of consummated glory,
we groan, we groan both inwardly and at times outwardly as we long for the end of the ages
and as we cry out for the soon return of our Lord Jesus. But let us never forget that even
in this present age there is a very real sense in which the new creation has already come.
Remind yourself of that when you’re tempted by sin. Remind yourself of that when you’re
tempted by sinful doubt and questioning of the word of God. Remind yourself of that when
you face challenges and trials and tribulations, persecution and pain. Remind yourself that
you have a foretaste of the life everlasting even now through the gospel. The life everlasting
is already present. We who have tasted the goodness of the Lord and know Christ as Lord
and Savior are already new creations in Christ. And there is a very real sense in which all
things have already become new for us. Believer, this is what should give you and me hope as
we face the struggles of this present age. As we close our time in the Word this day,
I want to ask you, dear listener, whether you’re here present or listening through the
internet, dear listener, are you a partaker of the life everlasting? Have you received
God’s free gift of eternal life offered to sinners, presented to sinners in the gospel?
Have you by the grace of God received the gift of eternal life? The word of God says
that Jesus calls all who are weary and heavy laden to come unto him. Come to Jesus. Trust
him as your Savior in faith and repentance. Turn to him. He will receive you. He will
not turn away anyone who comes to him. So believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ who was
crucified for sinners just like you and me and who was raised from the dead that all
who believe in him, all who trust in him might not perish but have everlasting life.
Receive and rest upon Christ as your very own Lord and Savior and then you can know
with assurance that by the grace of God you are a new creation in Christ now that you
have received the life everlasting now and you will receive on that final day life everlasting
in that ultimate heavenly glorious sense. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in
heaven, we thank you for the good news of Jesus. We thank you that Christ our Savior
has conquered sin and death and hell and we thank you Lord for the gift of life everlasting
that we have received in him. We pray that as we have received Christ Jesus the Lord
may we continue walking in him keeping in step with the spirit putting to death the
sinful deeds of the old nature and walking after a new obedience out of gratitude for
your gift of salvation. Grant this we pray heavenly Father in Jesus name and all of
God’s people said amen. Let’s rise as we close our time of worship today. We’ll rise
and sing together hymn 448 union with the 448.