Resurrection Sunday 2026 Acts 17:22-34a The Gospel of the Grace of God

Discussing some of the basic principles Christian life and it's open to all ages and the lunch will be provided So just put that on your calendars We want as many people as we can to come to be under the teaching of these basic Christian teachings so You can have that on your calendar. I think we're ready. We'll be doing music Well, good morning Awesome to be together this morning. Thank you for joining us. And stand with us, and we'll begin with a song that should always be played on guitar, because that's the way I learned it from my dad.

And he'd lead the kids program, and we'd sing the song all the time. And you ever have those songbooks with the kind of illustrated for kids and the big ones and hold them up and turn the pages? And we always get to the page. where it says, the vilest offender who truly believes. And maybe some of you guys have the same songbook.

You have a picture of some really nasty looking people. And then, when they truly believe, they're all dressed up in nice church clothes. It took me a long time to realize that, no, I'm one of those vilest offenders. I'm one of those nasty people. I might be in a nice shirt, but we're all the vilest offenders who need to believe in Jesus Christ. So let's sing together.

God be the glory, great things He hath done, So loved He the world, and He gave us His Son, Who yielded His life, and adored Him through sin, praise the lord great things O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood To every believer the promise of God The vilest offender who truly believes That moment from Jesus a pardon receives ♪ Praise the Lord, praise the Lord ♪ Let the earth hear His voice ♪ Praise the Lord, praise the Lord ♪ Let the people rejoice ♪ Come down to the Father ♪ Through Jesus the Son ♪ And give Him the glory, great things He doth do Jesus Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice. for us.

How vastly unparalleled sure that He should give His only Son to encourage His treasure. How great the view of serious love The Father turns His face away, As foolish for the Chosen One. Bring many sons to glory, I see him upon his shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my heart reverse.

God-like, I'm from the spotless. It was my sin that I His dying breath has brought me life I know that it is finished I will not lose it when He returns No tears, no sorrow in my heart But I will boast in Jesus Christ His death and resurrection Why should I gain from His reward? But this I know with all my heart, His Word hath made my ransom. But this I know with all my heart, His Word hath made my ransom. Now a song that I think, sometimes I think the whole world knows, and sometimes I wonder how many in the world understand it, but Amazing Grace.

It's song 332 in the hymn book, if you want to follow along. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Was grace that taught my heart to fear? And grace my fears relieved. The Lord has promised me to be His Word my hope secure. as long as life endures. Through many dangers, toils, and scares, I have already come. You guys can have a seat for a minute. This is a poem we came across recently. Turns out it's a song, but we're going to read it as a poem.

Nothing either great or small. Nothing, sinner, no. Jesus died and did it all long, long ago. It is finished, yes, indeed. Finished, every jot. Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not? When he from his lofty throne stooped to do and die, everything was fully done. Listen to his cry. Weary, working, burdened one, wherefore toil you so? Cease your doing. All was done long, long ago. Cast your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in him, in him alone, gloriously complete.

And here's an old song about the free gift of God's grace. God forgave my sin, in Jesus' name. I've been born again, in Jesus' name. And in Jesus' name, I come to you, to share His love, as He told me to. He said, freely, freely you have received, freely, freely give. Go in my name and because you believe, others will know that I live. All power is given In Jesus' name In earth and heaven In Jesus' name And in Jesus' name I come to you To share His power As He told me to He said freely, freely you have received freely, freely lived Go in my name and because you believe others will know that I live My faith has found a resting place, number 390 in the hymn book. Why don't you stand with us? This will be our last song for the first part here. My faith has found a resting place, not in device or plea. I trust the Ever-Living One, His voice for me shall be. No other argument, I need no other plea.

It isn't done, that Jesus died, and God, He died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves, this is my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him, He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me. My heart is leaning on the Word, the living Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name, Salvation through His blood. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me. My great Physician heals the sick, the lost He came to save. For me His precious blood He shed, for me His life He gave. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is in I that Jesus died, You guys can have a seat.

Wayne's gonna come up and lead us in prayer. Before we pray, I'd like to take a few minutes to remembrance the Lord's resurrection and the things that in our life we need to confess that we can maintain that fellowship with the Lord Jesus. So let's just take a moment.

Father, we just thank you so much this morning for this remembrance of your resurrection and what it really means to us in a great way. We think, Father, without the resurrection we have absolutely nothing. We would be lost in sin. So, Father, we just give you the praise for that. This morning, Father, as we meet together, we think of the world out there with the chocolate Easter bunnies and the eggs and what a lost world there is and that we might be a witness to those people for the truth.

We just thank you now for that, and we just turn this time over to Miles as he teaches. We ask that you would just open our hearts to receive what you have to say to us through him. In Jesus' name, amen. Turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. I'm going to read verse 22 through almost the end of the chapter. So, starting in verse 22. Then Paul stood in the middle of the Europagus and said, Men of Athens, I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and everything in it, he is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and boundaries of where they live. He did this so they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist, even as some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Being God's offspring, then, we shouldn't think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination.

Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent. Because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him. But others said, we'd like to hear from you again about this.

Then Paul left their presence. However, some men joined him and believed. Paul, here in this passage, is on his way to Jerusalem and he stops on the way to say goodbye to the elders from the Ephesian churches. And it's a really ‐‐ it's actually a really emotional farewell. Because Paul knows that this is in all likelihood going to be the last time that he ever sees them. And it turns out that it ‐‐ I believe it was.

Because the Holy Spirit had indicated to Paul that when he arrived at Jerusalem, he was going to be bound in chains and didn't know maybe exactly what awaited him, but he knew he was nearing the end of the line. And notice Paul's words in Acts 20 verses 22 through 24 to these beloved brethren. He says, and now behold, bound by the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. So there was some uncertainty though.

He knew, he says, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

Paul, in that expression, he's summarizing his entire earthly ministry from his call, his conversion on the Damascus Road up until this point. Paul could summarize his entire ministry as testifying to this thing that he calls the gospel of the grace of God, which is our title for this morning. But what is that? What is the gospel of the grace of God?

The Greek in that passage there is very interesting and a little bit different than we would say it in English. It's literally the gospel of the grace of the God. As many of you are aware, the definite article in Greek is like a pointer finger. It's pointing out something very, very specific. The word gospel simply means good news or good message. I mean, you could use that about just about anything.

I've got gospel for you. There's donuts in the lobby there. That's good news for most, I think. But this is the gospel of the grace of the one and only God. He's talking about something very specific. Sometimes people have this dumbed down idea of the gospel as something as loose and ambiguous as good triumphs. That's not the gospel. I mean, that is true, and that's good news, but that's not the gospel of the grace of God. This is specific. This is the gospel. It's not just any good news.

And Paul defines, he explains what he's talking about, what this gospel is by classifying it as the gospel of the grace of the God. Now grace in the English word many of you are familiar with is kind of an English, it sounds a little bit like the Greek word charis, charis, grace, it's the same word. It literally means a gift or a favor freely given or bestowed with no expectation of return. That's what grace means.

So the good news or gospel that Paul's talking about here is the specific message, the specific news that explains how God's favor has been made available to mankind. And what is that message? What's the content of that message that makes God's favor available to mankind? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul explains this. He puts it into very, very clear terms.

He says, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received.

And here's the content of the gospel. This is specific facts of the gospel. that Christ died for our sins, according to the scripture, that he was buried, which proves that he died, and that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. So the gospel, the good news, is the teaching that tells us exactly how God's favor has been extended to us. It's bound up in those two key events, the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. That's the gospel, that through Jesus' death and resurrection, a place of favor with God is available to all men.

And it's based on these two things. One, that Jesus Christ, who was sent from God the Father, a genuine man who was at the same time God himself, A man who had no sin of his own died a criminal's death on the cross for your sins. He died for your sins as your substitute in your place. He paid your death penalty. That's the first part.

The second part is the resurrection, that Jesus didn't remain dead. Jesus was resurrected, not revived or resuscitated. We've seen other people, if you've read through the Gospels, you've seen many people, at least quite a few, raised from the dead, but that's not what happened to Jesus. Jesus was resurrected, something that had never happened before. Jesus' resurrection proves something that nothing else ever has, that there is a resurrection life that is possible. Jesus' resurrection proves that. Also proves something else that we're gonna get to in a little bit. But the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are what Easter is all about. Now, some of you, OK, if you've been around Holly Hills long enough, you know that we tend to use the term Resurrection Sunday rather than Easter Sunday. And you might, maybe you've heard that.

Why? Why do we have this weird, OK, why do we steer away from the word Easter? Now, maybe you've never thought about it, but the word Easter is not found in the Bible. Does that surprise anyone? By the way, neither is Christmas. So where did the word come from? Easter is actually a form of the name of an ancient pagan fertility goddess. Does that surprise anyone?

Okay. It shows up under a number of different names. Names have a way of doing this. Sometimes I say words and you guys think that sounds kind of like English, right? Because it's ‐‐ we've got two different Englishes going on sometimes, right? And in the same way, the ancient name of the fertility goddess of the Assyrians was Ishtar. Do you hear in that the word Ishtar, Easter? Okay, so there's all these other neat forms of it.

We got Astarte, Ashtoreth, and what you actually find commonly in the Bible, you don't find Easter, but you do find Asherah. Asherah is the same word, transliterated into the Hebrew language. It's common, and the Israelites got into this worship of Asherah. And actually in Jeremiah, she's called the Queen of Heaven.

That might be an interesting term for some folks, okay? We could get into it, but today we have a term, we call her Mother Earth, okay? Now, when the worship of Ishtar made its way into Europe, the name was transliterated into a form much like the modern word Easter, okay? And many hundreds of years later, that name became associated with the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, because that makes sense, right? Naturally. How did that happen? Now, I assure you, this is not a trivia lesson. We're heading somewhere here. When was Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected? The time of the Jewish Passover, right? Which is when?

In the spring. Every year in the spring. Now, it just so happens that if you are a pagan idolater, like most of the world, Spring is very important to you because why? Spring, the spring equinox. What happens at spring equinox? The days lengthen, right? Days are lengthening. And in paganism, that's a big deal because Spring equinox marks the reawakening or the rebirth of nature.

And of course, who do they attribute that to? Well, Ishtar, Easter, the fertility goddess. And in their thinking, life has overcome the cold and dark of winter. In Jurassic Park, it was taught this way, life finds a way. And so, I mean, that's, no kidding, they are teaching this philosophy in that movie, or book. And so you have the worship of the natural force of fertility or fecundity, and it's worshiped. because that's where prosperity comes from, right? We worship at the altar of fertility and prosperity, okay?

By the way, that's the reason why bunnies and eggs are the traditional symbols of Easter, because they're symbols of fertility. Ask Courtney about how many rabbits there are in his backyard, okay? They've been the symbol of reproductive fertility for thousands of years. And so if you wondered, why chocolate bunnies? Now, you can eat your chocolate bunnies, that's fine.

But rather than worshiping the creator God as the giver and sustainer of life, we worship physical life and earthly prosperity. I think in America it's called the pursuit of happiness. I looked that one up just to be sure. It's always this way with man, okay? Worship is turned towards the creation rather than the creator.

Romans 1.25 says, for the exchange, the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.

The religion of man is always centered around the worship of nature and the unseen forces behind it. So all the gods and goddesses are really just personifications of the forces of nature that are believed to control your well-being or your prosperity. And of course, if these gods and goddesses control your well-being, well, then you better keep them happy, right? And that right there sums up all of worldly religion. All of man's religions are wrapped up in the idea of trying to keep God happy, make him happy. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, right?

And the understanding that this, we need to understand that this is the religious environment into which the gospel of Jesus Christ went in the first century and still goes today. After the resurrection, Jesus commanded his disciples to go out into all the world and to preach the gospel.

And the gospel went to people who thought this way. Now remember Paul in Athens, as Jim was reading for us this morning. Okay, Paul preached the gospel to the Athenians and this was the, we want to look at the response that he got. So we're just kind of repeating what Jim read. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, the bigwigs, were conversing with him.

Some were saying, what would this idle babbler wish to say? Others, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. So these pagans had two different responses. Some, they just flatly rejected it, this guy's an idiot. Others were trying to make the gospel message fit into their pre-existing concept of reality.

And so in their minds, Jesus and the resurrection, well that must be two new gods. We've got thousands of them, right? And so the cross and the resurrection were just absorbed into their system of idolatry and Jesus and the resurrection become nothing more than maybe a good luck charm. How often do we see that? The cross of Jesus Christ is nothing more than a charm to ward off bad things.

And in these Athenian minds, that's how they were interpreting what Paul was saying. And that destroys the gospel. Totally, totally destroys the gospel. Because it's a refusal to accept that Jesus' death was the payment for my sin. That's totally absent in what they comprehended.

They're thinking in a totally different frame of mind. To them, man is not in need of a savior, a sinner in need of a savior. Man is in need of some self-improvement. Just tell me how I can be more pleasing to God or the gods so that hopefully they'll improve my present situation. It's a religious works system.

Their problem, in their minds, is nothing like what the Bible says it is. The Bible says that you have a sin problem that deserves eternal death. There's no such thing as sin, really, to the pagan mind, at least not in the biblical sense. There's no real awareness of their sin problem, and certainly no concept of eternal judgment for sin.

And that's exactly where Paul goes. He has to correct this misinterpretation. He says, therefore, this is a little while down, he's kind of answering this error. He says, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, which means what? Just change your mind. That's what the word repent means. We get a lot of baggage with that word in English. Think of that as change your mind, okay, concerning God and his son, Jesus Christ.

And what do they need to change their minds? Sorry, why do they need to change their minds? because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead." That's the other proof of the resurrection, that Jesus Christ is the judge of all mankind. And Paul strikes a blow right at the root of their thinking.

These men had no concept of a sovereign God to whom they were accountable. They had suppressed that knowledge. Nobody wants to hear that they're a guilty sinner, deserving God's judgment. Nobody wants to hear that, right? But that's exactly what Paul brings up. This isn't what you would call a seeker-friendly presentation of the gospel. Paul says that the death and resurrection of Jesus proves God's judgment against sin. It proves that God is a God who judges sin. How does it prove that? Because on the cross, God judged sin.

And Paul won't allow his listeners to dodge the bullet by absorbing his message into their pagan reality, their pagan concept of reality. Okay, you're not improving your standing with God through religious good works. You know, how often have you heard someone say, well, I'm a good person, right? Everybody thinks that they're a good person, right? But that's man's perspective, right? Your goodness, your human goodness is not acceptable to God. The question is not, do you or do you not have human goodness? The question is, do you have God's kind of righteousness? And of course not. Anyone who honestly looks at himself compared to the righteous holy God knows that he is nothing like that.

And that's what it means to be a sinner. Anything less than God's perfect holiness is sin. And as sinners, we deserve God's judgment against sin. And that's exactly what Paul puts his finger on. He tells the Athenians, you guys are a bunch of sinners. You deserve God's judgment. And you will never accept the gospel until you first accept that fact. The gospel is good news for sinners. You've got to realize that you're a sinner in need of a savior before you accept Jesus as your savior. And on the cross, God judged your sin once and for all.

That's the gospel message. It's a message of salvation, but the mind that's hostile against God doesn't want to be told that he needs a savior. The message that the world wants to hear is, you know, you're basically a good person, God loves you, and if you're sincere, you'll go to heaven. But that's a lie, right?

Anyone who goes to their deathbed believing that God, that they will spend eternity, believing that lie, sorry, anyone who goes to their deathbed believing that lie will spend eternity in hell, separated from God. Now does God love the sinner? Yes, yes. But it's because He loves you that He sent His Son to die for your sins. Jesus paid your sin penalty on the cross so that you wouldn't have to. He doesn't want you to spend eternity in hell.

So this is the constant battle that goes on everywhere that the gospel is presented. The idolatrous mind of man reinterprets the gospel and fits it into his own religious way of thinking. And so in the fourth century, when Emperor Constantine declared himself a Christian, the gospel was more or less forced upon the entire Roman Empire. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, but here's the problem with that. Christianity is not a religious system. Christianity is simply made up of all those people who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. Had the whole Roman Empire accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior?

No. Not at all, right? But all of a sudden they've got this religious system. And so suddenly you have Christian ideas being dropped into a culture that's still thinking in terms of their idolatry. And now you have idol worshippers blending these things together. And when they heard about the death and resurrection of Jesus, just like the Athenians, they automatically fit that into their preexisting ideas about nature's supposed renewal of itself, this fertility idea. And that's how you end up with the name of a fertility goddess being used to commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The gospel had been reinterpreted and distorted and frankly destroyed.

Now, what's my point in going through all this today? I told you this wasn't just a lesson in trivia, okay? If your only takeaway today is that Easter is named after a pagan fertility goddess, then you've totally missed the point, okay? Easter is just a word. Shakespeare said it, right? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I don't care if you call today Easter or Resurrection Sunday. It doesn't matter to me.

There's a much, much more significant point. Why are we going through all this? I want us to see that every time the gospel message is brought to bear upon the unbelieving heart, the natural response is two things. Well, three, really. But two negative responses. The first is just to reject it. Because it doesn't fit my thinking, that's just nonsense, throw it out. Or to reinterpret it. change the meaning of the message to fit my thinking, and this happens over and over and over again.

It has all the way down through history. When we present the gospel, you know, and we think that we've gotten a positive response, but often all that's happened is that people have added some new vocabulary to their religious ideas. Just a real quick example.

When I was a kid at camp, I don't remember how old I was, maybe 9 or 10, we would have these games in the evening and they split us all up into teams and the winning team was told ‐‐ we were told that the winning team was going to win a 20‐foot‐long ice cream sundae. Our team won, which was pretty cool.

Now, it's not that I didn't believe them that there would be a reward. I just had never seen a 20-foot long bowl anywhere in my life. So I thought, yeah, this is camp hyperbole, okay? We'll probably get some ice cream, but there's no way they're going to have a 20‐foot long ice cream sundae.

So the prize was supposed to be awarded the next day, and it just turned out that I could either go on a trail ride with some of the guys or I could go have the ice cream sundae. I thought, you know, I could have a little bowl of ice cream or I could go on a trail ride. So naturally I chose to go on the trail ride. Only to find out when it came back, were you doing? You missed. There was a 20‐foot long ice cream sundae. And lo and behold, the cooks had actually cut open some milk cartons and stuff and made this huge 20‐foot ice cream sundae, right? what had I done in my mind, right?

I had preexisting ideas about what was and was not possible, right? And it caused me to reinterpret what I had been told. I didn't know what they meant by a 20‐foot Sunday, but I didn't think it could literally be true, right? I had reinterpreted the truth within the framework of what I thought was possible, which means that I really ‐‐ I had rejected the truth, right? By reinterpreting it, I really rejected it, okay? But the result was the same whether I had totally rejected or just reinterpreted, right? I missed out. I missed it.

And that's the same thing that goes on with the gospel over and over again. The gospel doesn't fit man's natural way of thinking, and so we share the gospel, and we think we've been totally clear, and maybe we have, right? But the gospel message is getting lost in translation.

So why does that happen? As we've said, I mean, I know I've already explained all that, right? I've kind of answered that question, right? Well, people reinterpret, but they've got these you know, conceived ways of thinking, but what's going on behind that? What's going on behind that?

If you want to turn to 2 Corinthians, you can, but it's on the screen. Paul says, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world, who is Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That's why. That's why the gospel gets rejected, and that's why the gospel gets reinterpreted or misinterpreted. Because the God of this world, Satan, has been working for 6,000 years now to blind the minds of men to the gospel message so that they wouldn't see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So what are we supposed to do about that? What do we do? We have a responsibility to share the gospel, right? But how are we to break through the blindness of men? How do we communicate the gospel in a way that's not reinterpreted and distorted?

And I think there are two things, probably more, but we can focus on two things this morning. The first thing is that we need to not only know what the gospel is, but what it is not. We often think we understand something or know something, but until you can really define what it is and what it is not, you really don't have a lot of clarity on what something is, okay? And it's easy, it really is easy to say what the gospel is. It's a very simple propositional truth statement. I mean, I've said it multiple times already this morning, but it's only, when we explain what the gospel does not mean that we cut off false interpretations, right?

So we say that the gospel is by grace, right? But when we say that, we need to clear away false ideas about what grace is. Grace is not dismissing sin as if it didn't matter. That's not grace, okay? Grace, as we said earlier, simply means that something's been offered to you as an undeserved gift. Okay, so we gotta be clear there. It doesn't mean that the sin didn't matter. It just means that something's been given to you as an undeserved gift.

Okay? God has not ignored the sin problem. He's dealt with it. That adds a lot of clarity to the gospel. There's a lot of people when you present the word grace, they just think, oh yeah, well I guess God doesn't care about sin. No! The cross proves that God cares about sin. He had to deal with it. Jesus had to die for your sin. So we gotta clarify things like that.

We need to explain that grace cannot be earned or repaid, which should be clear, just given the definition of grace, but there's so much thinking in our world, in our religious mindset, that while you receive God's grace, God doles out grace based on the things you do.

Wrong, that's not what grace is. If grace could be earned or paid out, then it's not grace. And we need to clarify that it's grace alone that gives us assurance of salvation. We don't evaluate whether we are truly saved based on how we live a Christian life. Grace means that eternal life is yours as a gift the moment you receive it.

And it can't be lost. It wouldn't be grace if it could be lost. And so we have to make these clarifications about what the gospel is. We've got to know what it is not. We take the terms of the gospel. It's by grace through faith. We've got to define these things.

And when it comes to faith, we tell people, you need to accept the gospel by faith. But you'd be surprised how many things get attached to the concept of faith, get rolled in. It's like, oh, well, faith also includes this and this and this and this. You know, how many times have you heard that the response to the gospel is, well, you need to turn away from sin and live for God.

That's not faith, okay? That's me doing something for God. That's a commitment to do something for God rather than simply receiving what he has done for me. Okay, faith is not the same thing as asking Jesus to live in my heart. Now, does Jesus come to dwell in your heart when you receive him? Yes, he does, the Bible tells us that, but we don't, you know, we're not asking him to do something, we're receiving what he has already done, right? So faith in the gospel is trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ is sufficient to save me.

And there's so much more we can say about that, right? But these are just some brief examples of how we need to get clear on what the gospel is and what it is not, so that when we hear these reinterpretations coming back at us, we say, no, that's not it. And we can correct it. So I think that's the first thing that we need to focus on. But the second thing is equally, if not more important. We need to recognize that there is a spiritual battle over the gospel.

The issue of the gospel is not just an intellectual issue. It's not just a matter of getting the correct definition of all the terms. Remember, it's Satan who is blinding the minds of the unbelieving. Satan hates God, and he hates you because God loves you. So Satan hates the gospel, and he's going to do everything that he can to keep people from accepting the gospel.

So we have to understand that there's a spiritual battle over the gospel. This is the spiritual battle over the eternal destiny of men, women, and children. So how do we respond to that? Which, by the way, as we tread into this territory, there are a lot of crazy ideas about how we should deal with that. If you wanna turn to Ephesians 6, that's where we're gonna be looking here.

We began in Acts 20. where Paul was saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders, and he's summing up his ministry saying, you know, I've testified to the gospel of the grace of God. And he kind of knew this was probably going to be the last time he saw them, because that's what God was indicating, and sure enough, he got to Jerusalem, and he was arrested, and long story short, he eventually wound up under house arrest in Rome. And he was waiting to stand trial before Caesar for the gospel. But while he was in prison in Rome, he wrote several letters to the churches, and this one is known as the letter to the Ephesians. In fact, it was probably a circular letter that was passed amongst the churches, but we know it today as the letter to the Ephesians. We can be pretty sure that the Ephesians read this, right? And in chapter six of the letter, Paul speaks about the spiritual battle that we are in.

And this is pretty familiar territory for most of you, I think. He says, finally, beginning in verse 10, sorry. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. That's really important up front. We don't handle these things in our strength. In the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Our job is what? To stand firm. Not to take on Satan, not to retreat, just to stand firm.

Okay, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Again, the battle over people's souls is a spiritual battle that's taking place in the heavenly places, and we're not privy to everything that's going on there. But we know that it's real, because the Bible tells us about it.

And then Paul goes through the armor of God, and if you spend much time in Sunday school, you're pretty familiar with these. But let's read them. Verse 13 through 17, therefore take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day. Notice it's not an offensive thing on our part, we're standing, we're resisting. And having done everything to stand firm, stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with the truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And we're not gonna spend our time on the individual pieces of the armor today, but Paul is clearly saying that we are to take up this armor in response to the fact that we are, in fact, engaged in a spiritual battle.

The question I want to look at this morning is how? How often in Sunday school did you hear, put on the full armor of God? And you thought, how in the world? I can't find it in my dresser drawers. How do I put on the armor? Okay, obviously the armor is figurative language depicting the means by which we engage in the spiritual battle, but how do we take it up? How do we stand in the battle?

The answer is in verse 18. Depending on your Bible, you may have a paragraph break there, but I don't think there should be a paragraph break because verse 18 begins with the Greek word dia, okay, which is by means of or through. So where it says, with all prayer, that's answering to how we put it on. It says, by means of all prayer and petition, and then a participle, it doesn't say pray at all times, it says praying at all times. So by means of all prayer and petition, praying at all times, in the spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

And pay close attention to what Paul says in verses 19 and 20. And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Paul knew that prayer was necessary for the sharing of the gospel. How often do we neglect prayer in the work of sharing the gospel?

I know I certainly have. I was thinking about this, and this analogy came to mind, and I think it fits. If we think of prayer in the spiritual battle, it's like the radio connection between the front lines and the heavy artillery in the rear. A few soldiers on the front lines can't possibly take out the enemy power that's in front of them. That's the kind of spiritual enemy we face. We have no strength against them. We're very small. But through prayer, we call upon God's strength. That's why Paul says, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We call upon the Lord to do what we can't possibly do.

As we do that, as a thing of this, you can almost hear the artillery whistling over our heads, right? God crushes the power of the enemy ahead of us, and the gospel advances only as he clears the way. You know, when the nation of Israel was standing in front of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh and his army closing in behind, the Lord spoke through Moses and he said, do not be afraid, stand still. Just like Ephesians, okay? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today.

And I think that speaks to or kind of illustrates our part in the spiritual battle over souls. To stand firm and wait on the Lord. We do not take on the enemy directly. We leave that up to the Lord. Now remember, I don't want to confuse this, when we talk about taking on the enemy, the battle is never with the individual. Sometimes we get debating with people. We're not trying to start a fight with an unbeliever. The battle that's going on is in the unseen places. The battle is with the enemy who has blinded their minds. The unbeliever is someone that the Lord loves. They're not the enemy.

And sometimes we may be praying for the salvation of an individual for years. When I talk about the Lord clearing the way, we don't necessarily expect that right now. He knows when, and it's done in His timing. And we depend on God to do the preparatory work that only He can do. He clears the ground, and then He gives us the boldness to open our mouths and share the gospel of the grace of God.

So maybe you needed this exhortation today to encourage you in sharing the gospel with others. But maybe the Lord has you here this morning because you've never received God's free gift. Or maybe you're listening to this recording and you've never received God's free gift. And maybe like so many millions, you've heard the words of the gospel, but you've put them through your own grid of interpretation and you've made them fit into your own agenda. And if that's you, I want to appeal to you with great boldness this morning. These words apply to all of us, every person, but I want to appeal to you personally.

You were born to this world a sinner by nature. In your very being, you're totally hostile against your God, the creator God who loves you and made you for a relationship with himself. You deserve God's righteous wrath against sin. And the Bible describes hell as eternal death, eternal separation from God. But, but God loves you.

He sent his son Jesus into the world to save you. On the cross, Jesus suffered and died the eternal death that you deserve. Jesus died for your sins so that you wouldn't have to. And on the third day after his death, Jesus was resurrected to new life. The only question is this. Will you accept Jesus' death on your behalf as the only way to be saved from sin? That's what faith is, it's accepting that, accepting that that's true, that Jesus Christ died for your sins.

John 3.36 says, he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. There's only two options, there's no middle ground. either eternal life with God or eternity under God's wrath. And one of the most common misconceptions is that, well, if you live a good life, you'll go to heaven, right? But that's not what the Bible says. It says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.

How? Through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. That little word regeneration is really neat. It's from a Greek word, a compound word that literally means, again created. or recreated. That's what the resurrection is all about. It's not this cheap rip-off of fertility and prosperity. It's not just a renovation project. It's a brand new kind of life. It's not earthly life. It's a heavenly life. and we'll never receive it by works. We just, we can't get there. We can't get that kind of life, right? This can only come from God. This has to be given to us by God.

And Jesus said this, he said, this is the will of my father, that everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life. And I myself will raise him up on the last day. See, Jesus promised that same resurrection life to everyone who believes in him. That's the message of resurrection that we're celebrating today. Not only has Jesus been raised from the dead, but every single person who places their faith in him will share in that resurrection life for all of eternity.

1 John 4, 9-10, by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, we didn't. but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins or the satisfying payment. That's what he was doing on the cross. He was satisfying God's wrath against sin so that you and I wouldn't have to. Romans 5, 8 says, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, why not?

You don't have to pray a special prayer. You don't have to get up out of your seat. I'm not gonna ask you to come forward or raise your hand or anything like that. You don't have to give money or join the church. All God says is believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And you will be a new creation in Christ Jesus today. That is the gospel of the grace of God. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace.

We thank you for the wonderful gift of your son, Jesus Christ, who came to pay the sin penalty that we deserved, ungodly, hostile, wretches, vile sinners, though we thought we were good. We thought we were good people. We thought, why would you turn me away, Lord? I'm a good person, until we found out that all of our righteousness was filthy rags.

Lord, I pray that the gospel message would go forth with boldness in our day. I pray that men, women, and children would have the blinders removed and that they would come to see the light of the gospel in Jesus Christ, that they would understand that he died for them, and that he rose again to live forever, and that everyone who puts their faith in him will share in that resurrection life for all of eternity. Lord, I thank you for your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. Now this last song, is a new one. And so if you don't know it, it's pretty simple. It's got a lot of repetition.

It's a beautiful song, but we'd love to have you stand and join us in singing it. I think you'll be able to get the refrain after the first few times. The first verse begins, amazing grace, how sweet the sound. It's the same words as the hymn with the different melodies, so it's a little tricky there. but a beautiful song. Let's sing that. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. For I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

Hallelujah. Christ is risen from the grave. Hallelujah. Christ is risen from the grave. Proud gold is welcome home The sinner now a saint For the son who died came back to life And everything has changed Hallelujah Christ is risen from the grave Hallelujah Christ is risen from the grave O death, where is your sting?

O sin, where is your power? The mighty King of kings has disarmed you Delivered and redeemed Eternal life is ours O praise His name forever Hallelujah Christ is risen from the grave Christ is risen from the dead All throughout eternity Our song will be the same Hallelujah Christ is risen from the dead to heaven's sweet embrace.

I'll see your scars, your open arms, the beauty of your face. Thy tears of joy, I'll lift my voice, an everlasting praise. Hallelujah! Christ is risen from the grave. Where is your strength? O sin, where is your power? The mighty King of kings has disarmed you Delivered and redeemed Eternal life is ours O praise His name forever Hallelujah Christ is risen from the dead Is this real life?

On the day you call me in To heaven's sweet embrace I'll see your scars, your open arms The beauty of your face Through tears of joy I'll lift my voice In everlasting praise Hallelujah Christ is risen He's risen. Amen. Thank you for joining us this morning. Stay around. There's lots of trees out there. We'd love to have you stay and visit. God bless.