SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: We have just sung two-thirds of the first chapter of Ephesians 1.
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful enriched chapter.
SPEAKER_00: What I would like to do for our next few moments is to direct our attention to the end of chapter 1 of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, I encourage you to take it and follow along in that passage.
SPEAKER_00: The end of chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: We have sung the first part.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at the second part of chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: But I would like to ask a question before we get there.
SPEAKER_00: How do we measure power?
SPEAKER_00: Now there's probably some scientists, some engineers in here who would give me a very, very strict way to answer that question, a very linear and outlined mathematical way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm much simpler, and so I opened my dictionary.
SPEAKER_00: Merriam Webster Dictionary defines power as the ability to act or produce an effect.
SPEAKER_00: The ability or act to produce an effect.
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
SPEAKER_00: I think I can understand that.
SPEAKER_00: But I prefer the second definition given in the dictionary.
SPEAKER_00: It says this it is the ability to get extra base hits.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a baseball reference for those of you who didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: The ability to get extra base hits.
SPEAKER_00: I think you can see the parallel.
SPEAKER_00: The power a baseball player possesses is seen in his ability to have an effect on the baseball.
SPEAKER_00: His power is measured in how far he can drive a baseball and how hard he can hit it.
SPEAKER_00: A car is a very similar situation.
SPEAKER_00: The power of a car engine is measured by its ability to move the vehicle.
SPEAKER_00: How fast it can go, how much it can carry, etc.
SPEAKER_00: The power a person possesses is very similar.
SPEAKER_00: The President of the United States has great power because he can affect great change.
SPEAKER_00: We can see it in the change he can affect.
SPEAKER_00: As leader of the United States, he has great power.
SPEAKER_00: Especially compared to someone who is not in any kind of position of leadership at all.
SPEAKER_00: There are all kinds of demonstrations of power in our world, but none of them compared to God's power.
SPEAKER_00: That's why 1 Chronicles 29:11 says, Yours, O Lord, yours is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 19, we read that God's power is immeasurably great.
SPEAKER_00: His power surpasses greatness.
SPEAKER_00: It's incapable of measurement.
SPEAKER_00: And the most immeasurable demonstration of God's immeasurable power is seen in the exaltation of Jesus Christ in the resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: On this resurrection Sunday, I encourage you to learn for the first time, or perhaps to be reminded, of the immeasurable power of God displayed in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to read from Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul writing to a local church says, I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.
SPEAKER_00: And so I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, that you might have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, and that you might know, that you might know what is the hope to which he has called you, that you might know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and that you might know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.
SPEAKER_00: Power seen in the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and above every name that is named.
SPEAKER_00: Not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: God's desire here is that his church would grow in wisdom and knowledge, that we might know.
SPEAKER_00: There are three specific categories of wisdom and knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: First one is the hope to which he has called you.
SPEAKER_00: Second is the riches of his glorious inheritance in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 19 contains the third, the last point of knowledge mentioned, that we would know the power of God at work on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: That same power that was at work in exalting Jesus through his resurrection and ascension into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In the last week, we have bowed before Christ, exalted in his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been humbled before his exaltation in death.
SPEAKER_00: And now we see that instead of decomposing in a tomb and forever joining the spirits of the dead, Jesus was exalted to the place of unmatched supremacy.
SPEAKER_00: It's through Jesus' resurrection that he was exalted to that astounding position.
SPEAKER_00: And there are three basic characteristics of his exaltation that we are to know.
SPEAKER_00: The first, it's very simple, is that God the Father is the one who exalted the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Now the scriptures are very clear, perfectly clear, I think, about who Jesus is, about his position with the Father, and what would happen after his death.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 16 says, You will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption.
SPEAKER_00: Now in the book of Acts, the Apostle Peter applies that and he says, that refers to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he goes on to say in Acts chapter 2, it is not possible for death to hold Jesus since he is the author of life.
SPEAKER_00: It's very clear Jesus would not be contained in the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Now our expectation then is that God would keep his word, right?
SPEAKER_00: We trust that God will be faithful, because if he doesn't, he's a liar and untrustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: So then we are reminded that God did keep his word.
SPEAKER_00: He, that is the glorious Father, raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at his right hand.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go too quickly over that.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you move quickly over that statement, you will miss much of the truth that is there.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is an incomprehensible change.
SPEAKER_00: Utterly incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: From dead to exalted, from death to life to the right hand of the glorious Father.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: He started in glory with the Father, takes on human form as though he were a slave in order to die.
SPEAKER_00: He goes from death to a tomb to life, and from life vaulting to the heavens to an eternal place of privilege and honor.
SPEAKER_00: That is utterly incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: To be at the right hand is to be in a place of favor, power, and rule.
SPEAKER_00: There's no one else occupying that position.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ occupies the position of honor at the Father's right hand.
SPEAKER_00: No one else has been exalted like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if the body of Jesus were still in the tomb, he would not be exalted in this way.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful, though, to be reminded that Jesus held this position in eternity past.
SPEAKER_00: And praying to God the Father in John 17, Jesus says, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
SPEAKER_00: When he left the Father's throne to take on flesh and dwell among us, Jesus became, for a little while, lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: Incomprehensible.
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SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones, in his commentary on Ephesians, describes it this way.
SPEAKER_00: What a staggering thought.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is at the right hand of God far above all principality and power and dominion, the one under whose feet lie all things in subjection and to whom all power and authority have been given is the babe who was in Bethlehem lying helplessly in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: He is the little boy aged twelve who was found arguing with the doctors of the law in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He is the carpenter of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: He is the young man who began to preach at age thirty.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who knew what it was to be weak and tired, and who once sat down by the side of a well about midday because he was weary.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who slept from sheer fatigue in a boat.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who was crucified through weakness and apparently defeated by cruel men and their machinations.
SPEAKER_00: It is he, Jesus, who has thus been raised.
SPEAKER_00: Incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: The glorious Father raised the beloved Son from the dead in order to exalt him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's another characteristic of his exaltation, and that is concerning its greatness.
SPEAKER_00: It is immeasurably great.
SPEAKER_00: How great?
SPEAKER_00: What we're told in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Far above.
SPEAKER_00: All rule and authority.
SPEAKER_00: Far above.
SPEAKER_00: That's a term used to identify the position of one over another.
SPEAKER_00: And it's intensified.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is not merely above, but far above.
SPEAKER_00: From tomb to heaven, from tomb to the throne of God, far above everything else.
SPEAKER_00: As a kid in southwestern North Dakota, I remember in elementary school that one of the ways we passed the doldrums of winter, as we were waiting for the doors of school to open in the morning, was playing King of the Mountain on the snow piles that the snowplow had made right outside the school.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you probably don't remember what that is, but what we would do is basically have a friendly fight.
SPEAKER_00: We would see who could climb the top of the snowpile and stay on top.
SPEAKER_00: So whoever got to the top of the snow pile would have to defend his position.
SPEAKER_00: He'd be assaulted by the other kids, sometimes one at a time, sometimes by all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And the goal was to stay on top, to be king of the mountain, to be far above everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's a friendly fight.
SPEAKER_00: But simply to serve as an illustration of being far above.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is far above.
SPEAKER_00: Compare mountains.
SPEAKER_00: The Adirondacks are high compared to the eastern seaboard.
SPEAKER_00: But the Adirondacks are short compared to the Western Rocky Mountains.
SPEAKER_00: The Western Rocky Mountains are comparatively short when set against the Himalayas.
SPEAKER_00: See, in our way of thinking, there is always something bigger with which to compare.
SPEAKER_00: But not Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No comparison to his position and power.
SPEAKER_00: No comparison to his greatness.
SPEAKER_00: He is far above.
SPEAKER_00: He is the highest of the high.
SPEAKER_00: What is he above?
SPEAKER_00: All rule, all authority, all power, all lordship.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, he says, all things have been put under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: If you look over at chapter 3 and verse 10, you'll see that God has intended the church to display the wisdom of God to rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Using similar terms to chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6, he says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers in this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: So what's happening back in chapter 1 and verse 21 is that Jesus is being exalted above all spiritual beings.
SPEAKER_00: There is no authority whatsoever that is greater than Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is far above all angels, far above all demons, far above even Satan himself.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just that they are inferior, but they are subject to him because he is supreme.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father exalted Christ over all through the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to take that as a comfort to your soul.
SPEAKER_00: When our world or our lives are filled with circumstances and situations that seem to be against us, we need to remind ourselves that Christ is supreme.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone and everything answers to him.
SPEAKER_00: And through that, we can have comfort and encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: When all of life feels against us and we feel like there's no way forward, we can know and rest in the truth that Christ is above everything and he rules over all.
SPEAKER_00: So as we lift our eyes to him, exalted above everything, we can trust in his sovereign position.
SPEAKER_00: And that leads us then to the third aspect of his supremacy.
SPEAKER_00: He is over everything and everyone.
SPEAKER_00: It's over all people, all nations.
SPEAKER_00: It says, over every name that is named.
SPEAKER_00: Not only spiritual beings, but individual human authorities, every human being.
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty controversial statement in the first century.
SPEAKER_00: We have, through archaeological study, coins, we have carved reliefs in walls and stone, we have inscriptions.
SPEAKER_00: Even the calendar of ancient Asia tells us that Paul's readers were trained to think along the lines of the eternal power of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one Ephesian home recently excavated had some graffiti on it that read, Rome, the ruler of all, your power will never die.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says to the Ephesians, uh-uh, Jesus rules over all.
SPEAKER_00: He is supreme.
SPEAKER_00: And not just now, but over all of time, not only in this age, but in the one to come.
SPEAKER_00: Rest in this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is exalted to the position of greatest power, greatest supremacy today, tomorrow, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: He is sovereign over every day and every moment.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter in which age you live, whether it's a dark age or a golden age.
SPEAKER_00: He rules over all.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection of Christ means that he is now exalted far above all things, for all time, nothing and no one is excluded.
SPEAKER_00: That means he rules and everything is subject to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Psalm 8, verse 6 says, you have given him dominion over the works of your hands, you've put all things under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's important for us to note this morning is that the truth of Christ's exaltation to a place of supreme rule and authority is grounded in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Consider 1 Corinthians 15, what we often call the resurrection chapter.
SPEAKER_00: After speaking of the Lord's resurrection, the Apostle Paul goes on to say that people are going to be resurrected in order.
SPEAKER_00: Christ, the first fruits, he's the first one.
SPEAKER_00: Then it is coming those who belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and every power, for he must reign until he's put all things under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is resurrected to a place of rule and authority.
SPEAKER_00: Until the end.
SPEAKER_00: What does that imply for your own life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, chapter two gives us the answer to that.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2 is the application of that truth.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins in chapter 2, verse 1, with the status of the Apostle Paul's hearers.
SPEAKER_00: And you were dead.
SPEAKER_00: Goes on to say that you were dead in your trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: All of us were there.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our bodies and our minds, and we're by nature children of wrath.
SPEAKER_00: All of us were dead.
SPEAKER_00: Dead, dead, dead, and incarnate.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast to the living resurrected Christ, we were dead.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 4 come the two most beautiful words in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But God.
SPEAKER_00: Those words split the silence of death clearly and powerfully.
SPEAKER_00: They're like hearing a crack of thunder suddenly breaking the stillness of night.
SPEAKER_00: God says to the walking dead, live.
SPEAKER_00: Be born again and live.
SPEAKER_00: But God.
SPEAKER_00: Follow me here.
SPEAKER_00: Humanity, including each and every one of us, is born morally and spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_00: We are the walking dead.
SPEAKER_00: Our nature is born entirely opposed to God, unable even to respond to his call for faith because of our deadness.
SPEAKER_00: We're like Lazarus lying in the tomb, unable to do anything but exist in the realm of our death.
SPEAKER_00: And into that deadness steps the author of life.
SPEAKER_00: But his death is not the end.
SPEAKER_00: For he conquers death.
SPEAKER_00: And then, and then that same glorious Father that exhibited his great and immeasurable power in the resurrection and exaltation of his son gives to us exactly what he did for his own son.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For by grace you are saved.
SPEAKER_00: He raised us up with him, and he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The first chapter is filled with the evidence of God's gracious acts on behalf of others.
SPEAKER_00: We sang that song.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again we see God's acts.
SPEAKER_00: There are ten at least.
SPEAKER_00: Characteristics of God's grace mentioned in chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: He is a God who chose us before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's a God who predestined us for adoption as children, as sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_00: He is a God who redeemed us by his blood.
SPEAKER_00: He's a God who lavished us with his grace, a God who made known to us the mystery of his will.
SPEAKER_00: He's a God who gives us an inheritance, who seals us by his own spirit, who calls us to a certain hope.
SPEAKER_00: He's a God who has set Christ in a position of all rule and authority.
SPEAKER_00: And he's a God who gave Christ as the head of the church.
SPEAKER_00: That glorious Father is exceptional in his character.
SPEAKER_00: And two areas of his character are especially pointed out to us.
SPEAKER_00: He is rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is often expressed in the giving of undeserved kindness or undeserved help or even undeserved forgiveness to those in need.
SPEAKER_00: For example, think of the Good Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: The Good Samaritan showed mercy to the man who was beaten.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 18, we have an excellent illustration of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells the story of a slave who owed his master an uncountable debt.
SPEAKER_00: It would take lifetimes to pay off.
SPEAKER_00: That master had mercy and forgave his servant the unpayable debt.
SPEAKER_00: We, we the dead ones, are in desperate need of that mercy.
SPEAKER_00: If we do not receive this mercy, if there is no but God, we remain as children of wrath in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: We are the ones owing that unpayable debt, but God who's rich in mercy and who is great in love.
SPEAKER_00: That's a second characteristic of this gracious God.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the adjectives.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: His mercy is rich, his love is great.
SPEAKER_00: These are character qualities that are exceedingly beyond anything that we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: This God is greater in mercy and greater in love than we can ever begin to describe.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 20 of chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at right hand in the heavenly place.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: He made us alive.
SPEAKER_00: He raised us up, and he exalted us with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Just like his only begotten Son.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God's rich mercy and his great love motivated him to extend his resurrection and exalting power in Christ to those whom he would redeem.
SPEAKER_00: The Father loves the Son, therefore he loves those adopted as sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: The Father raised the Son from the dead, therefore he raises his adopted children.
SPEAKER_00: The Father seated his only begotten Son in the heavenlies, therefore he has placed, he has seated his adopted children in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was exalted through the resurrection, so too will all the sons and daughters of God be exalted to a position with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that repeated connection with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That's an important concept to grasp because scholars believe that the Apostle Paul invented three words here that are not seen outside of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: We are co-made alive.
SPEAKER_00: We are co-raised.
SPEAKER_00: We are co-seated.
SPEAKER_00: We are made alive with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are raised up with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are seated with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Father loves the Son and would not let him face the eternal corruption of death.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he exalted Jesus through resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in his rich mercy and his great grace, he has caused us to be a part of that work in his beloved Son.
SPEAKER_00: We were dead, but in Christ we were made alive by the power of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, we are raised from spiritual death and transferred to the kingdom of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The power of God displayed in the resurrection of Christ gives us new life.
SPEAKER_00: And because he is exalted, we will be exalted alongside of him.
SPEAKER_00: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The dead, the walking dead, are made alive.
SPEAKER_00: Gone, forgiven, is the stinking rottenness of our sin before a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: In our first birth, we are born as children of wrath.
SPEAKER_00: In our second birth, we are born children of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Peter proclaims, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: By grace, through faith in Jesus, the spiritual and moral part of us that was dead has new life.
SPEAKER_00: It's alive in a way that it has never been.
SPEAKER_00: And because Jesus was exalted, God will also exalt those who believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He raised us up with him.
SPEAKER_00: We've been raised, spiritually speaking, from the deadness of our trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: No longer are those whom he has chosen entombed in death, they're alive.
SPEAKER_00: No longer are they the walking dead because they've been raised to new life.
SPEAKER_00: God's adopted children live because his only begotten lives.
SPEAKER_00: And because his only begotten has been exalted to the right hand of God, he now seats us with him in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ has the exalted, honored position of sitting at the Father's right hand.
SPEAKER_00: But every one of his chosen, adopted, redeemed children who are given new life in Christ are raised from the deadness of their sin and raised to an honored position of being seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all present realities that we only know and experience in part right now.
SPEAKER_00: But when Christ comes, we will know them fully.
SPEAKER_00: None of that can be true if Christ is not risen.
SPEAKER_00: If it is a lie, if Christ was not exalted through resurrection, if there is no life given to Christ, no being coming out of the tomb, no tomb being opened, no being seated in the heavenlies, then there is no being made alive for us, there is no being raised with Christ, there is no being seated with Christ if the tomb is still occupied.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the Father's great love for his only begotten Son, he is at work right now in his chosen adopted children to bring new life and raise them to be with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Father's love would not leave his only begotten in a tomb.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, to those whom God has chosen to be his adopted redeemed children, none are allowed to remain dead.
SPEAKER_00: In his rich mercy and his great love, he gives them new life, raising them from the dead and exalting them in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Why has God done this?
SPEAKER_00: It's incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: Why would God display his mercy and his love like that?
SPEAKER_00: Why take on the terrible cost of becoming sin for rebels like me?
SPEAKER_00: Why the incarnation?
SPEAKER_00: Why the bloody cross?
SPEAKER_00: Why the resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: Why this means of exaltation?
SPEAKER_00: Well he tells us in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: So that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his kind grace toward us in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His power and his grace and his mercy and his love are so great, are so immeasurable, so praiseworthy that he wants them to be on display forever and ever in every age that might exist, and he wants them to be on display through you.
SPEAKER_00: You are that living display if you, by faith, have come to trust fully and only in the resurrected Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christ the Son was raised and exalted so that the adopted children of God might be raised to new life.
SPEAKER_00: And through that, God intends to be glorified through the eternal display of his power and grace in you.
SPEAKER_00: God's power in raising Christ from the dead and exalting him above all things became the avenue through which he would give new life to his children, to the praise of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Christ must live if we are to live.
SPEAKER_00: Christ must be raised if we are to be raised to new life.
SPEAKER_00: And he must be exalted if we are to be exalted with him.
SPEAKER_00: In eternity past, the three members of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, existed in their divine glory.
SPEAKER_00: And then the glorious Son, exalted as the King of creation, the author of life, humbled himself so that he might die.
SPEAKER_00: Through his death, the glorious Father exalted the Son and gave him the name that is above all names.
SPEAKER_00: The Son, exalted in death, killed death as the Father raised him from the dead and exalted him.
SPEAKER_00: And now, now he reigns at the Father's right hand, exalted in glory.
SPEAKER_00: All of that to show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us.
SPEAKER_00: For it's by God's grace that you are saved.
SPEAKER_00: It's not your own doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's the gift of God through the exalted Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Grant new life to all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Cause all of us to hear that command to live.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to us in our deadness.
SPEAKER_00: Cause your spirit to recreate us and fill us with new life.
SPEAKER_00: We praise you, Lord Jesus, for who you are.
SPEAKER_00: There is none like you.
SPEAKER_00: There is none who will ever be like you, for you are above all.
SPEAKER_00: And we are so humbled that you would extend your rich mercy and your great love to us in such a way.
SPEAKER_00: And so we honor you.
SPEAKER_00: We give praise to you, the one who was dead and is alive and alive forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.