Okay, so I want to first do a quick quick rundown review and then jump into reading our passage for us. So let's stick this guy right here. Okay. So real quick review. Okay. So we recall that in chapter 1 verses 3 through 14 was a long long magnificent sentence, big paragraph, which showed to us that every spiritual blessing of God is in Christ Jesus, right?

All the heavenly blessings are to us in Christ. And those heavenly blessings included everything from being chosen, predestined, adopted, revealed to us the mystery, the inheritance, sealed, all that stuff, right? Amazing things that we can spend, you know, hours and hours just discussing. So oh, it's not coming out on the thing right now.

You guys can see that though. Okay, I'm going to try to just describe it. So again, just by way of review, it is all of those blessings are in Christ by God's loving purpose and to his glory. It was just amazing just, you know, flow, flow of praise given to God in verses 3 through 14.

And so that was just for review. And then in the next portion as well from from verse 15 to 23, Apostle Paul said, "Upon hearing then that you have faith," right? If I just showed you like this incredible mass of blessings are in Jesus and because I heard that you have faith in Jesus, I am so thankful, right?

Absolutely thankful. And what's more, I'm praying for you that you would know what are the hope, the riches and the greatness of his power. Can you recall that? Now I put a little sign there. What's happening is he said, "The power that I want you to know and understand," if you recall in the previous passage, he said that this is the power in which God has exercised towards you.

But then he starts to describe how he exercised this power, having raised Jesus, seated him above everything else and has lifted him up on high above all authorities, rulers and powers and that he's made him head over the church. So what did Apostle Paul do? He expanded on the power of God.

And then what we have here then is our passage that is connecting to that expansion of the power of God exercised towards you. Okay? So there is a logical flow here, aside from just saying, "You guys need to remember the gospel, you're sinners," right? There's a lot more than that.

He's saying this is the power of God and you will see the connection later on. So what we're going to do now is let's read our passage one time through, but we will read from verses one down through verse 10. Okay? All right. How are we doing? Thank you guys for trying.

We shall see. Yay. All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. All right. Let's read the passage and it says this, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the print of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.

And he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That's such an important passage. We'll camp out there next week. Verse seven says, "So that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Okay?

So today what we're doing then is technically we are taking a middle chunk of a flowing thought, right? What Apostle Paul wants us to see is the incredible, the gracious, and loving and purposeful power of God displayed primarily in what Christ or what he has done in Christ and that by us being in Christ, he has done towards us, right?

And so we're jumping down into it, but as you guys have already seen just from the reading, today is talking much about the backdrop, the context of where God is exercising his power. And so we go to the very first verse of what we're studying tonight. Oh, whoops, I forgot to change the headings.

I'm sorry. Please just ignore that. And so we go to verse one and it says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." Okay? "You were dead in your trespasses and sins." You can tell that this is that topic sentence again for the paragraph. It is emphatic and he says, "You're dead." I mean, can you imagine someone even just saying that to you, right?

Now we asked the question of good observation and said, "Okay, as this is a heading sentence that we need to pay attention to, we have to ask the question, what does it mean to be dead in your trespasses and sins?" Right? Someone could ask, "Is this kind of like a figure of speech?

You know when the son ran away from home and said, 'Give me your inheritance,' and then he ran off? And then the father thinks like, 'Oh, how sad. My son is dead to me.'" Is this the kind of deadness we're talking about? Where there's like a relational separation or I'm no longer even going to consider you in existence anymore because we have nothing to relate to each other.

Could be. Now, if you do the word study, you will probably find that the word just means, it's pronounced necros and it means a corpse, right? It's dead. Dead body, right? And so there you have a visual graphic there for you. Okay? Now, when you think about that though, you should be thinking lifeless, right?

You should be thinking lifeless. Now in order to really appreciate the whole sentence, there are these other two terms that I asked you also to think about. He says, "Not only just are you dead, but that you're dead in your trespasses and sins. So we have to ask, what is the difference between trespasses and sins?" Now I'm not going to take a long time to describe this, but I think what he is saying is by using this idea of trespasses and sins, there is a bucket saying the all encompassing, both like missing the mark is sin, harmartia.

Trespasses is more like when you cross the boundary, when you deviate from the path that was set for you. Okay? Let me repeat that. Okay? Sin is typically a broader term that says simply means missing the mark, failure, right? Unable to accomplish what was set for you because you missed it.

There is the other idea of trespass, it already sounds even more severe, where you're crossing the boundary, right? When you're stepping out of line, that kind of thing. So a lot of commentators will say, typically when you use two synonymous terms, what you're doing is saying, "Hey, it's inclusive of all the stuff." The stuff that is a failure and you make a mistake or whatever it may be, plus the intentional stuff that you're committing, all of it, right?

Now when you think about this though, I want to quickly show you something that I think is going to be important for us to appreciate and understand this passage later on, which is this. Within the realm of the trespasses and sins, you are dead. Okay? You're dead in these trespasses and sins.

A face value, it's still hard to describe what that means. And so we're going to do a kind of methodical walkthrough of what it could mean. What do I mean by this? One, to say that you are dead could potentially mean that you are doomed because of the consequences and sins, consequences of sins, right?

If I accidentally, when I was, I remember, you know, we would say this all the time between siblings. If I accidentally hit my older brother on the face or something like that, or I threw something and it landed on him, he looks over at me and says, "You're dead." Right?

Like, what does that mean? It means impending doom. Okay? That's what that means. Does this passage mean that we are going to be facing the consequences of our sins ultimately, which is at the hand of God because that is exactly what God said. When you sin, when you disobey, when you eat of this fruit, you will die.

Right? And scripture straight up says, "What do you think, oh man? Do you think you will escape the judgment of God?" That's Romans chapter 2, 3 when he's trying to convince everybody. "You are a sinner, you are a sinner, you're all sinners, Jewish people. Although you've teached the law, do you think you will escape because you taught the law?

No, you are also under judgment." That's the whole point of Romans 2 and 3. Right? So, theologically speaking, it is consistent with the rest of scripture. To say you're dead in sin can totally mean that yes, you're looking at doom. But what's more, most commentators and a lot of people believe more so that to be dead in this trespasses and sins means that you're lifeless spiritually.

Right? Because you are in living your life, your existence is only contained within this sin and therefore you're lifeless to everything else. So, a lot of people talk about how you have no sense to God, no sense to his word, you have no ears for him, you have no eyes for him, you have zero of the possible senses that can exist.

Right? And that's absolutely true. To be lifeless in that sense. And we want to take a moment to think about this a little bit because we want to also appreciate just like the degrees, right? The depths. I remember as I was studying this, a lot of the commentators started really thinking about and challenging.

Unfortunately, in hearing the gospel in our day, we've heard lots of like kind of slightly wrong depictions of the gospel. What do I mean by that? Perhaps we've heard that like, you know, the person who is out on the sea, you have this little wooden raft, you're sinking and you're crying out for help and God comes by and he drops you the line with a little vest or whatever it may be, right?

Perhaps we've heard stuff like that. I really appreciate the way R.C. Sproul, he describes it, he says, "No, there is no bobbing for air, there is no boat, there is no raft, there is no broken pieces of wood, there are no bubbles in your lungs, you're dead, you're in the water many, many feet below." And then you know what he says?

It describes a scenery that if we believe that God is the one who is to throw the vest, can you imagine what a feeble God we believe? That's absolutely true. Think about this. If scripture is saying you're dead, how idiotic would it be for a God to throw a vest to somebody who's already dead in the water?

If you saw a corpse floating in the water, let's say he wasn't underneath the water but he was floating, and you saw somebody say, "Here," and he threw the vest, you would be like, "You're an idiot," right? Doesn't make sense. As a matter of fact, the way that this passage is describing it, you're dead in your sins.

You're not just trying to get out and floating, you're already done. Another commentator says, "Many people think that prior to becoming a Christian, you're just critically ill. However, yes, the scripture says that Christ has come for the sick, but the scripture describes that we are so terminally sick we're dead.

We've already died. We have not even the power to swallow the medicine." I thought that was powerful because we appreciate then this thought to be spiritually lifeless means there is utterly nothing moving. There are no senses, right? But what's more, to be dead then also could mean relationally dead, meaning we are dead to God.

I kind of posed that to you before. Scripture talks about this. Scripture says in Isaiah 59, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear you." That's Isaiah chapter 59 verse 2. There is such a massive chasm between you and God that you can never see him.

Your words will never go high. There is nothing relationally you can do to say, "Please, come bless me." Think about this. The Jewish individual has been crying out for God to bless him for generations, right? That's really crazy to think about. But Scripture says there is such a chasm between unholy man that there is such a complete void of the relationship and to be away then from the source of life is death.

An eternity away from God is eternal death. Okay, now if you notice I put two stars by the bottom one because I think that after looking over this passage and mulling over it and thinking like, "What could this mean?" And reading the commentaries and just kind of thinking through not just commentaries but what does the passage say?

I actually more so think that you are dead in the sense that you are like a puppet. You are like a lifeless sock puppet that Satan has his hand in and is just moving you. I think this passage is telling us you are so dead that sin and trespass is controlling you.

This passage is highlighting to you that there is such an influence on you. You're chained. You're not free. You're actually enslaved and in that way you're dead. You're like the doll that people move around. I want you to think about that for a moment as you look at this passage.

Why? Because he says you were dead in your trespasses and sins and the rest of it connects in which you formerly walked. According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in where in the sons of disobedience of which what we all are.

What does that say? Sock puppet, spirit of disobedience, all up in you moving you because you are not free. You're bound. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.

So take a look at this and think about this. First we're moving on now to section two, the control of sin. And I'm making the point to you that my thought of you are dead in your transgressions and sins is highlighting to you the incredible force of sin under which you live.

So therefore it can be categorized as dead. As we think about this and make observations, I want to make this first point to you. First observation, your sin pattern. So on your notes, I should have a little blank there for you. Your sin blank pattern. Take a look at this.

You walked, you lived, you indulged in sins, in trespasses. These things are the context in which you were operating, right? And so my argument still is you are completely under its control. You are living a life that was completely patterned after sin. You walked in it and was your lifestyle.

You lived in it, you loved it, and you ate it up and you indulged in it. And this spirit, notice how it says this, this spirit is now working in the sense of disobedience. It is energizing all of their actions. What's more, look at the influences that are upon you.

It says there are four different sin influences that is upon you or you're walking in accord with. Did you notice that? I asked you that question. What are the influences over you? And it says you were formerly walking or you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, according of the spirit that is now working in the sense of disobedience.

And then it talks about your flesh. So look at this, think about this. To describe your deadness, you have such a force that is moving you like a puppet. You have the force of the world around you. Brothers and sisters, in later on in Ephesians, Apostle Paul will describe to you a spiritual reality where this world is so dark, it is covered in layers of darkness.

In chapter six, it'll describe this world and you could even draw it as like a world of darkness, an air of darkness, the heavenly realms of darkness. This world is covered. And so to think that you're going to engage in this world without getting hit and confronting that darkness is being naive.

The culture around us is not neutral. The kind of generational fads, the trends, the thoughts, the kind of philosophies and ideologies that is around us, it's seeped in sin. Absolutely seeped in sin. What's more? Somebody texted me and asked, "Who is this prince of the power of the air?" I'm not going to say that I know exactly.

Satan. Now I want you to take a moment to think though, okay? Have the appropriate sense of eeriness. There is a powerful intellectual being who is scheming to cause you to sin. Even though you're a Christian sitting here, this intellectual person, like person, is trying to scheme to cause you to sin.

But previous to Christ's powerful work in us, that individual was our master. That individual was our father. And we operate under his kingdom. That's eerie stuff, isn't it? It'll make you take a moment and be like, "What the?" Because that's not stuff we can see with our eyes. The spirit is now working in the sense of disobedience, causing rebellion, and then our flesh constantly wanting us to lust, to fixate on stuff.

I used to make excuses like, "I just have an obsessive personality." No, okay? I know some of us have obsessive personalities, but sometimes it's just you want something and you want it bad. It's just in us. All of that to summarize and say, when we're thinking about death, there is complete, complete enslavement.

There is such a powerlessness. When you think about death, I ask you to think about lifelessness. So if you think about that in concept, there is so much, not just simply wickedness and evil, there is such an inability, such a void of power. There is no freedom. Why? Because you're lifeless.

There are no options for you. So let's take a moment to meditate because again, some passages like this, it doesn't have a, "And therefore you shall go home and read your Bible," right? There isn't a practical application here. It wants you to open your eyes and see. Take a moment to meditate with me.

For some of you, have you ever felt both the eeriness of knowing that there is darkness in you? Have you felt the frustration of the no power in your flesh or the too much sinful power in your flesh? Have you felt the kind of devastation when you're ashamed because there's so much sin in you and around you?

Have you felt guilt? Have you felt what it, it's like the realization like, "Oh my goodness, there's this kind of dark spiritual bondage upon me." Have you felt the frustration that Apostle Paul will say, "Who is going to save me from this wretched sinful flesh?" Have you felt that?

People have been asking recently a lot of questions about their testimony. This is one important question for you to ask. If you're wondering like, "Is that person saved? Am I saved?" And you ask this question, there has to be at least some kind of realization that your deadness means separation from God, impending judgment, or complete domination by sin, the filling up of sin in your life, whatever it may be.

There's a spiritual reality you have to be awakened to to realize like, "Oh my goodness, I'm here. God is so far, I can't see him." That has to be a part of your testimony. But then on the flip side, then has there ever been a time when you realize, "But in Christ I'm free." Just this morning I was driving over to church, it was midday after taking care of some stuff, and then I just happened to flip to Dave Ramsey.

I'm not sure if you guys listen to that show, it's a financial advisor. Funniest thing in the world to me. This guy calls in and is like, "Dave, I was in $30,000, 30K in credit card and student loan debt, but guess what? Just paid my last payment yesterday." Dave Ramsey goes, "You know what you're going to do?

Then you're going to scream like William Wallace, and you're going to say, 'Freedom.'" So on the radio this guy's like, "Okay." And they count down, "One, two, three," and he starts screaming like, "Freedom." And I'm just laughing like, "This guy, dude." Think about this, if you were in $30,000 in debt, now some of you guys are looking at me like, "$30,000 in debt?

That's like nothing." You know what it feels like to have some kind of cloud over you, and then you know what it feels like, you're anticipating the day when that cloud will be gone. But the gospel we believe is magnified that by millions and billions. But sometimes people have none of that, no trace of that in their testimony.

Where is the frustration of bondage? Where is the freedom? When did you realize this stuff? Now I have to move on for the sake of time. The next point, if you take a look at this, he says, among them, you notice he says, "We too all." Even as the rest.

Now you might be asking, before in the beginning, he started with a very confrontational statement, "And you, you were dead." There was a pointing finger I felt from the Bible, and I was just convicted, right? But then he says, "We all." Now it could be that he's just sympathizing, it's like, "Okay, I said you, but we all." Because come on, let's be real, we're all sinners, right?

Just like we would be in reality. But I don't think that's necessarily the point, okay? What I mean by that is this. Every single one of us, all were for sin. And sin was for all. But think about it from God's perspective. He's looking at mankind. Not one of you.

He could, he could easily have been like that. He's looking at mankind, and the more that people multiply, there's a mounting sin, right? There is a mass collectivism. There's a pervasive sin. This sin doesn't just go deep, it goes wide to everybody. What am I saying? Mankind and all of its children are ripe for judgment.

We were all sinners, just like the rest. It heightens this bleak state of affairs. For Christ, there is intensive sin, and there is extensive sin. It spreads. If you guys recall, for those of you guys who were in our Leviticus study, Pastor Peter was talking about there is this weird, weird judgment upon sexual act, and how unclean that is.

Why? Because there's a multiplication, oh, sorry about that, multiplication of sin where it's extending out, and the world is being covered with sin. You think about it from God's perspective, that's no good thing. Now, what's really interesting about this is Apostle Paul highlights, when I framed it for you guys, I highlighted the fact that he makes mention that we were, by nature, children of wrath, sons of disobedience, he says.

Now as you think about that, I'm going to be honest with you, I tried to do that another like what could this possibly mean, and man, my head was spinning, right? Oh my gosh, to think that, you know, it's like, maybe we could, it's palatable, it's like, oh, you know, sorry, you know, it just so happened you were born in Antarctica, life is hard, you know, like, what can we do, born in Antarctica, you know?

But when he says, no, no, by nature, your nature, your very being, I want you guys to think about that. If you were a defensive person looking at God saying, like, what, what are you trying to say? How highly offensive that would be, yes? But let's take a moment to meditate upon this, and this is where I go back to this diagram, because we really have to see the depth, the extent, the pervasiveness, the intensity of the sinful and dreadful state that we are in before Christ, before Christ ever enters our lives.

If the scripture is saying that you are, by nature, children of wrath, then essentially you are a spawn of that which needs to be judged. You're a spawn of that which needs to be destroyed. And the only thing I can think of is like fungus, as soon as I thought of spawn, I thought fungus, right?

If by nature you are fungus, you will decay everything that you touch. You will contaminate all that is around you, and you will multiply that contamination. And it fits, because it says you're dead and you're a decaying corpse. And that which is decaying corpse needs to be put outside and burned.

And that fits, why? Because God says that which he's going to judge, he's going to cut, put outside, and burn. And you think about that, and you're like, whoa. But please meditate with me. Ask yourself and evaluate your own theology. How bad were we? What is the appropriate way to think of ourselves without Christ?

If Jesus is not in my life, what is the appropriate way to view myself? That's the question. And you know that this theological question is foundational to the gospel, to the church, to your own personal life, and how you feel. It's foundational, right? It's absolutely foundational. It's the beginning portions of the story.

But to answer that question, and I hope that we are accepting this truth, you are that lifeless corpse on the floor. But what's worse is you are that lifeless corpse on the floor in jail, because you're bound and oppressed and contained in sin. You cannot escape the influences of this world of Satan and of the flesh, because you're absolutely bound and enslaved.

You are a slave of unrighteousness. But what's worse, every single person around you is in the same boat. So all of mankind, everyone is in that state. And what's worse, when it says you are children of this kind of disobedience, you are children by nature, children of wrath. What I think is you, perhaps in a desire to grasp for some hope, you look down to your lineage.

You look to the past, and then you realize this bleak, bleak, hopeless truth that every single person before you was just like that. Absolute wreck. This reminds you of some kind of computer virus that has destroyed your computer, right? That's exactly what it is. I hope I depicted that for you, because what you see then is just incredible sin in this passage that pervades the truth of reality.

If you guys do color coding, it's just all red right there. It's like everything's red, because it's all covered by that kind of sin. Complete rebellion against the holy God. So if you summarize this and you start meditating, think about the crazy, imprecise way we talk about this. Were we just a little stained by sin?

I'm going to be honest, I hate listening to the radio sometimes. That's why I flip around. And they say stuff like, "You know, we're just all hurt people." Okay, I get it, we have hurts in our lives, but we're not all just hurt people. We're not all just broken people, right?

Because that means I would have to look to God and say, "God, wait. You don't have to jump into the water to go save me and my corpse down below at the bottom of the seabed. I'm just hurt. Give me a little bit of your love and I'll be fine." Why?

Why do I say that? Because it's just a simple question, what is your problem? What do you need? Right? And when we get that wrong, we absolutely get the gospel wrong. The problem is not just a little hurt. The problem is prior to Christ, we're lifeless. I want you guys to appreciate that.

I want you guys to think about that because the mounting, this incredible rebellion against this holy God, God is going to say that that stench of the fungus rises to him. And when it hits his metaphorical nose, it angers him. And it causes him to desire to judge. But in order to even appreciate this and meditate upon this a little more because, honestly speaking, the application of passage like this is we have to meditate.

You got to start thinking honestly, what do I think about myself? Where am I arrogant and self-defensive? How imprecisely do I picture the gospel? What do I believe? Right? You got to think personally. But I started thinking like at the end of this, because there was just so much red on the paper, I just had this feeling.

I want to describe to you this feeling. Okay? I know some of you guys have hurt people in your life and you're very sorry about it. Okay? There are people who you love and you hurt and you're very sorry about it. So what do you typically do? You run over and you say, "I'm so sorry." Right?

"I didn't mean to do it." Okay. Some things in your life that's permissible. You can say, "I'm sorry." And then you can be like, "I didn't mean to do it," because that could be true. But other things in your life, you can't say that. Why? Because you meant to do it and you meant to hurt somebody.

So you need to go over there and you need to confess. Right? "I did something wrong to you. Please forgive me." Sometimes you do certain things for such a period of time, that kind of, "Oh, my bad," is not enough. Right? Sometimes you do certain things to hurt somebody and you can't take it back.

You know what I mean by that. Certain relationships, they break, they fight, certain things are said, certain things are done and you can't rewind the clock. You can't even say, "I'll make it up for it." You just can't do that anymore. Why? Because your sin or your offense or your hurt was too much.

And then I started thinking, "Well, I don't think I've done this yet, but what if I did something that was even worse? God forbid. I pray that never, ever happens, but what if, let's say, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm in such a hurry and I drive out this parking lot too fast.

And what if? What if I run over a child?" Me running to the parents and saying, "I'm so sorry." I would never do that. Why? How could I? That doesn't fit. Should I run over to them and say, "Please forgive me. I didn't mean to." Would I say that?

You know what I would do? When certain sins are so insurmountable, I would just sit there, dejected and wait. And I would just say, "I can't even approach you. If you invite me to come over and say something, I will. But how would I even go to you?" And then I think the gospel.

Thank God he initiated. Because this mountain of sin in verses one through three is so huge. How can anybody come before God and say, "Do you think you could forgive us for thousands of years of offending you, for the kind of blasphemous things that come out of our mouths, for the idolatry, for the complete rejection of your son, for the defaming of your name, for the ridicule of your kingdom and glory?

Do you think you could just forgive us?" As though God is supposed to just love us, right? Doesn't make sense at all. Doesn't even make human sense. As a matter of fact, that's when we move to the next point, right? When we understand our wretched state of sin before God, the next verses almost doesn't even need explanation.

So let's read it. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. So our salvation is not something we could have even asked for.

Our salvation is not something we could have even said, "Hey, God, I have an idea." Right? But meditate on this with me, okay? Think about mercy. Mercy means that the judgment you rightly deserved was withheld. But if you have no depth of understanding of your sin, that mercy is not rich.

It's expected. Right? Think about these words. The great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in transgressions. If you don't understand how dead we were in our transgressions, how is that love great? It's not. It's common. It's commonly practiced. And so we say, today we're focusing in on verses one through three, and it's impact and ramification.

It impacts everything. Please meditate with me. This point, it impacts our testimony. It impacts our prayers. It impacts how you feel day to day. It impacts how you complain. It impacts what you think is worth it, not worth it. What you think is really bad, really horrible, really good, okay?

It affects every way you judge. And so as a challenge to us, again, the application would be, please meditate upon these truths. Do you have a working understanding of what it means to be dead in sin? So I want to conclude with this last kind of thought that I had.

I was talking to some people this week, and I realized, my goodness, we have a wide range of experience in life. And especially because we're prepping for our baptism, I read through lots of testimonies, and some testimonies are very colorful. And some testimonies, people are like, you know, I just had a plain old testimony.

I grew up in the church, never did crazy stuff. But when I was young and I heard the gospel that if I don't know Christ, I will go to hell. And I believed it. I was like, I'm not arguing with you. I think God's going to send me to hell, right?

So I believed on Christ. And it was very simple, okay? Now, why do I bring this up? It's because some people think that testimonies are dry or testimonies are colorful and testimonies are really dynamic because of certain things here or that, okay? But please remember, you do not have to be a gangster or like the guy who just did drugs every day to be like, I really know the grace of God.

Why? Because even the guy who was a gangster and did drugs every day does not understand, if he hasn't seen this, this depth of sin, right? What am I saying? I mentioned this last time. There is an equalizer. For whatever experience you have in your life, to have an equalizer, because no individual is going to stand and say, you know what?

At least I didn't do that. And also no individuals will be like, you know what? I really get sinned because look at all I've done. No, your sin ran so far deeper than just what you've done. Why? Because this pastor says you are by nature, children of wrath. You come from a long lineage of people who have sinned against God.

And so on that way, I hope you realize that it's not just your experience that's going to cause you to really come to grips with our sin, but it's upon hearing these words and meditating, what does this mean for me? Let's take a moment to pray.