And he is ready and raring to go. Alright. Praise the Lord. Take your Bibles, you would, turn to second Corinthians chapter nine. Second Corinthians, I think it's let me make sure I got that right.

Yeah. Second Corinthians chapter nine, we're gonna begin reading in verse 10 this morning. Slight bit of background information to this text. The apostle Paul on his third missionary journey had been in Ephesus for a couple of years and then but he had been in correspondent with churches in Macedonia or Greece as you may think of it. Churches such as church in Philippi and Thessalonica and in Corinth, and they wanted to take up an offering to give to him for him to take back to the churches in Jerusalem.

They had been blessed and the gospel had been brought to these places by Paul and others from from Jerusalem, essentially, and they wanted to be a blessing to those back in Jerusalem who had brought to them the gospel. And so they took up this offering and Paul took it back with him to the church there to share it with the believers in Jerusalem. He is speaking of their generosity in this passage and also assuring them that God is going to more than take care of them. We have so much to be thankful for. In verse 10, says, now he that ministers seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, multiply your seed sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness.

Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness which causes through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplyeth the want of the saints, the speaking of the saints, particularly in Jerusalem they had given for, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God. There's so much that God has to give for us to us. Verse 13, whilst by the experiment of this ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection on the gospel of Christ and your liberal distribution unto them and to all men and by their by their prayer for you which long after you for this exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

I want to read one more verse to you before we pray this morning. First Thessalonians five eighteen says this, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Let's pray. Dearly father, thank you Lord for this day. Thank you for your word.

I pray that we go forth with power. Your Holy Spirit would take it and use it in our hearts today to draw us closer to you and to bring souls to the savior. In Jesus name we do pray. Amen. What is it do you have to be thankful for?

What do you have to be thankful for today? As Christians, what do we have to be thankful for? We live in a rather thankless world today. We live in a culture that is more and more fixed on other things. We live in a world that's more fixed on what we have to be angry about.

We have a world that's more fixed on what does someone else that have that I don't. What can I complain about? What is the latest cause I can protest about? What did someone do to me or my group in the past or today or yesterday or tomorrow? Why did God allow this to happen to to me?

How can I hurt those who have in some way hurt me? I think we see a lot of that in our world today. Those things and not a lot of what? A lot of thanksgiving. And why is it that we see a lot of, you know, what do we have to be angry about rather than what do we have to be thankful for?

I think in large degree that is due to the fact that we as a society and culture have turned our back on who? On God. And so many people do not have any understanding of the grace of God, have no desire to receive it or to be thankful for all that God has done. The graciousness of God is seen all around us every day even in the the food that we eat, and the water we drink, and the air we breathe. It is all due to the graciousness of the God who created it all indeed for us.

But sad to say, most people can't see those things today, they are blinded. They don't sound very thankful. Lack of gratitude indeed is killing us as a society, in many cases quite literally, as suicides and drug overdoses continue to soar. Satan has everyone obsessing over what they do not have rather than what they do have. In a day and time in which we have more than anybody has ever had in history past, in so many ways, we live in a society that is obsessing over what they don't.

This is not only destructive in general to the human psyche and society as a whole, but it is a distraction of Satan to keep the masses focused on anything but who? But God and his offer of grace and love to them. To keep them stirred up and bent out of shape over the oppression of the moment So they won't see the guy behind the curtain pulling the strings. The true oppressor is Satan. It is not another group of individuals on this earth.

It is not my neighbor. It is not my government even. My the oppressor of mankind is the one who led man astray into sin and tries his very best to keep man bound in that condition and away from the love and freedom and grace that is to be found in their creator, in Jesus Christ, our savior. And sad to say, we see so many continuing to fall prey, wandering in that blindness and darkness of sin today, caught up in all of these causes, fixated on what they don't have or think they don't have, to open their eyes to see what they could have in Jesus. This really does describe much of our society, particularly our youth.

In contrast, Christianity is a religion of gratitude and thanksgiving and hope which the world around us desperately needs. They not only desperately need it, but they desperately need to see it in who? They desperately need to see it in us, in you and in me, that there is hope, that there is reason to be thankful, someone to be thankful for, Jesus Christ. As children of God, we must recognize how much indeed we have reason to be thankful. We who have been set free from that bondage of Satan and sin, from this constant melee of troubles and causes and aggressions which consume our society and the mindset of our youth particularly today.

They can have freedom that no government can ever give them. They can have joy and peace. And if you're in Christ, you do. That they need to see that in us. They need to see a heart and a face and a mind and actions full of gratitude and joy and love.

What is God's unspeakable gift here in verse 15? Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. It is his grace. It is his grace mentioned twice in the verses pre preceding. Paul was thankful.

The Christians in Jerusalem were thankful for the gift that they received out of the gracious hearts and generosity of the Christians in Macedonia that had given this. But how much greater is the gift that is all of ours who know Christ in the grace of God? The graciousness of man doesn't begin to compare with the graciousness of our savior who gave that which is unspeakable his own son to die on the cross, to redeem us from our bound state in sin, and to give us a home in heaven. It is a wonder beyond description. It is amazing grace that changed the heart of Isaac Newton or John Newton John Newton who wrote the song Amazing Grace.

It is the wonderful grace of Jesus that we sang about a few minutes ago. It is Jesus Christ. Titus two eleven says, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. It appeared in the person of who? Jesus Christ and his offer of salvation, his invitation to be freed from this bondage and this darkness that is over all of humanity to receive the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ who came and took upon himself our sin and punishment that we might be saved and redeemed from it.

Ephesians two eight and nine says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the what? Gift of God. God's unspeakable gift to us not earned by works. If you think you're going to get to heaven this morning because you showed up for church today, you're not.

If you think you're gonna get to heaven because you put some money in the offering plate today, you're not. If you think you're going to get to heaven because you mowed your neighbor's grass, you're not. If you think you're gonna get to heaven because you've been dunked in the baptistry back there several times, you're not. You can only be saved by accepting the grace of who? The grace of God.

The gracious gift. It is a gracious gift, undeserved and unearned that God gives to all of those who put their what? Their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, his son who he sent to be the propitiation for our sins, to be the sacrifice, to take the punishment for you and me so that our relationship with God could be restored and we could be delivered from the clutches of the enemy. And that is Satan. And that is sin.

The unspeakable gift, it is grace. The gracious endowment of God to every believer, that gracious endowment that rescues them from sin and hell, that grace which keeps us secure and sealed unto the day of redemption when we will stand before God in heaven. It is the grace of God which gives us strength for the journey and adventure ahead. He's there. He'll help us.

He'll strengthen us. It is the grace that gives us joy and peace beyond measure even in the hardships of life. I'm watching a brief video about young lady, 23 years old, found out she had cancer, thought she was gonna beat it, just had an MRI, found out the cancer had spread. She wasn't a Christian. She was devastated.

I can't imagine. I can't imagine. How do you face something so devastating not knowing not knowing where you're going, not knowing what comes next? We don't go through those things alone. God offers by his grace to be with us, to sustain us, and to take us home one day to be with him.

He gives us victory over the oppressors of sin and sake, all by the grace of God, unearned but offered freely if we will but receive Jesus Christ as the Lord and savior of our life. A wonder beyond description. I grew up in the mountains. Beautiful mountains seems to me are a wonder beyond description. My dad is from Wisconsin.

When I was eight years old, we went up to Wisconsin to visit my grandparents. And I went outside one night and the sky was lit up with these things. They're called the northern lights and they are beyond description. Went on a cruise just a couple months ago, took many pictures like this one out of the horizon, nothing, no land, insight, any direction, beyond description. But none of them compare to the grace of God.

His grace toward us. His graciousness and his love that is bestowed upon us, his salvation, his mercy, his power to save us, to change us, to comfort us, to enable us, amazing grace. This unspeakable indescribable gift for which we have to be thankful for every day. You ask, what do I have to be thankful for? I have God's unspeakable what?

Gift. I have his son. I have his spirit. I have his word. I have his promise.

I have his help. I have his ear in prayer. What grace has afforded us in Jesus Christ. The gift of God's grace that I received at the age of nine on a Sunday night in Hardee, Virginia and is with me every day of my life following. And I need it.

I need his mercy and his grace. I haven't arrived by any means. I need him. I need his forgiveness. I need his help.

I need his comfort. I need the peace that he gives. I need his enablement to get up here and stand and do this this morning. It is the grace of God. It is incredible gift we have.

It is a gift which is desperately needed. We are often reminded today of those who are economically or physically poor and in great need. But more importantly, humanity is spiritually poor and desperately in need. We are unrighteous people. We sin.

We fail our creator that made us. That's why Jesus said to Nicodemus who came to him, a religious man, a pious man, a man who did his best to follow the law. And when Nicodemus came to Jesus, he said, except a man be what? Born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Even you Nicodemus are spiritually bereft.

You are spiritually poor. You do not have in yourself as you are the ability to stand before God in heaven someday. You must be what? Born again. You must be born again through the grace of God and the power of God.

We have not the means or ability to meet the need in ourselves, the spiritual eternal need which is even more vital than the physical one. For all have what? Sinned and come short of the glory of God. This gift is desperately needed. Isaiah sixty four six says, but we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness are as filthy rags and we do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.

Our best efforts at being righteous fall desperately, what? Short in pleasing God. Praise God. Jesus's did not fall short. He hit the mark.

He fulfilled the law. He fulfilled the law in that he kept it, which no one else has. He fulfilled the law and that he was the sacrifice for the sins of all of us, the righteous sacrifice. The lamb of God who takes away the what? The sin of the world.

The one who makes it possible by his grace for us to be forgiven and redeemed and become the children of God. Oh, how desperately humanity needs this gift, this unspeakable gift, this indescribable gift. It is a gift desperately needed as a gift that can only be found in who? In Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the father but by me. Here in acts four twelve, it says, neither is there salvation in any other, that is any other than who? Than Jesus. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This gift is Jesus.

This gift is what he did for us on the cross. This gift is his invitation thereby for you to be saved and become a child of who? A child of God. But only through him, there is no other way, but through the righteous work of Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose again from the dead. And this grace of God, Paul said, will supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory.

Delight thyself in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thy heart. God is there. He's not up there waiting for you to mess up so he can squash you or punish you. He is a God of love and graciousness. He is up there pleading and drawing you to himself that you might be willing to receive that which he has to offer.

Salvation forever. Freedom from the bondage of sin. Power to overcome it through Jesus Christ his son. But God commendeth his love towards you and that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you and he died for me. You're not gonna find that offer anywhere else.

Only one place, Jesus Christ. He is the only answer to the longing in the human heart, the emptiness that so many today are trying to fill with causes and drugs and fame and riches. He is the only answer, the only way to find deliverance from the oppression of sin and addiction which enslaves the people of this world as it did in Paul's day. Addiction. Our world is addict our our society is addicted to one thing or another.

They can be delivered by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. He is the way to deliverance from depression and anxiety which is killing so many both figuratively and literally. We live in a world that is empty. We live in a world that is anxious and hopeless, but there is hope. God extends his hand and says, take it.

I will give you hope. The only real escape from the eternal penalty and the nagging guilt of sin which burdens the hearts of men is the forgiveness that is to be found in Jesus Christ and the power to get victory over it. Thanks be to God that giveth us the what? The victory in Jesus Christ. He is the only answer to what ails you.

You will trust him. Give him the opportunity to show you his wonderful grace, his indescribable gift. He will, if you will, receive that grace. It is a gift that is desperately needed. It is a gift that is only to be found in who?

Jesus Christ. It is a gift purchased at a terrible price or cost. See, salvation is free. It doesn't cost you anything and that God offers it freely to you. All you must do is in faith, what?

Receive it. But as any other gift, it did cost someone. It did cost someone. It cost Jesus leaving heaven, becoming one of us, living with many of the limitations that we live with, ministering to us, dying for us. It came at a terrible cost.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins. Whose sins? Mine. Yours. The just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, that he might restore relationship that we cannot restore without him.

Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened or made alive again by the spirit because we serve a risen savior, a risen savior. But just because it doesn't cost us did not mean it doesn't didn't cost. For he became sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. As in the Old Testament, they had to bring that that innocent, probably sometimes pet lamb to the priest at the temple and handed over and placed their hands on its head to signify their their sins being transferred upon that that innocent little lamb who was then slain and killed right there before them. That's how terrible sin is.

God allowed his son to be that lamb as God watched, as his son was nailed to that cross and his blood was shed and he died there for you and for me. It is a gift purchased at a terrible cost and it is a gift that is mine in Christ for all eternity. It is a one that is mine in Christ for all eternity. Turn if you would, to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight.

Now that I finished with the introduction no. I'm just kidding. I'm almost done. Romans eight one. I the pastor I grew up under, it seemed like that sometimes.

You would think, okay, it's the end of the sermon. No. It's just the end of the introduction. Romans eight one. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

There is what? No condemnation. Jesus said, you pass from death unto what? Life. The condemnation Jesus took upon himself on the cross and he offers to us if we will accept him as as our Lord, his sacrifices, our savior, that that condemnation, that judgment will pass over us like it passed over the the Israelites there, the death of the firstborn at the tenth plague.

His judgment passes over. It is passed over. There is therefore now no condemnation. He that believeth on him is not condemned. He that believeth not is condemned already.

It all has to do with Jesus. Look if you would in Romans eight verse 30 verse 36 or verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Love of Christ. Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as is written for thy sake we are killed.

All the day long we are counted as sheep to the slaughter. Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. There is nothing anybody can do to you that's gonna separate you from the love of Christ who have received God's gift of what? Grace. That has saved your soul and is keeping you until the day you stand before him in heaven.

There is no one or nothing that can separate me from his love. For I am persuaded, Paul says in verse 38, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature, Satan included, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Satan tried. Look at the book of Job. Satan came to God and said, well, yeah, you just Job there, yeah, you pointed out Job, he's doing okay, but if if I take this away, if I do this to him, then then he will he'll give up, he'll give in, he'll curse you.

You can't keep him. God says, okay. Try it and see. What did Satan find out? That God's power to keep Job was greater than Satan's power to take him away.

There's nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. There is no one who can snatch us out of his hand. John chapter 10, I'm gonna read verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My father which gave them me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. The gift the unspeakable gift of God's grace is mine today, tomorrow, and for all eternity, and yours too if you will accept his offer, his son, Jesus Christ, and eternal life thereby. It is the gift that keeps on giving, that will not let me go, that is mine forever, that helps me in the fight, that guides me on the path, that sustains me when I'm weak, that keeps my feet from faltering. It is the undeserved unearned graciousness of God that extends to us mortal frail humans.

Not only a home in heaven, but God's wisdom, strength, endurance, compassion, provision today. The indescribable, unspeakable gift of God. Wonderful grace of Jesus. Let me take just a moment. That's the first hymn we did today.

Wonderful grace of Jesus greater than all my sin. How shall my tongue describe it? Where shall its praise begin? Taking away my burning burden, setting my spirit free for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful grace of Jesus reaching to all the lost.

By it I have been pardoned, saved to the uttermost. Chains have been torn asunder giving me liberty for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful grace of Jesus reaching the most defiled by its transforming power making him God's dear child. Purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity and the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty rolling sea, higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain, all sufficient grace for even me.

Broader than the scope of my transgressions, greater far than all my sin and shame, oh magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Why do we have to be thankful for? The wonderful grace of Jesus our Lord. And if you have received that grace through faith in his son, I think we maybe should be a little more thankful sometimes than we are.

It is not us that's missing out, it's them. And if you're here today and you've yet to receive Jesus Christ and his offer of salvation, if you're unsure today that you have responded in faith to his invitation to receive his offer to his sacrifice and his living son. I pray as we give this hymn of invitation, we're gonna sing just as I am in just a second, that you'll come. I'll meet you right here. I'll share with you from God's word how you can be saved today and leave this building known that the grace of God, that wonderful gift is yours.

Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you, Lord, for your grace and love that has been bestowed upon us so undeserved and unmerited. Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, who gave himself to redeem the unrighteous, the unfit, the unworthy that you might make us your children. That someday we might go home to dwell in the place that you have prepared for us and enjoy the pleasures and blessings forever of the wonderful grace of Jesus. We pray, Lord, that you would remind us of that today and tomorrow and the next day and that we might be more thankful each day for the grace of God that has given us all of this to us.

And I pray, Lord, if there's one here today that is yet to receive Christ as savior, that they would come. As we sing this hymn of invitation and receive it today and leave this place as a