Every Spiritual Blessing: Unending Grace

 Welcome to another episode of the Carpefeide Podcast where if the shoe fits you wear it and if the truth hurts you bear it. I am Justin Gruber and I am Jesse Gruber and today we hope you will seize the faith. We are covering just content wise if you're looking at Ephesians 1 almost nothing. Tonight it's going to be very few words that we're going to cover. I said it was eight words to somebody earlier it's 11. We have 11 words to get through in Ephesians 1 and 1. Blazing through the chapter this will be our 8th week in the study of Ephesians. I hope you're just super excited to take some time here. With us tonight we had one week thus far our study was a little break. We had house church there was... ...depending circumstances that had us not meeting here that night we had house church instead. Other than that since we've been in Ephesians 8 weeks we have gotten to the beginning of verse 8. Congratulations everybody. Again, ripping through the book of Ephesians. The title of verse 7 tonight is every spiritual blessing on ending grace. We are still in the midst of Paul's song. So we're going to look at what we've already sung just so we can remember where we've been. We're just going to keep adding until eventually our introduction to this song is like most of the slides. We started off looking at Paul laying out our new identity in saints and in that also the fact that we have God as our father. But he was just entering that point that we have a new identity as saints in Christ. He's talked about the fact that we were blessed with every spiritual blessing that is found in the heavenly places. And then he just erupts through this song to kind of enumerate those spiritual blessings. That's why our study has been every spiritual blessing here in chapter 1. He talked about that we were chosen by God before the foundations of the world and made holy and blameless in that same time period. He talked about the fact that we were predestined as sons before the foundation of the world to be adopted. He talked about grace upon grace upon grace that stemmed from his kindness. That was our six week and then last week we talked about redemption. That was redemption by the blood that we had been freed and forgiven. And tonight we will look at unending grace. I don't know how long I'm going to rant but I had to stop and so we are covering very little because the notes just kept going and I'm like, nope, we can't cover through verse 8. We'll just cover the very beginning of verse 8. So our time in the scripture will be from the end of verse 7 to the beginning of verse 8. I'll read that for you now. I'm going to read all of verse 7 even though on the screen will be just the end of verse 7. I believe. Maybe if I put it in there correctly, that's what you'll see. It's fine, take your time. Verse 7 says this. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. That was what we looked at last week and now we're in according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. According to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. And so we're going to start off talking about more grace. I know what you're thinking because if you remember like week 6 just two weeks ago, we talked about grace already. Grace upon grace. Paul can't get away from grace nor can we if we're going to study God's word. If we're going to be in the scriptures, there's no way to outrun grace. And so here we have even more grace indeed the title of our servant being unending grace. Tonight we're going to look at not just more grace but grace, not just the thing but almost how in the way it comes from, it comes to us and additionally how much grace that is. So it's going to be looking at that grace almost in more depth. Paul drilling down because there's no way to outrun grace. If we're going to talk about being God's chosen people predestined to adoption, we're going to have to talk about grace. On repeat throughout this text you will find grace. So more grace. Ephesians 1, 7, C through 8A all 11 words. I want to say that like I struggled with like looking at this text. What is this text about? How do I title this text? There's no way to bring a title for this particular blessing. It was hard. It was a difficult task that was before me because there's no way to adequately communicate to you the grace that Paul is talking about here at the end of verse 7 and in diversity. I struggled to find an adequate way to speak of God's grace. That should always be a difficulty for us. If we're going to understand the grace, how do we even communicate the level of grace God has given? How he has given it? How much he has given it? It's very, very difficult. And so I went with the title unending grace because it seemed the most clear and fitting for where we're in, but it was difficult. Maybe that's because of what grace is and indeed how we use grace, how we understand grace. Every day we interact with the idea and concept of grace from man's perspective. Grace in its simplest form is simply unmerited favor. Unmerited favor. And maybe even that phrase in our own time is kind of something of a concern where we don't look at merit so much anymore. But we see it in many things. In many things we actually apply merit. We know it in every sporting event, in every athletic contest. In every contest in general, we're going to look for merits. Something that was done that deserves something. But grace is totally outside that. It is unmerited. It is unmerited favor. Something bestowed that was not earned. Grace is being given what you haven't earned and what you do not deserve. It's the most unfair thing in the scripture. Grace. Grace upon grace. Even if we have a concept of mercy, we can understand it. Someone did something. Something deserves this thing. And we withhold that thing that is mercy. But grace is hard for us in that it is something we are given or something that is given that is not deserved. It's something that it is not earned. We understand grace in a very temporal way. It's not going to be hard for us to understand grace in man's way. It's going to be intensely hard for us to understand God's grace. Unending grace that God gives. That is outlined here in verse 7 and 8 as, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. We can read those words but to understand it we have to get something in our minds. We have to grab a hold of the concept. So maybe unpacking the temporal understanding will help us. We call someone gracious for being generous with temporal and finite treasures. That's what we call someone being gracious here. Temporal and finite. Irrously material, at least in the realm of earth right. I can still include ideas and stuff but it's something very temporal. Temporal coming from the idea of being temporary. It has earthly value. It's also finite. It's not something that is infinite for us to understand. It's something that we have a limited resource of. I have a couple. There's a couple ways you can understand it here. Maybe put a practical idea upon it. You've probably interacted with grace or graciousness in a temperate and a man-centered way in these ways. So gaining audience and talking with someone. Someone giving grace through their time to you. Maybe you've understood it in giving emotional care and support. This would be the grace that's found through relationships, through intimacy with someone else. Again, mapping onto it, right. Unmerited favor. People giving something that is not something you deserve but giving something extra and gracious to you. Whether it's time or relationship or emotional care in those relationships. A level of intimacy that is not earned by you but is given freely. That's grace. The giving of physical goods. This is easy understanding. This is just a grace of material. Someone has something and they give to you. Not that you've earned it or done something to deserve it but out of kindness they are giving a material good. Temporal physical material good. Probably the greatest way we can understand this and we do tend to understand this around every holiday that involves even arm service. Particularly, I know we love to enjoy our time as we minister through the Memorial Day Parade. The whole event centered on this particular one. It's the giving of life and limits. The grace of bodily self-sacrifice. This can be seen in many ways. Someone who it's seen as probably as simple as someone providing for their family. Sacrificing their blood, sweat and energy to provide for their family. It's a grace. It's not a measure of deserving. It's a measure of giving and graciously pouring out oneself. Self-sacrifice. All these ways kind of connect in many understandings of giving and sacrificing and caring for. But they're specific. They're specific ways in which we can grab a hold of a temporal finite resource and give it to someone else freely. They don't deserve it. They haven't earned it. We're just sharing it. That's a man-centered grace. We can see and understand kindness and grace in this way. But it is nothing compared to what Paul is talking about here. It is garbage and trash when you hold it up to the level of according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. The way it comes to us is not man. The amount it comes to us is not man. It is all God. Man's grace is always attached to the nature of the limited thing being given in a limited way to a limited need that achieves a limited purpose. I read it again. There's a lot of words in there. I want to understand it because this is how we interact with grace. Man's grace is always attached to the nature of the limited thing being given in a limited way to a limited need that achieves a limited purpose. So then you go back and look at all those ways. Giving of time. Finite resource given in a limited way for a limited need to a limited person to achieve a limited end. You think about relationships and intimacy. Material, even bodily self-sacrifice. All of it comes from a finite resource and it's given and applied in a limited manner. Always. It always is. I'm going to rip from this. One of the words escaped me. Commentaries I used. Talked about John D. Rockefeller. I'm going to give you some pictures. We understand grace as giving from our possessions. In that possession, I'm not just applying material and applying time and applying emotional energy. All of it that is ours that we possess. We give from that to someone else. I'm going to use John D. Rockefeller as an example. I'm going to put a bunch of pictures. The first one I have is just a picture of who John D. Rockefeller. This is him at a young age. John D. Rockefeller. Most of you know his name. Most of you don't understand why you know his name. He was one of the magnets that really created help build even what America is today. He became intensely rich through a lot of hard work and perhaps some slightly shady dealings. That's what he did. But he had a lot of money. And as he got, this is him young. When he got older, he liked to give that money away. Now you can say to what end. You can say for what means. I mean we have things like the Rockefeller Center, Rockefeller Foundations. We have all sorts of ways in which he gave. They have his name attached to him. So you might say, I don't know, altruistic. I don't know. For the anthropic. Nonetheless, he liked to give. So I'm going to give you pictures. We have a lot of pictures of this particular act he did when he was older. So you can go to the next picture. They're all going to be the same. He liked to give. In this picture, I believe it's a nickel. But he liked to give away small bits of change to children or just anyone. It was a practice he made. They were considered the Rockefeller dimes. He would give out dimes periodically. Now you're thinking back in the 20s, the 30s. That's actually a good bit of money. You give change like this to a kid. And he's going to get a lot of candy. It's a lot. You can get a lot of candy. So after, remember, inflation happened. So we'll talk more about that later. But picture after picture, there's another one of him outside of a gathering where he was just giving dimes away. Always there in his assorted hats. He always had a hat on. Always dressed very well. Here's another picture of him giving dimes away. Look, there he is. Johnny Rockefeller, older Johnny Rockefeller, giving away a dime. To a very happy, a very grateful child. And here's another one. This was a funny one. This is actually a famous golfer who made a really hard plot when he was golfing together with Johnny Rockefeller. And Johnny Rockefeller gave him a dime. Just because the plot was so amazing and he thought it deserved a dime. Here's another one. He would give his caddies a change. He was giving him a dime there as he was playing golf. And here's another one of him giving that super cute little cute little baby on the steps quite possibly out of the church gathering to give the child a dime. Super cute. You will find lots of photos of Johnny Rockefeller giving away dimes. Which is very interesting because it means there was always someone there to photograph him giving away the dime. So that you can have pictures of Johnny Rockefeller being very gracious with his money. We understand grace as giving from our possessions. But what does unending grace look like? What does that mean? Is that in any way what we have just seen these photos of a very wealthy man giving away constantly these dots? Does that in any way map on to according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us? Let's try to understand an ending grace. And when we're about to read, you're going to hear Paul. He knows that to understand God's grace. You must have the blessings of eternal past. Because only through God can you even begin to understand his grace. And by the blessings of eternal past, I want to make sure we remember we never get disconnected. He chose us before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless. He predestined us to adoption as sons. He freed us and forgave us. Here's how Paul says it. And these are just, I'm giving you exclusively Ephesians passages. All right, further down in Ephesians chapter 1, we'll look at verses 18 and just the beginning of 19. It says this. I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling. What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? And what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe? Paul knew that we would need to remember God's eternal blessings. Here's Paul says, I pray that you would understand, that you would know, because it will take the power of God for us to even understand the great riches of his grace. We're going to chapter 2, chapter 2, verse 7. In order that in the ages to come, he, God, might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. God revealing to us his great gifts. We jump over to chapter 3, verse 8, and it says to me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unfathomable riches of Christ. We look at verse 16 of the same chapter, chapter 3. It says that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. It requires God to be kind to us in eternity, past, thrust, even grasp, behold, of the current immediate grace that we have, that you and I have access to. The grace we're going to speak about tonight, unending grace, is current grace. It is where we live right now in this moment. This level of grace. Now, if we understand that man gives from his possessions generously, and that is grace, when I sacrifice time, when I sacrifice treasure, when I sacrifice emotional intimacy, when I sacrifice life and limb, the limited resources I have, I give from them to someone else, and we say, he is very gracious. That is nothing when we're trying to understand God's grace to us. So here's the problem with describing our current position, our literal current where we sit, where you sit tonight, where we have the Bible open, where we are talking about God. Here's the problem with describing our current position in grace. We give from our possessions generously, and call it grace, being gracious, as the Bible would say, being kind, the kindness of God, the grace of God. But we give from our possessions. Here it says that God gives according to His possessions generously. That is such a fundamental difference in how we interact with grace, that I'm going to try to attach physical numbers to it, so that you can understand it. What would it look? I didn't ask this question, because we can talk about a community group. I wanted to put, what would it look like for us to give according to our riches? But that's a good question for community group. But instead I put, what would it look like if Rockefeller gave according to his riches? I want you to understand this. So a dime in 1935, which is two years before he died. The pictures that we had of him giving out these dimes were when he was much older. I thought to say he wasn't gracious as men would map earlier in his life, but it is to say it was a very common practice when he became older to just hand these dimes out. Like the guy walked around with five pounds of dimes in his pocket just to give them out. So the photos would be taken of him being generous. A dime in 1935, if we had just ten cents in 1935, it is very upsetting when mommy leaves. Just for the sake of moment to acknowledge that. I agree. If we had just a dime from 1935 into 2025-26, all right, we're doing inflation now. What you would get is that a dime would represent about $2.36 today. It's a pretty substantial increase from ten cents in 1935 to 2025-2026 year. Now Rockefeller's net worth, if we adjust that for inflation, is about, would have been about $435 billion today. Back then, I believe it was like $1.7 billion. Now when you start to increase the amount, you realize how great inflation is between 1935 and 1935. Back then, $1.7 billion was almost 1.5%. Now, let me just help you map this out so you can understand how much money John D. Rockefeller had. He was by himself a singular human being in 1935-37s where he died- was by himself 1.5% of the entire net wealth of America at that time. Which says also something, hey America had a good bit of wealth back in 1935. 1.5 doesn't sound like a lot, because that means everybody else in America had 98.5% of the wealth, right? But what if I told you there was only 100 people in all of America and that made up all the wealth? Then it was like wow, there's guys have a lot of money. John D. Rockefeller was 1.5 of them. He had a lot, a lot of wealth. If you chart him out, he would still make, if you look at actual, like, hard value of net worth, John D. Rockefeller would still be like one of the 10 wealthiest people ever lived. Now, if you look at futures, if you start doing futures and manipulation and thinking about the future, you'd find Elon Musk would creep on to that list. If you look at future wealth potential as lots of financiers do, he's going to make that cut. Bezos wouldn't, but Elon Musk can probably push him off there. If we look at future earnings, probable future earnings, Elon Musk is going to make the cut. But not really yet, let's give him some time. We'll see how the rest of the year works out. But John D. Rockefeller, super, super wealthy. So if you look at that dime that he gave, what would it actually represent? John D. Rockefeller giving a dime represented 0.00000005% of his wealth. Mathematically, it was nothing. That number mathematically is nothing. It affects absolutely nothing for John D. Rockefeller. It was literally meaningless to him. What would it look like if John D. Rockefeller didn't give from his wealth, but according to his wealth? What would that look like? Because every dime was meaningless. It was nothing. 435 billion dollars. Most of his wealth being much more on hand than we look at wealth today. That's the difference between giving from your wealth or giving according to your wealth. Christian, I would encourage you what we're going to look at tonight. We as Christians should not be giving from our wealth. We should be thinking about what it looks like to give according to our wealth. It's crazy. It's totally different. What God has done for us in grace is nothing like we operate in grace as man. It's nothing. It was a gracious act to be given a dime. Back then, a dime could get you a hot coffee, some eggs and some toast. You could go get a little breakfast for a dime. It was a goodness. It was grace. But 2 John D. Rockefeller, it was nothing. It was nothing. He could have walked around giving out 100 dollar bills and it would have been nothing. But he was giving from his wealth. He was not giving according to his wealth. God gives grace according to his riches. According to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. Every breath about grace in the Bible from God is excess. It is cartoonish levels of excess. It is grace upon grace upon grace. God gives grace not from his riches. He gives grace according to his riches. Let me help you understand this in another way. I'm going to talk about another rich person in history. Historians would say this may have been the richest human being to ever live on the face of the earth in all of history. On this list, we're talking like Julius Caesar shows up. This is like the people that had the most net wealth in all of the world. This guy would have been the top of the top you have never heard of him. I promise. Mansa Musa. Mansa is the title there. Mansa Musa. Mansa was the title given to the ruler of the Mali Empire. So, quick takers. Anybody know where the Mali Empire was? Anyone? Anyone takers? Good. No. Oh, stop it. Good. Where was it? Yes. We're in Africa. Oh, right. Good. You don't know that. I want to say Western. It was just good. North Western Africa. The Mali Empire. North Western Africa. Gold star. You're going to gold star for tonight. I'm a nerd. The Mali Empire was in Northwestern Africa. The Mali Empire at its height actually controlled a good section of Northwestern Africa. And in that controlling area, they had a predominant chokehold on salt and gold. In fact, at their height, they basically controlled the flow of gold to the entire world. And we're talking back in like the 1300s when gold was a intense standard of value. You used it. You traded it. Things were backed by it. Even Fiat currency was still connected to what gold could be. And so Moussa, Monsa, Moussa was in control of essentially these standard of economic payment on the globe. His net worth would have been literally most historians try to attach value to it. It would have been incalculable because if you're paying for things that are attached to gold value and you're the one who attached to how much gold anybody gets, your wishes are in they're not calculable. You control what that money is worth where that money exists and who gets that money. His net worth would have been not truly knowable. In 1324 to 1326, two years, Monsa Moussa made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Yeah, it's not surprising that he would have been connected to the nation of Islam. That's a whole different history lesson. Nonetheless, he made a two year pilgrimage to Mecca. You know, you're thinking would have taken him two years. It didn't, but he stopped a lot of places. Spent a lot of money. This is the most extravagant journey to Mecca pilgrimage ever undertaken by any Muslim. So, this is what I won't understand it. In fact, so extravagant, he spent about three months in Cairo, in Egypt. And in those three months, he spent so much gold. It destabilized the price of gold in all of Egypt for a decade. Like what does that mean? Let me have you understand that. If gold is what you're paying with, okay? And you have a lot of it and you go and spend it in a place. If gold in England was worth $100. But now you have a ton of it in Egypt. It's not worth $100. It becomes worthless because there's so much of it. He spent so much money in Cairo, in three months, he destabilized the currency for a decade. That's wealth. That's crazy wealth. God gives grace to us according to His riches. Mansa Moussa destabilized an entire country's gold standard by giving from His riches. We stand as joint heirs to God's kingdom, imbued with His righteousness through the power of His Spirit. How do I express that in words? How can I possibly express that to you in words? It's impossible. Like what you just did. I did. A holy and adequate job of explaining that to you. Destabilizing the currency in an entire country because you have injected wealth is like it's not fully understandable to us. It would possibly happen. Like if Elon Musk rained down planes of cash over all of the country, guess what would happen to cash? It would become meaningless to us because we would have so much of it. And then what would that do? How would we buy things? What's the value of something? We wouldn't even know. We wouldn't have an adequate understanding of that level of destabilization. And yet all he would be doing is giving from his riches. But God gives to us according to His riches. So for me to help you to understand that, it's almost impossible. We can barely scratch the surface of understanding what it looks like. That God has given to us God the sovereign over everything in all time and before time existed and will be God sovereign over everything when time is no longer counted. Has given to us not from all of everything but according to all of everything. Here's what God did. He looked at what He has. Just process that. God looked at all that is His. What does that mean? What does that phrase even mean? God looked at everything. God looked at Himself. He looked at what He had. Has will have. He chooses. He fordestines. He adopts us and lavishes grace on us. Grace, can you imagine unmarried favor of God not from but according to all that He is and all that He has? Can you believe it? It is impossible. And yet it is true. They're grace that He gives not from His riches as if we should receive some bobble or shrink it as if John D. Relica Rockefeller hands out a dime but according to His riches. Grace in like measure to all that He is. And I ask what is the limit of God's riches? What is God's limit to His riches? Where does it end? Where is it not His stuff? Where are the bounds of His kingdom? Where does His sovereignty end? Where? Can you find it? Is it observable? Is it knowable? Where does God's sovereignty end? You see the difficulty and understand that God has given to us according to His riches is that God's riches are limitless. God giving of Himself to us has no end. There's no way to map that out for you. I can't give you a pie chart because the chart is inadequate. It's actually encompassed by a circle that doesn't exist. God giving according to His riches destabilizes all of humanity's concepts of economy for all eternity. His grace breaks our brains. We have no way. No, will we ever have any way to compute and comprehend fully this level of grace? Because we are finite and we give from our riches. God is infinite and He gives according to His riches. Isaiah speaks of Christ's kingdom and says, of it there will be no end of His kingdom or of peace. No end. There is no limit. And He gives not from that to us but according to that. Which means according to limitless is limitless. There's no end to the grace that He gives us, the grace that we receive. That's, you want to talk about destabilizing? It's a level of grace that should cause us to feel very uncomfortable. So very uncomfortable. Because what are you to do with all of that? What are you to do with that wealth? What are you to do with that level of grace? That level of kindness? It is very easy to at least understand why the prosperity gospel flies off of the rails. Because the truth is that there is no end to the riches from which God gives accordingly to His people. We don't understand what it's like to have access to infinite resource but we can understand that in Christ He gives us access to infinite resource. The problem is we immediately try to pull it into some sort of temporal understanding. What God says that He will do for us temporarily is meet our needs. That's what He says. I also think about grace in a finite way and the easiest way to understand grace is that we do not have all the grace yet that we will need to walk through life. Because God gives grace for each moment. I think about it because Hannah talked about Remi and I was going to talk about Remi tonight and I was like, that's not fair. She's talking about Remi before church even starts. But Remi is a miracle upon miracles. And I'm glad I have the tissue up here because I'm only needed. But when I think about little Remi, there are many stupid foolish doctors that would even mention about the fact that Remi is a miracle upon miracles. And we even mention abhorting Remi before he was born because Remi was going to be hard. He was going to have difficulties. What would his quality of life look like? How did it affect you and your family and your other children? And what kind of foolish talk that is? Because every time without fail. When I interact with Remi, Remi ministers to me. He's my tissue for a moment. I went and got my hair cut. Most of you haven't seen it yet because you weren't there Wednesday night. But I got to cut on Monday after we had church last Sunday. And when I got to the house, we had just shoveled me and me and Mason and Logan. I just shoveled several other homes and we got to Hannah's house. And I'm just playing with Remi on the floor. And I had my keys. When I got the keys off my first, actually, when I got there, he had a stinky diaper. And I just changed that because I'm like, I've done enough diapers. But here's yours. And then he cleaned, happy Rebius, placed out of the floor. And I would just take my keys. And I would show them to him and he would see them. And then I would show him and I would hold him over and I'd drop him somewhere and he'd just roll over. He's rolling to try to get the keys. We did that a bunch of times. Super cute. And somebody would say, you should kill him because it's too hard. But what they don't know is that what they don't know. What they don't know is that God gives not from his riches. But according to his riches, that's like yells to get it out because I would just keep choking up. God had a grace to give. Stupid. I want to speak. I don't know how other pastors do it. I've never been able to do it well. God had a grace to give for Remi. That was going to come when Remi came. And that grace, he had already prepared Jesse and Hannah and my mom and dad and me and my wife and he had already prepared our whole church community to be parts of the grace that was given to Remi. And that Remi would give to us that these, these man-centered people that only know man's grace couldn't possibly comprehend because my God's grace is limitless. It's unbounding. It's unending. All right, response. It is God's grace that leads you to repentance and God's grace that leads you to repentance. Because God doesn't give from. He gives according to his riches. Grace. Romans chapter 2, 1 through 4, which we read earlier. Sniffing into the microphone, that's probably a great sound. And this is chapter 2, 1 through 4 says this. Therefore, you are without excuse every man of you who passes judgment. For in that you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same things. And this is chapter 1, we're Paul outlines sin. That all people sin and all people bend towards sin. But there can be salvation, though we reject him, hate him and choose to sin. And then he says, whoa, whoa, in case you get confused, you're going to judge those who sin. But you are a sinner. You judge people for the very things that you do. Why do you think in some way you will be free? He goes on in verse 2. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. What such things? The such things that we judge others for doing, that we also do. And so God rightly judges everyone justly. Verse 3. And do you suppose, this is where Paul gets a little, Paul was very, very much like this author of the book of Galatians. Is one of his earliest works that we have. It's very, he gets sarcastic preacher in the middle of these verses. Verse 3 pops in. And do you suppose, oh man, when you pass judgment upon those who practice such things and do the same yourself that you will escape the judgment of God? And the answer is no. Of course not. We will not escape the judgment of God. God judges all justly, all righteously. There's no partiality with God. Verse 4. Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? And immediately you read that naturally as a man-centered grace and we think about God is kind to us, right? And we respond with repentance. That's what we think. We read it that way. No. No. Are God gives according to his riches? God's gracious to you so that you can repent. You couldn't repent unless God first was gracious. Why? Because the human heart is deceitful. It is desperately wicked. We don't even understand the depths of our sin. And yet God in his kindness before all of everything has given you grace so that you can repent. And then every time thereafter we see his kindness and repent. We repent because of God's grace. And it is God's grace that causes us to repent. Why? Because as evenly deceitful and sinful as we are, God gives according to his riches. And there is no limit. Receive grace and repent. Repent and receive grace. That is the unfair and absolutely incomprehensible, unending grace that God offers us. We have an unending Scrooge McDuck size vault of grace. And I put that in there on purpose. You can see Scrooge McDuck diving into his gold coins. Now apart from the obvious physics that are present in that, you don't dive into gold coins. Right? Because like ouch. But you get the picture, right? You have it in your mind. You see him. No matter what age you were, no matter what era of McDuck you see, you see a giant vault. That vault of God's grace, there is no limit to it. We stand before it knowing we don't deserve it. We repent in it out of the kindness of our Father, God. And we dive into it, swimming in its limitless depths without fear of ever running out. Because our Father has given what is His to His children. Praise His name. Unending grace, according to the riches of God. That's why it's appropriate to put in a song. That's why Paul sings it. Christian, we should repent. And it is God's grace that allows us to do so. It is God's grace that causes us to do so. And there will never be an end to His grace for us. It is limitless and boundless. He doesn't give you a thing. He gives you everything. So tonight, when we respond, please repent and then praise and rejoice because you stand as a child of God, a joint air of Christ with access to all of His unfathomable, incomprehensible, unending riches at your fingertips, a grace that is impossible to be known and so joyous to be celebrated. So let us tonight repent and rejoice because God has gifted us unending grace. Let us do that together now.