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Good evening, everybody. A particular welcome if you're new here, to all Saints. My name's Chris. I'm one of the ministers here. Just so thrilled that you could join us tonight.

And as Hugh said, we sort of second in a series called I have hidden your word in my heart, where we asked the question. Well, okay, there's 773,746 words in the Bible. It's hard to learn all of them off by heart. But if there were a few verses, if there were eight bits of the Bible that we would really recommend memorising, seeking into your mind, your heart, your soul, which would they be? And so each week, we're coming up with those verses.

And as Hugh said tonight, we're looking at this verse. Ephesians two. Ephesians, chapter two, verses eight and nine. John, I'm a bit boomy. I don't know whether maybe turn the game down or something.

We didn't have a song, but should we say it together? Let's say it together. Here we go. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from your sins.

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast this side. For it is by grace you have been saved for it. Is that wonderful? It's good to get into conductor mode. Very good.

Shall we pray before we dive in? And so, Lord God, we thank you so much for the grace that you have poured on our lives through the Lord Jesus Christ. And, Lord, we thank you that your spirit is here now, o Lord, to challenge us to calm our anxieties and to minister to us as we hear your word. And so, Lord, give us ears to hear the. As we dive into this precious truth this evening.

Amen. Those of you in the room that may know their church history will know that this idea of grace, and particularly this truth coming from Ephesians, played a really big part in something called the reformation, which took place just over 500 years ago. And the church institution at that time in the west was preaching things like, there is a heaven and there is hope of heaven, but you really need to work very hard at it, and so you need to work hard to get there, because God loves you and he's done so much for you in Jesus. But you need to add to that by all sorts of ways in the way you live your life, in the way you give money. So they have something called indulgences.

And indulgences were that if you gave enough money to the church, then it might mitigate the effects of your sin. Or it might mean that you have to spend less time in purgatory, which was the sort of waiting room between heaven and hell. Or you could pay money so that those relatives that had already died might get to heaven quicker. And Martin Luther came along and said, we need to get back to what the Bible says. This is not how we're saved.

We're not saved by works. We're not saved by our money. It is by grace. You have been saved through faith, not from yourselves. It is a gift from God.

So we're thinking particularly about grace tonight, and it's opposite works. Righteousness. The idea that by our own righteousness, we can make it to whatever salvation we might think is out there. Now, whether you're a Christian or not tonight you might look to 500 years ago and think, how on earth did people fall for that? How on earth did people fall for such a piece of sort of institutional manipulation, institutional power?

And perhaps the question isn't how was the institution so persuasive? But possibly how persuasive are our hearts? Because whether it's within a religious setting or not works. Righteousness is alive and well in every single human on the planet. It is the nature of the human heart to yearn for that.

Things that tells us that we are okay, that thing that can assure ourselves, within ourselves, I am okay. That's what the religious word righteousness means. Whether it's I'm okay because I'm beautiful enough, or regarded enough, or attractive enough, or I'm popular enough, or I'm successful enough, or I have achieved enough things, or whether I'm good enough, or whether I have enough money. There is an anxiety in all of us which some folks are feeling right now as we sit in this room. Others, us, we feel when we go into particular places, maybe whether it's our work, maybe whether it's among other parents, whether it's among our school friends, or maybe there's an anxiety that we feel in the silence of our own hearts when we're alone, something telling us, you are not okay.

We all have that hard anxiety. Somewhere back in February, Ali and I got a chance to head to the west end, and we watched the musical Hamilton, because a lot of people have been talking about that, and we thought, that's the one that we need to go and see. There's a song at the end of that musical called who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?

And we're going to listen to it now, because it sums up that anxiety of the human heart of, have I done enough. Thank you, folks.

Let me tell you what I wish I had known when I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? President Jefferson. I give him this.

His financial system is a work of genius. I couldn't undo it if I tried, and I tried. Who lives, who dies? Who tells. Your store resident, Madison, he took our country from bankruptcy to prosperity.

I hate to admit it, but he doesn't get enough credit for all the credit he gave us. Who lives, who dies? Who tells your store? Every other founding father story gets told. Every other founding father gets to grow old.

And when you're gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame? Who tells your story? Tells your story. Who tells your story?

Elijah. I put myself back in the narrative. Eliza. We stop wasting time on tears. I live another 50 years.

It's not enough. I interview every single day who fought by your side. I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings. You really do, right, but you're running out of time. I rely on Angelica.

While she's alive, we tell your story. She is buried in Trinity church near you. When I needed her most, she was right on time. But I'm still not through. I asked myself, what would you do if you had more time?

The Lord, in his kindness, he gives me what you always want. And he gives me more time. I raise funds in DC from the Washington monument. Tells my story. I speak out against slavery.

You could have done so much more if you only had time. And when my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell our story? Oh. Can I show you what I saw?

I established the first private orphanage in New York City. The orphanage I helped raise hundreds of children. I get to see them growing up in their eyes. I see you, Alexander. I see you every time.

And when my time is up, will they tell your story?

Oh, I can't wait to see again. It's only a matter of time.

Tell your story.

Tells your story.

Tell your story.

Who tells your story?

Have I done enough? Was my life significant enough? Was it good enough?

We all have some anxiety, some aspect that makes us feel we have not been enough. We have not done enough. And we all need tonight, whether you're a Christian or not. The Ephesians guide to the anxious heart. The verse we landed on here, this memory verse.

Ephesians eight, nine. It comes at the end of the first section of Ephesians before Paul goes on to talk about how that lands for the people he's writing to. He talks about what God has done through human history. And these verses are the accumulation of that, the summary of that. And we're going to look really briefly at this little section, and we're going to see that the anxious heart, we need God's grace in creation, we need to know God's grace in redemption, and we need to know God's grace in our working.

I don't know if you've seen this phrase, you are enough. It goes on memes, it goes on coffee cups. The Internet is full of it. You are enough. It's the solution to the anxiety we have.

You are enough. And I googled you are enough to see what Google would say that this phrase means. What does it mean to say you are enough? You are enough means you don't have to strive to become more worthy, more valid, more acceptable, or more loved. You already are all of those things just by the fact that you exist.

Google is telling you that you are all of those things. And the secular answer is, just tell yourself, you are enough. That you are worthy, valid, acceptable love. Now, I don't have an issue with that statement. I think it's the thing that we all need.

But my question for Google is, where do you get that from? Where do you get that from?

We're more acceptable. By whose standards? We're more worthy. We're more valid. Well, if we're all just highly evolved apes, why are we valid?

How can we be more loved? Who are we more loved by? Where do we get that from? Yuval Harari is a writer and a thinker. He's an atheist.

And he says that humanity tells itself, and particularly in the west, we tell ourselves convenient myths. So he says, for instance, human rights. Human rights is a truth that the world needs, that society needs to function. But it's a convenient myth. If you chop up a person, you're not going to find any rights there.

It's just something we need to believe, even though they don't exist. And perhaps for the individual, this is the convenient myth that we need to tell ourselves that we are worthy, more valid, more acceptable, more loved. We don't have a basis for it. We just need to tell ourselves that, because otherwise our heart cannot function. But thank goodness for the church.

Thank goodness for those that are in Christ. Thank goodness for those that have the scriptures. We don't have a convenient fiction. We have a convenient truth revealed to us by Ephesians, chapter one. Let's read it.

Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us through adoption to sonship, through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the richest of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfilment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, that last sentence, it's the only one that sort of happened since creation. Everything else was the beginning of creation, before the beginning of creation. In creating us, God had already planned that we would be loved, that we would be valid, that we would be accepted, that we would have all those things, those spiritual blessings that the human soul needs. And when Paul says in chapter two, it is by grace, you have been saved.

It is a summary of all of these spiritual blessings, the first step in quelling our internal anxiety, the propensity to works, righteousness, is this, that you have been created in Christ. That God's love did not start for you on the day that you were born. God's love for you followed you from the beginning of the creation of the world. It followed you when God came to earth in Jesus Christ, and it will follow you long after you leave this earth. And how do we know this?

Because of Jesus, his life, his death, and his resurrection. For those in Jesus Christ, you were loved, you are loved. You always will be loved. And this is the truth the soul needs, which in Christ is not a convenient fiction. It is an essential anchor for the soul.

And so why do people not run towards it more readily? Perhaps because if we feel that need for self help, we run to the self help books. Because actually the gospel to run to it means accepting something that is so counterintuitive it could not possibly help us. What is the diagnosis for how we are loved in Christ? We've looked at God's grace in creation.

Now let's look at God's grace in redemption. As I was googling you are enough, I came across the COVID of this book. There's a book called you are enough. They're always slightly pink and have sort of curly writing on them. That might say the demographic to whom they're aimed at.

I don't know. Men sort of believe they're awesome. Just generally, right? Yeah, fine, don't need to read that book. But what was intriguing about this tagline was embrace your flaws and be happy being you.

And if you read some of the content that's available online, a lot of it's about not living up to false expectations or what people say of you. The Amazon description says, with thought provoking advice, a step by step action plan, and a simple method to challenge your inner critic. Inner critic, you are enough will help you embrace your flaws and celebrate your unique awesomeness.

Can we celebrate our unique awesomeness? Is that an honest reflection when we look inside? Actually, the reality is the honest reflection is when we look to the true standards that are set in creation, when we even look to the standards that we expect from ourselves with any modicum of honesty, we know that we are not awesome. And while Ephesians one mentions forgiveness of sin, Ephesians two dives in more deeply. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. This is the story of every human who has ever lived. But by will and by nature, we turn our back on the king of creation. If you are to point a gun at any king or president of a country, you will not survive for very long, regardless of how good or bad that president or king is.

If you rebel against the king of the universe, the wages of that is death, you cannot live for very long. And God, the king of the universe, he had not many reasons to contend with humanity, to contend with a humanity that turned their back on him, that reject him, that say, God, I want to live in a lawless way. But God had one reason. He had one reason to follow us, to pursue us through history. And here it is in verse four.

But because of his great love for us. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead. In transgressions it is by grace you have been saved and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order to show in the coming ages we might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Let's read that again with a few bits highlighted.

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead. In transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace. Expressing his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

We were made alive with Christ. God raised us up with Christ, seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ expressing his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. What is the cure for the anxiety of the soul? It is not that you are enough. It is that you never had to be enough, because he was enough, because Jesus is enough.

Because he lived the life we should have lived. He died the death we should have died, and we are raised with him to new life through his resurrection. It is because Christ was enough. What is the cure for the soul's anxiety? His grace in creation, his grace in redemption, and finally, God's grace in our working.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. If we do not have to earn God's love through our works, if there is nothing that we can do to make him love us more, if there's nothing that we can do to make him love us less, then why do we live and work to the praise of his glory? Because we love Jesus and because we love his story.

And to enter into the script that God has written for us, believing that it is good for us to do so, and that it is a privilege for us to do so.

Many years ago, when I was in upper 6th and going into my gap year, I worked at the cinema, the multiplex in Guildford. And I remember one day we were in the staff room and our supervisor came in with a copy of Empire magazine and he opened this magazine, he said, look, look, there's me, it's me. And there he was in Empire magazine, dressed up as a soldier right at the front of the chute, and loads of other soldiers lined up and he was right there and he was going, look, I'm in the movie. And the movie he was in was Gladiator. It was filmed in Farnham.

They did all the fighting scenes in Farnham, and he managed to get a place as an extra. He didn't say anything, but he was just there. He was saying, look, there I am. And I didn't want to say, yeah, but there's Russell Crowe.

And there were two reasons why they did that. Firstly, because I wanted to be polite, but also because it was slightly cool that he got to be in a movie that Russell Crowe was also in. And he was going, yeah, look, look, I'm in the same film. I'm in the same film.

And I love the fact that I gave this illustration during my very first sermon here nine years ago at All Saints, and nine years later they're making Gladiator two. I don't know if you've seen the trailer. The trailer for Gladiator two basically says, this is exactly the same as Gladiator one, but you're not going to care because it's such a good story, right? Before it was Gladiator two, it was gladiator one. Before it was Gladiator one, it was Ben Hurley.

It's just such a great story that we love to tell and how awesome that you would get to be in one of those films.

Why do we live and work to the praise of his glory? Because it's just such a privilege to be an extra in the film. It's just such a privilege to be an extra in the story. It's like, I will. I would.

I would wear the clothes you want, I'll say the lines you want. It's just so awesome to play a part in this story, because we believe that this gospel story is the best story there is out there, and that it is the story of the world. And we would love to be in a story with Jesus Christ as its hero. You see, the cry of the heart that is not anxious, the cry of the heart that is at rest does not say, at the end of their life, will they tell my story? They say, will they tell his story?

Will they tell the story of Jesus? And will I get to be slightly excited that I got to play my part in it? And that is why we live and work for him. That is why we do his good works because we are God's handiwork, created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And that is his grace, his grace in creation, his grace in forgiveness, and his grace in our working.

Let's pray.

How do we set our hearts at rest in his presence? We know that God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.

And Lord Jesus, we thank you that through you it is by grace that we are saved. And Lord, I pray for anxious souls in the room tonight, Lord God, that you might put our hearts at rest.

Lord God, we want to pray that you would help us to stare in awe at your cross and your empty grave and at the story that you have written since before creation began. And, Lord, be excited to play our part in it. Help us, we pray, Lord Jesus, give us that spirit that testifies to this story day in, day out, and let us be excited to tell it from now through our lives and through eternity. Amen.