Come and discover with us the two aspects of our salvation in Christ. The reason God put this passage in the Bible is twofold.To show us how He has saved us and secondly to provoke us to praise Him alone.

Preached by Tim Castillo on April 10th, 2016 as part 2 on our sermon series titled 'Ephesians: Relating To All Things In Christ'. We'll opening up our Bibles to Ephesians 1:7-10.

For more sermons from this expository method of sermon delivery, please visit http://gracehill.church/sermon-series/ephesians-relating-things-christ/

PARTIAL Transcript:

Salvation In Christ

And now this morning we're going to look at the two aspects of our salvation in Christ. The reason God put this passage in the Bible is twofold—To show us how He has saved us and secondly to provoke us to praise Him alone, to give Him all the glory and credit for saving us from our sin and eternal death. And that's my intent here this morning, to simply enable you to see God's grace in saving you, so that you will in turn worship and praise your Father for who He is and for what He alone has done. So let's begin as we look at these two aspects of our salvation in Christ.
Ephesians 1:7-10

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

The Parade Field

On two occasions Stephanie and I have had the privilege of watching two of our sons graduate from the Army's Infantry Training program at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

The Graduation Ceremony takes place at The Brave Rifles Parade Field. Now this is a unique Parade Field. You see over the years combat veterans have taken what they call "sacred soil" from every battle ground you could possibly imagine and sprinkled it there

Bunker Hill; Antietam; the beaches of Normandy; Korea; Vietnam; Iraq and Afghanistan, just name a few. Master Sgt. Jerry White spoke of the symbolic imagery behind the Field—"When soldiers graduate, they will walk across the soil where their forefathers' fought, and many of them died." One of the greatest honors in my life was when the commander invited us to join our soldiers on the Parade Field. I knew I was unworthy and yet I also knew I was welcome.

This is what it's like to stand in the presence of our God. It's the overpowering knowledge that you are unworthy and yet welcome, in fact more than welcome, you are home in the presence of your Father. So how is it that you and I have the privilege of walking on sacred ground in the presence of God? How is it that we are saved?