places believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does places believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does in the Bible, for example: ' not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him ' {John 3.36} Do believe in the Son, Jesus Christ? you Christ is the object of faith; faith is the instrument or means by which the benefits which Christ has won through His perfect life and death on behalf of others as a truly innocent man become the gift of God to the believer. In salvation there is a wonderful exchange: Christ gives His gift of righteousness so that the sinner receives divine pardon and full acceptance by God (Gal 2:15; 16; 3:24) The sinner/law-breaker gives him/herself in faith to Jesus Christ - fully trusting in the Lord for life now and into the eternal future. When the Martin Luther understood this gracious exchange about 500 years ago and said: ' devil throws our sins up to and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus 'I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is there I shall be also ' At times Christians have a reputation in the world as being arrogant. Calvinist/reformed believers especially are often seen as somewhat mean, narrow-minded, rude, and haughty. Why do those who subscribe to the doctrines of grace Some people have asked the question frequently seem so graceless? After all, the reformed Christian has the clearest understanding of Biblical and systematic theology. Interesting that the Word of God anticipates the pride of those who only 'hear part of the story' and think that theology or church culture are the ' end goals ' , rather than the gracious ' For by grace you have been saved gift of life in Christ! Let's listen to the whole of verse 8: through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast ' . Surely Reformed Christians should logically be the kindest, most gracious, peace-loving, humble and thankful of people on the planet. Why? Because we clearly understand that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone as revealed in Scripture alone. We also understand, brothers and sisters, nd that we have been made new in Christ. Which brings us to our 2 point:

- 2. Creation in Christ

Sadly, in so many places in the world you will find plastic, in the oceans, on the beaches and in landfills. However, when archaeologists dig up the rubbish dumps of ancient cities, they (obviously) don't find plastic, but the most common objects there are potsherds - fragments of pottery - bowls, cups, jars etc. Pottery was as familiar to the ancient world as plastic is to us, one of the differences (apart from environmental impact) being that each pottery vessel was handmade by a craftsman, unlike the mass-produced manufactured products with which we are familiar. The imagery of a potter and the clay he forms into an object of his choice is used in a number of places in the Bible to convey the work of God in changing people (e.g. Jeremiah 18:1-6; Isaiah 29:16; 64:8; Romans 9:21; 2 Cor 4:7). We heard from Jeremiah 18 of the reworking of