Hey, welcome to the Church of the City, New York podcast.

We are currently in a series on sin for the season of Lent in the church calendar.

And over the next few weeks, we're going to look at the depth and reality of sin

so that we can have a more holistic vision of the beauty and wonder of our salvation.

You can find resources for this, including liturgies and a

reading plan at lent.church.n.yc. Okay, let's get back to the podcast. My name is Zereal,

and I am joining you from the Upper East Side. The teaching text for today is Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

As for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins,

in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world

and of the ruler of the kingdom of the heir,

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 word of the Lord.

Welcome church. I'm Susie. I'm the teaching pastor here at Church of the City, and today we begin a new sermon series on sin. We've just begun Lent on Ash Wednesday

a few days ago, and Lent is a season in which we think about the sufferings of Jesus and what it

cost him to not only be tempted

in every way and to live among us, but then also to suffer and die on a cross on Good Friday.

Today I want us to lean into that a little bit more, and you might be asking, why would we

spend six weeks on sin? Why not just spend a couple days right before Palm Sunday and remember that

Jesus had to suffer and die, and then we get to enter into the joy of Easter. Well, there's

a few reasons why we need to spend so much time thinking about sin. The first thing is that

without sin, there would be no need for Good Friday. So we can't understand the impact of Jesus'

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