You wanna turn to the book of Colossians, please? I think that Joseph, the account of Joseph is probably my most favorite Old Testament prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know, I think even before I understood some of what God is intending for us to know, by the prophecy given through Joseph's life and his words with his brothers that even before those times, like Brad said, I couldn't help but weep when I read the account there because it's so moving that Joseph would so love his brothers who had been so wicked against him.

And I obviously chose those scriptures carefully because they support in a way that illustrates the grace of God towards us, in a way that powerfully illustrates the grace of God towards us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I hope that you see that. And I just wanna summarize some of those things because these things together form the message of what we're going to read in Colossians. And I've entitled that message, a fairly lengthy title. It's really taken from Colossians 1, verse 13, where God has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. But the title is this, translated, to the rule of the son of God's love.

So you can see in the Genesis account that Brad just read from Genesis 37 and 45 and 50 that God showed to Joseph that one day he would be exalted and his brothers, his mother and his father, would come and bow down to him and then they They hated him, they envied him because of that. They also envied him because his father, Jacob, loved him above his brothers and had made him a coat of many colors. When you read the historical account, we are to understand it as a type, a picture, a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see that in Jacob loving his son, Joseph, we see that God the Father loved his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in his brothers envying Joseph, their brother, and hating him, we see the people who were going to be near to Joseph by nature actually hating and putting to death the Lord Jesus Christ. That would be all of his people, all of God's people.

And then we see that God promised Joseph through the dreams and revealed to him that he would one day rule over his brothers and they would bow to him, which was fulfilled, as we just read. That God's people would come and bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. But in their coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and bowing to him, it wouldn't be an encounter of terror, but one in which he would comfort them, and the comfort that he would give them would be his own love for them, that he would endure suffering because of their sin, and at his own expense, the suffering that Joseph experienced, as the Lord Jesus Christ did for our sins, At His expense, He would preserve their lives and nourish them, and they would be brought near to Him who was made ruler over all of the land of Egypt, just as we are brought near to God through the Lord Jesus Christ because He's made ruler over all things.

Now, if you can see the structure of that, then you can see how God is telling us, even from Old Testament times, in promise that Jesus His only begotten Son, the Son of His love, would be exalted to the highest place. And the reason He would be exalted is because He first was humbled. And the reason He was first humbled is because of the sin of His own people. And His humility in taking that stoop was the will of God. It was the will of God, and God himself delivered him up for us all. He did not spare his son, but delivered him up for us all. And we, even though by wicked hands he was taken and for our sins was crucified on the cross, yet as Joseph went to Egypt knowing God was going to make him ruler, and yet he endured that, understanding that it would first be through his own humiliation and suffering.

So the Lord Jesus Christ, for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and was set down now at the right hand of God because he fulfilled that will of God.

And as Joseph told his brothers in love that do not even consider what you've done against me, because it was God who brought me here to preserve your life. So the Lord Jesus Christ comforts us and speaks tenderly to us in the gospel and embraces us and kisses us and brings us near and speaks comfortably to us so that we're made to rejoice in him because he reveals to us that it was by God's will and his own love that he gave himself for our sins.

Now that's the reason that I had Brad read those scriptures and I'm sure that in some sense you have an understanding of that even without my own elaboration of it. But these things turn over and over in my mind.

And one of the things that we see in this text in Colossians that we're about to read here is that God is giving the Colossians by his own spirit through the Apostle Paul. He's giving them what will be for their faith and their hope and their love for the Lord Jesus and for his people while they are in this world in their walk of faith.

And he expertly does that by the wisdom of God. God himself is giving that to us. And he speaks of this, of his purpose in doing this throughout chapter one, two, and three. And it's the most endearing text of scripture here because it unfolds for us that it is God's will that his son be lifted to the highest level.

Not only as he is as God, because as God he didn't have to be lifted up, he didn't have to be exalted, he was already exalted. but as man, the man who is God as our mediator. And because he stooped to become our mediator in order to save our lives with a great deliverance and to nourish us and care for us, that God has exalted him to the highest level.

And so these things are set forth before us in Colossians chapter one for a specific purpose. It's because the Colossians, like all of the churches of God, suffer the assault of false religion. And that false religion shakes and tries to cast, as it were, a net, a mist of darkness over his people in order to discourage them from the way, the way of faith in Christ.

And hope, they lose sight of their hope. And their love dwindles and grows cold because of that. And so in order to address that problem that's common throughout all of the Bible, throughout our own lives in particular, God writes in such a way here as to tell us that the Holy Spirit of God tells us this is God's will.

And God is even instructing the apostle and his people to pray with these words, as we read last time when we covered this in verse nine, that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. And that will of God, that spiritual understanding, that wisdom, knowing how to take the things God has revealed in his word, and rightly applying them in the course of our life is the way in which God is going to stabilize and hold us fast in faith and increase our faith and grow our faith because he's going to reveal that it is his will to exalt his son. And he's going to tell us that the one who is exalted in heaven over all things and over all things on earth is not only the son of God, but he is the one who stooped as Joseph had to stoop in humility and suffer in humiliation as a man.

So that what we see here in this scripture is that the Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven as God, he came from heaven to take our nature. And having taken our nature, he took our place. He took our place under the law of God. And under the law of God, he obligated himself to fulfill all obedience and to answer God's justice so that God himself would be pleased. And he would justify him.

And so having taken our nature and taking our place under the law of God, the Lord Jesus Christ took our sins. And he bore and took the sufferings due to us for our sins. And he took the death that we deserve. And he was buried in the burial of forgetfulness so that the body of our sins was put away and forgotten by God in that burial.

And then the Lord Jesus Christ, having taken our nature and taking our place under the law and taking our sins and bearing our death, He took us with Himself in the resurrection by the justification of God in life. God giving life to Him from the dead and He Himself taking life again. by the power of his own spirit, raising himself from the dead.

And by this almighty power of God, the Lord Jesus Christ took us from death and raised us up. And we ascended in him. We ascended and we were seated at the right hand of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he sends the gospel, he who took our nature and our place and our sin and our suffering, and then brought us with himself from the dead. He brought us into glory to be seated with him at the right hand of God.

And now he sends his gospel as Joseph came to his brothers. And by his Holy Spirit, he speaks to us and embraces us. And he tells us, God meant it for good. You meant it for evil. All that you did opposed your own salvation, opposed your Savior, opposed the God who created you and gave you life.

And yet God, for His sake, for His own name's sake, made you His people before time began and laid upon His Son all of this obligation and all of this glory in advance as Joseph's dreams were given to him. And He reveals this to us as the will of God so that now we see. in our God, our Savior, our great God and Savior.

And therefore, we have this confidence and assurance of faith that God has received us in Him by His will, by His accomplishments, and has told us in the gospel by His Spirit applied to our hearts, giving us faith in Him. And He not only gives us this confidence of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but He sets before us the eternal inheritance God has given us in Him.

Because Christ has not only taken us with Himself to glory, but He has entered into our eternal inheritance, into eternal glory with His people for us. And this is the hope set before us. And now God tells us these things in order to draw out by His Spirit this love towards God in the revelation of His love towards us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

such tender, such lowliness and meekness in Christ to divulge to us God's own heart in the Gospel of His Son. That's what this is about. God setting forth Christ in the eyes of our faith so that we would see none other and that we would trust none other. We would look no further and to nothing else and nothing less than the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We would not look to our own works. We would not look to our own feelings, our own experiences, or our own knowledge. We wouldn't look to man's opinion or esteem of us. And we wouldn't look at the things of this earth, but we would set our hope on things above because of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this is talking about here. This is the will of God.

And I want you to see this as we look at these verses here in Colossians chapter one. And we're gonna try to cover these verses from verse nine. I'll read back over from verse nine and we'll read through verse 14. Look at this with me together and understand this is declared to us in the gospel. He says, for this cause, Paul and Timothy, And by saying this cause, we, he doesn't just include himself, but this is God's will. Breathe out through the spirit of God, revealing the will of God through these words of scripture. God's own heart now being given to us so that we can see it in black and white. and apply it and take these words in our prayers, in our supplications, by faith in Christ alone to the Lord Jesus, to the throne of God, the throne of grace.

He says, for this cause, we also, since the day we heard, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. In order that, this is why, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. And he goes on in verse 11, strengthened, notice these words carefully, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power. Unto all patience, that means enduring, under. and long suffering with joyfulness.

How can you be joyful with all of the trouble of this life? How can you possibly be joyful? How can you have this joy in the midst of sorrow and trouble? The joy comes by hearing the words of Christ, by understanding that what the Lord Jesus Christ did And his heart and his love for God and his obedience and his sufferings and his place in glory are all also the obedience and the sufferings and the righteousness and the exaltation of his people with him.

So that what we are to consider now is that because God has put us in the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore all that Christ has done and all that he is as our mediator and all that he, where he is in reward and in his inheritance is all that we have done, all that we have in him. God has made him unto us wisdom, righteousness, holiness, or sanctification, and redemption. And all of this is to the glory of God.

So this is where the joy comes from, knowing that we in Christ have been received by God as His Son. In all of the grace and all of the purpose of God, He determined beforehand to bring us to Himself as His own children in love through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done it all. And now in this life, we look to Him. We look to Him. We rely and we rest in Him and we find assurance in what God thinks of Him because God looks to Him for us. That's what the gospel teaches us.

And so that strengthens us to see, as he says in verse 11, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. I would have just written his power, but he says his glorious power. The power of God, how can you add to it? Remember when you read scripture, God never speaks in boasting and inflated terms. He doesn't use hyperbole. He speaks precisely. In fact, the words are going to, even though they're accurate and precise, when we receive them, they're going to fall far short of the glory that they actually are describing. And so when it says here God's power, it's His glorious power. And He says that our strength is according to God's glorious power, to Christ's glorious power.

So that in this life, we have this joy knowing that God has provided for us and accepted Christ and accepted us in Him and given to Him life and eternal glory.

for us with him, all that he did for his son as our mediator, he did for us in him. That gives us joyfulness and the strength in our life is God's glorious power, it's not our own. So it takes the focus away from ourselves and it directs it to the Lord Jesus Christ and to know that this is by the will of God.

And Galatians chapter one, I'm gonna read this verse of scripture to you because this is a summary of everything that I've said up to this point. In Galatians chapter one and verse four, listen to these words here. He says, it's very simple but very concise. Speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, he says in verse four of Galatians chapter one, who gave himself, he gave himself, I love that, those words, he gave himself. Nothing could be compared to that. Nothing could excel that. If Christ gave himself, then God gave all. And if God has given his son, nothing can be added to it because Christ fills heaven and earth.

who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to, notice, the will of God our Father. Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God our Father.

What is that supposed to do to us? Well, first thing it should do is to cause us to fall on our face, as Joseph's brothers did, and bowing down before the Lord Jesus Christ, not in terror, but in the highest possible adoration and worship and praise, giving thanks to the Father by Him. That's what Colossians 1, verse 12 says, giving thanks to the Father, which hath made us meet, or qualified us, made us suitable, fit. He has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

I know that if you think anything like me, you imagine that there are somebody, somebody is going to go to heaven. Somebody is going to receive the inheritance God has promised. And they will be glad. No one can even estimate their joyfulness. But there's always that doubt. Probably, it may not include me. But if we have to make ourselves, if we think that we have to make ourselves something in order to receive that inheritance, then we have every reason to doubt. We should never have any confidence if in any part of this, we're in the equation.

But notice what he says here. Giving thanks to the Father which hath made us, God himself, the Father, has qualified us to be partakers, participants in the inheritance of the saints in light, in the light of God's presence, in the light of the truth, in the light of Christ, who is the light, in the pure light of God's holiness, in the presence of God with no shame, having boldness because we're there by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And that's all sufficient. And so we have this cause, to give thanks to God our Father.

Notice, Father tells us our relationship to God. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Remember 1 John 3? It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he, Christ, shall appear, then we shall be like him. We'll see him as he is. So God has before time, As it says in Ephesians 1, he predestinated us unto the adoption of children. He put us by that predestinating will before time. He put us among the children. By nature, we were not his children, but he put us among his children. And he goes on in Ephesians 1, verse 5, he says, he predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. So our adoption to God the Father is by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's saying here. God, our Father, we're thanking him. He's our Father. He has made us fit. He's made us his own children by Jesus Christ.

Notice he says in verse 13 of Colossians 1, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Now these words, I was reading this to Denise as I was looking at this in the parallel. There's something called Young's Literal Translation, YLT, and you can look at these things on the Blue Letter Bible online. So I set side by side the King James Version and this literal translation. And the word delivered here in the literal is rescued. It means the same thing, but it helps us to understand it. We were rescued. From what? From the power or the authority of darkness.

Now, if you remember, and I don't expect you to remember the reference, but in Psalm 109, the prophecy of Judas betraying Christ causes the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ to be against Judah, Judas. In Psalm 109, I'm going to read it there so that I don't just try to quote it and misquote it. But he says, it's a very, very dark passage because of this. It says in verse, Verse five of Psalm 109. This is a prophecy speaking about Judas and the prophecy is a prayer. It's a prayer against, it's an intercession against Judas. And that should make your skin crawl, shouldn't it? But in verse five it says, they rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love. Verse six, notice this, set thou a wicked man over him. Set a wicked man over him and let Satan stand at his right hand. You see what that is? That's the authority of darkness over a man. God himself has given authority of the darkness over this man. And then it goes on in verse seven, when he shall be judged, let him be condemned. Let his prayer become sin. We don't want that, do we? This is the opposite of what our advocate does.

So back in Colossians 1, God the Father rescued us from that authority of darkness. He delivered us from what we deserved, which was to be subjected under the ruler of darkness. A wicked man set over us. Our prayer becoming sin and God remembering our sin and condemning us for our sins. That's what it is to be under the authority of darkness, the power of darkness. And it's to have that blindness over us, this mist of darkness, so that we can't see goodness in God. unless we see somehow that it depends upon us and we have this false view that God is favorable towards us because of what he sees in us or finds to be in us, recognizing something. That's darkness. Mount Sinai is called darkness in Hebrews chapter 12. It says, you're not come to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, nor into blackness and darkness. So when we think to approach God on the basis of our own performance, then, it's only darkness. And Judas was left to face God in judgment based on his own obedience or disobedience. And he betrayed Christ. And it was imputed to him as sin. And he was condemned for it. And the Lord Jesus Christ didn't advocate for him, but he advocated against him.

And we're just as prone, we're just as subject to the same fall as Judas. What's in our heart is no different by nature than what was in Judas's heart. We're just like Joseph's brothers, but by the will of God and by the work of God the Father, he has translated us. He has taken us from that kingdom and put us into another place.

And that's what's spoken of in the latter part of verse 13 in Colossians 1. He says in Colossians 1.13, he has delivered us or rescued us from the power, the authority of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. And in the Young's literal translation, it says into the rain. of the son of his love, the reign, the rule.

And so think again of Joseph's brothers now. They're under the reign of Joseph, who went through all that he did at their hand. with the express purpose of saving them and their lives and their little ones and nourishing them and comforting them and showing himself gracious to them because that was the will of God.

And so God is saying that he's given, he's translated us now under the reign, the rule, the sovereign rule of the son of his love. There's no higher privilege, there's no higher place to be than to be under the protection and the love and the nourishment and the advocacy and the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for his brothers, given to him by God who adopted us before time and predestinated us by what he suffered to adopt us as his sons.

Because in the redeeming work of Christ, Jesus earned for his people a liberty, the liberty of the sons of God. And in that liberty, God would give them his own spirit. And the spirit given to them would be the spirit of his dear son, the spirit of adoption. And they would know that by Christ, they were brought to God as his own children. They were brought under the rule and the reign of the son of God's love.

So that the one God loved and speaks of in Matthew 17, five at the Mount of Transfiguration, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. He also gathers together under that net of that beloved son. He says, all who are in him as the mediator also are the objects of his eternal love, the same love that he gives his son, he has towards his son. The love of God, the love of God the Father.

He predestinated us to this. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world in order that we might be holy and without blame before Him in love as His children. That's what's being spoken of here. And what greater love can God do than to make us his children and place us under the rule of one who is so good as the Lord Jesus Christ, who would fall on the neck of his sinful brothers and embrace them and kiss their neck and to tell them, it is I, Joseph, God sent me here before you to preserve your life, to nourish you, He's made me ruler over the whole land for your sakes, for your sakes.

Many religions will, like the Catholic religion, a false religion, will profess that Jesus is the Son of God. And some cults, like the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, deny Christ that honor, that title as the Son of God, because He is God. They don't want to accept that. They want to make up another God. But these false religions who at least claim that He is the Son of God, they attempt to deprive Him of His glory because they also take the glory that belongs to the Son of God as our mediator. And they want to spread it out and say, no, no, the salvation that He worked out by Himself and accomplished to the glory of His majesty, Somehow you have to fulfill, you have to bring a little bit of yourself, your decision, or your will, or your raising of a hand, or your walking forward in a church, or something that you do in order to make what he did work.

It's a denial of his glory as the mediator, the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the one who himself is the only way, the truth, and the life. And God's people are taught here that the Father has, by His Son, has made them accepted in Him, in the Beloved.

And so he says in verse 14, Colossians 1, in whom the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, the Son of His love, in whom this One who is God over all, in whom we have redemption through His blood. even the forgiveness of sins. You see how God takes the highest possible one in all of heaven and earth, the Son of God, and He shows that He took the lowest possible place, bearing our sins.

Our near kinsman, the one who betrothed Himself and us to Him in love, and gave Himself for us before the worlds were created. The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is Christ who loved the Church, and gave himself for it. And therefore, therefore, because Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church, for his sheep, he laid his life down for the sheep.

Therefore, not one of them will be lost. All for whom Christ died shall be justified and shall not be condemned. They shall receive the reward of his inheritance. God shall conform them to the image of his dear son. And they shall stand and receive as saints the inheritance in light with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this causes us to give thanks to God the Father and to admire, admire with a veil the mist of darkness that was over us, taken away. Now we see in the kingdom of God's Son of His love, His dear Son, We see in the light of God's own word and truth, the revelation of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as our mediator, that He who is the Son of God would stoop to take our nature, to take our place, to take our sins, to bear our shame and to bear our punishment in order to take us to life again and to glory itself in the presence of God covered and clothed in the righteousness of His precious blood, so that now we stand in the beauty of His own beauty in the presence of God.

And this is told to us to persuade us to have the full assurance of faith in the adoring wonder of the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His majesty, the majesty of His goodness. This is why we're this is why he's telling us this to increase and to shore up and to stabilize us in the faith.

Look at look at this purpose here in verse three and four of this chapter. We give thanks to God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of what your faith in Christ Jesus. And then in verse five, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. He's reminded them not only of the faith given to them, but also the hope and the love which you have to all saints. in verse four. And he says in verse five, which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, you see how he's introducing the purpose of the whole epistle here? Their faith, their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for the saints, which is love to Christ. And then he says this in verse nine and 10 about being filled with the knowledge of his will in order to show how he's going to build up their faith and hope and love. And here he sets Christ before them and God's will that he would do all of this.

And he goes on, which we will cover next time, about how he's the image of the invisible God and he's the firstborn of every creature. And then in verse 23, he says this, if you continue in the faith, grounded, settled, not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, were of I Paul and made a minister. And then he goes on.

in chapter two, where he says in verse two, he says, in order that their hearts might be comforted, be knit together in love to all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, which he just laid out, in whom in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

And this I say, lest any man should beguile you, with enticing words, because that's the way the devil works, is to cast a mist and dust and darkness over the revealed truth of Christ and His glory in our salvation, so that God's saints are detracted and they're deluded, they're tricked into thinking something else is needed. But nothing else is needed. No one else is needed.

When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. Because it was all done and God declares it to us and he declares it to us again and again in order that we would we would hold only Christ singularly only in all of our and all of the object of our faith. And we would consider everything else to be the work of the devil.

in order that we might, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, walk in this life unto all pleasing, enduring, under all trouble, with joyfulness, with joyfulness, because we see by faith what we have in Christ, what we are before God, by God's own will, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the whole book goes on this way.

Verse six of chapter two says, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, you received him, didn't you? How? By faith, you saw, you heard what God said concerning him, what he accomplished, and you put all of your hope for eternity on his work, on his person, on God's will, what God made him to be to us as our mediator. He says, as you received Him, so walk in Him. Steadfast in your faith in Christ. That's what He's saying here.

And He goes on in verse 10, 9 and 10, in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him. You see, Throughout scripture, what happened to Joseph is repeated over and over. God revealed to the Lord Jesus Christ that he would be exalted over all things in heaven and earth as the God-man. He chose Him, He made Him the covenant for His people. God placed all the conditions of that covenant on Him, gave all the promises of it to Him, and He fulfilled it in His own blood when He died on the cross. And all the inheritance promise was given to His people with Him when He, as the testator, made that covenant, put it into force. And now He declares it to us.

And he says it was necessary in order for Christ to receive that promise for him to first suffer. And I just want to refer you to two scriptures here to delight your heart of these things. Notice in Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four, and we'll close with this one and the next one. He says in verse eight, wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, It's spoken of this in Psalm 68 in prophecy. He says, when he ascendeth up on high, he led captivity captive, all of God's people held in the darkness, deserving them to them because of their sin and the delusion and the complete separation from any knowledge of the truth of Christ and the gospel.

He led them, those in captivity, he led out of their captivity and he led their captors captive. And he gave gifts to men, because he received from God everything.

Verse 9. Now, listen to these words so carefully. That he ascended. Remember Joseph, you're going to, your brothers are going to bow to you. That he ascended. What is it? But that he also first or descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things. And that's why he gave all that follows here in Ephesians four to his church.

Look at John chapter three. And this will be our last scripture here. John chapter three. I encourage you to think of all the places where God promised that he would do this for his son, and your heart will rise in joy.

He says in John chapter three, verse 13, Nicodemus was befuddled. Jesus said, you must be born again. You can't see, you can't enter, you can't know the things of God unless you're born of the Spirit. And then Nicodemus said, how can these things be? And Jesus said this, these heavenly things, No man has ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven.

You see, before the glory was the cross. The Son of Man was in heaven. You do not descend unless you're first there. He was in heaven. He'd had to descend in order for him to perform, to do all the work of God in our salvation. So he says, no man has ascended up to heaven. Nicodemus is thinking, ascending up to heaven? Would that be Enoch, Elijah? Who are you talking about? but he that came down from heaven.

No one ever yet descended from heaven except the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, taking our nature and descending down, not only in our nature, but as a servant, as a man, and in obedience to death, even the death of the cross. So he says, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven, because the work having been done, he returns in all the glory given to him by his Father.

And then he describes the descent. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must a son of man, now in this lifting up, it's his descent, be lifted up on the cross. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

It's not what we do, it's what Christ did. In his descent, therefore in his ascension, He is ascended and He is in the place of glory because He suffered the death of the cross in obedience. The reward given to Him was the salvation of His people. To have them in love, they being joined to Him in union, so that all that He did, He did for them. And all that was given to Him was given to Him for them, with Him. And they will be with him, as he prayed in John 17.

Lord, I will that they also be with me where I am, that they might behold my glory, which thou has given me. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing grace. The Lord Jesus Christ in glory, because he stooped to save us from our sins. If Christ is in glory, we have been saved, we have been delivered from our sins. And this knowledge is given to us when by the Gospel, like Joseph's brethren, we hear that he was delivered for our offenses, but he was raised again for our justification. And so we look to him and trust him.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your glorious Gospel and for your glorious Son. our great God and Savior, our mediator, the one who stooped and suffered and bore all that he might deliver us and bring us to glory as the sons of God in love. What fantastic, what unbelievable glory and blessing we have in him. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Help us to worship you. Even as we say these words, we realize we are so helpless in ourselves, weak, and we need to be strengthened with all might according to your glorious power. Help us, Lord, give us this faith. Increase it also. Help us to see and run this race, enduring in hope. And help us in the view by faith of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would love him and his people.

In his name we pray, and for his glory's sake, amen.