I was thinking about how when
we went back to Arkansas, it was largely due to people, just
a couple of people probably that knew us and a lot of other people
that didn't know us. The six preachers that were there,
five of them were all well known. I was completely unknown by most
of the people, so we were there because of who we knew, which
was just Mary and Darwin. And I knew some of the other
people, but we weren't there because I knew them, but because
of Darwin and Mary, I think. She didn't tell me that, but
I suspect that that was the case. When we come to glory, the only
reason that we'll be there is because of someone we knew who
was there, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one reason that
we're accepted by God, is because we're accepted by God because
of Christ. Now, I've chosen this text of
Scripture in Exodus chapter 3 today because it goes along with what
we were studying in John chapter 8. If you would like to turn
to John chapter 8 so we get the context and the explanation of
this Scripture in Exodus chapter 3. John chapter 8, I want to
read just a couple of selected verses. You can read the whole
context in your own time. It says in verse 24, Jesus said,
I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins, for
if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. The
word he is in italics, so I skipped it on purpose. I am. And the title of today's message
is, Christ is, I am. So here in verse 24, Jesus said,
unless we believe that he is, I am, that we will die in our
sins. That's how important this is.
In verse 28, he says, then said Jesus to them, when you have
lifted up the son of man, referring to when they would crucify Christ,
then shall you know that I am. And that I do nothing of myself,
but as my father has taught me, I speak these things. And he
said, in verse 29, and he that sent me is with me. The father
hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please
him. And now look on down, and I want to read from verse 54. How about 51? It says, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never
see death. Then said the Jews to him, Now
we know that thou hast a devil, Abraham is dead, and the prophets. And thou sayest, If a man keep
my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than
our father Abraham, which is dead, and the prophets are dead?
Whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honor myself,
my honor is nothing. It is my Father that honoreth
me, of whom you say that He is your God, yet you have not known
Him. But I know Him, and if I should
say I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you. But I know
Him, and keep His saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews
to him, thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, verily, verily,
I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up
stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the
temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. I
am. Now look at John chapter 18.
John chapter 18, because we're taking these verses in the New
Testament. In verse 1 of John 18, when Jesus
had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over
the brook Sidron, where was a garden into the which he entered and
his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed
him, knew the place, for Jesus oftentimes resorted thither with
his disciples. Judas then, having received a
band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees,
cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus,
therefore knowing all things that should come upon him, went
forth and said to them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus
of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am."
And again, he is in italics. And Judas also, which betrayed
him, stood with them. As soon then as he said unto
them, I am, they went backward and fell to the ground. Then
asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you
that I am. If therefore you seek me, let
these go their way. Let these go their way. Now that
should resonate with you as you consider what we just heard read
in Exodus chapter 3. If you want to turn back to Exodus
chapter 3 now. In Exodus chapter 3, God sent
Moses, a man. God chose Moses. God sent this
man, Moses. to speak to the king of Egypt. The king of Egypt was probably
one of the most powerful kings in all of history. And the people
of Israel, the Hebrews, were held as slaves by this king for
a period of time more than 400 years. So a long, long time. By not one king, of course, a
whole series of kings, because one king didn't live 400 years. But the kings of Egypt started
out with the king who knew Joseph and appointed Joseph over the
whole kingdom over his own household. They forgot Joseph and they put
the people of Israel in bondage as slaves to the king of Egypt
and they had to serve them and that lasted over 400 years. So God chose a man, sent that
man to the most powerful monarch on earth, to demand from that
man, by God's command, to let go all of the slaves, the Hebrews,
the children of Israel, to let go all of the Israelites who
were God's chosen people. And then he also sent Moses to
the children of Israel to declare to them that God was going to
deliver them from the land of Egypt, from Pharaoh and that
bondage. Now realize here, at this time Moses was 80 years
old. He had grown up, and at the age of 40, he had seen an
Egyptian smiting one of the Hebrews, and he defended the Israelite,
and he killed the Egyptian, hid his body in the sand, but it
was known by another person, so then, by more than just one
person, so then Moses fled from Egypt, and for 40 years he was
in the wilderness of Midian. The first verse of chapter 3
talks about that. Moses kept the flock of Jethro,
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. Moses at this time
is a shepherd. He has no weapons except a staff
for a shepherd, a shepherd's staff. He has no training to
be a preacher. He's just an unlearned, in that
sense, as a preacher he was not taught. And yet, God chose him
and sent him to the most powerful king in all the land, in all
the world, really, this man who was Pharaoh at this time. Pharaoh
is a title, it's not the name, it's the title of the king of
Egypt. He sent Moses to him to demand that he let God's people
go. And he also sent Moses to the
children of Israel to tell them that God had seen their afflictions
and heard their cry, and that he was sending Moses to deliver
them. Now when we read this in, I'm
going to change the batteries in our microphone. It's popping.
I don't know if that's the problem. I'm going to change them. Hold
on. So for those of you on Zoom, it's going to be about a minute
here. They put scotch tape all over
this. I'm going to get the other microphone. Just a minute. We're just going to try this
one and see if it works any better. I grabbed the other microphone. One, two, three, okay. So God
sent Moses to the king, this powerful monarch, and he also
sent him to the people, God's people, the Israelites, to the
one he gave a commandment, let my people go. To the other, he
told them of God's deliverance. So if you notice in verse 7,
it says, the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of
my people, which are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry by
reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So
God knew they were crying. They were crying because of their
slavery. Who were they crying to? Well, they had some notion
of God because they had their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and they had retained some knowledge of Him, but they
didn't know Him insofar as He's going to be revealed here in
chapter 3 to Moses. And so he says to them in verse
8, I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them out of the land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of
the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites,
the Hivites, and the Jebusites. So at this point, Moses is just
listening to what God says in the account here. And then he
says, "...now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel
has come up unto me. I have also seen the oppression
wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them." Of course, Moses had seen
that 40 years prior. And now he says in verse 10,
come now therefore and I will send thee to Pharaoh that thou
mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of
Egypt. And notice what Moses says at that point. And Moses
said to God, who am I? You were talking about the people
of Canaan and that list of Canaanites, Hittites and Amorites and so
on was given. But now when he gets to Pharaoh,
Moses said, who am I? We're talking about Pharaoh,
the king of Egypt. Who am I? He says to God, who
am I that I should go to Pharaoh, that I should bring forth the
children of Israel out of Egypt? So he's obviously painfully aware
of his own inability to do what God told him to do. He's a man,
and Pharaoh is the king, and obviously a powerful king. He
was holding the children of Israel, which were more than a million
people in bondage, in slavery, for over 400 years. Think about the condition of
these people now. They had been slaves, unwilling
captives, in prison, as it were, and made to work. And the king
of Egypt made them work. And at this point, he had told
them, he's going to tell them in a little while, not only were
they building these cities and pyramids and whatever else they
built there out of the bricks that they made, but when Moses
went to Pharaoh, Pharaoh took away their straw and commanded
them to continue the same amount of production without straw.
They had to gather the straw. So he was a tyrant. He held over
them their life. He held them all in bondage.
None of them could escape. There was no hope. They were
like people who had been so long in that condition that they didn't
know. They didn't know how to be free. And you've seen this in our day,
even someone in prison. I knew someone who was in prison
and the time came for his release and he couldn't function outside
of prison. He had grown so accustomed to
that bondage of imprisonment and the life there that he committed
a crime in order to get back into prison. because that's where
he was comfortable. Just like the children of Israel,
after they were brought out of Egypt and into the wilderness,
they said, they kept complaining, oh, that we were back in Egypt
because they were not used to being free. And this is part
of the oppression that the king of Egypt had held them as slaves
for so long that they didn't even know what freedom was. And
yet they were under this bondage. Now, I was looking up And there's
ways you can do this on the internet. I was looking up to see who over
history has been kept in slavery by which kings. And you can see
there's a long list of people. Millions of people have been
kept in slavery for long periods of time. And my question to the
computer was, in history, who has been held captive the longest? and which kings held dominion
over the greatest number of people and over the greatest areas of
land. And of course it gave me all
these people, historical figures. But then it occurred to me, just
this morning, there's a slavery that's greater than all of the
slaveries throughout history that the computer reported. And
there's a king, a tyrant, who holds absolute power over his
slaves and has held absolute power over all people throughout
all of time. And so that this text of scripture
here is talking about that condition of God's people. And so if we
understand scripture, it's talking about a people who have no power
over their captors, over their taskmasters. They have nothing. They're absolutely broke. They
have no wealth. When they left, God had to take
what was the Egyptians and give it to them. The Egyptians were
like pushing them out. Take my gold, take my gorgeous
cloth or whatever it is that they ended up using to make the
tabernacle with and all the vessels, the gold and things like that. So they had nothing, they had
no power, they had no weapons. God sent a man, Moses, who had
no training and had no weapons. They had no army. And this is
the context in which God is going to deliver these people who didn't
know what freedom was. They didn't know because they'd
never been free. And this is a picture of us absolutely
in bondage to sin, under the condemnation of our own sin. And that sin has absolute rule
over us. We've never known freedom from
sin. And then God sends a man, and
the man comes from God. Notice he says in verse 8, I
am come down to deliver them. So this is a great claim, right? Who's going to deliver these
people out of the hand of the king of Egypt? In chapter 9 of
Exodus, in verse 16, it says this. Listen to these words in
Exodus 9 verse 16. God says, in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up, the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, to
show in thee my power, that my name may be declared throughout
all the earth. So God's purpose in allowing
Pharaoh, this wicked, wicked king, who was oppressing all
of these people in this land, making them serve him and his
people. And the people of Egypt were happy to have it that way.
The armies of Egypt held them. There was no one who could deliver
them except God. And God says, I raised you up. And I raised you up for this
purpose to show my power in you. And that's what Moses is saying
here in verse 11. Who am I to go to Pharaoh? And
he said, and the Lord said in verse 12, Exodus 3.12. He said, Certainly I will be
with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee that I have
sent thee, when thou hast brought forth the people of Egypt, people
out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain. He's
talking about Horeb, Mount Sinai. And Moses said to God, and that
was God saying, I'm going to bring you out. It's so certain
that I'm going to give you this promise that on this very mountain
you're standing on right now, this is where you and the people
of Israel that I deliver from Egypt are going to be. So you'll
know that it was me who said it. God always speaks this way. This is very important. God always
says what shall be before it comes to pass. In other words,
from Scripture, he says it this way, he tells from the beginning what
will be at the end. He calls the end from the beginning,
before things are ever done. In Acts chapter 15, verse 18,
I've quoted this many times, unknown unto God are all his
works from eternity. And now, hold that thought. God
knows everything He's going to do from eternity, Acts 15, verse
18. And then in Ephesians 2, verse
10, it says, we are His workmanship. So God's works are His people,
and known unto God are all His works from eternity. Does God know His people? Yes. How so? They are His workmanship. They're the work of His hand. In Psalm 100, we didn't create
ourselves, He made us. We didn't make ourselves, the
Lord made us. And so, and that's what he's
saying here. He says, I'm certainly going
to bring you out, and here's the promise that you'll know
I did this when you serve God on this mountain. And verse 13,
And Moses said to God, Behold, when I come to the children of
Israel, they shall say to me, and shall say to them, The God
of your fathers has sent me to you, and they shall say to me,
What is his name? What shall I say to them? Now
this is understandable. Moses is saying, I can't do this.
Why are you sending me? I'm not able to do this. And
the children of Israel certainly can't help. And so when I come
to them, they're going to naturally, they're going to ask this question,
who sent you? What is his name? Who is the
God who sent you? So when we see that, we understand
that when God says here his name, he's really telling Moses who
he is, who he is. And now what we see is that in
the gospel, God reveals himself to us. He reveals to... Oh, sorry. All right, I'm gonna go
without the microphone. I'll just try to shout. God reveals himself to us, and
that's his name, and it's necessary for those the Lord is going to
save that he reveals himself to us. Notice the context here. God sent Moses, a man, to Pharaoh,
and he did not reveal to Pharaoh who he was. Did he? He just said, the Lord God of
the Hebrews has sent me to you saying, let my people go that
they may serve me. And what did Pharaoh say? I don't
know the Lord. Who is the Lord? Away with you. But to the Hebrews, to the Israelites,
Moses says, I've come to you from the God of your fathers.
And now Moses anticipated that they were going to ask, what's
his name? And that is the context here. The one who was sending
Moses to them is also telling Moses who he is in order that
when he comes to his people, he makes known himself to them
by his name. His name is who he is. And so
Moses asked the question, what is his name? Who are you? And
so it's necessary for us to know God in order for us to be delivered
from our captor, from our enslavement. You see, this is why he came.
Why did God reveal this name? Why did he send Moses? Look at
verse 8 again. I am come down to deliver them. Salvation is the reason why God
makes himself known to us. It's to make known who it is
who saves us and make known to us that the one who saves us,
I mean, the God who has sent this man to us, the one who saves
us, is known in his salvation. Salvation is the reason God has
sent Moses, and it's the way God is known to the people of
Israel. He says in verse 14, and God
said to Moses, I am that I am, and he said, this is God speaking,
thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to
you. Alright, that's his name. And
we just saw in John chapter 8 and chapter 18 that Jesus Christ
said, I am. So what can we conclude from
that? Is that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the I am of the Old Testament. I am. He is the one whose name
is I am. And he is the one who sent Moses
to the children of Israel to deliver them out of their bondage.
Now, notice back in verse 7 again, here, in Exodus 3, he says, the
Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people.
Who are these people? Well, they're the Lord's people.
They're my people. See, in verse 7? I saw, I have
seen their affliction, my people which are in Egypt." You see
how this is all about a distinguishing salvation? A salvation that's
of a particular people? My people? It's not Egypt. God is not going to save Egypt
here. He's going to save Israel out of Egypt, isn't he? He doesn't
reveal Himself to the Egyptians, He does reveal Himself to the
Israelites. And He's not going to save the
Egyptians, He is going to save the Israelites. But notice here,
He not only has heard their cry, but He's the one who brought
them into this. He brought them into this situation
of their bondage. Remember when he sent Joseph
first, and then he brought all of the Israelites into Egypt,
and they were there, they seemed to be prospering, and right away,
the pharaoh dies, and they're brought into bondage. And that
pharaoh says, I'm going to kill all the newborns, and he tried
to subdue, and tried to limit the growth of Israel, and he
couldn't do that. And so God is the one who had promised to
Abraham back in Genesis 15 that his children who would be brought
into Egypt, they would be slaves there, and then he would deliver
them. God knows. that he's going to bring his
people into trouble. God is the one who brings his people into
trouble. God is the one who does that
in order that they might cry and then in their cry he comes
to deliver them and he reveals himself to them in order that
they might know him as their savior, you see. And this is
the whole gospel, isn't it? God sees the bondage of his people
under sin. God sees their condemnation because
of their sin. God sees the justice, his own
justice, his own character that requires that condemnation. And
God himself fulfills all that God himself requires in order
to deliver us from what we deserve for our sin. And this is incredible,
isn't it? that God would meet what he himself,
in his person, in his nature, in his character, requires from
us. He would deliver us from the
very sin that we got ourselves into. And he makes known his
name in that. He says, I hear you cry. They
didn't know really who they were crying to. They were crying. Oh, help us! They were crying
to God, but they didn't know his name until God makes it known
here. If God is going to save us, he's
going to reveal his name to us, so that when we cry, we cry to
the one we know as the God who saves. You see, notice this in
Romans chapter 10. God doesn't just say, oh God,
we don't just say, oh God, save me, do we? Because there are
lots of people who say, God this and God that. And most people
who are teaching and preaching these days talk about a God who
cannot save, because that God requires us to do our part in
order that we would be saved. He requires us to behave a certain
way in order for us to be saved, and yet we can't do any of that. But in Romans chapter 10, verse
13, he says, "...whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved." And what is his name? Well, in Exodus, I
am. And Jesus said, I am. Unless you believe that I am,
you shall die in your sins. And before Abraham was, I am. And when they came to arrest
him, Jesus said, I am. And they fell backward. And then
he told them, who do you seek? Jesus of Nazareth. I told you
I am. If you seek me, then let these
go their way, because he's the Savior, you see. I am the one
who saves. The one we call upon is the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Savior of helpless, sin-bound, helpless
people under condemnation, under the power of sin. Look at Romans
chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. It says in
verse 20, the law entered that the offense might abound. You
see, this is exactly describing the situation in Egypt. When
Moses demanded Pharaoh to let Israel go, Pharaoh laid more
bondage, more demands on them. You need to do more work. Get
busy. And I'm not going to give you
what you need to do the work. Just get busy and get it done.
That's the demands of the law, isn't it? It requires, it demands,
and it threatens, and it provides no help. It provides no help. And what does our sin do in response
to that? It gets worse, and worse, and
worse. Our pride whelms up, and our
lusts are excited, and we just think of ourselves as being some
kind of a religious zealot, and we get proud, and we try to do
everything God requires, and we take some confidence in that,
and we're completely in the ditch. We don't know where we're at.
We don't know God from anything. And then the Lord has to reveal
Himself. When the law entered, sin abounded. This was God's
design. God designed it so that by His
law we would be made to know what we really are, horrible
sinners without hope and without strength. But then He says, but
where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Now this is
phenomenal. We were sinners. We offended
God. But God's grace overcame our sin like a mighty tyrant.
He overthrew that devil. He says in verse 21, "...that
his sin hath reigned to death." As a tyrant, Pharaoh reigned
over the Israelites with absolute power and brought them into death,
requiring them to work all the while they were going to death.
Yet, that sin reigned unto death, grace now reigns. The sovereign
God, our Savior, reigns through His own righteousness unto eternal
life, and that one is Jesus Christ, our Lord. You see, we're calling
on Jesus Christ, our Lord, who reigns by grace unto eternal
life because of His righteousness. We have no hope, do we? We have
no hope. We can't produce one iota of
anything that God requires. Our hearts are bad. And not only
our words and our thoughts and our actions, but our hearts.
We're born in sin, and we continue in sin, and we've never known
anything but this slavery of sin. And we don't even know how
to be free. When Jesus told the truth to
those men in John 8, they said they wanted to kill him. And
so we see this back in Exodus chapter 3, I am. What does it
mean, I am? Well, this is the revelation
of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ is I AM.
But what does that mean to us? Well, he says it throughout the
whole New Testament, doesn't he? They didn't know him. He
makes himself known. He makes himself known as the
one who saves. The one who saves. First of all,
I AM. If you just look at what it means
in scripture, it means the one who depends on no one, and yet
everyone depends on him. I think about this all the time.
I'm absolutely helpless. I can do nothing. I have all
my sin and I can do nothing about it. I have no power, no strength,
no wisdom, no obedience, no righteousness. I'm a helpless, ruined sinner
and it's all my fault. I'm absolutely dependent upon
God for light, for revelation, for righteousness, for anything. I'm helpless and I'm utterly
dependent upon God in Christ. Well, guess what? This is no
revelation to God. He's the I am. He's the only
one who is utterly independent of everything and yet everything
depends on Him. The Lord Jesus Christ loves to
be the one we depend upon. He's the all-sufficient. I am. He depends on no one. Everyone depends on Him. And
He makes His people know Himself as the all-sufficient Savior
of sinners. The sovereign Savior. Not just
a Savior that we call upon, but the one who actually causes us
to call upon Him. Who saves us when we didn't know
Him. Who reveals Himself to us when we were enslaved and in
the dark. That's the first thing about I AM. It's all-sufficient,
self-sufficient, eternal, unchanging, unfailing, immutable, the I AM. In other words, all that God
is, He is to His people for their eternal salvation. That's what
I am means. All that God is in His nature
and character, He is to His people for their eternal salvation. And he is that in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the man God sent. The man God sent, the one we
preach. It says throughout the Old Testament, all the names
of God, Jehovah. He's the Lord who provides, the
Lord our healer, the Lord our banner of victory, our sanctifier,
our peace, our shepherd, our righteousness. The Lord Jesus
Christ in the New Testament says, I am the way, I am the truth,
I am the life. He is eternal life according
to 1 John 1 and 5. He's the true vine, the shepherd. God is my salvation. He's everything,
isn't He? Is there anything that is not
found in Him that we need? No. Everything is in Christ. He's my light, my salvation.
He's the water of life, the well of living water, the bread of
life, the all-sufficient, ever-present, unfailing, unchanging, eternal
God, the Lord Jesus Christ. We call on Him, the one who has
compassion on sinners, who sees our need, who hears our cry,
even before we know Him, and makes Himself known to us in
the gospel of our salvation. We have nothing. He brings us
out of our slavery, and what does He do? He gives us everything. He does two things. He saves
us from our sin, which is entirely by grace. We don't deserve to
be given a full, free payment of the debt we owe to God and
delivered from the death we owe, eternal death. We don't deserve
that. But He not only delivers us from the guilt and condemnation
of sin, But He raises us up and makes us His children and gives
us His Spirit to know what He's done and to give us glory, making
us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. He delivers us not
only from the bondage, but freedom unto eternal life and liberty.
so that we are given faith to know these things. He gives us
everything. He takes away all the bad and
gives us the glories of heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what he's saying here in verse 7. I've seen the affliction of
my people in Egypt. I heard their cry by reason of
their slave masters or taskmasters. I know their sorrows. I'm come
down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to
bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large
flowing with milk and honey to the place of these people who
were going to be cast out of that land to give them a land
of promise, a land of rest, a land of plenty, a land where they
didn't have to do anything. God watered it. The fruit there,
everything grew in abundance. It was huge. And they were just
without any slave drivers anymore. They were free. And this is describing
our eternal rest in Christ with eternal glory. Notice in 2nd
Timothy, turn to 2nd Timothy chapter 2. 2nd Timothy. See this? This is phenomenal,
what God has done for us in Christ. He says in 2nd Timothy chapter
2, notice this. He says in verse 8, "...remember
that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the
dead according to my gospel." 2 Timothy 2 verse 8. So Christ
was raised from the dead. He was of the seed of David.
This was promised in the Old Testament. God has raised him
from the dead. And he's obviously seated in
glory. He's the king over all, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who came. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised for our justification. He was given glory with God as
he had before. Verse 9, wherein I suffer trouble
as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.
Therefore, Paul says, I endure all things. for the elect's sakes,
that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ
Jesus with eternal glory." You see? Salvation with eternal glory. The two things. Deliverance from
sin. Deliverance to children of God
in heaven, seated at Christ's right hand with eternal glory.
Everything given to Christ is given to them with Him. We didn't
deserve one thing of this, did we? We didn't do anything. We
were slaves. We were in bondage. We were afflicted
because of our own foolishness. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And what did God do when we were
in that case? Well, He sent His Son to deliver
us. Christ died for our sins. That's
why He died. For our sins. And He rose again
for our justification and He seeded to give us eternal glory
with Himself. Verse 21. He said, Let no man
glory in men, for all things are yours. That's big, isn't
it? Is anything left out? No. He
goes on, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, that would be Paul
or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come, all are yours. Amazing. Not only has your sin been put
upon the Son of God as the Lord Jesus Christ and born by Him
in all of the filth and guilt and shame of it and the reproaches
of it and the pain of soul, He bore the wrath of God to take
it away. He so satisfied God that now
God looks upon him and says, Everything that I have is too
small to give as a consequence of what He did for His people.
And He gives them everything. All things are yours. You are
Christ's, and Christ is God's. This is how far God has lifted
us from our sin. It's all in Christ. It's all
because His name is I AM. There's nothing that God is that
He is not to His people in that name. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Savior of sinners, the Almighty Sovereign God who saves those
who cannot save themselves, In fact, He will not allow them
to save themselves. Not only can they not, but He
won't allow it. He will not share His glory with
another. I am. The Lord Jesus Christ said, if
you don't believe I am, you will die in your sins. We have to
know our condition and that God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is our
only Savior and call upon Him as our Savior and give Him all
the glory. Day by day, we go to God as our
Father, pour out our hearts to Him. In the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, as He's revealed Himself, we just say, here I
am again. I'm utterly dependent upon You
and Your Son. Bring me to Yourself. Deliver
me out of my sin. Bring me to Yourself according
to Your promises. Make me an object of Your saving
grace. and overthrow my enemies like
Pharaoh. Do away with them. Command them
to release me and cause them to make it happen by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your wonderful grace. Thank you for the Lord, our Savior,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lord of heaven and glory.
And thank you that you've raised him up and seated him, that he
rules over all and does all things well and can save even sinners
like us. We trust him. We have no other
hope. We're dead. without Him, and He is the resurrection
and the life, as He said, I am the resurrection and the life,
and so we trust Him. Lord, raise us up. Bring us to
Yourself. Don't let us go. Don't leave
us to ourselves. Give us this grace of Your Holy
Spirit to believe You and this grace to love You and to love
Your people. We need everything that You require
of us and we find it all in Your Son. Help us, Lord. Help us. Save us for Your namesake and
glorify Yourself and subdue our enemies. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.