to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. I just wanted to look briefly at
these 6 amazing scriptures and then We want to spend some time,
Lord willing, to contemplate verse 6. It's a verse that I
quote so often, and then I checked and found that I've never preached
a sermon on it. I have thought about it so often,
so this is an opportunity where the Lord has brought this to
our remembrance. Verse 1, 2 Corinthians chapter
4, Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received
mercy, we faint not. but have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the
word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our heart to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. Let's pray, brothers and sisters.
Heavenly Father, these are remarkable words and a remarkable testimony
that you have given by your Holy Spirit's work in the life of
your servant Paul. And Heavenly Father, we pray
that we would be consciously aware as we gather each week
of your promised presence with us. And Heavenly Father, we pray
that you would grant us the privilege of a ministry that your apostles
had to declare the wonders of the Lord Jesus in his true character. Heavenly Father, we want to acknowledge
that this is not a work that man can do, but it is a work
that you alone can give to your people. We pray, Heavenly Father,
that you would cause us to be zealous and jealous of the Gospel,
that one saving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father God,
we thank you and praise you that the preaching of this Gospel
is your ordained means of shining a light into the hearts of your
chosen ones, that they might see your glory in the face of
your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus. Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you have done that in the lives of so many
of us here. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that we would preach
this Gospel with an expectancy that you will do the things that
you have promised. Father God, we are in your hands
this morning and we are thankful. that we are reminded again and
again that salvation is of the Lord. We pray your blessing on
us in the preaching of your word this morning, for we pray in
Jesus' name. Amen. What a remarkable ministry
God has left in the hands of people He talks about this gospel
in verse 7 of that same chapter. He says it's a treasure. The
gospel is a treasure. Do you treasure it? I pray that that might be your
portion this morning. And it's a treasure in earthen
vessels. Easily broken, easily damaged. In India, one of the wonderful
things in North India, you could buy your tea in little earthenware
cups, just clay, very lightly baked. And it was beautiful,
for some reason it was beautiful to drink the tea out of those
little earthenware cups. And when you finished, you threw
them on the ground and they just went back to the dust. We have This treasure, the treasure
of the Gospel in earthen vessels. What a ministry, what a ministry
the Lord God has left for His servants in this world. What a remarkable privilege,
what a remarkable responsibility What remarkable fruits come out
of true gospel ministry. Let's just look at Paul's ministry
in chapter 2, verse 12. What was his ministry? I trust
that it's our ministry. He came to Troas to preach Christ's
gospel. It's not a gospel made of the
wisdom of men. And that was their ministry,
and the reality and the consequence of it is, despite all of the
troubles that he had, in verse 14, he says, Thanks be unto God,
which always causes us to triumph. He leads us to triumph. and for this gospel is a saver.
For we are unto God a sweet saver of Christ in them that are saved
and in them that perish. To one we are the saver of death
unto death and to the other the saver of life unto life. And
who is sufficient for these things? That's why, brothers and sisters, There are many, he says there,
there are many who are proclaiming a gospel, there are many who
are proclaiming a Jesus throughout this world, but we are not as
many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but
as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." No wonder
he says that he came to them with fear and trembling. Brothers and sisters, we are
in the very presence of God. in the most serious ways possible
for any man in all of creation, to tell you the truth about Him."
What a ministry! What a ministry! No wonder he
says in verse 3, he has a confidence, a trust, through God, through
Christ, towards God. And then in verse 5 he says that
we are, not that we are sufficient ourselves to think anything of
ourselves, just an earthen vessel, but our sufficiency is of God. And this is a remarkable verse,
verse 6 of chapter 3, who has also made us able ministers of the New
Testament, the New Covenant. God's preachers preach the New
Covenant. They preach the eternal covenant. They have a spiritual ministry. It's not of the letter, but of
the spirit. It's not of the letter, it's
not of the law, but of grace. It's not of duties and ceremonies
and do this and do this, but privileges and opportunities.
In verse 7, he says that it's a glorious ministry. And in verse
9, it's a ministry of righteousness. It's a ministry that talks of
the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus, the imparted
righteousness of the Lord Jesus. In verse 17, it's a ministry
of liberty, liberty in grace, liberty in worship, liberty in
service, liberty in life. In verse 4, having laid out all
those things, those remarkable differences, he says, therefore,
seeing we have this ministry, a ministration of the Spirit
and not a ministration of death, not of the letter but of the
Spirit, not a ministry of condemnation. And he's talking about people
who are preaching about God and preaching about the Lord Jesus
and then saying, you must do something. You must do something
to make the work of God effective in your life or in this world. It's a remaining ministry. The
veil is taken away in Christ. There is a blinding of minds
of men who preach legalism and preach works. But His ministry
is a ministry that has, in verse 18, the most remarkable effects. Anyone who preaches in God's
stead on Christ's behalf as His servant longs for this. But we all, with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory. And how is that done? It's done
by the Spirit of the Lord, not by putting people back under
a ministry of condemnation and death. Therefore, it's a ministry that
is received It's not something that Paul or the others sought
for. No true gospel preacher seeks
a ministry. A ministry is given him. A ministry
is received. And it's received in the same
way, he says in verse 1, in the same way that we have received
mercy. And that's why God's children
don't have to behave in any way which is dishonest or crafty,
nor taking this Word and trying to make it say something that
gratifies the itching ears of those who hear it. Not handling
the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
by laying out the truth of who God is, who the Lord Jesus is,
what God says about Him, what the apostles said about Him,
what the prophets said about Him, He who cannot fail. By manifestation of the truth
we commend commending ourselves to every man's conscience in
the sight of God. A number of times I've been caused
in the last few years to have serious words to people about
serious things. And I remember saying to them,
and I said to one not so long ago, have you heard clearly what
I've said? Have I been honest with you?
Have I told you what this book says? Because the issue is, isn't
it, as Paul says in Acts chapter 20, when he has that tearful
farewell to those Ephesian elders, he says, I am free of the blood
of all men. because I have not failed to
bring, to deliver to you the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel of God is Jesus
Christ and him crucified. What a fearful thing, what a
fearful thing, brothers and sisters, the day of judgment is going
to be for the multitudes of ministers. told them lies, sincere in their
hearts, sincere and deceived, and told people lies about God. May God protect all of us, all
of us from that. Robert Hawker said a wonderful
thing. He is faithful to God and to souls who holds forth
the pure word of life, Christ and Him crucified, Christ and
Him glorified, Christ the all in all of Jehovah's own providing
for the recovering of our fallen nature from the Adam ruin in
which the church is found. when Christ comes by His Holy
Spirit to seek and to save that which was lost. See, the true
Gospel doesn't change. It doesn't change. It was purposed
and sealed in eternity. It's the Gospel we proclaim,
the Gospel that God declared in eternity. is the Gospel that
we proclaim, the Gospel that Adam and Eve lived under, and
Abel lived under, is the Gospel we proclaim, the Gospel that
Noah rejoiced in, and Enoch looked forward to, is it the Gospel
that was preached to Abraham Is it the Gospel that Moses and
others lived by? Is it the Gospel that Isaiah
preached? Is it the Gospel that the Lord Jesus preached and John
the Baptist so boldly proclaimed, Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. Is it the Gospel? that the apostles
preached? Is it the gospel that's been
preached by God's faithful servants throughout time? Is it the gospel
that's been preached in heaven for these last thousands of years?
Is it the gospel that will be preached in the new creation?
See, our gospel doesn't change, brothers and sisters. It's not
changeable. It's a gospel that's purposed
and sealed in eternity. It's unchanged by sin and Satan
and the Fall, and it's manifestly accomplished by the Lord Jesus
in His life and His death and His exaltation. It's the everlasting
gospel that's proclaimed in heaven, everlasting gospel that's proclaimed
now. It's the everlasting gospel that
will be proclaimed in the new creation. the Lord Jesus, the
first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and
the Finisher. Anything added to that Gospel,
anything added to that perfect work of the Lord Jesus is no
Gospel at all. We have a Gospel that in the
words of 2 Corinthians is a Gospel that is the difference between
light and darkness, isn't it? Our Gospel is hid, it's hidden,
it's kept, it's shielded to them that are lost. in whom the God
of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine on them." Darkness and light are
two complete and absolute opposites, aren't they? Where there is no
light, there is just complete darkness. But where light comes,
it just overcomes the darkness effortlessly. In God, and in
God alone, there is absolute and complete light. God is light. And 1 John 1.5 says that in Him
there is no darkness at all. In Him there is no shadow. But this light and this darkness,
they represent the spiritual opposites. To be blind is to
live in perfect darkness. And we saw, I think it was last
week, that there is one miracle that was reserved for Messiah,
and that one messianic miracle. Others raised the dead and healed
and did the most remarkable things. There's one messianic miracle,
and that is the healing of the blind. And in some of the passages
of the New Testament, it appears as if the Lord Jesus heals those
seemingly born without eyes. What a remarkable, creative miracle. But it's a miracle like all miracles
that speaks of spiritual realities. Over the page in 2 Corinthians
6.14, you'll see that there is this difference, isn't there? There is a difference between
light and darkness. What communion has light with
darkness? There is light and believers
have light and unbelievers have darkness. There is with light
righteousness and in darkness there is unrighteousness. The
Light is Christ, the darkness is Belial. The Light, again, is a believer,
the darkness is an infidel. The Light, in verse 16, is the
temple of God, and what agreement does the temple of God have with
idols? And what does he say? He says,
I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God
and they shall be my people. And what does he say in verse
17? The Lord brings a separation. He says, come out from among
them and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you. And I will be a father unto you,
and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. light and darkness, good and
bitter, day and night, wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance,
peace and calamity, salvation and condemnation, life and death,
at the end of the day, All of creation is separated, isn't
it, into light and into darkness. What is the state of those in
hell? They are in utter darkness. The religious world around us
has taught our society to believe that hell is just a party, that
everyone goes to heaven. When was the last time you've
ever been to a funeral? Or ever been in the presence
of people who are honest about the state of those who have died
outside of the Lord Jesus? No wonder the God of this world,
in verse 4, has blinded the minds of them that believe not. They
are so blinded that they can't see their state. They are so
blinded that they can't see Satan and his activities. They are
so blind that they don't realise that they are slaves to their
sin. What they think is their liberty
is actually slavery. They have no idea that they're
lost and they are completely blinded to the understanding
of who Christ is. They are just indifferent. They
are just unconcerned. They're blind to eternity. In 2000 we did it on the Harbour
Bridge, didn't we? We put a huge sign for all the world to see. Eternity. Blind as bats. Blind, what eternity
means. Blind. Blind. Such is the activity of
Satan in this world. Unless God shines, unless God
shines, there is no hope. We're talking this morning about
the God who does shine. We keep remembering the life
of this man who penned these words under the inspiration of
the Spirit. Blind, dark, and yet light came. for or because we preach not
ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord
and we are your servants for Christ's sake. God's ministers
have two roles, haven't they? They preach Christ and they serve. And they do it because God has
shone in their hearts. How did Paul describe his conversion?
When God was pleased to reveal his Son in me. And this led to Paul preaching
him among the Gentiles. And God's servants, despite all
of the difficulties, all of what the flesh of men and their own
flesh see, they just keep on preaching. In verse 1, they faint
not. They just keep preaching, because
it's God's ministry that is given to them, and it's God's ministry
that He sustains in them. In verse 6, He gives a reason.
the glorious reason why he preaches Christ, and the glorious reason
why he is a true servant of others and their souls. And the reasons
are simple, aren't they? Because God in the new creation
did what he did in the first creation. And God still does
it, and he does it through the preaching of the Gospel. Paul
takes us back to Genesis, Genesis 1, and the very first words of
God. Light be and light was. There are a few things I'd like
us to look at this morning, just briefly, is that God is identified. God is truly identified in these
verses. And God is identified as different
from others. And then we look at why we have
this allusion and these words in Genesis
1, and then we look at the shining God in the new creation. So God is identified. God is
light itself. his light in nature and his light
in its very essence. And he's all that light represents. As James says, he's the father
of light. So he's the father of physical
light. We only see now because God has
created light for us to see. He is the light of all intellectual
reason. He gives wisdom liberally. Ask Him and He'll give you wisdom. He is the Father of all spiritual
light. Christ is the true light. He is a God who dwells in light,
in 1 Timothy 6.16, is the God who dwells in light, which no
man can approach unto, whom no man has seen, nor can see, to
whom be honour and power everlasting. When God shines the light of
His dear Son, the brightest light that we have in this world is
eclipsed by the brightness of the Lord Jesus. When God revealed
His Son on the Mount of Transfiguration, He was bright and shining and
bright as the sun. That light represents all of
that purity and all that God is. And we who are believers
are born into this world in our Adam flesh and we're under the
dominion. The God of this age He is called
there. That doesn't mean that He is
a God or He rules like a God, but He has humanity captive. and to see Him and to be saved,
we have to be delivered. Delivered out of the hands of
that powerful, powerful enemy. We have to be delivered, as Colossians
1 says, from the power of darkness, from Satan's realm, and we must
be translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. What a blinding activity Satan
has in this world. What terrible blindness billions
live under. The blindness of Hinduism, the
blindness of Buddhism, the blindness of Islam. What shocking blindness. He is a liar and a murderer. If he can lie to people, he'll
murder them. What shocking blindness there
is in this thing that the world calls Christianity these days. What shocking blindness. To talk
so much of God, and to sing so many songs, and to do so many
things, and to be blinded to the Gospel. What an enemy God's
people have. What a remarkable deliverer. See, Paul takes us back, doesn't
he? Let's look at Genesis chapter
1. It's remarkable, isn't it? Paul takes us back there because
he's talking about an eternal gospel. He's talking in verse
3 about being a minister of a new covenant, an eternal covenant,
a covenant in his blood. And how did light come in the
new creation? I love the Hebrew original. It says, Light be, light was. Beautiful description that God
creates by a word spoken. God rules and he reveals and
he divides by a command that has power in its very word. He commands with absolute authority
and all of his creation obeys perfectly and obediently. He said, let there be light,
and he said, let there be stars, and how many were there? We still
can't count them. Billions upon billions just by
a word spoken. He does all things according
to the counsel of His will. He does all of His pleasure. It's a creation by a word. It's a creation out of nothing. There was just nothing there. He created light out of darkness. There was nothing. And it was
a creation that was perfect. When God created, He saw the
light, and the light was good. It's a creation where he creates
by word, he creates out of nothing, and he creates perfectly, and
he is the arbiter of what is good and what isn't. It is he who is light, is able
to say what is good. And he created alone and unassisted. Who was there to help him? What
help did he need? Did he have to experiment like
we do and make hundreds of different ones until we get it right, alone
and unassisted? And he created purposefully. Why did he create the lights
in the sky? Why did he create the stars? He delights in creation, but
creation reflects a spiritual reality. a spiritual reality of a covenant
of light, a covenant in his Son that cannot be broken. Jeremiah
says it in the most extraordinary way in verse 20 of chapter 33. He's talked in the previous chapters
and he'll talk again and again about the eternal covenant. And
then thus says the Lord, If you can break my covenant of the
day and my covenant of the night, you go and stop it. Go out there. Such is man, isn't it? If you
can break my covenant of the day, that there should not be
day or night in the season, then also, may also my covenant be
broken with David, my servant. the covenant he made with the
Lord Jesus. When you see the sun shining
and when you see the moon shining, brothers and sisters, God has
put them there like he's put the rainbow in the sky so that
we will remember an eternal covenant keeping God. The covenant cannot
be broken any more than we can stop the sun from shining or
the moon from rising. That he should have a son, a
son to reign upon his throne. What a son, what a glorious son. That's why Paul takes us back
to Genesis 1. That's why in the new creation. The shine of God is essential
to the new creation. The new creation is so like that
original creation, that Word of God. It's a new man created
in righteousness and true holiness. The work of salvation is a work
of creation. There was darkness in Genesis
1. There's no form or void and darkness
is on the face of the deep. That's a great picture of what
we are, isn't it? In fallen Adam, darkness. And then he speaks of divine
command. He walked by you, as Ezekiel
16 says, and saw you dead in your blood, cast out, just left
to die and he walked by and what did he say? He said, live, and
you live. As Ezekiel 36 says, can these
dry bones, these dead bones that have been baking in the sun,
can they live? You speak a word and there is
life. It is a divine command. The God who spoke. In fact, it says, The God, The
Word. For God, The God, The Word, The
Speech. It's just a divine command. And
it's a command that doesn't require anything in the person who it's
enacted upon. It's a divine creation out of
nothing. The new creation is entirely
new, an entirely new being which didn't previously exist in that
person. You see, it's a new creation,
a new man. It's not a reformation of the
old. It's not darkness modified. It's
light. It's light shining and it's done. The new creation is done Perfectly. When He shines a light, a light
is shone that never goes out. And it's done alone, like His
first creation, alone and unassisted. He speaks and it is. And where does this light shine?
Look at the words there. The light has shined in our heart. It's not just that organ, it's
not that organ that pumps in your body, but the heart is the
real being of the person. It's the real essence of who
we are. We inherited from our father
Adam, after the fall, that heart of stone. What a picture of our
hearts. Stone, unfeeling, insensitive,
unchangeable, immovable. That's the heart of stone that's
in men. And then God changes and removes
that heart of stone. He says, I will give them one
heart and one way that they may fear me forever. Until God shines
in the heart and the blinding, darkening activities of the Prince
of Darkness hold his captives in chain, in a dungeon as it
were, And this captivity in the context of 2 Corinthians and
the rest of the New Testament, the ones in darkness, the ones
in the greatest darkness, and the ones most used of Satan as
enemies of the gospel, are religious people. Religious legalists who
came from Jerusalem. They persecuted Paul with the
same viciousness and zeal that he persecuted the Lord Jesus. We need a shining in our heart
and there is a promise. A promise from God that he will
shine in the hearts of his own. And it's remarkable the language
in this verse. Just look closely with me. It
says, he has shined in our hearts. He doesn't say he's shone into
our hearts, even though that's very true. But he actually says
he's shone in our hearts. Now let's read the verse again,
brothers and sisters, and leave out the bit in the middle for
a minute. For God has shined in our hearts. God has shined in our hearts. God himself in the new creation
takes up residence in the hearts of his chosen. People might say,
you're saying too much. What did we read in Galatians
about Paul? God was pleased to reveal his
Son. Where was he? He was in him,
isn't it? It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. And if Christ isn't in you, there
is no hope of glory. In John 14, he talks about the
Holy Spirit indwelling people. And verse 20 of chapter 14, he
talks about a day, that day when God shines, that day you shall
know. There'll be things that you know,
things that you've experienced, things that you'll know about
this God and about His Christ. You'll know that I am in the
Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. As we read in 2 Corinthians 6,
16, it says, I will dwell in them and walk in them. And I will be their God and they
shall be my people, my sons and daughters." That's why church
is a family, brothers and sisters. The God that indwells his people,
gathers his people together and knits his people together, he
takes up residence. So God not only is the light,
But our God is the shining one, like our Lord Jesus on that Mount
of Transfiguration. He shines. He shines. He who is light itself shines
in hearts. He who is light itself lives
in his people. What great protection. What great
comfort as you walk through this darkened world when the spirit
of light takes up residence. There's light where there was
darkness and the spirit of life is living. There is life where
there was death. This is how God shines in our
hearts and as Peter says, we become partakers the divine nature which is characterized
by life and light. But it's He who shines in our
hearts. And what's the purpose? What
is the glorious purpose of these creative, sovereign acts of our
God? to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So often when
you finish preaching, you feel like there's so much to be said. You could spend the rest of this
year preaching on those few words, and then you'd have decades to
go. Because every time you discovered
something amazing, you'd have something more amazing to discover. There is one person, one place
where all the concentrated rays of divine light shine. They shine upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. The glory of God is veiled until
you see the Lord Jesus Christ as the glory of God. What a light that shone in the
darkness. What must it have been like to
be Mary that day? As she went to that tomb, she
went there and looked into what was dark. And then she saw him. And then he says to her, Mary,
don't hold on to me. The reason is that Mary, as all
believers, was about to experience something infinitely better than
being able to hold on to the Lord Jesus. Even in his resurrected
body, he was going to live inside her and live with her forever. a new dimension to relationship. What a great God who shines. What a great gospel we have to
proclaim. And the gospel is Him. We just
declare Him in His glory. And that's our one aim, isn't
it? To magnify the Lord together. And we want to do in church,
if God permits, what God himself loves to do. He loves to see
his Son magnified. The Blessed Holy Spirit has given
this testimony, and what's it about? It's about Jesus Christ. Every last bit of it is testimony
to Him and His glory. And that's the knowledge, isn't
it? The knowledge of who He is and
what He has done. This is eternal life that you
might know Him. You might really know Him as
He is. You might know Him in all of
His character. You might know Him in all of
those promises which are yes and amen in Him. To know Him,
according to Romans 8, is to be called according to His purpose. To know Him is to delight in
His full knowledge, His everlasting love relationship with His Bride. To know Him is to know His predestinating
purposes. Everything in creation is focused
on the Lord Jesus and everything in creation moves for the glory
of the Lord Jesus in the salvation of His people. We need that light
to know that we are justified, perfectly and completely justified,
perfectly perfectly justified, such as
John says, we have boldness on the Day of Judgment. We come
to that great day where we will stand before God and God's children
have confidence to be glorified, to know that
this world is but passing away. and that there is a world that
goes on forever. To know Him, to see Him in His
glory is to know that He's dealt with our sins and they're completely
taken away, that the law that was against us That condemning,
cursing ministration of death has now been taken away and we
are accepted in the Beloved. The next chapter finishes with
another glorious verse. For God has made Him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. We are brothers and sisters in
Christ. in Him. This is the result, isn't
it? This is the result of the shining,
the shining of God in our hearts. It comes by divine sovereign
activity. It comes by God's Word of Gospel
being proclaimed. It comes and it overcomes the
darkness with effortless ease. God shines. God must shine. He shines upon
His Son. May He shine that light upon
His Son for us again and again. Shine alive on His name. Jehovah
saves. Shine a light on His purpose.
He will save His people from their sins. Shine a light on
His accomplishments. It is finished. Shine a light
on His ongoing work. He's seated in heaven and He's
ruling all things in all of this creation for the glory of God
and for the good of His people. His glory is great. in thy salvation,
he says. He's gathering his sheep, he's
building them together, he's knitting them together, so they
can be a place where he dwells. It's remarkable. I said some
weeks ago that when we preach, we want to preach as if in the
front row are the 12 apostles, and sitting behind them is Isaiah
and Jeremiah and Noah and Enoch and Abel. But it's a bigger deal,
isn't it? We preach according to Paul. We preach as if the Lord Jesus
is standing there. He's promised. We preach before
him. May God grant us the grace to preach him in such a way that
he stands there and smiles. He smiles upon his own. He shines
the light of the glory of God upon them. And they looked unto
him, as we read in Psalm 34, they looked unto him and were
lighted, were radiant. And their faces shall never be
ashamed. Let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we
thank you that in your dear and precious Son, whom you have revealed
to us in the most remarkable ways, Heavenly Father, we thank
you that in Him we are, according to your words, the very righteousness
of God. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for the forgiveness of our sins, We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for that perfect and finished work of the Lord Jesus. And we
praise you, Heavenly Father, that He is our righteousness. He is our wisdom. He is our redemption. He is alone our sanctification. Father, we thank you. that we
can bear witness to that work that you have promised in these
amazing verses that we have read, that you cause that light to
shine and we see the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. O our Father, we pray that You
would cause Him to be magnified in our hearts, that we would
be caused to gaze upon Him, that we would look to Him for everything
in this life and for all eternity. Heavenly Father, we pray that
You would cause Him to be seen to be glorious and radiant and
shining and shining again and again and overcoming the darkness
of our flesh which rises up against that work. We praise You that
light effortlessly and completely overcomes the darkness. Our Fathers,
we join together and take these emblems which represent your
dear and precious son's broken body and his shed blood. Father God, please make that
blood to be precious. Make him to be a treasure for
us, our father. For we pray in his name and for
his glory. Amen.