Good evening. Let's begin our
evening service by standing and singing out of your softback
binder, 140, Behold the Savior of Mankind, 140. Behold the Savior of mankind,
nailed to the shameful tree. How vast the love that Him inclined
to bleed and die for me. O'er cow he groans while nature
shakes, and earth's strong pillars bend, O'er temple veil in thunder
breaks, and solid marble rends, done the precious ransoms paid
receive my soul he cries see how he bows his sacred head he
bows his head and does But soon he'll break this iron chain,
And in full glory shine. O Lamb of God, was ever pain,
Was ever love like thine? Good evening. I'm going to be
reading from 2 Corinthians chapter 3. This chapter, as I was studying
our text, which is going to be in Isaiah 61, That which the Apostle speaks
of here in 2 Corinthians 3 was laid on my heart. It came to
my mind because we see the folly of man who trusts in his works
under the law for his righteousness. And when he looks to the law
for righteousness, he's blinded and cannot see the righteousness
of God which is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's
the glorious salvation of the sons of God. That's our glory. He's our boast. And so this chapter
outlines that we have a more excellent glory, a more sure
salvation, a more sure word of prophecy revealed in Christ. So let's read 2 Corinthians 3. Do we begin again to commend
ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation
to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. For as much
as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered
by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living
God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through
Christ to Godward. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves as to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New
Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration
of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that
the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face
of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was
to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit
be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation
be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness
exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory
that excelleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such
hope, What hope? Our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness
of speech. And not as Moses, which put a
veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not
steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But
their minds were blinded. For until this day, this day,
Remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto
this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it, what Paul,
when what? When their heart shall turn to
the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now there's a question
that comes into the mind of the believer here. How can one who
is blind to the things of God, how can one who is blind to the
glory of God and has not the Spirit, how can that one's heart
turn to the Lord? He tells us verse 17, now the
Lord is that Spirit. He gives life. And where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all Jew and
Gentile with open face beholding as in the glass, the glory of
the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as by the spirit of the Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your glory, for your power, for your salvation, which delivers
us from darkness, which delivers us from death, and gives us life,
not for works which we have done, but gives us life through the
blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not for our
sakes, not for anything that we have done, but for the glory
of your name, and because you have robed your son with righteousness
and salvation. You have clothed him with the
garments of salvation so that he is the appointed one who comes
and saves his people. To the uttermost, without our
help, without our support, all by his work alone, he accomplishes
our redemption and delivers us from darkness. And we thank you,
Lord, for this grace which you've shown to us, that grace which
you show to your saints. when you call them out of darkness
and give them light and life in the sun. Lord, we thank you
for gathering us together tonight. We thank you for this time when
we may come and worship our God, when we may praise your name
for what you have done for us and give you thanks and praise
for your salvation. Lord, we thank you for your mercy.
We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your spirit
and your help, your patience with us, your care and kindness
for us. Lord, we ask that you would look
upon our brethren who are suffering, those who are sick, those who
are weak and could not be with us tonight. Lord, we pray that
you would bless them and be merciful, that you would bring us back
together again as one body in the Lord. Father, we pray that
you would be pleased to be in our presence, that you would
dwell in our hearts by faith, and that you would help us in
our worship of the Savior, even this night. Help me in the preaching
of the word, and help my brethren to hear that word preached. We
pray that Christ would be glorified, that we would be found faithful
in him. It's in Christ's name that we pray and give thanks.
Amen. All right. One more hymn, and then we'll
come. Let's sing 134, I once was a
stranger to grace and to God. This hymn will dovetail very
nicely with your chapter you read, Eric. I once was a stranger to grace
and to God. I knew not my danger and felt
not my low. Though friends spoke in rapture
of Christ on the tree, Jehovah said, Can you? Was nothing to me. Like tears from the daughters
of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over his soul. Yet thought not that my sins
had nailed to the tree, Jehovah said, can you cause nothing to
me? When free grace awoke me by light
from on high, Then legal fear shook me, I trembled to die. No refuge, no safety in self
could I see. Jehovah said, can you? My Savior must be. My terrors all vanished before
the sweet name. My guilty fears vanished with
boldness I came. To drink at the fountain, life-giving
and free. Jehovah said, can you, is all
thanks to me. Jehovah said, can you, my treasure
and boast. ? Jehovah said can you I ne'er
can be lost ? ? In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field
? ? My cable my anchor my breastplate and shield ? Good evening, brother. Good to
be here. That was a sweet hymn. Sweet
hymn. All right, our text is found
in Isaiah chapter 61. We'll be looking at verses 7
through 11. Now in these five verses, the
last verses of this chapter, the Lord is revealing to us what
is the riches of the Gentiles. He had said in verse six, but
ye shall be named the priests of the Lord. Men shall call you
the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves." We're
going to be speaking of what the riches of the Gentiles is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll
tell you that right now. That is the riches of the Gentiles. And Lord willing, we'll see why. Christ is the riches of the Gentiles,
and why it's termed that. So let me give you a little outline
of these five verses, because it's real easy to get caught
up in the historical focus of the prophet Isaiah, who has an
eye toward the Jews. But we see in this a truth which
is true of all, of all God's people, and all those who are
lawmongers, legalists, looking to their own works of righteousness. They must be delivered from having
that vain hope in their own righteousness, and all God's people must be
taken out of that darkness, out of that death, and delivered
into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's what's
being declared here in these verses. In verse 7, we'll see
that our God saves all his people one way. It's through the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's by the grace of God revealed
in the Son. Verse 8, we see that he sovereignly
brings this salvation to pass, doing as he pleases. Verse 9,
it's through the preaching of the Gospel. All who are given
life by the Lord are given life through the preaching of the
Gospel, that is, through the hearing of faith. Sinners are not saved and given
life by their works under the law. It's not through the ministration
of death and that ministration of condemnation that we saw spoken
of in 2 Corinthians 3. It's through the preaching of
Christ and the Spirit giving that hearer the hearing of faith
to look to Christ, to believe in Him. Verse 10, this Gospel
preaching exalts the salvation of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is all. Christ is the salvation of His
people, and His Bride, who is the Church, She rejoices in her
Savior. She rejoices in her Lord. She
makes her boast, not of her works, but of the works of her Savior,
because she is made by the grace of God. She is made a partaker
of Christ's righteousness. And then verse 11, we see that
the Lord accomplishes the salvation by sowing the seed of Christ
in the hearts of his people. His people scattered throughout
the world, Jew and Gentile, which all gives glory and praise to
His name. So we'll title this message,
The Riches of the Gentiles. The Riches of the Gentiles. So
the first thing that's declared here in our text is that our
God saves sinners. We that are gathered here and
profess the name of Christ and call upon Him, we are all sinners. sinners saved. All of God's people
are sinners saved. And we come to God as sinners
in need of His grace. We need His grace. We're not
saved. We're not the saints and the
children of God because of the works of righteousness which
we have done under the law. It's not by our good works. It's
not by our religious service and our sacrifices. It's by the
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Isaiah 61 verse 7. He says, For your shame ye shall
have double. And that double is a good thing.
It's a good thing. For your shame you shall have
double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they
shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto
them. Now this immediate context, as
I said, seems to have an eye toward the Jew. But what we see,
especially in our day, is it has an eye toward the legalist,
toward the lawmonger, toward the one who stumbles over Christ,
looking to the law for his own righteousness. But it has an
eye toward the Jew whom the Lord will save, whom the Lord will
deliver from their vain religion, deliver them from their false
hope, and deliver them into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ,
making them a partaker of what we call the Gentiles' riches. Now, let me explain what that
means and why it's important. If you remember when Christ came
in the flesh and he was teaching his disciples, we can tell by
the questions which they asked that they believed that God,
when Christ came, that a earthly Jewish kingdom would be set up
and the Jews would rule and reign over the Gentile nations. putting their foot on the neck
of the Gentiles, conquering them and taking what is theirs. But their expectation of that
was wrong. It was incorrect. They were looking
for an earthly kingdom, and Christ's kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. It's a kingdom of salvation. It's of the power and glory of
our God to raise dead sinners to life by the life and power
of Christ. And so we interpret the scriptures
and understand the scriptures in the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We look to Him. So under the
veil of the law, The law, when the Jews were looking to the
law for righteousness, a veil was over their heart. And so,
when a man looks to the law for their righteousness, thinking,
this is what God would have me to do, this is my righteousness,
this is my justification, that one is looking to the law in
blindness. They're looking to the law with
a veil. They're not hearing the promise
of God. made unto his people, revealed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we want to hear.
That is the hearing of faith. They're not hearing what David
spoke of. Blessed is the man whom the Lord
will not impute sin. Blessed is that one whose sins
are forgiven. That's a promise of God because
God will be gracious and compassionate and merciful to whom He will
be gracious and compassionate and merciful. And what we see
now in the scriptures, looking at what occurred in the writings
of Paul, we see that God allowed the Jew to stumble, that salvation
by grace might come fully and freely to the Gentile nations
who heard and received it. And He made known the riches
of His grace to His people scattered throughout the world in those
Gentile nations. So that we read scriptures like
Isaiah 9 too, having an understanding that salvation comes to the Gentiles. And there it's speaking of Galilee
of the nations, saying there in Isaiah 9-2, the people that
walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell
in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light
shined. And so God is giving us pictures
in the Old Testament showing us that the Gentiles would hear
and believe the gospel, being untouched by that law, being
untouched, having no veil over their heart from the law. Yes,
they were steeped in idolatry. Yes, they were dead in trespasses
and sins, as all men born of Adam's seed are. But they didn't
have that stumbling of the law, which laid heavily upon the hearts
of the Jews. And so God brought the word of
grace to them in power. And he gave it to his people,
scattered about, bringing that word of grace powerfully unto
them, so that they heard and believed that which was spoken
unto them. They heard it readily. They were
glad to hear it. When Paul would preach it to
the Jews, and the Jews rejected it, and the Jews were very casual
and careless about it, the Jews begged Paul, would you please
preach that to us? May we hear that grace? May we hear what God has given
to you to declare? May we hear that word, Paul?
Preach it to us. And they were given a heart.
Are you given a heart? Do you want to hear the grace
and the glory of God? What He has done freely for sinners
by the grace of God in Christ. Would you hear that? Sinners
do. needy sinners who need grace,
who have no righteousness of their own, delight and rejoice
in that glorious gospel. We rejoice in Christ, the Savior
of sinners. And so God brought it to the
Gentiles and that's actually what he's saying in John 3 16
when he said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." He's saying, I have my people scattered
throughout the world, not just among the Jews, but some from
every kindred, some of every tongue, of every people, of every
nation. And so what the Lord is saying
To the Jew, he says to any self-righteous, arrogant, proud law keeper who
thinks that by what he does and by his works, he is pleasing
God and getting God's notice and obtaining a righteous or
a salvation for himself for his righteousness. But the Lord says
to all who come to him in their own works, he must be born again. You Nicodemuses, you must be
born again. Man learns a lot. Man knows a
lot. Man has a great understanding
of many doctrines and debates many things, but that's not salvation. Man looks to the law for righteousness,
and he trusts in his works and what he does, and his will and
desire to do that, and thinks that is his righteousness, and
that's his comfort. But the Lord said, he must be
born again. All God's children are born of
the Spirit of God. In all our knowledge, in all
our doctrine and proud ways and traditions, we know nothing as
we ought to know, except the Spirit of the Lord reveal it
to us. He said to the church at Laodicea
in Revelation 3.17, because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with
goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked? God says he'll spew you out of
his mouth. So we, by nature, are poor. We are wretched. We have nothing,
except God give it to us, and by grace The Lord teaches His
children that without Me, you can do nothing. You are nothing
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. We need the blessings, the spiritual
blessings of God, which He gives in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no life outside of Christ. There is no salvation outside
of Christ. There is no inheritance outside
of Jesus Christ. All who are saved by God come
through the blood of Christ as sinners. We're all sinners. We come from shame, and we come
from confusion. But God says, for your shame
and your confusion, I'll give you double. And so the picture
here is of someone who stumbles over Christ. They're blind to
Christ. They're not hearing what God
is saying in His word. They're reading it with a veil
over their heart, thinking, oh, God's telling me how I save myself. God's telling me A, B, C, 1,
2, 3, what I need to do to make a righteousness for myself and
to be found pleasing to God. And that's not hearing what God
is saying. Because God's saying, by the
law, you're a sinner. I'm a sinner. We're all sinners. And we cannot work a righteousness
for ourselves. Hence why the Lord sent His Son,
purposed before the foundation of the world, to send His Son
to save his people. And so that comes to us, that
knowledge comes by the grace of God, which delivers us from
that shame, and from that confusion, and from that blindness, and
from that darkness, and from that prison of death and bondage. The double spoken of is first
the removal of our sin. He takes away our sin. He takes away the stain of our
sin and the stench of our filthy works that we trusted in. He
takes that away. And in its place, the double
is he takes that away and he gives us everlasting righteousness
by the Lord Jesus Christ, which shall never fade away. which is eternal and everlasting,
whereby those who are robed in that righteousness shall stand
forever before the throne of God, faultless in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Praise His name. Bless God for
that. What a glory our Savior What
a work, what a wonder our Savior has wrought for His people who
were nothing but shame and confusion and darkness. He did that for
us who believe Him. us who have nothing to boast
in of ourselves." So this truth, as it was true of the Jew, as
we see them stumbling in the writings of the New Testament,
stumbling over Christ, this truth is just as relevant for the Gentile
legalists today. where the law is being preached
and taught for righteousness and for a rule of life for the
hearers, rather than Christ being taught the rule of life, rather
than the gospel being preached and declared to the people. so
that Christ is all our hope. Christ is our teacher. He gives
us his spirit, seals us with his spirit so that he teaches
us, that he chastens us, that he keeps us, that he preserves
us, and that he gives us that perseverance by his grace. And so to keep the law when men
today boast of their keeping of the law, all they're doing
is lowering the standard of the law. They're just making it wiggle
and bend and turn in whatever way they need it to turn in order
to say, I'm keeping the law, or I'm doing my best and so God
accepts that because Christ makes up the rest. But no, we don't
come to the Lord with some portion of our own righteousness, and
then God makes up the rest. We come as beggars, as needy
sinners, begging for grace and mercy, hoping And that word which
is declared to us by the Spirit in the hearing of faith, that
God receives sinners for Christ's sake, and all who believe in
Him shall have their sin put away, have their sin put away.
And they are washed, and they are clean, and they are sanctified,
they are righteous in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Trusting
in some part of your works for righteousness is no salvation,
and you shall die in your sins if that's your hope. As the Lord
said to those Jews who trusted in their righteousness and their
works under the law, he said, you shall die in your sins. For
if you believe not that I am he, that I am the Christ, that
I am the salvation whom God has closed and given into my hand
to save my people, if you believe not that I am he, you shall die
in your sins. the one who forsakes all that
he hath, including his good works, including all those things he
did in the law and all that time he spent in years of religion
working and storing up a righteousness for himself, that one who forsakes
all that, For Christ's righteousness alone, that one has salvation. And that one over here who has
a great pile of works and righteousness, that one who dies with that righteousness,
they shall die in their sins with no righteousness. No righteousness. Unjustified. A sinner for all
eternity. And there shall be the second
death. the second death, but that one
who has no confidence in the flesh and trusts the righteousness
of Christ alone, that one is a partaker of the riches of the
Gentiles. All sinners who come to God for
justification, whether Jew or Gentile, they must come to the
Lord Jesus Christ as a Gentile, as one who has no righteousness
to boast of. They're coming as a Gentile.
As our Lord said in Luke 14, 33, so likewise, whosoever he
be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, including your
righteousness, forsake all that you have, he cannot be my disciple
if he does not do that. Don't come with your righteousness. Don't come to God saying, well,
I did a lot here, Lord. I only need a little dust up.
A little whitening of the teeth, just restore that gleam in my
eye, just fix a few things up, make me look pretty. But I did
a lot of things for you already, Lord. There's not a lot to do.
God doesn't receive that one. He receives the empty sinner.
He receives the sinner who comes with nothing. He receives the
sinner who comes as they are, having no hope in themselves,
but hope only in Christ alone. And so those who come as sinners,
as needy sinners, looking to the righteousness of Christ alone,
they shall sit down at that great day in the feast, partaking of
the riches of the Gentiles, feeding upon the life and light and liberty
of the saints in Christ. And so this is the treasure of
the Gentiles. Christ is the treasure of the
Gentiles. It's not oil. It's not silver and gold. It's
not bullets. It's not weapons. It's not power
and influence and land and peoples. That's not the riches of the
Gentiles. The riches of the Gentiles is the Lord Jesus Christ, that
they heard that word and believe that word spoken by Paul, by
the Spirit, who gave them the hearing of faith. The one who forsakes Christ in
favor of his own righteousness, as those Jews did, has a veil
over the heart. They're blind. They cannot see
the end of the law, that it's been abolished by Christ, that
it served its purpose, that it was given to show us our trespasses
and iniquities, to show us our sin, to show us our ruin in Adam,
to show us that we are dead spiritually in Adam. That's why the law was
given. and it's come to an end. It served
its purpose and now Christ has come. Believe the righteousness
of God which He gives and reveals in His Son. So the Lord is teaching
us that there's but one hope of salvation and that's in the
covenant of His grace established by the blood of His Son. Now in verse 8, And we'll go
through the rest of the verses more quickly. In verse 8, he
begins, For I, the Lord, love judgment. The Lord loves true
righteousness. And true righteousness is His
Son, Jesus Christ. So that Christ came. and was
made a propitiation by God for the people. That is, he bore
the wrath and anger of God for the sins of the people, Christ
turning away the wrath of God from us upon himself. And he
bore our just punishment in himself to put away our sin, to answer
for our sins and our debts, that we by his life would go free. He delivered his people so that
God is just to forgive us of our sins. And he says, I hate
robbery for burnt offering. Man thinks that by his works
in religion, by his sacrifices and his law keeping, he indebts
God so that God owes him life. Not at all. We don't indebt God
at all. God freely forgives whom He will,
and He forgives them in Christ. And He says, I will direct their
work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with
them. In other words, our God graciously
bears fruits of righteousness in His people by His Spirit,
by the seed of His Son. He says in Ephesians 2.10 that
we're Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained unto good works. I got it a little
mixed up, but the Lord, we are the Lord's work. And he says
in Hebrews 13, 13.21, In this prayer, he says that
God make you perfect in every good work, to do his will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Christ Jesus,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And over in Philippians
chapter two, Philippians chapter two, verse 13, He says, for it
is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure. We are Christ's workmanship. Next, it speaks of those who
labor faithfully in the word, preaching Christ Jesus, that
they are counted worthy of notice in the kingdom. It's not the
proud boaster who says, look at me, look at my works, look
at what I've done for the church, look what I've done for the Lord.
No, that's not the one who has any recognition before the Lord.
In verse 9 it says, And their seed shall be known among the
Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All that see
them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which
the Lord hath blessed. We rejoice in the people of God
and the children of God who believe, who come confessing the Lord
Jesus Christ, who come and are baptized, calling upon the Lord
for the washing away of their sins by His blood. Now, this
brings us up to verse 10 and 11. The one who boasts in the
law, the one who can say, I believe in Jesus, but makes their boast
in the law. And what they have done, they've
not seen the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because when you
see Christ's glory, how can you boast of what you've done? How
can you attribute any greatness to ourselves when we've seen
His glory? And so, when we read this, we
see in verse 10, I want you to notice that it's first Christ
speaking. It glories in Christ. It speaks of what He has done
first, and then The Church speaks, boasting of Christ, her righteousness
and her glory. That's what's being declared
here. Verse 10, I will greatly rejoice
in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God. This is Christ
speaking as the mediator of His people. For he hath clothed me
with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments.
And the church, the bride, and as a bride adorneth herself with
her jewels. And so it's Christ first, and
then the church. What the Lord is saying here
is that He is the one appointed of God to save His people. He is the one to whom the Father
gave all the work of salvation into the hands of His Son before
the foundation of the world when He chose a people to give to
the Son, a people for His Son's inheritance. And He gave us to
Christ. And Christ was appointed to come
and to deliver His people from their sins, to make them righteous
in Himself. It was never intended, never
appointed unto man to save himself. God always purposed that salvation
would be in the hands of His Son, Jesus Christ. God robed
Him with salvation. He clothed Him with that work
of salvation. That glorious work was given
to Him. so that we read in Hebrews 10
verse 10 and verse 14 where he says, by the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Sanctified in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father have separated you unto this glory, unto this
salvation, unto this work of the Son, that you should be clothed
with the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that we now,
being covered by his blood, being sanctified, having an ear of
faith to hear this gospel, to rejoice in it, to believe in
the Savior, This is our boast now. This is our glory. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so first he wears these titles. The glorious salvation is his
and we forever shall rejoice in and praise and worship our
king, our savior, our husband, our all forever. That'll never
change for us. And the longer I live and the
more I see my Savior in these words, the more happy and content
and glad I am for that. And I look forward to that day
when Christ comes and brings us home and we're forever in
our Lord's presence. And this is the song of the bride. We see it over in Revelation
5. Why don't you go there. Revelation 5, 9. where again we see the world
whom the Father loves and sent his Son to save them, we see
who that world is. They're described here in Revelation
5-9. And they sung a new song saying,
Thou art worthy to take the book, to do the will of God in the
earth is what they're saying. unto the Son, and to open the
seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to
God, by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people,
and nation. And so our God has a people scattered
throughout the world whom He purposed to save, and He shall
not be denied of His purchased possession, but they shall hear
this glorious good news, and they shall hear the voice of
the Son of God and rejoice in Him. And we see this spoken of,
revealed here in verse 11. For as the earth bringeth forth
her bud, And as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it
to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness
and praise to spring forth before all the nations. He has his people
and he is calling his people out. And what a comfort and a
hope for us. to be given this ministry, to
preach this gospel of our Savior, to rejoice in Him, to exalt Him,
to lift Him up in the preaching of the gospel here in this part
of the world, praying, Lord, bring in your people. Bring them
in and cause them to hear this glorious good news. And so I'll
close with this, our boasting from 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30
and 31. where we read, But of Him, of our God, are ye in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Amen. Let's pray
and then we'll close with a hymn our gracious Lord. We thank you
father for your glorious good news revealed in your son Jesus
Christ Lord we thank you because we know We know our shame We
know our condemnation We see you know Lord that we were all
confusion in darkness defiled and ruined, having no righteousness
of our own, nothing to boast in, but were proud and arrogant
and base, foolish and ignorant. But Lord, in your mercy and in
your grace, you saved us, wisely putting salvation into the hands
of the Son, who came and accomplished our redemption, who came and
put away our sin, who died our death and was buried, but was
raised again by the power of our God, declaring that we are
now just by him, righteous before our God. And Lord, you raised
him up, seating him on the throne of God, ruling and reigning,
working all things, and calling out his people from darkness.
Lord, we thank you. For we see that we have nothing
to boast in, but that all the work is yours, all the glory
is yours, all the praise is yours. Lord, thank you for this. Thank
you for this salvation. We pray that you would continue
to bless us, to bless our hearts, and to cause us to delight in
Christ our Savior alone, and that you would cause many more
here to also rejoice in this salvation, to call upon your
name, to forsake their own righteousness, and to find their all in Christ
alone. Lord, we ask you for these things
because we know that you can do all things, that nothing is
too great for you. And so we pray that you would
bless the word, that you would cause sinners around here to
hear it, that they would come and hear this word by the hearing
of faith which you give to your people, and you would settle
and establish your people here. It's in Christ's name that we
pray and give thanks. Amen. Our closing hymn will be 144.
144. When this passing world is done. And we'll sing 1, 2, 3 and skip
4 and sing 5. When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon radiant sun, When I stand with Christ on high,
Looking o'er life's history, Then, Lord, shall I fully know
Not till then how much I owe. When I stand before the throne,
dressed in beauty not my own, when I see thee as thou art,
love thee with unsinning heart, then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then how much I owe, ? Chosen not for good in me ?
? Wakened up from wrath to flee ? ? Hidden in the Savior's sight
? ? By the Spirit sanctified ? ? Teach me, Lord, on earth
to show ? ? I, my love, how much I owe ? When the praise of heaven
I hear, Loudest thunders to the ear, Loudest mendy waters noise,
Sweetest harps' melodious voice, Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
Not till then how much I owe. Thank you.