Yeah, I have been with her. George, you want a little bottle
of water? No, I'm doing all right. Thank you. How's the little guy
adjusting? Pretty good so far? The time
changes were up. We moved Sunday, so we went two
hours back. So just the hour. Yeah, so that's... Is that because Indiana doesn't
go in with fire? Yeah, we're just... we're eastern
time. That's amazing. Indiana's eastern time. So that's
an hour ahead of us here, apparently. So it's 8-12 there. But really,
our bodies are telling us it's 9-12. So... Yeah, it's easy. She's good. Yeah, so... Oh, yeah. That's good. You want
to sit down here? Okay. If you do, you have to
stay still. Remember to pick up a couple of those smelling
things you plug in. I don't want to show them. Somewhere. This is the door. What? Yeah, that's another door. Yeah, because it's kind of a
low point. Where's the territory?
Yeah, I think so. I might walk in. It has to do
with the windfall, but it wasn't windy today. Something's not
right with that track. Yeah. If it dries out real quick,
then the prune is done right up. You know, if it's in the
floor or something, there's not a lot. Make sure you've got a
hole in there. Oh, okay. Good evening. We're going to
begin tonight's worship service by standing and singing out of
your soft hymnal. Let's sing 140. Behold the savior
of mankind. 140. Behold the Savior of mankind,
knelt to the shameful tree. How best the love that Him incline
To bleed and die for me! Our cow he groans while nature
shakes And earth's strong pillars bend The temple bell, its thunder
breaks, and solid marble rends. To stun the precious ransoms
paid, receive my soul, he cries. ? See how he bows his sacred
head ? ? He bows his head and dies ? ? But soon he'll break
that siren chain ? ? And in full glory shine ? O Lamb of God, was ever pain,
was ever love like Thine? Turn one page back to 139. As on the cross of Christ I thought,
sung to the tune of there is a fountain filled with blood.
139. As on the cross of Christ I thought,
it seemed I heard one cry. Is all this nothing in your eyes,
through this day passed by? Is not such suffering greater
than that which you've seen before? And was there ever any man who
grieved or suffered more? I looked again, and what I saw
I cannot fully tell. It seemed within his very bones
there raged the fire of hell. What caused you grief, I asked
the man, what crimes could you have done? That God Jehovah struck
you down and left you all alone. His answer cut my heart like
steel and left me void of breath. This for your sins, this pain
I feel for you, I go to death. Your soul before my father's
throne could find no place to hide. This is the way God can
be just and you be justified. Jehovah's mercies never fail,
each morning they are new. Great is His faithfulness and
love, therefore we're not consumed. I would like to read from John
10. John 10, the first 18 verses. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth
up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he
that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and
he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when
he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the
sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will
they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the
voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things they were which he
spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again,
verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All
that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the
sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but for
to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have
life. and that they might have it more
abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd, the Good
Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an
hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own sheep are not, seeth
the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the
wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth,
because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep, I am
the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and lay
down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life,
that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father. Our heavenly merciful father,
we thank you for allowing us to come together to assemble
as a local assembly. What a great, great blessing
it is, father, that we have a place to come to gather And Father,
will you remember us, especially this evening, be with Brother
Eric as he comes before us once again. Help him, O Lord. Give
him the unction of your spirit and give him liberty to declare
the glorious wonder of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord,
give us an appetite and give us a little time that we may
be able to focus and be concentrated on the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
we thank you for giving traveling mercies this week, where you
have brought Jordan and Abby and their children here. Oh Lord,
will you go before them and bless and prosper their way. Father,
we thank you for all that we have, many, many blessings, but
the highest of all on this side of heaven is to be able to gather
together to hear your glorious gospel proclaimed. Father, allow
us to delight in this gospel. We thank you, Father, for taking
all that is you have given the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our
sanctification, our righteousness. He is our all in all. Father,
remember us in mercy for Jesus' sake alone. Amen. So I like that first song that
we sung there, Joe. I don't know if we can get it
where we can just short out a little in between the two verses a little
bit. Yeah, a little tiny. I mean, it probably was supposed
to be. I don't know if it's supposed to be there like that, but. No,
it did sound natural. Yeah, but it's a nice. Yeah,
I could probably cut that out, you know. I like that. That was
a nice. All right, brethren, it's good
to be back with you. And I'm glad to be here and to
have Abbey and Jordan, the children here safely. It's really, it's
nice. It's encouraging, so. All right,
brethren, we're gonna be in Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43, and I wanna look
this evening with you at verse one. Verse one. And this is a new chapter in
Isaiah for us, and the Lord opens with placing a claim on a people
for himself. He proclaims it himself and he's
claiming a people for himself. And that's pretty amazing because
when we closed chapter 42, it appeared like The relationship
between God and this people was over. He spoke of the destruction
of this people with an eye towards Jerusalem in 70 AD. But as we'll
see, the Lord never left His people, His true Israel, and
we'll see that tonight. The Lord does this. He instead of driving away all
the people as we so deserve because we ourselves are sinners and
have rebelled against the true and living God who created us,
the Lord opens this chapter here with grace. Grace upon grace,
grace for his people in abundance. And he identifies this people
for himself with some terms, some words that he uses to describe
this people as his own. We see that these are descriptions
that are revealing not their worthiness, not things which
they themselves have done to earn back His favor or to show
that they are worthy of this grace and favor, but rather these
are descriptions of His grace for them. These are identifying
marks of His grace, His works of grace, rather than their works. In Psalm 4.3 it says, But know
that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself. And when it speaks of there being
set apart him that is godly for himself, these are rather marked
by godliness. We know whom the Lord has set
apart for himself because he's marked them, he's made them godly. They didn't make themselves godly,
but he set them apart and we know who they are because he
reveals himself in the grace that he has revealed in them,
what he's done for that people. And in this verse we'll see it's
things like he created them, he forms them. He redeemed them
and He calls them. That's what makes up this verse
that we'll be looking at this evening. I've titled this, The
Lord's Claim Upon His People. The Lord's Claim Upon His People. And so there's many terms here
in this verse that the Lord uses regarding a people. And what
we're, what we'll see tonight is that these words that he uses
to describe what he's going to do for them, signify them that
they're not just all people or any people, but his people, his
own people. All right, and so I wanna look
at these four terms in particular, and if we have enough time, we'll
maybe look at a couple other words that are in this verse,
but there's four terms here that convey a lot of meaning to us,
right, about this people here that are the Lord. So let's look
at verse one, Isaiah 43, verse one. But now thus saith the Lord
that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy
name. thou art mine." And so we're
going to look at those four terms, created, formed, redeemed, and
called, because they explain how God's people became His people. We're going to see how God's
people became His people. And this is important for us
to hear this, to know this, to understand it, to seek to know
why these words that the Lord uses in his word are so important
and the meaning that they have because popular religion, they
teach the word, the Bible here, in such a way so as to place
a heavy burden upon you, the hearer. They place heavy burdens
upon you in what you're supposed to do to make yourself a child
of God. What you're supposed to do to
prove that you are a child of God to those around you and to
prove to God that you're worthy of his love and kindness. And
we that have labored under religion, and now have come to know the
Word of Grace, we can look back at that religion that we believed
in, that we labored under, and can say, yeah, that was a burden
too heavy for me to bear. I wasn't able to bear. And I
can see in the Word that None of the apostles could bear it,
and none of the Pharisees or the fathers that they spoke of,
they couldn't bear it. None of us could bear this law.
And yet religion, to this day, the religion of this world continues
to lay this heavy burden upon you, the hearer, of what you
must do to get yourself saved. And that's not the word of grace.
That's not the gospel that God reveals here. in his word. Paul spoke of this saying they
have a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. People
that are aware that seek to worship God. They know that there's a
God. They want to worship that God. They want to worship this
God that they believe exists. They want to be justified by
Him. They want to be accepted by Him and received by Him. But
they're doing so in complete and utter darkness. And they
have blind leaders telling them what to do, which way to go,
what to do, what not to do. and they're just walking around
in utter darkness. So they're trying to earn God's
justification, earn his favor, and it has a form of godliness,
but they're denying the power of God in salvation. because
they forget about the work of the Lord and what He does, what
He is able to do and willing to do and does do for His people
in grace. And so by laboring in that darkness
and continuing in that darkness, they're denying the power of
God. And when they hear the gospel,
they don't believe it. They don't understand and believe
or receive the grace that God declares in His word. they don't
hear it. So, in this world's religion,
it's about the power of man to make use of the means whereby
they make themselves godly and acceptable to him, or make themselves
righteous. And, they may even call themselves
Christian. They may even call themselves
Christian churches. We know and understand many of
the false religions in the world, but even those that go by the
name of Christian labor and works, labor heavily and works in trying
to make themselves righteous. So true religion, which is of
the Lord, it reveals that salvation is a work of grace for helpless
sinners. We're sinners. The Word of God
declares that we in Adam sinned and we, if we're honest, know
that we've continued in sin. We've sought out ways that please
our own flesh, and we're sinners, worthy of His condemnation, of
God's condemnation, the God who created us, and our hope is that
the Lord really does save by grace and mercy in His Son, just
as He's declared to us in his word and in this gospel which
we preach. Alright, so God saves by grace
and that's what these four terms here in verse one reveal. They confirm that very truth
to us. So first we read, but now thus
saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob. Now, this word created,
we know, well, didn't God create everyone? Didn't God create the
world? Didn't God create all things that we see and understand
to be? Yes, he did. But when the Lord
speaks of creation here, he's speaking of a special creation. He's speaking of that new birth
that only God can do for the sinner. It's a new birth of the
believer. And it implies to us that God
has made something new. Something that wasn't before.
Something that this earth doesn't bring forth. God had to make
it. And it's a new creation. Something that he's brought by
his spiritual power for his own glory. Doing that work of grace
for the sinner. Over in Jeremiah 31, Verse 22,
I'll read a verse where it speaks of that new creation. And Jeremiah says, How long wilt
thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord hath created
a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man. A woman shall defend or protect
a man. And what the Lord's saying is,
I've turned things around in that verse. Well, in the same
way, the Lord has created something new in the believer. One who's
not worshiping in darkness, one who's not laboring under lies
and falsehood, but one now who knows the truth, who lives and
dwells and walks by the Spirit. and has the Spirit of God dwelling
in them. And so the point is is that God
has made something new in the earth that the earth itself couldn't
produce. And so back in our text there,
look at verse 15, Isaiah 43, 15. He says, I am the Lord, your
holy one, the creator of Israel, your king. And so this creation
of Israel is a new work of God and the earth. We know that Israel
of old, they were identified as a special and peculiar people. The Lord didn't reveal himself.
until he revealed himself to Abraham. And of Abraham brought
forth the seed, the seed of Christ, in whom all the blessings of
God are promised and given to the people. that seed which is
which is Christ and so the Lord has made he has created something
new Israel a people for himself a people unlike all the other
peoples of the earth right and we see we know this is spiritual
Israel that the Lord is talking to of Jew and Gentile all of
The true Israel of God are his special people that he's saved
for himself and delivered from out of darkness and death All
right, and it's not because they've done anything but simply because
he has purpose to create them and make them for himself It's
his special creative work. And the scriptures reveal this,
right? The New Testament confirms this is so concerning us who
hope and believe in Christ. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17,
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things
have passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. We that believe, believe by His
grace because He's created us. He's given life to us which we
didn't have of ourselves. He's done that work for us. It's His special creation giving
us spiritual birth by the spiritual incorruptible seed of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Peter would add to this in
1st Peter 2.5 saying, ye also as lively stones, alright, lively
stones, and that's contrary to nature, stones aren't alive,
but we are living stones created by the Lord, a new creation,
and are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. You know, when you think about
that, even the Lord revealed that the priesthood who offered
up sacrifices to the Lord, they were of the household of Levi. And yet all of us who are in
Christ are called a royal, a kingly priesthood. We didn't descend
from kings. We were descended from Levi.
And yet the Lord has done something special, something new, a new
creation whereby we now are a holy priesthood. and we offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, by our Lord. So it's a spiritual work where
we're birthed into the kingdom of Christ. We're brought to life,
we're given life and delivered from those former people, the
inhabitants of the earth were delivered from that and brought
into the kingdom of our Savior. And so these sacrifices, which
are spiritual in nature, right? They're spiritual sacrifices.
Well, what is that? What are we doing that's spiritual sacrifices? What are we doing? We're boasting
of and giving praise to our Savior, that the salvation that we have,
that we now have, and the hope that we have, and the joy that
we have in Christ, that's not of us. It's of His work. He did this, in spite of who
I am, in spite of my unworthiness, He's done this work. And that's
how we offer up these spiritual sacrifices, continually confessing,
Lord, I'm not worthy of this grace, but You love me, and I'm
thankful. All right? Think of, you know,
the time that we live in, and there's many things that trouble
us and can trouble us, but we have the joy to know that our
God has all things in control, and He loves me. And isn't that
a comfort to you, that love Him and hope in Him, that in spite
of all the evil, and in spite of all the disappointments that
we experience and go through in this life, when our Lord is
pleased to bring us home, We have the inheritance and the
enjoyment of him and he'll wipe away every tear and confirm to
us that he did all the work and we'll praise him for it. All
right, next we read. And he that formed thee, O Israel, well,
having birthed us in Christ, having created something new,
our God, he conforms us to the image of his Son. He's working. It pleases him. right, to work
his grace in us, to form us as it pleases him in the body, and
to give us according to his measure the gift of grace, of faith,
and mercy working in us and forming us in the body. And he's shaping
us through the gospel, he's shaping us through one another, and he's
shaping us through the experiences that we have here in this world,
knowing our God now, knowing what he's done and revealed to
us, and so we're made spiritually alive and the Lord sanctifies
us for his use, meaning he sets us apart for his own use and
purpose, and on top of it, fills us with his Holy Spirit. gives
us life whereby we walk and dwell and commune with our God in the
Holy Spirit. Not of ourselves, not calling
upon our own wisdom and our own strength and abilities, but calling
us to continually look to the Savior, to look to Him, to cry
out to Him, and to pray to Him, and to seek Him that we might
know and serve Him and be found of Him in the Lord Jesus Christ,
because it is His work of grace. And so He shapes us through this
work, and He's the one that turns us from the fleshly lusts which
dwell in these bodies of flesh, these bodies of death, this tempt,
and all that corruption that we have by nature. The Lord is
the one who turns us from that. that strengthens us. He's the
one that turns us from pursuing the things of death in this life. It's our God and He's the one
who causes us, calls us and causes us to worship Him. So this word
formed, it's often translated in the Old Testament as the potter. It uses the same word to describe
the potter, the one who forms clay, the one who shapes and
forms the clay, and that's the word. He's the potter of his
people. He's the potter who shapes us
and forms us to be that which he's purposed us to be in the
body of his son, Jesus Christ. We're made partakers of the divine
nature, all right, through the indwelling of Christ. You know,
Paul, when he was speaking to the Gentiles, and he says it
this way in Galatians 4.19, he says, my little children of whom
I travail and birth again until Christ be formed in you. All right, and that's a work
of our God, and it's a labor that the Lord does in me, right? I'm being formed and shaped by
the Lord to care for His sheep, to have an interest, to pray
and to seek the Lord that the gospel, right, that we delight
in, we delight in the gospel, but that He would attend that
word and send it to your hearts, give it to you and reveal it
to you with power. and of his divine nature, that
we would be made partakers, and that Christ would be formed in
each of you, even as he's formed that hope in me in Christ. And
so we labor, just like Paul labored for the brethren, and the Lord
calls me to that, and he calls each of you to your part in the
body of Christ. And so it's how Christ is formed
in us, and by him being formed in us, It's using words as we
understand them to help convey a spiritual work which only God
can do in us. Only the Lord can do that. But
we can read some other verses that help us understand what
does that mean to be formed by the Lord. How does he do that?
We'll turn over to Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3, and then we'll
flip back over to 2 Peter after Ephesians 3, but go to verse
16. Ephesians 3 says that God would
grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with might by His Spirit in the inner man. So this forming includes the
strengthening of the inner man, that spiritual creation of God. There's the creation, the inner
man, something God himself created, and now he's forming, he's strengthening
that inner man. Look at verse 17, that Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith. So he gives us, we are partakers
of the spirit, And we bear fruit, spiritual fruit, such as faith.
That's all spiritual work. That ye being rooted and grounded
in love. Well, that reminds us of what
Christ said, that he's the vine and we're the branches. And we're
rooted to Christ, who is love. Our God is love, and Christ is
love. And we're rooted in him, the
Lord does that. Rooting, not we ourselves. and
that we may be able to comprehend, all right, he gives us an understanding,
a comprehension of what God is revealing in his word, with all
saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Well, these
are all words that are describing the power of godliness. It's the power of God. It's his
divine power which is doing all this work in that which he's
created, the inner man. You see that? He's doing these
works here. Look over in 2 Peter 1. We know these verses there in
the beginning of 2 Peter 1 verses 3 through 7. It's describing
a spiritual growth. in grace. It's describing the
spiritual growth. But it begins saying, according,
verse 3, according as His divine power hath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge,
right? So there's divine power that
gives to us these things. He gives us knowledge of Him
that called us to glory and virtue. whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust." There's our part, our natural part, lust.
various sins that we're all predisposed to and attracted to, and that
are there by nature in us. And the Lord's delivered us from
the punishment of sin, of those things, and canceled its power
and hold over us, and given us life in Christ, whereby we're
looking to Him, and He's the one feeding and strengthening
and revealing Himself continually to us. And beside this, Peter
says, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue and to
virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance right and he continues
on showing that there's a growth that the Lord is revealing in
us and that's that forming in that creation the new man the
inner man that he's made of us so we're shaped and formed by
God through the gospel word of faith which we preach his indwelling
spirit and his divine power working in us revealing these things
to us, to that inner man, having that knowledge of what God's
done for us, understanding the promises, having that hope, being
brought to our knees to call upon him, and being delivered
from darkness and to see the light and the life that's in
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right? And so he grows us
in Christ there. All right, now, if God's holy,
and we know God is holy, and we know that by nature we're
not, By nature, there's no good thing in this flesh. We're sinners. We know that we're
sinners because the Lord has His exhortations in the Word
of God against, warned against fleshly lusts. We know this flesh.
We know how weak it is and how it's not. adding anything to
the value of what God has done. We don't contribute anything
to what the Lord himself has done. We're the happy recipients
of his grace and mercy. But if God's so holy and we're
such sinners, why would God do this for us? Why would he do
this? How is it that he could forgive
us of such sin and corruption and then shower us with such
wonderful spiritual blessings? How is such a thing possible?
Well, he does this by the death of his son. He came and laid
down his life. He sacrificed himself to the
Father, making atonement for us, making peace between God
and His people who had sinned and rebelled against Him. And
so Christ, what He did was He purchased us. He redeemed us.
He purchased us with the payment of His own blood. His blood that
we might go free. that our blood wouldn't be shed
under the punishment and wrath of God. He did that for His people,
so He died our death. He bore our punishment that we
might have life with the Father, that we might have life with
the Son, that we might dwell with God and His people for all
eternity. And he says that in here, that's
the third, the third one, the third term that we're looking
at, which says, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have
redeemed thee. That's a mark that God is gracious
to us. Christ died for you, his people,
you that believe, right? Not because you believe, but
you believe because he redeemed you. You have a hope in Christ
because of what He has done in laying down His life, accomplishing
your very redemption, establishing peace, making atonement and delivering
you from death and darkness into his kingdom, into his bosom,
into his arms, so that you are safe and secure because of what
Christ has done. I'll just read a little bit of
Romans 3, 24 and 25, which say, by His grace." This is all throughout
the scriptures. The Lord is revealing to us it's
a work of grace, not of your works, of His grace. Being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption, the purchase, that
is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation,
or whom God hath set forth a propitiation. He is the means of our very forgiveness
with God. through faith in His blood, right,
He gives us that faith, hoping and trusting in His blood is
sufficient to save me. His blood is sufficient to put
away all my sins, till the day I stand before God, and that
day of judgment, I shall stand trusting in His blood, and shall
stand perfect, spotless, holy, without blame, in the beautiful
blood-bought garment that Christ has given to me as His bride.
And that's our hope, brethren. That's our hope in that redemption. He says, fear not, I have redeemed
thee to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God. And that's our confession,
is it not? That he is my righteousness.
I'm not, Lord, don't look to my righteousness. Don't look
to what I've done for my standing before you. Receive me in the
righteousness of your Son, Jesus Christ, whom you've provided
freely and richly in your grace to do this very work of salvation
for me. Lord, have mercy upon me in Christ. We looked in trust to him for
the remission of sins that he's put away. So that's why God is
just to forgive us. That's why a holy God can be
merciful to sinners like us, because Christ has redeemed his
people. He's put away their sins, and
you that hope in Him testify to the work of grace that God
has worked in you, that He has redeemed you. That's why you
believe. You're not redeemed because you believe, you believe
because you're redeemed. And that's the word of grace
in his word, hope, hope and trust and believe. And that's what
he's revealing to you in mercy and grace, all right? And then
finally, we read, I have called thee by thy name, right? It says by thy name, thou art
mine. So because of all that Christ
accomplished, our God is pleased, it pleases the Lord to reveal
this gospel to us. He hasn't done this work and
then is leaving us in utter darkness to these things. It delights
His heart to glorify the Son, to reveal to His people what
the Son has accomplished for us. Not what we're doing for
the Son, but what the Son has done for us. We do things in
love and adoration for the Son. We want to adorn His grace. We want to be a testament that
others will know that we love the Lord and that we're His people.
But it's not to be His people, it's because we are His people,
but the Lord is pleased to reveal to you what He's accomplished
and done for you, and so He calls us out of darkness, and it's
the Lord's redemption that has secured this blessing for us.
God wouldn't reveal these things to us if it wasn't accomplished,
if it wasn't done, if the works weren't finished already, and
that's why God calls us. This is one of those spiritual
blessings that he's pouring out upon us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We go to this verse a lot, I
think many pastors do, but 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13 and verse 14. It's good to always include that
verse 14 with this well-known scripture. 2 Thessalonians 2
verse 13, where Paul confesses, we're bound. We're constrained
by the Lord, by the love of Christ, to give thanks always to God
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. You know, the apostles
witnessed just how intense the darkness and the bondage of sin
is. Because they preached this gospel
to many, and not all heard and not all believed. And many remained
with a veil of darkness. And so the apostles were made
thankful to those that did hear and that did believe against
persecution and against the assaults of the enemy. It's a very real
thing. And not all believe, not all
have faith, Paul said. All men have not faith. It's
revealed by the grace God and his people and so he's thankful
for those brethren that did believe that testified their beloved
of the Lord because God and this is how he knows it because God
has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit right that's something that the Lord did in his his
secret counsels right from hid from our eyes we didn't know
this at first right but God set apart his people and through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. There
was a revelation, right? That's how we know who are brethren.
They believe, they confess. They confess the Lord, and they
confess Him in believers' baptism, and they confess Him in continuing
and laboring with the brethren, right? Whereunto it says, He
called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I like to read verse
14, is because our God calls His people out of that darkness.
It pleases Him to call His own that we might obtain that glory
and he reveals it in his people by faith, right? And so this
name that he calls us by is not the name Eric or Joe or Ken,
Carl, Melinda, right? It's not, he's not calling by
our name, but as he says in his word, our name is the name we've
been given. the Lord Jesus Christ who's our
righteousness. That's the name that we have. We're married to him. We're betrothed
to our husband Christ. That's the name that he calls
us. And so in those days of Jeremiah,
is it 31? I think 31, 23? No, 33, 16. It says, in those days shall
Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this
is the name wherewith she, his bride, shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. And earlier in Jeremiah, he spoke
of the name that our Savior shall be called, the Lord our righteousness.
And this is the name he gives to his bride, the Lord our righteousness. And so it's not our righteousness,
but his. That's in whom we're called and have these things
revealed to us. So it's not as man sees it, but
it's as the Lord shall call us and identify us. Isaiah 62, verse
two says, and the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all
kings thy glory, and thou shalt be called by a new name, which
the mouth of the Lord shall name. So our Lord gives us our name. He declares us the Lord our righteousness. He's the one who declares us
His people. So these are the terms that uniquely
identify that this is His people and these are people of grace. And so these terms are really
signifying the actions of our God in grace for you. And so He's proclaiming, He's
claiming his people and he's identifying them, marking them
as his own through his special creation, informing them, right,
by the divine nature which he's made us partakers of in redeeming
us by his son, by the blood of Jesus Christ and calling us. And so you that hope in him take
comfort in that, right, because what we are in by nature, we
deserve the last for three or four verses of Isaiah 42, where
the Lord proclaims he's going to destroy the people in anger
and wrath. But here, you that are his people
are marked by his grace. So I'll stop there, and I pray
that the Lord bless those words and comfort your hearts in the
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, brethren, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Lord, that you
Look to your son whom you've sent and provided for all things
for our security for our hope For our establishment in your
kingdom Lord everything necessary you've done in your son Jesus
Christ Lord, we ask that you would settle us in him that you
would root us in love, which is our Savior Jesus Christ now
Lord that From him we would bear fruits of righteousness to the
glory and praise of your name, not for our salvation, but because
we are your people already saved in grace. We pray that you would
help us to know this, that you would turn us and deliver us
from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, and that you
would indeed establish your people here in this dark part of the
country. and that you would call out many in grace for your name
and for your glory. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing a closing
hymn out of your soft hymnal, 109. Hallelujah, God has saved
me, 109. I was lost and did not know it. to my end. But my God is rich
in mercy, would not let me die in sin. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Save me by his sovereign
grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me. I am saved by sovereign grace. Chosen by my Heavenly Father,
and redeemed by Jesus' blood. I am justified, forgiven, and
accepted by my God. Hallelujah. God has saved me. Saved me by his sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me. I am saved by sovereign grace. In time the Spirit called me,
gave me life and set me free. He revealed my blessed Saviour
and created faith in me. Alleluia! God has saved me, saved
me by His sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit recalled
me. I am saved by sovereign grace. God has saved me and will keep
me by the power of His grace. He will guide, guard, and protect
me till I see my Savior's face. Hallelujah, God has saved me,
saved me by His sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me, I am saved by sovereign grace. Thank you. Yeah, there's no light. Hi.