This is running, so that's good.
This is live, too. It'll be a small group of four.
Did I hear the Scots do it in the back? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's seventh day since
presenting, which is a positive, because everybody's around the
fifth day, and they said that it's like ready to go up or down
from there. Oh, okay. Good evening. Let's begin tonight's
worship with number 488, My Redeemer, 488. Okay. I will sing of my Redeemer and
His wondrous love to me. On the cruel cross He suffered
from the curse to set me free. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer. With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. I will tell the wondrous story,
how my lost estate to save. In His boundless love and mercy
He the ransom freely gave. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me, On the cross He sealed my pardon,
He paid the debt and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I'll tell, How the victory He giveth over
sin and death and hell. With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. I will sing of my Redeemer, and
His heavenly love to me. He from death to life hath brought
me, Son of God, with Him to be. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me On the cross He sealed my pardon
Paid the debt and made me free Our second hymn will be number
228. 228, my faith has found a resting place. My faith has found a resting
place, not in device nor creed. I trust the ever-living One. His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that He died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves,
this ends my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
and that He died for me. My heart is leaning on the Word,
the written Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name,
salvation through His blood. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
and that He died for me. My great physician heals the
sick, the lost he came to save. For me his precious blood he
shed, for me his life he gave. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
and that He died for me. I'm going to be reading tonight
out of Psalm 130. Psalm 130, A Song of Degrees. Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou,
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I
wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait. And in his
word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than
they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Lord, we come before you. We
ask for your blessing tonight. We ask that you'd give us your
Spirit in speaking and in listening. We pray that you'd grow us in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and in love for one another. We ask that you'd be with Scott
and Johnny. We ask that you'd restore them
back to health and strength, that you'd comfort them. We ask
this with the forgiveness of all our sins in Christ's name.
Amen. Good evening, brethren. All right,
we're gonna be in Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42, verse one is our text
this evening. So I'll read it because we're
gonna look at each phrase. So it's good for us to see it
just together, right together there. So Isaiah 42, verse one,
behold, my servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." Now, in our
last message, we looked at true salvation, which is the work
of our God and his son, Jesus Christ. It's the work that our
God has done to save his people apart from their works, apart
from their participation, apart from their hand having to be
put to that work. But in sovereign grace and mercy,
our Lord has saved his people. And this stands, this salvation
of God stands opposed to what man thinks, what man believes,
what man teaches and says is salvation or what man looks to
in hope and in his trust and confidence to save him or to
earn him favor with God. One declares the merit of another. the Lord Jesus Christ, the one
whom God sent to save his people, the other declares the merit
of each man and woman themselves to earn favor with God, so that
by his good works that he does, God is pleased to save him. One
is true, and the other one is a lie, a condemning, a soul-condemning
lie that will that will necessitate that sinner going to hell and
being punished with the wrath of God for their sins. Now, what
the Lord showed us is that No man among us that's born of Adam,
that's born of Adam's seed is able to work the salvation for
himself. The reason why no man born of
Adam's seed can save him is because Adam sinned. Adam became corrupt. and all his seed was in him so
that when Adam gives his seed and that a child is born from
Adam's seed, we inherit that corrupt nature. We inherit that
spiritually dead nature from Adam. And so, none of us are
able to work righteousness for ourselves. The Lord said back
in Isaiah 41 verse 28, He said, for I beheld And there was no man, even among
them, and there was no counselor, that when I asked of them could
answer a word." And what the Lord is showing us is that if
it wasn't for God's grace and mercy, if it wasn't for Him giving
faith and revealing faith in the sinner, there's not a single
one of us that would be saved. There's not a single one of us
that would have any standing with God, any fellowship with
God, any knowledge, any saving knowledge or understanding of
the true and living God. He says in verse 29, he shows
us that we left to ourselves continue in idolatry. He said,
behold, they are all vanity. Their works are nothing. Their molten images are wind
and confusion. And so the sum of it all, what
the Lord was showing us is that with us, in ourselves, death
resides there. We reside in death. We continue
in death and separation from God. And so man is seen to trust
in everything outside of God, everything apart from God, everything
that he can do. Man continues in that trust until
the Lord delivers him and saves him from that grave, from that
death. So in tonight's text, our Lord
begins to reveal to us, to unveil to us his salvation. He showed us in the previous
chapter, especially continually, the idolatry of man, that which
man trusts in, hopes in, and now he says, I'm going to reveal
to you my salvation. I'm revealing to you my son,
my servant, the one whom I sent to save my people. And so I've
titled this message, The Delight of God. The Delight of God, because
we see who God's delight is. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ
himself. And tonight we're just going
to look at verse one, which reveals to us the servant of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, so Our text begins,
verse one, with a word, a word that's becoming increasingly
familiar to us as we go through Isaiah, and that word is behold,
behold. And this time, the Lord says,
behold my servant. Look at my servant, he says. And so, what we have is the Lord's
continually taking our focus and our attention, the things
that we look at and see, and he's setting our focus on his
salvation that he's provided. You see how merciful our God
is? How kind he is to keep turning us to the salvation that he's
provided for his people. And as we've been seeing in this
part of Isaiah, actually throughout all of Isaiah and all of the
scriptures, we see that our God is continually, faithfully stripping
us of the vain confidences of man, the things that man trusts
in, which means even we, who now hope in God, are born of
that same corrupt seed by Adam, by our first birth, we have to
be strict of those same vain confidences, those same stumbling
blocks, those same sins that every other man and woman trusts
in. except God have mercy on us. And so he's the one that's
gotta strip us of these things. And then he turns us from those
false ways, from those lying ways, from those ways of vanity
and death, he turns us from that to look, to behold him who is
our very salvation. For example, we see this pattern,
look back in Isaiah 40, Isaiah 40 verse 7. Here's an example
of the stripping that he does continually. He said, The grass
withereth, the flower faded, because the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. And so he's comparing our flesh
to that of the grass out in your yard or that of a flower out
in a garden somewhere. He's comparing this flesh to
those same things and like the wind and the heat of the sun
and and the absence of refreshing rain, that grass and flower withers
and fades and dies, he says that's your flesh. And so is all that
you hope in, all that you glory in in the flesh is all withering
and fading away. And it's so because the spirit
blows upon it. The spirit strips down and breaks
down that which man glories in. And so the Lord there is faithfully,
to you that are given an ear to hear it, the Lord's faithfully
turning your eyes away from that which man commonly trusts in,
which the flesh trusts in and looks to. And he's making it
known to us that it's because we can't save ourselves. Stop
looking to those things because we can't turn this around. We
can't, through our religion and our good works, save ourselves
and earn favor with God. We can't merit His favor and
His salvation. Now look down in Isaiah 40 verses
9 and 10. He says, O Zion, that bringest
good tidings. Preaching the gospel, get thee
up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up, be not
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
or to the churches, behold your God. You see that? He strips
us down and says, look. Behold your God. Verse 10 now. Behold the Lord God will come
with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him. Behold his
reward is with him and his work before him. So we see that pattern
there continually throughout the book of Isaiah and throughout
the scriptures. The Lord strips us of the vain
confidences in the flesh and turns us to him who is all our
salvation, all that we need. All right, then again in chapter
41. Look at chapter 41, verse 21. He tells the people, produce
your cause. Bring forth your cause. What
are you boasting in? What are you hoping in? Bring
it forth. And he does this because through
it he exposes that what they're trusting in are vain, dead idols. And he says things like in verse
24, he says, behold, ye are of nothing. And in verse 29, he
says, behold, they are all vanity. All right. And so It's all with
the intent to point us away from self, to stop looking to those
things that we're naturally drawn to, the things that we naturally
think is our strength, that's naturally our comfort and hope
and that which keeps us and makes our standing with God more sure
and firm. He says, no, don't look there.
That's not your salvation. Look to me, to my salvation. Look to the one who does the
saving of his people, all right? And so what the picture is, we
see Christ, we see Christ just like an ox is sent out into the
field, all right, to plow that field and to break up the fallow
ground before the planting, all right, to break up the hardened
ground, the hardened soil that can't be planted, that ox goes
forth like a servant and plows that ground up and breaks up
the fallow ground, which is a picture of man's hard heart that can't
receive the seed, that isn't prepared for the Word, but being
plowed up, being stripped down, being broken down to see, wait
a minute, wait a minute, I can't do this, I can't save myself.
Now that ground is being prepared and that soil being enriched
and made ready to hear the Word of God. and to desire that Word
of God, to be thirsty for that Word of God so that we now hear
of the rich labor, the rich work, the effectual salvation of our
Lord and Savior, and in Him we reap those spiritual fruits.
He plants the seed and he brings forth that fruit, watering it
with the word, giving us the warmth and the light of his son
Jesus Christ, and he blesses that word and brings forth a
bountiful yield to his praise and glory, so that we're made
to glory in him. Now, this is all done by the
Revelation God. I mean by the revelation of God
to our hearts and to our souls to see Christ and to hear his
promises to us in Christ. He said in verse 27 of Isaiah
41, he said, I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. And so we come to find that it's
Christ who is the one that brings to us good tidings. He's the
one that preaches this gospel word to us, not even me. I mean, I'm here as a vessel
carrying this precious treasure to you, but it's Christ that
preaches the word. It's the faithfulness of Christ
that strips you, that breaks down that confidence in self
and that self-righteousness which is so natural and prevalent in
us. And he's the one that makes us
ready and able to hear it and to receive it, and he's the one
that brings forth the fruit. Okay, and so the Lord says to
us in verse one, behold my servant. Now, he calls him his servant,
and if you think about how our Savior came, when he came to
this earth in the flesh. Now he came as a man, right,
but just know he wasn't born of Adam's corrupt seed. He was
born, he was conceived in Mary's womb of the Holy Ghost. So that's
why He doesn't have the same sinful nature that we do. He
is the very Son of God. He is fully God, as though He
were not man, and fully man, as though He were not God. And so He comes as a man, but
He didn't come as you would think, right? He's the king of the universe,
the king of kings, the lord of lords, but he didn't come the
way a king would come with great pomp. He didn't come as the greatest
man ever, ever to be born on the face of this earth, though
he is. He didn't come as even a great man. but he came lowly
and weak, so low that his mother, we read, wrapped him in swaddling
clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for
him in the inn. God purposed that in his providence
he should come lowly and without great fanfare, without any knowledge
by the great men and women of this earth. And All he was revealed
to were to those lowly shepherds. At least the night of his birth,
it was revealed to men who were shepherds, keeping watch over
their flocks by night. And by tradition in many cultures
in other countries, those men are considered the worst of the
worst, the lowliest of the lowly, a class that's at the very bottom.
Like the Egyptians thought those that kept sheep were of a lowly
breed, and yet here these men, who are lowly, they had revealed
to them the glory of Christ coming, and so they came and worshipped
him. Right now, in himself, he's perfect
humanity, and he shows us, right, he shows us what perfect humanity
is. And it's not what we are shown
today in our culture or throughout all the cultures of man, but
he shows us that perfect humanity says, not my will, Lord, not
my will be done, but thy will be done. And he did the will
of his father perfectly. And that's perfect humanity.
And so Christ came as a servant, not in strength but weakness,
and he did it to work salvation in the earth for the deliverance
of the people of God, for those chosen elect people of God. And he delivered us from the
wrath of God. And what he did, he delivered
us from the wrath of God. So Christ is called a servant
because he served his elect people. He made them righteous and holy
in himself. The work he did is what makes
us righteous and holy, and he brings forth righteous fruit
in us so that we confess our God. We're obedient to our God. We're not disobedient anymore,
but we're made obedient to the word of our God in calling us.
All right, and so he's called a servant because he served God,
his father, in the covenant of grace. He did that which the
father sent him to do, not seeking out to do his own will, not seeking
stardom or fame or to be a ruler over men. He came willingly to
do the will of the father. Philippians 2, verse seven and
eight. tells us that Christ made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. And the Lord is constantly reminding
us of the cross, that that was our death. That's what we earned. That's what our works of righteousness
earned us, was death, eternal death, eternally separated from
our God. And so, our God shows us and
points us to the cross because there is where our Savior, bearing
our sin, bore the wrath of God in our stead. And in our place,
He took our place and He took the punishment of God to put
it away and to deliver us from the coming wrath of our God. And so that in Him we have no
more sin, we have no more no more, there is no judgment
coming for us. Our Lord has delivered us from
that. And so the Lord said of him,
whom I uphold, in our text he said whom I uphold, meaning that
our God upheld his man, he upheld his Christ, and the Christ the
Lord Jesus Christ trusted the Father. He didn't trust himself,
he committed his way, he committed all his care to the Father, and
trusted that the Father himself would provide for him. And so,
even we who are called to trust the Father, even we who are called
to believe him, we see that even our Lord and Savior trusted the
Father. He did that first for us. And
so what we're called to, to trust Him, know that your Savior, your
God, your Creator, yielded Himself in all things to the Father.
And so we're not asked to do anything that He Himself hasn't
done. When we think about the things
that we want or to have our own way, remember that Christ himself
laid aside that glory to do what he will and and did that which
the Father alone sent him to do. All right, then our God calls
him mine elect, mine elect, and that reveals to us, that shows
us that God chose him as first. That was the first whom God chose. And then he chose us in Christ
and committed us to Christ our Lord and our Savior. And so he
chose him to do this very work of salvation, to do that which
was impossible for us to do. 1 Peter 1, look there, 1 Peter
1 verse 20 and verse 21. He says there in 1 Peter 1.20,
of Christ we read here that he verily was foreordained, he was
elected, he was before chosen, before the foundation of the
world, elected by God, but was manifest in these last times
for you, who by him, that is by his power, do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead. and gave him glory, and here's
why, that your faith and hope might be in God." Don't miss that. What the Lord
is reminding us there is, again, we naturally hope in self. We naturally hope in something
we've done or not done. We hear it all the time. from
people. I did my good work for the day
or I'm going to hell for that or you know they say usually
in a joking manner or that'll get me into heaven or something
like that. They're always looking at something they do or don't
do, and they're judging it. They're pronouncing some judgment
on it because they have a sense or an understanding that they're
not righteous with God. They have a God before whom they're
going to stand one day, and our Lord reveals his Son and glorifies
his Son and exalts his Son before us in declaring to us the cross
the gospel of the cross, to know that it's in Christ dying in
our room instead, that we are saved and delivered from the
wrath of God, that our faith and hope would not be in self,
but in the salvation that he's provided in his son, Jesus Christ,
his humble servant, Jesus Christ, who came in weakness and yet
accomplished the salvation of every child of God. And so Christ
was elected of God and that's even with an eye toward the elect
children of God, that we should be conformed to him. He elected Christ with an eye
towards us that we should be conformed to the one whom God
chose, the one whom God loves and delights in. Romans 8 29
says, for whom he did foreknow, that's speaking of us whom he
loved before we ever were created, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son, that Christ might be the
firstborn among many brethren. All right, and so If that is
the case, and it is the case with Christ, of our God concerning
his son, then it's rather enlightening to us that of Christ he says
that he's the one in whom his soul delights. We're to hear, he's saying to
us, this is the one whom I delight in. Even when When we're made
most tender and we're brought low in self and we want to serve
our God, we want to do that which is pleasing to Him, we hear those
words, this is the one, my Son is the one in whom my soul delights. He's the one in whom I delight.
And so we see how greatly the Father loves the Son. He loves the Son. He cannot refuse
the Son. Heaven must receive the Son.
And so it declares to us like a great beam of light on that
one. Get to him, lead to him, look
to him and trust him and him alone. He's my salvation and
the one in whom I receive all my people. All right, and so
the father delights in Christ, and his eyes are fixed upon him,
and his soul delights in the son. We read in John 3, 335,
the father loveth the son, and hath given all things into his
hand. And this is the one whom the
voice of the father said, this is my beloved son, in whom I
am well pleased. And so it should be a testimony
to us. We should be moved by the testimony
of God to see, wait a minute, this is the one whom he delights
in. This is the one whom he loves. He rejoices in Him. Ought not
I to rejoice in Him the way He rejoices in Him? And in fact,
when we rejoice in Him, when we see, Lord, I've got nothing.
I see that in me are no good works and that it's not my works
that you're looking to. It's not my thoughts that you're
looking to or my heart that you're looking to or believing in. You're
looking to your Son. And when we are made to look
to the Son, And when we are made to rejoice in Him, it's a testimony
of grace to us that God has done that for you. And it's a revelation
that He loves you. You that love the Son are loved
of God. And I mean that as we love Him
because we are loved of God, right? He did that work in us
because of His love for us and putting our focus and attention
and hope and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a sign of
His grace and mercy toward us. Otherwise, we'd still be hoping
in the things of idolatry. the things that man trusts in. And our boast would be in what
we've done. I read a few chapters today and every day for the last
three months. Wow, yeah, that's good, that's good. No, that's
not our hope. That is good. We should be doing
that. We should be reading and seeking the Lord and desires
to know him. But the hope is in Christ. and every fruit he bears we give
him thanks for it and we rejoice in his spirit that causes us
and leads us to seek him, leads us to love him, causes us to
hunger and thirst for him, causes us to see that in myself is no
good thing but thanks be to God for his son Jesus Christ who
is my hope and my righteousness and my joy and my salvation. And so You know, we ask, could
we ever love Christ too much? Could we ever speak of Him too
much? Do we ever speak of Him enough?
The reality is, no, we really don't. We say no, but even in religion,
we said no because religion loves religion. Religion loves to delight
in religion because it's tangible, and religion loves religion more
than it loves Christ. It was religion that crucified
our Savior. It was in the name of religion.
It was to preserve religion. It was to continue in our religion
that we crucified Christ. And so religion is what crucified
Christ. And often it's religion that
is at the heart and center of the persecution of the one who
does hope and trust in Christ and believes him. All right,
so by declaring his soul the light's in the Son. The Father's telling us that
our delight is to be in Him as well. And that that's where He
meets with us. He accepts us in His Son, Christ. Alright, next the Lord tells
us, I've put my spirit upon Him. I've put my spirit upon Him. And what the Lord's saying to
us is, everything you need, All my wisdom, everything you need
is found right there in my Son. I've given Him my Spirit without
measure. We're told that in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and that Christ, who
is of God, is made unto us wisdom. made unto us wisdom and he tells
us that to direct our hearts to look to him who is our wisdom
and who is our hope and a fellowship with the Father. Look over at
Isaiah 11, Isaiah 11 verse 2. He says, in the spirit of the
Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding
the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the Lord. And so the Lord's telling us
this. He's showing it to us repeatedly
throughout the word because in religion we always settle back
to self. All right, religion always settles
back to self. Even in those times when in religion
we heard a sweet message concerning Christ and our hearts were delighted
to hear it, always right away religion went back to preaching
works and to preaching what you need to do to save yourself or
to keep yourself saved, to make yourself holy, to sanctify yourself
to the Lord. And so what you heard of Christ
was overtaken again then very quickly with what you need to
be doing, what you need to stop doing. And that's because that's
what man does. He goes right back to what he
knows. and he doesn't stay long in what
he doesn't know. He can't stay there. Now Isaiah
61 verse 1. Christ said of himself, the spirit of the Lord God is
upon me. because the Lord hath anointed
me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." And
so we preach Christ because he's the one that delivers you from
the prison. He's the one in whom your hope
is to be fixed. religion doesn't open the prison
door. If we get good at practicing certain religious things, with
our hymn singing, and when we observe the Lord's table, and
what we decide we should be doing or not doing, if we get good
at those things, religion doesn't open the prison door. Christ,
preaching Christ, and him being pleased to attend that word and
bring it home with power is what opens the prison door. He's the
one that delivers his people and sets them free. He's the
one that said to the people, this day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. But hearing Christ's voice, hearing
Christ's voice by faith is something that religion can never do. It
can do a lot of things. It can whitewash the outside
and make us appear to be good and accepted in the sight of
other men. But it cannot make a guilty conscience
clean. It cannot deliver us of the condemnation
of our sin. It cannot set us free. It can't
establish fellowship with God. It can't make us to love God.
And it can't make us to do anything that's pleasing or acceptable
with God. But Christ can, and Christ does. And so it's by Him and His voice
teaching us that we hear the Father and believe Him. Now in
Isaiah 6, back in Isaiah 6 verses 9 and 10, the Lord's speaking
to Isaiah who's standing before God. He sees him in a vision.
mighty God sitting on the throne, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose
train filled the whole room. And the angels are glorifying
him, and he sees what he is in himself. And the Lord said to
Isaiah, go and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but understand
not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people
fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Now we know that
this word spoke of the Israelites, right? The Jewish people as a
nation, Christ came to them. They heard him speak, but they
never heard him speak with faith. The spirit didn't attend it. And so they rejected him as their
Messiah. They didn't believe him. They
were disobedient to God who sent the Messiah for their very salvation. And... This was the occasion,
though, of the gospel flowing out to the Gentiles. And this
is what the Lord confirms concerning His Christ back in our text where
it says in Isaiah 42 at the very end of verse 1, He shall bring
forth judgment to the Gentiles. And so the Lord blessed the Gentiles
richly in Christ. He blessed us richly in Christ,
with grace in Christ. when we heard this law, this
word, right? When the Lord blessed that word
to come out to the Gentiles, the Gentiles heard that word
that the law has been put away, that God hasn't saved us to go
back to the law that the Jews were under, that Israel was under.
He didn't call us to go back and put our necks underneath
that binding yoke of the law to work righteousness under the
yoke of religion. We heard it, the Gentiles heard
it in the glory of the freedom that our God has given us in
Christ, the liberty that we have in Christ to not be bound with
laws and rules and various regulations that constrict the flesh just
for the sake of constricting the flesh. We don't look to do
those things that we know are sinful or rebellious against
our God or to hurt our brethren. That's not what we want to do,
but that's not our focus. It's not in looking to those
things that man invents and says, well, now that's a bad thing.
Don't ever do anything that's fun. Don't crack a smile. and
don't have a good time because that's sinful. And there's people
that would make you believe that because you have a nice time
in fellowship with your brethren and rejoice in one another's
company and enjoy being with one another, that that somehow
is an evil thing. Now, not everybody does that,
but there are some. And that's just one aspect of
the way that people make up binding things of religion, but the Gentiles
heard that the law has no more bearing upon us. Paul would say
to the Galatians 2.19 he said, for I through the law am dead
to the law that I might live unto God. I'm crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. and the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. And that's true of any law that
we invent in religion, thinking that this is what saves us. Our
faith and hope is to be in God, and not in the rules and regulations
we create for ourselves. All right, but the nation of
Israel, they stumbled over Christ, believing that the law was their
righteousness. We see in Romans 9, 31 through
33, But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because
they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it were,
and behold, I lay in Zion the stumbling stone and rock of offense,
and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now, I
read that because the Gentile nations that were so blessed
to hear this glorious good news, to hear of the servant of God,
the one who worked salvation for us, We see throughout the
ages, even to our day, how they've become smitten, taken up, infatuated,
and made to fall in love with the law and to trust in the works
of the law and to become infatuated with religion and doing those
things and trusting those works that they do. And so they teach
that those things, these works in religion, are our righteousness. And we, just like the Jews, stumble
over the stumbling stone, which is Christ, in whom we have the
promise of God, that all who trust in him shall not be ashamed. We shall stand in that day fully
accepted of our God, being cleansed of our sin in Christ. And so,
in turning from Christ, the salvation of God, men are looking back
again at their works, looking at their dead vain idols, trusting
in those things. And so we declare this word as
our God declared to us. Behold, look to my servant. Stop trusting in those works
of religion and the flesh. Trust, that's just rebellion.
That's idolatry, that's witchcraft and rebellion against God. Look
to the one whom the Father delights in, the Lord Jesus Christ, and
you shall not be ashamed in doing so. I close with verse one again. Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. Look to him, brethren, and let
your soul delight in him even as the Father delights in Him.
Amen. All right, brethren, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank You for Your grace in revealing Your Son, Jesus Christ, to us. O Lord, help us to hear Him.
Help us to look to Him alone and to no other. Father, we think
of our brethren this evening. We think of those that are sick
and those that are in quarantine. And Lord, our heart breaks with
concern for them. And Father, would you please
be merciful? Lord, we ask that you would be
gracious to heal them. Lord, we ask that you would heal
their lungs and their throats. Lord, give them peace and rest
in you. Father, we pray that you would
give their doctors wisdom and that they would indeed recover
from this illness. Lord, we ask this in the name
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We ask that you would
indeed recover them, that our hearts be not broken, and that
you would prevent this sickness from spreading to any other who
may have been exposed, that it would not travel through our
families or our brethren here, Lord, but that you would stop
it and that you would prevent it from going any further. And
Lord, that you would bless this word here in this community,
that you would cause others to hear it and to come. Father,
that you If it please you that you would establish us here in
this city, in this town, and that you would grow this fellowship
here under the word and that you would cause the people here
to rejoice in Christ who is your salvation. It's in his name we
pray and give thanks. Amen. For closing, hymn will be number
186, 186, The Church's One Foundation. The Church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is His new creation by water
and the Word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought
her, and for her life he died. Elect from every nation, yet
one o'er all the earth, Her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith,
one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes
one holy food. And to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued. Mid toil and tribulation and
tumult of her war, He leads her in the consummation of peace
forevermore. Till with a vision glorious,
her longing eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest. Yet she on earth hath union with
God the three in one, and mystics we communion with those whose
rest is one. O happy ones and holy, Lord give
us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, on high may
dwell with Thee.