I will go live at 7.15. There's
probably a little delay on that on Facebook too. Okay. Alright. We're going to
begin and Our text is in Isaiah 41, but
I'm going to read from Psalm 121. Psalm 121. I think this goes well with our message tonight
regarding the believer's help from the Lord. Psalm 121 reads, mine eyes unto the hills. From
whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper, The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for the mercy and grace
and kindness, the help that you show to your people, all thanks
to your Son, Jesus Christ, who accomplished our salvation, and
in whom you've wrought all our works and all our blessings. And Lord, we look to you, knowing
that it's of your hand, of your grace and will, might and power,
that we have these things and know our God, and know of our
God, and see and believe what you are doing among us. Lord,
we have no one to thank but you. And Father, we ask that you would
continue this work among us. We ask, Lord, that you would
bless us this hour as we seek you in your word, as we study
your word and to know our God. Lord, lead us and teach us, guide
us, be our great help, Lord, for without you we can do nothing
and we know nothing. But Lord, by your will and power,
by the gift of Your Son and of Your Spirit. Lord, we know You
and have spiritual life and fellowship with our God in the light. And Lord, we thank You for this.
Father, we pray for our brethren. Lord, that You would help us,
that You would keep this body and make us strong in our Savior. Lord, that You would be merciful
in knitting our hearts together, gathering us around Your Word,
giving us a heart and a will to see Your Kingdom be established
in this part of the country. Lord, that Your Name would be
exalted among Your people. and that you would be pleased
to call out your sheep from darkness into light. Lord, we believe
that your hand, that you are in this work, and we ask that
you would make yourself known and continue to make it clear
to your people here, Lord, that you are blessing the work and
blessing your people. And Lord, that you are adding
to the church daily such as should be saved. And we thank you for
that. Help us, Lord, to be faithful.
Lord, we pray for our brethren that are sick, that are not feeling
well, or not well for the various reasons that we do get ill, or
anxious, or worried, or fear, Lord. We ask that you would bless
your people now. that they would feel your presence,
your kindness and comfort, your peace and the joy of your Son,
Jesus Christ, that you would fill our hearts and dwell in
our hearts by faith, Lord, and that we would know you and grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, please give us
wisdom help us in our affairs as we look for a building, a
place to meet, Lord, that you would, that you would soften the heart
of some owner of a building, of a place, in a location where
you would have us, Lord, and that they would be kind toward
us, and that we would be able to meet in a public place, and
that you would be pleased to gather your people in to make
it known that this is where you would have us, and the place
where you bring us. Lord, we ask that you bless your
word tonight, that you would help me to preach it faithfully,
to exalt our Savior, our Lord, our God. And Lord, that you would
bless your people, open their hearts and ears to hear it, to
receive your word, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to
believe you, Lord, unto salvation. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray these things. Amen. All right, brethren, we're gonna
be in Isaiah chapter 41. In Isaiah 41, and tonight, I
wanna look at verses 10 through 14 with you. Isaiah 41, verses
10 through 14. Now, the Lord in our text, he's
speaking to his people. This is the Bride
of Christ. This is his beloved people that
he loves. This is the remnant seed whom
he's gathered to himself in the person and work of his Son, Jesus
Christ. This is a peculiar, special people
that he's speaking to. We see here in this text that
He is the God, He's the one who has brought forth Christ, our
righteousness. Our hands didn't win this for
ourselves, we didn't earn this life and light and favor of God
by anything we have done, but He, our God, has done this for
us in His Son, Jesus Christ. completely in grace, all according
to his good pleasure, as he's purposed to reveal himself to
us. And he does this in his son,
Jesus Christ. We saw this in Isaiah 41 verse nine. Isaiah
41 verse nine says, Thou speaking to Christ, Thou
whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called thee
from the chief men thereof and said unto thee, Thou art my servant. I have chosen thee and not cast
thee away." So what our God is declaring to us is that He has
prepared and everything necessary for our salvation, for our life
in Him, our eternal life, our spiritual life, our knowledge
of Him, it's all been prepared for us in His Son, Jesus Christ,
so that it's in the Lord Jesus Christ that we're blessed, that
we know these things, that we have this knowledge of our God.
And he promises us in Christ to be with us on the whole journey
through the way till we come into his kingdom and are with
him in his presence forevermore. I've titled this Fear Not, Fear
Not. And first half we'll spend our
time looking at verse 10. And we'll see a view of our God
who's speaking to us in his son, Jesus Christ. And then we'll
look at the rest of the verses, seeing how that we are delivered
from evil. the evil that's all around us,
even in our own flesh. Okay, so first, a view of our
God. Now, our God, as we know, as we've been going through these
chapters, our God is declaring to us that our salvation is in
his son, Jesus Christ. That's where we always begin.
That's where we always do well to be reminded. Because this
world, what do they do? They speak of Christ in a token
manner, right? They give a nod to him for what
he's reported to have done for us, but then the spotlight of
religion goes right on you, right? And stays right on you of what
you need to be doing now for God, what you should be doing
more of, what you should stop doing, how to gain the favor
and the blessings of God by your works. and we're not to be foolish
and we're not to use this salvation, this righteousness which has
been earned for us by Jesus Christ as a cloak for unrighteousness,
but we know that everything that we have of God is of God through
his Son, Jesus Christ, so that it's in Christ first and only
in Christ. He is the one in whom we are
eternally blessed. In Christ we are accepted and
received by the Father. In Christ we are tenderly cared
for and blessed beyond our understanding in all things necessary, good
for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. I go to this passage a lot at
this point, typically Ephesians 1, and if you go there, because
I'm gonna read a few other verses in Ephesians 1, but in Ephesians
1 3, We're told that Paul is telling, the Spirit by Paul is
telling the Ephesian church and us as well, brethren, that our
Heavenly Father hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I have no problem emphasizing
this and reiterating it and repeating it to my brethren, the Lord's
sheep, over and over again so that we don't forget, that we
don't look at the spotlight of man's dead, carnal, vain religion
thinking that it's our work and ourselves that saves us, that
it's by our works of righteousness, all the while forgetting our
desperate, desperate need of the Lord Jesus Christ and His
righteousness, that we're to turn to Him and plead with Him,
Lord, help me, Lord, use me. Help me to labor in your kingdom
with joy and gladness of heart, not to be lazy in your kingdom,
but Lord, I need your help and your power to do this, lest I
think too highly of myself and forget that I'm nothing in your
everything, Lord, and you're my all and my righteousness,
okay? Now, in Ephesians 1.20, look
there, here we see that These spiritual blessings, once again,
are according to God's grace and power. It says, Ephesians
1 20, which he wrought, speaking of these spiritual blessings,
which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and
set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. Look at Ephesians 2 6. Ephesians
2, 6, and he says, hath raised us, the church, the bride of
Christ, raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, so that this, brethren, is a spiritual
salvation which God has accomplished for us, bringing it all to pass
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all done for us in Christ,
in His blessed work, in His sacrifice, in Him laying down His life for
us, brethren, who could not work righteousness for ourselves,
had no thought and absolutely no desire whatsoever to work
with God. We were enmity against God. And so our God reveals this spiritual
salvation, this spiritual work that he has accomplished, and
he reveals it to us in the spiritual birth. He gives us a new birth,
whereby the Spirit of God reveals these blessings, these spiritual
blessings to us, beginning with faith. Faith is a spiritual work,
born in the people of God, by the power of God, of Christ,
our Savior. It's His work, it's His fruit.
We're His seed, and we're born of Christ. It's a spiritual birth. Now Ephesians 3.10 says that
it's to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers
in heavenly places might be known by the church. That's you and
me who believe. might be known by the church
the manifold wisdom of God." So that the Spirit is revealing
to us the manifold wisdom of God in this. And we agree with
him, Lord. you are right, you are wise because
you know what we are in the flesh. All the flesh does is wither
under the Spirit. All the flesh does is it's brought
low because otherwise it's raised up in pride, it's lifted up in
vain, fleshly, carnal imaginations, thinking that we're something
when we're really nothing at all. But instead, in the Spirit,
He reveals what our Savior's done, and He reveals His fruit
and His work in us, which we rejoice in and are glad that
our God should condescend and use sinners like us in His kingdom
as fellow laborers with Him, that He should include us in
such blessings and give us the power by His Spirit unto it. And so our God through this is
showing us that this world is not our inheritance. This is not our inheritance. So that as we look about us and
we see the weakness of things and the frailty of things and
how the things we've grown up with and witnessed in our lives,
how they're all falling apart, our Lord is saying to us, don't
set your heart on these things. These things are passing away.
Don't set your heart on them and don't put your hope and invest
your hope and your peace and your comfort in these things
because you're only going to be dismayed. You're only going
to be dismayed. And so that's what our Lord is
showing us in our text. He's saying so long as your eyes
are set horizontally on this plane about you as you're looking
around and seeing the things that are going on, you're going
to only know trouble. If that's where your heart is
set, you're going to be troubled and have fear and you're going
to seek to preserve those things rather than trusting me that
I'm working my will and doing my good pleasure in the earth. And I'm bringing my people home
to me. I'm gathering my people into
my kingdom. and then I'll return when I'm
ready and pleased to return. But until then, you look to me
and know that I am God and that there's nothing for you to worry
about, whatever the trials are here, all right? So Isaiah 41,
verse 10. He says, fear thou not, for I
am with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will strengthen
thee, yea, I will help thee, Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. So let's break this down. Let's look at this verse. First,
our Lord is saying to us that because we are his people, that
he chose us, that he set his love upon us, and he purposed
to do this for us. Now because he loves us, because
he's revealing his love for us, that we are his remnant and his
chosen seed, the world hates us. The world hates us. Just
like Just like Cain, who recognized and saw that God's love rests
upon Abel. He's pleased with Abel. He delights
in Abel. He receives Abel's work, but
he doesn't receive my work. And he hated Abel for it. Cain hated Abel for it. He can't
touch God, so he touched Abel and he slew his very own brother,
his own brother Abel. And what does that say that the
world will do to you and me? And it doesn't look good in that
sense. And our Lord said in John 15,
19, that if ye were of the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Okay, so our God is saying to
us, take your eyes off this world. This world doesn't love you.
It doesn't welcome you. The only way it will is if you
renounce your hope in me and deny me and go off into the lunacy
that you see all about you and you participate and unite yourself
to that. but we're not to take, how can
we give up our hope in Christ? He's all we know. We know that
there is no life and hope for us outside of Christ. Our Lord
said, he that hateth me, hateth my father. In other words, there
is no other salvation given to men whereby we must be saved. God hasn't given us any other
salvation under heaven. This is it. It's in the Lord
Jesus Christ, because anyone despising Christ, anyone that
would come in their own righteousness, in part or in whole, is not only
hating the Son, but is hating the Father, because it's the
Father's will and purpose that we be saved and that His Son
be glorified in His people. But to you that believe, to you
that do love the Lord and and believe Him, knowing He's my
Savior, He's my salvation, He's my hope. Our Lord says to us
in verse 10, Fear thou not, for I am with thee, be not dismayed. And we know what that's like. We're surrounded by various propaganda
through the news or through various sources. We hear propaganda,
we hear news. It's hard to know what to believe
but you're seeing many things, many videos and what people are
doing and looting and they play on our fears, right? They like
to stir us up and cause great concern so that We have concerns
about what's going on and the government and why their policies
are the way that they are, and a lot of it doesn't seem to make
any real sense, but it causes anxiety, right? That's being
dismayed. When you're looking at those
things and you're just believing or taking or reacting even emotionally
to what you're seeing, And if you're getting fearful when you
see those things, just remember, because a lot of it is playing
on a race card, if you will. Whether it's racism against whites,
or racism against blacks, or any other race, it's all stirring
that up and keeping that division going. And for you that hope
in Christ and believe Christ, Before you get caught up in that
and we speak foolishly about another person because of the
color of their skin, remember that our Savior gave his life
for all his people, no matter the race or their color of their
skin, male or female, educated, uneducated, it doesn't matter. what your background is, or how
good you think you are, or how special you think you are. We're
all sinners, and we all came from one blood, from Adam. And out of that blood, we were
born of the blood of Christ. And he gave his life willingly
for all his people of every people, tongue, kindred, and nation,
right? And so remember that, and you
know people of every race, and you know that there's people
that you're happy to be around and people that you don't want
to be around, even in your own family. So we know that you can't
look and judge a person by the color of their skin, but remember
no matter how angry or upset you get or dismayed you get,
remember Christ has a people among every nation. We're not
to forget that because then we may be sinning against the brother
and we don't want to do that. We don't want to be part of that
at all. All right. So our Lord says to us, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. And I like what he said, to the
brethren in Luke 12, 32, he said, fear not, little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Believe him, it's the father's
good pleasure, right? So whenever you're dismayed,
know that it's our father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom,
to bring you into the kingdom, to establish the kingdom of Christ
in your heart, by faith so that even now we rejoice and thank
our God for the unspeakable gift that he's revealed to us in his
son Jesus Christ already while we await his return. Now he tells
us, for I am thy God. I'm thy God. And we know that
there's one God and he created all peoples, all peoples. But
when the Lord says to us, I am thy God, he's speaking of his
redemption, his work of redemption. He's speaking of the salvation
that he has for you that are his people, that believe him
by his grace and power. He's speaking to his elect children
who know him, right? And he's revealing those who
are his elect people by faith. That's how he reveals it. They
hear the gospel, and the Lord reveals faith in their hearts,
whereby they look to the Savior that God has revealed, Jesus
Christ, and believe in him, and hope in him, and trust in him. This is what Peter was saying
in 2 Peter 3, 9, He said, the Lord's not slack concerning His
promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward,
His peculiar people that He loves, to usward, not willing that any
of us should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance. All right, we carry that us through
the passage. We don't forget that he's speaking
to us, the church, those for whom Christ gave his life, which
is revealed in the faith that God gives to his chosen elect
children and calling them out of darkness. And so he's saying
to us, like we saw back in Isaiah 40 verse nine, when he said to
us, behold your God. Behold your God. Remember that
He is God and He's revealing these things to us, preparing
us, equipping us with the knowledge that our God loves us and has
promised to save us. He's promised us the kingdom
in His Son. He's promised us eternal life
in His Son. And he's revealing that to us
through these words. He's saying, behold your God. And so that he himself is the
very cause of our believing. He himself is the cause of our
rejoicing and trusting in him. We are weak, but then he says
in Isaiah 41 verse 10, he says, I will strengthen thee. you that are weak in yourselves,
you that I've revealed and you believe it, that you know you're
weak in yourselves, that your faith is not sufficient to save
you, but God himself strengthens you. God himself keeps you and
reveals himself to you. All right, turn to Psalm 27.
You can see these truths revealed to us over and over again in
the Psalms, And he says in Psalm 27, verse one, right, when we
open the service with Psalm 121, but here's another one, Psalm
27, and the psalmist here records how the Lord helps us. He said,
verse one, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall
I fear? The Lord is the strength of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When
the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to
eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should
encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise
against me, in this will I be confident. In the Lord who promises
to us that I will help thee, I'll be your strength and I will
help thee. And the way we're helped continually,
he strengthens us in the new man as we hear this gospel. It's not going off to work and
making a good living that we are directed to trust him. It's not the strength and skill
of our hands or our minds, right? We're thankful for what our God
has given us and how he's enabled us to have these things and to
work and to labor and be productive, right? It's a natural thing in
us where we like to be productive and create things, but our help,
our strength in these things is in the inner man, which our
God strengthens through the preaching of the gospel. where we are reminded
again of what our Savior Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. That's where we hear of our glorious
Lord and our Savior, our God who helps us, who loves us and
keeps us. and is doing everything necessary.
That's where we're brought back again to hear what we have need
of hearing. Now, Hebrews 13, verse five and
six, Paul says, let your conversation, right, let your walk, let the
things that you do, the things that you say in this world, let
your conversation be without covetousness. In other words,
we're going to forego many things in this life because of our hope
in our Savior. Knowing that this is in our inheritance,
we're going to forego some things in this life, some things that
others will have no problem partaking in, and we'll give those things
up, and we won't partake in those things because our God says don't
do those things. Or we see how he's prevented
us from profiting in certain areas or going off in certain
directions. He keeps us and he directs our
steps and he disposes the lot into the lap of his people. And so we're to be content with
such things as you have, Paul says. for he hath said to us
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say
the Lord is my helper he's my help and I will not fear what
man shall do unto me right so we're going the Lord's going
to see to it through the trials which he is pleased to bring
upon us, we're going to have to depend upon the Lord's word
to us. He's going to see to it, we're
going to, there's gonna come a day which we will be made to
depend upon him, to believe him, to take him at his word and he'll
even shut us up so that there is no other choice or option
but to believe and hope in him because there won't be anything
that we can do. But we'll see the power and the glory of the
Lord displayed before us. So don't be afraid, brethren,
don't be turned from your hope in the Lord. He says to us further,
he says, I will uphold thee, at the end of Isaiah 41 verse
10, at the very end there, he says, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. The right hand of the Lord, who
is the hope of our righteousness. Well, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. We hear in Hebrews 1 3 at the
end of it, he speaks of Christ who is even now upholding all
things by the word of his power when he had by himself, apart
from our works, apart from our strength, apart from our wisdom,
apart from our doing any things when Christ by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high."
So there we see in the whole of that verse that it's Christ
who is our salvation, it's Christ who is our righteousness, it's
by him that we are received of the Father and our Lord is seated
now in the seat of power and authority implementing and executing
the will of our God and Father. And so our Lord is, our God is
declaring to us His glory, and He's calling us who believe Him
to trust Him, to trust Him, to take Him at His word and to call
upon Him. And as you see the troubles coming
upon you, as you are overwhelmed and dismayed with the things
that trouble you and overwhelm your heart, In your eyes, even
now, he's saying, call upon me, and I'll strengthen you, I'll
help you, I'll give you aid, I'll keep you, I'll keep you. He's bringing you through the
things that are troubling you now, all for the purpose that
you would learn of him by believing him. Just trust him, that's what
he's calling us to do, to call upon him, to pray to him. All right, as you're going to
work, if work's overwhelming, as you're driving to work in
the morning, pray to him. Take some time and pray to him
and breathe out your prayers of anxiety and dismay to him
because he cares for you. He says, cast your care upon
the Lord because he careth for you, all right? And so he's not
necessarily keeping us from experiencing the fact that we have enemies. We often see our enemies, right? We're reminded through that how
insufficient we are in ourselves to defend against our enemies
and that we're too weak for them and but our God isn't. He's stronger
than they are. He's not only stronger than us,
but he's stronger than our enemies, and he promises to deliver us
from their evil, wicked desires upon us, all right? And that's
what we come to in our next portion here, where we see that he delivers
us from evil. Now he says in Isaiah 41 verse
11 and 12, Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall
be ashamed and confounded. They shall be as nothing, and
they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them
and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee.
They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing
of naught. So the Lord's saying, we will
face evil people, they'll come into our lives, those enemies
of ours, and they would seek to hurt and harm us. Yea, and all that will live godly
in this present life, they shall suffer persecution. If you live
godly in Christ, you're gonna suffer persecution, because there's
many enemies of the Lord, and if you love the Lord, you're
their enemy. But the Lord says to us, those people of strife,
those people of contention, those men of war, these shall all perish,
they'll be hidden away, and they're going to come to nothing. And
the hope and the expectation that they had upon you will all
come to naught, to nothing. It'll die and perish with them. We that are faithful to God,
made faithful by his grace and power, and suffer for believing
and following him, he says to us about our enemies in Mark
6 11, this is appropriate to us as well, he said, whosoever
shall not receive you nor hear you, when ye depart from there,
shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against
them. He says, verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that
city and for that enemy. For those that would oppose you
because of your hope in Christ, God will bring them to nothing
and it'll be a horrible day of judgment for them in that day.
All right, now the Lord reminds us of our confidence in verse
13. He says, for I, the Lord thy
God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I
will help thee. In other words, our God is pleased
to prove his work, that he's worked in us. He's pleased to
prove the faith which he's given to us, and to reveal himself
to us in that intimate way, to know thou art my God. Thou art my God. I've heard of
thee, right? Job said, with the hearing of
mine ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. And I abhor myself and
repent in dust and ashes. Because we know how unbelieving
and how unfaithful we are in ourselves until the Lord proves
his work and proves that faith and enables us to be whole. that he that is with us is greater
in number than he that is with them, right, our enemy. He's
overcome the enemy. He's overcome the world that
hates us. And so we can rest in him. You
know, when you think about it, our Lord sent his son Jesus Christ
to the cross. He sent him into this world,
bearing our flesh for the very purpose to save his people. And he went to the cross to suffer. under the wrath of God, not for
his own sins, but for the sins of his people, in their place,
as their substitute, bearing that wrath of God which was rightfully
due to us, Christ bore it in our stead, so that he purged
us of our sin, he paid the debt in full, so that there's nothing
more that we owe to God or to his law, we are holy, We are
perfected in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him we are the very righteousness
of God and are received by the Father in His Son Jesus Christ. And He says to us in verse 14
now, Fear not thou worm Jacob and ye men of Israel. I will
help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of
Israel. And so we see here that when
it all comes down to what the Lord has shown us, that we are
but puny worms. And He knows that. He knows that
we are weak and that we ourselves are adding nothing to God. He
doesn't need us, yet He's showing us, I love you. I love you, my
people. I've worked salvation for you. I've given you everything. necessary. I sent my son and spared him
not to redeem you and to make you my people and to reveal myself
to you. And so he brings us into the
kingdom, right? It pleases the Father to give
us the kingdom and to use us in the kingdom to add to his
church and and to gather his people into this local assembly,
this local body where he's revealing himself to the people in this
part of the country through his gospel. And so think of what
our God has accomplished for us in his son who did that work
and completely wrought our salvation in weakness, right? When you think of your loved
one who's died recently, right? My father was the last one that
I knew to pass away from my family, right? And I saw him in weakness. He couldn't do anything, right?
He couldn't move or do anything and had no desire or will to
do anything in his final moments. And yet, our Savior, in that
weakness, wrought our salvation, defeated all our enemies. I think had an intruder come
into the home, in the final moments of my dad, he would have done
nothing to help any of us in his family. He would have just
laid there and let whatever happened, happen. But Christ, in his final
moments, wrought salvation, gloriously over all our enemies, so that
he who emptied himself of all glory and power triumphed more than anything any of us
all put together could do. He overwhelmingly triumphed over
our enemies, right? So that before we could be spoken
to in that tenderness which the God Our God said, the true and
living God said, thou worm Jacob. Before we could be called that,
he was called that. He became the worm for his people. He was forsaken of the father
and had no help from anyone, not us. and even God the Father
forsook his own son there on the cross where he was bearing
the sin and the punishment you and I deserve, he did it all
by himself purging our sins. And so he remained there in love
for his people and his God and utter perfect faithfulness to
the Father all in order to put away our sins. Now I'm gonna
close Just looking at that, because I said he was called the worm,
but turn over to Psalm 22. And this is why I can say such words, because I wouldn't
say that if he didn't say that of himself in the scriptures. In Psalm 22, I'm just gonna read
the first eight verses, and that'll be where we close. So Psalm 22 verse 1, he says,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me and from the words of my word? Oh my God,
I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night
season, and am not silent, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest
the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and
were delivered. They trusted in thee and were
not confounded. And this is why we cry out and
are not confounded. This is why we cry out to our
God and he hears us and helps us and reveals himself to be
our God. because our Lord, he says, but
I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me
to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head, saying, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. And we know
that it's because of His love for His people, for His bride,
He wouldn't come down from that cross. He willingly sacrificed
Himself, made Himself an offering to the Father for the remission,
the forgiveness of our sins, that we should be delivered from
the wrath of God. So it's because Christ became
that worm, nothing in the eyes of men, and was completely despised
and murdered, killed at the hands of wicked men, all according
to the will and determinate counsel of our God to deliver His people
from their enemies. And so our Savior did that, and
that's why God helps us, and why we can be confident in Him
and know that He's going to reveal himself as our God to us because
of our faithful God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
brethren. I pray the Lord bless that word
to your hearts. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you for your gracious work. Lord, that you would empty
yourself so that you would become nothing that we should be something
in Your Kingdom, a people for You, in whom You delight in,
Lord, because You have made us righteous. And Lord, we thank
You for that, and we ask that You would indeed keep us, Lord,
help us, for we are weak, and we are foolish. But Lord, we
ask that You would reveal Your glory in us, the glory of the
Son, the praise of His name, and that we would rejoice in
Him all the days of our life, and that we would serve You and
be used by You, Lord, in Your kingdom, for Your honor and glory,
for Your praise. It's in the name of our Savior,
our Lord, Jesus Christ, that we pray these things. Amen.