Good evening. All right, let's
turn to Isaiah 28. 28, and we'll be looking at verse
17 this evening. In verse 16, the Lord laid the
foundation of salvation. This foundation being our Lord
Jesus Christ. And here in verse 17, we see
that he brings judgment to bear. upon that work that he's done
and it's to show us that what he has done, what he has wrought
for his people is true and faithful and righteous so that we see
what true perfection is and then should we turn our eyes from
that and look at our own works we would see and know What we
do is not faithful, true, and righteous, but that we would
keep our eye fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord says there
in verse 17, judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness
to the plummet, or the plumb line. Our God has provided this
salvation, and now he's proving it, showing to us that this is
indeed righteousness. And he declares to us who that
righteousness is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why the angel declared
to Joseph, saying, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. he shall accomplish that work
which the Father sent him to do. And we're told that this
is actually a prophecy from Isaiah who confirmed the same thing
when he said, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquity. That's how the Lord
obtained eternal righteousness for you, his people, who have
no righteousness of your own, who have heard of the voice of
the Lord and heard him declare that we must be righteous. As
our brother read this evening, be ye holy for I am holy. That's
the will of our God for his people, that we be holy. He's telling
us what's necessary. Without holiness, no man shall
see the Lord. And then he reveals his will.
Be ye holy for I am holy. And we know, we're assured and
comforted, we're comforted, He's provided the righteousness
in His Son, Jesus Christ. And to you who He's shown yourselves
to be sinners. He's shown his people that we're
sinners, that we have no righteousness of our own. That's by the Spirit. And he shows you true righteousness,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's by the Spirit. Be thankful
for that. Rejoice in that knowledge, because
not all men have faith, Paul said to the Thessalonians. Not
all men have faith. And they're unruly, and they
fight against this, and they make trouble. For those that
preach and hold dear this gospel and declare this gospel, they
make trouble for them because not all men have faith. So you
that have faith, though you be troubled and afflicted and feel
sorrows and feel pains and are afraid, yet be thankful because
this knowledge of salvation and this hope of our righteousness
being fixed in Christ, that's of the Lord. That's a mercy to
you. That's grace upon grace. And that's what we cry to Christ,
the foundation stone, the cornerstone. Grace unto grace. Grace to it. Alright, so all the false refuge,
that means that if Christ is perfection and God has proved
this to us, then all the other refuges that men and women look
to for righteousness, they're all false. They're all lies. And he says at the end of verse
17, and the hell shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the
waters shall overflow the hiding place. And so we see this. We see how God's provided salvation. We know that men and women, religious
or not religious, continue to trust in their lies and their
false hopes. And we see our own weaknesses,
we see our own infirmities and our own struggles in this, but
the Lord He's, believe him, trust the Lord, he's faithful, he's
just, he's able to save to the uttermost, he does not fail,
even in the face of those that reject him, he shall accomplish
his salvation. He said in John 6, 35 through
37, the Lord said unto them, I am the bread of life, and he
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, He was speaking
to a mixed group with many that were just religious. He said,
ye have also seen me and believe not. That's a frightening thing
to hear, that they would see the Lord of Glory and not believe. But we have this promise. He
assures you, you that are weak and trembling, because you hear
that and that frightens you, the righteous, The self-righteous,
they're not afraid by hearing this. They're not thrown off
or they don't stumble by this. But to you that are fearful and
have no righteousness of your own, he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. So our God is faithful. He's
faithful. He's provided the righteousness
and you can be sure that his people shall lay hold of that
righteousness for they shall be laid hold of by him who is
our righteousness and he shall accomplish everything necessary
for our salvation. All right, so if verse 16 shows
us the house that our Lord has built, that it's all founded
upon him and our salvation is built upon, it's erected upon
the Lord Jesus Christ by the Lord Jesus Christ, then verse
17 shows us that this house is built correctly. It's straight. It's proven. It's a perfect house.
It's built correctly. And so that we see and know,
indeed, Christ, the Lamb of God, is sufficient to save to the
uttermost. Our title is Perfected in Christ's
Righteousness. Perfected in Christ's Righteousness. And first we'll look and see
how the Lord is the standard of righteousness provided for
the people. He's the Lord's standard of righteousness.
And then we'll see that Christ's people are made righteous as
he is righteous. And then we'll close with this
house is a house of faith. It's a house of faith. All right,
so let's see the Lord is the standard. Now, this chapter here,
chapter 28, it's been showing us that man vainly has refugees
that are vain, they're false, they're lies. The Lord calls
them lies. And therefore, he shows us this
to show us that he himself has provided salvation for his people. Look at verse 16. Behold, I lay
in Zion. I, the Lord says, I lay in Zion
for a foundation of stone, a tried stone. It's a proven stone. It's
also a trying stone. He's a proving stone himself.
It's a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. Those that believe him shall
never be ashamed. We shall never be ashamed for
trusting wholly upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You will not come
up short. You shall have everything necessary,
all necessary holiness, to stand before the Ancient of Days, who
himself is perfect and holy and righteous. And we can't even
imagine how perfect and holy he is. But we shall see him as
he is, for we shall be made like unto him. in the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall be made like Christ,
for we shall see him as he is. All right, now, our Lord, he's
proved his righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, he
poured out his wrath upon our Lord. When he hung upon the cross
to put away the sins of the people, our Lord poured out his wrath
upon him. And we're told that our Lord,
he died, he gave up the ghost, he shed his blood, He died and
was buried. And we're told that he was there
in the grave for three days and the Lord raised him from the
dead. And when the Lord raised him from the dead, that assures
us, that proves to us, that gives us every Proof necessary that
we need to know, did the Lord accept the sacrifice of the Lamb? Did He accept that sacrifice?
Are my sins, me who hopes in Him, are my sins put away? The
Lord raised Him from the dead. That assures us that all who
hope in Him have a good hope, a sure hope, that we shall never
be ashamed for because the Lord raised him from the dead. If
the father was not satisfied with his work, then he would
still be in the grave, bearing the sins of his people. But he
accomplished the work. Romans 4.25 says, he or who Christ
was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our
justification. He's raised for our justification.
It verifies for us that we are indeed justified, made right,
made straight, made perfectly whole in what the Lord Jesus
Christ did for his people. He satisfied the justice of God.
He satisfied the law of God. Everything necessary has been
accomplished in Christ so that the elect of our Lord, they're
saved. All the elect are saved. Now
for this cause, because the Lord did this, our God is justified
now. It's righteous for him to forgive
his people of all their sins and iniquities because they're
put away. The debt that we owe, the debt
of righteousness, has been paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so Paul told the Romans in 326 to declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness. that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. All right, so God is
just to forgive us. So the house that the Lord built
is straight, it's plumb straight. I believe that's how you would
term it, all right? So if you were at the top of
a building, of a wall that you had built, and you would drop
this line down with a plumb, a weight at the bottom, it would
hang straight. And then you could look at the line, which is straight,
and then you can look at the wall and see, is it crooked,
is it bent, how is it compared to that line? Is it as straight
as that line? And so, our Lord built a straight
house, which means that all the living stones that the Lord uses
to make up this house, all the living stones, which is you that
believe and have no hope and confidence in the flesh, but
trust his righteousness, those living stones, they too are as
straight and as perfect and lined up and holy and righteous as
the Lord himself is holy and straight and perfect and lined
up to the holiness of our God. And so it has to be that way. Our Lord is perfect. He can't
make anything that's imperfect. And so none of us will deviate
from that. We cannot deviate from his work. Otherwise, if you build a wall,
is weak and crumbling or is bent or not straight, the higher you
go, the more likely that structure is going to collapse in upon
itself. And so the Lord has built a perfect
house that cannot collapse in upon itself. And that's a comfort
to us as we go through this life, as we seek to serve our God and
labor among one another, that's a comfort to us. It's a comfort
because even though we see imperfections in this flesh and we see the
weakness in this flesh, yet we're comforted in knowing that our
God does not fail. And what he's purposed to do,
that's what he brings to pass for his people. All right, so
we shall be righteous. The Apostle John said, little
children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness
is righteous even as He is righteous." And again, when you hear those
verses, it's not to create fear in you into thinking that you're
not doing something that you ought to be doing, but rather,
look again to your Lord. Look again to your Savior, because
it's His will to work righteousness in His people. And we are righteous,
because we look to Him. He's worked that in us. It's
how we know that He's He's our Lord because we look to Him and
we continue looking to Him and trusting Him and not having any
confidence in the flesh, as Paul said, which means we do see weakness
in the flesh. We do see inconsistency in the
flesh and we're not pleased with what we see in the flesh. But
it drives us to continue looking to Him who is our righteousness
and keep our eye fixed upon Him and to desire Him all the more.
When we enter into the presence of our God, we must be perfect
and holy. We must be clothed in the righteousness
of Christ. And that's what the Lord was
showing us in the parable of the wedding garment. When the
master of the house comes in and says, friend, how camest
thou in hither without a wedding garment on? And the man was speechless. Well, that wedding garment is
what we need. the wedding garment and if it
was left to us to figure it out and if it was up to us to work
that, to weave that wedding garment and to make that beautiful garment,
we wouldn't even know where to begin, where to get the materials
or what to do. We know what we think in our
flesh because we were all in our flesh at one time and we
thought it was by our works of righteousness and by the things
which we do that wove that wedding garment and made it more beautiful.
but it's the Lord Jesus Christ, it's his righteousness that works,
that has obtained that adorned wedding garment for his bride,
and he's the one who gives it to her, and he's the one that
dresses her in that so that we are made fit and right to stand
before our God. Now, the Lord He's instructing
these people here in Isaiah, and he's letting them know what
you're doing, what you're trusting in, is not going to save you.
Your works, even your religious works, they cannot save you. They're not sufficient to please
the Lord and to satisfy the debt of righteousness that we owe,
that we owe the Lord. And he says to Amos, in Amos
7, verses 7 and 8, Amos writes, Thus he showed me, and behold,
the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb
line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos,
what seest thou? And I said, A plumb line. Then
said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst
of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them
any more. And so the Lord is showing us. He's declaring to us. He showed
it to Israel. Now Israel didn't hear it. Most
of Israel would not hear. They rejected the rest of the
Lord. But He continues to declare to
us in the day of grace to show us the Lord Jesus Christ and
our need for Him and His righteousness. Because the Lord shall judge
all in that day with that plumb line, that perfect righteousness. And it will reveal to us what
true righteousness is. And if we stand in the righteousness
of Christ, looking to Him and hoping in Him, we shall be found
righteous and holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. But
all those who are trusting in their works, all those who don't
believe in Christ, who don't believe the Lamb of God, all
those who refuse to hear what God is declaring to us concerning
righteousness and the judgment to come, They'll stand in their
own works and their own righteousness and be compared to that plumb
line and they shall be found to be crooked and not straight.
They shall be found to be sinners and not righteous and holy in
that day. And the Lord's saying here, I've
provided righteousness. I've provided that which is necessary
for my people. And those that don't believe,
those that look to their own works, that look to their various
forms of religion, whether it's certain prayers in a certain
direction at a certain time of day, or it's doing little religious
things like going and saying prayers, or lighting candles,
or giving certain money, or a certain amount of money, or confessions,
or certain clothes, whatever it is that that man trusts in,
that's not holiness. God sees right through that.
He sees the folly of man-made religion. It's not going up on
a hill. It's not going out to a forest or by a stream or fishing
on a boat. It's none of those things that
saves us. We need the Lord Jesus Christ.
By nature, just looking at our own selves, we see how foolish
we are and how far we've gone from the Lord and from the truth.
we don't know the truth and so nature isn't the thing that's
going to to save us and to deliver us into the hand of our God and
mercy but it's the Lord Jesus Christ and him only. So he said
to Isaiah the hell shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the
water shall overflow the hiding place and just in the same way
he said to Amos 7 9 and the high places of Isaac shall be desolate
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And so,
when left to himself, man trusts in his own strength, he trusts
in his own power, he trusts his own wisdom, he trusts his will,
but he never looks to the Lord and hears what the Lord is saying.
And the Lord just tells us plainly and simply, we're all sinners. We've all fallen short of the
glory of God. Every one of us comes up short
and we're never ever going to be able to pay off that debt
of righteousness that we owe. And he said to Jonah as well,
they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And
really that's simple. When we believe that everything's
just gonna work out, God will understand, He's a God of love,
and I'm sure it'll all work out, and I'll explain everything away
in that day. That's a lying vanity. That's
not true. That's not at all what's going
to be accepted in that day by our Creator when we stand before
Him. That's a lying vanity. And Jonah
knew. Jonah knew what a lying vanity
is because he thought, I can flee from the presence of the
Lord. The Lord told him, go to Nineveh. and declare to them
what I tell you to declare. And he said, you know what? I
don't want to go there. So he fled the opposite direction.
That's a lying vanity to think that we can escape from the presence
of the Lord. And so he said, by doing that,
I'm forsaking my own mercy. But the Lord was gracious to
him, just as every single one of us knows and has experienced,
we that believe have experienced the grace of God because we know
what hard-hearted rebels we are. We know how obstinate we are,
how hardened we are, how unbelieving we are, how faithless we are,
how quick we are to turn and do our own will and go our own
way, but each of us is here this night, or each of us is here
and part of this body because the Lord in grace has turned
us. The Lord in grace, in spite of
ourselves, has turned us and shown us grace and mercy and
patience. He's forgiven us, He's washed
us of our sins, and He's given us a desire and a heart to be
here and to worship Him and to glorify His name. And so we don't
trust in ourselves and we're not here speaking of and glorying
in what we've done for the Lord, but we're here all confessing
I'm here by the grace of God. And we're thankful for that,
what the Lord has done. So, in Romans, we see Paul wrote
of them, of his own countrymen, saying, they being ignorant of
God's righteousness. And that's really what we are,
by nature, ignorant of God's righteousness. Even if we are
pretty good, naturally, by the standards and judgments of other
people, it's ignorant of God's righteousness. Because we think,
well, I'm a pretty good person. God'll, you know, I'm better
than that person. That's still ignorant of God's righteousness,
which is perfect and holy. And so, just like the Pharisees
were ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to establish our
own righteousness, and therefore have not submitted ourselves
unto the righteousness of God. But Christ is that standard of
righteousness, and that's who he's provided, and declares to
us he's perfection. get you to Christ, look to Him.
That's who we must come to, the Father and Him, because all our
works fall far short of the true righteous requirement of our
God. And if we reject Christ, we're just like those Pharisees
that were condemned in the day our Lord walked this earth. We're
no better than those Pharisees. And they thought that they were
righteous, but as Peter said to them, this Christ is the stone
which was set at naught of you builders." Right? Religious people, self-righteous
people, they were building their house, but not upon the foundation,
but upon the sands of man's own weak, fickle will. And it's all going to wash away
in the storm of God's wrath. And so Christ has become the
head of the corner. and neither is there salvation
in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved. So He declares that to
us. There's one way, one way of salvation
and not many. And so our Lord was given to
perfect His people and we are assured and comforted that by
His one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That is set apart by the Holy
Spirit to hear this word and to receive it, to believe it,
all in grace, all in mercy, by his grace and mercy apart from
any works that we ourselves have done. And if we hear it and refuse
it and we'll continue on in our own ways or are turned away from
it, he tells us later on there in that same chapter of Hebrews
10, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. There's not enough.
There's not another way. There's one way. It's through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we must, He's the one that
we have to deal with. And even though in our flesh,
if you've heard this before and you think, well, there's just
some things I don't like about it, surely there's some other
way to be had to come to the Lord. No, there isn't. No, there
isn't. There's one way. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. All right, now. The second thing
that we see here is that the Lord's people, they are made
righteous as He is righteous. Everything necessary is provided
for us. So our Savior, He was proved
of the Father, and He was proved of the Father. He was faithful
to the Father to the end, and we know this because He raised
Him from the grave. So He's true and He's perfect.
And the Lord tells us in his word that he gave Christ, not
for himself. Christ didn't do this work to
prove anything just for the sake of proving it. He gave Christ
to put away the sins of his people. He sacrificed his own son to
save the people, to save his darling elect children, those
whom he loved from eternity. It's to make us righteous. Turn
to Ephesians 1, Ephesians chapter 1, and we'll go to verse 22. Ephesians 1.22, first our Lord says, that he
hath put all things, God our Father has put all things under
Christ's feet and gave him to be the head over all things to
the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth
all in all. So in other words, our God committed
everything necessary for our righteousness, everything necessary
for our salvation he committed it to his own son. Turn over
to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 and look at verse
27. He gave his son that he might
present to himself his body to present it to himself a glorious
church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it
should be holy and without blemish. And our Lord, He promised, not
only did He make us righteous in putting away our sins, but
He promised to send His Spirit whereby we know these things,
whereby the Spirit gives us life and makes us alive to the things
of God, gives us faith and reveals this faith to us, making us born
again in the new man, the creation of Christ, which he's done, that
which he's done in true righteousness and holiness, not of this flesh,
not of this dead carcass. It's not anything of us. It's
all the work of the Lord who does this in us. All right, look
at Ephesians 2, back in chapter 2, go to verse 19. because of this work of our Lord
and our Savior, Paul says, now therefore ye are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God, the building of our God, and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are
builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit." And
so, this is the work of our Lord. He's the one that's building
the house, and He's built the house. He's taken these lively
stones and assembled them together, and has put us together for this
work and for this labor in the Lord, trusting Him, believing
Him, worshiping Him, glorifying His name among the people. And
so we that believe are, even now, perfected by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, even as He is perfect. Even as he is
accepted, so are we accepted in him. Now all who deviate from
Christ, all that reject Christ, or add to Christ's righteousness
by some work of their own, thinking that there's something that they
have to do, they will not be plumb to the line. They're not
going to be straight to the line, and they'll be found to be trusting
in lies and things that will not stand in the day of judgment. These are those that are described
in verse 15 of our text, Isaiah 28, 15, that says, we have made
a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement. When
the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come
unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood
have hid ourselves." And the Lord says, well, in that day,
when I come through, when I pass through, the hell shall sweep
away the refuge of lies, and the water shall overflow the
hiding place. All right, so we see now the
Lord is righteous, and all who believe Him, all who trust Him,
they are righteous as He is righteous. They are justified. If you've
ever used in Word, a Word processor, if you've ever used that middle
thing where it makes it even on both sides, so it'll space
out the words a little bit more on each side, whatever this side
is on the left will be the exact same mark on the right. What that is, is justifying it
so that whatever this side is on the left here, or this is
the left for you, same as the right. It'll be justified. It's
perfectly aligned exactly as the other one is. That's what
justify means. If you hit justify, it means
you just line it up perfectly so they're both straight and
there's no difference between them. They look the exact same.
And that's what you are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those that
come to The Father, through Jesus Christ's blood and His blood,
are made perfectly righteous and whole and have no fault and
will not be found liars and trusting a false hope. All those that
believe Christ and trust Him shall not be ashamed." And that's
all he says. Believe Him. Believe Him. Don't
trust your own works and your own righteousness. Trust Him.
All right, now, finally, let's just close with our last point,
Christ's house of faith. So the house of our Lord, as
we saw in Ephesians there, it's built by him, we're his temple. The Lord dwells in us because
of Christ's work, not because of any work we've done in ourselves,
but for the work of Christ. We're told by Zechariah that
it's not by might, Nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."
The Lord's doing the work. He continues to do the work.
Everything necessary that we need is all done. It shall be
accomplished in us by the Lord. We just keep looking to the Lord.
We keep trusting Him and not being moved from that. Just keep
looking to Him. And the Lord keeps His people
right there, trusting Him. Because again, when we look to
ourselves, we see weakness, we see falsehood, we see hypocrisy,
we see lies, we're troubled by our own flesh. Not that we desire
to keep doing it, we don't want to keep doing it. The Lord teaches
us, but looking to Him is where we find peace and rest and comfort
for our souls. And so he that believeth shall
not make haste. And this faith that we have,
this believing, it's not our contribution. Religion tells
you that's your contribution, that's what you have to do to
save yourselves. But the truth is that those who
hear this gospel, those who hear that Christ is our righteousness,
you believe. You that are his, you believe.
It's not a decision you make to follow the Lord, it's you
believe. You hear it and you believe the
report of our God. You trust him. You say, Lord,
you're faithful. You're true. This is what you're
declaring. Lord, help me. Lord, I believe help thou mine
unbelief. But you know this is righteousness. The Lord Jesus
Christ is not in my works. It's not in anything I do for
myself. And so faith, that faith is a gift of God. It's not a
product of the flesh. It's not our portion of righteousness. Now, one thing to understand
is that faith It isn't our faith that is our righteousness, but
faith is the testimony. It's the belief that of what
God has said concerning righteousness. It lays hold of what the Lord
has declared to us that Christ is indeed our righteousness.
And faith lays hold, not just of the testimony, but not just
of the testimony, but lays hold of Christ, believes Christ. Because
those that believe, though it's weak, and doesn't seem like very
much, it's because we are being laid hold of by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He has us, and he's revealing
this to us and what he's done. And so faith believes our God,
faith trusts Christ, and faith looks to Christ. Faith sees that
God has proven his son perfectly. before our very eyes, crucified
among us, crucified before us, as Paul said, through the declaration,
the preaching of the gospel. We see Jesus Christ crucified,
that He had to die because we ourselves are sinners, and God
poured out His wrath upon Him, and God is satisfied because
He raised Him from the dead. So faith knows that now I am
as perfect as He is perfect. in him, by his spirit, by his
blood, by his work of righteousness, not because of anything of me
or my flesh, all right? And we're told this in Jeremiah. He said, the days come, Jeremiah
said, that the Lord said that I will raise unto David a righteous
branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. And that's what our Lord has
done. And in his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely, and this is his name whereby he shall be called the
Lord our righteousness. He's our righteousness. And then
a little while later in Jeremiah we're told again, in those days
shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely, and this
is the name wherewith she shall be called. That's you that believe,
the Lord our righteousness. His name is our name. That's
the new name whereby we're known. Not by our own name, we're known
by His name. We're His bride, we're His wife. We are the bride of the Lamb
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness. So we're as righteous as he is
righteous. So we're told that of God are
ye in Christ Jesus who has made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. As it's written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. So be thankful, brethren. Because
the Lord isn't looking to you for your strength and your power
and your wisdom and your might. He looks to the Son only, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's provided Him for your righteousness. And He is the righteousness of
His people. Trust Him, believe Him, and you shall never be ashamed. I pray the Lord will bless that
word to your hearts. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank You that everything necessary You
provided in Your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, in ourselves we are nothing. Lord, we have no strength, we
have no righteousness, nothing to glory in in this flesh. But
Lord, we hear the glorious Word that You have provided through
Your prophets. event the word you spoken by
your own Son, that all who trust the Son, that all who honor Him,
that all who reverence the Son, believing Him, that He alone
is our righteousness, and that He has accomplished all things
necessary. He's made everything ready by
the sacrifice of Himself. He obtained our eternal redemption. Lord, we pray that you would
help us fix our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep us looking
to Him alone, not to be turned by this world or by this flesh.
Lord, settle us in Christ and grow us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grow us in grace and knowledge. Keep us ever looking to Him.
And Lord, we pray that your Spirit would fill us Fill us with love
for our Savior and love for one another. In Christ's name we
pray and give thanks. Amen.