Well, we're honored and privileged
to have our dear brother Norm here from Dalles, Oregon. And we're also honored and privileged
to have our dear friend Jean-Claude Souleau. It's the Canadian French pronunciation. That's what we have to say. He was a missionary from France
to Africa. And it's been a great blessing
to get to know him and Wendy. And we're very, very blessed
to have him here. And I know you've all known him
for years. You've supported him in the work
for years. And I know how much of a blessing
he is to all of us. So Brother Jean-Claude, come
and preach Christ to us. Once again, it's good to be here
together, and especially to be here around the Word of God. And I will ask you to turn with
me to Isaiah chapter 53, and we will start reading at verse
1 again. Isaiah 53 verse 1, who has believed
our report? And to whom has the arm of the
Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant. And as a root out of dry ground,
he has no form of comeliness. And when we see him, there is
no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
by men, a man of sorrows. and acquainted with grief, and
we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and
we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten
by God, and afflicted. but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. he was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers he silenced,
so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut
off from the land of the living, For the transgression of my people,
he was stricken. And this is the word of God. As I was walking earlier on to
this chapel with this tall fellow from Oregon, I heard something about depravity. And yes, yes, sinfulness was
good, but depravity, and I kind of sensed that I was kind of
pulled up as a Frenchman that really I should have used the
word depravity yesterday. But then that would be a problem
because I'm talking about the gospel in three words. So if
I had used depravity yesterday, maybe today I should use the
word decision. And then tomorrow I probably
would have to speak about damnation. So sinfulness was much better
for me, because today we're going to look at substitution. And this is a gospel word, gospel
word. The second word we want to see,
which summarize the gospel of salvation by grace and grace
alone, by pure grace, substitution. And this may be a word which
will seem difficult to some. If you go out in the street and
you use the word substitution, you may feel that you're talking
kind of Hebrew or Greek or whatever. Although, if I'm not mistaken,
when you watch, I know it's not very popular here, but a soccer
match or the World Cup or as recently the African Soccer Cup,
You will find that they explain to you something about the countries
coming onto the field, and then there will be always the kind
of formation, the team, whatever. I'm not very sporty as you can
see. And then there will always be a little rectangle. Generally,
it's on the bottom right-hand side. And that rectangle gives
you the substitutes. And that is this word. That is
this word. For others, this word may seem
so familiar that actually it doesn't grip us, it doesn't have
teeth. So the substitute is the one
who takes the place of another. And we need to remind ourselves
that. We're not talking about a religious
word. We're talking about a word which
is even used in the world of sport. The idea which is behind this
word, the power of this word, is at the very heart of the gospel,
at the very heart of the message of salvation of God, salvation
from God. And this is precisely at this
very point that men often fall into error. People are not saved because
they try to save themselves. It's not that they lack efforts
and cleverness and so on, but that they have too many, too
many. They push aside the substitute,
the one who replaces, and yet he's the only one who can bring
salvation. He's the only one. And this is
why there is so much perdition. I know that there is a purpose
from God, but men try to save themselves and they're so busy
that actually they have no time for the one who replaces. And this is what we see here
in this word, in this passage, because the servant of the Lord,
the one of which it is spoken here, he comes and he doesn't
strike the eyes of flesh. He's not somebody that we expect. Like the Jews were waiting the
great one who would kick out the Romans, kick the Romans out
of Palestine. No, not at all. And we despise
him. We put him on the side. He doesn't
fit with our schemes as men. We prefer to take our own salvation. You know, the image of the father,
for instance, or maybe the master at work, and he has his apprentice
next to him. And the apprentice is not really
skilled yet. This is why he's an apprentice,
and this is why he's there. And after a while, maybe the
master runs out of patience and he says, oh, come on, let me
do it. And very often, By nature, we're tempted to be like this.
Oh, get him a, just push. I'll do it. Let me see. Let me
do it. I can do it better than that.
And yet, and yet, there is no salvation, according to the word
of God, apart from that one who replaces, that substitute. No one comes to the Father but
by me. And we say amen, and yet we try
to do something, or to be somebody. No, the one
who replaces my friends is irreplaceable. We cannot do without him. So
let's look at this substitution. And firstly, we could see that
substitution is made necessary because of sinfulness. Like yesterday,
I mentioned that so few people are saved because they're not
lost in their own eyes. So here, substitution is made
necessary by sinfulness. And again, this is where natural
man and religious man are getting lost because neither of them
think that really they are in the state in which the Word of
God says they are. Oh yes, you say, are you a sinner? Well, I'm not perfect as you
know. But, and there's always a but, and there's always somebody
in the streets or somebody at work who is worse, which in effect
is saying, well, I'm not really a sinner. No, no, no, no. They don't believe. Natural man,
religious man, doesn't think that the word of God says the
truth. This is not the right description.
Yes, sure enough, sure enough, man is in a bad state. Things are not exactly what they
should be and they're in a pretty sorry state. But going to say
that the sinfulness is total, that's going a little far, isn't
it? A little far. No, that's being a bit too drastic,
no. And this is a step which natural
man and man in his religion, which is natural man, refuses
to take. And in one way or another, someday
he will manage to save himself. And you just need to give him
time. Just need to give him time. He's
not done it so far, but one day this will happen. because man
keeps some hope to save himself is without hope in total despair,
total despair. And it would be a very interesting
study to take all the religious handbooks or the books of all
the religions and to see that everyone without exception teach
that one needs to do something to reach the deity. Something. It may be five pillars. It may
be a million years of reincarnation. It may be a lot of good works. It may be understanding grace
with my brains. But there's something I must
do in order to get hold of that promise. And yet, there is nothing
at all to do, as we've heard. No. The Bible is saying exactly
the opposite. What does it say? Isaiah said
it in the first chapter of his prophecy. First chapter, verse
six. From the sole of the foot, even
to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or
bound up or soothed with ointment. No hope. It's totally, totally
spoiled. This is a verdict of the word
of God. And we've seen that enough yesterday. And Romans says the same thing,
there is not one. And just in case you don't get
the no one, no, not even one. And then we could go through
the whole Bible, really we could be here for a long time, for
a long time to find verses which clearly in our face tell us this. But our heart, our natural heart,
is saying the opposite. And we've seen in our previous
study that man has lost his way. He's going here, there, and everywhere,
but he doesn't know. And more than that, his state
plunges him into isolation, total isolation, with regard to the
possibility to be saved. He cannot find his way, even
the most clever. Once I was in the car back home
and there was a philosopher, there's some of them in my country,
and he was interviewed on the radio. And I kind of listened
carefully because he said, well, no, man is totally unable to
do anything to make things better. I thought, that's strange coming
from these people. This guy is going to get a lot
of flack somewhere. And so it went on like this. And then the guy was interviewing
him. In the end, he said, so what
have we got to do? What is the solution, he rather
said. And the guy said, well, we've got to try to work better. There's no hope in man. No hope
at all. His state prevents him from even
coming to salvation because there is no way, absolutely no way.
He cannot understand the value of the salvation which God gives. And we see this in this chapter.
You just read it. It's marvelous. The Lord sends
someone and this one will be the one. He will take the brunt
of the wrath of God, he will actually be condemned. He will
be separated, cursed. And yet, and it is because, I
mean, for others, no, even the greatest brains on this earth
cannot grasp that. Why? Because of sinfulness, because
of sinfulness. Again, as we said yesterday,
man measures with the wrong yardstick. And therefore, the one who is
sent to him, this savior, he doesn't have any attraction. There's no beauty in him. We
cannot esteem him. He's got nothing which really
attracts our eyes and our interest. No, not at all. And man is so
lost. You, my friend, if you are not
in Christ tonight, if you do not have this freedom, you are
in a totally despairing position. There is no way, absolutely not. But you need somebody, that somebody
comes from outside. You know, the whole history of
mankind, you will not find one slave freeing himself. It has to come from outside.
Centuries ago, you had slaves rebelling in places, even in
the Roman Empire. But I'm thinking, for instance,
Haiti. They're very big on their emancipation over there. Where
it's brought them, we don't know, but, well, we do know, you see. But no, it had to be a movement
somewhere in Europe, which started to go over to a certain point.
And in God's purpose or in God's calendar, then they were free. And it's the same with the slavery
of sin. No slave will be able to free
himself. It's got to come from outside.
And here we have this, this one who comes The substitute. Now let's look at him for a moment. And I'm sure that, I'm very conscious
that for most of you, this is kind of recap. This is a sort
of, yes, I've heard it before, but we need it. We need it constantly. The substitute, my friends, is
a man. He's a man here, the man of sorrows. but he's a man. And it is very
important to underline this because many people today, both in the
religious world and in the secular world, will find a replacement
in ideas, in concept, in things. Somebody will surround himself
with wealth and with bodyguards and all these sorts of things
in order to have security. Others, they will study and they
will come with all sorts of very smart ideas that nobody understands
in order to make themselves different. And I've been very interested
in dealing with books and publishing books, that today a lot of books
talk about God, but not Christ. Remember one book coming my way,
and a friend of mine said, oh, maybe you'll be interested in
publishing that in French. And the book came, and we just
wasted postage because it said, God is a gospel. That sounds
so cute, isn't it? God is not a gospel. Christ is
a gospel, even for God. And I believe that Christ is
God. But as Christ, he has a mission which is more than that. No,
I do good and therefore God has an account with me. He's got
to do something for me because my actions, my good works, are
a replacement for my bad works. And then somehow we'll manage
to balance it. No, my friends, this is a very
great lie. Very great line. Now, in the
Old Testament itself, there were already sacrifices. And these
sacrifices were offered according to the instructions of God himself. And therefore, every morning,
every evening, every day of the year except one, there will be
the offering of an animal. But the blood of an animal cannot
cannot replace, cannot count for a man. I may have said it here before
and she will kick me for that, but my wife said that when one
of us dies, she will take a dog. She will really hate me. I'm
sorry for the dog. You see, she may get the best
dog there is in the whole world, but that's no replacement. The
dog won't do the washing up. You see, a lamb, however pure
and innocent and perfect can it be, will not atone for a man. This is not the same blood. This
is not the same blood. Not at all. No, you need man. And this was precisely why they
had to offer a lamb morning, evening, each day of the year,
except one, when they offered something else, which was the
day of the atonement, precisely. They had to repeat it. Why? Because
that blood could not take away sin. That blood was only pointing
towards one who would take away sin and who has taken away sin. So he is a man. He's a man. And this is what we need. This
is what I need, same blood. Same blood. Here we see the one
who replaces and he's sent by God, Christ, the Messiah. He's
sent by God and he's a man. He has come as a tender plant. He shall grow up before Him as
a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. Don't you
feel dry? Humanity, fallen into sin, is
dry, cannot produce anything, and is of the same flesh apart
from sin. Here is somebody who can really
take my place, my place. And nothing else, nobody else
can do it. He's a man of sorrows as well.
In all this passage, we see a substitute who comes as a man who is a man
who's suffering. He's broken, he's smitten, he's
crushed. And we have all these pictures
in the Old Testament of what he was going to undergo. Here
is one who comes like this. Actually, this very passage or
this very section, we call it the hymn of the suffering servant. And this is here that we see
the great wisdom of God and the terrible condition of man. It
is exactly the man that is needed. And this is exactly the man who
is needed because our condition is without hope, without hope. And we should, I mean, this should
make our heart leap into gratitude, into praises. I mean, we have
this word, hallelujah. Hallelujah, this is such a beautiful
word. Do you know how we say hallelujah
in French? Hallelujah. And maybe I should
ask, Brother Marcus, how do you say that in Italian? I know that. Hallelujah. Well, I wanted to
check it, so I asked my friends in Africa, several languages,
Lingala, Fon, and several others. Hallelujah. Well, I thought,
I need to go further than that. We have a friend who's Chinese,
so I got onto Messenger and said, how do you say hallelujah in
Chinese? So kind of nice drawings came
on my screen. I said, no, no, I want to hear
it. So I had the audio, hallelujah. My friends, when we'll be in
heaven, there won't be any difference. It'll be that word, that word,
beautiful word. Many people are ready to acknowledge
that something is wrong with men. is in a bad state and many people
are ready to be sad about it and to feel guilty about it. Some will accept that this sort
of sorry state will bring suffering. Yes, I've messed it up, I need
to suffer for that. But in one way or another, this
remorse, this sadness, this suffering, kind of bear in themselves some
kind of merit. I need to suffer because like
this I'm doing something. Isn't our condition really twisted? Man decrees that what he does will
gain some right for him to receive forgiveness. Frankly, after all
I've done and this happens to me, this is exactly this. I've served you, therefore I
deserve to be given something, to be given salvation. And yet,
in this substitute, it is not a sinner who suffers, not at
all. He's broken, he's crushed, but
not for his sins. The Bible is so clear that it
needs total blindness to say that. No, it is not as it says
in our passage, not his suffering. He suffers, yes, but for what? For the sins, for the transgressions
of another, of others, because he has no sin. He is a substitute,
and he's a perfect substitute. There's nothing in him that deserves
what he undergoes. Nothing whatsoever, and if ever
you hear Somebody's saying that, run away, run away. This is a lie, this is a lie. Now let's look at, for a moment,
at the wonderful wisdom of God. Because we see this here, the
wonderful wisdom of God. The substitute whom God has sent
is not any old substitute. He's not somebody just like this.
No, no. Somebody can take the place of
another because he's full of great zeal. This morning I heard
that a dear brother was unable to go to Africa. Well, having
been to Africa and having all my shots and so on, my first
reaction was, I could replace him. See, full of zeal. This is possible to do that.
But then in the end, the one who's replacing actually ends
up showing that Israel is not able to replace. And he fails,
he fails. But this is not the case with
the one who replaces who is sent by God, the servant of the Lord. No, if you go back to Chapter
52, verse 13, it says, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled.
But that expression, deal prudently, I don't know what it is in your
version. Maybe it's prosper. Is it? Okay. Oh, you've got your Bible
shirt? Dear, dear, what's that? I should have warned you. I don't
know what this is saying. But anyway, the real translation
for that expression is, he shall prosper. That is, he will do
it. He will do it. He will prosper. And we find this word, this expression
in several other places. And if you put all this together,
you can see that this savior comes in all wisdom. In all wisdom. It's not sort of, maybe he's
going to win. Maybe he's going to do what he's
sent to do. No, he knows exactly how to come
to his goal. And do you remember when he was
walking on that road and he set his face toward Jerusalem? And
from eternity he had set his face, but there, that was the
last stretch. And he went before the disciples.
And if you go to the other gospel, can't remember if it's Luke or
Mark, but it says the disciples didn't dare ask him anything.
His face must have changed. You know, he was going to go
there and he was going to go through with it. No, he's exactly
the one who will get to the goal, to the finishing line. He will
win the day. And today we have got this wonderful
opportunity, this wonderful advantage that with the light of God on
his word, we see that he has won the day. He has won the day. God has given him a mission. And he's given him everything
he needs to accomplish that mission. And then we see him stretch on
that cross. That terrible, terrible time.
I would say that terrible, wonderful time. It is finished. Finished. And you know, you add
something to 100%, you diminish 100%, I still say that I need to find
somebody who's good at maths to see what adding 1% to 100%,
what the 100% becomes. But it's not 100% anymore. So
if it is finished and I add, I diminish Christ. No, he has
finished, he will prosper, he will prosper. And everything
that is needed for that mission is given him. He needs the Holy
Spirit. There it is, without measure. Without measure. No, he is a
man and therefore he can take the place of men. He is without
sin. Without sin. Therefore, he doesn't
have to undergo chastisement. He doesn't have to undergo punishment
because of his own sin, his own transgressions. There's none.
We cannot grasp that. We say it, but frankly, we've
never known one second in our life when we do not have sin,
transgression. No, he's a true sacrifice, not
the one which is trying to do something, but he's taking it
all upon himself. And as a guilty man, as a sheep,
he doesn't open his mouth. He's sent to the slaughter, but
he won't open his mouth. Why? Because that's his mission,
his mission. When he says, oh, if that cup
can pass away from me, and we're tempted to say, no, no, because
if it passes away from him, we get the full brunt of it, right
to the last drop. No, if it was possible, no, not
at all, may not be possible. And it is not possible, not at
all. No, we see here the great wisdom
of God. This sin which brings this wrath,
because God is just, my friend. And sin is unjust, injustice. It's a lack of justice. It's
something which is twisted. And the wrath must come down
on the one who is a sinful person. And it does it on the one who
takes a place. on this replacement. The one
on whom, who is by himself, pure. And that wrath comes down and
it is death. But he's such a man, a man who
is God. And therefore he can come back
to life. Which we can't do. Those who
are trying to save themselves with their efforts and then end
up to the place of real death, they can't come back. Can't come
back. But this one has come back. He
comes back to life. And therefore, all those of whom
he's taken the place, they come back to life. God can give life. He sends his spirit, the spirit
of life, blows and gives power to the word of life. And this
is why it is so important that the life of the one who is full
of life must show that life. His work doesn't go along the
criteria, human criteria, not at all. He has no beauty. He doesn't strike the eyes. No. there to accomplish the purpose
of God, not to strike the eyes of men. Men want somebody strong,
a big name, somebody who's got charisma, somebody who's got
a presence. Don't like this word charisma
in that sense. No, that's not the man of God. The man of God,
he comes to obey God's purpose. God's purpose, and he's just
there for that. And therefore, he opens a door
for a people who will glorify God. You know what it is, these
big, well, in French we call them high mass, this sort of
big jamboree convention or whatever, and people preach, and what they
preach may be right, but there's another message which is given.
You have all around, it makes the man who stands be big. No one man, if you just see him
on these videos, you think he's six foot six. And yet he's a
very small guy. But you only see him. And by
seeing him, unwittingly, he's a screen to that message, not
so Not so with the one sent by God. You don't esteem him. You
don't see him. Nobody understands him. He stays
on his own. Even his dearest, his closest,
run away from him. The one who said, I will stay
with you, what does he do? In front of young lady, he trembles
like a coward. Why? Because Christ must be alone. Nobody, nobody can come into
that salvation. Because as soon as you bring
sin in whatever form, lack of perfection into that salvation,
it's like bringing a needle near one of these balloons. There's
nothing left, nothing left. No, he must tread that press
alone, alone. Why? Because he's without sin.
He's without sin. Oh, what a savior. But now the consequence is to
finish. Because again, again, this is really my point. All these things are true. But
how do they impact me? How do they impact the people
of God? And there are several orders and several levels, first
of all. I cease from works. I cease from
works. If God has provided a substitute,
somebody who takes the place and does the work, what have
I got to do still? Nothing. I can't even quench
his wrath because it is quenched. Nothing to do, no. And it's not
that we're just saying, oh, you know, okay, it's a sort of consumer
attitude, or somebody will do it for me. No, somebody has done
it, which is quite different. No, the substitute gives rest
to those who profit from his work. And therefore, my life
cannot be the same, visibly. Why? because he has done it and
he gives me rest. He gives me rest. I benefit from his work and therefore
there is now no more condemnation for those that are in Christ. Are you in Christ and there's
still a bit of condemnation you need to clear? No, not at all, no. And it is indeed easy to go astray
at that point. We know the truth, but the truth
doesn't impact our life as it should. Again, the answer is not in doing
all my efforts. The answer is coming back to
this full union with Christ. this full life of Christ without
relying on my understanding of the ways of God. No, I want to
know, but I don't rely on what I know. No, it is His life. And often, unconsciously, I still
try to win a better status with God, something which will assure
me more that I'm safe. And that is a lie, my friends,
because if I can be sure by something else than faith that I'm safe,
I don't depend on grace anymore. I don't. So, see, these little
innocuous-looking little errors are actually very, very deep,
and we need to watch for them. Another consequence Fear is banished. There is no more fear. There's
no more fear. What can men do to me? The devil himself has a lot of
fuel in me. He's got a lot of things to make
a good bonfire. And every day I bring more. in my stupidity. What can I do
to justify myself? What can I do to defend myself
and prevent him from plunging me in perdition? What? Nothing at all. Nothing at all. He can play with me, not as he
wish, but as he's allowed to. But he can play with me. Like
Luther said, he has not his equal here below. Not at all, no, we're
no match. Some people in their arrogance,
and I've said it and you've said it, say, oh, Satan has attacked
me. Satan has attacked me. I mean,
he just says that the most junior little demon, and we, I mean,
often we trip by ourselves. No, my friend, no, we don't have
to, why? Because it is God who justifies.
I don't have to justify myself. Moreover, he has what he demands
to be at peace. He has it. He's received it already. What can I add more? Christ died. And God has received it. Am I going to lack anything? No, not at all. Because Him who
has given us His own Son, will He not give everything with Him?
Everything I need, He will give. And if He doesn't give it, I
don't need it. I don't need it. No, there's no fear of that. The fear of the future really
brings a terrible tyranny, doesn't it? No, he has given his son. Will he not give all things with
him? And he does, he does. If you
are in Christ, you look at your pilgrimage and look, has he not
given it to you? He has. way above, way above
what you can imagine. Now another consequence is if
substitution is at the heart of the gospel, it will be at
the heart of my message. I'm not going to spend my time
now trying to push others to live in the correct way, as we
should, so that everything is decent. No, not at all. We're
not looking, I'm not looking for morality. Not at all, no. Sinfulness is total, and it rejades
in us, and it touches everything, even the parts we don't know
exist, yet. It goes through that. So, yet,
where there is no hope, God has come in his grace, and he has
done what was to be done. I don't have to try to be correct. He's done the correct work, the
work which satisfies him, as we will see later. His substitute
has dealt with it. And now there's nothing else
to do, nothing else. And this is a heart of my message. My eyes, my message will be centered
on this substitute. You have Peter stands up at Pentecost. I'm in the day when there was
the greatest, if we may say, or maybe the most concentrated
manifestation of the presence of the Spirit. And today we know
what that generates. Peter starts preaching and it
looks as though he's kind of not at ease until he can bring
the substitute. This is the one of whom it is
spoken. This is the one. It's got to
be at the center. I know, if I look at substitution,
I know that no one, whoever that person is, whatever the horror
or the dirt of his state is, whatever his despair about his
situation, no one is beyond the reach of God. Why? Because God has sent someone
to replace, to take the place. So no one is out of this reach,
no. It is only the application of
the virtues of this substitute can purify the heart. And that will impact my message. This will impact my life. Or
that means I don't believe it. Or that means I don't live it.
It's not in me. So therefore, I will speak, I
will declare this great work. And this great work empties all
our works, all our works for salvation. Another consequence is that I
cannot compromise the gospel anymore. It's not kind of half
and half. That's to put in a coffee. No. He's done it all. And if somebody wants to have
a share like this, I cannot accept that. Why? Because otherwise
it is not substitution. Imagine on the final of the World
Cup Soccer that suddenly there will be 13, 14 men on one side. I mean, that's foul play, isn't
it? No. If the substitute comes onto
the pitch, the other one comes out. And I cannot compromise,
not at all. No. If I've seen this truth,
Nothing else will do. Nothing else will do. And then
the last consequence I can bring tonight, the time is going by
quickly, is that it leads to a burning, living, vibrant worship
of God. Union with God. And nothing will
satisfy the heart which is touched, touched by the virtue of the
substitute. Nothing will satisfy that heart
apart from that, apart from that. And of course, all of us, we've
got to hang our head in shame because it is not as it should
be with us. And this is why we've come back
to this word and we dig into this word and we search that
word, we ask questions to that word. What is it really? Who
is he? What has he done? Why? Because
my life needs to really proclaim him, needs to show him. And I'm far from that. And I come to this word, and
God is pleased to send his spirit again and again and again. And
you are there, say, oh, this is what it means. Oh, and there's
humility, there's thankfulness, and there's transformation. transformation. Let's not the religious people
rob us of the fact that the life of Christ is different. It's
different. We don't win points. No, rather
the opposite. The one who grows in Christ sees
himself worse and worse. He's not worse and worse. No,
his life is cleaned up quite good sometimes. But he doesn't
see it. Why? Because the Spirit opens
his eyes, puts more light, the Word of God informs him more
and more how Christ, how God is so pure and great and beyond
imagination, and it shows him how puny, how twisted, how feeble
he himself is. And that is growth in Christ. That is growth in Christ. And
it actually makes the world better. This is the salt of the earth.
Oh, my friends, we could go on. We could go on. I could go on.
You don't want me to? He's so beautiful, isn't he? So beautiful. He's taken the
place. You imagine? Translate that into your own
life. Somebody's preferred to you at work, in your family,
whatever. And that war beginning to boil
inside you. I mean, you could commit murder
for that. Imagine him, he's got it all,
by right. And yet what does he do? Stands
up from his throne, takes his glory, puts it on the side. And
what is normal for us is humiliation for him. He becomes a man. We
don't think of being human as a humiliation. It was for him. It was for him. And then he went
right to death. Not any death, the death of the
cross. being separated from God so that
his people, those loved from everlasting, these people may
never be anymore separated from God. Oh, such a love, such a
love. Sinfulness, substitution. God's answer. Doesn't your heart
leap mind us, by God's grace, may be glorified. Amen.