Turn our Bible skin to the book
of Isaiah chapter 64 passage that we just read a moment ago.
I've entitled the message this evening, a prayer for the Lord's
presence. You may recall in chapter 63, the Lord has promised his
people that he's coming again. He's coming again to gather his
people to himself when he comes the second time. And He's going
to do that because He did indeed save them from their sins when
He came the first time. So He's going to come again and
gather His people to Himself. And the way the church responds
to that promise is not to just sit on our hands and wait on
the Lord to come to us. No, the church actively waits. We actively wait for the Lord
by praying that the Lord do what He promised He'd do for His people.
The church prayed, Lord, you said you're coming again to gather
your people. You're coming to your people. Oh, Lord, would you come to me?
Would you come to me? Would you not leave me to myself? Lord, I desperately need your
presence. Would you come to me and give
me your presence? Reveal yourself to me. Now, we
do wait on the Lord. But when we wait on the Lord
to accomplish His will, what that means is that we're not
trying to make something happen. We're not trying to help God
out and make His will happen. No, we just wait on the Lord
to do what He will. But while we wait, we wait praying. Praying that the Lord would do
what He promised. I've told you this before, if
you would have success in praying, ask the Lord to do what He's
already said He's going to do. Ask the Lord for mercy. Ask the
Lord to reveal himself. Ask the Lord to save his people.
And that's this prayer. Isaiah chapter 64 gives us a
model prayer, praying for the Lord's presence. And I've divided
the prayer into three parts. The first part of the prayer
is this, Lord, give me your presence so I can see you as you are.
This first here in chapter, or in verse one, Isaiah prays that
the Lord rend the heavens. that you'd come down from heaven
and reveal yourself to me as the Savior. Reveal yourself to
me in your saving, regenerating power. Verse one. Oh, that thou
wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that
the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the
melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to
make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations
may tremble at thy presence, This is what Isaiah is praying,
Lord, give me your presence in my heart. Reveal yourself to
me as the Savior. That's the only way I'll ever
be changed. When Isaiah talks about the mountains,
he's praying that those large, rocky mountains would melt down
and just flow at the presence of the Lord. Now to us, when
we look at mountains, we think mountains are just immovable.
Every year we go on vacation, we drive through those tunnels,
through those mountains, and I think, whoever thought, and
I think this every single year, I think, whoever thought I'm
going to drill a hole through that mountain? I mean, this looks
like an impossibility. Mountains are immovable. They're
hard, they're cold, they're dead. And those mountains are pictures
of our natural hearts. There is nothing more immovable. than the human heart. It can't
be moved with stories of God's grace and His greatness. Because
the natural man's heart is hard. Oh, it's hard. It's stony and
cold and dead. Nothing, nothing will change
that cold, dead, natural heart. So the church's prayer is, Lord,
cause my heart to break. When Your presence comes and
power, melt my heart. And what he really means there
is, Lord, give me a new heart. Give me a new heart of faith
and love. Your presence as the Savior is
the only way that'll happen. And Isaiah mentions here about
make your name known to thine adversaries. And that is my prayer
for the enemies of the Lord. That's my prayer to those who
are lost and do not know Him. Because I was an enemy of the
Lord once. I understand. So I pray for it. The Lord saved
me. Very likely he'll save others.
But this prayer is a prayer for myself, for my heart. Even after
the Lord's revealed himself to me, this is my constant prayer
because I don't want to forget the wicked heart of sin and unbelief
that lies within me. So my continual prayer is, Lord,
give me your presence. Lord, give me faith. I believe. But oh, help thou mine unbelief.
Lord, continually cause my heart, cause my bowels, my innermost
being to be moved with love and worship, praise at hearing your
name, at your presence, reading your word and hearing your gospel.
Don't ever let me just be cold and indifferent to these things.
And then Isaiah talks about the fire causing the water to boil.
You can always tell when a pot of water is over fire, can't
you? Because the fire always has an
effect on the water. The fire starts the water to
jump to life and bubble and give off steam. Well, the fire is
a picture of God the Holy Spirit. And this is Isaiah's prayer,
Lord, give me your spirit so I'll have life. Don't leave me
like I am, don't leave me cold and lifeless, but give me your
spirit. and caused me to bubble up with
life and joy from above. Make my heart warm and loving
with your presence in my heart. Lord, reveal yourself to me so
I'll learn the fear of the Lord. The enemies of the Lord don't
fear God, but if the Lord reveals himself to us, we'll tremble
at his presence, we'll fear him. And that's not fear, it's not
just like being afraid of him, it's fear of reference. Lord,
give me an attitude of worship. So not just on Sundays and Wednesdays,
but every day, let me live in an attitude of the reverence
of the Lord. Let me live in an attitude of
worship. Lord, reveal yourself to me as
the Savior in regenerating power. Give me a new heart. Second Isaiah
prays, Lord, reveal yourself to me. Give me your presence
so I see you as you are, as the gracious Savior, verse three.
When thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest
down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. For since the
beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the
ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath
prepared for him that waited for him. Now, if we know anything
at all, we know salvation has to be by grace. It has to be
by grace. If we know anything at all, about
ourselves, we have to say, if God saves anybody, it's gotta
be by grace. I mean, that's obvious, isn't
it? Salvation is by grace. So the prayer of Isaiah and the
prayer of the church is, Lord, salvation is by grace. Reveal
yourself to me as the gracious Savior. I need a gracious Savior. I don't need a Savior who saves
those who help themselves. I need a gracious Savior. Reveal
yourself to me in your grace. And this has to be a salvation
that's God's salvation. Man never could have come up
with a salvation that really saved sinners. Never could have
done it. Man is so ignorant and so blind. We have devised, we
never could have devised a salvation as glorious as salvation in Christ
by grace. So our prayer is that the Holy
Spirit reveal Christ to us and in us. And Isaiah says, you've
done this before. Now, would you do it again? He
says here, the Lord did terrible things before that we look not
for. Isaiah says, look at the history
of Israel. You did all these terrible things that we look
not for. Would you do that again? Now,
these terrible things are not, that's not the way we use the
word terrible. Isaiah means awesome things.
Lord, you have done awesome things in the past that we look not
forward. You've done things that are so
awesome we couldn't have even imagined them before you did
them. Those things caused us to reference the Lord, to worship
the Lord. Lord, would you do that again
for your people? Let me give you just a very,
very few of these terrible things, awesome things that the Lord
has done. You think about Christ coming to this earth as a man.
God became a man. When the Lord Jesus was born
and laid in that manger, God came into this earth as a man. God, whom the heavens cannot
contain, was formed as an embryo in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
What a terrible thing, a great, awesome thing that causes us
to worship Him. And He came proclaiming salvation
by grace, not by our obedience to the law. That was an awesome
thing we looked not for. God gave us the law and we were
determined to try to keep it. And even when we knew we couldn't
keep it, we just kept trying to keep it, trying to earn a
salvation. And the Savior came proclaiming salvation by grace.
What an awesome thing. We looked not for, we couldn't
even imagine such a thing. Now here's the thing about salvation
by grace. The law must be kept. If there's gonna be salvation,
the law's got to be kept. But man can't keep the law. Man
never could have devised this awesome salvation. Salvation
through the obedience of another. Now that's grace. The Lord Jesus
Christ as a man, as a representative of his people, he did what we
could never do. He kept the law and it's his
obedience to the law that he gives to the people, his people.
It makes us righteous. Look at Romans chapter three.
This is what the apostle Paul tells us in Romans three. Sinners
are made righteous through faith in Christ. Not through our works
of the law, but through his works, through his obedience. And we
lay hold on him by faith. We're not saved by works, it's
by faith. It's by grace through faith.
Romans 3 verse 20. God never did give the laws a
way that man could earn his own righteousness. Because Paul says,
therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be
justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law, without your obedience to the law, is
manifested. being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. And to all and upon all them
that believe, for there is no difference. That is an awesome
thing that we look not for. Salvation through the obedience
of another. Righteousness through the obedience
of another. And then the substitutionary
death of Christ for his people. That's a terrible thing. An awesome
thing. which we look not for, that causes
us to bow in reverence to him. Man never could have devised
this salvation where the justice of God is satisfied by the substitute
dying in the place of the sinner. That's God's gracious gospel.
God's elect live because Christ died as their substitute in their
room, in their stead, burying their sin and putting their sin
away. And God has sent this salvation
to his people in mercy and grace. He sent this salvation. He sent
this gospel to people who do not deserve it. Now that's so
wonderful. Man never could have come up
with something that wonderful. Never could have. So our prayer
is, Lord, reveal yourself to me. Reveal yourself to your people
as the gracious Savior. Do things for us that we never
dreamed of, and he's able to do it, isn't he? He's able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Lord,
do great things for us. Show us your mercy and grace.
Third, Isaiah prays, Lord, reveal yourself to me as the sovereign
savior, verse eight. But now, O Lord, thou art our
father. We are the clay, and thou our
potter, and we all are the work of thy hand. Now, my friend,
salvation is of the Lord. I wish we'd get this through
our head. Salvation's of the Lord. And what that means is
all of the work of salvation, from its very beginning, from
its conception in the mind and purpose of God to its ultimate
perfection, all of that work is done by the Lord. Salvation
was planned and purposed by the Lord in eternity. Salvation is
God's idea. It's not ours. This is God's
idea. This is God's plan and purpose
for His people. And that salvation was purchased
by Christ at Calvary. It was purchased by His blood.
And that salvation is applied to the hearts of God's people
by the Holy Spirit when He comes and gives us life of the new
birth. This doesn't happen when we make a decision to walk an
aisle and accept Jesus as our personal Savior. Now I'll tell
you exactly when we'll be saved. If you're here this evening and
you don't know the Lord, I can tell you exactly when you'll
be, I know the exact moment you'll be saved. When God wills. God's the sovereign Savior. And
after God saves His people, He's the one who keeps His people
by His preserving power from beginning to end. Salvation is
off the Lord. Salvation is all in the hand
of the sovereign Savior. And that's what Isaiah prays
here. Lord, reveal yourself to me as the sovereign savior who
saves his people. Because Lord, I'm worthless.
I'm absolutely nothing. I'm nothing but a dirty piece
of clay. Well then Lord, would you make
me something that I'm not? Lord, would you make, I'm worthless.
Would you make me into something valuable? I tell you, only God
can do that for us, because He's the skilled potter. We are the
worthless, dirty clay, and He's the skilled potter. But worthless,
dirty clay, in the hand of the Sovereign, who always does His
will, He can make us into something valuable. We were on vacation
just a few weeks ago. My daughter's boyfriend, Clark,
goes out and he goes, He finds this big lump of clay. Who does
that? Clark did. And he comes back
with this clay. And you know, it's all wet. I
mean, it's dirty and awful looking. It was repulsive looking. You
know, just running all over his hands and stuff. Well, I went
out and came back. And there, sitting down beside
the chair, you know who was sitting there? Clark had formed a pot. I thought, huh. He made something
useful out of that old ugly thing. That's what Almighty God does
with his people. Worthless, just worthless lump
of Adam's fallen flesh. But the sovereign Savior takes
that and molds it and makes it into something beautiful, makes
it into something valuable, his child. Now, that's all up to
God. He can make us a vessel of His
mercy or He can make us a vessel of His wrath. Completely up to
Him. Whichever He does with you and
me is right because He's God. He's the Sovereign. Nobody can
ask Him, what are you doing? Whatever He does with us is right.
Now I know the natural man hates that truth because we don't want
to be dependent on somebody else, do we? You know, we want to be
a self-made man. I'll tell you, you will love
that truth of the Sovereign Savior, that you are in His hand for
Him to do with you as He pleases, if He ever reveals Himself to
you as the Sovereign Savior. Oh, if He reveals Himself to
you as the Sovereign, you will love being in His hand. You wouldn't want to be anywhere
else. You'll say of the songwriter, Lord mold me and make me after
thy will. You're the skilled potter. I'm
the worthless piece of clay, but would you make me an object
of your grace? Would you make me what I'm not? Fourth, Isaiah prays, Lord, give
us his presence. Lord, give me your presence so
I see you as you are. Reveal yourself to me as the
covenant savior. Verse nine, He says, be not wroth
very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever. Behold, see,
we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Our prayer is, Lord,
I am nothing but sin. I've never done anything to deserve
anything good from you. Everything I've ever done deserves
your wrath. But Lord, my prayer is, don't
be angry forever. Lord, remember mercy. Remember
your covenant mercy to your people. We're your people. The people
that you chose to make yours in covenant mercy. God's mercy
to his people is always covenant mercy. It's never spur of the
moment thing. It's always covenant mercy. Purpose for his people
from before time began. And he gave us many different
illustrations of that through the scripture. Let me give you
two. You remember the time God, you remember hearing the story.
None of us were around, but you heard the story. How God destroyed
this earth with a flood. Covered, it rained for 40 days
and 40 nights. Before it started to rain, Noah
built an ark. God put Noah in that ark. God
shut the door. It began to rain. After it rained
for 40 days, water covered this planet for 150 days. There sat Noah in that ark 150
days, no dry land in sight. Genesis 8 verse 1 says, and God
remembered Noah. God remembered his covenant mercy
to Noah. God remembered his promise of
mercy. He remembered his covenant promise
of deliverance to Noah. So God caused the wind to start
to blow. So the waters would have bade off the face of the
earth. The ark would settle and Noah would get out on dry land
because God remembered Noah. He remembered his covenant mercy.
Look in Exodus chapter 2. God delivers his people from
the controlling power of sin. He delivers his people from the
damning power of sin because he remembers his covenant mercy,
his promised mercy to his people. He gave us a picture of that
when he delivered Israel from Egypt. In Exodus 2 verse 23. And it came to pass in the process
of time that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel
sighed by reason of the bondage. And they cried and their cry
came up to God by reason of the bondage. Have you ever been there? When the burden is so great,
it's so great. All you can do is sigh. All you
can do is cry. You don't even have an idea what
the Lord could do to help you, what the Lord could do to deliver
you. You just sigh. You just cry out to the Lord
because the burden is too great. And you keep crying and you keep
crying and you keep crying. Don't quit. Verse 24. And God heard their groaning
and God remembered his covenant. with Abraham, with Isaac, and
with Jacob. And God looked upon the children
of Israel, and God had respect under them. God had respect under
them because of covenant mercies, promised mercies of deliverance
to his people. So Isaiah's prayer is, Lord,
reveal yourself to me as the Savior. Give me your presence
so you reveal to me as the gracious Savior, the sovereign Savior,
the covenant Savior. And then the second part of the
prayer is this. Lord, give me your presence. Reveal yourself
to me so I see myself as I am. First, let me see you as you
are. Second, let me see myself as I am. And the only way we're
gonna ever see ourselves for what we are and who we are is
if God shows us himself as he is. The only way we'll ever know
what we are, who we are, is if we see Christ as he is. And the
only way we can see Christ is if God reveals him to us. So
first Isaiah prays, Lord, reveal yourself to me in your holiness. So I see my sinfulness for six. But we are all as an unclean
thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we all
do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. Now, sin is not just something
that we do that that's wrong, that we ought not do. Sin is
an unclean Sin is a filthiness that defiles us before God. It's defiling. And that's not
just the worst things we do. That doesn't just mean the bad
things that we do. That means the very best things
that we do are filthy, defiled by sin. All those best religious
acts that we do that we think will make God happy with us are
filthy and a defilement in God's sight. Our works of righteousness,
what we call righteousness is a filthy rag. It's something
that's completely defiled with sin. The word Isaiah uses here
means a minstrel's rag. It means something that's defiled
with blood. That's what you and I are by
nature. We're unclean, a filthy thing. That's the sinfulness of sin
that's in us. And I'm never going to see my
sin. I'm never going to cry out to God for mercy to cleanse me
of my sin until I see Christ in His holiness. And once I see
Christ, then I'll cry, woe is me. I'll see myself as I am in
the light of who Christ is. And then Isaiah says, Lord, reveal
yourself to me. So I see that I'm dead. We're
so sinful. There's no hope for us outside
of Christ because we're already dead. And Isaiah shows us that
by comparing us to leaves. Now this is a good time of year
for us to be able to look at the leaf and to compare our lives
to the value of our life to a leaf. To me, it just seems like a very
few short weeks ago, everything was cold and dreary and suddenly
I drive out here and things are starting to green up. Spring
had sprung. The leaves are coming out and
they're green and so beautiful. I was so uplifted, you know.
And then just a few days ago, those green leaves started to
change colors, didn't they? They started to lose their greenness.
They turned orange and red and yellow. And they're very beautiful. We just come along, isn't that
beautiful, isn't that pretty? But now look, the leaves are losing
their color, aren't they? They're losing their color. They're
losing the prime of life. And they're turning brown and
brittle because they're dead. There's no life left in them.
Just walk on them and hear them crunch. It's us. That leaf is us. Our physical life, usually it
starts out in great beauty, doesn't it? But it always will fade. Always will fade. It'll fade
completely to physical death because of the sin and spiritual
death that's in us. And we may hang on for a long
time. You know, we may be the very last leaf clinging to the
tree, but the wind's gonna blow and that thing's coming down.
Eventually, we're all going to fall and be blown away because
of the sin that's in us. And I'm never going to see how
hopeless I am. I'm never going to see my spiritual
deadness and beg God to give me life until God reveals Christ
to me. God's got to show me what life
really is, who life really is. When I see Christ and realize
I don't have it, then and only then will I realize I'm dead
and cry, Lord, give me life. Give me life. And here's another
way leaves are a picture of us. When the leaves fall, they're
a nuisance. Somebody's gotta go rake those
things up, and all that they're good for is bagging them up and
throwing them out to burn. That's all they're good for.
So our prayer is, Lord, give me your presence. Give me your
spirit so I'll have life. Spare me from being cast out
of your presence into the fires of hell because of your life-giving
grace to your people. And Isaiah says, Lord, I desperately
need your presence because I'm so dead. I'm so sinful. I can't even call on you unless
you give me your presence. Verse seven. He says, and there's
none that calleth upon my name. There's none that stirreth up
himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from
us and has consumed us because of our iniquities. Isaiah prays, Lord, give me your
presence. I will never call on you, but
you call on me first. I'm not able to. A dead man can't.
Lord, give me the life of your presence. I'm so dead I can't
stir myself up to lay hold on Christ until you lay hold on
me first and give me life first. You see how dependent we are?
This is an urgent prayer. Lord, give me your presence.
I can't call on you unless you do. I can't reach out to you
in faith unless you do. Then Isaiah prays, Lord, give
me the grace of your presence. I don't deserve your presence,
but give me your presence because of who you are. Not because of
who I am, because of who you are, because you're the gracious
savior. You're gracious to sinners. Verse 10, thy holy cities are
a wilderness. Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem
a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house
where our father praised thee is burned up with fire. and all
our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself
for these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace and
afflict us very sore? Now, the way Isaiah describes
these holy cities and the beautiful house, those are pictures of
you and me. They're a good description of
us by nature. The holy cities were cities throughout Israel
that were built and set aside for the worship of the Lord.
But those holy cities were going to be destroyed when Babylon
came in. And those holy cities, they're pictures of our bodies.
Bodies that God made to be holy. God didn't make Adam to sin.
God made Adam to be holy. Adam fell into sin on his own.
In our holy cities, our bodies have been ruined by sin. Because
of our sin, we've made our bodies utterly useless to the service
of God. In the beautiful house Isaiah
talks about is the temple. great temple, the place where
God said He would be worshipped and meet with men. When the Babylonians
came in, that thing's going to be burned. It's going to be destroyed.
Now you know the temple is a picture of Christ. And that picture tells
us God can only be worshipped. He can only be approached in
Christ. But men have taken that gospel
of Christ. They've taken that picture and
they've defiled it. They've defiled the gospel of
Christ. Men have defiled the worship of God, and man's religion,
all it is, is an abomination to God. Because men have turned
Christ into the beggar. They say, here's Christ, now
it's up to you whether you want to accept Him or reject Him.
They do not declare Him as the sovereign Savior of sinners,
who's the successful Savior, who saved His people from their
sins. And when they do that, they've turned that temple into
waste places, that man's religion all it is is a garbage dump.
There's no life there because Christ is not there, because
Christ is not preached there. Men have taken that glorious
gospel of Christ and done what we do with everything we touch.
We've defiled it. Men have defiled the message
of the blood of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ by making
the blood something that's offered to you. Here's the blood, it'll
cleanse you of your sin if you decide to accept it. But if you
reject it, then Christ's blood was shed in vain, God's gonna
send you to hell. What a defilement of the picture. What a defilement of the blood
of Christ. The gospel says that the blood
of Christ is an offering to God. It's not an offering to you to
see if you'll accept it or reject it. The blood is an offering
to God. as a payment for the sin of his
elect. And the blood of Christ got the job done. It paid the
debt in full, blotted out the sin of God's people forever.
If the blood of Christ is something that's offered to you and you
can accept it or reject it, then that blood of Christ not worth
much is it? If it was shed for you and you can reject it, if
it was shed for your sin, you can reject it and still go to
hell, then the blood of Christ not very valuable, not very precious.
But here in a moment, and they're gonna pass out this wine. You
take that wine as a picture of the blood of Christ, and your
confession is Christ's blood was shed to pay for my sin. You take that wine as a confession
that I'm so sinful, the only way my sin could be put away
is by the blood of God's own Son. If that's your confession,
you're confessing the blood of Christ is precious, Oh, it's
a precious thing. And Isaiah prays, God, don't
afflict us sore. In verse 12, he said, don't afflict
us sore. Well, he won't. The father will
not afflict his people sore. You know why? Because he already
afflicted Christ, our substitute, sore at Calvary. When Christ
died as a substitute for his people. At Calvary, the father
afflicted Christ, our substitute. He afflicted him so much as he
was being punished for our sin, his body was broken. That precious,
holy body was broken so that he didn't look like a man hanging
there on the cross. He looked like a piece of butchered
meat. His body was broken for our sin. His body was crushed
so that his blood would flow out. Blood to blot out all the
sin of his people. May God never let that man May
God never let the blood of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ
be defiled in this place or defiled in our hearts or looked upon
as a worthless thing. Then quickly, third, the third
part of this prayer. Lord, give me your presence,
how I need your presence because of the result of your presence
in the heart, verse five. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth
and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy
ways, behold, thou art wrong. For we have sinned in those as
continuance, and we shall be saved. Now when Christ meets
his people in grace and gives them his presence in his heart,
Isaiah gives us two things that happen here. The first one is
this, we rejoice in Christ. If he gives us his presence,
shows us himself as he is, we will rejoice in Christ. Now what
do we use to rejoice in? We used to rejoice in sin, don't
we? But now, the believer rejoices in Christ Jesus and has no confidence
in the flesh. We don't have any confidence
in the flesh because once we've seen Christ, we know there's
nothing in my flesh I can do to please God. So all my confidence
is in Christ. All my rejoicing and hope's in
Him. And we rejoice in Christ. He's the one who finished the
work of redemption for us and gives it to us free. We rejoice
in Him. And second, when Christ meets
his people in grace and gives them his presence, we work righteousness. That's what he says here, thou
meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness. Now, what
does that mean? I mean, we know even after God
saves a person, a believer, everything that person does, a believer
now, everything we do is sin, isn't that right? Everything
we do is sin. I've never done a holy thing
one day in my life. That's what Isaiah says here.
He says, behold our wrath for we have sinned. In those is continuance. This is something that's continual,
my sin. Yet, he says, and we shall be
saved. We shall be saved because of
Christ our Savior. If Christ is our representative,
here's how we work righteousness. If he's our representative and
we're in him, then everything the Lord Jesus did as a man,
you did too. That's right, you did it. If
we're in Christ, we actually did righteousness. Everything he did, you did. He's your representative. You
actually did it in him. And that's how God accepts his
people. He accepts us in Christ. He accepts us as actually righteous
because Christ's obedience is our personal obedience before
God. The result of Christ's presence
in the heart is we're made the righteousness of God in Him.
He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Oh, God, give us your presence. Give us your presence. That's
how God saves sinners. That's the gospel. That's how
God saves sinners. And that's what we're going to
remember now as we take the Lord's table. Wayne, you may distribute
the bread if you would. There's a few people who haven't
been here before as we've observed the Lord's Table. Let me tell
you two things. Number one, the Lord's Table is for believers.
It's not for those who always attend here or anything. It's
for believers. And second, I want you to notice
this as Wayne breaks this bread. This is a picture of what we're
going to get ready to eat. This is Christ's body being broken
for us.