Last week was part one of the covenant of redemption. This week is part two. I mentioned last week how the language in our covenant is that it pleased the Lord to reveal himself by way of covenant.
So describing the covenant or the counsel of the Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to save, it's really given to us as an insight into the decree of God, which comes before everything.
It's God's decree. It's what he intended. God is the one who has given us the language of covenant.
Now, I just want to be careful, too, that as we're talking about this, the covenant of redemption refers only to the incarnate Son.
So Jesus Christ is God. The person of the Son is co-equal with God.
So we we would reject a heresy called eternal subordination, like the Son was less than the Father at any point.
No, this is simply referring to the work that the Son would do once he takes on flesh, the work of the incarnate Son.
I also wanted to introduce this text in particular, because, you know, that passage in Luke where Jesus, well, in the Gospels, he comes and he goes to one of the synagogues and they hand him the scroll of Isaiah.
And he opens it up and he reads one of the servant songs and he tells them today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.
He's referring to this God, the Son who took on flesh, fulfilling this prophecy in Isaiah 53.
So listen to it with that in mind. The other thing I wanted to encourage us all with is why did God use covenant?
Why did God reveal himself in this way? I think the language that we have in Hebrews chapter six is very helpful.
And here's the answer. God gave us covenant for our benefit, not his.
It's a way for us to understand how great a salvation we have.
He says it says Hebrews 6 13 for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.
And it's a way of saying God covenanted or swore an oath by himself.
There's no one else he could he could point this to except for himself and he himself fulfilled it.
And it goes on to say God cannot lie.
And therefore, we can flee to him as a strong encouragement to hold fast to this hope set before us.
That's why the covenant of redemption is so good for ourselves.
All right. Well, let's read our sermon text.
Isaiah 53 10 11 and 12.
As I read this, remember, we believe this is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear and sufficient word.
It's the word of the Lord for you.
And if you receive it that way, I'll say this is the word of the Lord.
And you can say thanks be to God.
Isaiah 53 10.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.
He has put him to grief.
When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and shall be prolong his days.
The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.
By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.
And he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many.
And he shall divide the spoil with the strong.
Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.
Yet he bore the sin of many.
And makes intercession for the transgressors.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
The Bible says that the grass withers and the flower fades.
But the word of the Lord endures forever.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you that you have spoken.
You have revealed yourself in scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ.
We pray that these verses from Isaiah 53 will point us to that great work of God the Son who took on flesh to fulfill the covenant of redemption that you decreed before time itself began.
May we stand in awe of your greatness today, Lord.
May we see that this is not just a high view of the heavens.
This is a view of the God of heaven come down to earth to save his people.
Simple, common people like me.
And like each one here, Lord, for whom you gave your life.
And now you stand making intercession for us who were transgressors.
Thank you that you call us now the strong.
Lord, we trust that you will speak now powerfully as your word is proclaimed to the extent that it's faithful and glorifying to you.
Please guard my lips toward that end, Lord.
Please melt our hearts to receive what your Holy Spirit wants to press onto us today.
We ask this for your glory, for our good, for the sake of Christ.
Amen.
I want you to picture a different era when warfare was still hand to hand.
And when treasonous soldiers got captured and made to line up with a firing squad.
Picture that era.
And then picture a simple little cottage.
A mother and a little daughter inside the cottage.
Both are very sad, very heavy hearted because their dad has been captured in the war.
Well, the good news comes one day when they hear a knock on the door and it's the dad.
It's the husband.
From this little girl's perspective.
She doesn't even need to know the why or the details or the backstory.
She receives her dad with childlike faith.
And she's overjoyed.
For many of us, when we first had our eyes opened by the Holy Spirit to see how good God is in Jesus,
we receive him with that childlike joy.
But to use this analogy, picture years later, this dad has the opportunity to take this little daughter on a trip
and to tell her the whole backstory of how he got captured and liberated and got to come home and get a new lease on life.
He tells her how he was bound up in his hands and blindfolded.
And when she hears the full story, it changes her life.
She moves from a childlike faith to being overwhelmed with gratitude and wanting to just praise God for the redemption he's provided.
That's been my prayer with this series on covenant theology.
You don't need to understand.
I think a lifetime is too short.
In a sense, it's a mystery that we'll never fully understand.
But we're wanting to understand our redemption from God's perspective because it changes our life.
It doesn't mean you're not saved until you do, but it goes it can move you from being a childlike faith and joy and salvation to just being overwhelmed and throwing yourself at the feet of King Jesus in gratitude.
These verses that we read, it's ancient Hebrew poetry.
We've talked before about how Isaiah was from the princely class.
He lived in the courts of Jerusalem, very highly educated.
And even in these three verses, there's discussion about what is the true meaning, because that's what poetry does.
That's actually the intent of the author.
There's there's some Hebrew language that's not used anywhere else in the Bible.
And that's how how elevated the language is in these verses we read.
But even though it's mysterious and poetic and so high.
God revealed to Isaiah.
We get this from first Peter 110 that Isaiah, along with all the other prophets, were serving not themselves, but you, church.
At this good news, which the angels had longed to look into and understand.
And the Holy Spirit foretold Christ in all of the Bible.
That's what the apostles bear witness to.
He has unveiled himself throughout history.
The eternal decree of God as it unfolds.
So in these three verses for today, we get to try to peer and understand from Scripture what it is that angels in heaven have longed to see.
And that's how God God's eternal plan would be unfolded on earth.
So beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
My prayer today is that you will see your redemption from God's perspective.
And be changed.
First point is that to redeem sinners, the father required that his righteous one be crushed in our place.
From God's perspective.
In order to redeem sinners, God himself, through the person of the father, requires that his righteous one, this would be God, the son incarnate, would be crushed in the place of his people.
Let's look at verse 10 together.
We read that it was the will of Adonai, the will of the Lord to crush him.
The Jews spoke of Yahweh and Jehovah, which was the same name for God, the covenant Lord.
By the time we move further in redemptive history to Isaiah, that name was even considered almost too sacred to speak.
Don't want to take the name of the Lord in vain.
So they modified it into Adonai.
And it was the will of Adonai, the one God who is one.
It was his will to crush him.
In the King James, we read it, pleased the Lord to bruise his servant.
Well, we know from Genesis 3.15 that God told Satan, Satan, you will be the one who will bruise the heel of the promised seed of Eve.
But here in Isaiah 53.10, the bruising of the servant is ascribed to God.
It was the will of God to bruise him.
Ezekiel 33.11 said,
The Lord God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, only that we would repent and live.
So how can God be said to take pleasure in the death of his servant?
It's not the death of his servant that pleases God.
It's what that death will accomplish.
It's the mission being fulfilled and the rewards, so to speak, in this covenantal language.
The rewards the son would bring and then share.
It's the knowledge of God through the incarnate son.
That's what pleases the Lord.
Stephen Charnock, one of the Puritans, wrote that our sin deserves infinite punishment because it receives its aggravation from the dignity of the infinite God against whom it is committed.
And this servant song itself, Isaiah 53, back in verse 5, take your eyes just a few verses back.
In verse 5, we read that why was he bruised?
Why was he crushed?
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment for our peace was on him.
And this is the son willingly becoming the servant.
We read in John 10, 18, that Jesus said, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I have the right to lay it down and I have the right to take it up again.
I have received this command from my father.
God, the father commanded God, the son in the flesh to lay down his life and take it up.
Jesus himself said this was a command he received and he willingly obeyed it as a servant.
Jonathan Edwards pointed out that Christ stood, so to speak, from all eternity, engaged with the father to appear as man's mediator, to take on that office at the fullness of time.
It was God, the son all along, decreeing to be our savior.
The covenant Lord has a requirement, a will, a work to be done.
We read in Isaiah 53, 10, the Lord has put his servant to grief.
God, the father put God, the son in the flesh to grief.
He did that.
It's as if he said, son, before this sinful people can be with us, the holy God, we must remove the guilt of their sin against their holy creator, God.
And the son responds.
Yes, it is our divine will that you crush me, humble me, break me to pieces, shatter me.
God, the son, as your servant.
This is the decree of God.
This is your redemption from God's perspective.
Why did this please God?
Look at verse 11.
Because by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make the many right.
You see how our Lord Jesus Christ, he accomplished the redemption that God decreed so that you can know God.
By the knowledge of the son, you can know God.
By his knowledge, knowing him personally through faith, shall God's righteousness be put onto the many.
God will say, here are those for whom you died.
They are justified.
They are righteous, clothed in Christ's righteousness.
So what this matters for me and you is how do I know God in this way?
How do I know if I'm clothed in his righteousness, that I'm justified?
Romans 5.1 says we have been justified by faith.
Therefore, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
In John 17.3, we read this is eternal life.
What is it?
That they know the only God and Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent.
Do you see your redemption from God's perspective?
To redeem sinners, the Father required that his righteous one be crushed in our place.
Second point is that in the covenant of redemption, the same covenant before God even created the world.
Timothy and Titus were told it's before the ages began.
In that covenant of redemption, God, the son, willingly offered himself as the substitutionary sacrifice to pay for your sin.
The father required it.
And the son willingly offered himself as the substitutionary sacrifice to pay for your sin and mine.
We read in verse 10 that it would be his soul poured out that the father would receive as an offering for guilt.
We're told in verse 12 here of our sermon text that he, the servant, poured out his soul to death.
And he was numbered with the transgressors.
A Hebrew scholar, commentator on Isaiah wrote, his name's Alec Matye.
He said, what made the guilt offering distinct?
It says he poured out his soul as a guilt offering.
There's a lot of different offerings and sacrifices.
What made the guilt offering distinct from all the other ones is that it was an insistence on minute exactness between sin and remedy.
It is the total satisfaction offering.
We have sinned against an infinite, eternal, holy God.
What could be a satisfactory offering?
What could be an offering that would cover all of the guilt?
It had to be God the Son himself in the flesh.
We're told in Isaiah 53, look at verse 4.
He himself would have to bear our sickness.
He himself would have to carry our pains.
He would have to be pierced because of our rebellion.
We read in verse 7, 53, 7.
He was oppressed and afflicted, and yet he did not open his mouth.
Like a silent lamb, he was led to the slaughter.
God himself had to do it for the guilt to be perfectly satisfied in the most minute way.
Because we have sinned, as Charnok pointed out, and our sin is infinite in regard to the subject.
We have sinned against an infinite God.
And it's infinite in regard to the greatness of God against whom we have sinned.
And we read that this was the deliberate plan of God.
This was not something that man did to God.
We read in Acts 2, 23, that with the help of wicked men, Peter is preaching to Jews and Greeks.
He said, you put Jesus Christ to death by nailing him to the cross.
And he was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge.
John Stott commented that God himself gave himself to save us from himself.
The father put the work of man's redemption into the hands of his son.
And this work was with him and before him.
And the son undertook to accomplish the father's will, which was to redeem the people by his work.
We read in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, that God made him who had no sin to be the sin for us.
So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
God made him.
It's like the father said, son, how shall we show the world that we created our justice?
How will we show that God, the creator, is also gracious?
Son, will you become my grieving servant?
Will you give up your soul as an offering to cover perfectly the guilt of our people?
And it's as if the son says back, father, I will take on a body and I will pray not my fleshly will be done, but your will be done.
And I will drink that cup of grief and agony down to the very last drip down to the dregs.
Because in the covenant of redemption, God, the son willingly offered himself as the substitutionary sacrifice to pay for all of your and my sin.
Thanks be to God.
Third point is that as we see our redemption from God's perspective, the father promised his righteous servant rewards for obedience.
In the covenant of redemption, the father promised his righteous servant rewards for obedience.
God, the son is God.
This is covenantal language for our benefit.
It's to show us, like in Hebrews 7, that this oath that God swore by himself, so to speak, it is his eternal decree.
And the reason he uses this language is to give us hope.
So look at verse 10 again.
What is it that the father promises the son who lacks nothing, but he does it to show us the grace and the guarantee we have in this covenant of redemption?
So first, he gives the son this promise of a people.
In verse 10, we're told that this suffering servant shall see his offspring.
In Acts 20, 28, we read that the church of God obtained with which he obtained with the blood of his own son.
So the seed of the son is the church.
The people he he receives from the father, it's the church that he purchased with his own blood.
Jesus, he said in John 12, 24, that unless a kernel of wheat dies and is buried, it remains a single seed.
But if it dies, it will produce many seeds.
So his death brought him the church of vast multitude, more than the stars of the heavens.
The father promised the son a people.
The father also promised the son after taking on the flesh, eternal life.
In verse 10, we're told that the father shall prolong his days.
So yes, you will be crushed, you will be bruised, you will pour out your soul unto death.
But then the father promises to prolong your days.
May the king live long and prosper.
That's the language.
Son, you become a man and I will give you offspring.
I will adopt the people and you will dwell with them forever.
They will be yours for infinity into the future.
The language here of prolonging your days, it's really an echo of the Ten Commandments.
Do you hear that?
Which of the commandments is a promise to prolong the days?
Both in Deuteronomy 5 as well as Exodus 20.
It's the promise, children, honor your father and mother.
So son, will you take on flesh and obey me, your father?
Will you honor me in this way?
You have the promise that I will prolong your days in the kingdom of heaven.
Come to earth with your people.
Father, son, you shall honor me, your father and obey me and I shall prolong your days.
You have the reward of eternal life with your people for obedience.
The father promises a people.
The father promises eternal life and the father promises unstoppable success.
Verse 10 says, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Mordier again said, in his hand, that phrase, it's by his personal agency.
The servant who died to save sinners lives to administer the salvation he accomplished.
It's like the father is promising him.
Son, your death will not be the end of your days.
I will give you infinitely more.
Jesus went to the cross trusting the promise from the father that he told in Matthew 25.
That he will look in the flesh at God the father and know he says, well done, my good and faithful servant.
And that father, it's like he promises the son.
Yes, it is my will to make all things right.
My will for our kingdom of heaven to fill the earth.
And it's my will that all of these promises will prosper.
They will come to pass.
They will find unstoppable success in your hand.
My dear son.
We have the promise in Matthew 16, verse 18 from Jesus himself.
What that looks like.
Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
He received that promise from the father himself.
So in the covenant of redemption, the father promised his righteous servant these glorious rewards for obedience.
Number four, see your redemption from God's perspective.
In the covenant of redemption, the son trusted that his soul would see satisfaction after anguish.
Look with me at verse 11.
Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.
He has anguish because he is bearing the iniquities of sin.
But he'll be satisfied.
He will be abundantly filled continuously because his anguish will make the many transgressors accounted righteous.
That's what satisfies him.
We're told in Habakkuk 1 13 that God is a purer eyes than to look at evil.
So God turns his face away from sin and rebellion against him.
And that's why the blessing, you know, may the Lord's face shine upon you, because that means he can look at you.
He's holy and he can see you now.
He doesn't have to turn his eyes away from your evil and my sin.
He turns the light of his face away from sin.
That's the anguish the son would experience in bearing our sin.
In the garden of Gethsemane, our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 26 38 is described as being exceeding sorrowful.
Anguish even unto death.
In Hebrews 2 10, we read that in bringing many sons and daughters to glory,
it was entirely appropriate that God for whom and through whom all things exist should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.
So he has to experience this anguish, this suffering in their place in order to have the joy on the other end of that anguish of being satisfied with the people he received.
John Gill commented that as a woman, after her travail and sharp pains are over, having brought forth a son,
looks upon it with joy and pleasure and is satisfied and forgets her former pain and anguish.
So Christ, after all his sorrows and sufferings, he sees a large number of souls regenerated, sanctified, justified and brought to heaven in consequence of the anguish he endured,
which is a most pleasing and satisfactory sight unto God.
We have the promise in Psalm 89 verse 29.
I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.
And this line will continue forever and his throne will endure before me like the sun.
And Jesus fulfills this in the covenant of redemption.
He fulfills that work of satisfaction and suffering and agony.
And now King Jesus lives to see all the children that the Father has given him.
And when another soul believes, angels in heaven and the great cloud of witnesses join in rejoicing because Christ lives as King and he lives to intercede and to see this prosper in his hand.
God is bringing everyone that Christ purchased to know him by the work of the Spirit.
God is bringing everyone that the Lord has given him.
And the Father has fulfilled that promise.
Number five.
In the covenant of redemption, the Son promises to share the spoils of his victory with an army.
Now we turn to the reward themselves, the people, the seed.
This is us.
How are we part of this glorious redemption?
Well, in the covenant of redemption, the Son promises to share the spoils of his victory with his army.
Look at verse 12.
Verse 12.
Now it's in the voice of the Son.
I'm sorry.
First, the Father.
What the Son will do.
Verse 12.
The Father says,
I will divide him, my servant, a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.
So this Lord Jesus, the suffering servant who is numbered with transgressors, he joins the many.
He redeems them.
He suffers in their place.
Then he receives these rewards the Father has promised him.
The blessings of heaven opened up and channeled through him.
And what does he do with this blessing?
He turns right around and blesses the many.
And he calls them the strong.
The Father covenants with the Son, sealed by the Spirit.
The Son turns around and now covenants with the people.
In Luke 22, verse 29, Jesus tells his disciples,
I covenant with you as my Father covenanted to me a kingdom.
The same verbal source of that word.
I give to you.
I assign to you.
I grant.
I distribute.
I steward to you.
That verbal source is covenant.
The Father covenanted with me.
I turn around and covenant to you a kingdom.
This was one of the great insights of the Reformation.
Jerome had translated from the Hebrew to the Latin.
So everyone who was literate in the Middle Ages was studying the Bible in the Latin, the Latin translation.
Well, with the Renaissance and the Reformation, it's an ad fontes, a return to the original sources.
And they're learning how to study the biblical languages.
In Geneva, John Calvin had a right-hand man, another pastor named Theodore Beza.
And Beza was a linguist, a scholar.
And he was studying this passage in the original language.
And he picked up on this hint.
The Father covenant with the Son.
And the Son covenants a kingdom to his people.
That's the word Jesus used.
J.V. Fesco commented that Beza's insight was like a pebble that's caused ripple effects over the centuries.
And has helped us to continue searching all of the Bible for biblical covenant theology.
What does the Bible teach us?
Meredith Klein is one such biblical theologian.
And he said,
That by using the same verbal source for both covenantal arrangements, Christ revealed that the new covenant, that's the covenant we belong to him in the church.
It derives from the eternal and triune covenant relationship.
So the covenant of grace, Jesus Christ as Lord with his church, is founded upon the covenant of redemption.
And that's how our confession of faith explains it.
So is this covenant of redemption the same as the covenant of grace?
Notice all the differences.
There are different parties.
In the covenant of redemption, the Father is, it's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In the covenant of grace, it's between God and the church.
Church.
That's the different parties.
The role of Christ is different.
In the covenant of redemption, before the foundations of the world, the role of Christ is to become the suffering servant.
In the covenant of grace, Jesus is Lord over the church.
He's not the servant.
He's the Lord.
There's a different operating principle.
In the covenant of grace, we receive a finished work.
We receive by faith.
Our one job to do is believe.
It's faith.
Receive.
In the covenant of redemption, it was the perfect, perpetual, and personal obedience of a man.
And no man can do that.
Under Adam's curse, it had to be God himself.
Take on flesh.
In the covenant of redemption, our election is hidden in eternity.
But in the covenant of grace through scripture, the mystery of Christ is revealed by the help of the Holy Spirit so that every believer beholds Christ in all of the Bible.
I love how Michael Horton, a professor at Westminster's condito, wrote.
God's predestination is hidden from us, but Christ is not.
The person and work of Christ is the mystery hidden in ages past, now unveiled.
The person and work of Christ is the only reliable testimony of your election.
This is the key for application.
Those who trust in Christ belong to Christ.
And you believe because you are elect in Christ.
You belong to him in the covenant of grace if you believe in him by faith.
You believe in him because he died for you.
He died for you because he fulfilled what the father decreed.
This is how God will save a people for himself.
It's like our Lord Jesus says.
Those many whose sins he bore, those transgressors for whom he died.
Father, for them I will now live and make intercession.
The father says, I will give you the many as your portion and you will receive the mighty as your spoil.
Who are these?
Well, we know from the Bible we are sinners.
We are fools.
We are sin-loving losers.
And we are enemies of God according to the flesh and the curse under Adam.
We are transgressors.
But now, in the language of Romans 8, 37, because of the work of Christ for us,
we are more than conquerors through him who loved us and gave himself up for us.
That's why the father could say, oh son, it is my will for you to save these rebels and make them into your army.
Your troops will be willing on the day of war.
Psalm 110, 3.
Because in the covenant of redemption, the son promises to share the spoils of his victory with his army for the glory of God.
Do you see a redemption from God's perspective?
Isn't it humbling?
Six.
In the covenant of redemption, the son promises to bless his people as their royal kingly priest forever.
Look at verse 12 with me.
He bears the sins of many transgressors and now he makes intercession.
He prays for those whose sins he bore.
We saw the same message in Psalm 110 last time.
It's the office of a king combined with the office of a priest.
The two functions of a priest are to make offerings and intercede to pray.
We see Jesus doing both of those here.
He bears the sins of many.
He poured out his soul as an offering.
That's the work of a priest.
And he prays.
He makes intercession and he lives to pray for them as their eternal priest.
That's what we're taught in Hebrews 10, 10.
By God's will, we have been made holy through the sanctification of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
That's the work of Christ, our priest, with paying our offering.
We read in Hebrews 7, 25.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.
Why do they draw near to God through Christ?
Because he always lives to make intercession for them.
That's what the author of Hebrews preached in 7, 25.
In verse 12, we have this language that because he poured out his soul unto death.
This is why he can bless them.
To pour it out.
Once you pour something out, it's irreversible.
It's finished.
You don't need to wait for more to happen.
He poured out his soul unto death to finish this work.
He'll bear sin and he will pray.
It's the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit's divine will, their divine decree.
In the words of Hebrew 9, 14, that Jesus Christ, through the eternal spirit, offered himself unblemished to God.
Ephesians 5, 2.
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Do you see the work of Christ as priest?
Pouring out his life, paying the sacrifice willingly.
Do you see the Father receiving the sacrifice as an aroma?
Being pleased with the work of the Son.
I mentioned earlier that if we could be with that dad and his daughter and travel back and listen in as he told her the story of how he got redeemed.
From the row of death.
We would be changed just like she would.
I heard this from an Irish pastor.
There's a grave and it just says, I want to stand where you stand.
And according to this Irish pastor, I tried to find it, but I'm just going to go off of his.
The story is that this dad took his child back to that gravestone and then got to tell her the whole story.
He was standing in a line of men with their hands tied and the blindfolds on and the firing squad pointing at them with the muskets.
These were men who had been arrested for, quote unquote, treason, whether or not it was just.
And one of the one of the soldiers who had the musket to shoot them was 19 years old.
And he happened to know this man.
He happened to know that this man had a wife and a kid and a family.
And that 19 year old asked permission, went over and talked to that man in the line deserving to be shot.
And those were the words of the 19 year old.
I want to stand where you're standing.
He switched places.
He tied up his hands and took on the blindfold.
Took the bullet and died and was buried.
And that's what they put on his gravestone.
That's what allowed this dad to go back and meet his daughter and wife.
And I just imagine that little girl getting to travel back with her dad, seeing this gravestone and wanting to just, you know, kiss the dirt where the feet of this this man would have been laying.
Well, that was a soldier, a sinner who's dead.
How much more we want to kiss the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself up for us.
He said, I want to stand where you stand.
I want to be numbered with the transgressors.
And I'll be satisfied to receive my own people.
And to please my father.
From the foundation of the world before time began.
Our Lord Jesus Christ looked at you and me standing there hopelessly.
Blind.
Imprisoned to our own sin.
Deserving death.
Death.
And that's why Revelation 13 calls our Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
So that we can see our redemption in our own limited way with the words God has given us from God's perspective and be changed forever.
Forever.
Brothers and sisters and dear friends here.
The only fitting response.
Is to know God in Jesus Christ.
Kiss the feet of the father's servant, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living king.
He is praying for you right now.
And follow him.
Let's pray.