Turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 15. We are kind of camping out here in this chapter for a few weeks because there's so much here. There's great theater, great drama. but also great truth, truth that a man or a woman or a boy or a girl must know, must know these truths. I want to read again the whole chapter, and it is 35 verses, so bear with us, but I think it's good to get the context of what we're going to be talking about. This is, of course, that section where the Lord rejects the kingship of Saul, and there's a hint of what is going to come with David. And Samuel, that is Samuel the prophet, said to Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel. Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I've noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. That was 300 years in the past. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telam, 200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, Go depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites, and Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction. The word of the Lord came to Samuel. I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear? And Saul said, well, they have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction. Then Samuel said to Saul, stop. I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night. And he said to him, speak. And Samuel said, though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go to devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I've gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I've brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I've devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination. And presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.' And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.' As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. And Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. And also the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the Lord your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord. Then Samuel said, bring here to me Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, surely the bitterness of death has passed. And Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death. But Samuel grieved over Saul. and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. It's a great passage, it's a sad passage, it's tragic in many ways, but it's one of those places in the scriptures that when I get to heaven I would like to see it sort of drawn out, and the theater of this drama is really amazing. And to see what all is going on here, I think, would give us some great understanding. Last week we looked at a couple of truths, really a couple of hard truths for us to grapple with, and I won't go into all the detail again today, but just the reality of judgment, the rightness of God's judgment upon the Amalekites. And it's a picture to us of God's of how God looks at the world and how He deals with sin and how His nature is such that He must deal with sin and He will deal with sin. It's a hard truth for us. It's not something that we gleefully preach from the pulpit that sin condemns. and that judgment is sure, apart from repentance and believing on Jesus Christ. And yet it is a message that we must preach if we're going to preach the gospel rightly. And then we saw also the deceitfulness of the human heart. And Saul was kind of the poster boy in many ways for the deceitfulness of the human heart, how jaunty and full of himself he is. And yet the Lord speaking these sober words to him And it makes us think, doesn't it, how we can speak truth and we can speak sober words of Scripture and they just bounce off the human heart like it's metal and the deceitfulness of the human heart. Today we want to look, though, at Samuel's words to Saul. He's teaching him and us, I think, today about this great truth in verses 22 and 23, and really just those two verses. Samuel is making a declaration of a great truth in these verses about how the Lord looks upon those that He has made, and what a priority He puts upon simple obedience, simple obedience to His Word. And I had intended to draw out three truths out of this passage today, but I'm really only going to do two. And the first one is this, is that the obedience that God requires of His creatures, the ones that He has made, the obedience that God requires. And then secondly, we want to look at the obedience that saves. There is an obedience that saves in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So just those two. And then next week, I want to talk a little bit about gospel obedience, what the Holy Spirit provides for God's people. But today, just those two things, the obedience that God requires and the obedience of Jesus Christ that saves. So first, the obedience that God requires, well, I think we see it in our passage here that what God requires is a heart of obedience. God requires that the inner man that he has made is obedient to Him. He looks at the heart and what He desires is an inner heart of obedience, not a sort of superficial outside obedience. And let me say this real clearly. The Lord cares not that you are here today. What He cares about is that you are here in heart and soul for Him. Not that you have just come and sort of gone through the motions of taking our seats and physically being here, but where your heart is, that your heart has brought you here, his heart for you that you have responded to and that you have this heart for him. That's what he desired. He desires the heart of man. not his sacrifices, not his sort of outward signs of obedience, but an obedience from the heart. And he will tell us in 1 Samuel 16, that's where he looks. He looks at the heart. It is as though he doesn't even see what's on the outside, he looks on the heart. What's on the outside would flow then from the heart. He's very much interested in what what we think on the inner man about his law, his moral law. Now in the Old Testament, remember in the Sinai Covenant, there were set up sacrifices and festivals and feasts and a whole lot of sort of physical things that would be pointing toward the inner reality. In other words, when the sacrifice was brought and laid upon the altar, it was a pointing forward to what Jesus Christ would do. But what happens, of course, with people is that they will sort of elevate the physical or the ceremonial over what is on the inside. And God, in His Word, takes us again and again and again back to the heart of things. If you'll keep your finger at 1 Samuel 15 and turn over to Psalm 51, that great psalm of David's repentance, which came home to him on what God thinks about the heart. Remember in Psalm 51 and verse 10, we read, David, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips. Those are all physical things, but they come out of this heart. that David has this heart given to him, really, by the Lord. Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. And then listen to this. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. And we see that all throughout the Old Testament. It's not like the Old Testament is this sort of outer shell of real heart obedience. And the New Testament is this new flowering of heart obedience. No, it's all through the Bible that the Lord is concerned about the heart. So that's the first thing, that this obedience that God requires, absolutely requires, is an obedience from the heart. And then secondly, it's an obedience to God as the author of life and the authority for life. The author of life, He's created all things, He's created you and I, He made us, and the Bible says He made us for Himself. If you turn back just one page from Psalm 51 to Psalm 50, We read these words, Psalm 50 and begin at verse 7. Here, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your foals, for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He owns everything. He owns you and I. He brought you and I into existence. And what He requires from us as His creatures is obedience. To do what He says to do. And to do it from the heart. from the heart. In Isaiah chapter 66, the Israelites were kind of arguing with Isaiah the prophet and speaking to him about their temple worship and their going to the temple. And basically Isaiah said, the Lord speaks through Isaiah and says, you know what, I built the temple. What is the temple to me? I made everything. What I look for is the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. This is what he requires. And then in our passage in 1 Samuel 15, he actually defines, then, obedience. This is how the Lord looks at obedience. He says, verse 22, has the Lord as great delight, as we talked about, burnt offerings and sacrifices and as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." And look at verse 23. He basically defines obedience versus disobedience. And he says, for rebellion is as the sin of divination. What is that? That's witchcraft. It's basically calling on the evil spirits. It's Satan worship, and we would put that in the worst of the evils that man could ever be associated with, the calling on the evil spirits. But God says, that's what obedience is. That's what disobedience is like. That's what not obeying me as the author and the authority for life, that's how he looks at it. Rebellion is as the sin of divination. And presumption, and that you could say pride, sort of that carefree attitude that Saul had when he was confronted with his sin. The presumption, he says, is as iniquity and idolatry. In other words, it's wicked. It is wicked to disobey the Lord. It is evil to disobey the Lord. It is idolatry. What does that mean? Well, what it means is that I have substituted my will for God's will. God has said, this and this and this, commands and promises, but I have said, no, not me, this is what I'm going to do. It's idolatry. You may not have a token that you carve out and put in your living room to bow down to, but the Bible says you might as well do that if you're not obeying me. If you're not obeying me. It's rebellion. It's idolatry. It's wicked. and it's what man is given to, isn't it? We could all say ourselves, yes, Lord, that's me. I fit into that picture. By God's grace, I may not do it all the time, but it's there. It's there in my heart. For the unbeliever, that is the position that he is in. The wickedness, the self-will, the idolatry is where he is. It is his life. And the Bible goes even further than that to say that that that there is a kind of bondage to that. There's a sort of, that man's heart is captured in that mindset. That rebellion to him, disobedience to the word of God, is like breathing to him. And to do anything other than that, to submit himself to the Lord's ways and the Lord's words, well, that's simply out of the question. In fact, in Romans chapter 8, Paul speaks to it in really very sad words, isn't it? You remember how Paul is laid out there, this life in the Spirit, but he contrasts it. In verse 6, chapter 8, he says, to set the mind on the flesh, that's the natural man, that's you and I as we came into the world. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Four, the mind that is set on the flesh, that's just people, that's as we are, is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Now, did you notice that? He said that this the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. If you tell the unbeliever, the one who lives his life in his own world, his own self-will, if you tell him that he's hostile to God, he would not believe you. He would say, well, I just don't think about him very much. I don't think about his word very much. But hostile? Well, that's what the apostle says. That's what God says. It's hostility, for it does not submit to God's law. God, the author of life, God, the authority for life, speaks into his world, into his creation, his created creatures, the height and the epitome of his creation, and characteristically they do not submit to God's law. That's the characteristic of their life. Does not submit. That means every day in every moment of every day, there's this characteristic, does not submit to God's law. And then the second part of that verse is tragic. Indeed, it cannot. It cannot. Such is the fall What the fall has done to humanity, to those who are created in God's image, is that they are now in a bondage, in a captivity to this disobedience that they cannot get out of. There is in reality no human hope for fallen man because of his disobedience. And that disobedience is ingrained in his character so that he does not submit to God's law. It is characteristic of him that he doesn't, and he cannot Ephesians chapter 2 says that when Paul was speaking to the Ephesian believers, he said, look, I'm going to tell you where you used to be. He said, you were dead in trespasses and sins. And dead people are not able to give God the obedience that he requires, that he deserves. They're in bondage. In John chapter 3, when Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus about the necessity of being born again, he speaks to him of the darkness that is in sin. And at the end of that chapter, after he's gone through everything about that darkness and the need of this new birth, this new life, this awakening to God, He says that those who do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that wrath, God's wrath remains upon them. The judgment of God against that disobedience. Make no mistake about it. God is very much aware of the hearts of every man, the hearts of every boy, every girl, every woman. knows and reads it and sees it and sees that that disobedience, that heart of man is deserving of his wrath and deserving of his judgment. So when the Bible speaks to us of the obedience that God requires, it is meant to show us that there is no hope at all except one place. And that's the obedience that saves. There is an obedience that saves, and it's the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Often when we think about the cross of Jesus Christ, we think about Him dying for sins. And that's true. It's gloriously true. He accepted the penalty, the guilt, that is upon us all, He accepted that at the cross. But there is another aspect of God's saving work that has to do with His obedience. And theologians like to talk about this in two different ways, so I'm going to throw out a little theological term for you to kind of grasp what Jesus actually accomplished and what he has given to those who believe on him. And theologians call it his active obedience and his passive obedience. Sometimes those terms can be a little bit not as clear. We understand what active means is active obedience. God says this or God reveals his will and he does it. What is passive obedience? Well, that's the way they would describe when Jesus became the sin bearer. when He took sin upon Him, there was an acceptance of that, of all the guilt and the penalty of sin, He took it to Himself. That's what theologians refer to as His passive obedience. But in reality, when Jesus Christ came into the world, He came into the world to really do both. Think about it. In Philippians chapter two, when Paul there is describing the mind that the believer is to have, he says in verse five, have this mind among yourselves. which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, that is, he was God, the second person of the Trinity, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to. It was not like God sent, told Jesus, I want you to go into the world, and he did that kicking and screaming. holding on to his place as God. He said, no, no, he did that willingly. Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. From the very beginning, Jesus Christ was taking on to himself this attitude of a servant. There was a sort of that passive quality of being the sin bearer from the very beginning. From the time he was born, he was the sin bearer, and he was the obedient servant. That's what that passage is telling us. It says, being born in the likeness of men. What a condescension for the God of the whole world, the Logos, who called the world into being. and saw the sinfulness of man turning away from him, that God would become and take upon himself human flesh. It was a great condescension. And not only to take on himself human flesh, but to be identified with sinners and to be the sin bearer of his people and for his people. He was born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming, what's the next word? Obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. What does God require of His creatures? He requires obedience. And what Jesus Christ came into the world to do is to be obedient. to be obedient in an active way, as he obeyed the voice of God, he obeyed the law of God, we'll show that, but also in a passive way, in taking the weight of man's sin and his disobedience. And let's put it in the plural, his disobediences and taking upon them for himself. And that's how we can understand, I think, a little bit better when Jesus began His ministry. We're going to take just a minute to kind of walk through a couple of things in the Gospel of Matthew. So if you have your Bibles, turn there. You remember when in Matthew chapter 3, John the Baptist is preaching about this one who would come, and Jesus comes on the scene and John sees him and behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And so Jesus comes to John there at the Jordan and he came, verse 13 tells us, he came to be baptized by him. And John has trouble with that. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? He was humble on John's part. He knew that he was a sinner. He knew that Jesus coming, the Lamb of God, the pure one, coming to him, somehow he knew that Jesus did not need to be baptized. There was no repentance necessary for him. And so he says, he would have prevented him. I need to be baptized but you and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Obedience, it's necessary. And what was he doing there? at the baptism. Perhaps we could say a number of things, but one of the things he was doing, and what baptism really does signify in one way, is an identification with Jesus Christ. When you're baptized, you're baptized into Christ. Of course, the water doesn't do anything. It's what Christ has already done, the Spirit of God. But it's a picture of your identifying. I am identifying with Jesus Christ. By the grace of God in Christ, I have been united to Christ in my believing. Now, I'm going to identify with Him from henceforth. That's why it's public. That's why there's public testimony. It's a marker, so to speak, in the life that says, I'm identifying with Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus here is identifying with sinners. All along as John has been baptizing, everyone that's come to the river, man, woman, boy, girl, all that he's been baptizing were sinners. They were sinners who had not fulfilled the requirement that God requires, and that is obedience. They had been disobedient to God. And they were coming looking to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world that we're coming to be baptized. A baptism of repentance. We believe God. We want to follow God. We're accepting His forgiveness. So all of them, we're sinners. And so Jesus comes, and He's baptized. Because He's a sinner? No. No. because he identifies with sinners. He comes down, it's a great picture, it's a great visual. Jesus Christ has come down from heaven, come to earth, and now identifying with sinners. And identifying with them in their sin, though he himself was sinless. And then he begins, and the placement here in Matthew is really perfect because Jesus identifies with sinners. And then what happens next? Matthew 4 and verse 1, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Forty days in the wilderness and the devil came to Him with all sorts of temptations. And usually when we read this passage, And we think about the application before we think about what's going on here. And the application, of course, is, okay, this is, when we look at, when we are tempted, look at what Jesus did. He allayed the temptations with God's word, and he went to God's word, and he spoke God's word, and he believed God's word. But really, that's not the first truth here. The first truth here in Matthew chapter four in the temptation is that Jesus did not give in. Jesus did not disobey the Lord. He obeyed Him. What was He doing there? Remember, He had identified with sinners, and now He's beginning publicly to live this life of obedience to the Lord, to fulfill, as the Bible says, all righteousness. to do in Himself what you and I, if we heard anything about what was said in the first 15 minutes today, what you and I are incapable of doing. And that is to give God the obedience that He requires. He requires it. He requires a hard obedience. He doesn't lower the standard. for Christians? It doesn't say, well, you know, you're a Christian, so you can sort of give your partial obedience. No, no. God requires absolute and perfect obedience. How many of us match up with that? I don't. I don't. And this is why Matthew 4 is so, so precious to the believer. Because Jesus Christ did. He gave the obedience from the heart that God requires. He was working out, we might say, a righteousness in his life. in obedience to God. And notice how Jesus does respond. This is interesting, where the devil comes to him, if you're the Son of God, verse 3, command these stones to become loaves of bread. You're God, so do it. And he answered, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And we could look at that and we could say, yes, that's what I want in my life. Then that's good. That's fine. But that's not really the first truth, is it? Because Jesus Christ did that. Every word. Every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus, we might say, was an Exodus 20 boy. And when the word came to him that said, obey your parents, honor your parents, Jesus did that. He had sinful parents. He was the son of God, perfect in every way. And he had sinful parents who were always messing up and doing wrong things. They did their best. We would say, yeah, well, they did their best, but they were sinners. And Jesus honored them. He obeyed them. We have that little picture, remember, when Jesus was 12 years old and His parents went off and left Him in Jerusalem. Can you imagine that? leaving your kids at the church and you go on home and start dinner. Well, that's actually happened a couple of times here. I think we're guilty of that, aren't we? So it happens, okay, but it's part of our sinfulness, forgetful and whatnot. They went off, they left him in Jerusalem. And he goes, as a good boy would, as a good old Exodus 20 boy, he goes to the temple. That's where the Word of God is. That's my life, that's my breath, and that's where he goes. He goes to the temple, and that's where his parents find him. He's in the temple, and they get on him. They shake their finger at him, and they say, why did you treat us so? He's innocent. Didn't you know I have to be in my Father's house?" So gentle with them and so patient, so bearing with them. And then what does it say? And that He went back with them and He submitted to them. It's a picture, isn't it? Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, the Obedient One, to every word, every word, When you come to the Bible, we pick and choose, don't we? We come and we say, oh, that's a good word there, you know, I'm going to do that today. But Jesus, every word shall have no other gods before me. That was His heart. That was His heart. Do not commit adultery. Be pure, clean. That was His heart. Do not covet. That was His heart. Satisfied, thankful, gracious, generous. That was His heart, obeyed every word that comes from the mouth of God. And then the devil again, throw yourself, he will command his angels, and there are hands that will bear you up. That's a good psalm there that comforts us. And Jesus says, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. He knew the Word of God. Every word that comes from the mouth of God, He obeyed. He obeyed it. In verse 10, Jesus said, Be gone, you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. And what is for us this aspiring, this desiring, and then we fall and falter in so many ways, but perhaps it's God's grace has come, we desire it for Him. It was a living reality every day. Worship the Lord your God, Him only. I'm not going to serve these other idols. I'm not going to serve my own self-will. I'm going to serve Him. That was His heart. That was His mind. In John chapter 6 and 7 and 8, it takes us through Jesus' attitude. And as they came and they questioned Him, and what would He say? I always do what pleases the Father. I always do His will. He knew nothing else but to do God's will. But think about this, in His human nature, Not as God, not to say, well, He turned on His little God pack and then He was obedient to the Lord. No, no, no. He was a man. He took upon Himself human nature. And as a man walking through this world and living as a man, He obeyed God. Every word that comes from the mouth of God. He was faithful in every respect. Every respect. We read this morning, I think Mike read this at the end, and was struck, as we often are, about that command that says, love your enemies. Jesus did that. Aren't you glad that Jesus loves His enemies? We were enemies. We didn't love Him. We didn't honor Him. We didn't say, oh yes, your word is to me like sweet honey. We didn't say that. And He loved us anyway. He came to us and He obeyed. That was His food and His drink was to love His enemies. He saw people. We read Friday, Mark chapter 8, and how Jesus saw the crowds. They were just crowds. They weren't disciples. They weren't his followers. They were just people, nameless people. The disciples, they would look and they'd say, well, there's nothing we can do. It's hopeless. We can't feed these people. And Jesus saw them, and He's concerned about them. And He says, well, if they've been here for three days and we let them go, they're going to faint on the way. He saw people, and He saw how they were. He loved them. And they, at that point, they were enemies. He was a curiosity phenomenon. It's like going to the circus. Go see Jesus, do a miracle, and then go home and do our own thing, you know. And he loved them. He loved them. Why? Because he was obedient to God. He was faithful. Every single command, every word that came from the mouth of God. But he was also obedient to be the sin bearer. the sin bearer, and there is a kind of passiveness to that, isn't it? And think about sometimes the fruits of the Spirit, the graces that the Lord gives to His people. Often those are passive virtues, aren't they? Some of them. What does He say? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. What's the next? Patience. That's a bearing grace, isn't it? And Jesus had that. He bore the sins of His people. Now, He did that on the cross. That was the culmination. That was the climax. But really, in His life, He did that every day, didn't He? He bore with those disciples. We look at them and often their responses to Him. We say, don't you get it? And He bore with them. He was so patient with them. When Peter was in the outer courtyard denying Him, He looked at Peter and He didn't say, well that's it Peter, I'm done with you. No, He bore it. He took it to Himself. He bore the sins. And the picture, of course, is so perfect in Isaiah chapter 53 that gives us a picture of this obedient, faithful, righteous, sin-bearing man, the Lord Jesus. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Now, that didn't just happen at the cross. Remember, he's acquainted with grief. You remember the woman there in the city of Nain, and they come up upon the funeral procession, and Jesus stops, and there's a whole crowd there with him, and he stops because he sees that woman. He sees her in her misery, in her agony. She's lost her only son and has a life going to be lived out now. It's going to be torturous and painful. And he saw her. And he had compassion on her. He was acquainted with her grief in obedience to God. This is what God is like. This is what God commands. This is what God requires of all of his people. All that he has made in his own image. And all so flawed, so terribly flawed. And Jesus Christ has come. Be their Savior. be obedient unto death, even the death of a cross. And Isaiah goes on, he says, And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. That was the sin-bearing of our Lord. When He's on the cross, He's spat upon. They took His clothes off. He became a spectacle to men, the shame and dishonor of the cross of Jesus Christ. He was bearing it. The shame. Sin brings with it much shame, doesn't it? And guilt. And Jesus was bearing it. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Do you know Him? If you know Him, you know Him having done that for you. You have some experience of that, don't you? When you go through the dark alleys of living in the fallen and sinful world, and you come to grief, and you come to sorrow, and you know Jesus Christ, He's looking at you, He knows you, and He's right there with you. This is the obedience that God requires. and the obedience that Jesus Christ gave. He gave it. Surely He's borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God. That was true. It was God laying His punishment for sin, the wrath of God. If you do not believe in the wrath of God, you must look at the cross, because that's where the wrath of God came down upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He was smitten by God. He was afflicted by God. It's what God thinks about disobedience. It came upon Jesus, but He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. and with His wounds we are healed. It's Isaiah's way of saying what the Apostle Paul would go on to say in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For God made Him, Christ, who knew no sin, obedient to the Lord every word. God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us. that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. You see what's happened there at the cross. And as the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to see it, you see first of all, one of the, I think it was Samuel this morning, was talking about the mirror that's muddy. What the Holy Spirit comes, He comes with His little pad and His squirt bottle and He cleans off the mirror so that we look and we see ourselves. And we see our disobedience, disobediences to the Lord. And He does more though than that, doesn't He? Because then He shines the light upon Jesus Christ. that Christ came to die for the ungodly. He came to die for the ones who are besmeared and besmutted and whose life is a living testimony of disobedience to the Lord, what the Lord requires we have not fulfilled. And brothers and sisters, we cannot fulfill it in our own strength. But Jesus Christ has. That's what he goes on to say, doesn't it? All we like sheep have gone astray. Testimony. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone. Can't leave anyone out. Everyone. to His own way. That's that self-will that we look at Saul and we condemn him for his self-will, but it's in every one of us, isn't it? Go your own way. Do your own thing. We're told that again and again and again and again. You are the center of life. You're the center of everything. Grab the gusto. Do what you can. Live your life to the full. everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." That's the sin bearing, you see. So Jesus Christ has come to live this truly human life. Obedience to God is more than just obedience to God. It is truly human. It is what God has made us to be. If you want to know what is true humanity, what does it look like? Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. Every word of God committed to His own life and His own obedience. It was a blessed life. You cannot look at the life of Jesus and say, well, yeah, you know, He was pretty good, but I don't want to be like Him. That's crazy, isn't it? To be loving and kind and generous and thoughtful and heroic and courageous. I want to be like Jesus, right? And He's given this humanity, this true humanity, He's given it to us. The theologians call it imputation. We use the figure of putting on the righteous robe of Christ, and that's what it is. The hymn that we sang a little while ago, it talks about, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's the two halves. That's the blood of Christ, the sin-bearer, receiving the punishment, the guilt, the wrath of God against sin, and then the obediences of the Lord Jesus Christ in every detail of His life, faithful in all the little things and in all the big things, and He's given it to us. It's our standing before God. You're not going to appear before God if you're a Christian in those filthy rags of yours or mine. We're going to appear before Him. We stand before Him in this glorious, perfect, spotless robe of God that Jesus Christ has woven Himself in His own life. And He gives it to us to wear. Perfect, perfect standing before God. I love it the way the Apostle Paul says that because we are justified in Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And into this grace, what does it say? Into this grace in which we stand. We can stand up before God. because his obedience, his righteousness has been given to us, counted to us. And of course the point we're not going to go to tonight or today is the Holy Spirit now in doing this work in us of believing is not done yet. He's going to be doing this reforming, transforming work to do what? To make us in reality like Christ, conformed to that perfect image that we see in the New Testament. That's the goal, you see. That's what the Holy Spirit is doing. First opens our eyes, gives us light, moving us, taking us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. And then He is going to move us along and transform us into that glorious image. of Jesus Christ. God requires an absolute obedience and Jesus Christ has provided it. If you're not in Christ this morning, why not? Why not? Here is a perfect standing before God. You will not get it anywhere else. You can turn over the new leaf as many times as you want and it will always come up. Disobedient. Disobedient. Disobedient. And you might say, well, I was obedient here like Saul. I did this. And God says, well, you didn't do this. And that will always be the testimony. You come before God and you say, well, I did this. And He'll say, yeah, but you didn't do this. And that's what I require. And Jesus Christ has done it. He's done it. He's the only place. He's the burnt-over place where you can go and be safe in Christ and Christ alone. God, give us grace. Give you grace. Give us all grace to believe on Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for our Lord Jesus Christ, offer to God an obedience that is worthy and that is beautiful in His own life. And Lord, the mystery, the amazing mystery of the cross is that in believing on Christ, we have that. It has been given to us. Our sin transferred to Him and all His righteousness given to us. It is amazing. Were it not in your Bible, we wouldn't believe it to be true. And yet that's what he's done, the love of Christ that passes knowledge, he's done for his people. Thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord, for this time that we can Remember that glorious, sin-bearing death on our behalf. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.