Find that one, you go Matthew, back one is Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, back one more is Zechariah. At least that's how I always have to find it. And those minor prophets can be a little tricky sometimes. But I love the minor prophets. Some of you may recall, a couple weeks ago I preached from the book of Habakkuk. And I think that my attraction to the minor prophets has to do with some of the hard work that has to go in to figure out just what in the world is being talked about at times. And it is hard. I'm not saying that going through these things just automatically communicate themselves to us. It takes work to understand at times what the Word of God is communicating in the minor prophets and other prophets like Isaiah or Ezekiel, etc. But it is a work, I believe, that is extraordinarily well repaid. It's in the minor prophets, and in the prophets in general, you see that God is deliberately communicating to His people in a very in-your-face manner. God has something to say, and He is going to say it. And I think we do ourselves a disservice If we just say, well, I know God was saying something, and he was trying to say something to them, but I really can't figure it out for me. Take the time. Ask your pastor or your elders. When you're reading the minor prophets, if you're doing like a reading through the year kind of Bible study or something like that, don't just flip through the pages as fast as you can so you can get to the New Testament. I know it's tempting. understand God's Word is really, in these passages of Scripture, intended to communicate a great deal to us. So, that being said, as an introductory comment, I will say this. I love preaching occasionally like this because I get to choose my favorite passages, but it also kind of is a double-edged sword because I love Zechariah chapter 3 so much that I have three different sermons on the chapter. So, I hope you have a couple hours tonight. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing on His Word and that He might write its truth on our hearts. Heavenly Father, You are so great and so good. And we do know that not all of Your Word is as easy for us to understand as other parts. And yet, You are so gracious to us And You have given us the promise that those who study Your Word, they will be taught. Those who need wisdom and seek You for it, they will receive it. And Father, that doesn't mean we will always understand everything or even understand it to the completion at which it is meant to communicate. But, O Father, we can trust Your goodness. that you will not leave us blind beggars looking for a morsel of bread without something to nourish and satisfy our souls. We do pray in particular. Meet with us. Help us. Encourage us. Convict us. But above all, glorify yourself through the work and ministry of your son and your spirit. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Zechariah 3. I am going to read the whole chapter. I doubt I will touch upon everything in this chapter this evening. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. And he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, see, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. And so they put a clean turban on his head. And they put the clothes on him. And the angel of the Lord stood by." And the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, if you will walk in my ways and if you will keep my command, then you shall also judge my house. And likewise, having charge of my courts, I will give you places to walk among those who stand here. Here, oh Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign. For behold, I am bringing forth my servant, the branch, For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon the stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says the Lord of hosts, everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. Amen. May God bless us by his word this morning, or excuse me, this evening. Well, a little context really is necessary. It's no fun digging into the minor prophets of time, and it's really no fun digging in right in the middle of a book when you don't know what's going on. And so I just want to give you a reminder, maybe some things you already know, if not, some things you are hearing for the first time. The book of Zechariah is a series of prophecies. Actually, really, they're dreams or visions that come to the prophet Zechariah. And Zechariah was given this ministry by the Lord. It was after the people had returned from the exile. So just to remind you of your biblical history, you remember that God had taken the family of Abraham and Joseph and all his brothers, had gone down into Egypt. And then after 400 some odd years, they came out of Egypt. And after wandering around for 40 years, they settled in the land of Israel. And of course, then you get into the series of not only the judges, but then on to the kings. And after a period of time, the persistent unfaithfulness of the people led to God's judgment. First, he removed what we would call the northern tribes, the larger tribes. He took them out under the subjection of the Assyrians. And then after that, Judah alone remained in the land of Israel for a few more years. And then the Babylonians came and took the people away. And then you get to the stories of Daniel and where they're in the exile and all those things. Well, eventually, under King Cyrus, the pagan King Cyrus, they are allowed to return. And it's at this time, after this time, that Zechariah begins his ministry. And his ministry is a ministry of encouragement. It's a ministry to sort of get the people moving, to get the people inspired, to get the people understanding what their task at hand is for them to do. And in the case of Zechariah, he's particularly wanting them to finish the completion of rebuilding the temple. He wants them to start that job. It had started But after years, the work kind of got laid aside and people kind of got busy building their own homes and their own things, their own farms. And after a dozen years or so, the temple still wasn't completed. And God is, through Zechariah, encouraging them to be faithful. to the task at hand. And the reason why that's so important, and maybe this is, I think, where we sort of get to some of the disconnect between our own experience and the experience of the people in Zechariah's time, is you have to remember what the temple was. The temple signified God's own presence among his people. You remember the tabernacle, that wandering temple, we should say? What happened? God visibly dwelled among the people. He was a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke on the tabernacle. And then when Solomon completed the temple, what happened? God's Shekinah glory was so great, this glow, or whatever you want to call it, was so great, His presence was manifested that they couldn't even do the sacrifices. They couldn't even stand to be there. God was signifying for His people, this is my dwelling place. This is a sign that I am in your midst, that I am your God and you are my people. And so you can see that letting aside and not completing the rebuilding of the temple is, to a certain extent, a very grave crime. They are, to a certain extent, saying, well, God, we've got other things to do. It's not as important to us right now. In a sense, they're saying, we don't need your presence among us. And I think it's startling, then, that God comes not in a word of strong rebuke, although there is rebuke to be found, but that the predominant message of Zechariah is one of God's persistent faithfulness in spite of their unfaithfulness, and God's persistent care to be the covenant-keeping God, to be the one who will continue to persist in his promises. regardless of their faithfulness and what they are supposed to do. And so you find this mixture of God reminding them, he is good, he is wise, he is loving, he is faithful. And so there's also, come on, get on with it. Let's go. Let's see you do the work. Let's see you follow my lead. Let's see you do what needs to be done to show that you are my people. That being said, when we come into Zechariah chapter 3, I think you see something of that mixture. The first part is a part of great encouragement. The second part is a part of, come on, let's get a move on. And we'll look at those two parts this evening. The first part is, of course, this startling vision that the Lord gives to Zechariah. And it's a vision of the high priest, Joshua. And the high priest, of course, would have been probably the premier citizen of Jerusalem. He would have been the man. He had all the functions of sort of keeping the body of people together. He officiated over all of the things which tied them to the Lord their God. He was a very important figure. And the picture that we get here is of a courtroom, isn't it? It's a courtroom that is placed before us. Joshua is standing before the judge. the angel of the Lord, and Satan is standing next to him as, we could say, the prosecuting attorney, the accuser, the one who is bringing charges. And notice it says that he stands at his right hand to oppose him. And of course, we know that what's happening here is that this is similar, I would say, to what happened in the book of Job. where Satan enters into the very presence of the Lord. And it's sort of this contest, as it were, between Satan and between the Lord. Satan is out to accuse those who are God's people. He is out to bring them to nothing. To show that they have no faith. To show that they have nothing to offer the Lord. And he does a very good job of that. That's Satan's great ability. It is to be an accuser. And if you allow me to perhaps extend sort of the courtroom scene a little bit beyond what the scripture tells us here, it really fits quite well in our understanding of what's going on. Joshua stands filthy. And we know that filthiness is a representation of his sin and his iniquity. If you look at the second half of verse 4, he says, see, I have removed your iniquity. So in the vision, when Joshua is standing there in dirty clothes, he's standing there as a sinner, as one who is not righteous, as one who has done what is wrong, as one who is filled with iniquity, lawlessness. You can pile up the phrases. Joshua has not done, and he has left undone, things that would stand in accusation against him. And of course, you would expect, perhaps, the Lord being perfect in His justice, the Lord being unspottedly right in everything that He does, then that Joshua would fail. That Satan's accusations would stick. that there would be this conclusion, guilty, guilty, guilty. But that's not what happened. The high priest, and I think it's important for us to recognize this too, when he stands before the Lord in this manner, he also stands as a representative of the whole people. You know, you remember the great day, the one day a year when the priest can go into the Holy of Holies, that inner sanctum, so to speak. Only he can go. And he stands to intercede on behalf of the whole people, right? And you think, wow, that's great. One priest, he does it once and he does everything for the whole people. But the opposite here is true. If Joshua, the high priest, stands as guilty, then all the people stand as guilty. And if you consider also that they're dealing with this sense of failure and incompleteness that they haven't completed the temple, they may perhaps already be feeling guilty of their own sense. They have not done as they have ought to have done. And then I think that's what makes this all the more striking. God takes a guilty person and He makes them righteous. Satan comes, perhaps, licking his chops, thinking, aha, I've really got him now. He's got the dirty clothes. No one can expect anything else but a guilty verdict here. It will happen, Satan thinks. I will have the day. But what does happen? You can think, perhaps, of the courtroom scene where the sentence is about to be handed out. We live in the world of reality television, so you see these court dramas and all this kind of stuff, and everybody rises, and you get the sense of anticipation. What's the judge going to say? What's going to be the verdict handed out? And the judge turns and speaks to the prosecution. Who do you think you are? The Lord rebuke you, Satan. Verse 2, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. And then is this not a brand plucked? from the fire. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? The Lord says His unrighteousness has been plucked out of the fire. Although He should burn, He has been rescued. He has a chosen one. He is one upon whom my grace, my love, my favor has been poured out upon. And of course, we really think, well, how is this transaction possible? How is, I mean, if we were watching that real-time TV thing where the person, you know, we say, oh, that guy's guilty as guilty can be. And if the judge were to do this kind of thing, what would we say? Travesty, horror, injustice. How can the guilty be declared innocent? You see what's happening here, don't you? You see what's taking place? The innocence. of Joshua and all the people stand upon, not on their own clothes, not upon their own righteousness, but it stands upon an alien righteousness, a righteousness outside of themselves which God graciously bestows upon them. Brothers and sisters, in Zechariah 3, we have the Gospel. We have the Gospel. It's a perfect picture of the Gospel, isn't it? that we come before the Lord and we come coming as we are, what are we? What kind of filth do we bear? You know, we are sinners. And each one of us, I'm pretty well certain, each one of us sins. But you know what the most difficult thing for us to deal with? It's not that we sin. It's that our very nature is sinful. Martin Luther made this point. We sin because we are sinners. We're not sinners because we sin. It's important to understand the priority. It's important to understand that it's our very corruption of nature which makes us unrighteous before God. It's not because we don't do everything right all the time. As His creation, we have been distorted and disfigured and we have become something other than what God has intended us to be even before we have even spoken a word. Even before we have, on our very first breath, even as we are rolling around in our mother's wombs, we are sinners. We have become corrupted. And of course, you know, that sin is not something that can easily be gotten rid of. You know, it's here, even the, I think the biblical analogy breaks down, right? You say, oh, well, go wash your clothes. Go, go take it off. Go, go do it. This is, this is a stain that can't be taken. No amount of bleach or, or no amount of OxiClean or whatever it is that you ladies use in your wash, no amount can take away this kind of stain. It's impossible. And there's no set of clothes that you can just so easily say, oh, OK, I got lots of money. I'll just go out and buy a new shirt. It doesn't happen. This is the kind of filth. This is the kind of stain which one greater than Joshua has to remove. And the same is true, of course, for you and for me. Your unrighteousness, it can't be easily done away with. it must be dealt with by another. And so, it is the Lord through His angel who rebukes Satan. You know, I would say that this angel is actually the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. I wouldn't necessarily go to my grave fighting over this, but I believe that this is the Lord Jesus Christ who's standing at Joshua's defense. That He comes Himself and mediates. He is both the judge and he is also the justifier. He is the one who deals with all of these things. And I think it's quite clear in my eyes it's the Lord Jesus Christ. The crime here is dealt with. The sin here is dealt with by Jesus. He says, take them away. I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you in rich robes." And there's a sense here where the clothing that Joshua receives is not just a clean version of the clothing that he had before. Do you get that sense? That what Joshua receives is even all the more abundantly great than what he had before. It was all dirty and filthy. You see, God is superseding that kind of righteousness. To me, it strikes just of what Jesus told the disciples. What did he say? He said, your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. This is no ordinary righteousness. In other words, it's not just up for us to try really, really hard and be really, really disciplined and do really, really good as often and as much as we can. No, the kind of righteousness we need cannot be provided under our own strength. It cannot be had by our own effort. It must be great and it must be wondrous and it must be beautiful. It must be Jesus'. It must be the spotless Son of God. It must be His righteousness that we all have in order to have the kind of comfort that this passage is intended to bring us. Do you notice too in verse five that Zechariah pipes in? He says, Hey, and let a clean turban be put upon his head. That kind of makes me chuckle. It's like, well, did they forget about the turban and Zechariah had to remind them? No, I think what it is is it's a picture that Zechariah understands exactly what's taking place here. And the turban was part of the wardrobe, part of the garb of the person who was the high priest. And so what Zechariah is reminding us of is that this man now is completely capable and completely able to serve righteously as the high priest. Not because of his own innate righteousness, but because he has a righteousness from above which none can stand and accuse him of. He has what cannot be taken away. He has the favor of God. He has the assurance that his iniquity has been removed. Brothers and sisters, this is just justification. That's a 25 cent word for saying this is him being made right with God. This is God at work in him. And we see only one part of it. We see what we might call the forensic side of it. We see God's work in doing it. But you know the other side, not fully drawn out here, is Joshua's faith in the Lord. He must trust in his God. He must trust in his Heavenly Father and in the Mediator who is Jesus. Joshua might not know Jesus by name, but he bears His name. The name Joshua and Jesus are essentially the same. They mean the Lord saves. And that's the work that God is going to do not only through Joshua and in Joshua, but now He is to be a participant in that very same ministry that God has called Him to minister to the people in this way. You see, so when looking then at what's taking place here, you understand the necessity of this kind of transaction. I hope you do. It's why Peter is able to say, as we read this morning from Acts, why there is no other name under which salvation may be found. There's no other name. There's no other way. but it must be through Jesus and it must be because of His work and His righteousness that we may have comfort and assurance. Let me then speak a word to people here, as I have to speak to myself at times, who have tender consciences. There are times where our sins feel so high and so deep and so consuming where I know for myself, am I saved? What kind of filth am I? Is there salvation to be found in this life? Do I really know the Lord Jesus Christ if I can say such things or think such things or do such things? Brothers and sisters, what's the Gospel tell you? The Gospel says that your righteousness, if you're looking at that, yeah, you are going to feel hopeless. But if you're looking at the righteousness of Jesus Christ, there is very, very much to be hopeful for. The promises of Scripture, that's their intention. For we who are weak in conscience, who wonder at our salvation, who feel keenly the weight and the depth of our sin, don't look to yourself. Just look to Jesus. And you will find all the comfort that your soul needs. Well, but the chapter's not over. The justification, the being made right with God, the being, the accusation falling away has taken place. But there's another thing that has to be explained to Joshua through Zechariah to the people and to ourselves. And it's at this point that you begin to see that God has a purpose for his people. The purpose, yes, is to justify them, to make them right with himself. But then what's the other purpose? To use them. To, in us, those who call ourselves Christians, to actually do things for the Lord and be useful of Him. Remember, if the goal is to go back, if we could say if the goal is redemption, to go back to say where things were in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve had fallen and plunged us into sin and misery. If the goal is to go back to then where Adam and Eve were just laying around in hammocks and just eating whatever they wanted. No, they were working for the Lord. Even in that unsustained paradise, there was work for them to be done for the sake of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, the goal is the same for us. We don't live in the Garden of Eden, unfortunately. But yet God, having called us and having made us His people, He has work for us to do. And so that's why He says, In verse 6 the admonishment begins and he says to him verse 7 thus says the Lord of hosts if you will walk in my ways if you will keep my command then you will also judge my house and Likewise have charge of my courts. I will give you places to walk among those who stand here here Oh Joshua the high priest you and your companions who sit before you for they are a wondrous sign for behold I am bringing forth my servant the branch verse 7 first of all and What is the work that Joshua is to do? Well, he's a high priest. And so God says, go be a high priest. It's not really much more complicated than that. The Lord is saying to him, you as a particularly commissioned servant of mine, you have a task that is only you can fulfill and I have particularly called you to it. Go serve my people. stand in their presence, do the works of intercession. You can think of all the functions of the temple that have to take place. All the sacrifices, all the blessings, all the washings that go on. God is basically saying to them, Joshua, go and do it. I don't know about you, but me, when I think about the Lord, particularly calling and commissioning, I always think it's sort of some great and super high and impossible task. But do you see the reality is God is just saying go do what you have been called and equipped to do. I find that enormously comforting. I find that just so comforting that it just makes me, even now, it eases such a load. Because God has called me to simply do what he has equipped me to do. You're saying, well, wait a minute. Isn't that sort of like a circular logic, where you go do what the Lord has called you to do, and then doing what the Lord has called you to do, you go do what the Lord has called you to do? Yeah, I don't know. I'm just saying that. But there's a comfort in that. Because God is not calling us to do something that we are completely and totally unprepared to do. Whatever it is he calls us to do, he's saying, you are prepared to do it. And so then we go through the scriptures and we see some of the things that the Lord calls us to do. I mean, think about the things that he calls us to to be salt and light. Well, that tells me that God has equipped me to be salt and light simply by being his. I'm equipped to be salt and light. Now, that doesn't mean I think I'm the saltiest or the lightest, but it means that there is for me the comfort in knowing that what God has called me to do, he has equipped me to do it. I think, and I kind of mentioned this in the morning, sometimes we Christians, we tie ourselves up into knots. And we make ourselves, we unequip ourselves when God has already equipped us. Saying, oh, I can't do that. I don't have any ability to do that. I remember dealing with this with a younger person at one time and they were sort of, you know, when you sort of hit this age between maybe like 18 and 24, you go through this whole period of life where you just have no idea what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to do it. It's very common. It happened to me and it probably happened to many of you as well. And this young person was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to serve the Lord or whatever, you know, and they were just, they were tying themselves up in knots. And finally, I just said to them, just go do something and figure it out as you go. You know, if we're going to sit on our hands out of fear of doing something wrong, we will never do anything. Because fear will have bound us and we will be found to have not served the Lord when the opportunities arise. And will we screw up? Of course we will. Of course we will. We will sin, and we will be stupid, and we will say things that we shouldn't say, and we'll try to justify it by saying, well, I was only trying to serve the Lord. And the reality is that by God's grace, we learn to how we might best serve Him. Service to God, and this is why service to God must be accompanied by prayer. because it is through the ministry of prayer that God molds us and shapes us and turns us and our hearts and our desires more and more into his desires. And so, yeah, if you're just going to go do and say, oh, I did it for the Lord and there's no prayer, there's no thought, there's no studying of God's Word that accompanies it. Well, yeah, you're going to mess up. And you're going to keep messing up. Until by his grace, you remember to come back to the fount at which you were supposed to drink. So verse 7, God is saying to him, go, do what you have to do. But then he gives him in verse 8, he goes back on the encouragement line again, doesn't he? He says here, oh, Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign. For behold, I am bringing my servant, the branch. Who might that be? It's Jesus. And again, this is for Joshua, and I think it's just as much for him as it is for us. It's Joshua, you have a burden to bear. As high priest, that is a high calling with great responsibility. And you will feel great inadequacy. But behold, one is coming, my servant, the branch, the one who is the root The One who shows that He is my servant. The One who will bring all things into their completion. The One in whom my perfection is found. I will send my Son, Jesus." And then he says in verse 9 something I don't really understand. Remember how I said that sometimes it repays good work? Well, you still find these things where you're just like, I'm not really sure What's going on? He says, For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon the stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord host, and I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. What's this thing with stone with eyes? I don't know. For those of you who expect your preachers to have all the answers, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will say this. Eyes generally speak to the all-seeingness of God. And I think, and I'll say think pretty strongly here, I think what's going on is he's saying to Joshua, I will see everything that you're dealing with. And I will know the pains and the trials at which you bear. My presence will be with you. I'm among you. And I will leave it at that. But notice what the message is. I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. And in that day, says the Lord host, everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. What's going on here? Well, of course, there's a picture here of the future of that, even though we live in a time now where there is this abiding presence of sin, where we deal with the fact that while God has called us, and he equips us, and he's amongst us, yet sin is still there too. None of us here this evening is who we should be. And none of us will be who we should be until glory. And that can be exceedingly frustrating. Not only for our own personal experience, but then on top of that, we deal with the other ramifications of sin, right? We deal with death. and sickness and poverty. We deal with a world which goes through disasters. We have to deal with the sinfulness of other people who do bombings or other evil things in the world. This world is an exceedingly frustrating place. And it hurts us. And it pains us. And so what he's saying is even though you have this abiding presence of sin, yet there is this hope. I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. I really think that the prophet here is talking about two things. It's the first work of Jesus, and it's the finished work of Jesus. The first work of Jesus on the cross, that one day, as you've probably heard it said, that's the D-Day. That's the victory day. That's where everything that needs to be accomplished has been accomplished. And then, of course, there will be the day of his return, which really is just the closing chapter of the book. And so what he's saying is that you live in a time of sin. And yet, for us, it has been and it will be all completely taken care of. I think about this especially when I'm in my biggest frustrations. Politics. You're not supposed to preach politics from the pulpit, and I'm not going to. But politics can be a source of great frustration. where you see the sinfulness of people, you get frustrated over the course of things, and you just feel like iniquity goes and goes and goes and goes and goes. Brothers and sisters, remember the cross. All sin has been dealt with on the cross. the frustration you feel in your political thought, the frustration you feel in your family, maybe you have family troubles or trials, in your work because you have an overbearing boss or impossible expectations or whatever it is. Brothers and sisters, all sin has been dealt with at the cross in one day, in one moment. And you know what? If we should die before the Lord returns, the frustrations will continue for the next generation. And so we have to look to the answer which God has supplied, which is Jesus Christ. Sin will be taken away. And then God goes on to promise this. He promises an enduring peace. You know, even at our best and most peaceful moments, we don't know this kind of peace. I mean, we could be on cloud nine and feeling full of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I kind of like what I was talking about this morning, where you just are so high with the understanding and feeling the presence of Jesus Christ with you. Even that is not this kind of peace. Even that is not the peace which will be for eternity. And that's why I think it's so hard for us to really have a full concept of what it means to think about an eternity in heaven. And it's also why people often really just mock heaven. Oh, so you're going to sit on clouds and play a harp the whole time? That sounds like fun. Because people don't know what real peace is. And we have a foretaste of it. And I think those times of the blessing of God, where he really meets with us, those are the foretastes. But it's just a foretaste. It's just a nibble. And you can't even really say it's a nibble because even the taste, the real full taste of heaven, go far beyond what the great blessings that we might experience in this life. Of course, what God is saying here, well, he's saying what Jesus told his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. Think of how personal that is. And Zechariah is actually a very intensely personal book. It is a minor prophet, but it's personal. God's saying, you, yes, you, you who read this, who by faith have come to Jesus Christ, you who are called my child, you. I have my eye on you. I have taken away your filth. And yes, I've called you to work for me. And yes, you will be frustrated. And it will be hard. And sometimes you will simply just want to sit down and cry. And sometimes, maybe even in your most despairing moments, you may just want to give it up altogether. Give up the faith. Give up your life. But you are my child. And I am with you. And I will take away and have taken away all sin. And I am going to prepare a place Brothers and sisters, what a wonderful God we serve. And for me, you know what it makes me feel? It makes me feel like I cannot serve this God enough. And the times where I do serve Him, I kind of get back in that bad cycle where I'm like, oh, this is just useless. What am I doing this for? I fall so far short of what I should be doing for You, Lord. And I remember the Gospel. I remember that Jesus Christ is my brother. And that His righteousness is mine. And heaven is mine. And all has been done for me. It almost sounds selfish when you say it that way, doesn't it? Like you're trying to puff yourself up. But that really is the Gospel. That God loves me. And you who would be drawn to Him, you who would go to Him, this salvation, it is so deeper and richer. If you're here tonight and you have not come to Jesus Christ, if you have not known what it is to have fellowship with Him, yes, you're in church and you're in a church where the Word of God is preached and all that, and that's fine and good. But if you don't know Christ, I can tell you it is a search that will be just immensely repaid. And it will be hard. My life has gotten immensely harder in some ways since I became a Christian when I was 17. But I tell you, it is of greatest, greatest blessing and of greatest reward. And I hope you too, if you don't know Christ, that you would come and taste and see that the Lord is good. Let's pray. Great God and Heavenly Father, we thank you We thank You for how You have communicated to us the fullness of Your love, the greatness of Your Gospel, the majesty of the salvation that You have given to us in Jesus. Father, we do want to work for You. We know that all of our working will fall far short and that our greatest of righteousness is filthy rags, and yet You accept us and that You love us and that You watch over us and that You save us because of Jesus. And so, Lord, we do pray that You would help us to be centered on the Gospel, to think of our Savior, to find hope and comfort and assurance in Him. And above all, Father, we pray for salvation to us all. There may be those here who don't know You, O Father, yet, even now, minister by Your Spirit. Comfort us, convict us, draw us, O Lord. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, Amen.