Lord, I pray that as a body we come together in union of the Spirit, in our fellowship in Christ, in our adoption in the family of the saints, sons and daughters of God. I pray, Lord, that we would be earnest in our affection towards you today. I pray, Lord, that those are here that that know you are redeemed in the Spirit, God, that they would be brought before you today through your word and through the spirit and the fellowship of the saints, that as always, as we come to gather together to worship you at this primary time in the week, this time where we come to rest in the knowledge of who you are through word and song and fellowship and prayer. God, I I ask that you would edify the believers here, that you would show them sin in their own life. Lord, in that, through the power of the spirit and the desire and willingness of the person. to change their thinking, to be made more and more into an image of who you are. And Lord, I do pray for those here who do not know you, who do not know the gospel, cannot know it. Lord, we pray that through your word, through the words of your prophet Isaiah, and God, through the power of your Holy Spirit, through these two means is how you bring people to faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that this time today, that if not salvation, then a planting of seeds, Lord, for a time in the future of their salvation. Lord, pray now for the church universal that meets to praise you in a like manner throughout the world. Lord, that you would take all these uplifted prayers, fellowship, ministry of the word, sacrament, and they would be a blessing and honor to you. Lord, we pray for the persecuted church who will be meeting in fear, who will be knowing that as they are gathered at any moment, their life could be called to account and they'll be before you. Lord, we know in our comfort that we would not forget the persecuted church. and that we would always remember the churches throughout the world who do not meet as freely as we do. Lord, let our fellowship with them through the Spirit strengthen them. And now, Lord, as we come to your word, I pray that the believers are edified, that you are glorified, and conviction falls on those in unbelief. But we pray for this time, in Jesus' name, amen. I've changed a few octaves, so you have to forgive me. As I was telling Bo, someone else's dirty children got my children sick. And it just passes down, always. Never fails. Well, today we are in Isaiah 11. Last week, as for those of you that may be visiting or your first time here or have been out due to other things, as we are taking the next six to eight weeks to go through the book of Isaiah, primarily looking at passages that are messianic in nature, as well as passages that are dealing with kind of the covenantal outlook of God throughout what you would call redemptive history. Last week we talked, excuse me, Last week we read earlier in the book in Isaiah and this week in 11. This flow of thought from 11 actually is still continuing from chapter seven. Isaiah is a book of a prophet, a long book of a prophet who was called to preach to a people who God told that prophet that they would not listen. It was his desire to call them to repentance and this prophet had the knowledge that there would be none. He not just calls his own people, Jerusalem and the southern and northern kingdoms, to repentance through various ministries of differing kings, but he also has a heralding of the end of nations. And in Isaiah there is a multitude of passages that are quoted in the New Testament immediately applying to the Messiah. Here is one that, 11, 1 through 5, which is decidedly easy to read for those who live on this side of salvation history. Many of these verses are used in the New Testament. And this is a Messianic passage. But just so we understand some of the background, the King Uzziah has died. And one of the markers throughout the Old Testament that Israel was being blessed would have been they were prospering financially. They were at relative peace, even if they had at times other nations who were in power over them. If they were doing well, they still considered things to be pretty well. Uzziah dies, and Uzziah was a prosperous king. Hezekiah has been born, and we kind of come through this area of scripture where they're talking about these Messianic verses. One of the interesting things about Isaiah, and all of the things that have been kept through history, whether the Dead Sea Scrolls finding an entire Isaiah scroll that is much later dated than any manuscript we've ever had, There'd been little to no change in what we'd had, the God keeping his word. Isaiah was treasured, as we talked about last week. There was the books of Moses, and then there was Isaiah the prophet, even though there were the 12, as well as the other, what we call the major prophets, and then some of the more abnormal ones that might be considered prophetic writings, such as Daniel. But Isaiah was the man when it came to Israel thinking of prophets. And when you look at ancient writings like the Targum, which was an account of kind of Hebraic commentary, is that they predominantly believed that this section of 11 had to do with Messiah. It had to do with a future hope. And it's one of the important things throughout Isaiah, and I'm going to try to tie it to what you would call Pauline eschatology, or Paul's view of the end times, as we've talked about before, is that what is this great hope that Isaiah is pointing to? Fictitiously or wrongly, we often think that what Israel was looking for was just this idea of a physical ruler who would come and physically reign over Jerusalem and Jerusalem there. But there was this idea, according to the writings of many ancient Israelite commentators, is the idea that no, this Messiah was a spiritual kingdom. There was this aspect of the spirit of Yahweh. This was not simply a physical thing. They've been lost in ways. So as we are coming on chapter 11, understand that God has predominantly used this metaphor of chopping trees down. Assyria has been compared to this great forest that will be hewn down by the axe that God is going to destroy them with. Earlier in chapter 10, it'll talk about the idea of the remnant of Israel, and Israel will be as a fire. And then now we find ourselves in 11. And if you look in 10.34, it talks about cutting down thickets of forest with an ax. It's where you're kind of, we get into the beginning of this imagery of the stump. So let's begin. I'll read a fullness of the text that we're doing today and then go back point by point. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord, or the Spirit of Yahweh, shall rest upon him in the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. In his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. Excuse me, I'm so sorry. So what was the similarity between the great, lofty, beautiful forest that was Assyria, as it was described, for anyone that's traveled anywhere, whether it be you grew up in heavily wooded areas, or been elsewhere where there was a lot of abundance of forest and trees, it was beautiful. Now if you can keep that image in your mind, or maybe think of the redwoods, everyone's probably seen a picture of that, at least on the internet, same thing. And so you have the, The idea of this beautiful, lush forest. And that's the imagery that Isaiah is giving of this huge nation that is consuming all of these other nations. Assyria, this huge forest. And then when he speaks now, he's talking about that forest is going to be cut down and burned and nothing will be left of it. And to the Israelite at the time, that was unfathomable. Assyria was a monster nation. They were cruel. Every imaginable torture and death sentence, they created new things just to do away with people. When they conquered nations, they didn't bring them into exile like the Babylonians did or even make slaves of them like the Egyptians did. They generally destroyed everything, salted the earth, took the captives, put them in other nations that they ruled with the mindset behind it being now what's left of this nation we've conquered who's disobeyed us or not paid taxes, whatever it might be, is that now what's left of them will intermarry with these other peoples and in a couple generations these people will no longer exist. That was the nation that was ruling at the time. They were the ones who had power. And so seeing this imagery in a people, even though in Isaiah, having times of prosperity, meaning that they were doing well financially, as long as they were behaving themselves, they weren't going to get in a lot of trouble. And then Isaiah brings this point up, this great majestic forest. There'll be nothing left of it. God has called them to judgment. He's called them to be his instrument of wrath on his own people, and then they as well will be completely destroyed. We see that if you were in Tim's class this morning, if you went through the book of Nahum, the destruction of Nineveh, the judgment on Assyria. And so what does it have to do with this little stump? And you'll notice that the great king of Israel was David, and he's not mentioned here in the beginning, his father Jesse is. And it's kind of a very purposeful account of the low estate of this one who would come. The low estate of Jesse. Simple man, out in Bethlehem, the tiniest of provinces within Judea, barely worth counting. And there's this stump. And the idea of the imagery is, again, majestic huge forest, tiny little stump, something that's already been chopped down, has a little bit of life left in it. The imagery was the idea of Israel was gonna go and be destroyed, the Northern Kingdom. And the Southern Kingdom was not gonna be that far behind. But there's gonna be this stump of Jesse, this line, if you will, this redemptive branch. But this stump, A branch from its roots shall bear fruit. Now, if any people who have been, again, outdoorsy, and again, you can just look at this online, unfortunately, if you've ever been a part of kind of cutting down trees or clear cutting, or you've ever been involved in anything that had to do with that, or you grew up in a place where you had a wood-burning stove, and if you had that benefit of chopping all the wood for hours and hours, good. You would know that certain stumps, after a time, just sit there. And then every once in a while you can walk through the woods and you'll see this funny little sprout just sticking out of this old, old stump of a tree. And that's the idea, that's the picture he's trying to create here. There's this stump and so what they saw of themselves and what they saw of Israel at this time was there's this massive giant that's used as a force of Assyria pressing down on them. And they've been told they're going to be punished for their idolatry. And in the midst of that, this branch of Jesse, what was left of David's line, was a pathetic looking thing. And yet, this thing that they were seeing with their own eyes, this stump, this whittled away kingdom, uses this brilliant imagery to say, but there'll be something that sprouts, a branch, something left over. This thing that God has planted is going to continue. So when you're thinking, excuse me, the contrast then is, however, is that Assyria would perish and come to a complete end, as was mentioned in Nahum this morning. But the root or the stock of Jesse was life. And from a stump or a twig that was to come forth and from the roots which furnished the stump with life, a branch would grow and would derive its life from the roots so that it might be fruitful. David's dynasty then, which is what he's talking about, is not completely exterminated. Its roots are in the ground and a stump remains. And having reached the height of its power, Assyria is going to be cut down forever at the height of its power. But David's house, now think again of this great contrast being made. At the height of its power, Assyria is gonna be done away with. In the lowest, most despicable time of the line of David and his dynasty, this new branch will come. And life is in the roots in this illustration. And that life in God's own time will manifest itself. As we've talked about, there's been prosperity in the time of Israel. Something like this would have come out of the ordinary. So the fullness of this beginning and through this prophecy is not something that would be immediate because he's telling them also in that imagery of what Jerusalem and particularly Bethlehem and the line of Jesse will be reduced to. That final king will be taken into Babylon. There'll be no one who returns. There'll be a man named Zerubbabel who will come when they rebuild the temple. Some people believe that was an account of him in this passage, not many. And so it's a looking forward. It's a hopeful passage. But at the time for the people that was written, it was a dreaded passage because the fullness of this stump aspect had not happened yet. Giving some examples of what this root or this branch will be like. The Spirit of the Lord, or Yahweh, if you have a Bible that has all capital letters for Lord, that's what's known as the Tetragrammaton. It has no vowels. It's roughly Y-H-W-H is how you would transliterate it. You can put vowels in there, it's where you get Yahweh. Once English language took on the J sound, that's where we get Jehovah. But when you see that written, the Spirit of Yahweh shall rest upon him, underline, take a note. And then the corresponding things that come under verse two, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. If you know anything about your history of Israel, you would know that you could go through the Kings and the line of David and go, not that many good ones. Let's look through this list here. Spirit of wisdom and understanding. Well, I think Solomon probably fell under that. Okay, let's go with Solomon. Spirit of counsel and might. Maybe counsel, didn't really have to fight. Spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Uh oh. Okay, he missed that one. Okay, let's go back even further. Let's think of David. He was the one after God's own heart. Spirit of wisdom and understanding, probably not to the level of his son. Counsel and might, certainly, that's David. Knowledge and fear of the Lord. Whoops, again. Was his delight be in the fear of the Lord? The reality is that some of these aspects can be attributed to some of the kings that came after Jesse and through his line of David. But what the author here in Isaiah is pointing out is, is not an exhaustive list, but it's something to show us this, just in this, with this branch, what this Redeemer will look like. So if you kind of, something that... Calvin wrote was that he does not mention all the gifts which are bestowed on Messiah, for that was unnecessary. But he only shows briefly that the Messiah, or Christ, came not empty-handed, but was well-supplied with all gifts that he might enrich us with them. So wisdom and perception, or what you might have as wisdom and understanding, gifts of the Spirit, which have to do with the realm of theoretical power. None of the terms employed is entirely exclusive of the others, and they denote primarily true piety or fear of God. Wisdom belongs to God and is derived from Him. It is the ability to render right decisions at the right times that one may act in accordance with the right. It includes intelligence. Now hold on, now think of it. It includes intelligence, But what it's reaching at is far more than that. Many of us know highly intelligent people, whether it's math or history or theology or whatever, highly intelligent. But this idea here of wisdom and understanding or wisdom and perception, it's that the ability to render right decisions at the right time. so that one may act in accordance with what is right. So the idea being not just a knowledge, but an ability, a supernatural ability given by the spirit of Yahweh to make the right decisions based on that knowledge. So intelligence by itself. So certainly Messiah, Jesus Christ, was intelligent. But this word, the way it's used here in the Greek, it has also the ability to rightly appraise situations. and to render right decisions, not just highly intelligent, but able to do good with that. Perception, or understanding, refers to insight in the true nature of things. Respect to the human heart. If we were to look at this passage as it's meant to be in the New Testament, as it refers to Jesus Christ, you could look at things like Luke 2, 52, or John 2, 25, starting at John, and needed not that they should testify of man, for he, Christ, Messiah, knew what was in man. And then in the Luke verse, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with man and God. The idea that the true nature of things Jesus was able to perceive. I kind of get where I'm going with this, that while these things and pieces might have been attributed to some kings, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the one who this verse is about looking forward to, held these things in totality. These were part of who he was, his nature, the spirit of Yahweh. counsel and might. The Messiah can discover wisdom and so advise that all of his decisions are wisely laid plans. In every case given, the king, this king that Isaiah is talking about, this future king, chooses the right means, makes the right decisions. We're reminded of the Messiah in 9-6, counselor and mighty. And the Lord has spoken of, in Luke, a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Having chosen the right means and made the right decisions, Messiah exhibits a firmness and constancy in executing these decisions. So, kind of long-winded, all of these things, these first two, spirit and wisdom, spirit of counsel and might, all these things have to do with the way in which Messiah, or this king, this future king, would make decisions. He would make them intelligently. He would make them all, though, under that umbrella of under the spirit of Yahweh. The Israelites had not seen a king like this before. They were left to wonder, such a king as this? And then this part, excuse me. Verse 3, in his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. and the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord in the end of verse two. Something we have in Proverbs, the idea of the spirit of the Lord, or the spirit of Yahweh resting on him, he finds delight. Now think about that. The law of God, the fear of God, the piety towards God, it's more than just saying, I think that's true. It's the idea that this king, this Messiah, will delight in that. He will delight in the devotion to God or to Yahweh. So all of these what might seem like practical things are all under this, again, this umbrella of the being in the spirit of Yahweh toward the idea that this king would be one who would delight in his devotion. So the true nature of a Davidic king was a ruler of a theocracy. And the kings that we've seen so far in the history of Israel, they had deviated from that principle of cherishing and delighting in true piety. They had all failed as a ruler of a theocracy. And so when we talk about and the prophecy and looking forward to the Redeemer, don't separate ourselves from the people of the time that reading this still would have been a despair because they've never seen a king like this. And the ones they had at the time that had just passed away was considered a fairly good king, didn't look like this. Hezekiah at times, gonna look great, doesn't look like this. And so the idea is where is the hope then for this people? The hope was only looking forward. The hope was always this final hope as you see later on in the verses. Now, verse four, I'm sorry, verse three still. Delight in the fear of the Lord, he shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear. Falling under the kind of the same idea of what we used earlier in four, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor. and decide the equity for the meek of the earth, and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked." Turn suddenly. The idea being, excuse me, this king will be wise, he'll be understanding, and he'll have a spirit, and all these things are kind of under the spirit of Yahweh, and it's kind of who he is by nature, and he'll delight in the fear of the knowledge of God, and then this is what he's going to do. And if you've read anything of the prophets around this time moving forward, really from the time of this period of where the Northern Kingdom is falling, soon the Southern Kingdom will, and also moving forward to the exile and back, there's this theme, kind of a test of godliness. The first thing that's mentioned, and you should think of the Beatitudes of Jesus when you're talking about this teaching, but one of the first things you see in verse four is, with righteousness he shall judge the poor. Now, before you take this too far or in your mind think I'm going somewhere, which I'm not going, is that somehow that didn't mean that God's righteousness and judgment was going to be good on those who were rich or well-off. That's not the point of this. The point of this or the imagery in this is that the poor were often the most forgotten in this culture. What is the thing in remembering about Jesus' ministry? What does he say? Give all your money. to the poor, sell your possessions, and follow after me." The idea that the poor and the taking care of the poor was the idea that that was a kind of a sign of spiritual life in his people. The spiritual life in his people all throughout the law from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, you see this function of Do not take all of your crops so that the sojourner or the alien or the poor may pick from it and eat. You are to be able to take care of the poor. So talking about what we see the lowest in society. that's who God was going to render just judgment on. Not just because the society had maybe forgotten about them, but also they were viewed as lower. Those who were kings, those who were elders of Israel, those who were her leaders, they would expect that God was going to come back and render righteousness and judgment to them. But when writing that to the poor, he shall bring righteousness, he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Talks about the character of this king. Again, something they've never seen. This king looks different. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and the faithfulness of the belt of his loins. Striking the earth with the rod of his mouth is a kind of shocking way within the midst of this where suddenly the reader has to at least deal with the fact that throughout the rest of the Old Testament narratives and whatnot, there's times when great imagery is given and it has to apply to a man. But here now, this part of, the idea being that the breath, his words itself are gonna render judgment. This is new. No obstacle can stay the reign of this king. He carries through his rule. Those who are in the greatest need of righteousness, as we've said, are the poor and the oppressed. They have been trampled underfoot and neglected. Moving down a little bit. The idea that, sorry. I have a fever and I'm blanking in and out here. So as for kind of the deal with the strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, the earth itself. As for the earth itself, that earth upon which the poor and the oppressed lived, kind of this same realm, he is going to smite that or strike that because he is above the earth. what Puritans would call supra-earthly, or supra-natural being. He can do with the earth what he will. The very breath of his mouth, like in Revelation 1, 16, is a rod with which he can chastise and smite. And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, the Revelation passage. What comes forth from his mouth is his word, and that word is a judging, smiting word. How powerful and efficacious is the breath of God's mouth. By that breath the hosts of heaven were made. By that breath that goes out of the mouth of Messiah accomplishes the end for which it was designed. In this passage here, has to do with righteousness and upholding justice, but also here to destroy the wicked. Finally, righteousness shall be the belt of his waist. Faithfulness, the belt of his loins. In ancient wrestling, don't raise your hand if you're in wrestling, if you were in wrestling, in ancient wrestling, there was a belt. kind of tied around the waist of two opponents. Kind of like sumo wrestling, but not quite. So, because the idea was to grab the belt and take it from your opponent. That was Men died in these kind of contests just from just kind of sitting there for 24 hour periods basically, not being able to wrench the belt off each other. But this imagery here is the idea is that this Messiah, this future king, this one who is this lowly little stump of Jesse that everyone's forgotten about, oh, oh, remember that? And then this sprout or this branch comes from it, Messiah. In the midst of this ruin, spiritual and physical ruin of Israel, comes this branch. And this branch will have the spirit of Yahweh, and on him will be wisdom and understanding, counsel and might and knowledge and fear, and he will delight. He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will cherish and have deep affection for being pious towards God. in a way that no one has been able to do before. And in that righteousness, which is his, he's going to judge the poor and the meek, meaning he's going to uphold those who are meek in the spirit, who have been forgotten. And he's also going to be the one who will strike the earth with the breath of his mouth, with the rod representative of power, and beatings, and to use that, his breath will destroy the wicked, and righteousness itself will be the belt of his waist." An interesting illustration when you think about that is that no one's going to be able to take that from him. He's girded, as it were, for battle, for this match that he's going to have. and faithfulness, the belt of his loins. The idea being that this same king, this same little branch that has all of these things, has all and everything possible that he needs to fulfill his ministry, both as Messiah, as suffering servant, as we'll see later in the book of Isaiah, and also this talking about as one returning, the one who will return and strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. He will come to conquer, And he is girded in a way or dressed in a way to do combat on behalf of his people whom he represents as the one God has chosen. Even with a fever. So, all that to say, looking at this passage, looking at these Isaiah passages, What do we take away from it? Broken down what the words mean? Show you what it might have looked like to the people of Israel? Kind of very, very, kind of not subtly pointed that this is obviously talking about the Messiah who would come, who is Christ. But what does the Christian church do with something like this verse? I think often we just kind of look at it and go, cool, Jesus is awesome, and then keep reading. But what about these things that are mentioned? If we're called to be according to His image, when we love that passage in Ephesians where it talks about election and eternity past and being brought into the family of Christ, but we forget that piece where we're to be conformed into His image, we're to be His likeness bearers. And so look at these attributes that God has. the Messiah has, this branch from the stump of Jesse, spirit and wisdom of understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord, and particularly here, delight in the Lord. His delight shall be not just the Lord, I sure love that meal I had for breakfast, thank you, go God. No, look what he writes. He's going to delight in that fear and reverence that he feels when acknowledging who it is, who this is. So when we think about Christ and we think about these Old Testament passages, don't forget how they're connected. His first coming, his first advent was one of humiliation. He comes, he takes on flesh. He dies the sinner's death for them. One who is meek, one who is poor. He's a reflection of all of these things, all of these people he's going to represent. He takes on. And when he says it's finished, it's finished. And those who God has called in eternity past, in that perfect love of the Trinity, of God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, electing, saving, regenerating for the glory of God through His church, through the bride. These things we're supposed to look at in delight, in the fear, in reverence that we're supposed to have toward the Lord. And then knowing that, where is our blessed hope? What is Paul's hope in his books? I challenge you to read kind of Paul's epistles and kind of ask this question. I want to read Colossians, Galatians. Philemon might be tough, but some of these other things. What is, what would I say, where does Paul keep reminding his people that the hope lies? Obviously in Christ, obviously in the Spirit and the Word, but he keeps pointing them to this event that hasn't happened yet. The resurrection. He's gonna come back. He's gonna come back and conquer and reign, but before that, understand, he's coming for his people. And so what was this great misunderstanding of the Old Testament that we see mentioned and often and when Jesus is in Jerusalem, it's this constant, it's this frustration and this weeping and condemnation for the people that they didn't even know the scriptures that they were so proud of, is the idea that the Messiah was coming in humiliation, and he was also coming to conquer. But he wasn't coming to conquer in order to conquer this fallen, messed up world. He's coming again in order to make all things new. And so Israel's hope in the time of the great forest of Assyria that was surrounding them was to look forward to this time that the most sober-minded of the people there could see, this isn't gonna be our time. But I know, as Job writes, that my Redeemer lives. And I know that in the future, this, this stump of Jesse, that's Messiah. That's the one who, according to Genesis 3, will crush the head of the snake. That's the one we've been waiting for all along in the midst of our cycle of continuous rebellion and sin and idolatry, and in our nature, the inability for us to serve God. God is going to make a way, and that is where we place our hope. For Christian man and woman today, especially the comfort we live in. It is very easy for us to forget that our hope doesn't lie in having the same meals that you're used to. It doesn't lie in that your closet full of clothes and shoes, your five trucks or whatever it might be, your collection of Dutch literature, all of these things, will make us smile and make us rejoice, but if we're not careful, pretty soon the church that is at ease, that is in great comfort, very quickly finds that they might say the right things and what they believe about, the great hope is in Jesus, but the way that their lives are living is not living vertically anymore. where practically we're living horizontally. These are the things that give me hope. These are the things, my stuff, my kids, my wife or my husband, my job, my possessions. This is where my hope lies. And when these things get taken from us, what is our reaction? Our reaction is supposed to be, my hope is in God alone. I know all these things are what He's given me. They're for me to enjoy for His glory in an appropriate way. But if any of them are taken, I know my hope is not in these things. Israel lost sight of that. That's the entire sad history of the Old Testament. Judging the the piety of the nation on their prosperity, or on how their lack of persecution, or the hidden nature of their sin that they believed God couldn't see. And I just pray for the church. When we read these messianic passages, and we really dig into them, we kind of put ourselves in the seat of this original audience and still can see that's, That's me. What do I need? I need to be conformed more and more to his image, eyes that see what he sees, eyes that delight in piety, that flee from sin, that adore and fear and delight in the fear of the Lord, and hold to that great and only hope that we have, the promise of his return. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word given so long ago. 3,700 years ago, 2,700 years ago, the idea that Messiah, as we see it here in your holy word, This longed-for Redeemer, this branch of Jesse, of the line of David, the one that all of humanity was to wait for. God, and He's come. He's done His work on the cross. And now we celebrate Messiah. And we read your word and we celebrate Messiah. We celebrate the works of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the work and the love of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit through prayer and song and word and sacrament. Lord, I pray, God, that we take these verses as your people. We take this time as your people to, again, anew refresh our minds and our hearts to where they're supposed to be. The things that we delight in that you've given us, Lord, if you were to take them away, where would our delight in you be? And Lord, I pray that this church would honor you in the outworking of the Spirit in their lives, in their neighborhoods, their homes, their workplaces, in amongst each other. Lord, I pray for those that do not know you, that the gospel of Jesus Christ and his redeeming work on the cross, his death, burial, resurrection, sending of the Holy Spirit and the bride to the church that now looks forward and awaits his return. Lord, I pray the gospel of Jesus Christ, through your spirit and word, would set them free. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.