Isaiah 54. Now, you know, I don't really know. I don't know exactly the best way to cover all of this, but I do want to just remind you of the context. That we just got through, right before Christmas, the week before Christmas, we just got through the fourth and most significant servant song. The one that really answers all the pressing questions, if you were paying attention, the pressing questions that you should have in this section of Isaiah. Namely, what's the big problem, what's God's solution to it, and ultimately that solution has a number of levels, historical and theological, but it centers ultimately on the work of the servant. And the servant's work centers ultimately on his substitutionary atonement on behalf of God's people because the real problem is sin and the great distance that that brings between God and his creatures and the great need is forgiveness and propitiation and then transformation as well. So Isaiah 53 kind of pulls all that together, and it also answers these questions about the servant that Isaiah has raised. Questions like, well, how is the servant both the conqueror and you know, discouraged. How is it that he is the king, but also he appears to be suffering, and he identifies with those who are suffering. And so all of that gets sort of crystallized in Isaiah 52 through 53, which is why it's so precious to us. Now, what then is going to happen is, In Isaiah 54, it's going to kind of give us the results of that. And then in Isaiah 55, we're going to start a new section, essentially. So 54 kind of brings to a head the whole this whole, or sorry, I should say 54 and 55, and then 56 starts a new section. 54 and 55 kind of bring to conclusion this great emphasis on the servant. So a big picture, and we'll get a little more granular with this, in 54, what you realize is the death of the suffering servant, and then the vindication of the servant, it doesn't in terms of resurrection but at the end he's alive and he's vindicated. So even though he dies in the middle. So there's that resurrection theme in 53. What this is going to mean for God's people is it's going to mean a new covenant relationship. And 54, as we'll see, kind of unpacks what that looks like and why that is significant and what that means for their everyday life. And then 55 is a kind of call to the world to come and experience who God is, particularly, so I'm gonna say call to the world And it's going to focus on God's forgiveness and mercy. So, if you want to sort of, again, zoom way out, we started all the way back in chapter 40, and in chapter 40 it focused on the sovereignty of God. Well, what are the implications of the sovereignty of God for the salvation of His people? That gets unpacked through 41, 42, and the servant songs. But then it's as if bookending God's sovereignty in chapter 40 is God's compassion in chapter 55. And in a sense, the compassion is played out, is poured out because of the work of the servants. So in other words, we talked about this two weeks ago when we were together. We talked about in Exodus 34, how when God comes down and reveals Himself to Moses, He says, you know, I'm gracious, I'm compassionate, I love forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Okay, that's great. But I will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. You sort of think, how do those two things fit together? And what we see in the rest of the Old Testament, and particularly in the New Testament, is that the way those things are both true, is because at the center of it all is this appeasement of God's wrath through the suffering servant. And so then you start to realize, okay, the reason why God is able to be forgiving and compassionate is because of the work of the suffering servant who satisfies that justice. We talked in Isaiah 53, and I tried to show you in Isaiah 53, those Exodus 34 characteristics are kind of built upon, alluded to, so that you know that's what's going on in the minds of Isaiah. So anyway, the point is that God's mercy and compassion are poured out because of his sovereignty in saving his people through the suffering servant. So, in other words, if you just say God is sovereign, which Isaiah 40 says, and he'll do it, okay, that's great, but if you take the servant out of that equation, you don't actually reach the end of God's compassion. In other words, if you take, to put it in just sort of our terms, if you take Christ's substitutionary work out of the message of the church, or out of the message of Christianity, you don't actually have at the end a compassionate and just God. And actually, I mean, just as a little parenthesis, There are several huge problems, but this is the most significant central problem with the modern liberal church as it begins in the 19th century and continues on even today. This is why you can go into a church and hear them say moral things, give you good moral advice, and be nice people, but there's actually no real power there. In a sense, God is absent, and the reason why he's absent is because Christ and his substitution it all the time. This is why when Paul talks about his ministry in Corinth, he says, what I resolved was to preach nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And you can scratch your head at the end of a sermon in a church that has gone this direction, and it's not just in what is traditionally the liberal mainline. Now it's in evangelical churches as well. You can scratch your head and say, kind of agreed with everything there. And it seems like these are nice people who probably share many of my convictions, and I could get along really well with them, but what's missing? Something's missing. And usually that only plays out over a long period of time and you start to realize what's missing. But what's almost always missing is that at the heart of their their understanding of the Christian life, at the heart of their understanding of themselves, at the heart of their understanding of what's wrong with you, and all of us, what's missing is the suffering servant. And so, that's why Isaiah 40-55 is a kind of microcosm of the theology of the New Testament. I maybe said that in slightly different words when we started this whole section, but this is the most quoted section of Isaiah. Now Isaiah 53 is the most quoted chapter in the most quoted section, but it's not really just Isaiah 53, it's the whole thing. And when you read Paul kind of reasoning through and explaining why He's doing what he's doing. He's going to places where Christ has not been named, and he's preaching the gospel. What you find, more often than not, in those places where he does that, in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and in Romans, and in Galatians, what you find is, more often than not, what he does is he quotes from Isaiah 40 to 55. Because it sort of lays it all out for you. And at the center of it, of course, is the death of the Son. But, if that is at the center, now we've taken it out and talked about liberal Christianity, but now let's put it back in and say, when it's in there, when it's not just in there but central, so that this is really at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. When it's central, what you actually get then is not only do you have a high and robust view of the sovereignty of God, you end up beginning to understand how God relates to his people covenantally, and you also get this glorious picture of a merciful God who calls to anyone who thirsts to come to him. And so we'll get to that whole call in just a second. So that's sort of a big picture, what's going on. Now, let's talk about this Isaiah 54 covenant of peace. My hope today, and we'll see how it goes, is my hope today is that we'll look a little bit at Isaiah 54, a little at Isaiah 55, and then at least address or kind of Give some pointers some thoughts about that last section of the book 56 to 66. All right let's look at 54 so Because of the work of the suffering servant what What we have is this picture of the Lord. I'm going to pick up in verse 6 of Isaiah 54. Yahweh has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer." So what God says is, okay, because or after, subsequent to, based upon, whatever word you want to use to talk about it being foundational, based upon the work of the suffering servant, what's happened is, I cast you aside because of your disobedience, because of your spiritual adultery, but in the end, that was only for a short time. And now Israel's about to go into exile. When they hear Judah's about to go into exile, northern tribes are already in exile. And so he's talking about things that are yet future. The suffering servant is yet future. But what he's sort of saying is looking back, it was just a short time, and now what you're getting from me, because of the work of the suffering servant and all that he's done, now what you're getting from me is an eternal, covenant of peace that will never end. Verse 9, this is like the days of Noah to me, as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you, for the mountains may depart, the hills may be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you. Now, that's a critical statement. Let's talk a little bit about the Noahic covenant, because he alludes to it. You know the account of Noah and the flood, and what happens at the end of that is God makes a very important covenant with everybody. And the reason why it's such a significant covenant is, in a sense, it allows for all the other covenant promises to come true. because it's a covenant that says, I'm not going to judge the earth with a flood, and I'm gonna continue summer and winter and seed time and harvest until the very end. Now, why is that such a big deal? Because that then means that, in a sense, God is creating the conditions under which redemption can take place, under which all the other covenant promises can take place. So it's significant that the covenant with Noah precedes the covenant with Abraham. The covenant with Abraham is much more specific and it's much more salvation oriented. But the covenant with Noah had to come first because the covenant with Noah is basically God's declaration, I'm going to withhold judgment. I'm going to withhold ultimate judgment, devastation on the whole earth until the very end. And that means it's now possible, because God is withholding judgment, it means it's possible for Him also to exercise these specific works of election and saving covenantal blessing for His people. And He says the eternal covenant with My people is going to be like that, in that it's not going to end, and it's going to, as it were, set up the whole preconditions under which they can be justified and made holy and glorified. So that's why it's so significant. Now, what does he say about it? He says, the mountains may depart, the hills may be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you. My covenant of peace shall not be removed. Now, actually, we can trace this language through the Psalms, and it would be a fruitful study. What's envisioned in Psalm 46 is that the mountains, what do you do if the mountains are falling into the heart of the sea and the waters are just breaking over you? In other words, what do you do when the flood is happening and mountains are going into the sea? Well, what Psalm 46 says is, actually, God is an ever-present help in time of trouble. And those are the two images it uses. It uses the image of the flood, God is in ever-present help in time of trouble. And he uses the image of the mountains going into the sea, God is in ever-present help in trouble. And Isaiah uses that same image. Even if the mountains are, in a sense, even if the flood is happening, the mountains are being dissolved, the everlasting covenant of God won't be. won't be annulled. Now, in other words, what that's another way of saying is, nothing can undo this. I mean, the Noahic Covenant is solid, you can count on it, but if it's possible to be even more solid than that, this is even more solid than that. And so that's how significant. But it also reminds us that the blessing of God that's going to ultimately lead us into a call to the world to have knowledge of God as a merciful God is covenantal in its shape. It is To understand how God relates to man is to get into this whole mindset of covenant and to begin to think covenantally. He calls it here a covenant of peace. That is a term that is used in the book of Hebrews, it's used in Jesus' Last Supper in Luke's account of it, and it's used in Ezekiel 37. Maybe it's worth just at least looking at the Ezekiel reference because it's probably not as familiar. So if you turn to Ezekiel 37, this is really interesting how Ezekiel uses this language because He talks about this as well as an everlasting covenant. But I want to set the context with you. In Ezekiel 37, he introduces it by giving Ezekiel this mission where he has to go into a valley of dry bones. and prophesy to the Dry Bones and then the Dry Bones are raised up and it turns into an army. The Spirit of God takes them. But then here's what it says. I don't know where to pick up exactly. It's a long section, but that's okay. I'm gonna pick up in verse 15 of Ezekiel 37. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, take a stick and write on it for Judah and the people of Israel associated with him. Then take another stick and write on it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, that's the northern kingdom, and the house of Israel associated with him. Then join them one to another into one stick that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, will you not tell us what you mean by these? Say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph, that is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hands before their eyes, then say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, so they're in exile. and bring them to their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all. And they shall be no longer two nations, no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things or with any of the transgressions, but I will save them from all the backsliding in which they have sinned and will cleanse them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them, And they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules, be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever. And David, my servant, shall be their prince forever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them, he says. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them. And I will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. then the nations will know that I am the Lord. I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel and my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore. Now, the thing about this is that what Ezekiel is doing and what Isaiah is doing is they're taking all the earlier covenant promises. So we had this promise with Noah that's really to everybody. Everybody benefits from it. lays the preconditions for the other covenants. And then he's taking the substance of the covenant with Abraham, and the substance of the covenant with David, and even the substance of the covenant made with Moses, which involved obedience, and loving God, and loving your neighbor. And he's showing that in what God's about to do, those are all kind of a package deal. That those are all gonna be wrapped together in one sort of uber covenant, this covenant of peace, this everlasting covenant of peace. And what Isaiah tells us is that that covenant of peace, that kind of package deal covenant that takes all the salvation promises from those earlier covenants and puts them together and says, Actually, it's not three separate ones. It's one and here it is What Isaiah tells us is that that covenant of peace is Brought is made effective is is is applied to God's people as a result of the does the suffering servant lead to? Well, it's forgiveness, it's reconciliation between God and his people, but that is, the next thing to talk about is the fact that they're part of this everlasting covenant. So Ezekiel kind of expands upon the substance of the covenant, but it's in Isaiah that we see the direct connection between that covenant and the work of the Messiah, the work of the coming suffering servant. Now, what does this remind us of? Well, the Bible talks, the book of Hebrews talks about The blood of the eternal covenant. The blood shed by Jesus is being the blood of the eternal covenant. And it underscores a couple of things. It underscores first of all that we're in a, just as all God's people have been, from the beginning of time, we're in a covenantal relationship with God. And that covenant is his new covenant, this eternal covenant that, as it were, pulls together all the threads of the earlier covenant promises. And it's given to us through the death of Jesus Christ. And that's at the center of it. And this is why when we talk about almost everything in the church, whether it's how we treat children, to how we think about worship, to what we're doing in communion, to how we relate to each other, like everything, you'll always hear this covenantal language associated with it. The reason for that is because that's the relational structure that we get in the Bible to talk about what it means to be a Christian, to be one of God's people. It's all this covenantal language. So this underscores that, that the mountains may depart, hills may be removed, but my steadfast love, my covenant faithfulness shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you. Now, the rest of the chapter, in chapter 54, after introducing that great reality, acknowledges the situation they're in right then, as Isaiah is preaching the sermon to them. And the situation they're in right then is, you know, things are going badly. You feel like you're tossed by storms. But just remember what God has promised, that actually, verse 13, all your children shall be taught by the Lord. Great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established. You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near you. So in other words, Yes, it's bad for you. Yes, you're going to go through the exile. But God's going to bring about a redemption that will lead to an eternal covenant of peace. So if you're able to look forward to generations to come, it's going to be a totally different story for them, if you look to the future. Did they understand that? Probably very few of them did, is my guess. The prophets are almost universally rejected. Isaiah, you know, is too. I mean, the Lord says from the beginning, you're gonna preach to these people and they're gonna listen to you, but they're not gonna understand what you're saying. So I think it was very, very few. And I've talked about this before, so I don't wanna, I don't wanna belabor it, but when you look at the, the information we have from the people during the exile and what they were thinking and writing, and then particularly from the people in the intertestamental period, which we have more detail on, they were very confused about what restoration would look like. So, you know, I'm sure there were, I know there were believers who were hearing Isaiah and thanking the Lord for it and looking forward to these future promises, just like Abraham looked forward to a city whose builder and maker was God, but he didn't see it. Sure there were, but it's the minority for sure. It's not the majority. And even, and I know I said this two weeks ago, so again, I don't wanna be too redundant, but even when Jesus appears on the scene and is fulfilling these promises, quoting from these texts and applying them to himself and everything, they still don't really understand what's going on. For the most part, some do. For the most part, they don't. And the strange thing is, this month's Table Talk, it gets down on a personal level a piece. Oh, does it? I haven't read it yet. I haven't read it. But yeah, I mean, all that flows into this for sure. Okay. So, other questions, comments, thoughts, pushback? Anything? Okay. No. That takes us to 55. And, you know, Have you ever noticed that, and maybe you've experienced this at a time in your life, but have you ever noticed that particularly when someone's a little bit older and they come to a saving faith, they hear the gospel, maybe they've heard it before, maybe they haven't, but it just, the Lord works and saves them, that usually when that happens, their first few months, they're very eager to share the gospel with others. And again, maybe you experience that as an, you know, when you heard the gospel, maybe it was like, it clicks, you realize how amazing it is, and you kind of want to tell everybody. And it's great, it's a great, that that tends to wane in people. Some people, you know, you occasionally meet the person who, like, it never stops. They're always so overwhelmed by the grace of God in Christ. But a lot of times it fades, sadly, in us. But anyway, you know, there's that, what I'm trying to use that as an illustration for is there's this almost logical connection, isn't there, that once you realize this, once you go, Wow, so the death of Christ is at the center, and I'm required to look to Him in faith, and He's died and been raised from the dead on my behalf, because I, like a sheep, had gone astray, and I was estranged from God, and now the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of me. and brought me into this eternal covenant of peace so that I have all these blessings that were associated with the blessings laid out in the covenants, all these salvation blessings, and they're mine in Christ. You just start to peel back the layers of this blessing, this compassionate, covenant-keeping, promise-making, promise-keeping God. And what naturally should come out of that is, it should come out of in sermons to which you can actually come out of that is Now you all of you come and receive this This is this is exactly what you're looking for So so why are you why are you sitting on your hands? Why are you keeping this in? of God at arm's length? Why are you living your life for other things? Why aren't you coming to Him? And this is 54 to 55. Because, I want to read the end of verse 17 and then just into 55.1. No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed. You shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their vindication from Me declares Yahweh." So, if that's true, why does... Come on, everybody! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money, without price. Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me. Eat what is good. Delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know and a nation that you did not know. You shall run to you because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel. For he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found. call upon him while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Because my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Now, so it's this incredible and logically necessary call to repentance and faith. Come and get this food and water that you are longing for, because everything else you've tried is not satisfying you. And you're spending all your money on it, and it leaves you empty. And this, you've got to spend no, it costs you nothing, and it leaves you full. And what you get when you embrace that, yeah, you have to turn from your ways, you have to turn from your sins. He makes that really clear in verse 7. You have to turn from your ways, but what you get is the Lord. And not only do you get the Lord, you get the covenant promises, the covenant relationship that the Lord gives and makes with His people. That's what you get. And now, you may be familiar with these words from a lot of different sources. But one source in particular, I think, is particularly relevant in this case. If you look at, if you kind of keep your hand in Isaiah 55, and you turn to John 7, Jesus, in John 7, well, you know, you could also turn to John 6, where he says, I'm the bread of life. You need to come and eat of me. But in John 7, He directly mentions this. In John 7, he is at the Feast of Boots, and they're asking a question about, you know, who he is, and the Pharisees are kind of closing their grip in on Jesus, because they see that the crowd is starting to say, you know, is possibly this the Messiah, and they're reading their Old Testament, and they're looking at Jesus, and so I'm gonna pick up into verse 32, The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I'm going to him who sent me. You will seek me, you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, you will seek me and will not find me? They're just thinking on a very superficial level. And where I am, you cannot come. And on the last day of the feast, something important about the geography of Jerusalem, because on the last day of the feast, they would have been carrying these jugs of water, and there's this great time of purification, and Jesus, in verse 37, stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Now, you go back to that, to Isaiah 55, and Yahweh says, come anyone who thirsts, And I will give you water that will fully satisfy you. You may even be thinking about John 5 and Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well. But here in John 7, Jesus takes these words but he says, come to me if you thirst, and I'll give you this. And you won't need anything else. And then he adds to it another promise which is also new covenant promise which we know from Jeremiah which is not only that but I'll give you I'll give it in such a way that not only will you be fully satisfied but you'll actually be fruitful because not only will you not thirst but living water will flow from you to others and John very helpfully says he was talking here about the Holy Spirit So you start to see what's on offer in Isaiah 55. And it's pretty remarkable. What's on offer in Isaiah 55 in this covenant of peace, which is in Christ. What's on offer is satisfaction of the real and deep needs and longings of your life. What's on offer is a new and living relationship with God that is eternal as your Father in this covenantal relationship that won't ever dissolve. And what's on offer and forgiveness of sins and new life and all of that, and according to Jesus, the ministry of the Spirit and according to Jeremiah and Ezekiel because they both bring this up. In fact, Jesus quotes directly from Ezekiel when he says the springs of living water will flow from you. So, but according, we'll just use Jesus right now and not bring Jeremiah and Ezekiel into the equation, but also what's on offer is the ministry of the Spirit by which you can now have a life that is fruitful and useful in an eternal way, not just a kind of temporal way that is ephemeral and doesn't last. Because the Spirit of God works through you and actually accomplishes something real, accomplishes something lasting. So you put all that on the list and you go, well that's, I mean, what better news could you get? What better offer could you receive from the Lord? And what's so striking is, as poignant and as meaningful and as almost overwhelming as it is to hear that now, as it's preached now, it's even more amazing that Isaiah preached it then, when they're about to go into exile. He said, here's what God offers you, even though things look bad. Now, I wanna kind of double back on myself here. See you later, sir. I wanna double back on myself and say this, that I mentioned earlier that if you take Christ out of, no, I'm gonna be more specific. If you take the substitutionary atonement of Christ out of a church, And you go, well, we're still preaching moral things, and we're still, you know, everyone's still getting along with each other, and we're telling them to be good, and we're giving them all these wonderful, you know, uplifting promises of God. But you see how that can't work? It can't work. You can't give these wonderful, uplifting, merciful promises of God, these excerpts that, you know, are strung together and put in booklets that they sell at the airport. You can't do that. biblically without actually having a substitute redeemer at the heart of it. Because in Isaiah it's super clear that he is the new covenant. He is the son of David. He is the one who gives all these things. And Jesus makes it clear, too. You don't get the springs of living water and the water that satisfies unless you come to Him. And so, trying to kind of, you know, kind of lever out these other promises, these promises about a merciful God, these promises about an eternal covenant of peace, these promises about a blessing and even this invitation. Try to kind of, you know, yank those out from the heart, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Just won't work. in Isaiah's message. And Isaiah makes it really clear it just won't work. And Paul makes it really clear that it just won't work. But you put that in and you realize there's just so much more, because there's another error, right? The other error, there's the error of taking the substitutionary atonement out and thinking you just get to keep all the happy promises and the nice behavior. But there's another error on the other side, isn't there? Which is you kind of have the substitute savior but you've just neglected all these blessings that come from him. Maybe you don't preach about repentance from sin, or maybe you don't recognize the covenantal relationship into which we've been called, or maybe you don't understand the ministry of the Spirit who causes us to walk in newness of life. And so you have this kind of Jesus giving you cosmic fire insurance, but nothing else of the rich tapestry of salvation. And that's an error, too. And that wouldn't make any sense to Isaiah, either. It's all bound together in the work of God in salvation. And it leads, of course, to singing and worship at the end of 55. Now, I'm just gonna touch on this, because we're out of time. 56 through 66, then paints a picture of a community of God's people who are transformed by and informed by that message of 40 to 55. What does it actually look like? This is kind of the question. What does it actually look like to be a community of people? And he's gonna use terminology and images that make sense for his audience, right? Because he's preaching to Judah and Jerusalem just prior to the exile. So he's going to use terminology that makes sense to them. But what does it look like to be that transformed people? What's it going to look like for their, what he talks about, their grandchildren who inherit the promises? What 56-66 lay out for us is this very vivid picture of God's redeemed people in the future after the Lord has done this, has made them a new community. I don't want to get too far into that because we'll have time next week. That's the basic gist of it. All right, so we're out of time. Let me close in prayer. Lord, we're grateful once again for your word. We're mindful and we confess to you that we cannot possibly do justice to not only the text itself, but the implications of it for our lives. But we're so grateful because you've given us a glimpse of your redeeming work in Christ. And what a glimpse it has been. And so, Father, by your Spirit, whom you have given to your people who are united to Christ in faith, please continue to cause us to grow up in him and to be more Christ-like and to be useful for you by your Spirit. And we ask all this in Jesus' name, amen.