Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text for this morning comes from Acts chapter 17, verses 1 through 10. If you're using one of the church Bibles, the little blue ones off the cart in the back of the room there, you'll find that on New Testament page 107. Acts chapter 17 and beginning at the first verse. What must a sailing ship have in order to press forward through challenging seas? Perhaps many things we could list, but list two. It needs masts that go up from the deck on which are hung the sails in order that the wind might have something to strike to drive the ship forward. And it needs, secondly, in the belly of the ship, the ballast to weigh the ship down so that it rides low in the water. Otherwise, the height of the masts will tip the ship over. And so it needs both of these things in order to make progress. What must a Christian have? in order to persevere in the midst of hardship and difficulty and sorrow and trial, even unto, perhaps, persecution for the faith. The Christian must have a faith that is a singular faith composed of two, in some ways, seemingly opposite things. a rejoicing, God-exalting embrace of a Christ-confidence, and at the same time, coupled with it, a humble, self-effacing abandonment of self-confidence. We're going to see such things in the text this morning. In the text that we have before us, we find Paul. He's on this second missionary journey, we call it, and we find him this week in Thessalonica. His epistles to the Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, are some of the earliest that he wrote, possibly even the first of the earliest epistles that we have from Paul, and they are so unlike in their tone and character, so unlike his letters, for instance, to Galatia and to Corinth. There is to the Thessalonians none of this, I cannot believe how stupid you are being. Who has bewitched you, you Galatians? Or to the Corinthians, I can't believe you are bragging about the things that you ought to be ashamed of. It's actually reported that there is this kind of sin against you, and in part I believe it. I have those kinds of things to the Thessalonians. There is some exhortation and some advice in the Thessalonians, but by and large, these letters are full of thanksgiving and praise for the Thessalonians, for their faith and their love and for their perseverance in the face of persecution. As we read and study together this morning, we're going to look at Paul's perseverance. As we read through to verse 10, we'll see him persevere in his ministry as he goes to the next town and does the same thing that gets him into trouble in the other towns. He perseveres in preaching the gospel. We're going to see his preaching, the nature of it, and some of the content of his preaching again. And we're going to see two widely differing responses to the preaching of Paul. It's all right here in this text. Let's read it together, but before we do, let's go to God in prayer. Father, we give you thanks for your word. We believe that you have given it to us and this particular passage on this particular Lord's Day morning in order to do us a particular good. Will you overcome our slowness of soul the obstructions that the flesh will throw up in the way of our understanding, of our rightly meditating upon and digesting your word, and will you, overcoming these in us, by your Holy Spirit, do us the good that you intend to do by your word. For we ask it for your glory, and in Jesus' name, amen. Acts chapter 17, verses one through 10. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded. And a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Thus far the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word. May he add his blessing to the reading and to the preaching of it. So we find here, I think, I did not go back and reread the first 16 chapters to check this, but I think what we have here for the first time is Luke asserting that this is Paul's established pattern. This is what he always does. He arrives in a new city, and he seeks out the synagogue, and he goes there first. He preaches first to the Jew, and then when they have rejected the gospel, he then goes to the Gentiles. He does this despite the fact that he is rightly known as the apostle to the Gentiles. The gospel is first for the Jews and then for the Gentiles, and he is sent to the Gentiles in a way by the Jews when they reject his message. How does he preach as he's there in the synagogue? We recently saw him in Philippi. There was apparently no synagogue there, for he started there at the banks of the river where some women were praying, but here there's a synagogue. He goes into the synagogue, and how does he preach? Luke tells us that the Scripture is his authority. This is one of the reasons, too, that he goes to the synagogue. He has a ready audience there. They've come to listen, to hear. And it is a ready audience that is familiar with the Scriptures and who consider it to be authoritative. Paul does, too. He reasons from the Scriptures. What does his reasoning look like? How does he argue from the scriptures? Luke uses two words to elucidate and unpack this word reasoning from the scriptures. He does it this way, by explaining. is one of the words that he uses. The word means literally to open up. He is revealing things that had been hidden. So he's showing them things in the scriptures. You've read this a hundred times. Did you ever notice what it means? He's opening that up to them. and demonstrating is the second phrase that explains his reasoning. What does his reasoning look like? He's explaining and he's demonstrating. That is, he's giving evidence that what he says is true. He's defending what he intends to preach to them, which is what Luke then goes on to put in the words of Paul as he's reporting it here, so that He reasons from the Scriptures in this way, so that he could say, verse 3, this Jesus, whom I preach to you, is the Christ. Now, in order to be able to preach to them and hope that they would accept it with belief, he had to lay this groundwork. Why? Because they're Jews, and they're familiar with this category of the Christ, and they have a strong and well-established mental picture of the Christ who is to come. He's the one they're waiting for. He's the one their hopes are pinned upon. And they don't just have a firm picture in their mind, they have a picture in their mind that they are in love with. The Christ is a national hero who will come to overcome the Romans and reestablish the glory of the Davidic kingdom. They will be again what they once were, a glorious nation to whom the other nations pay tribute. And this is how they believe God will glorify himself. They have to be sort of talked out of that vision of who the Christ will be. Otherwise, they can never believe that Jesus of Nazareth, of all places, whom they've heard was cursed by dying on a tree. He who is hung on a tree is cursed by God. They know that text in Deuteronomy. And they also know that the one who has died on a Roman cross can't be the one who is going to be the Davidic king to restore the glories of Israel. And so they need to be shown a different picture of who the Christ would be. And so that's what Paul is doing. That's what he's opening up to them, showing them, demonstrating from the Scriptures who the Christ would be. He is like Jesus before him. Jesus, who had risen from the dead and meets two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they are so sad, and he asks them what they're talking about that has them looking so downcast. They can't believe he doesn't know what's going on. Are you the only stranger in these parts who hasn't heard about this? There was this Jesus, we thought he was the Christ, and we were very excited about that, and now he's been killed. And then to make it even worse, some of the women, you know how women are, they just... get all emotional and all frazzled and everything, and they said that the tomb was empty, so we had to go check it out, of course, and it was true. They say he's alive again, they're, you know, beside themselves, and so we don't know what to think. And Jesus says to them, oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? The problem's not the emotionalism of the women. The problem is, you know the Scriptures, but you've never understood them. They told you this is what to expect of the Christ. And so Paul is taking his audience in the synagogue through some of those very same passages, no doubt, that Jesus took these two disciples through on the road to Emmaus, to show them. This is how the Scriptures talk about the Christ. And then he can say, now do you see how Jesus fits that picture just exactly? Well, the preaching of the gospel demands a response. It is not possible to not respond to the gospel. You like that double negative? It's not possible to not respond. to the gospel. The gospel demands a response and there are two different responses, very different responses reflected in the text here. Verse 4 tells us that some Jews, we know this is not the majority of the Jews, this is not a large number of the Jews, The text itself seems to indicate that this is relatively few. Verse 5 will tell us about the majority of the Jews, but also because in the next passage, among the Bereans, we find many more of the Jews. who believe, so here it is just some Jews, and it is many of the God-fearing Greeks. These God-fearers, as the Jews called them. They are Gentiles who worship at the synagogue, and they're welcome there. They can't come into the temple, but they can come into the synagogue, and they can hear about the God of the Jews, and they can worship him there among the Jews at the synagogue. But they haven't converted to Judaism. They believe in the God of the Jews. Him alone they worship, but they haven't converted to Judaism. They haven't become circumcised. They don't follow all of the Mosaic law. A great many of them, Luke tells us, respond appropriately. And not a few, he says, of the leading women. Humanly speaking, it's not surprising that we should have many more of the God-fearing Gentiles than of the Jews respond appropriately to the preaching of the gospel. They are not so heavily invested in this wrong view of who the Christ would be, are they? The Jews just have more to lose here. What is their response? Luke says they were persuaded. That is, they believe. that what Paul has preached, namely that Jesus is the Christ, as defined by the scriptures, that that's true. And another part of their response, Luke tells us, verse 4, they joined Paul and Silas. They were persuaded, and so they joined Paul and Silas. What does that mean, they joined? It doesn't mean they're joined in marriage. These leading women aren't marrying Paul and Silas. They're not joined in that sense. They don't join them on their journey and go along with them when they leave Thessalonica. They don't join them just in privately believing these things to be true. And that's true. They do believe now. But they join Paul and Silas in publicly professing the name of Christ. in publicly identifying themselves with Christ. That is, they join the church. Paul and Silas are a part of the church, and so there is now beginning here a church in Thessalonica, the church that Paul will write back to and address. His letters to the Thessalonians address them to the church of the Thessalonians. We can read more about their response. We just have verse 4 here. It's not very much information, but we can look at how Paul will then address this church of the Thessalonians if we turn to Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13, Paul writes, For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, You welcomed it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. You received the word of God as the thing which it actually is, the word of God. Reminds me of chapter one of our Westminster confession that says the word of God is to be believed, not because the church promotes it, not because it's written in such amazing language. It's got a whole list of things that can support our belief that this is the word of God, but says ultimately it is to be believed because of what it is, namely the word of God. And that's how the Thessalonians received it. And it didn't just cause belief in them. It worked in them. It worked out of them in love. Paul also wrote to them, we give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father. And Paul also gives some indication of how this could be their response. How did this happen? We say the word of God is powerful, and we get that directly from scripture, so that's true. But we need to understand how it is powerful. How does it come to have an effect in the hearts of those who hear? It's when the Holy Spirit takes that word that comes in through the ears And rather than passing just into one ear and out the other, the Spirit takes it as it enters the ear and bends it down and brings it to the heart. And the Holy Spirit, using the Word as His instrument, creates faith in the heart. Paul says that to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 5, For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. The Holy Spirit made it powerful to you, caused you to believe. That's why you are the church I'm writing to. Sadly, it's not the only response that Paul's preaching elicited in Thessalonica. Verses 5 through 8 describe for us the response of those Jews who were not persuaded. They do not believe that what Paul is saying is true. How do they respond? Verse 5 possibly indicates that they became envious. If you were following along as I read it, you may have noticed I skipped over a phrase that you probably have there. It's on my page as well. But just looking at original, I think it is unlikely that that is in the original. But even so, it has ancient testimony. There are original Greek manuscripts, not the original Greek manuscripts, we don't have those, but there are Greek manuscripts that we have that include this phrase, that the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious. Christians throughout the centuries have not thought it necessary to delete that. So whether it's original or not, there is at least an ancient testimony that this is believable, is the heart of natural man. Whether they do or not, the text most certainly does tell us that these unpersuaded Jews who have not benefited from the work of the Holy Spirit causing the word to come to them with power, are therefore responding out of the natural man, their fallen nature, and their response is to make allies out of evil men. Verse 5. They took some of the evil men from the marketplace. You'd think this should be some kind of indication to them that they are in the wrong. What should we do? Let's go to the marketplace and find you know, lays about bitter men who have nothing better to do than to get all excited to form a mob. About what? We don't really care very much. Let's just get all up in arms and get angry. Those are the kinds of men we want to seek out. But we do this, don't we? You've done this. You've been in an argument with somebody, and you can almost, like an out-of-body experience, see yourself and say, boy, this is not good. If I'm really honest with myself, I know the state of my heart here tells me it's not. My argument's probably not a good one, because I'm seeking to win by force of emotion. Just yesterday, I was in the car with Sarah and Isaac, because we were headed back from Denver. And Sarah said to me, well, don't get annoyed. I said, I'm not annoyed. I saw my wife and my son exchange a look. They looked at each other and just communicated real quick like, that was hilarious, right? They make allies out of evil men so that they can raise up a mob in order to attack a house, the house of Jason. It's got a large house, possibly a public house where people stay. Maybe that's how he heard the gospel. Paul and Silas needed a place to stay while they're here in Thessalonica. Or perhaps he's just a wealthy man who's been converted through their preaching and he hosts the church there. They attack his house and the intent appears to be street justice. You see this at the tail end of verse five. They sought to bring Paul and Silas out to the people. See that? They didn't bring a bunch of lawyers with them to sue them in court. They brought a mob with them to attack this house in order to bring Paul and Silas out to the people. Mob justice. Street justice. They don't find them there. They're not at home. And so they bring Jason and some of the brethren. Apparently, others are being hosted there by Jason. Maybe the church is being hosted there, and so they find a number of Christians there, and they bring them, Luke tells us, to the rulers of the city, in verse 6. Just a side note on that phrase, rulers of the city. This is the only place in the scripture that the Greek word for that appears. And it's a simple compound Greek word, where just the word for ruler has been just mashed together with the word for city. So it gets translated rulers of the city. There's no office like that in any other place in the New Testament. It's the only place that it shows up. And for a long time, it was the only place in the Greek language that we had it. It didn't show up in any extra biblical place either. And so you can imagine what the liberal scholars said. See, the Bible's not reliable. Luke is not a reliable historian. He didn't know how things really were in Thessalonica in that day. He didn't know what to call these officials. And so he just made up a word. But now we have discovered many other uses of this Greek word. We even have it etched into the stonework that was an arch over the gateway. All of the instances that we have of this particular Greek word are from excavations at Thessalonica. It's apparently a very specific and unique political structure there at Thessalonica, and Luke knew it well, and he gave them the right names. To these officials, these magistrates, these rulers of the city, Jason and the other brethren are taken by the mob, where the mob, these unpersuaded Jews, deliberately misrepresent the case. Why do I say that? Look at what they say in verse 7. Jason has harbored them. And these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there is another king, Jesus. They characterize the message that Paul is preaching that turns the world upside down as contrary to the laws of Caesar because they preach there's another king. That implies that what Paul is preaching is Jesus is a king of the kind that they want. which he's not doing, which is precisely what they're upset about. See, so they know it's not true. It's what they're mad about. But that's what they tell the magistrates because they want the magistrates to take their side against Paul and Silas. So they make allies out of evil men, raise together a mob, attack the house for illegal street justice purposes, don't find the victims they want, so they take these others and deliberately misrepresent the case before the authorities. That's a very different response. What are they responding to? Both are responding to the same apparently divisive message. You've heard probably that we shouldn't focus on doctrine because it's divisive. Paul doesn't seem to agree with that. He focuses on something that's apparently very divisive and he keeps doing it every city he goes to. He preaches something that is divisive. We've looked at the content of his preaching throughout Acts. We do not have much indication here, but there's something that strikes the notice, at least it does for me, as we read in verse 3 what it is that Paul preaches. He's reasoning from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer. and rise again from the dead. I think that had to is interesting. The Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead. That is, he had to suffer and also die in order to rise from the dead. Not just that he would, but that he had to. Now, one of the reasons he had to, of course, is because it was prophesied. The Jews do not like this message, in part, Because if it's true, that means that the Christ has already come and they didn't notice, they missed him. And if he has already come and he has already ascended and is already ruling, then their hopes of a renewed Davidic kingdom are dashed upon that stone. Right? If Jesus is already king, he's already ruling, and it still looks like this, then what we were hoping for was the wrong thing to be hoping for. It's not coming. But I think the offense goes deeper than that. If Paul took them to no other passage in the scriptures in order to explain and demonstrate to them that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, surely he took them to Isaiah 53. I mean, Paul could show this from hundreds of passages, and maybe he did. But why point to the obscure when you can go to the obvious? Certainly he took them to Isaiah 53 and showed them how Isaiah prophesied that the Christ would be despised and rejected by men. a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken." Now, on the whole, that's not a picture of the Christ that they're real familiar with. It's not the one that they have treasured. One that is beaten down, trodden down, ignored. One that people are ashamed of. But do you hear how it begins to get worse in that last phrase? For the transgression of my people, he was stricken. This all happens to him, not just because it's prophesied to happen to him, not just because wicked men reject him, because that's what wicked men do, but because it was necessary. Here's what that had to necessarily implies. He had to suffer because there's no other way for you to be saved. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." At bottom, this is the scandal of the gospel. It's bad enough to the Jew to say that Christ would be despised and would suffer and die. That just will not compute for them. But again, it gets worse for them and it remains offensive to men today to suggest that the Christ had to suffer and die because that's what you deserve. And nothing less than an infinitely valuable sacrifice could rescue wretched sinners like you and like me from God's holy and infinite justice. If we are to be forgiven If we are to be healed, if we are to have peace with God, with one another, he had to be grieved, he had to sorrow, he had to be wounded, bruised, chastised, whipped, and crucified. There's a Presbyterian pastor in South Carolina, a professor at Reform Theological Seminary, Derek Thomas. He's apparently fond, because I've heard him do it in a number of different contexts, of making this point by giving us a reversal of the Levitical blessing, how God instructed the Levitical priests to put his name on the people. Thomas quite powerfully will say that what Christ heard on the cross from his beloved Father, was the reverse of that. In order for the blessing to come upon us, Christ had to hear, the Lord curse you and afflict you. The Lord make his face dark toward you and be vindictive toward you. The Lord hide his countenance from you and give you wrath. Those are not easy words to hear, right, in any context. We don't like some of the words, just all by themselves, no context at all. It's not popular, but they're necessary. The Christ had to suffer and die. Our practice here each week of confessing our sin together is an uncommon one. I've known people, I've had family who've been visiting somewhere else or more to the point, I guess, because they've had time to visit lots of different churches when they moved to a new place. My sister, when she last moved to a new city, to the shame of the PCA, at first, at least, she and her husband wound up in an OPC church. One of the major reasons for that was, she said, we visited every PCA church in this major metropolitan area, not one of them. I think maybe one, but they didn't like it for other reasons. has a corporate confession of sin in the worship service. We don't have a corporate confession of sin in our worship service every week because we're morbidly introspective masochists. That's not why we do it. We do it because if we don't, our worship cannot be Christ-centered and gospel-shaped. I don't know if you've noticed and appreciated this about our liturgy. Liturgy is a scary word for people today, too. It just means the order in which you worship. Everybody has a liturgy. Most people don't write it down. I don't know if you've noticed and appreciated this about our liturgy. It is deliberately patterned after the gospel. We begin by declaring something of who the Holy Triune God is. And then, in the face of such holiness, we confess our sin and need And then we hear the assurance of pardon that comes to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then because that's true, we bring thanks and praises to Him. And then we hear His instructive word to us as His forgiven people. We do things in a specific order for a reason. so that our worship is Christ-centered and gospel-shaped, and it has to have that confession of sin in there, or else it's just a pep rally. I first heard the illustration I used to open with about the ship with the masks and the sails and the ballast. I first heard that 20 years ago, roughly, I think 1999. Off and on, always in the back of my mind, I've been looking for it for 20 years. I've reread multiple books looking for it. It's gotta be, I don't know how many times I have skimmed through Thomas Watson's A Godly Man's Picture, because I was just sure it had to be in there. And it just isn't. A couple of months ago, as John led our first installment, the men's meeting, he used that illustration and he said where he got it from. And he heard it at the Bethlehem Baptist Conference for Pastors that he and I happened to both attend, I think in 1999. I said, oh, that's where it's from. I've been looking for that for 20 years. So logged on to DesiringGod.com and went and found it. And John was right. There it is in Piper's biography of Charles Simeon. And I would just read you some of the things that Simeon said and wrote, because I think it can be so encouraging to our own faith to hear the profundity of a brother or sister's faith. Again, not to be morbidly introspective, but to glory in Christ. And that's what we can see Charles Simeon doing. Piper talked about the profundity, the depth, the maturity of this man in terms of his growing downward as he produced fruit upward. Picture of a tree growing roots downward in order that the fruit might come from what grows upward. Have to have both at the same time. And it's not both this and that, but it's the two together as one thing, really. And you can hear some of that. in some of these quotes. Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God that I seek that above all. Already you just go, I don't know if I can connect with this guy. Who says that? The thing that I seek after more than anything is repentance. That's what I spend energy trying to get, is repentance. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this veil of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand to my mouth and my mouth in the dust. I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err. I am sure that whatever God may despise, he will not despise the broken and contrite heart." Here's a quote from him where the illustration about the ship comes from. He wrote, I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair. if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time, I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark if I had not ballast in the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size." That's just beautiful. with this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God. I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men, but I have at the same time labored incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself. What century are you from? Not the 20th. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself. On the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me. There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these 40 years to behold. The one is my own vileness. And the other is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And I have always thought that they should be viewed together. Just as Aaron confessed all the sins of all Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat, the disease did not keep him from applying to the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be not only humble and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness. before my God and Savior continually." I thought I had something else here that's not here. Last quote from Simeon. By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness. And while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. Isn't that also just an amazing thought? If you would like to have an easy life where things just go smooth, if you go to Pastor Charles Simeon and ask him, how can I make sure that things just go easy for me? He'll say, oh, meditate on the goodness of God and on the great deliverance from that punishment which your sins have deserved so that you are brought to feel your vileness and utter unworthiness. And while you continue in that spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. Thank you, Pastor. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course. We shall feel the presence of God. We shall experience his love. We shall live in the enjoyment of his favor and in the hope of his glory. May we know something of what it is like to live in that spirit, to understand that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead. in order that we might more deeply know our own need, but then also, at the same time, that that might raise our exaltation in the sufficiency of Christ. Because that's what happens when we lift ourselves up as less needful than the impressiveness, the exaltedness of what Jesus did is diminished. So may we live in the ease of knowing. that what Christ has done is enough, gloriously, super, abundantly sufficient to cover all our sin, our vileness, our unworthiness. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we give you deep thanks for Jesus, for your grace and your mercy expressed in sending him as our substitute. And may we not diminish your glory in him by hedging about the fact that he had to suffer in our place and how deep that suffering was because of how vile our sin is. Give us the joy and the comfort of knowing you that comes when we refuse to trivialize our sin. and make us to be like those who were persuaded and therefore who join Paul and Silas in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing him as our only hope. It is in his name that we pray it. Amen.