It's a joy for us to be able to welcome to our pulpit tonight here our brother Calvin N'Goloher. He is the son of Reverend Ian N'Goloher, our minister in Cloverdale in British Columbia. And he is studying at Geneva Reform Seminary. The Lord has called him into the gospel ministry, and we rejoice that he is putting his hand upon young men. And so this is a blessing to us. And I have known Calvin for a long time. communication that we've had with Brother Ian in Cloverdale and the times of fellowship we've had. I've seen this young fellow grow up in the Lord and we are encouraged by him and we trust that as he brings the word tonight he will know the Lord's blessing upon him. I saw him on Friday night as he came in with his dear wife, Joanne, and their little one and they came into our on Thursday night rather at the Whitfield Christmas concert and didn't have much time to speak to our brother but I saw he was there and spied him and so I thought well that's enough we can get hold of him and lay hands upon him and get him to bring a word from the Lord for you folks and for all of us so brother you're very welcome we're happy to have you tonight Thank you, Dr. Saunders. I'm tempted to suddenly change my message and preach on that text, lay hands on no man suddenly. But maybe don't want to make too much of a point. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be here and thankful to be able to bring the Lord's Word this evening. I'll invite you to turn in the New Testament scriptures to the book of Matthew, to Matthew chapter 1. We're going to start at the beginning. This evening, Matthew chapter one, and we're gonna read the entire chapter. I'll ask you to pay close attention to the Lord's word, and this is his word to us tonight. Let's hear God's word. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren. And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Tamar. And Phares begat Esram. And Esram begat Aram. And Aram begat Aminadab. And Aminadab begat Neasson. And Neasson begat Salmon. And Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. And Obed begat Jesse. And Jesse begat David the king, and David the king begat Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Uriah. And Solomon begat Roboam, and Roboam begat Abiah, and Abiah begat Asa. And Asa begat Josephat, and Josephat begat Joram, and Joram begat Ozias. And Ozias begat Joathim, and Joathim begat Ahaz, and Ahaz begat Ezekias, and Ezekias begat Manasseh, and Manasseh begat Amon, and Amon begat Josias, and Josias begat Jeconias and his brethren about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jaconius begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel begat Abiud, and Abiud begat Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor, and Azor begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Ahim, and Ahim begat Eliud, and Eliud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Mathan, and Mathan begat Jacob. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. And from David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. And from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son. And he called his name Jesus. Amen. This is God's word. We know that the flower fades, then the grass falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. With your Bibles open in front of you, I'll ask you just to join me in prayer that the Lord will be with us to help us as we come to his word together and that he'll be present to speak to our hearts this evening. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we praise you for the privilege of having before us a copy of your own Word. We confess that we often take your Word far too lightly. We confess that it is difficult for us to remember that this is the Word of the living and true God, the God of Isaac, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob. We too often forget that this is a living Word. This is not a mere historical record of certain ancient details and facts, but it is the Word of God to our own souls tonight, confronting us with our need as fallen sinners in Adam, and confronting us with the offer of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ and by your Spirit, whom you have given to sinners. We thank you, Lord, that we are here tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus to hear from your word. We pray that your spirit will do the work that only he can do. We ask you to humble us. We ask you to break us. We ask you, Lord, that we will all be put under the authority of your speaking voice tonight. And Lord, as you said in your own time on earth, the sheep are sure to hear the voice of the shepherd. And we pray that our Lord Jesus himself will be speaking this evening and that his sheep will be hearing and following and responding. And Lord, that we will have life through the life-giving word that we have before us tonight. We thank you that there is grace for us in Christ. And we pray that you'll give us faith to lay hold of him. and humility to trust in Him for our salvation. We ask these things in the name of our blessed Savior, your Son. Amen. It is surely a strange thing to modern ears that Matthew would choose to begin surely his most important writing ever with the first 15 verses that we read tonight. This list of names, this genealogy. Sometimes when I'm struggling to come up with an introduction for a sermon, I remember that even Matthew came up with an introduction that seems less than engaging, less than captivating. And so I take heart that there can be great value even in a sermon or a book that doesn't start off with the fireworks that we so often expect. And this is an intriguing, a challenging thing. Why was it so important to Matthew to begin in such a seemingly strange and obscure manner? This genealogy will be, in large part, the focus of our message tonight. But in order to get at what I want you to see in it, I need to begin somewhere else. I need to tell you about a hero of mine. He's a figure in church history, a fellow by the name of Gregory, and he was from a little town called Nazianzus. He lived in the fourth century, and he's known as one of the three Cappadocian fathers. That's because he's one of three very famous theologians who lived at the same time in the province of Cappadocia. That's where Nazianzus was in the area that we know now as Turkey. Nazianzus deserves to be well known for many, many things, many contributions that he made. He was the pastor of the church in Constantinople, the capital of the empire. In the years leading up to the council there, that's the council that gave us what we know as the Nicene Creed. So next time you read the Nicene Creed and you thank the Lord for the doctrine of the Trinity, that he's a father with a son who came to save us and a spirit who comes to live within our hearts, you should remember and be thankful for the ministry of Gregory of Nazianzus, whose preaching in the church there in Constantinople was a major factor in the production of that Nicene Creed and the adoption of the biblical teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity. You should be thankful for Gregory. But another thing you should be thankful for Gregory, another reason we should be glad that Gregory was such a skillful and powerful preacher, is that he was a defender of the doctrine of the deity and the humanity of Christ. That's what Christmas is about, isn't it? Two truths that seem like they don't fit together. That the Lord Jesus Christ is totally, truly God. As much God as the Father and the Spirit. As much God as He would have been if He had never taken on a human nature. Totally and truly God. And yet at the same time, ever since that miraculous conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, He has at one and the same time been truly and totally man. As much a human being as you or I am. As much a human being, could I say it, as if He had never been God. There was nothing lacking in either His deity or His humanity. And there were people living in Gregory's day who didn't like believing things that didn't make sense. And so they came to the truth of the deity and the humanity of the Lord Jesus. And they said, I won't believe something I can't understand. I will only believe in the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they denied the deity of Jesus. And it was Gregory, among many others, who preached against that kind of error and maintained the very important truth that the Son of God who came to save us is God Himself come to dwell among His people. But he also preached against the other error, the error that said that the Lord Jesus is only God and not really man at all, or maybe only partly man. Maybe he had just a body without a mind or a soul and sort of like a marionette puppet. Have you ever seen a marionette? A stick with strings attaching to the hands and and feet, and you can kind of wiggle the stick to make the puppet do what you want. That was sort of, kind of the idea that people had about the Lord Jesus, that his deity was way up in heaven, kind of manipulating his body to make it look like he was a real human, right? Because they were uncomfortable with the idea that this deity and humanity could go together. And in preaching against that error, Gregory of Nazianzus made a statement and a principle that has remained as an important principle in Christian theology ever since. He summarized, really, the biblical teaching of Hebrews chapter 2 with this statement. Whatever the Lord did not assume, He did not heal. What was not assumed in the Incarnation was not healed. So if the Son of God took on a fake human nature, then there is no salvation for those of us who have a real human nature. If the Son of God took on a part of a human nature, just a body maybe, or just a soul, or just some limited version of the humanity that you and I have, then there is no salvation for those of us who have all of humanity. We could say it positively. The Lord Jesus took on a true human nature precisely because it was people with a true human nature He wanted to save. Right? You see the connection? There's a connection between what He came to be and who he came to save. Turn to Hebrews 2. I just want you to be absolutely convinced of this principle, that it's not only something Gregory came up with, but something that's there in the Bible. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 2, verse 14, that as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. You see there the connection between who the Lord Jesus came to be, what kind of thing he took to himself in the incarnation, a real human nature, and his saving work. You see the connection there. It's even stronger in verse 16. Why is there no salvation for angels? Here's the answer. He took not on him the nature of angels, But He took on Him the seed of Abraham. So Christmas, the Incarnation, is good news. Not for angels. There's no good news for angels in Christmas. If you have a friend who's an angel who sinned, don't tell him to celebrate Christmas. I'm just being silly, but I just want you to get the point. There's no good news in Christmas for fallen angels. There's good news in Christmas for fallen humans, because it was a true and full humanity that the Lord Jesus took to himself. And that was the point that Gregory was making with such brilliance and skill and conviction. If he didn't assume it, if he didn't take it to himself, then he didn't heal it. But if he did take it on in the Incarnation, if he did take to himself a full humanity, then it follows that it is people with the full humanity he's come to save. Now, why do I take such a detour to get to this genealogy? Well, I just want that to be the framework with which we come to this genealogy. You see, Matthew is telling us by listing the forebears, the ancestors, the forefathers of the Lord Jesus Christ according to his human nature. telling us about the humanity that Jesus took on, right? Maybe you have friends who are into family history, and they research. They maybe go to the local museum, and they research their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers, and great-grandmothers, and try to find out all the different relationships and where different people came from. It's an exciting and interesting bit of research to do. But the point of family history is to tell you something about yourself. Who am I? What kind of person am I? Where do I come from? Those are the questions that family history is designed to answer. And we might imagine the Lord Jesus. thinking about his family history, thinking about the fact that these were his ancestors. This genealogical information would have been public knowledge. He would have been able to find out. He probably knew a great deal about his family history since he was born into the noble line of David. But Matthew, by giving us this genealogy, is telling us about the kind of humanity Jesus took on in the Incarnation. And based on the principle that Gregory explains so well, that means that he's telling us about the kind of humanity Jesus came to save. See, my hope is that we're going to recognize ourselves in this genealogy. And that we'll see with fresh insight and fresh grandeur the full scope of what the Lord Jesus came to do when he was born in that little manger in Bethlehem. I wanted to make this easy for you to get an idea of where I'm at. I want you to have hope to know when the end is coming tonight. So I've arranged my sermon as a countdown. And if you can count to four and back down to one, you're going to be able to follow along tonight. I have four names that I want to highlight. I want to mention three characteristics that those four people share, and then I'm going to make two points of application and leave you with one thing to remember, and then we're going to be done. So if you can count down from four to one, we're going to be a-okay tonight. Four names that I want you to see in this genealogy that I'll highlight really quickly, just to get an important point that Matthew's making. The first one is in verse three. It says that Judas, or Judah would have been his Hebrew name, begat Pharaohs and Zerah of Tamar. Ever heard of Tamar before? Well, if you've just been reading in Genesis 38, you would have remembered the name Tamar. She was a Canaanite girl that married into the family of Jacob. and she married into Judah's family more specifically. And we'll get to more details about her story as we go on this evening. The second name I want you to notice is the name Rahab in verse five. Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab. You'll remember the name Rahab, I'm sure. She was the lady who so famously sheltered the spies in the city of Jericho. And again, a familiar story, but we're gonna highlight some details of her life tonight and what that reveals to us in this genealogy. The third name I want you to notice is another familiar one in verse five as well. It's the name Ruth. Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. And you all know her story, I'm sure. And the third or the fourth name is actually not explicitly mentioned, but it's there in verse 6, David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah. And that, of course, is the Lady Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, another well-known story from the Old Testament. And these four names together, I hope, will be a good way for us to gather some of the truth that Matthew is giving us with respect to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born in Bethlehem right at the end of this long genealogy. Those are the four names. Let me tell you three qualities that they share, and I'll give it in this format. I'll observe the quality, and then I'll let you know what this has to do with Jesus' salvation. And the first quality is that all four of these names are notably humble, remarkably humble names. And this teaches us that Jesus came to save a humble humanity. Now, I don't mean humble just in the sense that they weren't arrogant and stuck up as a personality characteristic. I mean that they were women in the ancient world. One of the most difficult things, I think, for us to grasp about life in the ancient world is the sheer anonymity that most women lived their lives in. in certainly with respect to the information that we have, the historical records that we have, up until fairly recently, women have been largely silent in human history. Certainly in the biblical narrative, each of these four women are shown to be in difficult circumstances. They're humble in the sense that they're women just in the sort of general cultural context where women don't count as much maybe as men would have. And we should be thankful, by the way, that the New Testament itself, even by including these four women in this genealogy, is overturning that old cultural pattern. We shouldn't think that the Bible approved of that situation. Here, Matthew is overturning it, even just by mentioning these four humble women in his genealogy. A strange thing for him to do that indicates these women are remarkable in some way. They're humble not only just because they're women, but also because of how poor they were. I think especially of the story of Ruth. The story of Ruth is a nice story in many ways, but it's easy to forget the grinding poverty that fills that book. Imagine all the men in a single family dying in one short interval of time. A mother-in-law and two daughters-in-law. No income, no support, no family, no friends, no large network of welfare checks and payments, no social services office to go to. There's a famine, there's all sorts of problems, and they're all left by themselves in a world where they were largely unemployable. You know, it sounds nice that Ruth spent all those afternoons in Boaz's field, but it's tough work. Day after long, grinding day of grazing little bits of corn off of the stuff that the reapers had left behind. Poverty. Poverty. You think not only of their poverty, but of their powerlessness. I think especially of the story of Tamar. Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah. She married his firstborn son. Her husband died. And then her younger brother was, according to custom, called upon to become her husband. And he refused his duty. He refused to care for her, to bring her along as his own wife. And the Lord killed him for it. And then after that, her father-in-law was required to provide another husband for her, and he refused and neglected to do his duty too. The story of Tamar tricking her own father-in-law into fathering her child is a story not only of uncomfortable depravity, but of deplorable helplessness and victimization. Powerless. And you get the sense these women were just pawns in a game over which they had no control. They were humble people. The second characteristic that unites these women is that they were global, could I say. And this tells us that Jesus came to save a global humanity. Why do I say that they're global? Well, let me tell you something about where each of these women came from. Tamar was a Canaanite. She was a resident of the land when Jacob's family moved there and started setting up shop. She was a local Hittite girl. The next name, Rahab, she was a resident of Jericho. She was another Canaanite. She belonged to the tribes and nations that the children of Israel were called on to expel from the Promised Land. She wasn't a Jew by birth. Ruth, obviously, was a Moabite girl. Bathsheba, you'll notice here even, oh it doesn't say Uriah the Hittite, but that's his name in the Old Testament, Uriah the Hittite. He may have lived in the land of Israel, he may have served in King David's army, but he was a Hittite. He wasn't a Jew. And his wife, if she was Jewish, wouldn't have been counted Jewish according to the way of reckoning her culture. Her husband really would have set the cultural affiliation for her. But it's more than likely that she was not Jewish by birth either. And isn't that a remarkable thing? In a genealogy that begins with Abraham, You have all these Gentile ladies in the list. It's important that Matthew began with Abraham. He wrote his gospel primarily for the benefit of Jewish readers. And he starts his gospel with the emphasis that Jesus is the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Famous Jews, famous individuals who were representatives of the nation at key turning points in its history. But you remember what the promise to Abraham was. The promise to Abraham was not, in you shall all the Jews of the world be blessed, right? You know what the promise was. It was, in you, all the families of the ground, all the nations of the earth, from one end of the earth to the other, through you, blessing will come to the whole world. Incidentally, you all know the last few verses of the book of Matthew, don't you? It's what we call the Great Commission. Go, make disciples of your own people. No, that's not what Jesus said. Go and make disciples of every nation. And Matthew, by beginning and ending with Abraham, by including these Gentiles and noticing that they are right there in the line that would one day lead to the Lord Jesus' birth, is reminding us of the amazing truth that when God made a covenant with Abraham that became the foundation of the nation of Israel, when He nationalized that covenant in the law of Moses, when He sent prophets to His own people, and when He said, My love will forever rest on the city of Jerusalem. He wasn't saying those things because He had no plans bigger than the land of Israel. He was saying those things because the whole purpose and plan of blessing the whole world, of sending out people to make disciples of all nations, would happen through the line of Abraham, through the line of David that ends here in the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are Gentiles. Jesus came to save a global humanity. The third characteristic that these ladies share is that they are sinful. And this tells us the wonderful truth that Jesus came to save a sinful humanity. Tamar, when she gave birth to her son, it was in the infamy of her illicit, incestuous relationship with her father-in-law. When Rahab sheltered the spies, they knew they were going into a prostitute's house. And she forever went down recorded in scriptural history as Rahab the harlot. Rahab the harlot. Ruth, she was a Moabite, an idolater. She too would have traced her lineage back to the incest of Lot and his daughters. Sinful history. And then Matthew so gently nods toward the history of David's murderous adultery when he points out that David fathered Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah, poor Uriah, murdered in cold blood by his own commander-in-chief so that he could take what was not his own. Do you recognize yourself? This is the humanity that Jesus came to save. This is the humanity that Jesus took on in the incarnation. Four names, three qualities, and two points of application. The first point of application I need to mention is this tells us something about the moment or the act of faith. Many of you are already believers, maybe some of you aren't. But whether you're already a believer or you're maybe thinking about becoming a believer, you're not sure you're a believer, you need to hear this truth, that these three qualities help us understand what it means to put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you the three opposites of faith in Jesus Christ, and I hope you'll see the connection. Well, I'm not so bad. No, you're a member of a sinful humanity. And however good you think you might be, you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Or maybe you think to yourself, I'm from the right crowd. I belong to the right group of people. I'm from a good family. I'm from a good place. I'm from a good culture. I live in a Christian nation. No. Your genealogy is just as bad as everybody else's. And ultimately, we all trace back to Adam, don't we? The father of all of us who brought us into this mess right at the start. Or maybe you're thinking to yourself, I'm really glad that Jesus thinks I'm important enough to save. I must be pretty valuable. No. That's not the kind of thing that a Tamar or a Ruth or a Rahab or a Bathsheba could say. No, it's all the opposite. But what we learn in a more positive way about the act of faith is that you're not too sinful. Maybe some of you are here and you actually have in your past Something as scarring and troubling and disturbing as Tamar's incest, or Rahab's prostitution, or Ruth's idolatry, or Bathsheba's history of abuse and adultery. And maybe it's why you don't want to come to the Lord Jesus. You're broken, damaged goods. He doesn't want you, you think. That's why he came. You're not too sinful. You're not from the wrong race. You're not from the wrong culture. You're not from the wrong place. No matter where you're from, maybe you say, well, I was born in a Muslim home. I was born in a Hindu home, or I was born in a secular home. I was brought up an unbeliever and a skeptic. Great. Come to the Lord Jesus. That's the kind of humanity he came to take to himself. You only need to be humble. You only need to be able and willing to identify with the Rahabs and the Tamars of the world. That's what the Lord Jesus was getting at when he said, blessed are the poor in spirit. Are you poor in spirit? Would you be glad? To identify not with the rich and powerful of the world, but instead to hold hands with Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba? Poor, helpless, weak, useless, sinful, wicked women? That's a test of whether you're poor in spirit the way the Lord Jesus is talking about. And when he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, let me just remind you that He pronounces curses on all those who will not be poor in spirit. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! Woe to you that are rich! There's judgment for people who will not say, those wicked, guilty, humble, useless people are my people, and I, along with them, will trust in the Savior who came to save people like us. Poor in spirit. You only need to be humble. Second point of application. This has a great deal to do with what it means to have life in Jesus or what life with Jesus looks like. Humility, globalness, universality, I'm not sure how to turn that into a noun, and sinfulness. These three qualities and characteristics have a great deal to tell us about the Christian life. The letter to the Corinthians, the first letter to the Corinthians is really the prime example on each of these characteristics. Turn with me just really briefly to 1 Corinthians 1. As I've heard someone say before, 1 Corinthians 1.26 tells us that the church has a lot to be humble about. If you want to know what the humility of Ruth, Rahab, Tamar, and Bathsheba has to do with your Christian life. Hear the words of 1 Corinthians 1 verse 26. You see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Look around, folks. Just, I'm sorry, but look around at each other and you'll see proof positive that 1 Corinthians 1.26 is how God works. We're losers. We're the scum of the earth. We're the idiots who still bother to go to church and worship a God that can't be seen, and there's no evidence to prove that he's there. We are fools tonight. That's what the Christian life is about. That's what it means to take up your cross and die daily and walk towards the grave with Jesus. So that as the Apostle Paul says, having been buried with him, we shall also be raised with him in newness of life. Humble. Notice that the global quality of these four women tells us something about life with Jesus as well. I just want you to think of what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 15 when he said, the whole purpose of my letter to you and the whole purpose of my apostolic ministry is to offer up the Gentiles as an acceptable offering to God. That's why he said, it's my ambition to preach Christ where he's never been named before. Let me ask you, is there a part of the world A people in the world, a kind of people here in your own neighborhood that you ever have the thought, trash. Well, let me tell you, they're the Rahabs and the Ruths and the Tamars, the Moabites and the Canaanites of the world. And God loves them, he sent his son to save them. So go and make disciples of all nations. A global concern should mark your Christian life. And not only that, but your own Christian life should model the kind of gospel harmony that the Apostle Paul talked about in Galatians. You remember Jews and Gentiles fighting each other? The oldest racial conflict in the books? And Paul says, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female. There's so much unity in Jesus Christ that to be in the church is far stronger of a bond than for you to be from one place and me to be from another. Or you to have one kind of skin and me to have another. You to have one job and me to have another. I just want to emphasize the kinds of people that are in Jesus' genealogy are the kinds of people you tell your kids not to talk to. The kinds of people who live in the kinds of neighborhoods that you would never buy a home in. The kinds of people who live in the kinds of places that you won't go to because you're afraid or because you don't love them or because The old pride of culture and race dies hard in our hearts. Jesus loves them. Go after them and bring them in. And make your church a place where cross-cultural, cross-generational, cross-economic harmony is a display of the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Life with Jesus is my second point of application. I want to leave you with one thing to remember, and I turn you to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. And after I read this, I'll ask Mr. Saunders to come and close the meeting. This genealogy tells us something beautiful about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a real man. He came to be one of us, to be identified with humble, sinful, global people like you and me. And I've just tried to point out that has huge implications for the fact that you need to put your faith in Him and the fact that you need to live with Him in a certain way. And I think the verse I'm gonna read summarizes that. I want you to just have it ringing in your ears as you leave and it's my prayer that the Holy Spirit will use it and help us to apply it and be doers of this particular word as well as hearers. 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be rich. Amen. May God bless his word to our hearts this evening. We thank our brother for the word that he has given to us tonight, and we pray that God would write it on all our hearts. Indeed, we see ourselves in those places, identified with those people. Friend, if you're here tonight, listening over the internet, and you are still outside of the Lord, you don't know Him, then tonight, tonight is the night, as you call upon Him, He is promised at the sound of your voice. As you repent of your sin, He will come into your heart and cleanse sin away and give you new life in Him. Right where you're seated now, you can pray that prayer. The Lord will hear. He will answer. If we can be any help to you afterward and pray with you, then please speak to us before you leave the service tonight. If you're listening online, then please send us an email and we'll be in contact with you. Let's bow in prayer. Dear Father, we are thankful tonight for this word we have heard, reminding us of the hole of the pit from which we have been digged and taken. And Lord, we know that salvation is by grace, grace alone, wondrous grace. And Lord, it's not of ourselves. We have nothing to boast in. Indeed, we have everything to be ashamed of and to confess. And so, dear Father, I pray tonight that Thy Spirit would work in every heart. Hear our prayer. Bless us tonight. Dear Father, separate us now. Take us to our homes in safety. Be with us. May every day be very conscious of the Lord walking by our side, being near us. Hear this prayer we ask. For Jesus' sake we pray. Amen.