Reading from two texts, this time Isaiah 11, verses 1-10. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness the belt of his waist. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people. For the Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place shall be glorious. It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people who were left from Assyria and Egypt, from Patras and Kush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the sea. And secondly, Matthew chapter two, verse 23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and I pray that as we dig into it, that it would be something that would build us up in your most holy faith, that you would enable us to continue to worship you faithfully and to serve you faithfully as a result of having heard this word. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I find a great deal of comfort from the applications of this passage, and I'd love to dive into those applications right away, but for at least a couple of them to even make any sense, I first of all need to deal with a controversy that has arisen, and the controversy has to do with Matthew 2, verse 23. Liberals claim that either this is a mistake, Or it is a deliberate deception. And many evangelicals have been at a loss on how in the world to explain this verse. Let me read that to you again. Matthew 2 verse 23. When he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene. Now it seems like a straightforward fulfillment of prophecy, right? and the New King James actually puts quotation marks around the phrase he shall be called a Nazarene. It shouldn't but it does. We'll be looking at how that should be translated later but listen to the following commentaries as they wrestle over this verse. Willoughby Allen says this verse contains a still unexplained difficulty. Now what would be so difficult? Leon Morris explains the difficulty this way. It is not easy to find the words he will be called a Nazarene in any of the prophetical books or for that matter anywhere in the Old Testament. No passage even resembles this. And so liberals have said, this is just another example of the Bible having mistakes in it. They claim that Matthew is pretending that he is quoting from the Old Testament when in reality he's just fabricating this verse, this quote out of thin air. And unfortunately, many evangelicals are at a loss on how to answer this objection. Albert Barnes in his commentary says, the words here are not found in any of the books of the Old Testament and there has been much difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of this passage. Plummer states, the difficulty about the prophecy quoted in verse 23 is one which our present knowledge does not enable us to solve. D.A. Carson, very prominent evangelical says, these words are found nowhere in the Old Testament. John Berry gives his opinion. The source of this quotation is unknown, and it seems that Jewish people at the time did not expect the Messiah to come from Nazareth. Just one more quote. This one from RT France. He says, he shall be called a Nazarene, does not in fact occur anywhere in the Old Testament, nor as far as we know in any other contemporary literature. As a matter of fact, Nazareth is a relatively newly founded settlement, is never mentioned in the Old Testament or indeed in any other non-Christian Jewish writing before it appears in an inscription listing priestly courses in the third or fourth century AD. The search for a specific Old Testament source for he shall be called a Nazarene is therefore likely to be futile. So how should we respond to this? I want you to first of all notice that this is not a direct quotation of one prophet. He speaks of prophets plural, whereas anytime he makes a direct quotation with the Greek language of direct quotation, he's quoting from one prophet singular, and this is why many solid evangelicals I believe that he is summarizing what multiple prophets have said would happen, not giving a direct quote, and there really should not be quotation marks around that phrase like the New King James has. Second, Lenski points out that the Greek is even more clear. It is crystal clear in the Greek that Matthew was not intending to give a direct quotation. Speaking of the Greek, Lenski says, no legone precedes hot tea, which shuts out not only a direct quotation, but also an indirect prophetic utterance. So Lenski is saying the grammar makes it impossible. You should never put quotation marks around that phrase because of the structure. Third, if you understand what the name of the city Nazareth means, then there are in fact seven Old Testament prophecies that mandated that Jesus somehow be called a Nazarene. Not a Nazarite, that's a totally different word, but a Nazarene. The city name means shoot, sprout, or branch, and was a reference to a small twig that sprouts. It's a little branch that's growing out of something, okay? So Edersheim points out that there were two Old Testament words that meant branch, Tzemach, as well as Netzer, and both synonyms referred to the despised Messiah who would grow up in obscurity and weakness, but would eventually grow into a glorious tree. And so Matthew is right on the money. There were indeed prophets plural whose prophecies absolutely mandated that Jesus moved to Nazareth and that Jesus be called a Nazarene and we'll look at how those prophecies mandated that this be the case. Zechariah chapter 6 verse 12 calls Jesus the man whose name is Branch. Okay that's what he's going to be called Branch. Very important prophecy. Isaiah 11 does not use the synonym for branch, but the actual word for Nazareth, it's Nitzer, which refers to him as a branch. And so Edersheim says that all of the branch passages really form the background to Matthew 2, verse 23, and we're gonna be looking at them this morning. Now let me clarify, when I say that these Old Testament passages say he's gonna be called a Nazarene, they're not referring to a a city, the city Nazareth or the town Nazareth was not even in existence when Isaiah wrote that. It was probably about a hundred years before the time of Christ that it came about. But it's referring to the Messiah having the title, the name of branch. Okay. He's going to be called a Nazarene. And by the way, those old Testament prophecies said that this name of Branch was going to be a name by which he would be despised, by which he would be looked down upon, by which he would be rejected. They're all fitting together very, very nicely. And Isaiah chapter 11 is the key passage. Now the fact that the Pharisees felt comfortable calling Jesus a Nazarene shows to me that God has a sense of humor. How is God going to orchestrate getting the very people who would reject Jesus as being the Messiah, giving him, how would he orchestrate that they would continually use a name that is a messianic title? And the Pharisees never consciously called him by a messianic title. In fact, they got mad any time that somebody used him or when he used a messianic title for himself. When he called himself the I Am, the Jews picked up stones to stone him. When he called himself the Son of God, they said that that was blasphemy. When he said he was the son of man coming on the clouds, that's a reference to Daniel chapter 7. Again, they say that that's blasphemy. That was worthy of the crucifixion, right? In John chapter 10, they refused to acknowledge that he was the good shepherd that was prophesied by Ezekiel to reform the shepherding of Israel. And at the end of that chapter, they sought to stone him. So how does God get the Pharisees to call Jesus the branch or the sprout without realizing that they were actually calling him the Messiah. Well, God marvelously did it by having Jesus live in a city whose name is Branch or Sprout. Everyone in that city was called a branchite, okay, a Nazarene. But the plot gets even better. Every Old Testament prophet that called the Messiah a branch, whether they used the Hebrew word Tzemach or Netzer, consistently portrayed this branch as being despised and rejected of men. And so there's a double play on the term. It's a messianic title, but it's a title that the prophets predicted would be despised. Now you could not get more disrespect in Israel than coming from the town of Nazareth. Interestingly, just as Sodom was a synonym for homosexuality, and just as the verb to Corinthianize meant to fornicate because Corinth was so filled with fornication, the NIV study Bible points out the term Nazarene was virtually a synonym for despised. You call somebody a Nazarene, say I look down on you, I despise you. That's really what it amounted to. So this is why Nathanael in John chapter 1 says, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? One way to ensure that Jesus would be called the branch and be despised and be rejected exactly as the prophets anticipated that he would be despised and rejected was to make sure that he grew up in Nazareth. And so Matthew shows in a marvelous way that God got the Jews of that day. By the way, it's to this day, if you read the Talmud or you read even modern Jewish literature, Christians are called netzer. It's a term of disrespect. They're called Nazarenes. You and I are Nazarenes, okay? So here's how Wilbur Pickering translates this verse. And upon arriving, he settled in a city called Nazareth, he puts in quotation marks branch town, okay, in Nazareth, so that what was spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled that he would be called a Nazarean, a branch man. Okay, before we apply this term Nazarene, let's take a look at the background branch or Nazarene passages. And the first one's in your bulletin, it's Isaiah 11. This is the main prophecy we're gonna look at today. And I'm gonna begin reading again at verse one. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding. the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. So verse one refers to a stump of Israel. Now in chapter six of Isaiah, he's already identified what the stump was. God had cut down the tree of Israel, and most of the tree had been rejected back then. But he said, I'm not doing away with Israel completely. There's going to be a stump left, and there's going to be shoots that will come up out of that stump. And so he identifies it as the remnant. That was in chapter 6. Well, now, once again, using the image of a stump with shoots growing out of it, he says in verse 1, there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse. So of all of the places And the parts and branches of this stump that he focuses on, the prophet says the Messiah would be a shoot coming out of the part. represented by Jesse. Now, Jesse was already dead for hundreds of years when Isaiah wrote this. He's not talking about lineage here. He's talking about the geographical region that this Messiah would come from. You see, Jesse, seven times in the Old Testament was called Jesse of Bethlehem, or Jesse was from Bethlehem. Bethlehem and Jesse are kind of identified. That's his hometown. That's David's hometown. So, If Jesus is to come from the part of the stump of Israel geographically pertaining to Jesse, then God had to orchestrate some way of getting Mary and Joseph to leave their town of Nazareth and go to Bethlehem to be born. So he had to be a Nazarene. He had to be a branch born in Bethlehem. But then Jesus has to go all the way back from Bethlehem to Nazareth. And I'm not going to deal with the prophecy today, but there's an additional prophecy that says that before he can go to Nazareth, he has to come out of Egypt. And so really, when you're looking at the plot that God is weaving, it's a very complicated plot. that happens before Jesus was born, they were all the way on the other side of the nation. And of course, Luke tells us this is exactly the reason why God had Caesar Augustus have all the world to be taxed and they had to be taxed or their census had to be taking place in the town of their origin, their ancestry. This was an incredibly disruptive decree with migrations of people all over the empire back to their hometowns. And God orchestrated that massive disruption of the empire specifically to get Jesus to go to Bethlehem. And it had to come at just the right time for Mary to give birth in what Micah refers to as Bethlehem, least among the thousands of Judah. But the bottom line is that that first phrase is that he's a branch, he's a Nazarene in Hebrew, and yet he springs up first of all in the region of Jesse or Bethlehem. And then verse one goes on to say, a branch shall grow out of his roots. Not only would he be from a small spot, Bethlehem, but he would be a small fry, a netzer, a twig, a shoot, a branch. In Zechariah 6, verse 12, it calls Jesus the man whose name is Branch. But in order for that to happen, God has to orchestrate some events. God gets Jesus out of Bethlehem. How does he do it? With the persecution of Herod, right? And he gives them a dream. He says, your child's going to be killed if you don't get out of here. And so he flees to Egypt. But then when he finds out that Herod has died, Joseph wants to bring the whole family back to Bethlehem. It must have been a pretty cool town to live in, a lot better than Nazareth, and we'll see why it's a lot better place to live than Nazareth. So he's aiming to go back to Bethlehem, and God says, no way, you're not coming back to Bethlehem. He orchestrates providentially the events so that he goes in the entirely different direction, back to Nazareth. So they settled in a place where Christ could earn the nickname of Nazarene. If this despised branch had been allowed to stay in Bethlehem, you can bet that Christ's enemies would never have called him a branch. And we'll come back to this passage in a moment, but let's take a look at some other ones. If you flip forward to Isaiah 54, no, excuse me, Isaiah 53. Let me read to you verse two. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. And might as well read the next little section, too. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Just two points here, and the first is that he grew up as a tender plant. The literal Hebrew for that word, tender plant, is to suckle or to nurse. Almost always it's used of babies. There's only six other places where it is referred to as this small branch. It's like a suckling. We even have a similar word in the English, but usually it's used of babies. Here it's used of a very tender plant. And the emphasis was on how small and dependent and weak Christ was in the incarnation. Why did God have Christ incarnate as a baby? Well, it's because Jesus has to identify with us in all the things that we go through. He knew what it meant to be a baby, to grow up, to have weakness. He knew what it meant to have to learn. Now, we need to always emphasize that he never lost any of his attributes as God when he took to himself his humanity. As God, he continued to rule this universe and uphold every atom of this universe at the very time that His humanity was in the cradle. The way I like to word it is at the very moment that Mary is cuddling Jesus in her arms, He's holding her in His arms. Okay, that's the nature of the incarnation. But here's the point. Despite the fact that he was the omnipotent God who continued to uphold all things by the word of his power, he did not use his divinity to take away the weakness, the dependence, the tenderness of his humanity. For example, the Gospels tell us that he hungered and he thirsted. Why would it say that? It's because God wants to emphasize Christ's incarnation was not an illusion. It was real. He was vulnerable. He was tender. The Gospels tell us that after he fasted for 40 days, he was so weak that it took angels to strengthen him. It was a real, not an illusion. the incarnation. He staggered under the load of the cross. Why? Because his body could only bear so much. And he endured weakness, he endured pain, so that he could identify with those of you who have pain and who have weakness. He was a tender plant. And this chapter of Isaiah 53 is a long catalog of the various ways in which that weakness was seen. It was a true incarnation. But secondly, There was a miraculous growth of this tender twig. It says, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. This particular root did not grow because the soil was luscious and black and just filled with nutrition and moisture. It's the exact opposite. This was a desert. The Hebrew word for dry means drought or parched. It's something growing in the desert. Now, you can find things growing in the desert if it rains, but this is a desert where there is no rain. So this is something remarkable. It says here that it grows out of dry ground. So he is not getting his life from the environment that is around him. It's a picture of something very unnatural that is happening. Against all nature, a tender plant grows where no plant can grow. It is a hostile environment, and this chapter shows the hostility of the world against Christ. Like that tender branch out of dry ground, Jesus received no support from his hostile surroundings. He received it from God alone. That's why verse two here goes on to say, he shall grow up before him, before God, okay? Now we're going to apply this to ourselves a little bit later on in the sermon, but I just want to emphasize right here that Jesus grew where no plant could grow. The glory of Israel had long since vanished. You know, there was a time, especially under Solomon, where it would have been an advantage to be a growing up as a Jew, especially if your goal was world conquest or something like that. But being a Jew at this point was dry ground because Jews were vassals at that time and were despised vassals if you read the history. Being a Jew was dry ground. And among Jews, Galileans were disdained. That's why the Pharisees said there is no teacher that can come out of Galilee. Galilee was not a place you would expect anything to come from. And the Nazareth of Galilee was the off-scouring of the earth. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is why Nathanael, and Jesus said he was a man in whom there was no guile, no deceitfulness. Even Nathanael could say, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Nazareth was dry, barren ground. Who would have expected anything to come from there? And where this passage indicates that the plant will supernaturally grow without the aid of its environment, where verse 12 indicates that he will have the victory despite all appearances of weakness. The other branch passages show the awesome growth of the branch. And I want you to flip with me to just a handful of these. Zechariah chapter six is the first one. Zechariah chapter six, and we'll read verses 12 through 13. Then speak to him, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is Branch. From his place he shall branch out, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. Yes, he shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on his throne. and he shall be a priest on his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both. Though this man named Branch starts small, he will branch out, he will grow until his glory fills the earth. Turn next to Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23 and verse five. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness. A king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In his days, Judah will be saved. So obviously they're not saved just prior to that, but it's in the time of this Messiah that Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely. Now this is his name by which he will be called, the Lord, our righteousness. And again, this branch or this despised Nazarene will be caused to prosper. Turn next to Jeremiah 33, just a few chapters forward. Jeremiah 33, and I'll read verses 15 and 16. In those days, and at that time, I will cause to grow up to David a branch of righteousness. He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called the Lord, our righteousness." So just like the previous passage, this indicates that the very nation that Jesus would execute in the first century, the very city that Jesus would destroy in the first century is eventually going to be saved. So this branch is going to bring about a remarkable reversal in history. Okay, with that as background, let's turn back to Isaiah 11, which is in your bulletins here, and let's see how this unlikely Nazarene from Bethlehem would turn the world upside down. Isaiah chapter 11. I'm not gonna reread those verses, but just scan with your eyes over the verses, and I think you'll immediately see what I'm going to be drawing out of them. Verse one talks about the Netzer branch, Verse two speaks of what empowered him in his ministry. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit. He operated in the power of the Holy Spirit. Verses three through five speak of his rule in the midst of his enemies, his overcoming of those enemies. Then verses six through nine speaks of the lion lying down with the lamb. I don't think that's happened yet. Verses 10 through 16 of the worldwide submission to the gospel. In other words, the wilderness, the dryness doesn't stay dry and doesn't stay wilderness forever. Christ doesn't stay a tender shoot forever. He becomes the dominant force in the world. Where the word Nazarene was used as a title of derision, it has become a title of honor for you and me. And the scripture indicates that where it is, even to the present day, used as a title of derision by Jews, of Christians, there is coming a day when they will gladly wear that name. They will say, yes, I'm a fellow Nazarene with you. This is the prophecy that's going to be happening. I'm a branchite. So Matthew is not making a stretch when he says that Jesus had to move to Nazareth for the prophecies to be fulfilled, that Jesus would be called Netzer as a title of contempt. And again, let me give you Wilbur Pickering's much more accurate translation. And upon arriving, he settled in a city called Nazareth, which means branch, branch town. So that what was spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene, which means branch, a branch man. Okay. So I stand really in awe of how God manipulated the Pharisees to call Jesus with a messianic title without realizing that they were doing so. They thought they were putting him down. He gladly embraced that title. Now, what applications can we draw from this passage? Well, the first, I think, and most obvious application that we can draw from it is that we can trust His Word. It is so easy for unbelieving critics to criticize the Bible out of absolute ignorance. I have so many books that claim, in essence, that Matthew made a mistake here. And hopefully by now you can see it was God beautifully orchestrated the fulfillment of seven biblical prophecies. But even if I didn't know the explanation, I don't care. I know God's word is true. God's always going to come through on this. It's going to be the critics who will be embarrassed, and God will always have the last laugh. So I think this little passage illustrates why we should trust the Bible completely in everything that it says. Second, we can trust God's providence. Even when we're going through difficult times, we can absolutely trust God's providence. Caesar Augustus mandated one of the most unusual and most inconvenient movements of people ever. Even a year before this decree went out, if people were to anticipate, I bet you Caesar Augustus is going to make a decree that when we do this next census, you got to go back to your hometown, people would have laughed at them and said, no, nobody's that crazy. No emperor is that crazy. He's not going to do something like that. But God orchestrates this incredibly inconvenient pain in the neck kind of a census in order to get Jesus exactly where he needs to be. So when you face similar inconveniences that the civil government has imposed upon you, do you trust God's providence? That's the question. How many believers in the first century wondered Lord, this is terrible. Right in the middle, I mean, maybe it was going through their mind. She's pregnant, she's about ready to give birth. Lord, you're having me go to Nazareth. Where are you? I need you in my life. And God is saying, no, I'm there all along. I'm orchestrating every detail of what is happening to you. And God can move heaven and earth today as well. When you find yourself in similar circumstances, maybe the government has unduly taxed you or something has happened, you can trust Him that He is not absent. He can move heaven and earth today. Are there huge obstacles to achieving the goals that God has placed upon your heart? I know there are huge obstacles to the goals that God's placed upon my heart, and yet God is in the business of moving heaven and earth to accomplish His purposes. I think it brings great glory to His name. So do not ever be troubled by the Caesars of this world. They are pawns. They are pawns in God's hand. Don't look at all of the negative things that stand in your way. There were an enormous number of negative things standing in the way of this prophecy being fulfilled, and yet they were fulfilled to a T. Third, the growth of Christ's kingdom is not dependent on moist, nourishing soil. To translate it into modern terms, it's not dependent on our circumstances. The growth of the church is not dependent on CNN, CBS, KFAB, or any other news sources giving us good creds, right? No, most of the movements of Christianity down through history have not received any help from the world. In fact, they've received opposition from the world. They were resisted, and yet the unlikely, sickly-looking plant of Christianity has prospered, has grown, until worldwide there are billions of Christians. Unbelievable how God has done this. We need to stop being pessimistic about the dry ground that is out there and just realize, hey, God is an expert at causing life to grow in dry places. This dry ground may be your marriage. You might think, well, we're gonna endure, we're not gonna get divorced, but I can't see anything good coming out of my marriage. But you need to trust God. No, God can make even dryness in my marriage to flourish. He can bring a rose in the midst of difficulty. So a good marriage is not dependent on circumstances, it's dependent upon the triumph of God's grace in my heart and in other people's hearts. The dry ground may be the culture in America or it could be the state of America. Can God cause things to grow in Washington, D.C.? ? Absolutely. In fact, he is doing it through capital ministries and through some other ministries that God has called their dark, dark place. But hey, it's not a problem for God. In fact, The Netzer passage in Isaiah 11 specifically guarantees that he will bring justice and equity in the governments of this world. And you look at the governments, how could God do that? Because he's omnipotent, because his grace can overcome anything. He can do it with their cooperation, he can do it without their cooperation. But the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of Christ, amen? Amen. Fourth encouragement, is that these passages show that Jesus identified with us in our weakness. He came as one who was weak and you can go to him knowing that he cares for your burdens. He cares for the things that you're going through. He came specifically to take upon himself our weaknesses. And as Joel mentioned in his prayer, to take upon himself our pains. our sicknesses, the things that we make us feel like, I am a frail twig, I don't know if I can take much more, right? If you feel weak, know that he identifies with you. Fifth, Jesus identified with our shame. He knew what it meant to be despised. And Hebrews 13 tells us that when all men despise you and are ashamed of you, and do not want to hang around you, you still need to be willing to follow Jesus. If we're too ashamed to identify with Christ, Jesus says, well, I'll be ashamed of you when I come with all the holy angels at the second coming. We need to be willing to be despised by all as Nazarenes. Hebrews 13 says that Jesus, quote, suffered outside the gate, therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. And when we identify ourselves as Nazarenes, when we're willing to be despised, Jesus delights to exalt us. He continues to be a friend of publicans and sinners. Now, most people don't know what a publican is. It's a tax collector, okay? Tax collectors were lumped in with sinners as people that God delighted to, everybody hates a tax collector, right? But God says, no, I love them. I'm taking them to myself. I'm gonna be saving them. Even tax collectors can be saved. One of the purposes of the incarnation was to cause the stump which was cut down to grow into a great and glorious tree as he builds his church and eventually turns this world into a new Eden. It's not our job to grow the church. It's our job to bring His message to dry ground. He's the one that grows the church. He's the one that turns the wilderness into a paradise. So our job is to be Christ's ambassadors to this world and watch Him grow His kingdom. So my prayer for you is that you would have the faith to trust in the Nazarene, the branch, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he can do what we cannot do. And secondly, that you would have the humility to be a fellow Nazarene with him. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word and the challenge that it brings to our lives. We thank you that we can always trust it. that we can completely put our confidence in your word and its blueprints for our lives. Help us to do so. Help us to implement those blueprints and to faithfully carry them out despite the mocking that the world might bring. When we know that the victory is in Christ Jesus, why do we care what the world thinks? So help us, Father, to follow you, even as Jesus followed, and to care more about your well done, thou good and faithful servant, than we are about the praise of the world. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.