Well, good evening. It's good to be back with you tonight. If you can open your Bibles up to Matthew chapter 8, we're back in the wonderful gospel of Matthew as we continue our study through this wonderful book. This is the 65th time that we have come to this book and so it's been a journey so far over a year and it's been a blessing to me as I know it has you as well. It's always a blessing to preach the word of God and to be here together and considering. So Matthew chapter 8 If you remember, we started a study several weeks ago, I think two or three weeks ago, about a series of nine miracles that happened right after Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount. These miracles, they're masterfully arranged, three miracles apiece, three groups of three, with each group, each miracle proving that Jesus Christ was, in fact, the Son of God. They confirmed his deity, They confirmed his power. They confirmed everything about Jesus Christ. They confirmed that he was God. We've considered that first group of three. You remember the healing of the leper? Then we looked at the centurion's servant and how that his servant was healed with a palsy from a distance, if you remember that wonderful story. And then we looked at how that Peter's mother-in-law was healed with the fever that she had. So we're going to continue as we study through this section. You'll notice tonight we're going to be keying in on verses 16 and 17. And Matthew sort of pulls back from the miracles and he gives us a summary statement that really sums up all the miracles that Christ did while he walked this earth. It really tells us why that he did what he did. So we're going to start back at verse 1 of Matthew chapter 8 and I want to read through to verse 17 because verses 1 through 15 really build a good context. for verses 16 and 17 that we will consider tonight. Matthew 8 and verse 1. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. This is right after the Sermon on the Mount. And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. and immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof. But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this man, go, and he goeth. And to another, come, and he cometh. And to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. Theirs shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. And when Jesus was coming to Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and ministered unto them. And here's our passage for tonight. And when the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. And he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying himself, took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. Speaking to you tonight on this topic, Christ the King's vicarious ministry. Christ the King's vicarious ministry. Bow with me as we ask the Lord to bless our time together. Dear gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we come again to your word. And Lord, we acknowledge that your word is a deep well from which we must drop our bucket down in through the leading of the Holy Spirit. And we must draw from it the truths that will guide us through life. The truths that can change us from the inside out. And Father, we come to you tonight considering two verses. But Lord, they're packed full of truth. And I pray that you would teach us that your spirit would lead us as we comb through these verses word by word. We thank you for the hymns that we have sung tonight and for what they mean to us. Lord, great choruses and some great songs. And Father, now I pray that you would be with us, that you would lead us and guide us. It's in your son's wonderful name that we pray. Amen. Christ, the King's vicarious ministering. Now as we said as we opened up our reading, Christ has just finished preaching the sermon, what we call the sermon on the mount. He comes right off the mount and he gets right to preaching. He gets right to work. He gets right to healing. He gets right to doing his father's work. And as I have already stated, he does three miracles in three different groups. So a total of nine miracles that he performed. We come to this summary statement in verses 16 and 17. So there's a word that we must understand as we comb through scriptures, and that word is vicarious. Now, if we say that something is vicarious, we are saying that it is an act done on behalf of another. You think about Christ's life. He lived a vicarious life. He lived a perfect life. so that he could be our substitute on the cross. It was a vicarious death. He died in our place. He vicariously suffered. He suffered in our place. These miracles, he did them according to the Father's will. Everything that he did was vicarious. He was always doing something on behalf of others. And so vicarious is a wonderful way to sum up the ministry that we have spoken of in these two verses. So Christ the King's vicarious ministry. The first thing we want to consider is Christ's ministry of powerful healing. Powerful healing. We've already seen this great display of Christ's healings. You think about how great of a healing that happened when he healed the leper in the first four verses of Matthew chapter 8. Somebody with leprosy was put out of the camp. Somebody with leprosy could not be around the public. Nobody wanted to be around a leper. They wouldn't walk down the same roads as a leper. They would be on the other side of the street before they would be around a leper. But yet if you look at our text in verses 1-4 of Matthew 8, you will find that Christ not only healed this leper with a spoken word, Christ healed this leper with a touch. He touched. The one that nobody would touch. The one that nobody would be around. Our loving Savior. Our vicarious substitute. Our vicarious sacrifice reached out and touched that leper and healed him with the word. What a Savior we have. And then if you go back and you look beginning in verse 5, you will see that Christ healed the centurion's servant. His poor servant boy was sick of the palsy and Christ healed him from a distance. What power! We see in that miracle, Christ didn't have to be in the servant's presence to heal. His spoken words can heal just the same as His spoken words spoke the stars into existence. As His spoken word spoke the world into existence in six days. That's amazing. And then if you go back and you start reading in verses 14 and 15, you find Peter's sick mother-in-law, she had literally thrown herself on the bed because she had such a high fever. She was one sick lady. But Christ took the time as he was performing all of these miracles. He took the time to go in and to heal this lady. And what did she do? She got right to work. She started ministering. Truth, verse to verse, word by word so far in Matthew chapter 8, and then we come to verse 16. We come to the summary statement in these two verses. And the first thing we must see is that Christ's ministry was a ministry of powerful healing. Powerful healing. Now I want us to see something beginning in verse 16. You will notice it starts out with the phrase, when the even was come. And then what happened? Then they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word. Now that phrase, when the even was come, if you will notice that it wasn't until after that that they brought the possessed and Christ cast out the spirits with his Now, what's the big deal about that? Well, if you look at two other Gospels, you will find that these healings, speaking of the healing of the leper, the healing of the centurion's servant, the healing of Peter's sick mother-in-law, more than likely happened on the Sabbath day. And the distinction of the they likely points to the Jews in verse 16. So what is happening here is that the Jews have been watching Christ heal all day. Watching him heal, holding back their sick until the Sabbath day was over. That's amazing to me. This was a result of their silly laws and their silly traditions that they had heaped upon the Sabbath day. They wouldn't bring the sick to Christ so that Christ could do his work because of the extra rules and regulations they had added to the word of God. They have waited to sundown to bring the most needy people to Jesus Christ. This is crazy. Christ was here to do His work, to heal the sick, to prove that He was God through the working of these miracles. He was here to do His Father's work and He was in no way sinning by healing on the Sabbath day. What's the implication? The implication for us is we must not wait to go to our Lord with our needs, with our desires. We must not delay. We must not let our busy life or our forgetful minds cause us time with our Savior. We must not let our hobbies cause us to miss time with our vicarious sacrifice. We must not let our wants and desires cause us to neglect our greatest needs that can only be filled by the greatest one. One of the men, some of you might remember him, that used to pray here at the church quite often, I would say probably seven or eight years ago, he would always say at the end of his prayers, Lord it sure does make a difference when you pass by. And I'll add to that that I sure hope That when the Lord, it's just a play on words, of course, but when the Lord passes by, when we see the Lord's work going on, when we read the word of God, that we take the time to notice, that we take the time to cling to, that we take the time to draw truths from within it, depend on it, and to worship our Lord. These Jews missed the boat. They missed the boat. They waited way too long because of what they had added to God's law. So under that heading of these powerful miracles, first of all, I want to look at how that Christ healed the demon possessed. How that Christ healed the demon possessed, that's 1A. If you look back to verse 16 of Matthew 8, It says, when the even was come, now we're at sundown, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word. Now the phrase, and this is amazing to me how the Greek language combines so many of our English words into one word, but the phrase, that were possessed with devils, is one compound word in the Greek. Now, this word is used throughout the New Testament to describe those who are possessed or influenced by demons. Actually, in its most basic form, you will find that it means to come under the control of a fallen angel, which, of course, is a demon. It means more than just being tempted. This word implies a condition in which a person is under the control of demonic entities. What is the result? The results of this are physical, mental, and spiritual afflictions. And the phrase spirits there in verse 16 speaks to that which is higher than man but lower than God. Now what is that? Those are fallen angels. These spirits made men do some odd and terrible things if you read through the Gospels. Made them do some weird things in Jesus' day. They caused physical ailments upon many. They caused inability to speak, epileptic symptoms, blindness. They caused individuals to do evil. Remember what Judas did? The evil that he did? Turning over our Lord? In Acts 16 verses 16 through 18, the spirit, apparently this evil spirit, gave a slave girl some ability to know things beyond her own learning. The man in the garden of Gadarenes was possessed with a multitude of demons. Remember that phrase, a legion of demons? Which caused him to have supernatural strength. Remember the chains couldn't even hold him? King Saul, after rebelling against the Lord, was troubled by an evil spirit, and this evil spirit caused him to want to kill David even more. A person possessed with demons may suffer from things like depression, aggression, supernatural strength, immodesty, antisocial behavior, the possibility or the ability to share things that they really couldn't know naturally. They may suffer from spiritual symptoms such as refusal to forgive. belief and the spreading of false doctrine, especially those concerning Christ and His atoning work, demon possession is a terrible atrocity. Can a Christian be possessed by a demon? And the answer is we do not see an example of that in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit won't share our temple with anyone else. So the answer to that would be no, logically speaking. Can Christians be influenced by demons? Absolutely. What happened to Peter, the rock upon which Christ built the church? He was demonized and denied Christ. He wasn't overcome by a demon, but he was influenced by demonic forces. So in summary, being possessed by a demon or multiple demons is very serious. It's a very serious thing that carries with it some bad and serious consequences. But the amazing thing is that Christ's ministry of powerful healing involved the healing of the demon-possessed, involved him casting out the demons from within humans. Verse 16 tells us that He cast out the spirits with His Word. With His Word. Even demons are no match for Christ. Christ healed the demon possessed. Still thinking of His power Our next heading, Christ healed not only the demon-possessed, but Christ healed the sick. Christ healed the sick. Look back with me again to verse 16. And when even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick. He healed all that were sick. Now that word healed is where we get our English word therapeutic, and it means a restoration to health. And if you parse that verb healed, what you will find, it is written in the active voice. And what that means is the subject is carrying out the action of the verb. So our Lord was doing the healing. It wasn't a false god doing the healing. It wasn't modern day medicine doing the healing. It wasn't a doctor prescribing medicines that take time to kill the bacteria and things from within us to do the healing. No, Christ did the healing. Actively, He did the healing. And the amazing thing, if you look at verse 16, it tells us that Christ healed all that were sick. All that were sick. And he healed all instantaneously with the spoken word. He healed all completely. They wasn't halfway healed and then had to wait another week and go back to Christ for more. No. He healed instantaneously and completely with the spoken word and he healed all. MacArthur comments, for all practical purposes, Jesus banished sickness and disease from Palestine during the course of his earthly ministry. That's amazing. Christ healed the sick. Christ healed the demon possessed. Christ was using his miraculous power to heal not only to heal others, and he did that not only to demonstrate his care and concern for people, but to demonstrate that he was truly God. He was the king. Christ's ministry of powerful healing. Secondly, we see Christ's ministry of divine compassion. Christ's ministry of divine compassion. Look back with me to verse 17. says that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying himself took our infirmities. Himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. Matthew's quoting from Isaiah 53, 4. Now there's several key words that we must look at as we look at this verse. First of all, we must know what that word infirmities means. Infirmities, as defined, would be the handicaps that go with sickness. And then if you parse the verb, he took, it's one word in the Greek, lambeno, it means to receive. And it's written again in the active voice. This tells us that Christ was presently and actively involved in taking the sickness of Palestine upon himself. He took them. He bore the sicknesses. That's amazing. He took their infirmities. And why did he do this tiring task for so many people there in Palestine? I'll give you two reasons. First of all, Christ's compassion demonstrated His divinity. Christ's compassion demonstrated His divinity. Speaking of Christ, John says in John chapter 2 and verse 25, For he knew what was in him. This is speaking of Christ. He knew what was in man. He was, Jesus Christ was, is, and will forever be omniscient. And what does that tell us? It tells us that he knows our struggles. He knows what we're dealing with. He knows the agony that we go through. And sickness is both great and small. He knows that feeling of despair and frustration that we get ourselves wrapped up in from being under the weather, or being distressed, or being depressed, or being under pressure. Christ is not only omniscient, but He's omnipotent. An all-powerful God can heal all diseases and all sicknesses in the land with a spoken word and some compassionate touches. That's what we see Christ doing. Only Christ, who is all-powerful, can say, be thou clean to a leper, and immediately that leper was cleansed. Only Jesus Christ could speak and heal the centurion's servant that was sick with a palsy from a distance by speaking a word. Only Christ could heal Peter's sick mother-in-law who was sick with a fever that she could not control with a spoken word. Christ is God and there's no denying it. And these miracles pointed to that. They were pointing all in Palestine to the one who was doing what no man has, is, and will ever do. Christ is God. He's a God of great compassion. Leviticus 3, 22 and 23 says, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Why? Because His compassions fell not. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. Psalm 86, 15 says, But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, plenteous in mercy and truth. Psalm 147, 3 says, He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. Our God. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is a God of great compassion. And what happened in the New Testament is we see God, who has always been merciful, who has always been loving, who has always been compassionate, even from creation on, even in eternity past, He cannot change. He's always been like that but in the New Testament we see the manifestation of himself in Christ Jesus and we see compassion in a way that we've never seen it before. It's amazing what Christ did. The incarnation is so marvelous how that Jesus Christ was fully God but yet he was fully man and because of that He could teach us compassion. He could demonstrate in a way that God had never demonstrated before that He is a God of compassion, that His mercies are new every single day. Christ's compassion demonstrated His divinity. But thinking of the hypostatic union of Christ And not only demonstrated his divinity, but Christ's compassion demonstrated his humanity. It demonstrated his humanity. The writer of Hebrews says this in Hebrews 4.15, For we have not a high priest that can be touched with the filling of our infirmities. This tells us that Jesus Christ knows our agonies. Jesus Christ knows the pains of His. He knew the agony and the pain that the leper was in as the leper's extremities would start to rot off from the end in. would then go to his organs. Leprosy was a terrible and painful disease to have. Christ knew his pain. In his humanity, in his care, Christ reached out and touched the untouchable. He reached out and touched the one who had been banished from society. The point I'm trying to make is that Jesus' humanity proved that he was not a God at a distance. He is a near God. He is an involved God. He is a present God. One of the names of God means God who is near. Acts chapter 17 and verse 27 says that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. Psalm 145, 18 says, the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. Jeremiah 23, 23 says, am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Of course, that's a rhetorical question, saying that God is a near God. Only a near God would reveal himself in flesh. Only a God who really cared would touch a leper. Only a God that really cared would save you and me. We have a compassionate God, a merciful God that demonstrated that compassion in both his divinity and his humanity. Christ's ministry of powerful healing, Christ's ministry of divine compassion, and then number three, Christ's ministry, and I love this, of particular sin bearing. Christ's ministry of particular sin bearing. Look back with me to verse 17, Matthew 8. that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. Notice the word bear. Bear or bastazo in Greek, it means to carry the load. It means to bear or to carry away. So Christ goes farther than just demonstrating his compassion He takes the load of sickness off of those that He is healing and He places them upon Himself. He unloads the cart of struggles onto His cart of divine love and divine compassion and divine mercy. This is a picture of how He bears our sin. Matthew here is quoting Isaiah who believed that the coming Messiah would perfectly, willingly, and completely bear the sins of his people on the cross. The cross, a place where all of our sins, all of the sins of the elect was placed and laid on Him. We know that this is particular sin bearing because of passages, if you remember all the way back to Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21. It read something like this, speaking of Mary, and she shall bring forth a son. And thou shalt call his name Jesus. And I love these possessive pronouns. For he shall save his people from their sins. Were his people that were saved from our sins by him. Isaiah 53. You can turn there if you'd like or I think we'll have them. on the screens. Isaiah 53, I love this passage. Beginning in verse 4, notice all the pictures that are painted of our Savior bearing our sins. Beginning in verse 4, it says, Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was laid upon him and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is done, so open not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people. was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit found in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seeing, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. We shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Christ bore the sins of the elect on the cross. God lifted what we could not pay for and placed them on Christ. Christ bore our sins. Christ appeased God's wrath for our sins. There's no greater love than this, no greater love. Christ's ministry of particular sin bearing. Number four, Christ's ministry of ultimate deliverance, Christ's ministry of ultimate deliverance. So far we have considered the immediate effects of Christ's vicarious ministry here on this earth. He lovingly and compassionately healed many even though they did not deserve it. He demonstrated His bearing of our sins upon the cross by taking the people's sicknesses upon Himself. What an awesome picture of Him bearing our sins. All of this was painting this picture of our vicarious substitute, of our vicarious sacrifice who was Jesus Christ. And what is the result? The result for Christ was God's wrath upon Him. The result from us, our sins are lifted. The penalty for them was placed on Jesus Christ and we inherited eternal life. That's true love. That's compassion at its finest. But sadly, even though Christ has paid for our sins completely, We still have to deal with sin here on this earth. We still have to deal with sickness. We still have to deal with pain. No matter how many prosperity gospel presentations are made, sickness remains. No matter how good we try to paint life, cancer remains. No matter how good that we try to be, the bad still remains. Why? Because Christ owned the cross. What happened was it had both an immediate and a future effect. Immediately, the sins of the elect were paid for. In the future, we won't have to deal with sin. We won't have to deal with pain. We won't have to deal with sickness because we will be ultimately delivered from those things and all the effects of them. Paul speaks to this in Romans 8, beginning of verse 22. He says, for we know that the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also. which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope, for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. MacArthur defines that word adoption like this, and I love this. He says, this is the process that began with God's choice and included our actually becoming His children at salvation, and that process will culminate with our glorification, which is the full realization of our inheritance. Friends, we are awaiting what Paul says in verse 23, that is the redemption of our bodies. And it's not speaking of our physical bodies. Paul is speaking of the remaining fallenness being once and for all and finally removed. He's speaking of our ultimate glorification. This is why, as we read this passage this morning, and I've got to read it again, this is why that this passage, that this thought caused Paul to go out and to just praise God. Beginning in verse 31 of Romans chapter 8, he says, What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up For us all, how shall he not with him also be freely give all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. It is he who condemneth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again. Who is even at the right hand of God? Who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation No, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Christ's ministry of ultimate deliverance from the effects of sin. is a day that we anxiously await. It is a day that we fix our eyes on so that no matter what we go through in this life, God don't get us. We ought not say that. He don't get us, but we look to Him. That's how we make it. That's how we survive. No matter what we go through, we remember ultimate deliverance is coming, ultimate glorification. is coming. So far tonight we've looked at Christ's ministry of powerful healing, divine compassion. We've looked at His particular sin bearing, His ultimate deliverance that will come when we pass from this earth to the next in that moment and that twinkling of the eye. Now let's look at the application. The application. Now there's many applications for this passage. I really do believe it. But for tonight For the sake of time, we're going to focus on three. First of all, Christ's vicarious ministry should humble us. It should humble us. Matthew does the footwork for us in this passage. He makes the connection of Christ's healing of the diseased and Christ's healing of the demon-possessed through the scripture that he quotes in Isaiah to us. and how that Christ bore our sins and that should humble us to the greatest extent. Christ did what we could not do unless we go to the pit of hell. That should humble us to the greatest extent. We ought not ever go to God prideful with an attitude or an attitude of self-will. We ought not do that. Christ Vicarious Ministry. It must tumble us. Secondly, Christ's vicarious ministry should not only humble us, but it should embolden us. It should embolden us. Think back to our past as beginning in verse 1 of Matthew 8. Jesus was able to heal the worst of the worst diseases of the day, which was leprosy. Jesus was able to heal from a distance, that paralyzed boy. Jesus was able to heal Peter's sick mother-in-law who had an extremely high temperature. In verses 16 and 17 we see that Jesus was able to heal all kinds of diseases and he was able to heal the demon possessed. Jesus did all of this with a spoken word and sometimes he just threw in a compassionate touch. What's the point? Well, sickness is a picture of sin. And if Christ demonstrated that He has the power over the worst of sicknesses, over the worst of the demon-possessed. It even has power over all of that. That should embolden us to boldly share the gospel no matter how smart or how intelligent that we think the person we're sharing with is. This should embolden us to face every obstacle that we come through in this life. It should embolden us to fight the good fight of the spiritual battles that we face every single day with the Word of God's Rome as our sword, and we go fight. This should embolden us to boldly finish the race that God has preordained for us to walk down. If God has power over these things that we have no power over here in this life, He's given us His Spirit that has the same power, and He will work through us to do God's work. Christ Vicarious Ministry It should humble us. It should embolden us. And lastly, Christ's vicarious ministry should energize us. It should energize us. We talk about this quite often, how that apathy, it seems to be at the highest of highs in our day. People just don't care. professing Christians just do not care about God's work anymore. People, they have to work, so they go to work. They have to play. People have to rest so much that they neglect God altogether. We must not fall into this trap. We must remember that Christ died in our place. Christ suffered for our sins. Christ was crucified on our cross. And what is the most logical response? I believe that response is summarized best by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12 in verse 1. He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. That is the most logical and reasonable response that we can have for the one who is willing to die for us. Everything that we do, whether we eat or whether we drink, we do everything we do for the glory of our God. We must do that. And so this passage, seeing what Christ did, seeing the picture that is painted for us, it should energize us to serve him every single day. Bow with me as we pray. Father, Lord, we thank you for this passage that we've considered tonight. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, that it cuts asunder to the heart. We thank you, Father, that it convicts us, that it corrects us, We thank you that it instructs us, that it instructs us in righteousness. We thank you that if we will read the word of God and we will apply it to our life, we will be complete. We will be doing your work, living out your will. Father, I pray that we would all commit to doing that, knowing your word and living your word out in our daily lives. Father, we pray that you would be with this time of invitation. Lord, we pray that you would work in the hearts of your people, Lord, so that we would apply this passage to our lives. And Father, if there's anybody here who is not yet saved, or there's somebody that may watch at a later date that is not saved, Father, it's my prayer that you would do whatever you have to do, Lord, to humble them. That you would do whatever you have to do. Lord, to make them realize that they're a filthy, rotten, vile sinner that is heading for the pit of hell. And Lord, I pray that your Spirit would awaken their dead hearts so that they would repent and that they would place their faith and trust not in the world, that they would place their faith and trust not in baptism or in church attendance or in giving offering, but they would place their faith and trust in your Son. and a sacrifice for them on the cross, that they would place their faith and trust in the fact that Jesus took their place and died for their sins. Lord, we love you. Lord, I stand with Luther when he wanted his conscience to be held captive by your word. I pray that we would all do that. It's in your son's wonderful name that we pray.