Make sure that I preach a short sermon, so I'm focused on short. But my little mini-sermon is I want to talk about memorizing Scripture. I want to encourage you to memorize Scripture. All of us have different abilities there, but it is one of the best ways to truly to connect with God's Word and to walk with Him. And so I think we should have certain passages memorized. We should certainly have either by sheer rote memory, or we're so familiar with God's Word that we can almost quote it. So I would encourage you to memorize God's Word. And in James 1.21, the end of the verse actually says that we should receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to save your souls. And I was talking to one of my children the other day about what the word engrafted means. They'd never noticed that verse in James that says that the Word of God is the engrafted Word that saves your soul. and I'm not a gardener or a horticulturist, but I did a little research in grafting, and it's a process where you can cut a limb off of one tree that bears a different fruit from the tree you're going to graft it into, and you can graft it into the the tree that is completely different. It's a different type of fruit tree. And it showed a picture of an apple tree that was growing red apples and green apples. And so you can graft the limb into the main trunk of the tree, and it will produce fruit. And so when God's Word is talking about the engrafted word, What it's talking about is we take God's Word and we're so familiar with it. We're so linked and attached to God's Word that it bears fruit in our life by being engrafted and attached to us. So this one video I watched, this guy cut a tree. He said, this tree does not have good fruit. He said, it rots real easy. It doesn't taste very good. And so he cut all the main limbs off of it. He had one limb over here. He says, I'm going to leave this one limb intact so it'll have a place to sprout into it. It'll have a place to grow into. And then he grafted like three or four different types of, it was either peaches or apples, three or four different kinds into the different trunks and taped them all up, fixed them up. I thought it was interesting that he left the trunk, the roots, and one main limb out there, and he engrafted all this other stuff in. So you learn from that that a tree that puts out undesirable fruit can be cut back, and new fruit can be engrafted into the old trunk and root system. And this is a picture that Scripture's given of what we need to do with Scripture. We need to engraft it into our lives so it becomes such a part of us that godly fruit grows from it. So one of the things I got to thinking about This guy didn't destroy the whole tree. He left the trunk, all the main branches, the roots. And so the application of that is God doesn't take our whole lives. He doesn't take... Well, let me put it a different way. There are disciplines in our life that God can use to grow fruit from. So he doesn't destroy everything. He just grafts His Word into it and it bears the fruit of Christ. I thought about Brother Lewis' drumming past, the music past that he had. That's a discipline he had in the past. That's been cut off. And God's used the discipline of that. He's grafted into that discipline. He's created a man that can preach God's Word, that is engrafted into God's Word, and that discipline produces fruit. And so sports, any kind of discipline, like I'm thinking, any kind of discipline that we can develop in our lives, in our children's lives, God can use those disciplines to grow Christ-like fruit in the future. So it can be redirected for Christ. So that's my little mini-sermon on the importance of engrafting God's Word. I'm going to go back to Isaiah 53. I talked about this back about two months ago. So we're looking at Isaiah 53. I'm just going to read the chapter and then I'm going to focus on two verses tonight. I'll introduce this by saying this is probably the best description, maybe in the whole Bible, but certainly in the Old Testament. of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. "'Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her sheers is dumb, so he opened 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 in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It put him to grief. Now shall it make his soul and offer him for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the small with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and he made intercession for the transgressors. Jesus, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, because of the work of Christ on the cross, we are men and women of joy, acquainted with grace and crowned with lovingkindness and full of peace. I want to focus on verses 6 and 7 tonight. It's talking about sheep in both of these verses. And Christ is both the Lamb and the Shepherd here. It says, "...all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." My first point is that it is the nature of sheep to stray. And it's a part of our nature to stray. It's talking about sheep, not goats here. Goats go their own way anyway. They're never acquainted with a shepherd. I don't see them ever equated or associated with a shepherd. But sheep have a shepherd, and that's why they go astray. They tend to go their own way. It says, we have turned everyone their own way. And so the word astray, it doesn't mean location. It means your perception has gone astray. Your thinking has gone astray. So sheep are easily seduced. They're easily deceived. And so when it says, all we like sheep have gone astray, it's talking about us. It's talking about God's children are easily deceived, easily seduced. And so there's a struggle, a tension there. This deception is mainly in the area of the Kingdom of God too. It's in the Kingdom of God. It's God's creation, His created design. It's within His church, the doctrine. It's in the moral world. All these areas of deception. There's probably not as much deception in the mathematical world, the science world, as there is in the moral world, the church, and in God's creation. So this deception that we're talking about is found. It's a perception of deception, and it's where we're easily led astray. And it's why we need God's Word. It's why we need to be memorizing God's Word, reading God's Word. It needs to become such a part of us as to prevent this deception, this seduction. So it requires that we be disciples of Christ. And discipleship is literally a surrender of my own way, my own life path. And it says that we have turned everyone to His own way. And we all have our own ideas of what our life should look like. The way of being a disciple of Christ is a way of constant course correction. That's the way of life with Christ because His word, His leading is constantly course correcting us. The life of a disciple requires discipline. It is a war on even the smallest of sin. It's radical. Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, if I righteously pluck it out and cast it from thee, that's pretty radical. So our discipleship should be radical and intentional. says that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. I think we are almost numb to this truth because we hear it so much. And even in this chapter, it's repeated in verse 5. It starts with, He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Verse 6, we're right here where it says, "...the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Verse 8, "...for the transgression of My people was He stricken." Verse 10, "...I have made His soul an offering for sin." Verse 11, "...He shall bear their iniquities." Verse 12, "...He bore the sin of many." So, it's easy to become so acquainted with that truth that we lose we lose the perception of what Christ has really done. Our sin is one issue, and His sacrifice is a miracle. We sang about His blood tonight. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. It's a miracle. wiping away of our sin is a miracle. Our sin is the issue and the weight, the intensity of Christ's sacrifice shows the seriousness of our sin. The gravity of our sin, the seriousness of it and the weight of our sin can be seen by looking at the cross. The cross shows us how serious our sin is. It's deadly. An eternity in hell can't pay the price for it, but Christ's blood can wash it away. Our sin separates us from a holy God. His sacrifice on the cross was intentional. Christ submitted to His Father there. And then He proved who He was through His resurrection. And as Nathan Guest said, His resurrection changes everything. It changes everything. So it validates everything He's done and demands our surrender to His lordship. Verse 7, it says, He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. My first observation on this verse is I know that Jesus said, many things while He was being tried and while He was on the cross. He had seven sayings on the cross. And when you run across a verse that says something that seems to be contrary, it's saying something pretty important. If it's contrary to what seems to be the truth, what's happening. So this verse seems like it's in contrast to what actually happened. How can it say that He opened not His mouth? when we know He had seven sons on the cross. I'm going to continue with that thought here in a minute. I know that one of the things that it shows is that Christ was totally surrendered to His Father's will. And He opened not His mouth. I went and I looked. about five videos of sheep being sheared. And not one video showed a sheep making a sound. The shearer, the person that was shearing the sheep, knew how to handle the sheep and would shear that sheep. In all the videos I watched, they never made a sound, which is really curious that they didn't speak. So when it says that as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, you can see that the surrender to the process of being sheared, Christ surrendered to His Father's sovereign will. Hit on a verse that brings us out. 1 Peter 2.21. 1 Peter 2.21.22-23. For even hereto were we called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously." So it shows that It's making the point that he didn't speak for a reason. There were some things that he was communicating through his silence. He didn't complain. He didn't defend himself. He didn't cry out for help. He didn't threaten his tormentors. As a matter of fact, he practiced what he preached when he prayed for his tormentors. Christ's character was revealed at his weakest moment. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. And at his weakest moment, he was praying for his oppressors. I like to give the excuse that I'm hangry, I'm tired. In Hebrews 11.21, it says that Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph. At his weakest moment, his greatest moment of faith was captured. So it's a curious thing that God uses our weak moments to show Himself strong. And Christ in His weakest moment showed Himself strong, so proved His true character. So what Christ didn't say If we apply that to our own lives, what we don't say also speaks loudly. And what we don't say can reveal our commitment to others. It can also reveal our commitment to the Lord. I've always been admonished to speak up, say something. But here's a case where silence can speak very loudly. We see Christ totally surrendered to the Lord's carefully crafted events in His life. And if we practice that, it brings peace and silence in many areas. Can you be silenced while you're being sheared? That's when I like to speak the loudest. What we don't say about ourselves and others makes room for others' needs. Some of this is training. Some of it can be spirit-led probably. But we visited Matt and Brittany last month and there was a big earthquake. We were watching a video, and this lady was in the middle of a bunch of rebar. Nobody could get to her, and the video was being taken from a place where it looked like there was a lot of rubbish and dangerous areas. This lady is sitting out there in the middle of all this rebar, and she's just crying out for help. And I'm showing this to Matt, and my thought was, man, I'd be getting out of there. It looks dangerous. And his thought was, because he's a fireman, he said, why is nobody trying to help her? So when we quiet our own needs, others' needs rise to the top. The other point that I want to make is that silence gives weight to the things you do say. The best illustration that I could come up with is a picture of a groom. He's coming to his wedding. He's complaining about having to wear a tux. Can't believe he has to go in a church Why do we have to have all these people? Can you imagine a groom protesting at his own ceremony? my kids, my children about this, but when they get engaged, I usually tell the groom, okay, now we just need three things from you. Show up, lay your wallet on the altar, and say, I do. That's kind of humorous, but there's also the point that I'm trying to make here is that usually all you can ever remember a groom saying at the wedding is I do. And I remember my own wedding. I don't remember anything else I said. But I remember I do. And when I said it, I meant it. And it echoed through the ages. If you've never seen this, you probably want to turn to this. I'm going to read it. Mark 14. Christ did say some things. This is one of my favorite things that He said in verse 61 and 62. But He held His peace and answered nothing. The high priest asked him and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am. I am. And you shall see the Son of Man lifting, sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. I am, and it echoed through the ages. He was claiming to be God here. This is a reference to the God's name at the burning bush. Many claim that Christ never proposed to be God. And here it is clear, and the high priest knew it, and he tore his garments. Because he got the message. The message is, Christ is the great I Am. and it demands that we surrender to His Lordship. And if you have never done that, my admonition to you is to repent and be baptized, to surrender to Christ. Everything good in this life and the next is because of the goodness of God and the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on the cross. the warmth of the sun, the harmony in our homes and our families, with our church members, with our spouse. All these things are good things. They're all because of the work of Christ and what God has done for us. So, Christ is the great I Am. And He is going to return one day and set everything in order. May God bless His Word tonight. Does anybody have anything to add to that?