Our scripture lesson tonight comes from Isaiah chapter 49 and 50. And as we read, pay attention to who is speaking in our text, because there are actually three speakers in this dialogue. There is the Lord speaking, there is his servant speaking, and there is Zion speaking. There are also two listeners. There are the coastlands and Israel. So pay attention both to who is speaking and to whom is being spoken to. Now, it's also worth noting that the whole of chapters 49 and 50 are related to us by the servant. He's the lead voice throughout these two chapters. So just as you listen, hear the word of the Lord from Isaiah, starting in chapter 49, verse one. Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother. He named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver, he hid me away. And he said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity yet surely my right is with the Lord and my recompense with my God and now the Lord says he who formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has become my strength he says it is to might a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and His Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. Thus says the Lord in a time of favor. I have answered you in a day of salvation. I have helped you. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people to establish the land to apportion the desolate heritages saying to the prisoners come out to those who are in darkness appear. They shall feed along the ways and all the bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst. Neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, For he who has pity on them will lead them, And by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains a road, And my highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar, And behold, these from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Syene. Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth! Break forth, O mountains, into singing, For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have compassion on His afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste. Your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see. They all gather. They come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament. You shall bind them on as a bride does. Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land, surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears, the place is too narrow for me, make room for me to dwell in. Then you will say in your heart, who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone, from where have these come? Thus says the Lord God, behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations and raise my signal to the peoples and they shall bring your sons in their bosom and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers and their queens, your nursing mothers with their faces to the ground. They shall bow down to you and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord. Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame. Can the prey be taken from the mighty or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? For thus says the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken and the prey of the tyrant be rescued. For I will contend with those who contend with you and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord, your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. Thus says the Lord. Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert, their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, Walk by the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled. This you have from my hand. You shall lie down in torment. This is the word of the Lord. There's an awful lot in this passage. When the servant is speaking, it's Jesus. He is the servant of the Lord. And so there's an awful lot of this passage that you might be wondering, okay, what does it have to do with me? Where am I in the passage? Where are we in this passage? Well, we are the coastlands, the far distant people who are being spoken to. And in Christ, we would also be then the afflicted ones, the remnant, the exiles, the children of Zion who are brought back to their mother. But the I in this passage, is the voice of the singular servant. Because you can hear it in this passage, and if you've been following where we've been in chapters 41 to 48, we've seen the problem. We've seen that God has called Israel to be his servant, but no one is blind like my servant. No one is deaf like my servant. Israel is blind and deaf. Israel does not see and hear what God is doing. Therefore, God's peace cannot come to Israel or the nations. As we heard at the end of chapter 48, there is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked. Now, Isaiah 41 had opened with the line, listen to me, O coastlands. Chapter 49 begins with the same language. Listen to me, O coastlands. Hear what God is doing. Once again, God calls the coastlands to listen signaling the beginning of a new section. And there's a way in which, as we heard in chapters 41 to 48, we had heard of Cyrus, the agent of liberation from Babylon. But the servant here is being portrayed as the agent of the great redemption, which the return from exile points to. Chapters 41 to 48 identify the servant as Israel, chapters 49 to 55, contrast the servant with Israel. Indeed, we heard tonight, it's too little a thing for you to bring back the exiles of Jacob. Wait, if you're Israel, then you are the exiles of Jacob. But it's very clear now that there's a distinction being made between Israel and my servant, even though my servant is still called Israel. Now, where this is all going is when our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to be all that Israel had failed to be, that Jesus is Israel embodied. Think about the life of Jesus, how he goes down to Egypt, how he comes to the wilderness and is tempted in the wilderness, as we heard this morning, how he recapitulates the whole story of Israel in his own life and death, and then particularly in his resurrection as that A Jewish biblical scholar who doesn't believe in Jesus says that the Old Testament is all about the death and resurrection of the beloved son. It's mind-blowing to me how he managed to avoid seeing Jesus there, but that's what he sees. The whole of the Old Testament is all about the death and resurrection of the beloved son. And that's what Isaiah is pointing us to and talking about. Now, in our passage tonight, the servant is now speaking as the prophetic herald, calling the nations to hear what God is saying. He introduces himself in verses one through four, and then the servant's message contains three, thus saith the Lord's, in verses five, seven, and eight. And then there's Zion's response, as Zion said, in verse verses 14 to 21, followed with three more. Thus saith the Lord's in 49, 22 and 49, 25 and 50 verse one. And then the whole passage concludes with the servant's confession of faith and exhortation to faith. As we've seen in chapters 41 to 48, the servant himself needed to be redeemed because Israel, my servant, has fallen short. But at the end of chapter 48, we discovered that the redemption of the servant from Babylon didn't solve the problem. The redemption from Babylon has no more power to change the people of God than the redemption from Egypt did. We have the same problem. If you think about the problem that Israel faced, you could imagine why they start getting a little bit discouraged and frustrated and wondering, how is this ever going to change? It's the same story over and over again. God calls us, we come, sort of the cycle of the judges and the cycle of the kings, and now we're going to come back from exile and do it all over again? Yay! Okay, round three, guys. What's going to change? And actually, Isaiah says, nothing yet. But something will change. Because there will come a servant who will redeem Israel. And so here, again, if you think about how the servant has been portrayed as blind and deaf, now the servant's own speaking is now going to speak of how he becomes what God has called Israel to be. First, the servant relates his call. He calls all the distant peoples. He calls the peoples from afar, the coastlands, to pay attention, because this message is not just for Israel. And the servant declares, the Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother, he named my name. This is what God had said of Israel, his servant, back in chapter 44. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you. God had said this was true about the servant, and now the servant says, yes, this is true of me. The call of God's servant comes from the womb of his mother. Also think back to Isaiah 7. The virgin shall conceive and bear a son. But also in verse two, he made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he hid me. His mouth was like a sharp sword. Think of how John will take up this image in the book of Revelation. Jesus' word goes forth as the sharp two-edged sword. And this is what God had said of Israel in chapter 41, that Israel would be his instrument in judging the nations. And in case all that's not clear enough, verse three, He says, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. So, again, the servant is Israel. And servant Israel recapitulates all that has been said of him in Isaiah 41-48, including the problems, verse 4. But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity, Hebel, yet surely my right is with the Lord and my recompense with my God. Servant Israel has failed to produce righteousness and does not have peace, but servant Israel's hope is in the Lord. And then, those two most precious words in all of scripture, but now. I know, your ESV may say and now, but but now and now. And especially, I wish they had said but, Because this contrasts with what we've just heard about, I've spent my strength for nothing. But now, the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb, notice before we get around to hearing what the Lord says, the servant reminds us of his relationship to the Lord. Now the Lord says the Lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has become my strength. So the servant is Israel but God has called and formed the servant to bring Jacob back that Israel might be gathered to him. The servant is being clearly contrasted with Israel, even as he's being called Israel, the servant will become the personification of Israel. Israel will be embodied in the servant. In the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people of God found expression in the one man. The covenant promise existed in one man. So there's nothing unimaginable about this to an Israelite. They could easily understand, aha, yes, that can happen. But even more remarkably, that's not the message of the but now. You might think the message of an individual who will take on the person of Israel, who restores Israel to be the true servant of the Lord, who brings judgment to the nations, you might think that was worthy of a but now. God says no, no. That's too small a task. I have something even more amazing This is the but now of all but nows. It is too light a thing, too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. I promised Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That is what I am now doing. This but now is the foundational message of the entire rest of the section of Isaiah 49 to 55. The rest of this section is rooted in this but now. Yes, the servant will redeem Jacob, sure. But that's a minor thing. That's peanuts compared to what the servant is called to do because he will also redeem the nations. So He is called. He is also chosen, verse 7. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and His Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers. This is the first intimation that the servant must suffer. He will be abhorred, notice not by the Gentiles, but by the nation, singular. He will be despised and abhorred by Israel. But his message to the servant is that kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. God's chosen one will be afflicted, but he will pass through those afflictions to eternal glory so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the chosen one. And so he is called by God to be the servant. He is chosen by God to be this servant. And then he is also answered. And that's the message of verses 8 to 12. I have answered you. In a day of salvation, I have helped you. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages." God says, I'm the one who answers and helps my servant. Think of how Jesus calls upon the Father throughout the Gospels. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, echoing the language of chapter 42. The servant is the one who will bring Israel back. Now, isn't that what Cyrus does in chapter 44? Well, sure, in chapters 44 to 46, it says that Cyrus, my anointed one, will bring my people back from exile. But don't forget chapters 47 and 48. The restoration from exile won't work. The servant is still blind and deaf. They're back in the land, but they don't understand what God's doing. So when Isaiah says the servant will bring Israel back from exile, he's not talking about back from Babylon. He's talking about the one who will bring Israel back from their spiritual exile, from their rebellion against the Lord. For Isaiah, Babylon is a picture of the spiritual condition of Israel. Sure, chapters 41 to 48 are talking about the restoration from historical Babylon. are speaking of the restoration from the real Babylon, the whore Babylon, the city of man, which Isaiah had spoken so forcefully about back in chapters 24 and 25. I know a few of you at least have been watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfold. It tells the story of Babylon well. There's a never-ending supply of arch-villains. There are your Nebuchadnezzars, your Nero's, your Hydra's, your Dreykov's, and there's a bevy of flawed superheroes. I mean, if you think about it, the superheroes, the Avengers, they're basically good guys. They're a lot like Cyrus. Powerful forces for good, mostly, until things go wrong, and there's problems, and civil wars, and they're just as flawed as the rest of us. The problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that there really is no salvation. There's just, let's see, we're done with this cycle of heroes, so let's introduce their successors. Which, I mean, if you think about it, it's very much like the story of the world. The story of, you know, they're creating this alternate universe to sort of portray it, but they're portraying, yeah, this is the way the world is. a never-ending cycle of many saviors who accomplish many salvations, and then everything goes back to the way it was before. There's never a day when someone says to the prisoners, verse 9, come out. To those who are in darkness, appear. They shall feed along the ways and all the bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst. Neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains erode, and my highways shall be raised up." No more hunger, no more thirst, no scorching wind, no sun striking them. As another heat wave runs through the West, and as another COVID variant spreads around the world, we realize we're just running on a treadmill. And it's easy to think that nothing will ever change. It's just the never-ending cast of character changes. The old Avengers die off and a new crop arise. Same story, different characters. Well, at least a different actor playing the same character. Where does it end? But Isaiah told us, hundreds of years before Jesus came, that the servant of the Lord is called and chosen and answered. And because God has called and chosen and answered his servant, therefore the servant, our Lord Jesus Christ, has rescued us. We're those people afflicted and alone. And when God does this, verse 12, behold, thee shall come from afar. The nations will come to Zion. And this message of deliverance should cause the heavens and earth to shout for joy. Verse 13, Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing, for the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. But Zion doesn't see. Zion cannot hear. Remember, when Isaiah says all this, Jerusalem is a beaten down, backwater little city. and partly because of how beaten down they are, Zion has PTSD. She hears the message of salvation, that God will do this, and she's like, yeah, right. No, I can't. No. The trauma is so great. The misery and affliction is so deep. All Zion can say is, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Now, do not despise Zion for saying this. Certainly our Lord does not. As verse 13 says, the Lord will have compassion on his afflicted. And so the Lord declares in verse 15 tenderly, can a woman forget her nursing child? That she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? I know from personal experience that trying to get a nursing mother away from her child for an evening is a challenge. Getting her to forget her child? You know, not going to happen. But the Lord says it's far more likely for a nursing mother to forget her child than for him to forget Zion. The Lord does not forget you. Zion is engraved on the palms of his hands. He cannot forget her walls, and God promises that the nations will become ornamentation for his bride. He says that the glory of the nations, and Isaiah is going to come back to this theme again and again later on, but the nations will become ornaments for Zion. And if you think about what's happened ever since, and again, remember when Isaiah says this, everybody who heard him would have laughed. Really? That little city? They haven't been able to defeat anybody ever. And they're going to have the wealth of the nations pouring into Jerusalem. Good luck with that. It would be like saying, Walkerton, Indiana is going to take over the world, and all the wealth of the world is going to be found in Walkerton, Indiana. I know, half of you don't even know where Walkerton is. That's part of the point. Who knows where Jerusalem is? We all tend to think of Jerusalem. The ancient world said, Jerusalem? That little podunk town? If they'd even heard of it. So when Isaiah says that the wealth of the nations, the glory of the nations, will be ornamenting Zion, that's crazy talk. the last 2,500 years have brought to pass what Isaiah had said because our Lord Jesus has brought the wealth of the nations to Zion as this message that Isaiah had proclaimed 700 years before Jesus was born has now taken the whole earth by storm. And so when God does this, her children who were once scattered to the ends of the earth will now be restored. The day is coming when Zion will be filled with inhabitants. Zion will overflow because there's not enough room to hold her children. If you think about it, if all the Christians in the world tried to go to Jerusalem at the same time, most of us would never get within a mile of the city. Just so, you know, this is, Zion overflows because the nations come to faith in Jesus. And God now speaks three messages to Zion, paralleling the three messages to the servant. First, thus says the Lord God, verse 22, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations and raise my signal to the people, and they shall bring your sons. The nations will restore your children, and this is wherever your children have gone in exile. Kings shall be your foster father, their queens your nursing mothers. The nations will bow down before you and serve you. That's not just about restoration from Babylon. After all, that didn't happen in the restoration from Babylon. This would be about the conversion of Constantine, the conversion of the Germanic tribes, and the conversion of a 900,000-member tribe in Africa just a few years ago. It's not just when Jesus comes back, someday everything will be made right. No, we're talking about what Jesus is doing right now to bring the nations to himself. We're talking about the thousands, tens of thousands of Muslims who are coming to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ because they see the glory of Jesus. In the midst of the afflictions and troubles of this age, Jesus is bringing the nations to himself. And oppressors will be overthrown, verses 24-26. The Avengers. Avengers rescue captives. That's what an Avenger is. And the second message to Zion, the Lord declares, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued. For I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord, your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. God has a long history of overthrowing oppressors. He is the avenger, the one who contends with those who contend with you. And he continues to do this as nations that once were hostile wind up being converted to Christ. It has happened so many times before. Why should we be surprised if it happens again? Now, so why does he take so long? Now that's the point of the third message to Zion in chapter 50 verses 1 to 3. because the third message to Zion reminds her of her true situation. Remember guys, why did God divorce Jerusalem, the mother of his people? Why did God sell his people into slavery? God says it's for your iniquities you were sold and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. The reason why we're in this mess is because of humanity's sin. We can go back to our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created by sinning against God. This is how we got into this mess. And our problem is we can't dig ourselves out. Which is why God asks in verse 2, why when I came was there no man? Why when I called was there no one to answer? If Israel is my servant, the one who is to redeem the nations, how come when I called nobody answered? Why did no one spring to my side when I came? Now, those questions might not be so comforting. We're still in trouble then, aren't we? But the final two questions bring us to the point. Is my hand shortened that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Remember who I am, O Zion, when you're tempted to think that I have forgotten you. Remember, I am the one who by my rebuke dries up the sea. I make the rivers a desert. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. Zion so often looks just like the cities of the world. Zion looks like Babylon. Indeed, when the church looks like the nations, That's not doing, we're not doing well. If the servant was simply Israel, then we're doomed. Well, okay, we've heard God's three messages to the servant and then Zion's complaint and God's three messages to Zion. Now the servant speaks again, confessing his faith and calling Israel to hear and fear the Lord. Verse four, the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Come, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." When Jesus said that, he was echoing what Isaiah had said would be true about him. Surely, our Lord Jesus knows how to sustain with a word the one who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens my ear who is deaf like my servant. But this is a servant whose ear is open to the word of the Lord, to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. Think of what Jesus says over and over throughout the Gospel of John. I speak only what I hear from my Father. The son only does what he sees his father doing. Jesus, the servant, sees what God is doing, hears what God is saying. In Jesus, we have a servant who is no longer blind and deaf. And in Jesus, we have a suffering servant as well. Verse 6, I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord vindicates his suffering servant. Verses 7 to 9. The Lord God helps me. Therefore I have not been disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. who will declare me guilty? You can hear, this is where Paul gets his, in Romans 8, where he gets his, sort of, who will accuse the elect of God? It was true of Jesus first, and if it's true of him, then it's true of those who are in him. The Lord God has given me a tongue to speak, he's given me ears to hear, he helps me, he will vindicate me. And then the servant turns to you, Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? That him who walks in darkness and has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Remember, Isaiah is speaking to an Israel that is headed for exile. Isaiah is speaking to an Israel that is about to go into Captivity in Babylon. As you're walking through Babylon, as you're living in Babylon, as you're living in the midst of exile, where is your hope and your trust? Notice verse 11 provides the contrast. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches. Okay, you're well prepared. You have prepared yourself. Only problem is you're not fearing the Lord. You're trusting in your own ability to do this. Okay, fine. Walk by the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled. This you have from my hand. You shall lie down in torment. You're about to walk out into the darkness of this present age. Where will you find light? Will you kindle your own torches? Little flickering torches that will get snuffed out as soon as the darkness comes? How will you find your own path in the blackness before your feet? The servant has confessed his faith and his confidence in the Lord. The Lord is my helper. Who is your helper? If you fear the Lord and obey the voice of his servant Jesus, then you must find your help in him. Notice the servant does not say that, then you will walk in light. No, no, he says you will walk in darkness, verse 10. You're going out into darkness. Are you going to kindle your own little torch and see how well you can do? Or are you going to trust in the Lord even though, yes, you will walk in darkness and you will not see the path, but do you trust in the Lord? Don't worry about how well you can see. That's not the point. Seeing by the light of this age will not save them from torment. Isaiah's whole point is that Israel, the servant, is blind and deaf. Israel does not see what God is doing. Israel does not hear what God is saying. Israel's only hope is for a servant who is not blind and deaf, for a servant whose ear is open, whose eye sees. Your hope is not that you will see and you will hear. Your hope is that Jesus sees and Jesus hears. Because if Jesus sees and hears, then he can open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. So don't try to light your own fires. Go to Jesus. Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on your God. Because he is the one who delivers you through Jesus Christ. That means listen to him. Listen to what he's saying. How do you listen? Well, you need to open your Bibles and read and listen to what God is saying. Listen to what God is teaching. Open your ears to hear and gather together in families and communities, whatever sort of gatherings you can, and open God's word together and listen to what God is saying because this is how we know the way to walk. Otherwise, we're just going around lighting our own torches. And how well does that ever work for us? So let us pray. Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, help us because we have turned too often to our own torches and we try to light our own path stumble around and wander down dead-end roads. Have mercy on us, O Lord. Forgive us. Help us to hear the voice of your servant and to obey the voice of your servant, that we might hear Jesus and do what he says. We might fear you and be more concerned with what you think of us than with what anybody else thinks of us. that we might draw near to you, trusting you in the middle of our afflictions, in the middle of our sufferings. Lord, have mercy. Thank you for your Son. Thank you that you sent Jesus to enter into our misery and our affliction. Thank you for sending us your Holy Spirit and pouring out upon us the Spirit of your Son that we might be joined to his life, that we might be made new by the renewing of your spirit. And Lord, help us be our help. Be the one who does for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. Open our eyes that we might see Jesus. Open our ears that we might hear what he is saying. Open our hearts that we might love you and love one another. And Lord, help us as we walk before you in all of life, in our homes, grant that we might speak of your mighty deeds and believe your promises. In our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our workplaces, help us to bear witness to the glory and the goodness, the grace and the mercy of Jesus. Lord, help us and help all those who are afflicted, help all those who are grieving and sorrowful and downtrodden. Lord, have mercy and do as you have promised and rescue those who are oppressed and cast down the oppressors and deliver your people. Lord, may your mighty hand continue to work that your gospel would go forth to the nations, that you would do as you promised to your servant, that it was too light a thing that Jesus should just raise up the tribes of Jacob and bring back the preserved of Israel. And so you made him a light for the nations, that your salvation might reach to the ends of the earth, even here in the wilds of Indiana. Thank you. And may your word continue to go forth and your gospel continue to spread. that in every land and in every tongue, the name of Jesus might be praised, that in our land, in this place, in this community, that the name of Jesus might be exalted and praised because your mighty deeds continue to be wrought in all the nations of the earth. Lord, have mercy upon us for Jesus' sake. Amen.