Hello, friends. It's a joy to be back in our pulpit this evening to share the ministry of God's Word with you. We're going to pick back up in the series from Isaiah that I started in our Sunday school this past spring, largely because this is such a beautiful passage. And just to remind you, it was a book that we studied by Dr. Derek Thomas called Strength for the Weary. And in this particular passage, it's God's recounting of how he views his bride, even though they are uncertain of how he views them, because they have returned from exile, their temple's torn down, and they are wondering if God's promises still ring true for them. And it's into this passage that God gives Isaiah this word. So I'm going to read it and then we'll pray and we'll start our evening. Isaiah 61 verse 10 says this, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself, like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate. But you shall be called, my delight is in her, and your land married. For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night. They shall never be silent, you who put the Lord in remembrance. Take no rest and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. And continuing on through those verses, the Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His mighty arm, I will not again give your grain to be food to your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored, but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary. Go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway, clear it of stones. Lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. And they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken." Let's pray and ask God's help on this time. Gracious Lord, here in this passage is Your gaze towards Your people. Help us not to be bashful. Help us not to look away, but to hold your gaze, knowing that in Christ, this is true of us, that your delight is in us. We ask for the sake of His glory, that you would undo the work of our ashamedness, that you would undo the work of our forsakenness, and that you would help us to see the beautiful majesty of your glory as your beloved people. We ask this in Christ's name, by the power of your spirit, amen. So if I had to ask you what was your favorite part of a wedding, what would you say? I think hands down, every single person in the room would probably say something to the effect of the reception, if it's really good, and maybe might have an open bar, or if we're a little bit more realistic and honest, we would say the moment where the bride He comes forward and the doors are swept open and this collective awe sweeps over the entirety of the witnesses gathered. Because in that moment, That's my favorite moment as a pastor. But it's not just because I get to see the bride. It's because I actually love to do a quick check on the groom. Partly because I want to make sure groomie is not fainting or swooning. We need to give a hand where we can. That's a lot of emotion in that moment. But honestly, my favorite thing to do is to glimpse and watch the face of the groom. Because in that moment, you see the look of His enchanted love for His bride. The unabashedness of full belonging and full joy and full delight in the wife of my youth. Tears usually follow because people find themselves overcome by the beauty and ache that that moment brings. And in our passage today, God gives us a picture of our wedding day as His people. He gives us a picture of our heavenly groom's gaze. And instead of focusing on the bride, the bride is in there, but it focuses on the eyes of the groom. And what do we see in the reflection of the groom's eyes in this passage? As his bride, his people are actually in this passage, they're in no state of worthiness. She's wondering if she can still depend on her groom's affections. She's wondering, what will God do if he really sees me as I am at this point? His people. But in this passage, there's incredible comfort because the eyes of your groom are the eyes of your conqueror. And they're cast upon his people in a song where he reveals he's their heavenly bridegroom, fit for a bashful bride. That's what this passage is about. It's God's unfailing love for His wayward people who totally don't deserve it. And He wants us and them to gaze at our reflection, to gaze at Him but also our reflection in His eyes and to breathe in this moment because Isaiah is trying to teach His people and us If we're ever gonna endure until our Conqueror's promised day, then we must be people transformed by His glorious gaze. If we're ever gonna endure to our Conqueror's promised day, then we must be people transformed first by His beautiful gaze. And we're gonna see that through two points in this passage. We're gonna spend most of our time on the first point, the heavenly groom's gaze, okay? And then we're going to spend our second time looking at the Lord's assuring oath to His witnesses. The groom's gaze and the Lord's assuring oath to His witnesses. But first, I want to remind you of our bearings a little bit. Isaiah is a book that starts with a really harsh word of judgment. The first 39 chapters have paved a bitter but sweet message of the salvation of God's people ultimately coming through the instrument of God's judgment. And it's not very pretty. It's hard realities because His people have been wayward and He's convicting them of their sin. He's revealing their need for a Savior. He's revealing their need for a Messiah. He's revealing their faithlessness to Him as His covenant bride. And he's actually showing how he's gonna do that work of transforming the world through his judgment, through the hands of a conquering Messiah King that chapters 1 and 39 proclaim. He's foretold, Jesus is foretold and forelonged for in the first pages of the book of Isaiah. But then you get to the second part, which is where our passage falls. And this is why that book, The Strength for the Weary is so comforting because That book in Isaiah, theologians call it chapters 40 to 66, the book of comfort. Old Testament scholars call it the book of comfort because in it you have portrayed for you two different books. of the Savior's work. You have the book of the servant where you find that he's gonna be the servant who saves his people from their sin. And then you have the book proclaiming that he's the conqueror that will come. And so chapters 40 to 55 are about the servant's work. You're familiar with the work of the suffering servant. That's one of the servant's songs in Isaiah 53. And it tells how he's gonna pay for the sins of the world and cause everlasting salvation to fall on the people of God because of his work. But then it looks even further into the future, into the book of the conqueror, which is where our passage falls. This mini book tells how that servant will become a conqueror who destroys the foes of God's people who have humiliated and ashamed them, and he will securely rescue them to be his people forever. His people will finally be vindicated, the Lord will be vindicated because His enemies, they'll even be turned to see the glory of this beautiful Conqueror. And they'll find their rest in Him. And in this passage in Isaiah 61 and 62, it's the second and third songs of that Conqueror. Like each book is marked by particular passages that are songs in the Conqueror. And so, verses 1 to 4 are the super familiar passage that you know. Jesus read it when He stood up in the synagogue in Luke, Luke 4. This was Jesus' mic drop speech in the synagogue. This is what I'm about. The spirit of the sovereign Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to be the one who brings good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives. And then the opening of the prisons to those who are bound. It goes on from there. I'm the one who brings good news. I am the servant that was forecast and I'm gonna be the conqueror. But then in verse 10 of chapter 61 through verse 7 of chapter 62 is this second song and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful because it brings us that this conqueror is not just this majestic, powerful king who's gonna come. He's the beloved, faithful Savior of His people who is actually their wedding groom, their bridegroom, their heavenly bridegroom. And it picks up in the context of a passage in chapter 59 of Isaiah. We'll go there in just a second, but that brings us to our heavenly bridegroom's gaze. Where is his gaze directed in this passage? There's three places, okay? The first place that his gaze is directed is on his own clothes. That's verses 10 and 11. But then his gaze is directed to the wedding venue. And then finally in verse 4 to 5, his gaze is directed at his bride. This is literally the conqueror sitting at the altar, wondering, wow, I look really good and this place is really nice and man, look at my bride. That's the way that this flows. But it picks up, notice in verses 10-11, he's like the, the, the, the conqueror's rejoicing as he looks at his own clothes. I'll greatly rejoice in the Lord for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress. And as a bride adorns herself with jewels. If you were to go back and read Isaiah 59 tonight. you would actually see that this conqueror is rejoicing, this bridegroom is ecstatic because these clothes are the clothes that God Himself said He would put on in order to deliver His wayward people. In chapters, chapter 59, verse 16 and 17, as the Lord looks out on His people, chapter 59 begins with this, verse 2, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He can't hear you. You're defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity. He's surveying the status of His redeemed people in this passage. And they are wicked. They look unworthy of His love. But look at verse 16. Or 15, sorry. It says that the Lord Himself saw it and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede. Then His own arm brought salvation and His righteousness upheld Him. He put on a righteousness as a breastplate and as a, and a helmet of salvation on His head, the garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself as, as in a cloak of zeal. These are the very clothes that get given to the servant in this heavenly wedding scene. And what are the clothes that he's been given? The garments of the ability to save. The very robe of the righteous one. As a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress. Priestly garments, sacrificial garments, atoning garments. but jeweled, beautiful, majestic garments. This priest-king-conqueror is deeply aware of his bride's unloveliness. And he's rejoicing first at how he looks because on his wedding day, he has been given the ability by the divine Lord of Heaven to redeem his bride for himself. There's nothing he lacks. He's robed in the righteousness of none other than the Lord, the very character and the nature of the One who can right His people who have been estranged from Him. He's rejoicing that He's fit for the task. He's decked Himself in the clothes of a priest, pure garments that could show His fitness to serve the priestly needs for His people. If your people are defiled, you don't need You don't need someone who can't deal with that defilement. You need someone who can cleanse you. And that's how this conqueror is presented. In a priestly headdress, like a wedding ceremony. But then he gets to his clothes and they're tuxedo clothes. The height of his joy is found in his status of being like a groom preparing himself for his wedding day. You know, recently I was looking at an album of pictures with my kids of our wedding day, and I was like, why do we capture pictures of the groom on the wedding day as part of, like, your wedding album? That seems like such a strange thing. Here's, like, a picture of me, like, trying to tie a bow, a tie, and I really... As you can see, I still don't know what I'm doing. And the simple fact is, why would this matter to my wedding day? It matters because it's a picture of how I am being prepared and made fit to be a handsome groom. I need all the help I can get, right? Need all the help I can get. But it's part of the day that we commemorate and celebrate because it's part of the story of the groom's ability to present himself. He's fit to be wed. And these clothes also represent the fact that God's righteous purposes are gonna be fulfilled. That's why he says, as the earth brings forth its sprouts, as it blossoms and a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up, not just with his people, but before all the nations of the world. Because the groom is rejoicing in the fact that this God, His righteous purposes are bearing fruition by His own appointment as the conquering King. And he says, the image of a garden, because God's people were always familiar with being called the garden of the Lord. The precious plot of the heavenly king. That image for a garden is as old as creation itself, as we saw in Pastor Darwin's story this morning. How does creation start? It starts by God making a garden. It's corrupted by sin. But then he creates a people that will become his special place where people can come to know him. That people, Israel, they're called, surprise, surprise, God's garden throughout the Old Testament pages. But the problem with his people is they're corrupted. And the garden owner, the plot owner must now tell it. That's the message of judgment that Isaiah has presented. But even in judgment, he is working out his purposes of salvation. They were a garden and vineyard to be marked out as the Lord's special plot in all of creation. But they failed to understand their privileged status as God's plot. They failed to bless the nations. And so God was doing work in his garden. And you know, the person that he appoints to be the chief tiller is the savior, the conquering king. the one who has the ability to be the servant, as Isaiah 53 says, to deal with the sins of his people, but who also has the authority invested in him to be the one to bring the righteous majesty of God to the very people who have egregiously sinned against it, and to clothe them with his own righteousness. That's the beauty of this conquering king. Can you hear the beauty of this song? This groom's song delights most in the fact that every single nation in the world will actually praise God for his special love over his people. It's the height of his personal joy and delight, and he gets to be the groom. But that's not all that he's excited about. He's looking around at the wedding venue, and his gaze is next directed there He goes to his zeal for the venue in verses one to three, and he says, I can't be quiet because of the city, the Jerusalem, the people of God. For their sake, I have to speak out to who I am and what I'm doing. He won't be able to be quiet or rest before he gets to the chapel because he's going to the chapel in order to get married. And He won't stop. He's raising a ruckus as He goes. The righteousness given the groom will be shared with the bride, He says, because I can't be quiet until the righteousness, her righteousness, goes forth like a bright torch throughout the nations of the world. And what he's saying is, until this place, this venue, this people are vindicated in the eyes of the world, and they no longer feel forsaken by the judgment that my Heavenly Father has lovingly disciplined them with, And until their righteous standing as God's chosen people is proven, I will not rest. I cannot rest. And God's righteous purposes as the king who appoints him will bear fruit. It will be something everyone can see. He's so excited about the venue because that Zion, Jerusalem, it was the city where God dwelt. Like, what was the most painful thing for God's people in the Old Testament as they were carried off into exile? It wasn't just that they knew that this was part of God's foretold judgment on their sins and unfaithfulness as His people. It was His discipline, His loving discipline to carry them off. One of the hardest things was watching your enemies carry off the sign that your God actually dwelt with you, because that's what the temple meant. That's what the city was important of. You see in scripture, this love theme, this song for Zion, she was known in the Psalms and other Old Testament references as the city where God dwelt. And when they were judged for their faithlessness, when they were abandoned to their enemies by His sovereign decree, The worst part was watching them be displaced and carried off by foes who would literally mock them, saying, sing to us one of the songs of Zion. One of the songs of your God, because He is feeble and could not save you from us, was the message that they would have heard. But this groom says his work will provide his bride a new status before God with real deliverance from all bondage and threats. The very ones who had tyrannized them, the nations of the world, their oppressors, the kings, they're the ones that will first see the right standing of God's people. Their majesty will see the majesty that he has bestowed on them. Because, verse three says, he will make his people a crown of beauty. You know, what does a crown symbolize? It symbolizes the fact of worth and weight behind a king's reign, the majesty that this king is due. And what he's saying is the people of the Lord will be a crown before him. They will show forth the worth and beauty of God. There'll be His royal diadem, His stick, His scepter. And what will happen is there'll be the majestic sign of His rule and the ability to show that He actually is in charge. He can deliver His people, even though there was a time where they were forsaken. It's a visible measurement of his majesty. So in other words, so passionate is this groom's zeal for the place where he hitched his people to himself, Zion, that they're gonna have a new name. And they're no longer gonna have this forsaken status as God's people. They're gonna be given God's own name. John Oswald is an Old Testament commentator that says, the idea is that just as Israel had been the butt of Gentile jokes, they will become the object of Gentile praise and wonder. So public will be His love for His people that the nations will see us as no longer forsaken, no longer the people of the feeble God who was powerless to help them. but as the final deliverer whose powerful reign saved and secured them. But that's not all that he sees. He's seen his clothes, he's seen the venue, but then his eyes reflect the beauty of his bride. In verse four and five, the new name that he gives his people, forsaken, the land was desolate, You shall be called instead of forsaken. My delight is in her. In your land married. Why? Because on that day, more than anything, you will know that God delights, truly rejoices in you as his people. This is beautiful. This is when you gaze at the eyes of Jesus. I know that we're big on not thinking about images of Jesus in the Presbyterian faith, but let's proverbially stick with this idea for a moment, right? When you proverbially think of how God sees you, friends, do you see yourself as the one in whom God delights? Do you see yourself as the one married to the conquering king? Because the Lord gives her a name that defines her by his delight so that everywhere she goes in the eyes of the world, she can't ever forget that she's his beloved. That's how much God wants his people to get it. and how much the conquering king, the servant, the Lord Jesus is going to secure our status and has secured our status as God's people. Alec Mocher, the Old Testament scholar says that verse five gives a picture of both wedding and honeymoon. The idea that not only will he wed her, but he will carry her away as his beloved. Because that's the romantic beauty that God wants his people to understand about how he feels for them in his passage. And if that's not all, there's a second point. We're gonna get to some application in just a minute, friends. But there's a second point, and that second point is that God gives a sovereign oath of assurance of his purposes to his watchful witnesses. Look at verses eight to 12. What does God say? Why does this all come about? It's not just that he has prophesied it in the servant who is the conquering king. In verses 10 of chapter 61 to verse five of chapter 62, God swears an oath in this passage. He puts himself in covenant again, and it's like a pinky promise, right? It's a pinky promise. God pinky promises things, friends. Why does that happen? Because Hebrews tells us that by two unchangeable things in which it's impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong hope to hold fast and endure to the hope set before us. Because God is offering His oath. What God is saying is, His oath is that you will never be forsaken again. You will never know the futility and vanity of being oppressed and abused by your enemies. You will never know watching the blessing of your labor be carried off by another for whom it was not intended. Because I will never forsake you again. Your name is changed. The place where you dwell is changed. Zion itself, the people and the city, look at verse 12, are transformed into another name. They shall be called the holy people and the redeemed of the Lord. They'll be called sought out, a city not forsaken. And look who's with them, verse 10, all the nations of the world. Friends, no one can stop the fruition of this God's promises. And he's saying here, not only can you take this to the bank so much, I'm swearing it to you, I'm double pinky promising you, my people. but I'm gonna use this promise to totally transform the entire world. And what do we see in Revelation 21? We see the exact same image, because that's what we await as God's people. And so that leaves us a question of, well, what does he want them to do? How does he want them to live in light of this beautiful truth coming? He says in verse six to seven, The oath of assurance goes to the watchful witnesses. Plead with him to have his promises fulfilled. I've set watchmen, guardians who keep tabs on what's going on out over there and people who are willing to plead with me that the promises I've just given you will not fail. because I'm the one who's sworn by my right hand that you can take it to the bank. Plead with him that his praise will come. Give him no rest. It's like God is inviting you to pester him, friends. You know, all of us who have children in the room or who know children have had the experience of a child who's been told something exciting is coming. You're going on a trip. The child wonders, are we there yet? No, sweetie, we'll be there in 10 or 15 minutes. Are we there yet? No, sweetie, we'll be there in 14 or nine minutes. Are we there yet? No, sweetie, we're not there yet. Could you please stop asking mommy and daddy? We're trying to drive and it's dangerous to keep talking. A few minutes, goodbye. Daddy, are we there yet? And there's been many a time in my life where I have lost my cool. on my pestering children, not that they're actually pestering, but I've lost my cool unrighteously. And what have I told my children in those moments? I'm thinking in my head, child, have you no shame? Like, do you not know you are asking a lot right now? Because there's something beautiful about children when they trust you. They know that when you say something, their hope in what you say won't be ashamed and humiliated. And the answer is no, they shouldn't, because they should be able to trust you. And friends, what God is doing for us in this passage is He is telling us to pester Him because we can trust Him. And He's undoing the shame of His people, and He wants to undo shame in our own hearts. The source of shame in this passage comes because of their own sin that led to judgment and the fact that their enemies exposed and humiliated them on the stage of the world. They've not been able to understand his judgment as loving correction because they saw it as a source of shameful rejection. This is because they did not live before his gracious gaze. And that's something that all of us struggle with. but we must hear God's word of gracious comfort to make sense of their present circumstances and to help them know that even while they waited for the day of their vindication, just the fact that they weren't yet vindicated did not mean he did not delight in them as his bride, but that that day was coming all the more because of his special delight in them. God is wanting to undo the shame of feeling like his promises have failed. And each of us know that shame too. Shame is the basic experience that you're being seen inappropriately by the wrong people in the wrong condition. Everyone experiences it on one level or another. Shame in our lives can come for several reasons because of something we've done, something done to us, or something that we're associated with. And one of the best diagnostics of your heart when it comes to shame is to gauge yourself. How much do you feel other in the sight of a God like this? How much do you feel as if like, yeah, that's really kind what preacher's saying tonight. Like God really loves his people, but like if he really knew what I've done or what I'm associated with or what's been done to me, then he might double take on grace. The idea is how skeptical do you feel of this thought of your Savior's passionate love? Y'all, I know I'm a counseling guy. I love helping people talk through emotions. It's what I do. The touchy feely stuff can make people really kind of cringe at the thought like, is he saying God like really loves us? Like a groom loves his bride? Like friends, God has said it. But the diagnostic of our heart is how skeptical are you of it? Or how hopeless do you feel that he will actually accomplish this word? In his book, How to Stay Married, Harrison Scott Key tells the story that one of the diagnostic signs that his marriage was in deep trouble, was their skepticism towards one another. But it masqueraded as a deep sense of cynical laughter that they shared early on in the days of their marriage. It's the story of how his wife said, I don't want to be married to you. And he said, I still want to be married to you. And they tried to work things out. It's a hilarious book. If you haven't picked it up, read it. But in his book, he says that this laughter that they shared early in their marriage is a way to bond became the way that they turned their cynicism onto each other and hid from the pain of how they hurt one another. All the while it made them increasingly skeptical that there could be marriages with real and genuine love like this out there. They even talk at one point about how much they resented the people who publicly declared their affection. While simultaneously, he has this sort of throwaway line that says, we scornfully laughed at our friends who were madly in love, while we privately coveted that sense of friendship. Because each of us began to desperately feel as if genuine affection and intimate care was no longer possible in this marriage. Friends, in what way does this begin to help you see your heart's own intent towards God? How does this help you see that the way that you feel like you'll never quite be enough for Him is really a sign that you've just lost your reflection in His gaze? The problem is, is that just like His people, we settle for an imitation intimacy with God when we actually try to laugh off or deny that there's actually shame like this in our hearts. And so the question is, is how do you begin to be someone who lives before your Savior's gaze? Jesus, through His prophecy here, invites you to be someone who pleads with Him, who desperately realizes that there's no hope save for Him. Because it's only His sovereign intention that can actually rescue us from ourselves. And that's why He appoints witnesses who are unabashed and have no shame at not giving God any rest. And so it makes you begin to ask, like, in what ways are you afraid to ask God to help you in your life? In what ways do you feel as if you are beyond the reach of this conquering king? Because each of us walks around with different aspects of how we feel like. It's just not quite for us. But what God wants us to do is to endure faithfully for our conqueror's day by being transformed to rest in His glorious gaze. Recently there was a children's book, I'll close with this, that I came across called Ish. If you knew that I came across this book, it's because I've actually handed it to you. I've probably cried tears enough over this book because it's beautiful. It's the story of a sweet little artist named Ramon who loves to paint. And he paints anytime, anywhere, anyplace. And one day, his older brother Leon comes along while he's trying to draw a vase. And he sees how much his beautiful work of art does not reflect the vase that Ramon is trying to draw. And he laughs at him. He goes, what is that? And the author says, his brother's laughter echoed in his heart for days. So that instead of being lost in the joy of creatively engaging and mimicking the beautiful world around him, he now spends the next few months trying to get his drawings right, trying to look a certain way so that it can maybe make that shamefulness go away. And one day he proceeds like this for a number of weeks until he grows so weary from not getting it right that he's about to put his pencil down and walk away. when the author captures the gaze of his sister, Marisol. And Marisol sees him there, and Ramon sees Marisol, and he says, what are you doing? She goes, I was watching you draw. I love watching you draw. I'm your sister. I watch you. This is what I do. And he goes, I wasn't drawing. Get out of here. And before she runs away, she grabs his most recent crumpled drawing. And he says, what are you doing with that? And he like runs after her. And it's this moment in the book where you think this guy is about to pulverize his little sister. But you turn the page and it says, Ramon followed her all the way to his room. And in his room was a gallery of his crumpled up vase pictures. a gallery where she had hidden away the beautiful, affectionate, loving gaze of her brother's work. And he didn't know it. And he gets in there and he stops and he's just like shocked. He said, what? Where'd you get these from? She goes, I picked them up. He said, why do you have them? She goes, because they're beautiful. I love this one right here, it reminds me of you. He goes, that doesn't look like a vase of flowers. She goes, it looks vase-ish. And he said, vase-ish. And from that phrase, he's able to suddenly begin to create again. To create without worry about comparison of what it looks like to get it right. and to create in such a beautiful way and so many different ways and places and pictures and even feelings that all of a sudden one day he's so overwhelmed by the joy he feels in life that he just sits back and he doesn't have to capture it anymore, but he can just enjoy it and rest in it. And the book says from that day forward, he lived an ishfully blissful life. Friends, our God wants you to live before the gallery of His gaze of affection, that you are His bride. Not before a lens of comparison of getting it right. Because when we live this way, before our Creator's, our Heavenly Groom's gaze, we'll actually be the people who begin to plead with Him enough to transform us to rest until our conqueror's day. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your kindness to us, to give us a picture of our Savior's love. Would you overwhelm us by it, Father? Help us to walk out of here knowing we are your bride and your beloved, set apart for your purpose and your kingdom, to live blissfully for your face for all eternity and not under the shame of comparison and being the people who must get it right, but the people who are seen as beautiful because of who we are as yours. Help us, God, to be those people and to be a community that reflects that in Hattiesburg and the rest of the world. Let us so be changed by that love. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.