Let's remain standing and turn to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah, as you're turning to chapter 41, our reading will begin in verse 21. Isaiah 41, verse 21. We'll read up through chapter 42, verse 9. Our sermon text will be chapter 42, verses 1 through 9. If you're reading from the King James, you'll note a little difference that I will read in verses 24 and 29. The word there ought to be behold. It's the same word that 42 verse one begins. I do not know why the translators made it indeed. It throws off the consistency of the passage, but that's why I will say behold instead of indeed. But we'll begin in Isaiah 41, beginning in 21. Give your attention now. to God's holy word. Present your case, says the Lord. He's speaking to idols here. Bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring forth and show us what will happen. Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them. And know the latter end of them, or declare to us the things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do good or do evil. that we may be dismayed and see it together. Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come. From the rising of the sun, he shall call on my name, and he shall come against princes as though mortar, as the potter treads clay. Who is declared from the beginning that we may know, and the former times that we may say, he is righteous. Surely there is no one who shows, surely there is no one who declares, surely there is no one who hears your words. The first time I said to Zion, look, there they are, and I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings. For I looked and there was no man. I looked among them, but there was no counselor who, when I asked of them, could answer a word. Behold, they are all worthless. Their works are nothing. Their molded images are wind and confusion. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my elect one, in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait for his law. Thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, spread forth the earth and that which comes from it. He gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it. I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. May he bless it to us. Please be seated. Let's pray together and seek God's face. Father in heaven, it is warm in this room. Our bodies are weak and weary. It is easy to grow drowsy as we close out the Lord's day. We are also sinners who find spiritual vigor to be difficult. And we pray that the light of the glory of Jesus Christ would so grip our hearts tonight that you would shake us from the drowsy existence of the careless soul, or the weak soul, and that you would fixate our hearts upon the glory of the Savior that you promised to send, who did come, who has ascended in heaven, and for whom we wait. We ask that you would show us the glory of Jesus tonight in ways we perhaps have not yet seen. And that we would go from here changed, matured, strengthened, and hopeful. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. The Bible is a spirit-inspired book given by the kindness of God our Father. that highlights and displays the perfections of Jesus Christ the Son. If you would read your Bibles, and I do encourage you and even plead with you and kind of command you, read your Bibles. You need to read your Bibles. It's so important. Even as you expose yourself to the stories and to the concepts and themes, but especially in order to expose yourself to the person of Jesus Christ, as you read your Bibles, You will find that this is the great unifying theme. That is, asking yourself this question, how does this passage I'm reading teach me by the Holy Spirit? how to see Jesus by faith to the honor of God the Father. Always ask yourself this question, how is this text teaching me by the Holy Spirit to see Jesus to the glory of the Father? Now there are some passages in the Bible where you have to do a little bit more digging than others. There are some where it is not so clear, some where you need to keep reading so that the section will become clearer. But there are other passages that are very, very vivid, clear, and obvious. The servant songs in Isaiah are for such passages, though they're not completely clear of controversy or confusion about them. And as I have occasion over the next weeks or months to be preaching to you all in the evening, I'll just be working through the four servant songs of Isaiah, which you will find in 42, 49, 50, and then 52 and 53. And tonight, I want to begin here in chapter 42. Now, you notice that I began reading in verse 21 earlier. The reason for that is that a major theme in the, I keep wanting to call it the gospel of Isaiah. It kind of is that. So if I call it that, just bear with me. In the prophet Isaiah, you find a major theme is God is setting himself up over and contrasting himself to the idols of the nations. The idols of the nations for many reasons had become so seductive and attractive to God's people, in this case the people of Judah. And not only are these idols futile, That is, they're empty, they can't actually do anything. They actually bring the devastation of judgment upon the people. They cannot save, and yet also they become thorns and turn the people of God aside and all the way to destruction. Idols and idolatry was the bane of the existence of God's Old Testament people. and they continually turn to the gods of the nations. But lest you tonight think that you are immune, you need to remember, how does John and his first letter that we find in the New Testament? Do you remember what the closing words of 1 John 5 are? Little children. Keep yourselves from idols. It's not just an old covenant thing. We might not have them made out of gold or wood or stone, but whenever we begin appropriating worldly thinking, worldly methods, when we begin to turn aside to the love of money or whatever it might be, these are idols without the statues. And what Jesus, or what our God does here in this passage is in the context of him sarcastically asking if an idol can show you anything about what was past, tell you anything about what is future, do anything for your salvation. He is saying behold, behold, look at this, pay attention to this. He wants you to consider the futility and emptiness of idols. But then, he sets forth with another and a third behold. Behold, my servant. Isn't this that paradigm I've so often taught you and I've often told you? To go read Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. God does not merely condemn our stupidity. He gives us something better. He gives us his son. And this is what the servant songs are really all about, is setting forth Jesus Christ in his glory. And so tonight, what I want to look at from Isaiah 42 with this little meditation is, over and against the idols of the world, the father commands all to behold his spirit and dwelt servant. That over and against the idols of the world, the father commands and invites all to behold his spirit and dwelt servant. We'll end tonight thinking a little bit about what that actually means to behold this servant, but we're going to spend most of our time looking at and examining the features and the authority of this servant, what he is like and what he has come to do. Now, a brief comment on the word behold. You know, that's not a word we usually use much in modern English. Perhaps if you use it, people might think you're a little bit strange. But when the Lord calls us to behold, he is calling us to look at something carefully, to fix our gaze upon it and to consider it with close attention. What happens when you behold something? What happens when you look at something intently and study it? Well, you might gain some knowledge or you might have an impression upon your mind, but in the Bible, when we behold God's servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul tells us what happens in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 18. He says this, we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. What is the effect? We're being transformed into the same image from glory. to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. This is not mystical, but it's true. We look at Christ by faith. In that act, the Spirit blesses to make us more like Christ as we behold Him. So let's talk a little bit about our Lord Jesus, the servant of the Lord set forth before us. I wanna begin by looking at the distinguishing features of the Lord's servant. The distinguishing features, that is, what sets Him apart, what makes Him different? Now, there are many who want to make the servant songs about something other than our Lord. I told you earlier, these are passages not without controversy. Some people want to argue, well, this is some sort of after the fact prophecy written about Cyrus because these are people who just don't believe in the supernatural. They're very boring, by the way. Anti-supernaturalists are very boring people. We live in a magical world full of angels and demons and God doing wonderful things. Remember that. There are some who want to make it about the nation of Israel. And in some respects, God does set forth his own nation and call them his servant. And what's interesting is that the servant as a nation is being taught and going through these things and being formed into the image of the servant who is, we'll learn, the son. Now, the Bible tells us very clearly what we ought to think about this servant, especially from this particular passage. And in Matthew chapter 12 verses 15 to 21, this text itself is cited. And it says this, Matthew 12 verse 15, Yet he warned them not to make him known that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, my servant, behold, my servant, et cetera. So the Bible very clearly tells us this is speaking of Jesus Christ. And this simple fact, before we look at the distinguishing features of Jesus, ought to be a help and encouragement to you as you perhaps might have those seasons where your faith might be weak or shaken. These are words written seven centuries seven centuries before Jesus comes. And these are words that Jesus fulfilled absolutely perfectly to a spirit inspired and led tea. Here is our savior. So let's look at his distinguishing features. Number one, let's look at his qualifications. What is so different about him? Now, I'll just warn you, we'll spend the most amount of time on his qualifications and then a little bit less on the other aspects. But I want you to see five qualifications that you actually can find out of the first half verse of Isaiah 42. Behold, look closely, consider my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights, I put my spirit upon him. This servant, the first qualification, what makes him unique is he belongs uniquely to the Lord. He bears the closest possible relationship imaginable to him. Does this not give us some sight of the fact that this one sent by Jehovah is inseparable from Jehovah? Though he is distinct, this is the father sending the son his own unique A second aspect is it is one, he is the servant who is upheld by the Lord uniquely. Now, if this is one who bears this unique relationship as the eternal son, yet must be upheld by him through his life, what this speaks to is why this term is used for our Lord. Note this, he doesn't say, behold, my mighty warrior, although Jesus was that. but he's being presented as a lowly servant. Do not let Jesus' life in weakness be a scandal to you, because throughout that life, he was preserved from the womb, where the one through whom and for whom all things were made, was made entirely and completely dependent upon his own mother, who he created for his glory. All the way until the part where Jesus is sleeping on a pillow because of sheer exhaustion as the waves and wind crashed and howled around him. where Jesus was so overcome by the stress and burden of what was before him in the garden as he almost was given over to death and God sent angels to uphold and strengthen him, what you see is the entire life of Christ was uniquely upheld by his father. Jesus was no superman, he was the God man, he was a real man with all the weaknesses of our human constitution without sin. Yet he had to be upheld. He was upheld by his father, even under the cross, where then he was visited with the father's wrath. And in the glorious resurrection, the father would bid him come forth triumphantly. All of these things stand to us, dear congregation, as witnesses that this one, the Lord's servant, was uniquely upheld, and therefore uniquely blessed by the father, a third qualification. as the New King James translates it, my servant whom I uphold, my elect one, my chosen one. This is the third qualification. He's uniquely chosen by the Father. I want you to contrast this to what we read earlier in Isaiah 41, where the Father is rejecting out of hand all the false gods, all the formless and lifeless and breathless idols. He says, no, no, this is the one I have chosen It is God's own Son who brought salvation. It was this one, though rejected of men, Peter tells us, was chosen and precious. A fourth qualification of this servant. He was the one in whom God delighted. This perhaps might be the most personable, dare I use the word intimate, of the qualifications, the one Upon whom the smile of the Father rested from all eternity into this life as he lived and grew from wisdom to wisdom, from grace to grace, from glory to glory. Probably the best passage for you to think about as you meditate upon this great reality that the Father delights in the Son, was that moment when the Father ripped the heavens open at Jesus' baptism, after Jesus identifies Himself so willingly with sinners by the baptism of repentance which He received from John. And the Father rips the heavens open, saying what? This is my Son. I want you to think about that. Those of you who are fathers, have you ever had a moment where your children have done something remarkable, unique, and people have seen it, and you can feel there's something good? There might be wrapped up pride and ambition in it, but there's a holy, there's a holy boasting of a father. Look at my son. This is who he is. But what's the response? Listen to him. Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom I delight. This happened again at the glorious transfiguration as the Father gave a little image to Jesus, but also to Peter and James and John, bearing witness with both Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets looking at Jesus. I have glorified this one. The Father loves the Son. And the fifth qualification of this distinguishing servant is, this is the one who is full of the Spirit, who received the Spirit without measure. obviously visibly in his baptism as he was anointed, as he began his public ministry. This is the servant of the Lord. Now I want you to see this, his qualifications here begin, it's the high point, it's a glorious thing, you need to receive it by faith, but you need to hold on to this because it's going to seem a little bit of out of accord with what's going to follow. All of these are massive signposts pointing to who this servant is and would be. But I want you to see, secondly, we've considered his qualifications. But what is his conduct? This is the second half of verse one into verse two. What will he do with all of these unique things? You know, if you had such a unique resume, such unique abilities, you would spend your life glorifying yourself. You would, and so would I. We love to be noticed. We love to have the accolades for things that we have done. But look at what he says. He will first bring forth justice to the Gentiles, and he will not cry out, nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street." What does this mean? The first thing that he will do, this great one, this mighty one, this chosen one, bringing forth justice to the Gentiles. You remember that passage in Acts? where they're complaining against the apostles. Do you remember what they say? These men, they're turning the world what? Do you remember? They're turning the world upside down. They weren't turning the world upside down. The apostles were turning the world right side up. It was just the people whose lives were upside down were being turned right side up and made them feel upside down. You see, this is what Jesus came to do. When Jesus comes to bring righteousness to the nations, what he's doing is he's bringing order and straightness to the crookedness and the chaos that sin has brought. But we know that mighty rulers, that's not how we do things. America, as it tries to flex its military industrial complex, empire over the world, we don't come in quietly and meekly. We come in with bombs and subversive plans. Jesus came to bring true righteousness, to make things straight to the glory of the Father. How? Not by protests, not by the things I just said. But look at this, he will not cry out. Now you might be thinking, but didn't Jesus spend his days preaching? Didn't he stand and say, come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden? He did those things. But what you need to see is these are not things that were drawing attention to himself, but were the ways where he accomplished God's work What he called them to do by flesh defying means the way the Lord Jesus would bring righteousness to the Gentiles would be through the meekness of his death and the proclamation of that gospel. He would establish that order not with an iron fist and not with a steel sword, but with his word and spirit for the glory of his father. That's what his conduct would be like. A third feature I want you to see about this servant of the Lord is his character. His qualifications, what's his resume, his conduct, what were the actions that he will actually carry out, but what about his character, what will he be like? Verse three is one of the most poignant and maybe precious statements of our Lord Jesus Christ. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench. Children, do you know what this means? Don't for a second think, don't for a second think it means that Jesus has a shred of weakness or cowardice or inability. If you've ever picked up a little broken piece of grass or a broken reed that you find, these things are not strong. But he is one who in his great strength is able, not clumsily, not gruffly, but carefully and compassionately to hold that which is near to breaking and preserve it. He is one who if you've ever seen a candle, you ever lit a candle under a ceiling fan and you see that light going smaller and smaller and it's flickering? He is one who doesn't come and just snuff it out, but he fans it back into flame. That's the kind of savior and servant he's like. My friend, Ian Hamilton says of our Lord Jesus, that he is the kind who draws near to those in his church who feel like they're a waste of space. and brings them along, grows them. Isn't it true? Didn't you see this? Don't you see this in the life of our Lord, the one who would listen carefully to a desperate gyrus, who would then stop and listen to a woman stooped over for 12 years because of her issue of blood, the one who is willing to touch lepers and to raise the widows dead The one who would be willing to restore a broken Peter after his sin. Jesus does not crush and smother his weak and failing disciples. because he is glorious. That's his character, that's what he's like. It's summed up in that word. He is a compassionate savior. But you might think this is not going to get anything done in the world. Well, look at verse four, and I wanna show you the last distinguishing feature of this servant, and that is the certainty of his triumph. Look at what our Lord says. He will not fail, nor be discouraged. And we're gonna talk about that later. Perhaps not tonight, but another time. but he will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands shall wait for his law. God sealed and adorned the work of his servant with a divine certainty. In this language here of him not failing or being discouraged, it's language used of eyes that grow dim. You ever started a project and it started off really well and it just kind of, kind of, The sun went down on it and it just kind of fizzled out. That's not the kind of work that our Lord Jesus Christ came to accomplish. He's not like the eyes of an old man or an old woman that slowly stop working due to the effects of age and fallibility. He will not be broken or break like the false objects that dazzle our eyes but will ultimately discourage and deceive us. Our Lord Jesus' project of gathering the nations, which began in that small little corner of the world, prophesied so many years prior here in this text, would go and is growing and is building into that great rock, that kingdom growing, that we'll cover. the earth and the coastlands. This is a great image as we think and as we pray for missions. The coastlands shall wait for his law. The image here is that these people who now are dwelling in darkness, there's a sense in which, yes, we believe in depravity and hostility to the gospel, but there's a sense in which they're longing for these truths. They need it. And Jesus will most certainly bring it to them in his work. These are the distinguishing features of the Lord They're not the features again that you would look for or that you would perhaps seek to cultivate in earthly rulers. And yet they're the ones that our God promises will be there abiding and growing in His servant. But the second part of our meditation tonight upon the glory of the Lord's servant. I struggle with what to call it because I want to be able to capture it the right way. This might be clumsy and afterward you might be able to find a better word for me, but I want to look secondly, verses 5 through 9, at the divine backing of the Lord's servant. That is, who is the God the father who stands behind this servant, who is putting his stamp of certainty upon this one, who is so uniquely featured or distinguished among all. The divine backing of the Lord's servant. Let's look first, I want you to see that the servant was sent by the God of creation. Look at verse five, thus says God, the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, spread them forth, spread forth the earth and that which comes from it who gives breath to the people on it, spirit to those who walk on it. I wonder if you've ever found it difficult to trust the Lord in theory. Perhaps we have a more difficult time trusting the Lord's ways where he has said that we make progress by suffering or he actually promises fruitfulness by cutting off pruning from our lives. If you've ever struggled to trust the Lord and his ways, it's interesting how often the Bible will then appeal or turn your mind back to the God of creation. You know, this world, Psalm 19 tells us, is full of the wordless witness of creation, pointing you back to this glorious God. The one who upholds this servant, the one whose unique and special delight rests upon this servant, the one who chose this servant is the almighty creator who by his word established the world from of old. I was thinking about this this morning, sitting at my table. Those of you who know me know that I am not a really, I'm not very gifted at the aesthetics of interior decorating. But I was looking at a curtain. I've never really hung curtains. I've put curtain rods up before. But you know when you hang a curtain, this is the motion. You just put it like that. And this is actually what God says he did when he created the heavens. Just like that. I want you to think about this. I did some math. If you consider the vastness of the universe that those boring naturalists like to study and talk about how big it is, it's remarkable. Man, children, do you know man made up a measurement? It almost sounds like it's a science fiction measurement. We made up a measurement called light years because we can't quite capture how far things are and how long it takes to travel them. And so a light year, a light year is the distance that light travels in one year in a vacuum, not a vacuum cleaner, but in a place that's uninhibited by any other outside force. One light year is really far. 5.88 trillion miles. I think it's billion miles. I put a wrong letter there. But you know, I did some math this morning and I thought, well, how fast would light travel around our world? Now some of you have taken some road trips, you get into a car and you drive and it feels like you're sitting there for your entire life. Well, it would take light one second to go around our entire globe 7.5 times. It's a remarkable thing. Scientists tell us that if the universe is something spherical, for it to go halfway across, halfway across our universe, it would take 46 billion years for light to travel from the middle to the end. And what God is saying is, I hung it up like this. Isn't that remarkable? This is what God is saying. This is the kind of divine power that stands behind the servant who was sent forth, the servant that we're gonna learn who's sent forth to suffer. This is the authority that he possesses. This is the one who he says here, who holds his hand. This is the one who will attend his ministry. It's a remarkable thing. The God behind the servant, not to say that the servant is not divine, but in his humiliation, as he says, my father is greater than me, that God is the glorious God of all creation. Let that be an encouragement to you. Let the heavens bear witness. And just so you know, it's not just the grand and gigantic things that the Lord is able to do, but he brings it down in beautiful balance. Not only has he hung those things up, he also gives your breath, every breath, Every breath that you just took, when I said the breath that you just took, God gave that to you. He gives his spirit. This is the God who sent him forth. The God of creation. Another aspect that we see here, the divine backing of this Lord's servant as he comes with this divine commission. It was given by the God of redemption. Look at verse six and verse seven. That I will keep you. that I will give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, opening blind eyes, bringing prisoners out from prison. Those who sit in darkness from the prison house. You know who else is really boring? Not just the naturalists, but those who want to horizontalize the gospel into this social gospel where they think the great effect of salvation is actually bringing people out of prisons. Now God might do that. But you know, it is so much easier to escape from the newly coined alligator Alcatraz than it is to escape from sin's nature and the darkness of our depravity. It's a remarkable thing that God's servant can come with the key of his grace and unlock the door. to unlock the door to the prison where Adam's fall has brought us. In faithfulness, God is sending his own to the people to bring them out of their own ceremonial, idolatrous wickedness, and he's sending them to those, he's sending his servant to those who lived in darkness, the Gentiles, those who are without hope and without God in the world. Both of these, the people, the Jews, the Gentiles, both categories living by nature in darkness, shackled and miserable. This is the first of the servant songs, but what you're going to see wonderfully is that one of the features of the servant songs is God's intention, this God of creation and God of redemption to send forth a servant to bring light to the entire world. He didn't come merely to recover the scattered remnant of Judah, but to save a benighted world. I want you to remember this also. I told you, you know, remember the glory of creation when you struggled to believe God and trust the Lord in his ways. But remember passages like this when we pray for missions, when we pray for conversions, when we pray for our children. God sent his son, not to put the world into darkness, but to shed the light abroad. Remember this, when you're called to seek to mortify your own sins, remember this. As you struggle and you wonder about things going on, this servant no longer is in the world in humility, no longer is being looked forward to in the prospect of his first coming, but he is now reigning in glory and will be continuing to work from that position until the very end of the world. The one who is sent and stands behind and guarantees the success of this servant, the God of creation, is the God of redemption. He's also the God of glory. This is where I want to close tonight, verses eight and nine. Look at these words. I am the Lord, that is my name. Think burning bush. This is the one who is of himself. The glorious self-existent one. My glory I will not give to another. Think second commandment. He's a jealous God. He doesn't share his glory. Nor my praise the carved images. Behold the former things have come to pass. The new things I declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them. Who is worthy of all praise? But this God, who sent forth this servant, who has now exalted him to his right hand. Here's the goal of all that he's seeking to do. That is bringing glory to himself. And I want you to see as he makes reference to the fact that what he has said he's going to accomplish, he most certainly will. God's glory is connected to the accomplishment of his word of promise. He cannot, he cannot lie. As our Lord finishes these words, you need to, and I would call your mind back to the context of idolatry. If you look back in chapter 41, look at verses 22 and 23. He's mocking the idols, this God of glory. He says, let these idols show what will happen. Let them tell the future. Let them make sense of the past. Let them show the former ways, what they were, so that we can think and study them. He's mocking these, he's saying, hey, why don't you do this? But at the end of verse nine here, he's saying, this is what I do. I'm the one. who shows what the former things are, I'm the one who established them, I bring them to pass, and these new things that I'm telling you, before they spring forth, they are most certainly true and will be done. And what I want you to see is this God of glory who has this purpose to accomplish everything that he's going to do, who does not share his glory with idols, tells you, he tells you in the New Testament, that if you don't honor the son, you don't honor the father. This is the God who stands behind the servant, who promises to glorify the Son as you look to Him by faith. Now, we've looked at two things, the distinguishing feature of the Lord's servant, the dawn backing of the Lord's servant, all of this in the context of Him saying, behold Him, look to Him. What does it mean, friends, as we close? Just a few things. What does it mean to look? What does it mean to behold, rather? Friends, we behold the Lord's servant by listening to him. This is the great command that I mentioned earlier at Jesus' baptism. The Father says, listen to him. Listen to his words. Eat them daily like the manna that God provided for his people. That's how you behold him. You behold him by beholding him with your ear. The second thing is you look to him by faith. This Jesus, this servant whom we've not seen yet, we are called to love and as we look to him and the prospect of all he's going to bring, we rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. We look to him like the people of old were supposed to look to that bronze servant that was lifted up. All you do is look, you'll be healed. That's what it means to behold him. Don't be distracted from him. Don't substitute other things for him. Don't put things next to him. He is the one you look to. You listen to his words, you look to him by faith, What does it mean to behold? It means we adore him in love. It means you cultivate in your heart a place. of affection and of devotion that exceeds that that you show to your spouse, your husband, your wife. That exceeds that that you show to your children. This is why we are called to love God. And that love, comparatively speaking to our family, is like hating our own closest relatives. We adore this one in love. That's what we're called to do. Remember the image of the Song of Songs, how the bride spoke of her beloved, fairer than 10,000. We listen to his words, we look to him in faith, we adore him in love. And finally, dear congregation, trust him in humility. You know, trusting is a very humble act. It takes you out of yourself. It casts yourself into the hands, into the arms of another. It's a humble thing when the Lord sets forth one called his servant. And he says, behold, you need to be willing to trust the one who made himself nothing. Trust the one who took off his robe and put on the servant's garb and washed the feet of his disciples. You trust the one though, because the distinguishing features are unmatched from anyone else in this world, and behind him stands this God of glory, next to him he is now glorified. So dear saints, behold this Savior. Listen, look, adore, trust. Amen. Our God, we thank you for so great a Savior, so great a salvation wrought by him and bought by him. We pray that as we look to him as the light of this world, that we would see ourselves being transformed from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Lord, make us more like Him, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.