You're listening to a sermon from the 2017 Wrath and Grace Conference. We pray that you are blessed by this resource. For more resources, please visit wrathandgrace.com. Grace and peace. Well, I don't know whose idea it was to put me after Shai. Thanks. Just bring Shai back up, because I could just listen to that all day. That was good for my soul. And I am humbled to be here, grateful to be here with you. Someone wrote on Facebook under the one of the advertisements, they wanted to see me and Shai do a rap battle. Pretty sure that was a slight on me, not that smart, but I'm pretty sure. And I said, well, I'd be more Carlton than Eminem. So we're not gonna do that, but I am gonna open God's word. So let me pray for us. And then I wanna read one verse. Don't get too excited. Brevity is not my gift. I am looking at the clock though. I want us to look at Matthew 1.1 and talk about Jesus as true Israel and what that means to us. So let me pray. Father in heaven, we need the working of your spirit. We thank you for the word. We thank you that your word is spirit and life. We thank you that it reveals the Savior that our souls so desperately need. We need you, Lord Jesus. We need the blood of sprinkling that speaks a better word than that of Abel. We need you to cleanse our consciences from dead works by your blood, and we need to see you in your glory. Please help us not just to speak about your glory, but to have the eyes of faith to see that you would shine the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ into our hearts. Our Father, we pray that you'd be merciful to us and bless the ministry of your word as you have already. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Matthew 1.1, Matthew writes the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. When I was 24, I had the great privilege of getting to go to the French Alps and went to La Alpe d'Huez. You guys don't look like you're big biker fans, bicycling fans, but that's where the Tour de France ends, up that windy mountain. And we made our way up that mountain and almost fell off several times. It was very frightening. And we got to the top of La Alpe d'Huez and it was breathtaking to look at the Alps over three countries spread out. I've never seen anything like it. It steals your breath. And as I've reflected on that over the years, and I've thought about the majesty of that, and I've thought about how many times we try to explain things to people, how many times we try to break things down for people, and what we do is we're really on the side of the mountain, or we're in some detail, we're in some minor detail, or we're at the foot of the mountain, or we're away from the mountain, and we're We're wondering, what is this person trying to show me? And then when you're brought to the top and you can see all the mountains, there's nothing like it. You see the big picture. And I think biblical theology functions that way for us. God wants us to go to the very top and to look out and to see the enormous mountain ranges of his redemptive historical grace and the glory of Jesus. Because until we see that, We can't understand the greatness and the majesty. We won't have our hearts burn within us. And God gives us several helps to that end in scripture and many different places. But here, you might miss this. Here in the genealogy of Jesus Christ, I think God is taking us up on the mountain. And he is saying, look at the glorious redemptive historical purposes that I have wrought for you to enjoy and to see the glory of my son. And it's interesting, you'll know this if you know your Bibles, Matthew and Luke give us different genealogies. They are not in contradiction. One, no doubt, is the genealogy of Jesus through his biological mother, parent, Mary, Luke's gospel, presumably, and Matthew is giving us the royal genealogy, the adopted lineage, as it were, Jesus having a right to the throne through Joseph. as it were, his adopted father. And what's interesting, if you look at those, while there are differences, and the two genealogies deviate at David and Bathsheba, actually. We just heard about the sin of David, and God brought a son named Solomon and a son named Nathan out of them, and the two genealogies deviate there and then come back together when Christ comes. But one thing you would notice is that Matthew's genealogy stops whereas Luke goes all the way back to Adam. Genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of Adam, the son of God, Luke 3.31. But notice that Matthew takes us back to Abraham. Now years ago, I was reading through Matthew's gospel devotionally, and I thought, why does he stop at Abraham? Now, you know, scholars are going to tell you this book is written with a Jewish audience in mind, and the goal is to convince unbelieving Jews of Matthew's day, Matthew being Levi, the tax collector, and wanting to see the Jews of his day converted, and there are lots of Jewish undertones, the kingdom of heaven, phrases like that, and you're left thinking, okay, that's a nice theory, that's probably why he goes from Jesus back to David back to Abraham. and it has validity. But I think that there's something else as we read through Matthew's gospel. God is constantly bringing us up on top of the mountain and he's showing us his glorious purposes in redemptive history and I think Matthew is giving us uniquely a picture of Jesus as the true Israel of God. Now, As we consider the bird's eye view, the 30,000 foot view of redemptive history, all of us will have to agree that Jesus is the eschatological Adam. He's the last Adam. That, for the Apostle Paul, is everything. That's everything. Everything that Shi just shared with us is built on Jesus being the last Adam. the end time Adam, God's prophet, priest, and king who undoes everything that Adam did and who does everything that Adam failed to do. No hope without that. And Paul makes use of that in Romans 5 and then over in 1 Corinthians 15 in different ways. In Romans 5 he uses it for justification primarily. In 1 Corinthians 15 he uses it about the resurrected body. And so you can see that that is, I'm gonna use a word, forgive me for using this word, but it's an architectonic structure. It holds the whole thing together for Paul. All Paulian theology is built on Jesus as the last Adam. And that excites us and we love that. I hope you love that. Demands that you believe in a historical Adam, by the way. I hope you love that. Even when everybody around us doesn't. Sorry, I digress. But what is not so apparent is Jesus as true Israel because nowhere, nowhere In Pauline theology, does the Apostle say, or in Petrine theology, or in Johannine theology, in any of the Apostles, does anybody say, and he is the eschatological Israel? Now, what Matthew does for us, at the outset he says he is the true son of Abraham. Now, Abraham is hugely important for the Apostle Paul. If you read the book of Galatians, you will see just how big Abraham is. There's a verse, though, that you might miss. Galatians 3.16, I believe, I think it's 3.16, where the Apostle Paul says, the promises of God, the redemptive promises of God were given to Abraham and to his seed, not as of many, but as of one who is Christ. Now, what Paul does is he says all those promises God gave Abraham, they're all spiritual in nature, they're all redemptive in nature, they're all about eternal life and redemption and everlasting inheritance, inheriting the world, not just the land, that's too small, that's just a little down payment, but the world, Jesus said the meek shall inherit the land of Israel, no, shall inherit the earth, and those promises were given to Abraham, Paul says, and to Christ. Now, this is huge. Because what Paul says in Galatians 3 is that the Bible was written to Jesus. Jesus had to learn the scriptures, by the way. He is God, but he grew in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man. He had to study the scriptures. And when he read the promises given to Abraham, he was meant to read them in a way unique from us, in one sense, because they were not only about what he would do, but about what he would be rewarded with and how it was all moving to him. That's the whole point of Matthew 1.1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. He's the seed. He's the seed of the woman. He's the seed of Abraham. He's the seed of David. He is the long awaited redeemer who came to fulfill all the promises that God made so that the apostle Paul can say in him, all the promises of God are yes and amen to the glory of God. So Jesus said yes to all the promises of God, including the promise of cursing, which we'll talk about in a minute. He said yes. My father, yes. And they are all amen through him to the glory of God. Now, as Matthew develops this out for us, there's an interesting little segue he takes. Joseph and Mary, now Jesus is a baby. Little boy, they go down into, flee from Herod into Egypt. And notice in Matthew 2, 14, being warned in a dream. Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. Now, Matthew in Matthew 2.15 is quoting Hosea 11.1. And if you go back and you read Hosea 11.1, it says, get ready, out of Egypt I've called my son. Same thing. And if you read it in context, it is clearly about what God did with the nation of Israel. And if you wonder about how God would call Israel his son, you find that in Exodus 4, 22, I believe, where God says, Israel's my firstborn, my son. And then you come to Matthew and you're like, what in the world is going on? And there are times where you're reading the Bible and you're just like, I don't even know what to do with this right now. I mean, let's be honest. This is why one apostle said another apostle's writing was difficult. Praise God. And this is tough. Is Matthew reinventing what Hosea said? Is he putting a new ending on it? Is it kind of a second reading? What is he doing here? He's giving you the original intent. Because the original intent of Hosea 11.1 was both God reminding Israel of bringing them out of Egypt and them as a type of his eschatological son, his firstborn, the second Adam, the last Adam, the true Israel, son of God, son of man, who came not only to undo everything that Adam did and to do everything Adam failed to do, but who came to do everything Israel failed to do. Because Israel did not inherit the promises Israel was exiled and they received, in typical form, the covenant curses. Now, where are we going with this? I don't know if you like comedies. I think Groundhog Day is one of the funniest movies ever, and I will argue with you about it, and I watch it every year and feel like I'm in the movie because I'm like, wait a minute, didn't I watch this last year? And it's Bill Murray, so let's just be honest, Bill Murray's amazing. And the reason I think people like Groundhog Day is because everybody loves the idea of second chances, and everybody loves the idea of a life well lived. I think that's why we like it. Everybody loves the idea of second chances. Everybody loves the idea of a life well lived. Oh, I wish I could redo yesterday. I'm so sinful. I wish I could redo my life. I've been so sinful. And I don't wanna die and have a life not lived well to Christ. But God doesn't give us a second chance to go back and to redo. the way we like to think we wish it were possible that we could. And on our own, none of us will live a life well lived. But one of the interesting things about the Bible is there's this redoing principle, we call it recapitulation. And I don't know if you've ever read through the prophets and you wonder, why is all this language about the exodus coming up? And wasn't that like, hundreds and well over a thousand years before many of these prophets prophesied. And why does God speak about being like a cloud in Isaiah 4 and a pillory fire and you're like, wait, we did that already. And even back beyond that, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, in the book of Genesis, Abraham goes down into Egypt and comes out of Egypt with great riches, and the king of Egypt gets plagued. And you're like, wait a minute, isn't that what happens to Israel? And then when it happens to Israel, you remember Abraham, and then the prophets remind you of that. And what's going on? God is giving us this principle of recapitulation because he's teaching us that there has to be one who will come, who will do what needs to be done and will do it right, so that we, in union with him, can say that we have had a second chance and lived a life well lived. and have all the blessings that we have forfeited by nature, that Israel forfeited, that Adam forfeited. Now, remember Adam was the son of God, Israel was the son of God, Jesus is the son of God. He's the eternal eschatological son, the covenantal son. And here I think Matthew, I really don't think this is reading too much in, Matthew is giving us the most explicit verse ever that Jesus is going to redo Israel's history. Now, this is the best part. So, Jesus is the son of Abraham, who goes down into Egypt, and is brought out of Egypt, and goes through the water, and into the wilderness, and up on the mountain, and down from the mountain, and takes possession of the land by destroying the, parallel the Canaanitish enemies in the forces of darkness. And then he establishes the kingdom, chapter 12. He's the greater David, the greater Solomon. And then he fulfills the prophetic ministry in chapter 23, woe to you. That's reminiscent, isn't it? Of the prophets, woe, woe to you. Here's the prophet, woe to you. He fulfills the prophetic ministry and then wait for it, he's exiled and he becomes a curse. And all those curses, in Deuteronomy, the end of Deuteronomy, and they're earthly. They're earthly, typical in nature, but they have behind them all of the eternal wrath of God. They have behind them what we really deserve under the curse. And Jesus says, yes, my father, I will become the curse. I will be exiled. I will be, in the words of Isaiah, cut off from the land of the living. The very thing circumcision promised to do for the heart, But if you didn't have your heart circumcised, you would be cut off in a bloody judgment. Jesus is circumcised, according to the Apostle Paul, both as a baby, but in Colossians 2 at the cross. That's the judgment of God for my filth. He is circumcised at the cross under the, but he is cut off. He is sent out into the no man's land of the wrath of God. well beyond anything we can understand. And I was listening as Shai was reading Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We don't even get a glimpse of what that means. Even if we say it was dereliction and abandonment and wrath and he endured hell, we don't know what that means. He took the whole of the judgment and was exiled, and then this is the best part, in his resurrection, he's restored. You know all those restoration prophecies in the prophets? And you're like, okay, very symbolic and a lot of debate over how we apply them. But one of the things we can be sure of is that they are dependent on the resurrection of Jesus. So in a very real sense, God is restoring Israel when he restores his son from the grave. He's bringing about, that's where the resurrection, that's where the restoration prophecies find their zenith, in the resurrection of Jesus. That's how Peter could say at Pentecost, like, this, Joel 2, this is it. This is it. Now, already. Because Jesus has been risen. Spirit has been poured out. That is a bit of the bird's eye view. And then it helps us, I think, to go down and to focus. And you could do this on any number of things. You could take any of the parts of Christ's life and just turn them around. I think the greatest teachers in the church are those who know how to just turn a truth you've heard. And it's not anything new. but you look at it from another angle and you can say, wow, I've never seen that. And I think God's word is so deep and so profound, we can do that. I had a friend. by the way, who, he was, when I was a boy, he owned a watch store. He was a watch expert. I don't know if there's many watch experts in the world, but he was a watch expert. And I remember him telling me, I used to go in there and talk to him about, I had this thing about pocket watches, and he told me how you could spot this one particular genuine watch from all the fakes out there. And the watchmaker had engraved in in the tiniest of letters on the side, his initials. And that's how you knew with this one particular watch that it was genuine. I think in the same way when we come down from the mountain and we go down into the crevices and the valleys, there are these, there are God's little inscriptions on Jesus that tell us this is how we know he is the true Israel. This is how we know. And one of those is in the temptation account. Now, very clearly, Jesus is in the wilderness 40 days. Israel was in the wilderness 40 years. There's some kind of parallel there. Moses was up on the mountain 40 days. There's some kind of parallel there. The spies were in the land spying out the conquest. God told them to lead the people in for 40 days. So there's something there. And I don't think it means you should go on a 40-day diet of any sort whatsoever. And shame on the American church. for turning the Bible into a diet book. Eat healthy. We've been talking about food all day. Eat well. Jesus did not fast for 40 days so that you would celebrate Lent. Let me be the first person to tell you that. I'm sorry if that offends you. Jesus fasted for 40 days because he's the fulfillment of all things. Please get that. The apostle Paul would urge you to get that. He's not setting precedent for us. I'm not saying don't fast. I'm saying Jesus is in the wilderness because he's the true Israel. He's the eschatological Israel. He's doing what Israel failed to do. How do we know that? The watchmaker's notes and initials. And here they are. Lots of people have drawn that parallel between the temptations Eve experienced, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, and what Jesus as the second Adam experiences, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, throw yourself off the temple, pride of life, turn these stones into bread, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, all the kingdoms of the world. So you've got that. John tells us that is the paradigm for temptation, too, in 1 John. But, very interesting, and everybody will tell you when you ask Christians, how did Jesus battle against the evil one? They'll say, with the word of God, amen. And how much we need to learn to take up the word when we're tempted. To our shame, we don't, like we should. And Jesus does that, but here's the amazing thing. Jesus quotes three times out of Deuteronomy, the very words that God gave his typical son, Israel, in the wilderness when he tested Israel and they were tempted and they failed. Isn't that fascinating? That's the watchmaker's initials. Jesus took up the very word God gave Israel and he did what Israel failed to do. In a very real sense, he began the conquest of the land by battling the evil one. And then he goes out right after coming down from the mountain and he's casting out demons, more of the conquest of the land until ultimately he disarms principalities and powers on the cross. And what does Jesus get for all of that? Jesus gets the eternal inheritance that was reserved for the firstborn son. You know, we love, and we should love, the fact that the Apostle Paul says that we're heirs of all things. It's unbelievable. I don't even know what that means. God's included in that. God is the portion of his people, the Lord. Yahweh is our inheritance. Jesus is our inheritance. But we love those portions that we're heirs of all things, but the Bible very carefully couches it, and it always tells us that Christ is first the heir. We are co-heirs with him. Think of the writer of Hebrews. When he's describing the glories of the Son, he says, he is the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of his person. He upholds all things by the word of his power, who, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, having obtained a more excellent name than they, as he has a better inheritance. He has the everlasting inheritance. The father says, my son, I'm gonna give you everything. Now, here's where this is important. Because you might say, well, if Jesus is God, doesn't he already have everything? That seems pretty straightforward. Jesus is God, he already has everything. How can we say that somehow he gained something that he didn't have before? Because the Bible unequivocally says, Jesus is the God, the God. The breath, right now, he gives it to us, right now. Jesus is making you breathe. All things consist in Him. Paul says all things hold together by the word of His power, carried along by the word of His power. That's so awesome. Right now, like, the Son of God with His Father and Spirit are upholding everything. Right now, from the throne room of heaven, wherever that is, And yet Jesus is fully man. And you know, we didn't need, I'm going to say this reverently and carefully. I've heard Sinclair Ferguson say it. So if you get mad, go send him emails. And I think Abraham Kuyper said this before Ferguson. So you can't email him. He's dead. He's with the Lord. But Kuyper said, what we need most of all is not a divine righteousness, but a human righteousness because we lost a human holiness and righteousness. Now, I know, the Bible says, the righteousness of God. Yes, it is God's righteousness, amen. It's all from him, it's all of him. But we needed a man to conquer the one who conquered man and to gain us a righteousness as a man and to represent us. You see, what Matthew's doing, what the Bible does, what the New Testament does, is it moves from the many to the one and then from the one to the many. So, Abraham and to his seed, not of many, but of one, who is Christ. But if you're in Christ, you're Abrahams, and you're heirs. It's all union with Jesus. Everything's union with Christ by faith. Faith in Jesus, union with Christ. Everything that's true of him becomes mine. Everything that was mine was given to him. And we needed a man to gain the covenantal inheritance that Adam lost by his disobedience, and that Israel failed to get by their disobedience. By the way, I think when we talk about Jesus as true Israel, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but Israel is not first a nation, it's a person. I don't know, just mull over that a little bit maybe. Jesus is not first a nation, a corporate entity. Israel was first one of the descendants of Abraham. God changed Jacob's name to Israel. It was first a person. And I think that's typical of the last man of Israel and the true Israel, Jesus. That Israel starts as a person and ends as a person. It's from the one to the many, from the many to the one, from the one, Jesus, to the many who are united to him. This is also, by the way, how the Apostle Paul could pen his great statements both in Ephesians 2 and also in Romans chapter 11. Oh boy, here we go, Romans 11. And in Ephesians 2, he says to us, who I presume most of us were Gentiles by nature, that you all once were strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope, without God in the world, cut off from any blessing, not having any part or parcel among the people of God, not being included in any sense. And then the apostle Paul says, so he devised a second way of salvation for you. No. He says, but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He's broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the handwriting of requirements that was against us, that was contrary to us, having taken it out of the way, having disarmed principalities and powers, and he made of the two One new man, thus making peace. And then Romans 11, and I love this, and I am Presbyterian, so just bear with me. We don't believe in replacement theology. We believe in inclusion and grafting theology. We're grafted in. To Old Covenant Israel? No, to Jesus, the true Israel. How can I say as a member of the New Covenant Church that I believe we are the Israel of God? It's because Jesus is the Israel of God and we've been engrafted together into him by faith in him because of all that he's done. Now, I understand some of that's difficult. I understand that you may not agree with all of what I've said on Romans 11, but don't miss this. Don't miss Jesus. You know, there's a great book. I love O. Palmer Robertson. I think he's written some very fine books. And he has a book called The Israel of God. And again, you may not agree with everything, but I think it's a very, very excellent biblical theological approach. He argues that the New Covenant Church is the new Israel, which was a view John Calvin held, that together, Jew and Gentile who believe in Christ comprise the New Covenant Church. Old Covenant Church was national, theocratic Israel. New Covenant Church is the Israel of God throughout the world. Galatians 6, peace to the Israel of God. Right after saying, if somebody says you have to be a Jew, they should be emasculated or something like that. Paul pulled no punches, by the way, with this stuff. But here's the amazing thing. O. Palmer Robertson, and I am not here to try to defame him in any way, but he doesn't say a thing about Jesus being the true Israel. And I'm like, that's the vital thing. That's the thing. That's the thing. Now, what's the cash value? Because that's always the big question. All right? Glasses are crooked. Not sure I agreed with everything. Is there any cash value, any takeaway here for us today? I think the cash value is multitudinous. I think there's a lot. I think one of the big principles is that this enables us to keep our eyes fixed on Christ when we read all of the scriptures. Just like second Adam, and true Israel. Now, if you have an inordinate amount of time on your hands, and you have trouble sleeping, G.K. Beale has written about 1,500, he's written like 10 of these. This guy, you human. G.K. Beale's written like, it's called New Testament Biblical Theology, and everything I've told you is in there, and so much more. He also wrote a big fat commentary on Revelation, in the NIGNT series, and I think it was Sinclair Ferguson that said, I'm pretty sure the Apostle John didn't see everything that G.K. Beale sees in his writing. I kind of feel the same way when I read New Testament biblical theology, but it is magnificent. And what he does is he goes through all those Old Testament prophecies. Here's the coolest. Get ready for this. Blew my mind. I'm at the beach last week. I'm reading this book, because I had time, and Oh, this blew my mind. I can't believe I never saw this. So when Jesus is in the wilderness in Mark, it says he's with the wild animals, right? And we all know that's probably an illusion back to him being the second Adam. Adam was in the garden with the animals and he was Lord over them. And here Jesus is in the wilderness, the place of barrenness, kicked out, exiled as it were, the place of death and the symbol of the fall. And he's with the wild beast. Here's the second Adam, he's with wild beast. And I think there's a lot there, I really do. But what I never saw before is if that's true, if Beal is correct that that's true, it's very interesting that Jesus takes the title Son of God and Son of Man to himself, and uniquely to himself. And Son of Man, he's the only one that calls himself the Son of Man, and that comes out of Daniel 7. Very interesting, in Daniel, the Son of Man conquers kingdoms that have been taken over by wild beast. That's so awesome. And here's the son of man in the wilderness with the wild beast symbolizing what he was about to do in taking over the kingdoms of this world. That is really cool. You may have to ponder it. I was just like, that makes a lot of sense. That makes sense of the apocalyptic language of the beast. Now, some people are gonna say, well, that was just parlance of the day and all apocalyptic. Listen, the Bible is theological everywhere, everywhere. Don't fall, by the way, don't fall into this trap of, oh, well, grammatical historical interpretation, and that's why I don't like typology. Jesus and the apostles were very grammatical historical, And they read the Old Testament through the lens of theology. They read it spiritually, and biblically, and theologically everywhere. So, we do that. The cash values, we go back, we read the prophets, we read the Old Testament, we read about the... Okay, I'll give you a story. A woman in a PCA church is in a prayer meeting, and she prays, Lord, thank you so much. We're so sinful. Thank you that you forgive us, because every time we sin against you, we call down the covenant curses. No! What happened to your justification? So, you could fall into the trap of reading the Old Testament improperly if we don't see it through the lens of Jesus. We will fall into that trap. The other cash value, and I think this goes hand in hand, is that it builds assurance. Nothing assures me more. Nothing assures me more that I'm going to go to heaven. than seeing that Jesus is this sufficient of a savior. I don't need a Jesus that could barely save me. I don't like stained glass windows either. Here, we're just letting it all out today. But one of the reasons I don't like stained glass windows of Jesus is because they're always, my best friend says this, they're kind of a weak sauce Jesus. They're come unto me, but not with too much. They're sort of, they are. Like Jesus is a warrior. Jesus is the Lord of glory. Jesus consumes people with his presence. Jesus is mighty to save and he did save. And he fulfilled everything, everything in redemptive history. And that means if you go to him, it's all yours. It's all yours. And you hold on to Jesus as tightly as you can. Because if you don't, you'll perish forever. You know, a few more laughs, a few more cries, that's it. Heaven or hell. This is it. I praise God that the men who spoke here this morning pressed that. You know, hold on to him because he is everything. He's the Redeemer. He's the second Adam. He's the true Israel. I think this also has a beautiful, and let's just talk about this, it's such a touchy subject, and I'll close with this. I think there's a beautiful picture here about the racial reconciliation issues. You know, there was no greater racial divide than Jew and Gentile. I mean, we make our race issues like, like it's the biggest thing in human history. This was bigger. Jew and Gentile divide was the biggest divide I mean, enormous. And Jesus came, and by hanging on the cross, he broke down the middle wall of partition, and he made of the two one new man. You know how racial reconciliation's achieved? By union with the same Jesus. Yes, can I get an amen? Yes, by union with Jesus. And I'm not saying it's simple. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying, I don't write about this. I don't talk about it. This is the first time I've talked about this publicly. I think this has huge implications. When you see that Jesus is the last Adam and the true Israel, and that we are united together in him, and we form the new covenant community, the everlasting church with all of our diversity, all of our many-ness, and there's a lot, It's beautiful. It's beautiful. You know, I love, I'm hard to love, but I love hard to love believers because I have to see them through this lens. I know it was C.S. Lewis that said, you know, the glory that we're gonna have in the hereafter is gonna be so great that you'd be tempted to see the weakest, most feeble, and most awkward, and despised of believers in glory. You'd be tempted to fall down and worship that person. And Jesus has secured that for us. He's secured that everlasting glory, the everlasting inheritance. and the ability to love the unlovable, the unlikable, the difficult. I was thinking, somebody said, Shai likes to listen. Everybody tells me I don't listen good. You still have to love me. I have to grow and you have to love me. And you do that by seeing, we do that by seeing one another in Christ, the true Israel of God. Now, I'm gonna wrap it up. I wanna encourage you to get a hold of G.K. Beale's book. It's a great antidote to insomnia. But work through it. It's heavy, but it's worth it. And it'll open vistas for you of that mountain range that I think is solidly biblical, and I think Matthew takes us up on those mountains. Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, though, We are weak and needy and sinful, exceedingly sinful, and we acknowledge that before you this morning and how unworthy we are of your grace and your mercy. We thank you so much for your son. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you fulfilled everything for us. We thank you that all the full revelation of God is consummated in you and fulfilled in you. We pray that you would open our eyes, that you would remove every distraction from our hearts and our minds, to help us to see more of your mediatorial glory. We pray that you would satisfy our hearts. We pray that you would give us a greater love for the scriptures. We pray that you would give us a greater love for your church and for your people. We pray that you would be conforming us, Father, into the image of your Son. How desperately we need that. We thank you and praise you and pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.