God's Faithfulness (Gideon) 2

We do so by singing his word, praying it, hearing it read, and now proclaimed. And the way we want to go through regularly submitting to God's word in proclamation is by going through books of the Bible. So here we are in the book of Judges. We've been here for a few weeks now, and this is our second sermon on Gideon. As we prepare to think about this text and this character, this judge, Gideon, I want us to be thinking about a question. And it's simply, what do you want to be known for? When people talk about you, what do you want them to say about you? What would you like for your reputation to be? What would you like for your lasting legacy to be? The only answer to that question really does determine what we do, how we do it, and how we finish the race. I asked a question with a somewhat heavy heart this morning. I just had some friends in town last weekend, and they're sharing that a pastor of theirs, a man who led a church for 20 plus years, had a faithful, thriving ministry. He was proclaiming the gospel. The church was growing, and for 20 plus years, he was a faithful man of God. But then just a couple of years from retirement, it was found out that he had been embezzling money. He had baptized. He had led many to He had counseled many marriages. He had cared for children. He had done so many things. And his lasting legacy is going to be embezzled money from the Church of Christ. It's sad. It's too common. And it's terrifying. It's terrifying, not as a pastor, but as sinners, we all can just look at this, and the goal here is not to look down upon that man and think, oh, how could he, but to realize that sin resides in my heart. As Andrew read earlier, take heed lest you fall. The idols that lead us to steal, to steal from God, they reside in all of our hearts. It's terrifying. This morning we're looking at Gideon. Last week we looked at the call of Gideon. We saw a man who tried to get out of a call of God in every way possible, but God continued to say, I know you're weak, I'm with you. Doesn't matter. We saw a man who was found hiding in a wine press, thrashing wheat, and yet was called a mighty man of valor because God was with him. He then obeys, finally, after seeing the face of God. He goes and tears down his own family's idols. God saves him from the persecution from the neighbors. And now we're going to see the victory. And what we're doing here in Judges, it really is a character study. We're learning about God. That's the primary character. So the first thing we're looking at when we're looking through judges is we're looking at who God is and how He works and how we can worship Him and how we can be faithful. We're also looking at sinners. We're gonna hear a warning. As I wrestle with a summary statement, I can only keep coming back as we think of Gideon and the great things he did. I think you can come back to a quote from J.C. Ryle, who said, there are no great men of God, only men of a great God. There are no great men of God, only men of a great God. See, if we believe there's great men of God, there's something we're boasting of in ourselves. If we believe the other statement, only men of a great God, we are boasting of God. or Paul Washer who fleshes out a little bit further, there are no great men of God, but only weak, pitiful, and faithful men of a merciful and great God. That is what I hope we see this morning. We're gonna go back a little farther than where Heather started. We ended last week right before the fleece. Everyone's favorite aspect of the Gideon story So we're gonna go back and look at chapter six beginning in verse 33 where we ended. And our first heading, our first heading if you're taking notes is testing for the battle. And if you look at the typical pattern, remember judges goes through a cycle, the typical pattern for judges, that whole story of Gideon's call from really 11 to 27, that's not normal. That was just extra, purposely put in there to help us understand who Gideon is and what God's been doing so that we can actually see how far he's going to fall. But here we pick up. Israel cries out to God, he calls a judge, and then God brings a deliverance. So here we are in 636. The main story, the Midianites, they've encamped, they've come together, they've crossed the Jordan, and then verse 34, but the spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. The Spirit of God, who we know now as the Spirit of Christ, He came down to empower Gideon. Now remember, when Gideon was first called, he said, no, I can't do this. And God said, I know you're right, but I'm with you. Here we see God has personally come down, the third person of the Trinity, and has clothed him with power. In the New Testament, we know the Spirit more clearly. Christ came and he said I have to die and rise again and go back to my father so that I can send another helper. It's actually to your advantage that I do this because when that other helper comes, he will come and apply what I accomplished for you on the cross. He will seal you. He will regenerate you. He will indwell you. The Spirit here is the third person of the Trinity as we know it now. In the Old Testament, the Spirit would regularly come down and empower certain leaders at certain times. We've seen it before. We'll see it again. It's really parallel to being filled with the Spirit in the New Testament. It's a powering that gives you the ability to do what God has called you to do. It's an important element in the story. God commissioned Gideon, God empowered Gideon. He does not send you to do what he does not, what he doesn't equip you to do. Here we see Gideon, he receives the power. We even see him going further, boldly. But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Ebersites were called out to follow him, and he sent messengers throughout all of Manasseh. And they're all called out, all called to fight with him. Now as we turn to the fleece, we see a man who has seen God's face, he's obeyed God, he's now called the army, and he's got cold feet. Verse 36. We see here he's going to ask God, would you prove something else here for me? We have the fleece. Now, we need to make sure we understand what this fleece is doing because it's oftentimes misunderstood. You know, we as Christians, we actually use this as kind of Christianese, you know, are you gonna lay out a fleece? You know, when you're trying to make a decision, what fleece are you laying out before God as if this is actually about making decisions? What kind of decision God wants you to do? Gideon is not in any way asking God what he should do. God has told him what to do. He's already called an army to do it. Gideon is saying, God, can I trust you? God, are you going to actually do what you said you're gonna do? Would you once again, please, even after all you've already done for me, after all you've already said to me, after you've already given me a victory in my own backyard, after I've seen your face, will you prove you will keep your word with this silly little game I'm gonna come up with regarding a fleece and some water? This is not a good thing. This is not in any way supposed to be normative or in any way a healthy practice for anyone. What we see here is the battle's ready to start. God has come down with His Spirit to be upon Gideon. He's just ready to obey. But yet Gideon says, no, I need one more thing. Actually, two. Two more tests. And even when we look at the test, Gideon doesn't say, God, would you just let me know that you're with me? Gideon pretends to be in control here. He's telling God what God needs to do so that he can trust God. This is completely out of order. Now, I want to appreciate that, yes, he is a man of faith, as we know from the New Testament testimony of him. We see a man wrestling with fear until he can be encouraged, but he's manipulating God. This isn't telling you how to do that. It's warning you from doing it. Now God passes the test. And that's pretty remarkable. God allows Himself to be manipulated by this man so that God will be trusted, so that God can show him, yes, I am the one true God. He lowers Himself down. He condescends. It's not prescribed. And we see here a merciful, patient God. If you look at verse 39, what we see Gideon, he's really showing us how dangerous this is. Let not your anger burn against me. He realized he's really treading on thin water. Let me speak just once, let me speak once more, please let me test you. Just one more time. Now, if you're a student, you don't have the word test. If you're God, you're not supposed to be tested. The word test is actually a negative word in most of Scripture whenever it comes to man approaching God. We heard earlier, 1 Corinthians 10, and again, in what Andrew read. Do not put the Lord your God to the test in Matthew 4 Jesus is being led up by Satan to the high point of the temple He says cast yourself down. God will send his angels to save you and Jesus rebukes him You shall not put the Lord your God to the test or we could go backwards in Exodus 17 Israel was complaining and and a bickering and grumbling as Israel was prone to do and they were saying why God if you're really with us Prove it by putting out give us water So water burst forth from the rock. That again 1st Corinthians 10 referenced. They put God to the test. Brothers and sisters, God is not to be tested. He is to be trusted. The more you trust Him, the more you will find Him to be holy, trustworthy. Be very clear here. He does what He says He will do. He is who He says He is. He is trustworthy. You don't need a fleece to figure out what you're supposed to do with your life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. He's already told you what to do with your life. There's no fleece necessary. It's actually trusting Him that He is right and He is God. In case you still think you should test God and lay out fleeces, notice what happens next. God tests Gideon. This is where it gets kind of funny. God says, all right, they're looking over the army. And I can understand 132,000 men are down there. The enemy camp is 132,000. Based on what we can see, the Gideon camp is 32,000. That's not good odds. And so God says, let me fix this problem. You've got too many men, Gideon. So go ahead and say, everybody who's afraid, just go on home. All right, 22,000 men leave. That's two-thirds of the army. Imagine there being the fellow, you got your dry fleece at least right over here, but you just saw 22,000 of 30,000 men leave, and now you're left with 11,000. And notice what God says next. It's still too many. Verse 4. The people are still too many. Take them down to the water and I will test them for you there. And the end result is Gideon is left with 300 men versus 132,000 men. The fleece is not prescriptive, but if you wanna use a fleece, be ready to be tested. Why does God reduce it down to 300 men? This is not a advised battle strategy in modern day warfare. What God is trying to do is to show he is the one true God. He is the one who's going to truly be saving his people. He's the one who's truly worthy of glory and honor. We really need to meditate upon what God says is his motivation for doing this. Let's look at chapter seven, verse two. Why does God reduce the army so significantly? The Lord said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Lest Israel boast over me, saying, my own hand saved me. God has to take us down to 300, this army down to 300. God has to bring it down to a humiliating number. A ridiculous, counterintuitive, completely counterproductive, and in any kind of strategic, rational thought, lest Israel boast over me. This little verse says so much about us. It's kind of like that little verse in John where it says Jesus didn't put his life into the hands of men because he knew it was in their hearts. That little verse says so much about us here. lest they boast over me. God works for our salvation for his glory. The whole purpose in saving us from our sin is that he would then bring us back into a relationship with him so that we would know him, love him, delight in him and enjoy him and quit playing in the filth of sin. But He sees our hearts. He knows our patterns. He knows our hearts and our minds that we would regularly just keep going back to the same old glorying and boasting in ourselves and our sin. Something we can see here is a great theological truth that man is a glory thief. We're glory thieves. We take credit for things that are not ours. We boast of things we have not done. We take credit for things that God gives us as if they're ours. Sins of pride lead to stealing. Let me walk through some of the ways in which we're glory thieves. First, we're glory thieves when we boast of ourselves where God did something. That's why we sing the song, God, you chose me. I did not choose you. but we have nothing to boast about. We did not give God ourselves as if that's a present. No, God gave us himself, that's the present that we boast in. Secondly, we are glory thieves when we take something that God deserves. Our time, our talent, our attention, our love, our worship. When we take what God deserves, and we use it for our own selfish purposes, when we're not stewards, but we pretend we're owners of all the gifts God's given us, we're glory thieves because we're trying to glorify ourself rather than God. Third, we're glory thieves when we want to stand in the light of the glory to get some credit too. Right, we would love God's Shekinah glory to come down, but you know, we might want to stand in it as well, so we're seen within the light. We're glory thieves and we're relying on our own strengths and competence to do what God has for us, forgetting that we actually need God. This is an important warning this morning. This is a key warning as we're going to see pride escalate in this story after God's already warned Gideon of it. Last, the people boast over me. We're called to glorify God alone. We're called to boast in the Lord, not in ourselves. A few questions to consider if you want to think about how you're a glory thief, not if. Are we more concerned with our public perception than our private devotion? Are we more concerned with our public perception than our private devotion? Secondly, do we hide our sin so that others think more of us instead of making it clear where God's grace abounds, where our sin abounds? Do we actually confess sin to make God's grace abundant or do we try to hide our sin so that people think more of us? Third, are we rejoicing Or jealous when we see God blessing and using others? Do we rejoice or do we get jealous when God blesses and uses others? Fourth, are we willing to work for the glory of God even when it's inconvenient or too hard? Are we seeking the glory of our own thing or are we seeking to glorify God in the way He calls us? Chapter seven, verse two is worth more meditation. But let's continue on our story. God reduces that number down to 300 versus 130,000. And then we see our next point. God provides the victory. We've had a testing. And they had to be tested so that God would receive the glory and that Israel would know he saved them lest they boast over him. So God then gives these instructions for battle that He would go even beyond reason from the number of warriors. He gives instruction. Now, what I also appreciate this passage is Gideon is our key judge. God knows him, God is leading him. God already steps in front of where Gideon's probably going to go next. All right, Gideon, I'm gonna go give you a sign. You don't even have to ask for it this time. Let me be in charge of it. All right, you take your friend down if you're afraid, and I want you to go sit next to the camp, and I'm gonna let you overhear this discussion. Let's go back to verse 13. When Gideon came, behold, a man, this is in the enemy camp, he was telling a dream to his comrade, and he said, behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread and tumbled in the camp of Midian, and they came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so the tent lay flat. And we have an interpretation of that dream, verse 14. This is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. God provided this for Gideon so that he would follow him faithfully. As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he responds properly. He worships. Praise be to God, for he will give us victory. And then he becomes a leader, a rise for the Lord has given the host of many into your hand. And then the battle strategy. 300 men, get some trumpets, get some torches, go to the cramp, blow those trumpets, and God will give you victory. Just so you know, it's God who saves you. He puts the camp in an uproar. Each sword is ever against each man. And God gives this amazing defeat. We see here Gideon being a faithful man and a faithful leader. He trusts God. He obeys God. That's it. His faith has been built up. The enemy is defeated. Then we come to our third heading. Gideon deals with contention. So we go back, Gideon's this guy in a wine press. God says, mighty men of valor, I'm with you. By your hand I will save Israel. After manipulating God with a meal, God shows him his face, he realizes it, he obeys, and God wants Then he has a fleece, puts a fleece out saying, I want to be able to trust you. God gives this incredible defeat or this incredible victory. 300 men with trumpets defeats an army of 132,000. And this is what happens next. Chapter eight. We see four specific instances that demonstrates the leader Gideon will become. First we see the men of Ephraim. Verses one to three. The men of Ephraim said to him after he's called them into the battle afterwards, what is this will you have done to us? Not to call us when you went to fight with Midian. And they accused him fiercely. They were angry. Why didn't you call us out to begin with? And we see here some diplomatic skill of Gideon. He puts them at rest. What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of grapes in Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezar? God has given into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you? Oh, great Ephraim. He's winning with flattery. But he puts them at ease. Okay, that doesn't seem to be the best way to lead the people, but here we see a man just trying to settle down some uproar, and he does so successfully. We continue. The second contention, the first contention was the Ephraimites. The second contention is the elders of Sukkoth, and that is chapter eight, four to seven. And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over. He and the 300 men who were with him, they're exhausted. Suckoth, please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me. And they're exhausted. I'm pursuing Ziba and Zalmanu, the kings of Midian. And the official said, are the hands of Ziba and Zalmanu already in your hand that we should give them to you? So Gideon said, well then, when the Lord has given Ziba and Zalmanah into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. Go down to verse 13 to 16. We see here that Gideon goes and he kidnaps a young man, takes him, says, give him the name of the elders, and he fulfills his promise. He takes briars. He lashes them. He spanks them. He teaches them a lesson is what it says. Okay, let's go to the third contention. The men of Pinuel at chapter 8 verses 9 to 12. Verses 8 to 12. And from there he went up to Pinuel and spoke to them in the same way. And the men of Pinuel answered him and said, When I come again, said the same thing, and he said to the men of Penuel, when I come again in peace, I will break down this tower. We drop down to verse 17. He broke down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city. Penuel was inhabited by Israelites. He's killing now his own kinsmen because they would not give him bread to eat. All right, finally, we look at verses 18 to 21. Then he said to Ziba and Zalmanuim, where are the men whom you killed at Tabor? Okay, this is kind of new information. They answered, as you are, so were they. Every one of them resembled the son of a king. And he said, they were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you. You notice here, there's not a national, there's not a love for the nation of Israel. There's not a love of God motivating him here. What is it? Vengeance. You killed my brothers. Now I will kill you. So he said to Jether, his firstborn, Rise and kill them. But the young man did not draw his sword, for he was afraid. Because he was still a young man, then Zima and Zalmanah said, rise yourself and fall upon us. For as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon rose and killed them. He took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels. I want you to see, God has called this man, equipped this man, empowered this man, given this man a great victory, and now in these different contentions, they escalate getting worse. We see no reference to God whatsoever. We see no asking God, how would you like me to deal with the elders, or the men of Penuel, or how should I bring about victory over these men? God is startlingly absent in the midst of Gideon's rage. He's gone from a man who has been seeking to follow God by faith to a man who seems to be executing his own vindictive, evil sense of justice. So warning. Pride. comes when we think we are actually doing something on our own. This is the whole point of what God has done, to save Israel in such a way that Gideon would not boast, but we see here, he seems to be going about his own business in his own way. It seems that Gideon is actually still doing what is right in his own eyes. Then, as the chapter ends, beginning of verse 22, Our last heading, Gideon leads Israel. Gideon leads Israel. Notice that after this great victory, along with some pretty sad representations of what his leadership looks like in the lashing of elders with briars and killing men of a city, the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also. For you have saved us from the hand of Midian. Now we don't hear specifically be our king, but the idea here of rule is a royal rule. Well, we have Israel wanting to have a king, but what kind of king and why? Now the most significant thing that we can see in this statement is Because you, Gideon, saved us. Save is a key word throughout the Gideon story. It's used seven times. The one I want us to look back to is chapter 7, verse 2. I'm bringing the army down to 300 people lest you boast and say, we saved ourselves! They still do it. They still remain stubborn. As God said in Judges 2.19, they still remain stubborn. They refuse to acknowledge Yahweh. They refuse to incline their hearts to worship the one who actually saves them. Instead, they look to this vicious king. They give him credit for what God has done. They're not boasting in Yahweh. Now the key here is how does Gideon respond? How is he supposed to lead Israel after he's the one who received the warning, lest they boast and say they saved themselves? Verse 23. Gideon said to them, notice their statement to him is threefold. Rule over us, your children, you saved us. Gideon responds with a threefold response. I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you. That sounds pious. It sounds good. It partially is good. He's refusing to take on that particular role of king. He does say God should rule over you, but notice what is lacking. Giving God credit for the salvation. He does not correct the wrong theology of salvation. He does not correct that statement, you saved us. He needed to step back and not be a glory thief. He lets the credit fall on him. He needed to say no, the Lord your God has saved you. Worship him alone. Boast in him alone. Gideon goes beyond not just giving God the proper credit. he actually starts acting like a king. First, we say he's taken the royal emblems. Remember, it mentions that at the end of chapter eight. He's taken the royal crescent ornaments from the necks of the camels. He's taken the symbols of kingship from the other kings he's conquered. Secondly, you'll see next, and Gideon said to them, let me make a request of you. Give me the earrings from your spoils, for they all had golden earrings, for they were Ishmaelites. 132,000 rings of gold. He's taking his share of a loot, like a king would. Notice next, and they answered, we're willing to give these to you. And they spread a cloak, and every man threw in the earrings, and a spoil, and the weight of the gold earrings that he requested, with 700 shekels of gold, beside the crescent ornaments, and the pendant, and the public garments worn by the kings of Midian, and beside the collars that were around the necks of their camels. So he's received quite a bit of gold. Third thing he does is he sets up his own city as the new capital. And can he make an ephod out of it and put it in a city? Ophrah. There he set up his own, not just a city as his capital, but the fourth thing, and the worst thing he does, he institutionalizes his own cult with this ephod that all of Israel whore after. We need to focus here. We oftentimes want to make sure that we think of Gideon. We often think of Gideon the fleece, but that's not his lasting legacy. The ephod is. This other religious garment. And I don't want us to lose this. The Lord clothed Gideon with the spirit of God to do God's will, and here we end with Gideon and his ephod, which is a piece of clothing leading God's people away from him. It's a religious garment. It's normally worn by a priest. God did design an ephod in the law. The priest would wear a garment, it would have 12 stones on it, and it would represent the 12 tribes of Israel, to make it very clear that when this man would go in and provide that sacrifice, he is representing all those people to God. It was a great way of symbolizing what's taking place there. That is not what Gideon creates. He has instituted his own kind of religion. Kind of like Constantine, or the Roman Empire. He all of a sudden decided, all right, the Roman nation, the Roman Empire, we're gonna have a new religion. He changes the religion here. Gideon, the same way as the king, declares what religious practices will be under his rule. Now he says Yahweh will rule over you, but the religious practice that he imposes leads God's people away from God's rule. The evah outside of Israelite was usually a garment worn by a priest. Sometimes they would actually put it on the carved image, and the people would go to this garment, and the idea was it was a source of divination. The people would go to that garment, and the people would go to the person wearing the garment, or the God wearing that garment, and they would want to know the secrets of heaven. They would want to know what does the future hold. They would want to know what kinds of things are going to happen. This is the great irony. What we call Gideon's Fleece is more like what we practice with the ephod. Right, we use the word fleece, but what we're really doing is saying, God, will you show me the future so I know what decisions to make? We practice more like what the ephod's doing here than what we call the fleece. Galatians 20 refers to the ephod. If a person turns to mediums and spirits whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among the peoples. Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. The whole idea of wanting to go and get more information that God has said is divination. It's demonic. Seeking some kind of supernatural way of knowing more than God has said. Verse 27, Israel whored after it. They were unfaithful to Yahweh. Now at best, what's actually happening here is they're still using the name Yahweh, they just have this ungodly practice of pursuing Yahweh. At best, they're approaching the right God, but in the wrong way, which is still not faithful worship. This is a warning. God helped Gideon. God used Gideon. And when people started boasting in Gideon, Gideon did not correct them. Gideon did not give God the glory. This is not unlike what we do. We cry out to God, we pray to God, we ask God for help, but then when God helps us and things are normal, we go right back to the way we were. This is terrifying. When we think about this word whoring, it's a very intentional word. It's not a pretty word. When someone whores, they're pursuing unfaithfulness. They're pursuing things with a lust rather than a faithfulness. God has called Israel, God has called His people to be in a covenant faithful relationship so that He can show us His love, so that we can know His love and grow to love Him. It's an exclusive relationship. Because people, they always like to figure out how they can still play the field. They want to keep their options open. They want to have an open relationship with God, whereas He's trying to seek to have a specific, exclusive, loving relationship with Him. I want to say something from the New Testament. God shows us His great, exclusive, powerful love. It's unquestionable. God the Father did not withhold His own Son. God the Son did not withhold himself. God gave himself over, giving his life for our sin. That is the great gift. And he did this without us asking for it. We're so lost, we can never even imagine what we need. We would never imagine how bad our sin is, but God does this on his own initiative. He so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. Jesus Christ so loved his church that he laid down his life for them. He so loved his bride, he purchased her with his own blood. God loves us. So that we might love him. Idolatry means that we continue to go after other gods or want to worship God in our way and only our way. Faithful worship means that we submit to what God has said and what he does. Notice it also says this was a snare. That's the scary thing about sin is it promises freedom but it only enslaves you. It's a snare, it's a trap. It captures you. This is the lasting legacy of Gideon. Yes, he was a man of faith. Yes, God used him mightily. Yes, he trusted God, but here we see his lasting legacy is leading Israel to whore after not God. I wanna think about two takeaways. First, trust. Key word here is trust. What God asked of us is to receive his word, receive him by faith. That is one of the most difficult things to do for us. Because this is what God does. He says, you have to receive the greatest gift ever given and receive it without thinking you've deserved it or you have something to pay for it. It's the most humbling of activities to receive the gift of God, which is himself. To realize we don't deserve it. Getting, if anything, demonstrates how hard it is for us to trust. You know, a lot of people have a difficult to trust because they're cynical, or because they've been betrayed, or just because we're so proud. To receive God means to humbly accept what He has to say, to value what He values, to do what He says. He's not to be tested. He's to be trusted. Brothers and sisters, trust. In Christ, we are forgiven. Guiltless, full of sin, but counted not guilty because of the powerful blood of Jesus Christ. We need to trust we're free. We're no longer slaves to sin. We can set aside that pride. We can trust God and walk with him and learn how free he makes us. Trust that Jesus is our King. He's not a tyrant like Gideon or like any of us. He is a good and merciful king that only gives to his people what is good for them. I met a Christian this morning. Trust God. He's the only one trustworthy. Trust God. He is the only one who's going to keep his word, and what he has said is that we are sinners in need of his salvation. We need to be forgiven. He has sent His Son to die so that we can be forgiven. We need new life. He sent His Son who rose again so that we can have His life. He is going to send His Son again, and He will judge the quick and the dead. And if we stand in our own sin, we are condemned and will face an eternity of wrath. Unless you believe in Jesus Christ, who will stand in your place and say, Father, I have purchased this one for myself, free. They're forgiven. You must believe in Jesus. The second word I want us to focus on is boast. What do we make much of in our life? Ourself or Christ? And it may be, you know, I do make much of Christ, but it's constantly wanting to kind of stand in the spotlight along with Christ, make sure people know how great we are making much of Christ. What we boast in tells us what we truly think is great. I'm gonna leave you with two passages. Ephesians two, verse nine. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And then 1 Corinthians 1 28. God chose what is low and despised the world even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God and Because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God righteousness and sanctification or redemption So that it is written Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord Let us take a moment and reflect before we sing the song, consecrating our lives to Christ. Let us reflect where our boast in and repent so that we might boast in the Lord alone.