God's Grand Vision: God's grand vision for change

Speaker: Darien Khlentzos

Date: 22nd May 2011

00:00:01 --> 00:00:08 Good evening everyone. I'd really like to just take this opportunity to thank everyone so much
00:00:08 --> 00:00:16 for the support that you have all given us. You've made us feel very loved and accepted and yeah we
00:00:16 --> 00:00:21 don't take that for granted. A couple of weeks ago we had a commissioning service here and the church
00:00:21 --> 00:00:29 laid hands on us to send us as missionaries to Africa, as missionaries with the gospel to take
00:00:29 --> 00:00:34 to the nations of Africa and it is a noble and high calling and we don't take that lightly so
00:00:34 --> 00:00:41 we covet your prayers, we need your prayers so that we can be found worthy of such a task. We
00:00:41 --> 00:00:46 aren't of ourselves clearly and it's something that God has got to do continually for us so
00:00:46 --> 00:00:52 we just really ask that you will pray for us, keep us in your prayers and thank you so much for
00:00:52 --> 00:00:58 making us feel loved and encouraged since we've been here. I return to South Africa on Thursday
00:00:58 --> 00:01:05 and Vanessa will return on Monday week. So God bless you all, let's pray.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:18 Father as we again open this grand vision in the book of Isaiah we just come before you and ask
00:01:18 --> 00:01:25 Lord that your spirit will be amongst us now. Father I ask that Christ will speak through me
00:01:25 --> 00:01:35 as a vessel just so Lord that we can go into the new week encouraged, revived and assured of who we
00:01:35 --> 00:01:45 are in Christ and our certainty of hope in the future. Amen. Now we continue in the series of Isaiah and
00:01:45 --> 00:01:53 this week we're looking at Isaiah chapter 61 and it's a grand vision in the book of Isaiah. It's a
00:01:53 --> 00:02:02 grand vision which spans a huge part of history and although Isaiah prefixes it by saying the vision
00:02:02 --> 00:02:11 concerning Judah and Jerusalem as Andy has just read out in Isaiah 60 for example but all the way
00:02:11 --> 00:02:18 through Isaiah we are getting insights into not just the country that the people of God are living in,
00:02:18 --> 00:02:25 the nation, the kingdom that the people of God are living in and the city of Jerusalem but into the
00:02:25 --> 00:02:33 eternal kingdom of God and the city of the new Jerusalem and the new Zion and what a wonderful
00:02:33 --> 00:02:42 verse that Andy read out there about the glory of the Lord coming upon Zion and the glory of the Lord
00:02:42 --> 00:02:50 shining on Zion and the nations will stream in with their riches and that is where the Lord is taking
00:02:50 --> 00:02:58 his people but as we go through the vision of Isaiah we see really clearly that there are continually
00:02:58 --> 00:03:09 recurrent themes, the themes of God's people, the sin of God's people. We see the idolatry that these
00:03:09 --> 00:03:15 people, God's people, they had made political alliances with the nations surrounding them
00:03:15 --> 00:03:23 and in making those political alliances they started to take on the worship of the false gods that these
00:03:23 --> 00:03:31 nations worshipped and so when we come to the book of Isaiah we see it throughout the book Israel is
00:03:31 --> 00:03:38 taken into captivity by Assyria, by the king of Assyria and the northern kingdom Israel will never rise again
00:03:38 --> 00:03:47 and although Hezekiah has a victory over king Sennacherib of Assyria when he lays siege to Jerusalem
00:03:47 --> 00:03:56 and 185 soldiers are found dead the next morning, Assyrian soldiers, nonetheless within a hundred years
00:03:56 --> 00:04:03 of this vision Judah too would be taken off into captivity by king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
00:04:03 --> 00:04:13 and these are the people of God, the people that God, His treasured possession, that God had brought
00:04:13 --> 00:04:21 out of captivity. He had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out of the
00:04:21 --> 00:04:27 land of slavery and He had said to them, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:36 house of bondage, out of that land of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. He was the one
00:04:36 --> 00:04:44 who brought them out, how could they have other gods above Him when in His love He had rescued them
00:04:44 --> 00:04:50 from that slavery, from that captivity. He said you shall not make for yourself an image of anything in
00:04:50 --> 00:04:56 the heavens above on the earth or in the seas below and you shall not bow down to them for I the Lord your
00:04:56 --> 00:05:01 God am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the Father to the third and fourth generation of those
00:05:01 --> 00:05:07 who hate me but for those who love me and keep my commandments showing steadfast love for thousands
00:05:07 --> 00:05:16 of generations. Here was the people of God who had been freed from captivity, freed from slavery
00:05:16 --> 00:05:23 so much so that the Lord had parted the Red Sea for them to ensure their freedom.
00:05:23 --> 00:05:31 He had parted the Red Sea for them to walk down the middle to bring them out of captivity and now as
00:05:31 --> 00:05:39 a result of His judgment upon them in their idolatry and their sin they had been taken back into captivity.
00:05:40 --> 00:05:49 But it was not just external bondage that the problem was with the people of Israel and the people
00:05:49 --> 00:06:00 of Judah. You see as with us the people of God back then were born into Adam, they were born into sin.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:10 It says that when one man sinned, sin entered the world and death through sin and all died because all have
00:06:10 --> 00:06:17 sinned. And so we are born into sin. That's what it is to be a human being.
00:06:19 --> 00:06:24 And rather than the law being something beautiful to most of them, what it did was it successfully
00:06:24 --> 00:06:32 showed them that they were sinners. As they tried to obey the law, as they tried to do this and tried
00:06:32 --> 00:06:39 hard not to do that, what it did was it actually showed them that they failed every time and that
00:06:39 --> 00:06:47 the law, this standard was not able to be achieved. How many of us here tonight
00:06:48 --> 00:06:55 are burdened because we have come in and we try really hard to do good, try really hard not to do bad,
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 but it just seems like we continually end up in that same place.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:10 You see through the law comes the knowledge of sin. And just like God's people, we have that same
00:07:10 --> 00:07:18 problem if we try and uphold and try and be righteous that law way. And now the people of God, they weren't
00:07:18 --> 00:07:25 just captive because of this, but they were, they were, it says that all his lifetime, man is subject
00:07:25 --> 00:07:32 to bondage through fear of death. They were enslaved because it works that as we know that we don't live
00:07:32 --> 00:07:39 up to the law's demands. And as we know that every time we break that law of God in our conscience,
00:07:40 --> 00:07:47 our conscience tells us our sin demands judgment. And we know that one day we are going to die.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:53 And when we die, everyone knows that they are going to be confronted with a holy God.
00:07:54 --> 00:08:01 People might say they're atheists. But in Romans chapter one, it says, what can be known about God
00:08:01 --> 00:08:08 is plain to them. For ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his divine nature
00:08:08 --> 00:08:15 can be clearly seen through the things that God has made. So men are without excuse.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:22 People won't have an excuse and won't be able to say, oh, I didn't know. Because what Romans says
00:08:22 --> 00:08:29 is that everyone knows just through the creation that there is a God. And people might exchange that
00:08:29 --> 00:08:34 truth and say, oh no, I believe in science or, or yeah, but that works for you. But what works for me
00:08:34 --> 00:08:42 works for me. But all these things are just very clever lies to exchange the truth for, to stop us
00:08:42 --> 00:08:48 having to repent before a holy God. But it says that mankind through all their lifetime are held in
00:08:48 --> 00:08:54 a subject to bondage through fear of death. And that fear of death comes because in our conscience,
00:08:54 --> 00:09:00 we know when we die, we face the holy God and that that judgment is going to come.
00:09:00 --> 00:09:08 That's what it is to be a human being. That's what it is to be born into Adam, to be born into the realm
00:09:08 --> 00:09:17 of sin. But God in his mercy, these people weren't just slaves to that. They were also slaves to all
00:09:17 --> 00:09:23 sorts of sinful habits. They were caught up in their guilt. They were caught up in idolatry,
00:09:23 --> 00:09:30 the worship of false gods. And they were slaves to these things, slaves to darkness, principalities
00:09:30 --> 00:09:35 and powers ruling over them and governing them and holding them in that darkness.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:47 In 1 John, it says the whole world lies in the evil one. The whole world lies in the evil one.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:56 So that is the state of God's people back then. And God in his mercy, he had a day and he called
00:09:56 --> 00:10:04 this day, he called it the day of atonement. And on this day, people would fast and people would
00:10:04 --> 00:10:09 sometimes put on sackcloth, they'd sometimes sprinkle ashes on their head and they would come
00:10:09 --> 00:10:15 to the temple and they would beat their breast and they would confess their sins, a little bit like in
00:10:15 --> 00:10:21 the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. And they would confess their sins and they would
00:10:21 --> 00:10:26 also confess the sins of their people. And after they had done that, while they were doing that,
00:10:26 --> 00:10:32 there would be sacrifices going on and they would be sacrificing rams and goats and bulls.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:38 And as they sacrificed these things, they would come away with a sense that their sins had been
00:10:38 --> 00:10:44 atoned for. But year after year after year, they had to keep coming back and going through that day
00:10:44 --> 00:10:52 of atonement. They could never have that certainty that they would definitely be going to heaven.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:59 What if I die before the day of atonement? What if I've sinned and I haven't made it to the day of
00:10:59 --> 00:11:06 atonement? All these doubts would be in their head and so they would come before God in the temple and
00:11:06 --> 00:11:13 they would be mourning and they would be wearing sackcloth, sprinkling ashes on their head. And so when we
00:11:13 --> 00:11:20 have this idea of the day of atonement, we can start to understand what is going on here in Isaiah 61
00:11:20 --> 00:11:30 a little bit more clearly. And every seven years, God had declared what was known as a Sabbath year.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:37 And in the Sabbath year, people, his people were not allowed to prune their vines and they were not
00:11:37 --> 00:11:44 allowed to sow their crops. And it was a year that the land would have rest and it was every seven
00:11:44 --> 00:11:53 years. And the Lord decreed that after seven of these Sabbath years, so 49 years, on the 50th year,
00:11:53 --> 00:11:59 on the day of atonement, there would be the beginning of a new year which would be called
00:11:59 --> 00:12:07 the year of Jubilee. And what a fantastic year this was, what a gracious God he was to put this in,
00:12:07 --> 00:12:14 to institute this wonderful thing. Because the year of Jubilee was a year where if you had had to sell
00:12:14 --> 00:12:21 your family home because you were in debt or you were impoverished, well, you would get it back.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:29 On the day that began the year of Jubilee, you would receive your property back. And people would
00:12:29 --> 00:12:38 go back to their family homes and to their clans. And if you owed money because you were poor and you
00:12:38 --> 00:12:44 had managed to get yourself in debt to people, your debts would be completely cancelled on this year of
00:12:44 --> 00:12:50 Jubilee. What a wonderful thing. It's a pity we don't have that here in Australia. I think it'd be
00:12:50 --> 00:12:55 a wonderful thing to have. But what it did was it brought an equality in the society. But the
00:12:55 --> 00:13:00 greatest thing about the year of Jubilee was that on that day of atonement, on the 10th day of the
00:13:00 --> 00:13:07 seventh month, they would sound the ram's horn and they would proclaim liberty, freedom.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:17 And so when we see this passage here today, Jesus is proclaiming the acceptable year of our Lord.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:23 This is a, let me actually read Luke chapter four because we didn't read that. So I'm assuming,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:30 I'm assuming we know it's Jesus at the other services. We read that. Luke chapter four,
00:13:30 --> 00:13:36 verses 16 to 21. He went to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And on the Sabbath day,
00:13:36 --> 00:13:42 he went into the synagogue as was his custom. And he stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah
00:13:42 --> 00:13:48 was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, the spirit of the Lord is on
00:13:48 --> 00:13:54 me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for
00:13:54 --> 00:14:00 the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year
00:14:00 --> 00:14:07 of the Lord's favor. This year that he was proclaiming was not just one of the years of Jubilee.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:14 This was the year of Jubilee. And it was a period of time that would start when Christ appeared and
00:14:14 --> 00:14:21 would finish when Christ came back again. That is the acceptable time of the Lord's favor. And it is a
00:14:21 --> 00:14:29 time where Christ is saying, you are free. And he doesn't just proclaim freedom, but he forges,
00:14:29 --> 00:14:37 he secures that freedom for us through his blood, through his flesh. He takes us up into himself on that
00:14:37 --> 00:14:47 cross and he crucifies us with him so that all the demands of that law of God are fully met as he hangs
00:14:47 --> 00:14:55 upon that cross and he takes them down into the grave. And we die with him and are raised with him as we
00:14:55 --> 00:15:03 repent and we have faith that it is so. And so Christ in doing that, he proclaims to us freedom.
00:15:03 --> 00:15:13 You are free. And this was a proclamation that at the time of the captivity of the people from Judah,
00:15:14 --> 00:15:21 it would have been a wonderful vision to have this scroll of Isaiah there when they were finally let
00:15:21 --> 00:15:26 back out into there to go back home to rebuild Jerusalem. And so this has a little bit of a
00:15:26 --> 00:15:31 double-edged sword here. To us, we can look back through history and we can see that this is
00:15:31 --> 00:15:38 prophesying to the day of Jesus and that these words were Isaiah speaking the words of Christ in advance,
00:15:39 --> 00:15:47 the one who would not only proclaim the day, the year of Jubilee, but he would bring forward the day of
00:15:47 --> 00:15:55 atonement. Not just another day of atonement where year after year the people would have to come back
00:15:55 --> 00:16:02 and again and again make the same sacrifices, but this was the day of atonement. The day which would say
00:16:02 --> 00:16:10 your sins are forgiven, you are washed clean, you are righteous before the living God because that is what
00:16:10 --> 00:16:23 I have done for you. And that's why Isaiah says here, that's why he says, and Jesus says, I will
00:16:23 --> 00:16:34 to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for
00:16:34 --> 00:16:39 those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness
00:16:39 --> 00:16:46 instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. You see, the people of God on
00:16:46 --> 00:16:55 the day of atonement, they had no certainty. They had no guarantee that they were ever going to heaven.
00:16:56 --> 00:17:01 They didn't know what would happen, whether they would commit all sorts of sins before the next day of
00:17:01 --> 00:17:11 atonement. But we have been given this state of righteousness, this state of salvation, this
00:17:11 --> 00:17:18 garment of salvation that Christ has given to us in his faithfulness, that the Father has given to us
00:17:18 --> 00:17:25 through the death and resurrection of his Son, so that we can have that joy because we have that certainty.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:31 We don't have to sprinkle ashes on our head. We don't have to sit in sackcloth. We have to have a
00:17:31 --> 00:17:37 contrite heart and a humble spirit, is a spirit that the Lord loves. But we don't have to have that
00:17:37 --> 00:17:46 uncertainty that the people of God had back then. You are free. Now the devil will try and convince you
00:17:46 --> 00:17:52 that you're not. He will do everything to try and convince your conscience that you still owe the law
00:17:52 --> 00:18:03 something. You see, the beauty is now, we don't need to sort of say, I ought to do this and I ought not to do
00:18:03 --> 00:18:08 that. I ought to do this and I ought not to do that. We don't need to do that anymore because we have been
00:18:08 --> 00:18:16 made completely right in regards to God's holy law. And so now when we look at the law, we can look at that
00:18:16 --> 00:18:23 law from a righteous standing and we can say, this law here, this is the law of liberty. This is the law
00:18:23 --> 00:18:31 of the Spirit of God. This is the law which shows us a wonderful, loving, holy way of life.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:40 It doesn't have to sit over us anymore. I ought to do this and I ought not to do that. I don't know how
00:18:40 --> 00:18:45 many times I get to the end of the day and I think, why did I do that? Why did I say that?
00:18:45 --> 00:18:50 You know, I mean, I ought not to do this, I ought not to do that. There are these funny signs you see
00:18:50 --> 00:18:55 on the street which they have a red circle around them and they have a number in the middle
00:18:55 --> 00:19:02 and it always seems that I always think for some reason I should just go a little bit faster.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:06 Just a little bit, just enough because I can get away with this much.
00:19:06 --> 00:19:16 That's how our sinful minds work when it comes to law. We are always trying to dodge around it,
00:19:16 --> 00:19:22 what can I get away with? But that's not it at all. What Christ has done is he has made us
00:19:22 --> 00:19:30 eternally right with the Father. He has secured for us that glorious inheritance in Zion, that double
00:19:30 --> 00:19:35 portion because he is the firstborn, the firstborn among many brethren.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:42 And we are in the firstborn, so we will receive our inheritance. It is guaranteed.
00:19:46 --> 00:19:51 Guaranteed. It says here at the beginning, it says, not the spirit of the Lord, but the spirit of the
00:19:51 --> 00:19:57 sovereign Lord. And when it talks about the sovereign Lord throughout the vision of Isaiah,
00:19:57 --> 00:20:06 it is talking about the Lord who has the authority, who has the sovereignty, who has the authority over
00:20:06 --> 00:20:13 all the peoples of the earth, who has the authority over all the creation and all the universe. And he
00:20:13 --> 00:20:20 has the authority over all our lives and over all the events that take place in history.
00:20:20 --> 00:20:27 So much so that when it says the sovereign Lord, it is saying the Lord who has the authority to make
00:20:27 --> 00:20:36 sure that it will take place. It always uses the term sovereign Lord when it's talking about something
00:20:36 --> 00:20:37 that's going to happen.
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 You see, we have a wonderful gospel,
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 incredible gospel. We have the meaning of life.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:54 We have that meaning. The whole world is looking for that meaning.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 The whole world who lies in the evil one is looking for that meaning.
00:20:58 --> 00:21:06 And I don't know about you guys, but I had 12 years of drug addiction. And I tell you,
00:21:06 --> 00:21:12 I know what it is like to be a slave to sinful habits, to be a slave to the darkness,
00:21:13 --> 00:21:17 to be a slave to the devil, to be tangled in your sins and your guilt.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:25 And to be fearing that day of judgment every day of your life, because your conscience is so
00:21:25 --> 00:21:31 disturbed. And because you know, when you face that Holy God, you are going to be judged.
00:21:32 --> 00:21:40 My friends, the good news is in Christ, that judgment has been completely meted out upon Christ
00:21:40 --> 00:21:47 on the cross. Completely. So there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 And that day will reveal to us who we are.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:59 That day will show us and we won't be able to sidestep it. We won't be able to come up with
00:21:59 --> 00:22:06 excuses or lies or that's not fair or that's not right, because it'll all be there in front of us.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:12 That day, the light of that day will show us exactly who each of us is.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:20 But there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. We are saved. Jesus said,
00:22:20 --> 00:22:26 he who believes in me has already entered from death into life. He who believes in me will never
00:22:26 --> 00:22:32 taste death. Others will see you die, but you will never see your death. You'll never experience
00:22:32 --> 00:22:38 death. You will just keep living. He who believes in me has eternal life. It's not something we will
00:22:38 --> 00:22:44 get afterwards. It's something we have already received as we have come to know Christ. As we
00:22:44 --> 00:22:50 are in Christ, we have eternal life. We have been raised with him and seated with Christ in the
00:22:50 --> 00:22:57 heavenly realms. That's where we are. Now we see in part, then we shall see in full.
00:22:57 --> 00:23:08 We see now dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see in full as we are fully known.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:20 And all this wonderful thing that the Lord has done for us is to be to his glory. We are to be his
00:23:20 --> 00:23:27 planting. We are to be oaks of righteousness. And I just love that term, oaks of righteousness.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:32 We have the meaning of life. And in this world where people are up and down and they're going
00:23:32 --> 00:23:38 this way and they believe in this and they believe in that and they're so fickle and they're up and
00:23:38 --> 00:23:45 down, we can be oaks amongst them in integrity, in knowing why we are here, where we are going,
00:23:46 --> 00:23:53 who we believe in, what the truth is. We can stand solid in that truth and people will see us
00:23:53 --> 00:23:57 and they will know we are people who are blessed by the Lord.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 I know that while I was a drug addict, my brother and sister were Christians.
00:24:04 --> 00:24:10 And, you know, a lot of us think that it's, well, it's, you know, it's how morally good we are as to
00:24:10 --> 00:24:14 whether people are going to know whether we're Christians or not. And I think that's, there's a
00:24:14 --> 00:24:20 truth to that because we're reflecting our father in heaven in being pure. He is a holy God.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:27 But what I saw with my brother and my sister, it wasn't that they were just such good people.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:34 That isn't, that isn't how I saw the reality of their faith. What I saw is that their lives had
00:24:34 --> 00:24:40 a hedge around them. They weren't rich. They weren't famous. They didn't live in big homes,
00:24:40 --> 00:24:46 but they had everything they needed. And God had provided good friends, good people around them.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:52 He had provided all their needs. They had jobs. Just every provision they could want,
00:24:53 --> 00:24:59 I could see not how good they were, but I could see God's side of the relationship
00:24:59 --> 00:25:05 in their life. And I could not deny that these were a people blessed by God.
00:25:05 --> 00:25:12 We come to the end of the passage and it says,
00:25:13 --> 00:25:20 for as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the sovereign Lord
00:25:20 --> 00:25:27 will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. You see, we don't have to wear those
00:25:27 --> 00:25:35 garments of sackcloth and despair and mourning because we are righteous before God. And that
00:25:35 --> 00:25:42 should just excite us into action. That should make us want to tell others and proclaim to others,
00:25:43 --> 00:25:51 freedom, you are free. Christ has freed you. Repent of your sins and turn to him because he is Lord
00:25:51 --> 00:26:01 over the whole creation. So when we are aware of our righteousness before God, it will spring
00:26:01 --> 00:26:10 forth in praise and in a life which should scream out all the time, living for the glory of God and
00:26:10 --> 00:26:17 should scream out, thank you, Father, for what you have done for me, for taking away the penalty of sin,
00:26:17 --> 00:26:23 for freeing me from my guilt and from freeing me from the world and what is coming on the world,
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 the judgment that is coming on the world.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:33 Righteousness will spring forth in praise because when we know we are righteous,
00:26:33 --> 00:26:37 we will not be able to do anything but praise God. I'm telling you, in heaven,
00:26:37 --> 00:26:43 when you see those visions in revelation of the saints standing around the throne and they are singing
00:26:43 --> 00:26:49 to God night and day, they are singing to God and praising his name, it is not something they have
00:26:49 --> 00:26:55 to do which is a boring thing they have to do. It is something they cannot help doing. It is just
00:26:55 --> 00:27:03 pouring out of them. They can't but praise him for what he has done. And I'm telling you, when we get to
00:27:03 --> 00:27:10 heaven, when we get to that new Zion, that glorious new Jerusalem where there is no more crying and no more
00:27:10 --> 00:27:17 pain, where God will wipe away every tear from every eye, all we will be able to do is praise the
00:27:17 --> 00:27:26 God who called us and made us righteous so we could be there. Holiness is a beautiful thing and we are
00:27:26 --> 00:27:33 going to see one day what true, pure holiness is like when we come to the new heavens and the new earth.
00:27:33 --> 00:27:40 We can't even imagine that because in our minds is always sinful thoughts, sinful inclinations.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:50 But that day we won't be able to sin even if we wanted to. It'll be outside of our mind altogether.
00:27:50 --> 00:28:01 We have a wonderful gospel to tell the world. Let's go and proclaim the year of the Lord's
00:28:01 --> 00:28:07 favour while it is still the year of the Lord's favour and before the day of vengeance comes. Let's pray.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:20 Father, we just want to praise you that you are just such a wonderful and faithful God. We have not
00:28:20 --> 00:28:28 deserved your grace. We have not deserved the sacrifice that your son poured out upon that cross,
00:28:28 --> 00:28:35 taking the things we have done wrong upon himself, taking us into himself, taking the judgment for our
00:28:35 --> 00:28:41 sin into himself. Lord, we have not deserved any of that, Lord, but you gave that to us to show us
00:28:41 --> 00:28:48 just how much you love us. Father, as we go into this new week, let us be reminded of that great
00:28:48 --> 00:28:55 love you have for us, Father, so that then from that we can love our neighbour as we would love ourselves.
00:28:55 --> 00:29:03 Father, let us be conduits of that love to everyone we come across. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.