The Glory of God's Kingdom

well-deserved rest. And we get to hear God's word proclaimed by other godly men. Please be seated.

Sorry. We're pleased to have one of those men with us this morning. Steve Kamer is an elder

at Grace and Peace here in Colorado Springs. He's a Colorado native raised right here.

He and his wife Kendra have three boys, Owen, Tao, and Kai. I think I got that right.

He loves spending time with his family outdoors. And one of his two favorite quotes is,

and I may get this right, nachos. It's amazing what you can discover about folks online. So, Steve.

I don't know where he found that online, but I guess he did. When you didn't send that in and

someone says one of his favorite quotes, you pay attention. It is good to be with you this morning.

I'm going to open with our passage. Do you normally stand for the passage when we read it? Okay.

I'm going to be reading from Isaiah 65 is our passage this morning. And I'll be reading verses

one through four and then 17 until the end. This is God's word. I was ready to be sought by those

who do not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, here I am,

here I am to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious

people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices, a people who provoke me to my face

continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks, who sit in tombs and spend the

night in secret places, who eat pigs' flesh and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels. For behold,

I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind,

but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy

and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall

be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who

lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days. For the young man shall die a hundred

years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not

plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall

long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity. For they

shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them. Before they call,

I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The

lion eat straw like the ox, and the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for

your word this morning. I thank you for this glorious vision of the kingdom of God, what you have in store

for us. And as we read it, as we dive in and meditate on your word, I pray that you would be seen as our

beautiful Savior this morning. That you would be seen as a beautiful Christ, and that you would be

glorified, and that each of our hearts would be moved to love you and know you more. And we pray this

in your name. Amen. Well, it is good to be with you this morning. It is a joy. Like Jim said, my name

is Steve Kamer. I serve as an elder over at Grace and Peace Church, just actually really not too far

from here, just a little bit north in downtown Colorado Springs. And I also serve as in ministry

as a director with Third Mill or Third Millennium Ministries, where we provide biblical seminary

education to pastors, church planters, and leaders all over the world with seminary education. And with

that, I'm in the seminary loop as well, under care of the presbytery. So I do thank Matthew for the

opportunity to share the word with you this morning. And honestly, I can't imagine a place I'd rather be

than a church that opens with worship with a Christmas song on September 3rd. And that, I mean,

that's not even a joke. I love that song. It's probably my favorite Christmas song. And you've even

saying all the extra verses that you never hear on the radio, that there is joy to the world because

of our King. And as we look at Isaiah chapter 65 this morning, I love this chapter because it's as if

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

the whole book has been building to this point to bring home one last glorious vision of the kingdom

of God. In this chapter, God gives us a vision of himself and his kingdom to motivate us to live for

him and have him at the center of our lives. I'm a big fan of music. Ever since I was a little kid,

I've loved music. I grew up here in town. And when I was little, my parents gave me a little

little transistor radio. It had just one speaker and I would sit in my basement and listen to it

hour after hour after hour because I always had a favorite song. And much like today, if you listen

to the radio, whatever the most popular songs are, they play them over and over and over again, right?

Every hour, almost on the hour. And so I would listen to my favorite song. And I remember one of my very

first favorite songs was I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. And I still,

I still crank that up every time it comes on, but I always had a favorite song. And what I noticed

about my favorite songs is there was something true about every single one of them. In almost every

single one of my favorite songs, there was a portion probably towards the last fourth of the song

where they would repeat the chorus one more time. It's almost as if it'd been building up to this.

And when they repeat that chorus, all of the music, the instrumentation would fade away.

Maybe you'd have the drums and just the voices. And it's kind of that final punch of a song that has

that. And I remember I did a bunch of research. I even went and talked to some composers to figure out

what is this device called in a song when a song does this. And they told me it's called

the breakdown. It's the breakdown. It's the climax of the song as if it's building up to hit that chorus

one more time. Well, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 65 is the breakdown. All else falls away. And Isaiah

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

paints this picture of the kingdom of God one more glorious time. This isn't the first time Isaiah has

referenced or talked about like the full restoration that will be coming when the kingdom of God comes.

He talked about it several times in his book. The whole Old Testament

points to places of prophecy when the kingdom of God would eventually come.

It's peppered throughout all of the Old Testament, even into the New Testament. The whole Bible

is pointing to the ultimate end of the future when God's kingdom comes. The new heavens and the new

earth when everything is restored and made right. You even see it in the prayer we prayed this morning.

The Lord's Prayer, right? That this was what Jesus used to teach his people how to pray. And you see the

kingdom element throughout this prayer as well because you start with our Father. And you get this idea that

God is our Father. This would have blown away the disciples when Jesus taught it to them. They weren't

used to being able to address God as a Father, a loving Father. Even the sense of Daddy, Abba, is in that.

And then you have who art in heaven, which showed him as King, enthroned in the heavens, our glorious,

good, and loving King. So you have King and Father. And then what's the very first petition

in the Lord's Prayer that we prayed this morning? It's,

Hallowed be thy name. I don't know if you've ever paid much attention to what that word means,

Hallowed be thy name. We don't use that word really ever in English.

Often you hear it said like, Holy be thy name. But if it was just holy, the translators could have put just

holy instead of Hallowed. Because Hallowed doesn't make a lot of sense. There's not a great English equivalent

to it, but it means so much more than just holy. It certainly encompasses holy. But Hallowed,

we want God's name to be Hallowed. And in fact, we're praying for it. It's to treat something as

absolutely sacred and ultimate. To make something your ultimate concern. To make it the most important

thing in your life. To make it the most crucial thing. The ultimate thing in your life. The supreme

beauty. And the supreme aim of your life. So when we pray, Hallowed be thy name, we are praying that

God's name, God, would be the most beautiful, central thing in all of our lives. I pray that it's one of

the prayers I pray the most. I pray this for my family and my kids and my wife every day. And those

I pray for, I always throw this in, that God's name would be Hallowed in their lives. That God's

name would be Hallowed in my life. That I would have God at the center. The most ultimate, central

thing. The thing that's most beautiful. And he did this because he needed it. We need it. And as it went

on, what's the next petition? Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which is a

description of God's kingdom. When his kingdom comes, God's will will be done perfectly on the new earth

and new heavens, just as it's done in heaven. And why did Isaiah paint this glorious picture of the kingdom

of God? Why do we have it in the word of God to us today? And it's because we need it. We needed it.

We need it. And Israel needed it. A little bit of a history of Israel. You guys are studying the book

of Judges, right? And last week you discussed, Matthew said it's the last decent judge. From here, it really

does go downhill. And I know he talked about that. Othniel is the judge. And what you see over and over

again, it's kind of a rough book. I love the book of Judges, but it's kind of downhill from here. And you

guys will get to experience that. I'll probably listen to them online because I really love the book

of Judges. But each judge gets worse and worse. And the people of Israel continue to turn their back

on God. They continue to marginalize God. They continue to move away and forsake him and worship

other gods. It happens all throughout the book of Judges. And you see that theme verse in the end of

it where the author says, there is no king in Israel and all the people did what was right in their own

eyes. This theme doesn't exactly end in the book of Judges, unfortunately. And it goes through much of

the history of Israel. We see the time of kings with Israel. And they do have some times that are

beautiful under King David and King Solomon. But they end up in a similar place to where they are

in Judges, forsaking God, forgetting God, and worshiping other gods. And Isaiah is prophesying

in chapter 65 about the Babylonian exile, where the Babylonians had come into the southern tribe of

Judah and carried them off into exile. And they're in exile suffering. And Isaiah is prophesying to them

because he wrote this glorious vision of the kingdom so that they would remember God, so that

they would walk with God, so that they would serve God, so that they would see God as the most central,

beautiful thing in their lives. They needed to hear it. And we need the exact same thing, right?

I think it's hard for us to use a word like forsaking God. You can easily see it in the Old Testament

that the people of Israel did that. But we do it too. It's really easy for us to forsake God as well,

to turn to other things. We might not like bow down physically and worship other gods like the people

of Israel did. But we can find ourselves marginalizing God, pushing him out to the suburbs,

and worshiping something else that we think we need. Often it doesn't just look like a ditching of

our faith and just fully worshiping Buddha or something, but it's often Jesus. We have Jesus.

We know we have Jesus. And what else we think we really need to be happy, to have fulfillment in life,

to have things seem like they're okay. It's Jesus plus something, and then we'll have what we think

we need. And I don't know what that something for you is this morning, but even as we did our corporate

confession of sin, what are some of those things that come into your mind? What is it for you that you

might tend to put up there, that if it's Jesus plus this, maybe it's Jesus and then my job. If I have a good

enough job, things will be okay. If I make enough money, things will be okay. Or Jesus and the people

around me see that I'm valuable and like me. Or maybe it's Jesus and I'm physically fit and can

climb all these mountains behind us, and people will notice that. Or maybe it's Jesus and I'm in

control, and people do what I think they should do. Or Jesus plus I get my way, and people do the

things I want them to do. Or my Jesus plus my kids turn out well. Or Jesus plus I have the perfect

spouse. I mean, I could go on and on and on. What is it for you this morning? I know I do this. I'm not

free from this at all, but I think often it's for me, it's Jesus plus being comfortable. I struggle with

the idol of comfort because whatever that other thing is does become your God. And when you don't have it,

it can be very destructive. And that's how you can see what those things are when they're taken away

from you. How does your heart respond? When I lose my comfort, my heart can respond pretty poorly.

There's four drivers in our family. The two oldest kids drive, and we have like six cars right now

because two of them keep braking before we can get rid of them. And every time I get a call from one of

my children, the car broke and you need to come pick me up. My wife can attest to this. I tank a little

bit. And I'm just like, ah, like we can't go on like this, blah, blah, blah. It's because my comfort

has been disrupted. And you see it right there that I'm responding not with this scene of the King,

Jesus, and God being the most beautiful thing in my life at the center, but that man, if my comfort

gets disrupted, there's going to be heck to pay, right? What is it for you this morning? Because what Isaiah

and God through Isaiah and his word is trying to do is have us have Jesus at the center, have the

glorious King as the most beautiful thing in the world so that we worship him and him alone, so that

we can repent of our sins, so that we can grow. Because to the extent that you understand the glory of

what God has in store for us in his kingdom, when everything gets made right, you will find

yourself growing and loving him more. To the extent that you know who our King is and what he has done

for us, you will find yourself loving him more. And our passage this morning shows us this in three ways.

The first is a vision for God's love. The second is a vision of hope for the future. And the third is a

vision of God's Son. I want to look back at the first few verses we read again. One commentator

said of this, I found it very striking. This is hardly a dignified picture of God when this opens.

This is God saying, I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I was ready to be found by

those who did not seek me. I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name.

I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good.

Following their own devices, kind of just like the end of the book of Judges, a people who provoke me to

my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offspring on bricks. And it just gets worse

from there. But they said it's hardly a dignified picture. It's almost a humiliating picture of God

as he's there with his hands stretched out, waiting for a people who are rebellious, stubborn people who

won't turn to God. But yet, this is God's posture and disposition towards them, longing for them to

come with his arms open, saying, here I am, here I am. That's God's posture towards those who don't know

him. This is a description of not Christians, right? People who don't know the Lord. This is God's posture

towards them. If you're here this morning, and you've never put your faith in Christ, or you haven't trusted

him, and you don't know the Lord Jesus, this is his posture towards you. This might not be what you

usually think his posture is. Normally, I think it's easier to see it like this, you know, arms folded,

tapping his foot, you know, wag it like, you better get things right, or it's all going to be a lot of

trouble for you. I think that's what's often portrayed, but that's not God's posture towards you.

And what about the rest of us here who know the Lord? Each of you know people who don't.

Maybe it's your neighbor across the street who doesn't know Jesus. Maybe it's a co-worker

who doesn't know Jesus. Maybe it's your neighbor who's actually not very nice, and he's mean,

and you don't like him very much. Or maybe it's that co-worker who's a Democrat when you're a Republican,

or a Republican when you're a Democrat, and you fight about it all the time, and you don't really like

them. You find it hard to want to see them come to Christ. But this is his disposition towards them

as well, right? How does your disposition towards them reflect God's? Because this is an opportunity

for us to be involved in God's kingdom work, to be engaged in showing them God's heart towards them,

right? This is an opportunity for us to be engaged with the king in the Great Commission,

to represent him to other people. Or how do you represent God on social media, or on Facebook,

or on Twitter? Is it like this? I mean, I have no idea. I don't know a lot of you, but I know on Twitter

and all the social media that a lot of times we see Christ represented by people who represent him with

arrogance and pride, no gentleness, and a mean spirit. It's not this. Here I am, here I am,

all day long, come to me. But it's an opportunity. As you see God's love for those, does it move your heart,

that vision of it, to have a heart like that as well? Do you feel it moving your heart as you see

God love those around you who don't know him, even those that are hard to love? Secondly, we see in

this passage a hope for the future. A hope for the future. In the Old Testament, as the Israelites were

waiting for the Messiah, there were two main things that happened over and over again that they were

looking for, that they knew that was prophesied that the Messiah would bring. The Israelites didn't

realize that Jesus was going to come and really sort of start and inaugurate the kingdom, but then

there was going to be a big gap that we're living in, and that when Jesus would return a second time,

or come a second time, return, and bring in the full kingdom. But they were looking for these two

blessings. The first was an end to all the evil in the world and all the evil people who had continually

been subjecting the people of Israel to suffering. And the second one was a full ushering in of the

blessings of full restoration. We see it. I didn't read this part in the passage this morning, but it's

still, it's just right after where I stopped. In verse 11 of chapter 65, God says this,

because, you know, the people of Israel had been suffering a lot under foreign powers for many,

many, many hundreds of years. You had the Egyptians, and then you had the Philistines that they were

struggling with, and you get the Assyrians who totally ravaged the northern kingdom. Then you have

the Babylonians, and this is going to go on and on and on into the Persians and the Greeks and the Romans.

Romans, the people of Israel longed for the restoration from the evil governments. They were

subjecting them to slavery and killing them, and just bad after bad after bad. And they knew that Jesus

was going to bring, the Messiah was going to bring justice. So verse 11, but you who forsake the Lord,

who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for destiny,

I will destine you to the sword. And all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because when I called,

you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what

I did not delight in. Here comes, therefore says the Lord God, behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall

grow hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice,

but you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall sing of gladness of heart, but you shall cry out

for pain of heart, and shall wail for breaking of spirit. This is the justice that will come to those

who do evil. This is a description of hell. No, it's not a popular word today, but hell is marked by this

hunger, hunger, thirst, shame, pain of heart, breaking of spirit, and wailing. The enemies of God, this is

where they end up for eternity. And God is bringing this to the people. And I know I just got finished

talking about God's disposition of this to those who don't know him, right? And this could seem like a

little bit of a contradiction, but it's not. This is God's disposition. We had the first few words of

God's word saying it, but there is a caveat. The caveat is this is God's disposition for now. For now.

Because if you pass on or Jesus comes back and you have not turned to those arms,

your chance is over. Not that we would call it a chance. I wouldn't call it a chance.

But you can no longer do so. Right? And that might seem really harsh, but we long for this, right?

We long to see injustice. We long to see justice in the world. Every single one of us, probably

Christian or not. We long to see an end of injustice, genocide, terrorism, trafficking of women and

children. We can identify with the Israelites. And we see that when God comes, when the kingdom comes,

that will be dealt with. God will bring justice. Evil will be abolished.

That first thing that Israelites longed for will happen. And second, they longed for the full

blessings of the kingdom of God to come. And I said it here in verse 17,

for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. This is the first time Isaiah had mentioned this

in the book, in his book. This is the first time he mentioned, even though he'd referenced the coming

kingdom, new heavens and new earth. And many Christians out there think that when we die,

we're going to spend eternity in heaven, spiritually, up in the sky with God face to face. And I think

that would be pretty awesome, but it's not what the Bible teaches. And what the Bible teaches is much,

much better. That we're actually going to spend eternity in a new heavens and a new earth. A fully

restored physical reality with fully restored and new bodies. I create new heavens and new earth.

And man, when you, when you really let that sink in, does it not move your heart to see God is the

most beautiful thing to hallow it, to hallow his name, right? The former things shall not be remembered

or come to mind. The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. About this one commentator

said, and I just loved it. I had to quote it here. About five seconds in to this new world, we'll turn

to one another and we'll say, cancer, terrorism, broken relationships. What were they? Hmm. I can't seem

to remember, but let's go, you know, into this glorious new restored world. But be glad and rejoice forever

in that which I create. For behold, I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of

weeping and the cry of distress. There'll be no more tears in the kingdom. There'll be no more distress.

The things that break your heart. The broken relationships. The people who have died. The hurt

that just comes in being in a broken world and brings tears to your eyes and distress to your heart

will be gone forever. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who

does not fill out his days. For the young man shall die a hundred years old and the sinner a hundred years

old shall be accursed. It's not that there will be death in the kingdom. We know that from all sorts

of other places in scripture. But Isaiah here is using a poetic understatement to get them to understand

the only thing they've ever known is death and hurt will be gone in a way that is even hard for them

to comprehend. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat them.

They shall not build and another inhabit. Other countries aren't going to come over and take your

homes. Other people aren't going to steal from you. They shall plant and they shall not plant and another

eat. People won't steal your food. This speaks to even relational restoration for everyone. And it goes on

and on and on. I encourage you to go home and study the rest. I could talk for way longer than I have

about the rest of Isaiah 65 and how awesome the picture of God's coming kingdom is going to be.

And here's the deal. How is God going to do this? How's God going to do this? In one of the places

earlier in the book of Isaiah that Isaiah is talking about the kingdom, in Isaiah 52 10, he says this,

and I love this image. I've been praying it all week. I've been working it into my life and into my heart.

And it says, as it's talking about the kingdom that's coming, Isaiah says this,

the Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all nations and all the ends of the earth will see

the salvation of our God. The Lord has bared his holy arm. This is an idiom in Hebrew for an idiom

almost exactly like it that we have to roll up our long and loose sleeves, to roll up our sleeves.

Have you ever rolled up your sleeves to do something like you're getting ready to do some hard work?

That's kind of what it meant. And God is rolling up his sleeves to show the strength of his arm to

engage in strenuous hard work. And here's what I can guarantee you. If the all powerful, all good,

all loving God of the universe is rolling up his sleeves to make sure salvation happens and the

kingdom comes, you can be sure it's going to come. There is no question. It's like watching a Rocky

movie when you know he's going to win no matter what, only infinitely greater. It's like watching a movie

where you know because you've seen it before, the good triumphs over evil, but infinitely greater.

God is rolling up his arms. He's rolling up his sleeves to bring salvation in the kingdom into your

life. And can you see that the more we get that, the more that you're able to meditate on that, to trust

that, to let that work its way deeply into the heart, to your heart, the more you'll be able to

hallow God's name, the more you'll be able to see him as our beautiful savior, the more you'll be able

to obey him and walk with him in troubled times because you know what he has done in the future

that he has in store for you. But it gets even better because after having a vision,

of hope for the future, we have a vision of God's son, Jesus, who we also see here. Because it's very

important that you see that without Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection to pay the price for our sins

and give us new life, none of this would be possible. There would be no kingdom coming. There would be no

restoration. There would be no forgiveness of sins. And remember when I said at the beginning,

when you have Isaiah pointing out that, well, God is stretching out his hands, and I said that's almost

a humiliating picture of God's love. We have an even more humiliating picture of God's love

in Philippians chapter 2 verses 7 and 8 when it says of Jesus, he emptied himself by taking the form

Philippians 2:7

of a servant and being born in the likeness of men. He humbled himself, humbled himself by becoming

obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Our passage starts out with God saying that

he held out his hands all day long saying, here I am, here I am, where there's going to be a second

stretching out of hands. Because Jesus on the cross had his hand stretched out and nailed to it.

And there, remember that description of hell I read? The hunger and thirst and shame and pain of heart

and wailing fell on him so that it would never have to fall on you. Several years ago, I guess 15 years

ago, we served with a crew or Campus Crusade for Christ, and we were in Long Beach, California for

the summer, taking college students on a summer mission. It was Father's Day, and we were in our hotel

room that we were living in for the summer, and my middle son, Teo, he was two years old. He's about this

big, and he's walking across the room, headed towards a window that had a little banister of

the window about right here, the same height as his head. And he's walking over it to look out at

the ocean. We're getting ready for church. It's Father's Day. Kendra had made a coffee cake, and on

his way over there, he trips, and he hits his head on the corner right here, right above his eye on the

corner of that windowsill. And he started to cry, and I didn't know how bad it was yet, but as any parent

would, I jumped up, and I got over to him, and I picked him up, and as I turned him around, I saw

that his eye was split all the way open, all the way to the bone. And right away, I told Kendra, I was

like, we got to go to the hospital. And she's like, what? And I was like, look. And she's like, oh. And so

we jumped in the car, and we ran to the emergency room, and I hadn't given much thought to how you give

stitches to a two-year-old, but of course the doctors have. And he needed stitches, and they brought him in,

and there's a special table for a child. Because when you're giving stitches right above the eye,

you need a kid not to move. And this table has a lot of straps on it, and they strap down his legs,

and they strap down his chest, and they strap down his arm, and last, they strap down his head.

And Tail was completely, thankfully, I don't think he remembers this, but he was completely

unable to move. And then comes out the big needle, right? If you've ever had stitches, that big needle

that goes in first to numb it up so they can give you the stitches, and they stuck that right in that

giant hole above his eye. And I remember I was sitting there, I had my hands on the chair, and I

was squeezing it so hard, because what I really wanted to do, even though I knew the doctor was

helping him, was jump over that table and throw him out the window. But there was Tao. He had no idea

what was going on. He was terrified. He was scared, and a strange man had strapped him to a table

and was hurting him. He didn't know it was to make him better. And Kendra and I sat there,

and I had my hand on his leg, and Kendra had his hand, her hand on him, and we're just like,

it's going to be okay. We're comforting. We're walking our two-year-old through this. And I remember

he was okay. If you see him later, he's still got the scar right here. But I remember thinking later,

what is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to Tao in that moment? And I think what the

worst thing was, is if his mother and I would have got up, turned around, and walked out the door,

and been like, you're on your own, Tao. Your comfort's gone. You got to take care of this.

Jesus on the cross had this, but infinitely greater. Jesus, who had had a perfect relationship

from eternity past of intimacy, of this kind of kingdom beauty and intimacy with his father on the

cross as he bore our sins, it's as if God got up, turned around, and walked out of the room and left

him alone. He turned his back on him because he could not be in the face of that sin. And it was

infinite pain. It was the pain of hell and shame. And he did that for us so that the kingdom could come

to us. And here's the result. This is something that you can wonder on and wonder on and think about

and praise and meditate and reflect on and celebrate every day, every moment, every time you come into

church, every time you meet for Sunday school or in a small group Bible study, because doing this

moves it into your heart and brings you to a place where God is at the center and you live for him

and him alone. And it doesn't become Jesus and something else. It's just Jesus. The something else's

will always be there, this side of the kingdom, because we'll always struggle with sin, but it opens

up for you to repent of those sins and grow. And we do that through the word of God. We do that through

prayer. We do that through the means of grace and spiritual disciplines. We do that by being here this

morning. And I hope that I've engaged your imagination towards how awesome God is, how beautiful he is, and how

awesome it is the kingdom that he is bringing to every single one of us who knows him. And we celebrate

that this morning, even as we're going to go into the Lord's Supper, to know he did it for us, to bring

us this kingdom, to show us that he loved us. And as you come up, let yourself believe that. Ask yourself

if you do, because the more that you believe it, the more that you trust it, it will change everything.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I do thank you. Jesus, I thank you for your sacrifice on the cross

so that your kingdom could come, so that your name would be hallowed in a way that we can't even

imagine. And I pray that your name would be hallowed in each and every one of our hearts as we continue

in worship this morning, as we go out of here today to be lights for you, to walk with you, that we would be

encouraged to do so because of the vision of your kingdom that you were given this morning in the

book of Isaiah. And we pray this in your name. Amen.