CBFC Worship Service 3/22/2026

Good morning.

And it really is lovely to be here with you all on a new spring Sunday and to just be reminded of all the wonderful things that God is doing in this church through our worship and prayer and through the service of our elders and others for 30 years.

That's incredible I've never done anything for 30 years.

I just am amazed at the faithfulness of God's people here and the generosity and just the love that is displayed in this community.

So thank you for the encouragement to my heart this morning.

Um and on that bright note, we're gonna talk about sin and how miserable and horrible it is.

So you can find your don't clap for sin, Justin.

Get him out of here, security.

1 Samuel chapter 13, and we're gonna be continuing in our story of 1 Samuel this morning.

1 Samuel 13 · chapter mention

You can begin finding your way to chapter 13.

Some of the most dangerous things in the world are the ones that you can't see, the ones that don't seem dangerous.

Carbon monoxide.

No color, no smell, you don't see it, you don't panic when it's in the room, you just fall asleep, and then you die.

Um a rip current is not uh dramatic and waves crashing about, it's subtle underneath the surface.

It doesn't knock you over when you step in, it just slowly pulls you further and further out on the sea.

Incredibly dangerous, not visibly dangerous.

Sometimes the most dangerous things are the ones that don't feel dangerous on the surface.

I remember a man coming to speak to my high school about how um he had kind of experienced this phenomenon.

He got up and he read from this piece of paper about an incident years earlier when he was driving his car, decided to do something we've never done before, sent a short, quick text.

Just a couple of words, um, I think it was like six words or something like that, and he drifted just slightly into the oncoming traffic of the other lane and collided with another vehicle, um, killing their passengers and bringing serious injury to himself.

He continues to this day to suffer permanent injury, brain damage, so severe he'll never be able to function or or live on his own again.

His brain was so impaired, actually, that he could not remember writing the speech the day prior, and was, in a sense, finding out with us yet again of this tragedy that had been brought about by something so small.

Because it seemed like nothing.

It was a quick text, a moment, a couple of words, and his whole life is flipped upside down.

And innocent people are dead.

Some of the most dangerous things are the ones that seem small.

And it's often those little things that we treat as insignificant, that we treat as small, that have the power to be the most devastating.

And this is the situation that King Saul finds himself in in 1 Samuel 13.

He thinks he's doing something small, something innocent, but he ends up doing something that leads him essentially barreling headfirst into oncoming traffic, and it leads to his destruction.

And in this, we get a dreadful view into what sin really is and how it really works in our lives.

It prevent presents itself as small, as innocent, oftentimes even as reasonable or as religious, and it is anything but that.

We're in a far more desperate situation than we tend to think.

Not because sin is rare or extreme, but because it's ordinary.

It seems small, it seems common, familiar, and it's often hidden in plain sight, quietly waging a war on us that on our own we are powerless to survive.

Thankfully, though, as we'll see, against this dark backdrop of 1 Samuel 13 and the subtle destructiveness of sin, we will see the beautiful brilliance of the gospel shine all the more brightly.

So I invite you to turn your attention to your copy of God's Word and follow along with me as we read not only of the quiet dangers of sin, but of the glorious victory of Jesus.

And it is a long one, but if you're able, I would invite you to please stand with us to honor the reading of God's from 1 Samuel 13.

1 Samuel chapter 13, beginning in verse 1, the word of God reads as follows.

1 Samuel 13 · chapter mention

Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel, Saul chose three thousand men of Israel.

Two thousand were with Saul in McMash, and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.

The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent.

Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard it, and Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.

And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines.

And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal, and the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen and troops, like the sand on the seashore in multitude.

They came up and encamped in Mikmash to the east of Bethaven.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble, for the people were hard pressed, the people hid themselves in caves, and in holes, and in rocks, and in tombs and cisterns, and some Hebrews crossed the ford of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him.

So Saul said, Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.

And he offered the burnt offering.

As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came, and Saul went out to meet him and greet him.

Samuel said, What have you done?

And Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Mikmash, I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.

So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.

And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly.

You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you, for when for then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for ever.

But now your kingdom shall not continue.

The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal.

The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army.

They went up from Gogal to Gibeah of Benjamin.

And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.

And Saul and Jonathan, his son, and the people who were present with them, stayed in Giba of Benjamin.

But the Philistines encamped in Mikmash.

And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines, in three companies.

One company turned toward Ophrah, the land of Shual, another company turned toward Betharan, and another company turned toward the border that looks down on the valley of Zeboam, toward the wilderness.

Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.

But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his ploughshare, his mattock, his axe, and his sickle, and the charge was two thirds of a shekel for the ploughshares and for the maddocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.

So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them, and a garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Machamash.

This is God's word.

Please be seated.

Meet with us now, we pray.

Use my words to be a channel of your grace to your people here at CBFC, to be a vessel of your holy presence, that by your word and that by your spirit you would meet with us in this place right now.

That sin in our hearts would be exposed and expelled, that brokenness would be healed, that unbelief would be demolished, and that you would be glorified as our mighty King and loving Lord.

We pray this in your name and for your glory.

Amen.

This is a story that reveals the quiet, subtle destructiveness of sin.

And in this example from Saul, we get a really helpful picture of what sin is at its core, uh, what subtly drives it underneath the surface, and how it disguises itself in our lives.

And so we're going to approach Saul's sin from these three angles, um, looking at the the crime that Saul committed, looking at the current that quietly carried him into it, and then closing with the camouflage that it hid beneath.

So those are three points for this morning: the crime, the current, and the camouflage of sin.

Let's begin with the crime.

Saul's actions really don't seem that criminal at a first glance.

At least to me, they don't.

They don't seem that bad, especially when we consider the complex situation he's in.

Israel's enemies, the Philistines, have become more and more powerful over the years.

And so Saul, as Israel's new king, one of the first things he does is establish a standing army to begin to deal with this problem of their oppressors.

And his son Jonathan takes out some of the troops and successfully defeats a Philistine outpost in Giba, which is what the prophet Samuel had instructed Saul to do when anointing him king initially in chapter ten.

But the Philistines uh the uh don't really like that.

They say, Oh, we're we're mustering our troops for battle, are we?

And they say, Uh, let's see what you got.

Saul has six thousand men, sorry, three thousand men on foot, and verse five tells us that the Philistines come out against those three thousand men with thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore.

So the odds are not good for Israel at this point.

God had promised Abraham that his descendants, Israel, would be innumerable multitudes, gathered together like the sand on the seashore, and now that is turned on its head, and it's Israel's enemies that are coming out in these multitudes.

The situation gets worse then because God's people are terrified, they're hiding in caves and graves, they're fleeing across the Jordan River, even Saul's own troops are scattering away from him and trembling with fear.

The situation is just spiraling out of control.

But that doesn't mean that the prophet led Saul astray.

This was part of God's plan and instruction, and there was more to his instruction to Saul.

If you'll remember from chapter ten, um, in verse eight, Samuel says, Then, as in after you defeat the Philistine garrison in Giba, then go down before me to Gogal, and behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings.

Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.

So Samuel says in chapter 10, I'm going to give you the word of God.

He says, basically, Thus saith the Lord, God has declared that you're going to become king, that you are going to go defeat the Philistine garrison in Giba, and then you're going to go meet me in Gilgal, and I will offer sacrifices, and I will give you instructions from God himself to grant you your victory.

That's the plan.

Fairly straightforward.

And so far in our story, everything is going according to that plan.

When we come to verse 8, Saul is in Gilgal, he's waiting for Samuel.

He's there with the sacrifices ready.

He's waiting, and he waits, and he waits, and he waits, and the days go by.

There's no Samuel.

He's probably scanning the horizon, asking, has anyone seen Samuel?

Has anyone seen Samuel?

Samuel doesn't show.

It gets to the seventh day, his people are slipping away from him in fear, and he reaches a breaking point.

And instead of continuing to wait for the Lord, instead of continuing to wait for Samuel to arrive, as God told him, he takes matters into his own hand and he offers the sacrifice himself.

But here's what we need to see.

And this is where the story gets a little uh uncomfortable for some of us, because if we stopped and and asked right here, what did Saul actually do, it wouldn't sound like a crime.

It doesn't seem that serious.

He didn't renounce God and become an atheist, he didn't start a deconstructionist podcast, he didn't um join the Philistine army or start worshiping idols or start selling drugs or any of that.

He offered sacrifices.

He's worshiping.

He's coming before the presence of God in an act of worship.

On the surface, at least, it seems like something that would be honoring to God.

And yet, when Samuel arrives a few moments after he does this, he doesn't say, you know, that really wasn't ideal, Saul.

He doesn't say, let's work on that for next time so this issue doesn't happen again.

No, he says, verse 13, you have done foolishly, in scripture, meaning wickedly.

This is evil.

You have not kept the command of Yahweh your God with which he commanded you, and now your kingdom shall not continue.

Saul's crime, plain and simple, is that he disobeyed the command of the Lord.

He heard God's word and he rejected it.

And we might look at this and say, you know, well, he almost obeyed.

He waited for a long time, he waited almost through the end of the seventh day.

He was pretty close.

He went to Gilgal at least, and he waited, even if he didn't wait completely to the end.

He was just a few minutes off.

Doesn't that count for something?

But Samuel has a name for almost obedience.

He calls it disobedience.

It's foolishness, it's wickedness, plain and simple.

And we tend to feel sympathetic for Saul in this situation.

Like, really, God, he's losing his whole kingdom for this.

Isn't that a pretty severe punishment for some such a small sin?

And again, Samuel has an answer, and it's that there is no such thing.

There are no little sins, because there is no little God that we serve.

We only think of sin as little when we think of God as little.

We only imagine our sins as being small and insignificant because we treat God Himself as small and insignificant, and we fail to realize that the wickedness of sin lies not so much in the sin itself as in who the sin is committed against.

When I was little, I punched my older brother in the face.

Anyway, our second point.

No.

I he took a really long time in the bathroom.

And I care deeply about justice.

And but it was bad.

It was wrong.

Braces through the lip and blood on the new carpet.

He wasn't happy.

My parents weren't happy.

But I apologized.

He forgave me.

We were out throwing a football around in the field later that afternoon, and we were okay.

Around that same time, my brother had a friend who knew a guy who punched a police officer.

And the result was not the same.

He had to serve jail time for that.

He was arrested.

We both did the same thing, the same action, but with very different results.

Why?

Not because we did something different inherently, but it was because of who we did it against.

The wrongness of an offense committed is rooted not so much in the offense itself as in who the offense is committed against.

If you were to punch the president of the United States, you could be charged with treason and suffer up to ten years in federal prison.

You don't want to do it.

The wickedness of sin lies not so much in the sin itself as in who the sin is committed against.

And Samuel is telling Saul here that he hasn't just sinned against the animals he sacrificed, or against the prophet who gave him this word, but who the prophet speaks for.

Yahweh.

The holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty.

There is no one greater and no one higher that we could possibly sin against.

This is not the president of a country.

This is the king of the universe.

Meaning that disobedience to the word of Yahweh is never a small matter.

It's not something that can be dealt with with a game of catch or a night in a cell.

It is high treason, deserving maximum punishment.

A kingdom being taken away from you is not enough.

And it may seem to us to be a little sin, but it is sin committed against the eternal God and thus deserving eternal judgment.

Friends, beware of so-called little sins.

Beware of being lulled to sleep by the deceiving carbon monoxide of sinfulness that would have you believe there's nothing there and it's not that dangerous, all the while poisoning you and leaving you for dead.

It is that dangerous.

Satan would love.

He would love to have you think that it's it's just a few extra seconds lingering on that post online.

It's just fudging slightly on your taxes.

It's just snapping at your spouse briefly because you've had a really long day.

And it's just being a little harsh with your kids because you're a little stressed.

It's just a small thing here and just a small thing there, just a little sin.

There is no such thing.

There is no little God that we sin against, and so there are no little sins.

And it's those very things that we see as small, as insignificant, that have the most power in our lives oftentimes to send us barreling headfirst into traffic, to ruin our lives.

Not just with little errors, but with tremendously serious crimes against our holy creator.

Most of us didn't wake up this morning planning to rebel against God, deciding to join the Philistines or worship idols or start selling drugs, hopefully.

We typically don't plan consciously to commit high treason against the King of Heaven.

But this is what we do daily, all of us, in our so-called little sins.

Not all at once, normally, not dramatically, not always overtly or on the surface, but subtly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, we slip again and again further into the sea of sin, which means oftentimes the real danger isn't just the sin that we commit on the surface, but it's how we get there.

It's the current underneath that drags us along into sin.

Saul didn't wake up that morning planning to disobey God.

He started by waiting.

He started with obedience, doing exactly what God said, but the subtle pull, the subtle anxiety of his circumstances, and the fear of the world around him took him under and led him into this desperate situation.

Because the beneath the crime there is a current.

This brings us to our second point for this morning, the current.

Saul's sin isn't random.

He doesn't just pick a sin and dive headfirst into the the deep end of depravity.

He he drifts there.

There were forces beneath the surface, quiet, subtle pressures that are pulling him the whole time.

The text actually shows us exactly what they are.

Look at how Saul explains himself again in verse 11.

He says, When I saw that my people were scattering from me, and that you didn't come, Samuel, and that the Philistines were mustering large troops, I said, The Philistines will come against me.

And so I forced myself to do this, he says.

I went against my conscience almost.

Do you hear what he's saying?

He's acknowledging he is being carried along by what he sees and what he fears and what he feels.

His circumstances are driving him into sin.

They're driving his decision making, not his faith.

It's not his knowledge that God is good and powerful and has promised to fight for him.

It's his anxiety.

And in that moment, Saul stops interpreting his circumstances through the Word of God, and he starts interpreting the Word of God through his circumstances.

God had said, wait.

And Saul looks around and says, You don't understand, I can't afford to wait.

So he seeks to control God instead.

This is relatable on the surface.

Looks reasonable.

Waiting on God is not only one of the most ordinary aspects of the Christian life, but it's also one of the most challenging.

And sometimes it feels like we need to take control and figure things out.

One scholar described what we see in verse 11 as, quote, a carefully thought out and logical approach to the crisis, a superb example of leadership under pressure and what we would call today crisis management, end quote.

That's what this looks like at a glance.

It looks like being reasonable.

Beneath the surface, though, there is an undercurrent of fearful anxiety that is driving Saul's disobedience.

He's scared.

He's impatient.

He can't afford in his mind to wait on God any longer.

Because waiting feels like losing control.

It feels like doing nothing while everything else is falling apart or remaining stagnant and not changing when it when it needs to.

And in those moments, impatience starts to whisper to us, you know, you need to act now.

You need to take control.

You can't just sit here.

You have to you have to go fix this.

As though God isn't in control of the whole situation.

And that's where Saul is.

God has spoken clearly.

Wait, and I will give you instructions.

But the pressure mounts, the clock ticks, the people scatter, and Saul decides that partial obedience now is better than full obedience later.

He doesn't reject God outright.

He just refuses to trust him enough to wait for him.

And that's the danger of impatience.

It doesn't feel like rebellion.

It feels like responsibility.

It feels like wisdom, like survival.

And yet underneath it is a refusal to trust that God is good and present and on time.

And if we're honest, this is where we often live so much of our lives as followers of Christ.

Struggling in this season of waiting.

We don't usually run from God, but we love to run ahead of him and try to lead the way.

We feel the pressure in our relationships, in our decisions, in our suffering, and instead of trusting God's word, we seek to take control and use him.

This is how the current works.

Meaning that sin doesn't just take place on the surface where we see it, where our spouse can see it, but beneath the crime there is a current pulling us along long before it becomes external.

So sin isn't just snapping at a loved one.

It's the slow build of unspoken frustration, replaying what they said in your head, quietly keeping score, harboring bitterness until eventually it then spills out in harsh words.

It's not just looking at something you shouldn't, it's it's allowing boredom and insecurity and loneliness and stress to quietly govern your behavior, to pull you slowly and slowly out into the sea of sin.

Church, do you see this in your life?

The sin that you see on the surface is often the final step where it becomes visible, but the current is there underneath in the thoughts that we entertain, in the fears that we believe, in the habits we form, the small compromises that we justify along the way.

And over the time, the current carries us and it guides us quietly and forcefully.

Which means if we only fight sin at the surface level, at the level of behavior and external action, we're already too late.

We have to learn to recognize and resist the current beneath the crime.

And more than this, we need to learn to identify its disguises because sin is a master of disguise, and we see this in the failure of Saul.

This brings us to our final point, the camouflage.

We've noted how Saul's sin doesn't come to him looking like rebellion.

It doesn't announce itself as treason against the Most High God.

It comes dressed in something far more subtle, something that looks wise and responsible, even spiritual.

Consider again the situation Saul's in.

His foot soldiers are up against a cavalry of double the size, and on top of that, an army of chariots ten times the size, and an uncountable mass of ground troops, and to add to that, his own army is scattering from him.

By the end, he's left with six hundred guys.

He has no idea where the prophet is.

The ones that do stay are trembling in fear.

On top of all of that, verses 19 to 22 tell us that for a long time now the Philistines have established a monopoly on ironwork, and they control all of the weapons distribution in the land, meaning that the few hundred people that Saul has left in his quickly diminishing army are fighting with sticks and stones and little more, farm equipment.

And given all of this, Saul's decision to seek the favor of the Lord, as he says, seems pretty reasonable.

We we're tempted to say, yeah, seek the favor of the Lord, Saul.

Good job.

It seems reasonable, and yet this is how sin so often works.

It doesn't look like rebellion, it looks like reason.

It doesn't always look like blatant harshness.

It looks like I'm just being honest, I'm just trying to be truthful.

It doesn't always look like outright disregard for God in our personal devotional lives, but it camouflages itself as I'm just trying to be wise with my time and energy.

It doesn't always look like over-indulging in food or alcohol or technology and television, but it camouflages itself as I've earned this, I deserve a treat, I've worked hard this week.

It doesn't always look like gossip and slander, but it camouflages itself as I just need to vent.

Or worse, I have a prayer request.

Sin is remarkably easy to justify and make sound really reasonable because so often it appears to us to be sensible.

It doesn't look like rebellion, it looks like reason.

And more than this, like we see in Saul, sin doesn't just camouflage itself to appear like reason, it camouflages itself to appear like religion.

Notice again what Saul actually says in verse 12.

I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.

So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.

You hear how he frames it?

I wasn't trying to disobey God, I was just trying to seek him, I wasn't neglecting worship, I was actively engaging in worship.

That's a good thing.

God's supposed to bless that.

On the surface, it can sound spiritual.

It sounds devout, it sounds like religiosity and piety and leadership of a Christian man.

But what is he really doing?

He's using worship as a tool to get control.

God had already spoken clearly, wait.

But Saul doesn't want to wait, and so instead of submitting to God's word, he performs an act of worship to try to secure God's help on his own terms.

In other words, Saul isn't following God.

He's trying to get God to follow him.

He's trying to get control of him.

He thinks that if he can behave rightly, he can get something from God.

If he can worship rightly, he can get a blessing from the Lord.

He's treating sacrifice not as surrender, but as leverage.

Not as obedience, but as a way to get God on his side.

If I do this, then God will bless me.

If I offer this sacrifice, then he'll show up.

And this isn't true worship anymore.

It's it's manipulation dressed up as piety.

And that's what makes this so dangerous because it looks so close to the real thing.

It looks like religion, but it's rebellion.

Friends, you can rebel against God by lying and cheating and stealing and selling drugs, and you can rebel against God by reading your Bible diligently every day, and coming into this church to sit down in these comfy chairs every week, and serving actively in ministry, and devoting all of your money to charity and to the church.

You can sin against God by worshiping Him.

At least in terms of external appearances.

We would never say it out loud, probably, but how often do we think, like, God, if I read my Bible today, then you'll help this situation go well.

And if I pray hard enough, then you'll fix this problem.

And if I stay morally clean this week, then you'll bless me.

And if I show up to church and serve and give and do the right things, then you owe me something.

We think that our obedience puts God in our debt.

We think that our worship gives us leverage, that our faithfulness should control the outcome.

But friends, if you worship God to get something from Him, you may still be worshiping, but you're not worshiping God.

God is not some sort of divine vending machine that you can put a certain amount of praise and obedience into and get your blessings out of.

He's not something to be managed, he's not something to be used or controlled, he's not something to be leveraged for personal gain.

He is the Lord.

And all too easily does our rebellion against God dress itself up in the camouflage of reason and religion to conceal the dangerous destruction that we are actually bringing to our own souls and to the lives of our loved ones around us.

And honestly, that leaves us in a pretty miserable place, if we were to stop here, a terrifying place.

Because what we've just heard is that, like Saul, we're not as great as we look on the outside.

And in reality, we we regularly, daily commit vile acts of sin and rebellion against the most high Lord of the universe in no small ways, throughout every day of our lives, even as we use a display of piety and spirituality to fuel a rebellion and try to manipulate the God that we claim to love.

But as hopeless as this chapter seems, in the middle, nested subtly right in the middle, is a glimmer of hope.

Because Samuel doesn't just tell Saul that his kingdom will be taken from him, but he promises another man, another king, to rule in his place, a man after God's own heart, according to God's own will, chosen by Yahweh himself to rule and reign in an everlasting kingdom of peace, free from sin and suffering forever.

And we get a glimpse of what this man would be like in King David, but ultimately Samuel is telling us about King Jesus, who would follow from him.

Unlike Saul, who would offer a sacrifice in disobedience, Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for the disobedient.

And where Saul lost the kingdom because of his sin, Jesus secured an eternal kingdom for sinners because of his righteousness.

And when Saul used worship to try to get something from God for himself, Jesus gave himself so that we might have God and his kingdom.

Saul couldn't wait a few hours, but Jesus endured a lifetime of unimaginable suffering and grief, even unto death on a cross.

Saul crumbled under pressure in a moment, and Jesus faced the full weight of temptation and of the wrath of Almighty God, and never once gave in, but in love gave himself for you who trust in him.

Jesus is the King that you need, and Jesus is the King who offers himself freely to you today, by whom you can be declared holy and blameless, no matter your sin and no matter your circumstances.

If you belong to Christ by faith, then his righteousness counts as your own.

And you have been declared not only not guilty, but righteous, gloriously, perfectly righteous with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself, who has stood in your place.

If you are in Christ, you stand before God today, right now, as holy and blameless.

And you will stand before God forever as holy and blameless.

Meaning, if you feel like Saul this morning, like I do, if you feel the weight of your sin and disobedience and the burden of your guilt like it might crush you, look only to Jesus Christ, who loves you and who gave himself up for you, and who now reigns on the throne of heaven, always living to make intercession for you before the Father, pleading your case in the throne room of heaven.

Trust in Jesus, and you are made perfect before him and are never cast out.

If you do not yet know this Jesus, who makes the worst of sinners right with God, trust in him today.

Don't wait till next week.

Trust in him today, and you will find forgiveness and new life in him.

He is your only hope.

And soon he is returning to be with and to reign with his people forever, not over some random scattered tribes in a desert, but over a renewed earth in a kingdom of peace with his saints in glory free from sin, and we will never sin again.

Isaiah 25 summarizes that coming kingdom and that great day of the king's return.

And I want to close with this.

Isaiah 25.

On this mountain, the Lord of armies will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines.

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the veil that covers all nations, he will swallow up death forever.

The sovereign Lord will wipe away all the tears from all faces, he will remove his people's shame from all the earth.

The Lord has spoken, and it will be said on that day.

Behold, this is our God.

We have waited for him, that he might save us.

This is the Lord.

We have waited for him.

Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Wait on the Lord, Church.

He is coming soon.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, King of the Cosmos, we wait today as tired, broken, helpless sinners, begging for your forgiveness and rejoicing that in you, by your death and resurrection, we have it fully and permanently.

Lord, we ask that you would restore our souls with this truth this morning as we go from here.

And that for any who have not been united to you by faith, that you would draw near to them by your Holy Spirit and make them new today.

We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please stand with us, Church.