Please stand as we read the word of God together. We'll be reading from two different passages. The first is Matthew chapter five, verses three through 10, and then turning over to Isaiah 66, we'll be reading verses one through 13. But first, Matthew five, three through 10. And remember, as I read, as you follow along and listen, this is God's word. Matthew chapter five. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man. He who sacrifices a lamb like one who breaks a dog's neck. He who presents a grain offering like one who offers pig's blood. He who makes a memorial offering of frankincense like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways and their soul delights in their abominations. I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke, they did not listen, but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight. Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word. Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name's sake have said, let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy, but it is they who shall be put to shame. the sound of an uproar from the city, a sound from the temple, the sound of the Lord rendering recompense to his enemies. Before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came upon her, she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth, says the Lord? Shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb, says your God? Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice with her and enjoy all you who mourn over her, that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast, that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance. For thus says the Lord. Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream, and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip and bounced upon her knees as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Amen. Let's pray together once more. Our God and Heavenly Father, as we approach, we thank You for it. We confess very openly and freely that we would be in the dark if You had not revealed Yourself to us in and through Your Word. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We praise You because we know that Your Word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. We know that Your Word is profitable. in so many ways, thoroughly equipping us for every good work. And so Father, we ask that your spirit would take your living word even now and cause your word to do its work in our midst. Convict us of sin, train us in righteousness, point us to the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. Please be seated. Well, I'd ask you to open your Bibles or to keep your Bibles open to Isaiah 66. We'll be looking at the first two verses of this chapter this morning. This is an unusual time of year where we tend to look back on the previous year and to look forward to the year to come. There are many people, particularly in the news and in our culture at large, who are glad to see the end of this past year, glad to see the end of 2020, which brought so many unexpected challenges into our lives locally and nationally and even internationally. Perhaps you have that same sort of sentiment as you reach the end of this year. You look back on the past year and see all the challenges that were faced and are glad to see it go. Perhaps you're looking forward to things in the future, to better things in the future. We need to be reminded at times like this that the Lord hasn't guaranteed that next year will be better in those kinds of ways than this previous year has been. We don't have those kind of guarantees in the scripture, but we do have sure and certain promises of God for the far future. And these are things that we live by, that we live in light of, that we have to keep before our minds. And it's that kind of idea of keeping the promises of God in front of our minds that really forms the substance of Isaiah 65, the chapter just before the verses we're going to look at. In Isaiah 65, Isaiah the prophet has given God's people very clear teaching and glorious teaching, really, about the future. In fact, Isaiah 65 is one of the most significant and extensive promises about what God will do for his people in the end. It begins in verse 17 where he says, Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered. That is, all those things that have gone before, All those difficulties that God's people have faced, and certainly in Isaiah's day, there were difficulties that Isaiah was even promising in the near term. But all those things, the Lord says, will be not remembered any longer. They won't come into mind because the Lord will create a new heavens and a new earth. And he goes on to describe this new heavens and new earth. This goes on to unpack these promises in verse 22. He says, 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. He's describing a time in which past things won't be remembered and God's people will enjoy his blessing. in a great and abundant way and it even extends beyond the people of God really to all creatures. In verse 25 it says, The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. These are the promises that Isaiah the prophet has just put before the people of God. These are the promises that God has given to his people at this time. And the question that naturally should emerge from promises such as this is, well, how should we live in the meantime? What is it that we should be doing as we look forward to these great and precious promises? And that question that Isaiah's hearers would have asked themselves is really the same kind of question we should be asking ourselves today. This is the description that we have in the New Testament of our situation. We're called pilgrims and aliens and we recognize that our citizenship is in heaven and we look forward to the return of Christ. We look forward to these kinds of promises being fulfilled. We live in hope and expectation given the promises that God has given to us, and we don't know what this is going to look like for us in the here and now, in the near term. In fact, the Bible gives us every reason to expect that there will be a great deal of trouble and persecutions and other kinds of things just as they might have expected in their day but we do have these promises and so the question that they would have been asking in Isaiah 66 is really the question that we all should be asking which is how do we live in light of these great and precious truths, these great and precious promises that God has given to us. What does it mean to live in light of those things. And in Isaiah 66, Isaiah begins to address just that question. And he does so really in two major ways. He first is going to remind his people about the God whom they serve, remind people of God's immensity, about his greatness, of his glory. And then after reminding people of God's greatness and glory, he then goes on to describe the kind of people to whom God himself looks. So those are, in one sense, the two major aspects of these first two verses. But I want to focus on something that comes just before that in Isaiah 66.1. Isaiah 66.1 begins with this familiar phrase. If you've read through the book of Isaiah or if you've read through the scriptures, it's a familiar phrase. Isaiah begins by saying this, thus says the Lord. The reason why I think that's striking is because while all of this is God's Word, there are particular points in this book where Isaiah uses this phrase. In fact, he uses it 37 times throughout the book of Isaiah, 37 occasions in which He singles out particular teachings, particular revelation, and says, the Lord has spoken on this issue, thus says the Lord to you as his people. This is the 36th time of those 37 times when God does this. And I think that ought to arrest our attention right at the beginning of our look at this text because it's a reminder to us of the sufficiency of God's word. It's a reminder to us of God's kindness in revealing himself to his people in addressing the questions and the needs that his people of all ages have. Perhaps if you're thinking about your life, and if you're thinking about what you ought to be doing in the next year, or how you ought to be living, or what you ought to prioritize, perhaps you've been asking yourself those questions. And what the Bible tells us, and I think this little phrase in a way reminds us of this, what the Bible tells us is that God has given us sufficient revelation to answer those kinds of questions. The Scriptures tell us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul is very clear about the sufficiency of God's Word for our needs. Paul tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God. Not only is it breathed out by God, but it's profitable for us. It's profitable for teaching, for our doctrine, for what we know to be true about God and how to worship Him and how to live our lives. It's profitable for reproof, that is for a kind of argumentation that we might engage in with ourselves or with others. God's Word is profitable for that. We know that God's word is profitable, Paul tells us, for correction as we are prone to wander off the path, as we're prone to make decisions based on our own understanding of the circumstances. God's word corrects us in that way. And then God's word is profitable for training us in righteousness so that, the Apostle Paul says, all of us, men of God, can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And there's this reminder throughout the book of Isaiah about the Lord's speaking to particular needs that people have. In this case, thus says the Lord, is speaking to the particular question that we addressed already. How is it that we are to live looking forward to God's promises and what truths are we to keep in mind as we look forward to God's promises being fulfilled? Well, the first truth that he tells us we need to keep firmly fixed in our mind is a truth about the immensity, the greatness of God. Here's how Isaiah introduces it in verse one. Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. This is a particularly vivid way for Isaiah to remind us of the greatness of God by, in one sense, comparing God's greatness to the heavens and the earth. For a number of years, my family and I lived about a mile and a half from one of the NASA space centers, the Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Washington, D.C. Because we lived so close, we had a number of acquaintances and friends who worked there. And the question I would always ask them, particularly ones who were in a field where they might have an acquaintance with these kinds of things, is I would say, what's the current estimate in terms of the size of the universe? That is to say, I look up at space, you look up at space, and we can see a limited amount, but how large do the astronomers actually think it is? And oftentimes, the first answer I would get is something like, we don't really know. We really have no idea how large it is. But then others who would give an estimate would say, you know, the current understanding, the current consensus is that it's about 45 to 50 billion light years and expanding. And then if you were to ask a much smaller question, like what's the nearest galaxy to ours and the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, they'll say it's about two and a half million light years away. Now I don't know whether this is true or not. I don't have the expertise to sort out those claims. And in fact, as I said, virtually everyone I would talk to who did have that kind of expertise would acknowledge their own ignorance of the subject. But the fact of the matter is those are staggering amounts of distance. Those are really staggering numbers. I don't think any of us can really even begin to wrap our minds around that. 45 to 50 billion light years in the expanse of space and growing. Two and a half million between the Milky Way and the next nearest galaxy. We can understand then the kind of metaphor that Isaiah is using here when he talks about the Lord's immensity. Heaven, he says, is my throne. Remember how David reflected on the sky above, the night sky? which he was just seeing with his own eyes. He wasn't thinking in terms of the kinds of distances that the astronomers talked to us about today, but he said, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you've put in place, what is man that you're mindful of him? This is one of the great truths that Isaiah wants us to remember, that the Lord wants us to bear in mind. as we look forward to his promises. Heaven is my throne. The Lord's immensity is so beyond our comprehension. The psalmist says his greatness is unfathomable. Think of those who try to measure the depths of the ocean. They use fathoms to do that. And the psalmist says, you can't measure, you can't get to the bottom of God's greatness. Unfathomable. The heavens are my throne, the Lord says. And then he goes on to give another comparison. The earth is my footstool. Well, think about even the earth. Of course, it's much, much smaller in comparison to the heavens, but even the earth is somewhat beyond our comprehension. Think of all the places that you've ever visited. Think of all the places you'd like to visit. Think of the many corners of the earth which you know very little about. We couldn't name every space on earth. We don't know much about many places of the earth or places in the earth as yet unexplored by man. And yet, The God who is speaking to us today, the God who speaks in Isaiah's day, says, the earth, all the earth is merely my footstool. This, of course, reminds us of another truth about God. Not only is God unfathomable in his greatness, not only is his immensity beyond anything we could measure or even comprehend, But as we're also reminded in Scripture, God is present in all of these places. Remember what Psalm 139 says, as the psalmist reflects on the earth and all the places he might go to, where can I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. This is the impression that Isaiah wants all of us to have, that the Lord wants all of us to have as we look forward to his coming promises. that the God whom we are dealing with, the God of the Bible, is a God who is far beyond what we could even imagine or think. I wanna pause for a moment and just say this, that I think perhaps as we look forward to a coming year, a coming day, a coming week, as we think about those things which ought to occupy our thinking and our attention, We only have a certain amount of attention, we only have a certain number of hours in a day, only a certain number of things that we can read about and study about and think about. And I would say to you that I think one of the implications of this text is that the thing that we ought to give our attention to the most is the study of God himself, the understanding of who God is as he's revealed himself to us in the scripture. If you meet people who have studied in any detail these truths of who God is, the attributes of God, the character of God, the power of God, the glory of God, as it's revealed in Scripture, you will hear the same thing from all of them, which is that, number one, it humbles them. They realize, in fact, how great God is and how beyond our comprehension He is. But number two, it is of great benefit to them. And I would tell you that if you're thinking about what you want to give your attention to in this coming year, you should give your attention to this, the God who we would say, can say, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Now, there's a sharp edge to this in the text and we see it in verse one. because of God's greatness, because of his immensity, because of God's majesty, then Isaiah goes on to say this, what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? And the implication of it is clear. If this is the God whom we serve, if this is the God who made promises like the promises in Isaiah 65, if this is the God of the Bible, Then it follows in Isaiah's day that anyone who thought that they could build a house to contain that God was really misunderstanding who God was, really knew nothing of who God was. That's what he means when he says, what is the house that you would build for me? Now, those who understood the scriptures and those who understood how God had revealed himself already knew this. It's striking that when Solomon dedicates the temple, this glorious temple that he builds, and it's right that he built it, and the Lord, in fact, commanded him, explained how he ought to build it, and yet even Solomon, when he reflects and dedicates that great building that he built to honor God, says at the dedication quite clearly, "'Lord, heaven and highest heaven cannot contain you.'" Solomon realizes that this temple he had built was built for the glory of God, but it couldn't contain God. God was far greater than the temple itself. And anyone who understood what the temple was about understood that. The writer of Hebrews tells us that the temple and the tabernacle actually, even before the temple, was actually a shadow, was just a kind of minor reflection of these heavenly realities. Hebrews 8 tells us these things serve as a copy and shadow. of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle, see that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain. So the tabernacle and the temple were intended to show these heavenly realities, but in no way were they meant to contain God. But apparently some thought that that was perhaps the answer, that in fact what they ought to do in light of God's promises, in light of God's grace to them in giving them these promises was that they needed to build a temple to in some way envelop Him. And yet the Lord says, that's a misunderstanding of who I am. The Apostle Paul, of course, echoes this when he's speaking on Mars Hill. He's speaking in the shadow of the great Parthenon. And he says quite clearly something that should have been obvious, but in fact wasn't obvious to many in that day. He said, the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. And we know that Stephen, the first martyr, said the same thing. In fact, he quoted from Isaiah 66. He was accused of slandering the temple of God. And as he gives a defense of himself and of his actions, he goes through the story of the Old Testament quite clearly, picking up on certain patterns. But one of the things that he picks up on most clearly in his sermon is this verse. He says, this is what the Lord says, that you can't build a house that will contain me. Stephen says this to defend himself against that charge. So throughout the Bible, we see that God's people, those who really understood the God of the Bible, understood that this was the case. And of course, in the New Testament, we get this glorious revelation that in fact, God dwells among his people and he's building us into a living temple. He's using us as stones for this living temple. And that's the way the Bible seems to understand these kinds of verses. But although we might not be tempted to think that we could build a temple that would contain God, we might understand that that's certainly not possible. I think it is the case today that we often still fall afoul of this same kind of sin, this same kind of error. We begin to think that there's something that we can do, something that we can build, something that we can accomplish with our lives, that in some way gives to God that which he does not already possess. We lose sight of what the Apostle Paul says when he asks this series of very obvious, in the context, rhetorical questions. Who has ever given a gift to God that it would be repaid to him? In other words, what Paul's saying is what Isaiah's saying here. that all that we have and all that we are, even our life and breath, the Bible tells us in Him we live and move and have our being. So anything that comes out of our life, anything that comes out of our being that is of any real lasting value is something that God deserves the glory for. We're not giving back to Him, we're not giving to Him something that He has not already given to us. That doesn't mean that we don't Work hard? The Apostle Paul says, I worked harder than all these other teachers. And yet, how does he follow that? He says, yet not I, but the grace of God working in me. I think that's really the essence of what's being described here, is people who think in some way, who misunderstand the greatness of God, the immensity of God, and think that in some way they're adding to God and God owes them something. Do you look at your life in that way? Lord, I've done these things for you. I've worked hard for you. I can even point to accomplishments in your name. So Lord, you owe me. I've done this for you. You now owe me something in return. Well, that's the sentiment here, and it's undone by an understanding of the greatness of God. Of course, we see specifically in the context of Isaiah's original audience that many of those who heard this were still thinking that by offering something to the Lord, perhaps an ox or a sheep or a goat, That they were gaining some kind of favor from him. And that's why he says in verse 3, he who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man. It's of no value to me. You think I need that? You think I don't have enough already? Now that understanding, that misunderstanding was part of the problem. Now, because we could not make a house, no one could make a house to contain the Lord, because the Lord is the creator of all things, as Isaiah tells us in verse 2, all these things my hand has made, so all these things came to be. Perhaps we might be left thinking, well then, what is it that we can do? Do we have any instruction here at all? If, after all, if everything I am and everything I do is ultimately something that is a product of the grace of God working in and through me, If that's the case, then how am I supposed to live? And what Isaiah gives to us here, what the Lord gives to us here, is clarity about that question. Remember, the question was, coming out of chapter 65, what kind of people ought we to be as we await these great promises? And he says the kind of people you're not to be are the kind of people who think that you can build something that I need or that contains me, That's not the kind of people you're to be, but he says in verse two, this is the one to whom I will look. And then he gives three characteristics of the one to whom he will look. The first characteristic is this, it's recorded and it's translated in my Bible as in this way, he who is humble, he who is humble. Now, if you read through the Scriptures, you see again and again that this notion of humility is of the utmost importance. In fact, I think if you went into the New Testament and tried to determine what the great sin is, the great enemy of our soul is, we'd have to say it's pride. And humility is of course the opposite of that. It's an understanding of who we are in light of who God is, in light of how he's revealed himself to us. And certainly humility is that significant in our lives. The Bible tells us in the book of James that the cause of quarrels and conflicts in our midst is because of pride. And then humility, of course, is the great antidote to that. But I want to point out that the word that's translated humble, although that's a good translation, and it reminds us that God looks to those who are humble. Remember what the scriptures tell us. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And yet I would also point out that this word for humble is often translated differently in other texts of Scripture. It's not uncommon at all for this word for humble to actually be translated as afflicted. In other words, the idea is not simply an attitude of humility, but a fact of having been humbled. See, we even use the word that way in English. We can talk about someone being humble, and that's one thing. And then we can talk about someone who has been humbled, and that's really something else. What we mean then is that circumstances or challenges or exposure to other people or exposure to one's own weaknesses has shown that individual who they are, has brought them low. And that, I think, really is the idea here. This is how it's used fairly consistently in the book of Isaiah. It's used in texts like this, like in Isaiah 48, where the Lord says, see, I have refined you, though not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. And it's that word that he uses here to describe the one to whom the Lord looks. So often in our lives, we look at affliction, suffering, challenges, difficulties, these difficult providences that the Lord brings into our path, and we look at them as things to be avoided at all costs. In fact, we try to forget about them immediately. We don't even like thinking of ourselves in terms of those things. And yet, the Bible is clear that, again, God is the one who gives grace to the humble, and the humble, the afflicted, is the one to whom the Lord looks with special favor. I don't think we think this way as individuals. I also don't think we think this way in terms of the church. What do we look at as the mark of God's favor? What do we think that God is really looking and God will really look out for? Those bodies that are outwardly successful, that face no afflictions and difficulties at all. But the scripture consistently tells us the opposite of that. To this one I will look, the one who is humble. That's not the only word that's used, of course. The next description of the one to whom the Lord looks is this. He's humble and he's contrite in spirit. Now again, this is, I think, a reasonable enough way to translate it. Contraite in spirit, again, gives this idea of humility and we read in the Beatitudes Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who are meek, and this all encapsulates that. But again, I think it's striking to realize how often this exact term is used in another slightly different way. It's often used in the context of battle, when someone is smitten down. That word smitten is the word that's often used to translate what we have here, contrite in spirit. 2 Samuel 11, it talks about Uriah, who is struck down, who is smitten and dies. And that's the language of Isaiah 66 too, contrite in spirit. struck down in spirit. And certainly at the very least what this means is that before the Lord, when we understand who God is as he's revealed himself in scripture, our response to that should be that we are struck down in our spirit before him. There's no place for pride when you're face to face with the one who says heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. No, our response really needs to be much more like David's, as I alluded to earlier. What is man that thou art mindful of him? And finally he says this, the one who is humble and contrite in spirit, and then finally he describes the one to whom the Lord looks in this way. He's the one who trembles at my word. Now I do think here that Tremble does adequately encapsulate what's being described here. Perhaps we need to think about it in another context in which it's used. This word is used in Isaiah 19. It's the only other place it's used in this book. And it's used of the coming destruction that God will bring about on the Egyptians. The Egyptians were, of course, this great ancient kingdom. But the Lord in Isaiah 19 says, I'm going to strike them down. I'm going to judge them for their sin, for their wickedness. Eventually, I'm going to actually punish them for their sin. And it will be obvious and evident. And this is the way it's described. In that day, the Egyptians, when God's judgment is raining down on them, in that day, the Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the Lord. And then he picks up using that word from Isaiah 19 and puts it here to describe how we are supposed to be before the word of God, trembling at the word of God. It's remarkable how frequently this kind of description is given of the people of God. You know, in the Old Testament in particular, one of the most prevalent ways of describing a genuine believer, someone who genuinely knew God, someone who genuinely trusted in his word, is that that was a man or a woman who fears the Lord. Remember how Job is described at the beginning of that book. Job was a man who feared the Lord. Proverbs tells us the fear of the Lord, that's the beginning of wisdom. And here it's not just the Lord in His glory, but it's actually His Word as it is proclaimed and as it is read and as it is heard. But the one to whom the Lord looks is the one who trembles at the word of God. I wonder if I asked someone who knows you well, a family member, your husband or wife, one of your children, what is it that you would use to describe this person? How would you describe him or her? I wonder if any who knew us well would say, well, this is a man, this is a woman who trembles at the word of God. who fears God, a God-fearing man or woman. Someone who, when the word is read, and when the word is opened privately, or in the context of the family, or in the context of the Lord's day, when the word of God is opened, there's a genuine trembling at that word, because it is actually God's word. I think this would hardly be the description given of most of our churches, at least in our context in this time. There were those who tremble at God's Word, and yet that's the way in which the one to whom the Lord looks is described, humble, contrite, trembling at the Word of God. When you open the Word of God, even for yourself privately, You conscious of what it really is. Remember, this is how Paul describes the reception that the Thessalonian Christians gave. He said, I know that your faith is genuine, and I know it because you received the word of God for what it really is, which is not just the word of man, but the word of God itself. That's the kind of thing that's being described here, although perhaps more emphatically. But those to whom God looks tremble at the word because they know it is the word, not of men, but the word of God himself. No, I think if we look at this description of the kind of people we ought to be as we await the promises of God, We realize how woefully short we fall. We realize that although this is the template that is given for us, this is really the model. This is what we're to strive for. This is what we're to look to and what we're to value. When we look at it, we say in so many ways, what we value is almost diametrically opposed to every description given here. really value those who have gone through affliction, been humbled by the Lord. We don't really value in ourselves or in others contrition of spirit. And we certainly don't often evidence trembling at the Word of God. And that, I think, brings us to another striking feature of this description. Because while this description is meant to be instructive for God's people, God's people then and God's people today, while it is meant to be instructive for us, while it is meant to provide the model or template for us, it is also, I think, particularly instructive that each of these terms used in verse two, humble, contrite in spirit, are terms that are used explicitly of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. In Psalm 22, this word for humble or afflicted is used to describe our Lord in His suffering. He was humbled by God. And this word for contrite in spirit is a word that's used in Isaiah 53 to describe the suffering servant. And when we look at the Lord's attitude toward the word of God, we see that even in his moment of greatest affliction, as he's weeping over what is to come, he declares, not my will, but yours be done. Father, I've come down to do your will. I obey your commandments. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Those are the kinds of things we see Jesus saying in the Gospels. So while this is meant to describe God's people and what God's people ought to strive for, it also points us to the one who accomplished all of these things in a perfect way. One who really was afflicted, really was struck down. And so on our behalf, one who really did keep the law in all of its fullness, trembling at the word of God and obeying it. And he did it as our substitute. Indeed, if you look at this passage, you can draw a very straight line between the one described in verse two, and the Savior that we see revealed to us in the Scriptures. That's a reminder, of course, that Isaiah 66, 1 and 2 is the furthest thing from a kind of works-based salvation. It's not laying out for us that which we might do in order to earn God's favor. In fact, it's very clear that the people hearing this and even clear that we ourselves are not all of these things, but it is pointing us to the one who is. The one who perfectly satisfied all of these things and did so for sinners like us. So we read this text and we say, these are the kinds of people God calls us to be, but he calls us to be those kinds of people. because he has sent his son and we are resting in faith in him and what he has accomplished on our behalf. And then as we do that, we are also told, commanded, in fact, in the New Testament to be conformed to his image. And God is working in us by his spirit to conform us to the image of the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at the word of God. And so this text which gives us this grand vision, this really inexhaustible vision of the glory and immensity of God also points us to the one who gives us access to God in his work on our behalf, who is the one mediator between this God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So I think it's appropriate as we reach the end of this year and look forward to the coming year and even look forward beyond the coming year to the great promises of God which will be fulfilled in and through his people by the work of his son that we know, we are reminded to hide ourselves in Jesus Christ, to flee to that one, to recognize that we can only access the God described here through him and through his work. And then in turn, as we do that, to reorder our lives in such a way that it reflects the one to whom the God of heaven and earth looks with favor. Let's pray together. Our God and Heavenly Father, we are grateful for your word. We need it. We thank you for your clear instruction. Although it is clear in pointing out our sin, it also with equal clarity points us to your Son, our Savior. So work in us by your Spirit, we ask even now, that we might be people who are more like the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.