We turn in the Word of God to Isaiah chapter 35, and then to Luke chapter 5. Let's stand together to hear the Word. From Isaiah 35, the prophet is prophesying the future glory of Zion, that there will be a recovery after the judgment which God has warned about through His prophet Isaiah. And in the light of that, there is this call, beginning at verse 3. Strengthen the weak knees and make firm the feeble... Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, be strong, do not fear. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, He will come and save you. And the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for the water shall burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of jackals where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the highway of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, though a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it. It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. And they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." And from Luke chapter 5, beginning at verse 16, Reading of our Savior Jesus Christ. So he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Now what happened on a certain day is he was teaching that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was present to heal them. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said to them, man, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the Pharisees were not alone. But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say rise up and walk? But you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Immediately he rose up before them and took up what he had been lying on and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, we have seen strange things today. The grass withers, the flower fades, the Word of God endures forever. We turn in the Word of God to Luke chapter 5 and verses 16 to 26. to consider this great miracle of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you've been here for a while, you know that I've preached through the Gospel of Mark and sometimes returned to the Gospel of Mark. And one of the things that you might notice is some of the similarities between the Gospels. And if your memory is good, you'll notice that this same narrative actually, in a manner, falls in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But we'll be looking at it again. I remind you of the words of the Apostle Paul who said, for me to write the same things to you is not tedious but safe. And there's a reason it's repeated in the Gospels. It's of utmost importance. And it is worthy of looking at again and the Lord willing with some new lessons and applications for the life of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're in the section of the Gospel of Luke, if you're joining with us, where we are still, in a sense, into the public introduction of our Lord Jesus Christ and His ministry. Luke here is placing together a series of narratives that answer the question, who is Jesus Christ? And they can be compared to, perhaps, a diamond that has many different facets. He is, in a sense, perhaps with a little bit more information than Mark. Mark is the briefest of the Gospels, who moves at a very rapid pace. But Luke, in a similar way to the Gospel of Mark, is presenting a series of narratives. that very quickly fill out the shape and glory of that diamond, the glory of Jesus Christ. And to look at His person and His work again and again from different ways, especially here in what is still the beginning of His public ministry, and particularly His ministry in Galilee, the Galilee phase of His ministry. And one of those facets on the diamond here is going to be revealed through the healing of the paralytic in Luke chapter 5. This will reveal Jesus Christ to be unique as a person. The challenge at the heart of the text is this. In verses 20 and 21, Jesus says something we'll get back to in a moment. He says, Man, your sins are forgiven you. And immediately, those who are the most knowledgeable in the Scriptures in Israel, they're triggered. They recognize that in those words, Jesus has said something about His own identity, authority, and glory, which warrants in their mind a charge of blasphemy. For who can forgive sins but God alone? They are recognizing that Jesus is making a claim to deity. That He has within Himself the prerogative to declare unequivocally, for salvation, the forgiveness of sins. This in turn, this reality about the complex person Jesus Christ pulses throughout this whole text. We're going to see that in a number of ways. First, this declaration of forgiveness. We'll see it again where we have Jesus interacting with the scribes and Pharisees. Verse 22, He perceives their thoughts. And then we'll see it again in a miracle. The whole text is pulsing with divine power. The whole text places before you and I, again, a Savior, a powerful Savior, a unique Savior. To use the language of the Apostle Paul that we just used in prayer, the one mediator between God and man. There is no other name. under heaven, given among men, whereby we might be saved." That this man, this man Christ Jesus, the God-man, He alone is able to save. And, if you get to the end of the text, there's no one like Him. in salvation, not only is He only able to save, but that the dimensions and glory of this salvation is unbounded. As a matter of fact, the crowd will glorify God. They were amazed and filled with fear saying, we have seen strange things today. So first, the surprising authority of forgiveness. We begin in verse 16, we'll come back to verse 16 later in the sermon, but the context is important. Luke, of all the gospel writers, reminds us most often of the prayer life of our Lord. and that He was in communion with His heavenly Father. And that this followed after the cleansing of the leper and that it led into the healing of the paralytic. And that this was the Son of God who delighted in fellowship with His Father and would often go to desolate places to pray, into the wilderness, and that this sets the tone for and gives some of the context for what comes immediately afterwards. What comes immediately afterwards is the following scene. We know that this is in Capernaum if we compare with the other Gospels. There are some more details here. There were Pharisees and teachers of the law watching him teach. The extra details in Luke is that they had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. He's placing before us something quite remarkable. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he's baptized. He's now in the public. He's been preaching in the synagogues. His fame has spread abroad into every place. Verse 15, the report went out concerning him. All the more great multitudes came together to hear. Now it has reached the upper echelons of Jewish society. And those who had teaching authority and ruling authority Pharisees and the teachers of the law, they are now sitting by and they have come from every town. It's not just the masses now. Jesus is under special inspection by those who know the Old Testament best. The second thing we read in verse 17 is that the power of the Lord was present to heal them. I think there's maybe a better and clearer translation that you might find in the ESV, which is this, the power of the Lord was with him to heal. But there's a couple things that are put together here now. We have Jesus who prays in the wilderness in communion with His Father, who publicly teaches, who is being examined and we'll see in a moment challenged concerning His authority. This same Jesus continues to have the power that He had when He healed the leper, the power of the Lord who was with Him to heal. These things begin already to ratchet up a tension in the narrative concerning what will happen next. And what happens next is quite remarkable. Then men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed. And children, if you're thinking about a bed, This would not be a bed like your bed. It appears pretty clear from the end of the text when he took up what he had been lying on and carried it to his house. Probably isn't like your bed with the bed frame and a mattress. It would have been more like some sort of sling or hammock. Here it had ropes on it. It was something smaller and it was able to lower down through the tiled roof. We'll read in a moment. But what is very clear is that this man is on a bed. Because of his illness, he's paralyzed. He can't walk. He's unable to walk. He cannot move himself. He requires others to move him. And those others don't just move him. They are looking for Jesus. The report had went out concerning him. All the more great multitudes came together to hear to be healed of him of their infirmities. Verse 15, part of that pressing crowd is this group. And you can imagine the scene would have included, if we have the context, many people who are sick, many people who want to be healed, the inspectors of the day, the Pharisees, the house is full, it fills into the street, and everybody is hoping for some sort of audience with this Jesus Christ, especially those who wanted to be healed. And here we have a group of men who don't give up. They're so determined that They bring the man in to lay before Jesus when they could not find how they might bring him in because of the crowd. They went up on the housetop, and again, more details in the Gospel of Luke, they let him down with his bed through the tiling in the midst before Jesus. So they're tearing the house apart. They're tearing the house apart, there's no other way, and they're absolutely determined to get to the place they need to get to. The man that they have is a paralytic, which means there's no hope of him being healed any other way. Matter of fact, it's an interesting ailment because even to the present day with all of our modern technology, if you sever a spinal cord, for example, you may have some measure of healing. It remains a traumatic and lifelong injury that is beyond our ability to wire back together this complex human body. This is a case of extraordinary difficulty it would be in our present day. He's paralyzed. Now why he's paralyzed, I don't know if he actually broke his spinal cord, could be for a lot of reasons, but this idea of paralysis, neurological disorders, profoundly difficult and complex. This is the kind of case that is before the Lord Jesus Christ. However, this seems to have no effect on these men. They just say, we need to find him. And we read in verse 20 that they believe that he can heal without exception. They had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, when he saw their faith, he said to him, man, your sins are forgiven you. You could only imagine if you went to your doctor. Now, your doctor doesn't have this authority, but you could only imagine if you went to your doctor because you were sick with some sort of ailment and he came and gave you the imaging and he told you that you had some serious disease. And you were waiting to hear what he said next, and he said, your sins are forgiven you. You might wonder, what are you doing? And there's a sense of that tension here in the text. Why is this healer saying these things? And immediately there's another problem in the text, in verse 21, from another angle, there's another group saying, why is he saying this thing? Again, the friends bring a paralytic, Jesus heals us, forgives his sins, and those watching, looking to examine his ministry, everybody is receiving something not expected. What's forgiveness? Have you ever been forgiven? Do you know how much you need forgiveness? Have you ever been wronged by somebody? Have you ever asked for forgiveness? The power of this declaration is staggering. It gets to the heart of what is wrong with the human condition and what separates man from man and man from God. This little phrase is the most important phrase Jesus could have ever uttered over this man. This is so much bigger than his paralysis, this is so much bigger than any other problem that you or I could ever have in this world. Sin is that which offends God, which drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and the cherubim had the flaming sword to guard the way of the Tree of Life. And every consequent sadness, and brokenness, and war, and every tear that you've ever shed, and every sickness you've ever felt is because of this thing that lies at the heart of the need for forgiveness, which is called sin. And we've committed these sins against God and against other people. And it offends God. It's the reason for our breach of fellowship with Him. It's why rebels are estranged from God. And it's why when the Lord Jesus Christ looked at His broken, shattered body, He could see far beyond what we see are the effects of sin. And He could see right to the depths of His heart. And He gave and offered and proclaimed over him the thing that would give everlasting life. Communion with God. Peace of conscience. The hope of glory. The final resurrection. The healing of the body and the soul in ways beyond our ability and capacity to feel and understand or even think. He was giving Him His very best. The very reason He came to die on the cross. Everything that He came to do encapsulated in one small sentence. Man, your sins are forgiven you. The intensity of the declaration. There's no conditions here. It's just the prerogative and glory and power of Jesus Christ to wash it all away, to take everything away, to bring the account to zero. When He saw their faith, man, your sins are forgiven you. Here's the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, but who is also the God-man. If you keep reading, the scribes understood this. The scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying. And we need to get the whole context. This reasoning, if you look at verse 22, was in their hearts. The moment we'll see that Jesus perceived their thoughts. The reasoning that we're reading about is the grumbling and complaining that exists in the human heart, often aimed at the Lord Jesus Christ and questioning of his personal work and his glory. This is the reasoning of unbelief. This is when, I might be preaching this sermon, some of you here would say, listen, I don't know why Jesus said that your sins are forgiven, and I don't believe he healed anybody. I don't believe this. It's exactly what was happening when they heard those words. They said, this can't be happening. It's not right. He doesn't have the authority. He can't do it. He's speaking blasphemy. That's a charge that was worthy of death in Israel. Who can forgive sins but God alone? They are saying, you are a mere man without the authority to make the declaration that you have just made. We know the Bible. It's the Lord who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. That's what He said to Moses when Moses returned from Mount Sinai. This is what David confessed in Psalm 32, and this is what David confessed in Psalm 51 and Psalm 130. This is what Isaiah said in Isaiah 43, that God alone forgives sins. That the one who's been sinned against, He alone has the capacity to erase the debt, to cancel the bad account. So what are you doing? As a matter of fact, They know their Old Testament, and they're fairly good theologians up to this point. Jesus, however, knew the Old Testament better than they did. You go back to chapter 2, and Jesus was found after Joseph and Mary had left Jerusalem for the Passover. It was found after three days, verse 46, that they found Him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. All who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed. And His mother said to Him, Son, why have You done this? Look, Your Father and I have sought You anxiously. And He said to them, Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business? He knows the Word already at 12, better than the scribes and Pharisees. It's hidden in His heart. He's the author of it, but as a man, He was the student of it. Filled with the Spirit, He understood it. He was able to proclaim it. This is why He could say in the synagogue in Capernaum, the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He knew that He was the Spirit-filled, Prophet of Prophets, Teacher of Teachers, Preacher of Preachers. He was speaking with authority. And He knew everything the scribes and Pharisees knew but better. So what does that mean? I am God Almighty. Man, your sins are forgiven you. He knew that they were there watching. He knew what they knew. He said, without equivocation, I am God Almighty. I have the power to forgive sins. Why are you reasoning within your hearts Jesus knew who He was? And here, if you're hearing the narrative of the life and ministry and power of Jesus Christ, you are hearing what we call His messianic consciousness, His understanding of Himself, His unapologetic declaration of His own glory and saving power. He's not ashamed. He knows who He is. He believed Himself to be God. There were no other options. Jesus answers the question also, what is God like? What is He like? You remember that He was the one who just withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Communion with His Father. He now steps again into His public ministry, faced by the crowds who He already knows want to kill Him for His ministry message. He knows He's going to the cross. His mission. I would have you know the glory of my Father with whom I just communed. I would have you know that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I would have you know that I have come to seek and save that which is lost. I would have you know that I am the one with the power and authority to forgive sins. And I am proclaiming this glory. And so when you come, or come with your friends in prayer, bringing your deepest needs. And sometimes when you pray, you know how we pray, we pray so half-heartedly or confusedly, we don't even know what to ask. The Bible tells us this, that sometimes we don't know what to ask. They're asking for healing. Jesus, in generous love and mercy, gives them salvation. Your sons are forgiving you. There's no, can't you see I'm busy? Calvin says, this is how we receive salvation by faith. He goes on to say, and the parents, there's an application for you as you pray for your children. I think it's profound. Calvin would say that from this, men derive advantage even from the faith of others. The faith of Abraham had advantage to his posterity when he embraced the free covenant offered to himself and his seed. We must hold a similar belief with regard to all believers that by their faith the grace of God is extended. especially to their children and their children's children, even before they are born. Calvin's saying something powerful here about believing God and His promises for salvation and life. He's saying something powerful to you about the attitude of your heart toward God. When you ask for mercy in faith, Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. He responds to your deepest need first. The second thing is here, He's omniscient. He sees and knows everything. He reads the minds of the scribes. It says very carefully here that He perceived their thoughts in verse 22. We've jumped ahead in a sense in the narrative. In verse 21, if you were there, nothing was happening. As a matter of fact, go back another verse. You've just heard, man, your sins are forgiven you. He's still paralyzed. You don't know, except by the narrator, that these people are thinking anything. You have no idea what's in their mind, because I don't know what's in your mind, and you don't know fully what's in my mind right now. But Jesus knows everything. They were thinking over things, and He interjects. Why are you reasoning in your hearts? He knows what's inside them. He knows everything about them. He's God and He's God alone. If you go back later on in the Gospel of Luke, this is actually something that you'll find repeated in the Gospel of Luke a second time in Luke chapter 9. Then a dispute rose among them as to who would be the greatest. Then Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a little child and set him by him and said to them, whoever receives this little child in my name receives me. Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, if you go another place in the Gospel of John, John chapter 2, but Jesus did not commit himself to them. Passover feast he was healing and teaching and he didn't commit himself to the people of Israel at this point because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man. Jesus doesn't need to be taught anything about you. Sometimes, children, you think you might be able to hide from your parents. You can actually hide from your parents. If you're a teenager, you can do it even better because you can drive places and do things and erase your browser on your phone and do a million things that you can hide. Children, you remember that little catechism question, does God know all things? Nothing can be hid from God. Nothing. When I go to this text, I always ask this question, and it's good to ask it again and again. What are you thinking right now? What are you thinking about? What are you reasoning in your hearts? The question of our Savior. Nothing hidden. Ecclesiastes 12. God will bring every work into judgment. The secret works, the public works. Everything. There's this insanity in the human condition that we could hide from God. It's like Adam and Eve trying to go into the trees of the garden in the cool of the day when the Lord is looking. There's not a way to do this. As a matter of fact, the books of heaven, when they're open, Every word, Psalm 139, every word that you spoke before it was on your tongue, God already knew. He knows the deepest thoughts and dreams that you have. He knows what you think about. He knows your mental space and how you use it, what it's divided up for. He knows every last thing about you. He has this indescribable power. It's comfort to the believer. In 1 Samuel 1 and verse 13, you remember Hannah was praying, and Eli thought she was what? Drunk. Why? Because her lips moved, but she wasn't saying anything. And then what did she say? I was praying. How about this? Abraham's servant, looking for a wife for Isaac. He's telling the story of what happened, He says that he was praying in his heart. I want you to understand something about the nature of communion with God, and what this little phrase says about the nature of how we relate to God. That there's something within you, immaterial and spiritual, the inner life of your heart and soul, which God sees and knows, and mysteriously, you can think thoughts that God knows. You can offer prayers that only He knows, and He will hear them. And this has always been the expectation of the believing people of God, that there's this beauty and glory of this communion, that even a paralyzed man, if he was mute, he could offer to Jesus Christ prayers from his heart, that there's something about the nature of how we are to relate to God which is contained in the reality of Jesus knowing our hearts and being able to reach within where no one else can see. You can do this in prayer. This is also why preaching has a dialogue effect. Have you ever been under preaching? I can remember, matter of fact, just a few weeks ago, Michael Morales was preaching the Tuesday night session at the Greenville Seminary Conference, and there was a moment in that sermon where that preaching came with such glory and power, particularly to my heart. I was talking with a friend I met afterwards, and for a moment I was undone, and I thought that God was speaking directly to me. Because He speaks to us by His Word which cuts to our hearts. The spiritual aspect of human existence exists for communion with God. Here, Jesus is revealing it as an act of rebellion which also warns us. But here His power is shown. Third thing about Jesus. We keep reading in the text. Why are you reasoning in your hearts? He knows they're challenging. You know what's interesting? He also knows, you'll say to His disciples, He knows already here at the beginning, as we read in John chapter 2, what's in the heart of man. He knows that this question, right here, will nail Him to the cross. He knows that this bitter, deep-seated, rebellious inner life Unmortified will lead him to the cross. It will one day, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak, and then plans are made, and then the cross. He knows this. And so he challenges the thinking. Why are you reasoning in your hearts? He does so in a way that sets up a public showdown. You can only imagine how surprised you would be if there was a man who could tell you what you were thinking. But then he challenged that thinking publicly. You think I blaspheme. Okay, let's make a challenge. What's easier to say? Your sins are forgiven. You arise, take up, and walk. And I think, and I've said this before in this text, this is the nature of the showdown. It is easy to talk. Sins are forgiven. He's still there. I understand, Jesus is saying, that what you're saying is that I haven't done anything, that there is no power, that I'm a blasphemer, that I'm an imposter. You don't believe. In your hearts is the bitter root of unbelief. I know. But what if I were to say, rise, take up your bed and walk? And then He says this little phrase. And you need to understand that in the next words, perhaps the greatest glory and power beyond our natural human expectations, something Jesus says about who He is. If you're going to say, what is the new revelation in this passage? He says this phrase, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. And here immediately in a moment, He is saying, I am the one who Daniel prophesied. When He was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven, He came to the Ancient of Days, they brought Him near before Him. To Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples and nations and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed." Jesus doesn't just answer. He says, Son of Man, your sins are forgiven you. And I can say this because I am the Messiah who will receive dominion over all the earth from the ancient of days. My Father, with whom I have just been praying, whose glory I am revealing, whose mission I am undertaking, that you may know that I am the Son of Man and that I possess this power. Watch me. Watch me. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house. No healing? What? No forgiveness, no power. That's what would happen, right? Nothing happens? It's over. There's a lot of people like Benny Hinn and thousands of others in our day who promise all kinds of power. You take them down. I don't know if I've said this before in preaching, but it comes to mind now. You take them down to the local rehab hospital and take an 18-year-old boy who broke his neck on a motorcycle. And they will run for the dark like cockroaches. Because there's no power. None. It's a charade. If they had power, they could empty every hospital in America. It's nothing. It's the kind of challenge here. You're in the rehab hospital. He can't walk. He can't move. He's unable. He had to be carried here by four friends. There's no one in the world, not even today, the best neurosurgeon that can roll back the damage of the curse here. But I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." And immediately he arose up before them and took what he had been lying on and departed to his own house. And listen, glorifying God, he's singing. I wonder what he was singing. Maybe he was singing from Isaiah 35. We just read a moment ago. I'm on that highway of holiness that leads to glory. I have just experienced that the lame will walk and leap for joy at the salvation of the Lord when He restores Israel by the Messiah. That's what happened. Power. The tenderness of the Lord Jesus Christ in communion with His Father as the Son of Man and the God-Man foreshadowed at a temporal heating. healing and declaring to all those who hurt and are sad and weep tears and have sin in their hearts that there's a Savior who's Christ the Lord. And that when you come to him by faith and look to him for salvation, in a word, he will give you everything he came to do by the forgiveness of sins, sealed for us with this miracle. So believe Him. When you believe Him and believe in Him, this is what He does. Free. I look around and some of you are profoundly sad in life because of the brokenness of this world and the weight of the curse. And perhaps that is the reason why we sometimes run to God when we should be running for the more fundamental reason, which is our sins. But notice the tenderness of Jesus. He says, I'll take you because you believe in my power to save. You look to him and say, Lord Jesus, you're the son of man. You're the God man. You're the Messiah redeemer, the only mediator between God, man, the man, Christ Jesus, Lord, I come to you with all of my problems, including my sins, and I ask you for help and mercy. And he will say, Your sins are forgiven you. You do it every day. That's why we ask for forgiveness every day. We're doing the same thing. That's how you look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. You never forget this. You live out of your union with Him. Central to the Gospel narratives is this idea of, Lord, I believe. And you receive Christ in that same simple way, by faith. You also declare by this that there's no one like Him. By believing, you're saying the opposite of what the scribes say. Who can forgive sins but God alone? He's a blasphemer. You're saying, no, He's not a blasphemer. He's the Lord. And that's what you tell other people about Jesus. He is the stone of stumbling, the rock of offense. You young people, there's a bunch of you graduating, you're seniors, you're going off into college, the world's going to tell you, it's okay if you believe in Jesus to some degree or in some way. I understand that. That's your truth. This is my truth. It's not what the scriptures say. The scriptures say that there is no one like him. That he's God and man. That he has a ministry of unbounded power. And that he can reconcile you to a holy God through the forgiveness of sins by the blood of his cross. And there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby men must be saved. It's an exclusive gospel. There's no one else, so bow and worship. This is the battleground. It's really, if you push away everything that's happening in our culture right now, but all the moral declension and war, the heart of this battleground is the question, is Jesus Christ king, yes or no? Is he the son of God? Is he risen? Is he the Lord of glory? Is he coming again to judge the heavens and the earth? Is he the God man? That's the great offensive question of the age. The text says He is. Finally, He knew His mission. I said earlier He went to the cross for this. All of this cost Him His blood, forsakenness, death, to take two things on Himself. As John said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And then He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. all of the curse in its bitter sadness, all of the guilt in its infinite weight, He carries to the cross for you and for me. So that when He's done, we have His righteousness, we have His forgiveness, and we have the promise of a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and all sicknesses will be healed. Every tear you've ever shed, He will wipe them all away. Everything. All. In one person. Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our God, we thank You again for this renewed view of Your glory shining in the face of Your Son. We confess Him to be the Son of Man. The eternal Son of God. The Word who became flesh. The forgiver of sins. the minister of mercy, the God of power. Lord, we confess Him to be unique and distinct in the complexity of His person as the God-man, glorious in His mission, powerful in His salvation, unparalleled in His ability to know even who we are and what we need right now. Lord, full of tenderness and mercy, proclaiming and exercising a ministry of the gospel of good news for sinners flowing from His communion with you, the Father, echoing into life and light for those who put their trust in Him. We pray for any who have not here this morning that they would do so now, and receive the forgiveness of sins and the promise of all tears washed away. And Lord, we thank you that we gather here as your people, and that what you do for us is to feed us again on the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen.