We turn in the word of God to the prophet Zechariah, and then in the New Testament to Luke chapter six, let's stand together as we hear the word. We'll just read. Really, there's a key verse in this reading. It's verse six. There's a principle in it. against human might and attempts at strength and power to influence the world and the difference of God's power and the importance of Zerubbabel to depend on the Holy Spirit, that leader of Israel in this period who in some sense points to Jesus Christ. Now the angel who talked with me came back and awakened me as a man who was wakened out of his sleep and he said to me, what do you see? So I said, I'm looking and there is a lamp stand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps, two olive trees are by it, one on the right hand of the bowl and the other on its left. So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, what are these, my Lord? And the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord, desirable, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you should become a plain, and he should bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. And we turn to Luke chapter six, and we see that saving power being exercised by the agency of the Holy Spirit with the great son of David, our Lord Jesus Christ, in his ministry. Luke six and verse 12. Now it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called the disciples, his disciples, to himself. And from them he chose 12, whom he also named apostles. Simon, who he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Elphais, and Simon called the Zealot, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who also became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast near Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits, and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him and healed them all." This is the word of the Lord. We turn in the preaching of the word to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, they're looking at verses 12 through 19. And we are a church which practices expository preachings. If your Bible's open, it may be helpful to listen. Preaching is to explain and apply the text of the Word of God, help you to understand it, and then understand how you might live by it to God's glory. It is part of human nature, isn't it, to be fascinated with power? The Greek word for power, dunamis or dynamis, perhaps you already recognized. When I just said it, dynamis, we get a lot of English words from it, including dynamic, or dynamo, or even dynamite. That word was taken to describe, I believe it was Alfred Noble, the man who the Nobel Peace Prize was named after, invented dynamite. And when it's used, That's definitely an expression of power. You don't want to be too close by or you'd be destroyed, and we have some respect for that. Power unleashed. And this word for power comes at the end of the text in verse 19, and it's connected especially to our Lord Jesus Christ. Power, an unbounded power. But back to the idea of being fascinated with things that are powerful. Years ago I took some of my children to watch the Blue Angels and if you watch a collection of F-18s rocket by, it thunders so loudly. You feel it inside of you. It's impressive. It's impressive because there's something about power, not only the thing itself, but the projection of military power. There's a sense of something far greater than yourself happening. It's a tiny little example. The other night we were laying outside last Friday night looking at the northern lights and thinking about the fact that there's this solar flare of a kind of dimensions that you can't even hardly imagine. that has swept across the, what is it, 93 million miles from the earth to the sun? And comes and is lighting up the atmosphere with these displays of power that when we saw them, we instinctively cried out, recognizing something glorious was happening. Something so far beyond our ability to even fully comprehend or even influence in any way that something here of God's providential power in display and creation. I think the same thing when there's a thunderstorm, or went to Niagara Falls years ago, or even when you see other things like kings. I know you're all Americans. You know I'm a dual citizen in that conflicted position of being a subject of the British crown and a member of the rebel colonies. I did watch something of the coronation of King Charles. In all the pomp and circumstance, in a sense, well, it projects something of power when you see a king, or if you see Air Force One, Power being communicated. Some years ago, Air Force One took off at Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, and I was driving down 101, and I saw it fly over. And here is the symbol of the American presidency with all the power, pomp, and circumstance. And you see it, and there's something about it that communicates this idea of power. Children, maybe you've been to the zoo this week. A few of us went to the zoo, and there's a lion there. powerful creature and you're humbled by that. There's an authority in this king of beasts and we're drawn to it and we want to see it. But all these earthly displays of power are really nothing compared to the power of God. It's obvious because we know that all earthly powers are derived from God. He made it all. It's all under God. The most powerful natural phenomenon, or political power, or in any way, the things that we build, all of these are nothing. They are derived, and small, and pictures, and results of God's own work in creation and in history. But if we were to do sort of a thought experiment, if you could collect all the power in this world, everything that is glorious and powerful and majestic and gather it together, you'd still have nothing compared to the infinite, eternal and changing power of the living God. We use, theologians use this word to describe His power. He's omnipotent, that His power is unbounded, has no limits. That's Isaiah's point, for example, in Isaiah chapter 40, when the Lord says, to whom then will you liken me? He's the incomparable God. This is one of the examples I love to consider. Perhaps the greatest example from the natural world is the idea of galaxies. You know, I love to think about this. It's good for Christians to think about it. Psalm 8, when I consider the heavens the work of your fingers. It's almost asked the question, who am I? What is man that you're mindful of? And the son of man that you visit. That there's billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, and he knows them all, and he keeps them in their courses. Why do you think God made that? Why do you think he made that? It is this grand emblem every night of the unsearchable greatness and power of God. All of these are simply his servants. Genesis 1, 16. One phrase, he made the stars also. Closest star is Proxima Centauri. 4.25 light years. The fastest object farthest from the earth right now is called Voyager 1. It's a spacecraft. It is traveling at 17,000? No, sorry, 40,000 miles per hour, 40,000 miles an hour. How long do you think it would take to get to the nearest star? 40 years. No, sorry, no, sorry, sorry, 73,000 years. 40,000 miles an hour, 73,000 years. By the way, space travel seems to be a bit of a pipe dream. 40,000 miles an hour, 73,000 years. The Bible says, great is the Lord, greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. It's so far beyond our ability to understand. This example, even this example I just gave you, only begins to describe the power of God, and especially the power of our Lord Jesus Christ on display in the Gospel of Luke. As Job says, we just see the outskirts of his ways, the edges of his power. And we want to study the power of the Lord Jesus Christ here from Luke chapter 6. First, we're going to look at this idea of power in the gospel itself. The general idea of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second thing from this text, we're going to see something of the source or secret of his power as mediator. And that will come in his praying. And then the third thing we're gonna see is how he exercises that power to build his kingdom. And the text, if you're thinking of it in your mind, the general idea, we're gonna look at the Gospel of Luke more broadly for a moment, the idea of power, and then the beginning, which is the prayer, and the end, which is the power that flows from the God-man Jesus Christ in saving mercy to his people. So first, looking at the Gospel of Luke and the idea of power, it's all through the text. in his birth announcement, where we read that he's going to, he will have an unbounded royal power. When the angel came to Mary, he said this, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and he shall call his name Jesus. He will be great. We call the son of the highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there should be no end. Here is coming, the angel said, Mary, through your womb, one who is great, who is the son of the Most High, and will exercise royal power that will never end. Unbounded power. It's already in his first birth announcement. When he was conceived, we read that it would be the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary, and from divine power would come the powerful Messiah. We read also that he exercised that power already in his ministry. We'll see some places, for example, over Satan and the temptation in Luke chapter four. Who is Satan? He's the prince of the power of the air. He's the prince of this world. As a matter of fact, he himself says in verse six of Luke chapter four, all this authority, when he said, I'll give you authority over all the kings of the world, all this authority I will give you and their glory for this has been delivered to me and I give it to whomever I wish. Now, he was overstating his case, but he is a being of remarkable power and intelligence and Jesus just with a word, just with a word destroyed him and overcame him. The devil who goes about like a roaring lion seeking may devour to Jesus Christ. And His power, He was immediately overcome. The evil spirits, we read, were delivered. People were delivered from evil spirits because of power. What a word is this? For with authority and power, He commands the unclean spirits and He comes out. He taught with authority, with power. Luke 4 and verse 36. His miracles, chapter 5 and verse 17. Jesus had the power to heal and the power to forgive sins. Chapter six and verse 19, getting closer to our text, we read that power comes out of him. Chapter eight and verse 46, we'll see later that power comes out of him when the woman with the issue of blood touches him. This idea of power surrounds, precedes, surrounds, fills the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I said earlier, what is this power? This begs the question. The Greek word in the text is dynamis. It means ability or power. And the idea of ability is important because what is power? What is it actually? It is the ability to accomplish a purpose, to get something done. So you could make a plan, you and I can make a lot of plans. We might even make good plans, help by word and spirit, but we're often limited in our ability to execute them because there are obstacles, problems or troubles or just our own human weakness that we're not able to carry it out. God has no such limitations. He's infinite in power. Again, you might have ideas how to fix problems, let's say in America. America has problems right now, anyone notice? You might have ideas how to fix them. I have ideas, probably not that good, but I have ideas. I have a second problem, and that's I have no authority, I have no power, none. In and of myself, I'm unable to do it, and we feel this. Now, what's the biblical idea of power? Let's go a little deeper into this idea of power in the scriptures. First, let's contrast it with natural fallen thinking. People think that power is a thing that they can simply amass to themselves, that it's sort of a natural thing. And the natural man believes that he should just harness it, crave it, and amass more of it, and that it belongs to him. Other people in our age actually say that all power is bad and that any imbalance of power is evil. If you hear that, it's running through feminism and the entire DEI cult in our present age, that any imbalance of power or influence in history is always evil. This is not true. It's actually aimed at the power of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But back to the idea of biblical power, starkly different than worldly ideas of power, which is just a tool to amass more power, pleasure, or money. In the scriptures, power belongs to God. It belongs to Him. And the word power and the idea of power in the scriptures always leads to God, and power is Ultimately, God's personal activity in history to accomplish His holy purposes and His ability to do so is unbounded. God has spoken once, the psalmist says in Psalm 62, twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God. comes from Him, belongs to Him, flows from Him. This is seen in nature. I gave you a lot of natural illustrations at the beginning of the sermon, but it is seen most profoundly in redemption. And if you were to think, what is the greatest exercise of power in the Old Testament? If you were a believing Israelite, you know what you would say? You would say it's the Exodus. It's deliverance, it's saving mercy. It's the ability to change hearts. and rescue sinful people from slavery to sin. If we read Exodus 15, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them. You in mercy have led forth the people whom you have redeemed. And then here's the key phrase. You have guided them in your strength or power to your holy habitation. Power is used for salvation by God. It's not just the power of creation. The greater power of God is evidence. The greatest revelation of the power of God is in saving mercy and salvation, in the gift of life. If you go to the other end of your Bible, you'll see that the praises of heaven are filled with this idea of the unbounded power of God. In heaven, Revelation chapter seven, the great multitude, which no one could number, is saying this with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom. and thanksgiving and honor and power and might belong to our God forever and ever. Amen. Now one more thing about the Bible and power. Going back to the Old Testament. The Old Testament speaks often of God's power, but anticipates that its greatest revelation and exercise would come through the Messiah. For unto us a child is born, a Son is given. The government shall be upon His shoulder. His name shall be called, one of His names, Mighty God. Daniel, one like the Son of Man, prophesying of the coming of Jesus Christ, will come and to Him will be given dominion and a kingdom and glory forever and ever. He will exercise rule, power with dominion and glory. That the greatest expression, as it were, revelation of power and history is Jesus Christ Himself. It would be the Messiah. Back to the text now. The power of God revealed in the text in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Two things we're going to look at now. In Christ's ministry, as foretold in the Old Testament by the great Messianic prophecies, the power of God, His mighty arm of salvation would be revealed ultimately in a Messiah. Text teaches us this in two ways, in the source or secret of his power, and in the exercise of his power as mediator. We read, and it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. There's a remarkable little statement about the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially when we think about this. He's both God and man. Now, why would God pray to God? You ever wondered? Why would Jesus pray? If we think about Him as God, He is fully God, truly God. He's infinite, eternal, unchangeable. He Himself possesses, in His divine nature, omnipotence. All that we talked about, power that belongs to the Lord for salvation, revealed in creation, from eternity to eternity, belongs inherently to Jesus Christ. He's not lacking in any power, He has unbounded power. together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. There's no one like Him in all of history. He's not in His incarnation, divorced from the Trinity, but He is the eternal Son of God who took to Himself human flesh. And so what belongs to Him is everything that the entirety of the Scripture says about the power of God. But notice something interesting in how the power that's exercised in his ministry comes to and is exercised by the mediator, Jesus Christ, the God-man. Mysteries of mysteries. In verse 12, we just read that he's praying. What is prayer? An offering up of our desires to God, but Jesus is God and he prayed. The rest is a question. How does God pray to God? What is happening? Why pray? Two things you have to remember. First, his true humanity. He's not only the true and living God, the Word who became flesh, but He's truly man. He shares in our nature. And as we pray, He prayed. His true humanity, Jesus had to pray. Second, deeper, is an insight into communion with God. Look at the text. He went out to the mountain. This peak, there's something of Moses' language here. The mountain of God. There at the top. All night in prayer to God. Have you ever prayed all night? Why was he doing this? There's a window into the secret communion here of the Father and the Son. In the prayer life of the Mediator, Jesus Christ. Here's something, in John 17, Jesus longs for this great glory of the Father and the Son that has always been enjoyed in mutual communion of the Trinity. He's longing for his return, as it were, to heaven as the mediator, the full glory again displayed of that communion from his humiliation to his exaltation. And here we realize that in His life that communion was not broken by the Incarnation, but it was also enjoyed in the Incarnation. And here you have something of a mystery where Christ, having taken to Himself human flesh, now is a true man, enjoying the same eternal communion of fellowship with His Father in prayer in His ministry. And even deeper, now bringing our flesh to the presence of the Father in holy communion as the mediator between God and man. The eternal Son of God and the mediator, the second Adam. A window. into communion with God and what prayer really is. And then the intensity all night. And all through his ministry, we find him praying. He's praying in the wilderness. He's leaving to pray. He's praying with his disciples. You can find this in chapter 5 and chapter 9 and chapter 11 and verse 1. And you have here a picture of the communion of the God-man in his humanity, in human prayer to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the result of this will be that power will flow from him in his ministry. The whole person, the God-man, filled with the Spirit, eternal God, true humanity, Spirit-filled, by communion with the Father, exercising a mediatorial ministry of unbounded power, a man filled with maximal glory. We can take a pause here for a moment and remind you of your own privilege of prayer as a follower of Jesus Christ. The privilege of prayer. What does James say in James chapter four? You have not because you do not ask. Because you're not praying. Because you, see what does Christ purchase you at the cross and by the resurrection? That you in Him would share His privilege of communion with the Father. That you would have now what He had as the eternal Son of God, but also as the Spirit-anointed mediator. That's what prayer is. Pray like this. And then secondly, you'll notice that what he's praying for, we'll see in a moment, he's praying for apostles. Pray for the growth of his church, especially for the glory of the church and the good of the gospel. The second thing, the exercise of Christ's mediatorial power in the text. What flows from this prayer? And when it was day, he called his disciples to himself, and from these he chose twelve whom he also named apostles. Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon, and Judas, and Judas Iscariot, the traitor. Connected now to this practice of communion and prayer with the Father is the powerful exercise of ministry in a number of different ways. In the selection of these apostles, And then, in teaching, in healing, in casting out demons. Until we get to the final phrase, that power came out from Him upon them all. What did He come to do? To seek and save that which was lost, and so here He's going about His mission. He is laying the foundation for the New Covenant Church. He's naming apostles. What does that mean? Out of his whole crowd of disciples, here's the scene. He's prayed all night. He calls all of his disciples, which is a much bigger number than the 12. From the 12, he says, you will be an apostle, you will be an apostle, you will be an apostle, all the way to the number of 12. Flowing from this communion with the Father in prayer comes the authoritative selection and declaration of appointed ambassadors. Apostles are ordinary men who are now being named as special ambassadors to be sent to represent Jesus as the first generation of the church. As an aside, this is a special office. It doesn't continue in the church. These are the 12 apostles. If you look at the church in Revelation, it's described as the church that has 12 foundation stones. There's 12 gates. That's the heavenly Jerusalem. And those are named by the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles. These are foundation laying, special witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the recipients of his teaching, the special ambassadors set apart to do a work never to be repeated. Jesus is undoing them, he's giving them, he's placing power upon them. As a matter of fact, the relationship between their ministry and the power of Jesus comes in chapter nine, just a few verses later. And he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. This is an exercise of power and a gift of his power to build his church. 12 ordinary men set apart by the praying power of Jesus Christ. He names them, he honors them. Mysteriously, there's even Judas among them. The text says Judas Iscariot also became a traitor. Also under the authority of Jesus Christ. Not surprising to Jesus Christ. Part of the mysterious communion of the Father and the Son to call these 11 faithful men and to remind us of the possibility of apostasy. also under the power and authority of Jesus Christ in His plan. In the face of great opposition of Satan and all the scribes and Pharisees and the demons that possess those around him, the undaunted Christ exercises this ministry. The second way He does this is He begins to preach and teach. You keep reading. He came down with them and stood on a level place with the crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, Tyre, Sidon came to hear him. Now just a little side note here, I said there's a Moses picture where he goes up from the mountain, coming down after communion with God. You can remember what Moses looked like when he came down. His face was glowing with light and glory, reflecting something of the glory of heaven on earth. Here Jesus comes down, selects the 12, moves down, bringing the life of heaven to this earth as now a preacher. Note the global intimations of his ministry, not only choosing the foundation stones, but now people from Israel and then the Gentiles beyond are gathering to be the next, as it were, portion of the holy temple that is being built, the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Now the living stones from Jew and Gentile coming to the plain as the one from heaven comes to earth and teaches the word. Notice His authoritative acts here. They came to hear Him. We saw earlier in chapter 4 and verse 32. Now they were astonished as His teaching for His word had authority or power. They came to be healed of their diseases and He would heal them with the same saving power. And even those who came who were tormented, verse 18, with evil spirits came. And the result is that they were healed by His power. Prayer on the mountain with God. Communion of the Mediator, the God-Man, with His Father. Exercising His office as Savior. Coming down from the mountain to earth to authoritatively name His Apostles. To gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel and Gentiles streaming from Tyre and Sidon, that's way outside the bounds of Israel, to hear Him teach. To teach the Word, preach the Word, heal the sick, cast out demons. What do we read in the text? And they were healed. And then the capstone is verse 19. The text builds to a final, electrifying, and rightly we'd say powerful scene. Look at it. And the whole multitude. Judea, Jerusalem, disciples, apostles, Tyre, Sidon. I want you to have in your mind this great crowd around the word Jesus. The one from heaven to earth. mediator of the saving power of God. They sought to touch Him, just to reach in and lay hold of Jesus Christ. And then we read, for power went out from Him and healed them all. Flowing from the mountain in communion with the Father, the Mediator, authoritative ministering at the end, hundreds or maybe thousands around Him, recognizing in Him is something that gives salvation in life. And if I could only touch Him, I would be well. In Luke chapter 8, you remember that Jesus was in another crowd and there was a woman with an issue of blood. and she wanted to be healed but she was afraid to talk about it, maybe afraid to talk to Jesus. You remember what she did? She just reached through the crowd and she touched him. You remember what Jesus said? He stopped in the crowd, recognizing, here's the little phrase, that power had come from him. He said, who touched me? You remember his disciples said, we're in a crowd, what are you talking about? How would we know who just bumped into you? But Jesus knew that somebody in faith had reached out to him. The one who Paul calls Christ, the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God. For healing. The same picture here. The remarkable, saving power of God. Christ Himself, the conduit, the channel, the source of infinite saving, divine power to all those who believe. Some notes and lessons for the church. And for all those who are here listening, this text is like an arrow. It sets a trajectory for you to follow a theme through the ministry of Jesus Christ, which is this idea of the exercise of the infinite power of God for our salvation. This is revealed in Jesus Christ. What we have here, to use Job again, is the outskirts of Jesus' ways. He's selecting his apostles that might not have looked outwardly powerful. It was the laying of the foundation of the church. He's preaching the word to Jew and Gentile as they gather. He's healing, which is unusual power. He's casting out demons. There's more power. And even when they touch him, there's power. But in another sense, it's only the beginning, the outskirts, the edges of what he came to do. Where is this power headed? It's headed to the cross. There's no greater and more powerful transaction together with the resurrection than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This power is not simply to create a grand and finite universe, but it's the power to eradicate an infinite debt, to remove pervasive corruption, to overcome divine eternal judgment that we deserve. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, There was an exercise in the display of power beyond your capacity to fully understand. To wipe out an infinite debt owed to a holy God who would have destroyed us, but instead he intercedes and with glorious power bears it all. This is where the trajectory of this power is headed, the cross and the empty tomb. Some lessons, that's an observation. About this power of Jesus Christ, if you're here this morning, you need it. The most fundamental reason you need it is because of your sins, and you need your sins to be forgiven, pardoned, and cleansed. If you're still here in your sins, there's only one who can save, his name is Jesus, and he has the infinite, unbounded power to save. If you're in any other desperate trouble this morning, people recognize that this power was not just limited to the forgiveness of sins, but the sick and those tormented by evil spirits, that there was not a single trouble, trial, grief, or tears that you couldn't go to Jesus with and say, Lord Jesus, in you is the power of God into salvation. You are the Savior. You alone can do what I need in this life, not only to forgive my sins, but to deliver me from any and other trouble. What is this power capable of? Of changing your heart, changing others around you, tempering your sadnesses. And ultimately, what will it do? It will bring a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and where the Lord Jesus Christ will be with the Father and the Spirit, the King over the new creation. And that's what he came to do and to give. And you join the crowd and you reach out. And you say, Lord Jesus, I believe. And you lay hold of, by faith, Jesus Christ. And in touching him, power came from him and healed them all. Prayer. Prayer is the means by which Christ exercised that power as the mediator. and how he gives his power to his people. I said it earlier, but I'll say it again. You have the privilege of participating in prayer like Jesus prayed. And that all that flowed from the mediator in prayer, mysteriously becomes ours in him. And so pray, pray. And if you're in trouble, maybe pray all night. Jesus said to His disciples later when they couldn't exercise ministry, He said, the demon-possessed could not be healed. He said, these only come out by prayer and fasting. The high calling and privilege of prayer is set forth here in the example of Jesus Christ. And then finally, worship. What is worship? Psalmist says, great is the Lord greatly to be praised, His greatness is unsearchable." That means that if you were to go down into the greatness and glory of the Triune God, there is no bottom. The depths of that well have no end. And the power of God for salvation is unlimited. And it's the only power that could ever save you. You need that power for your salvation. Having tasted it, what is worship? It's to acknowledge and praise and magnify this majesty. To give to the Lord glory and strength, Psalm 29. To confess His power in the natural realm, as Isaiah says in Isaiah 40, He looks at the stars and He says, by the strength of your power, not one of them is missing. You call them all by name. As we went to Revelation chapter 7, it is to join with the worship of a heavenly glory, which again and again resounds with this marvel at the power of God. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come is eternity. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things. By your will they exist and were created. And then the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And then blessing and honor and glory and power belong to Him who sits on the throne and the Lamb forever. There is this display of glory in the majestic power of Jesus Christ that brings us to the power of the triune God. And we fall down and we worship. And we honor Him. And worship is the recognition of and the amazement at the unbounded power of God. We started with this idea that we were made to be drawn to, fascinated by displays of power. They humble us and at the same time they draw us in. When we come to Christ, we've come to unbounded power. We've been humbled and drawn in at the same time. Ultimately, at the end of the age, what will be the great glory of the Christian? Not to see that power in the shrouded humiliation of the ministry in Luke 6, but the unfettered vision of an infinitely glorious and majestic God. whose power saved us from our sins, carried us through our tears, brought us to heaven, made a new heavens and a new earth. And we will join the everlasting soul to praise our great God. Let's pray. Lord our God, we see here in your word the power that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Already at the beginning, the early days of his ministry in so many ways, We see the secret of His communion with you flowing out in an act of mediatorial glory and authority, laying the foundation of the church, gathering from every nation, tribe, and tongue, preaching the unsearchable riches of the gospel, healing the sick, casting out demons, such that it was recognized that in this person, the Word who became flesh, Christ, the power of God, Christ, the wisdom of God. Help us again this morning, place our full hope and trust in Him alone, in all of our sins and all of our troubles, and to rest there, knowing the sufficiency and glory of this Savior and Him alone, Jesus Christ, amen. Look up and receive the blessing of the Lord, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.