When God Delights In You But Does Not Deliver You

All right, well quick thought before we dive into the passage, but turn to Matthew 27, that's where we're going to be. Where in the Bible, this is not connected to my sermon, but where in the Bible is there the, other than talking about regeneration, is there the idea of someone being willing to do a transplant, you know like a kidney transplant, a heart transplant, where in the Bible is that idea of someone loving someone so much they're willing to give them an organ or a part of their body? Yeah, Paul to the Galatians. Paul commenting on the Galatians says, what does he say to them? Yeah, you would have been willing to gouge out your eyes for me, right? Paul says that of them.

What if this morning I did mention to you all that someone in the church is going to die unless they get a kidney transplant, or they're going to have really, really poor quality of life, and I put that before you guys as a body. Would you be willing to go get tested to see if you were a match and you could give one of your kidneys to someone in this church, right? That's an interesting question. I bring that up because that did just actually happen in Corpus.

A brother there needed a kidney transplant, I mean this has been long in the making, but the transplant just happened a few days ago, and a mother, kind of a young mother in the church, she gave one of her kidneys to this older brother in the church, a little older brother in the church who had a lot of health problems and needed a kidney transplant, and I just thought what an example of the love of Christ for another member in the body to be willing, this young mother to be willing to go under surgery and get a kidney taken out and given to another member in the body. Doesn't that strike you as an act of sacrifice and of love? It did to me, and so I wanted to share that. That's just a good example of what happened in Corpus, of the length you're willing to go to for someone else in the church, and that sister and that brother in the church, how close they were relationally and everything, I don't know, but what an act of sacrifice and of love, and so if Christ laid down His life for us, and we're called to lay down our lives for our brethren, given one of our kidneys, that's not laying down your life.

That's just giving one little piece of your body that God has given you. So let's pray, and then we're going to look at this text. Father, who knows, maybe one day someone in this church is going to need a kidney, and I'll have to step up to the plate, and as they say, eat my own words, and Lord, we want to be people who are willing to eat our own words.

Isn't that just being a doer of the word? And so Lord, I don't want to be scared to mention things that seem, ah, that'd be tough. Lord, you've not told us this Christian life is going to be easy, there's different things we have to weigh out, different situations we face, but Lord, I do pray, Lord, give us a greater degree of the love of Christ, Lord, I thank you for the church in Corpus, and Father, you know all they've gone through in these last few months, we pray you'd sustain this dear church, encourage Lord Mark and Jimmy and the brethren down there, Lord, be ever near to those dear saints of God, Lord, I just pray you'd help me right now to feed these dear sheep, Lord, we've got this message and we've got a fellowship meal, Lord, would you just be with this church, Lord, these are your blood-bought children, your sons and daughters, Lord, I don't know how much I care for my children, Lord, here we are we're all your kids, and Lord, you care about us, and so Lord, I just pray you'd help me a weak, pathetic preacher to in some way convey some truth that benefits these dear, dearly beloved ones of yours, I ask this in Christ's name, amen. So Matthew 27, I want to just simply look at one, in one way, one thought today, when God delights in you, but He doesn't deliver you, and it's still true that He delights in you even though He does not deliver you, and so we're going to read in Matthew 27, we're going to focus on verse 43, but just to read some of the context here of Christ on the cross, starting in verse 38, then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left, and those who passed by derided Him.

So you've got this one group of mockers, those passing by, they're deriding Christ, wagging their heads, and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you're the Son of God, come down from the cross. And we've got another group, verse 41, so also the chief priest with the scribes and the elders, they mocked Him, saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Isn't that interesting? They acknowledge He did what? He saved others.

What a judgment upon these people, they acknowledge He saved others, He did miracles, He healed. That's terrifying. But they're mocking Him.

He saved others, He cannot save Himself. So He's got limited power. They're accusing Him of limited power.

He's the King of Israel, let Him come down now. Do it now, come down from the cross. And if you do that, if you give us this great miracle, you come down from the cross, then we're going to believe in you.

They've got this little fleece they think is okay to put out. You do this, we're going to trust you. God, show me a great miracle, and I'll believe that the God of my parents is really the God of the Bible.

Some kids do that, they reason in that way, or adults do that. Verse 43, He trusts in God, let God deliver Him now. We've got the word now again.

They want something very immediate. Do it now. Do it now.

And look what is said in the text. He trusts in God, let God deliver Him now. If He, who's the He? Who's the He right there? If God desires who? Who's the Him? Christ.

He trusts in God, let God deliver Him now. If God really loves His Son, if God really delights in His Son, the evidence that He delights in His Son is He will deliver His Son from suffering on the cross. Right? That's the way they're reasoning here.

They're attacking the Son's relationship with His Father. In your hour of trial, what's the enemy going after with Christ? God really doesn't desire you as the Son. His affections are really not for you.

And brethren, we face the exact same reality. But let's finish reading the text. If He desires Him, for He said, I'm the Son of God.

So you're saying you're the Son of God. If you're really the Son of God and the Father really loves you, the Father's going to remove you from the situation and He's going to do it right now. And then you've got a third group of mockers.

And the robbers who were crucified with Him also reviled Him in the same way. So there's a lot we could look at here of attacks and lies and false theology and false teaching that these three groups of mockers threw at the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you look at what they said to Christ, in some way you're going to find there's parallels in your own Christian life where the enemy is going to attack you and your mind in the same way in your hour of trial with the same similar false theology and false ideas and wrong doctrine as we find here.

But I just want to focus in on that one reality that believer, even if God is not immediately delivering you from a trial, do not believe the lie that God does not love you and does not still desire you. Christ faced that. You and I are going to face the same reality in our Christian's life.

And what a stain it is. They're questioning the Father's affection for the Son. That's what they're going after right here.

They're saying God doesn't love you. If He really loved you, He would deliver you from this right in this moment. You ever had the devil whisper something like that to you about your relationship with your heavenly Father? You ever had an attack like that from Satan? And remember, this is the Son of whom the Father has said not too long ago, what did He say of His Son? This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.

God the Father was well pleased with His Son. Believer, God is well pleased with you. But that doesn't mean you're not going to have enemies accusing you and saying God doesn't really desire you.

He doesn't really care for you. He doesn't really want you. So this matters for us as Christians.

Our enemy brings up the same lie. If God loves you, believer, why has He not yet delivered or changed your difficult circumstances that you find yourself in? But what we're going to find is God's delight in you is not displayed by, is not there when there's a delayed deliverance. Or I would say this, not just if there's not a delayed deliverance, but if there's no deliverance at all.

Christ doesn't get delivered from death on the cross. In certain trials we face and you face as Christians, you're not going to get delivered from it. It's not just that Satan wants you to question God's love for you because there's a delay.

What if the delay goes on for the entirety of this life? There is an ultimate deliverance as we just sang about. There's a place where there's no more tears in heaven. And so there is going to be an ultimate deliverance, but it's not promised in every situation in this life, Christian.

Don't doubt God's love for you. So that's what we're going to find. God's delight in you is not disproved by delayed deliverance or no deliverance at all.

The enemy wants to use your suffering to distort your view of God. That's what he tried to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. He wanted Christ to think of his Father in a different way, in a way that was inaccurate and in a way that was not biblical.

He wants your trial to teach you some false lessons about God and His character. The devil wants delay to tell you that God has forgotten you. He wants pain to persuade you God does not desire you.

If he really desired you, he wouldn't put you through all of this pain that you're going through. This is significant. This is huge.

So we've got basically four truths that I want to consider that you should remember when Satan whispers to you that God does not desire you. Four thoughts. So number one, God's delay is not God's rejection.

God delaying does not mean God has rejected you or in another way that he does not love you. So verse 43, he trusts in God, let God deliver him now if God really desires the Son. The word now matters.

The mockers were saying if God really delights in Jesus, then God should rescue Jesus from the cross right now, right now. And you know what? Kids want things now. Is it hard for kids to wait for certain things in their lives? They want the birthday presents early.

What else do kids want early? Dinner now? Not dinner now. They don't want dinner now usually. Treats.

I want my treats now. Look, we can look at our own kids and the fact is we're like that with God our Father even when we're 39. There's certain times, it's like, Lord, I want this now.

I want this, respite my life now from all my health problems. The word now matters. The enemy wanted Christ.

God's got, if he doesn't act now, it's got to happen immediately. It's got to happen immediately. That delay, there's some of you, you're hoping for a future deliverance.

And again, that future deliverance might be heaven. It might not be in this life. You've got to be ready for that.

But some of you, you're hopeful right now because well, God does delay. What if the delay goes on? How long was Joseph in a delay waiting for the fulfillment of God's word? How many years did Joseph wait? How long did the word of the Lord test Joseph? How many years? I'm asking you all because I don't remember. Was it seven? Twenty? Twenty years tested for fulfillment of God's promise.

And it says in the Psalms, the word of the Lord, it tested Joseph. A believer may be deeply loved by God and yet still remain in a trial. Don't let delay tell you that God does not desire you.

I mean, that's what happens. The trial continues. The delay continues.

We can start to reason wrongly in our mind. We think, well, if God loved me, this would be over. If God delights in me, he would have answered by now.

If I were really precious to him, he would not leave me in the current circumstances that he's left me in. That is the theology of the mockers on the cross. Those are the lies that they were trying to distort Christ's perspective of his father in the midst of the greatest trial he was ever facing, bearing the wrath of God on that cross.

And that was one of the attacks the enemy had. God doesn't really desire you or he would deliver you. If that's an attack of the enemy on the perfect son of God and his greatest hour of trial, you better believe that's in the enemy's arsenal.

When he attacks you, Christian, he's going to want you to doubt your father's love and his affection for you because of a delay. The enemy isn't the enemy's acknowledging he saved others. He's acknowledging God is powerful, right? But he's looking at a delay.

This delay is where Satan often will come at us to get us to be discouraged. But remember, that is the theology of the mockers. Notice how he begins the verse.

They say he trusts in God. Isn't that interesting? They're mocking the son's faith in his father. They're mocking Christ's faith.

They're saying he trusts God. Let us see what trust is really worth now when you're suffering. That's one of the sharpest arrows the enemy can often use in us.

So that's point one. If you haven't had it happen, it's going to happen. I'm telling you, the enemy is going to whisper in your ears that God does not desire you.

Look, we face that at times in our personal relationships. You ever had that thought in a close relationship? Does this person really desire me? Do they really have affection? Do they really love me? Do they really care for me? I mean, that happens in an earthly relationship. The same thing can happen in your relationship with your heavenly Father.

And that was attack of the enemy. It wasn't to throw God completely out of the picture. It was to make the son doubt the love of the Father in that accusation.

That's point one. Be prepared for that, Christian, and we're going to look at why we should obviously not ever believe that lie. And obviously Christ did not give in to any of these distortions.

Christ did not doubt the Father. Well, point two. Love does not always remove the love the knife.

And I don't hit on John 15, but you see that in John 15, right? The Lord prunes us in our lives, and that pruning, it makes us look bare. We've got not much left, but why does He prune you, Christian? That you might what? That bear more fruit. It's for greater fruitfulness.

You know, there's a lot of ways you could illustrate it. I mean, think about a father. Let's say there's a father, and he's outside of an operating room, and the child does not want to go into the operating room.

They're scared. And someone overhears what's going on, and they don't understand the context, the fear of the son. They don't know what the father is letting his son go into.

It's ultimately for his benefit to go into the operating room to deal with something that is significantly wrong with his heart. And this person in the hall, they don't understand the context. They think the father is not loving the son to let the son go into the surgery.

The same thing could happen in the spiritual realm. There's something that God lets you go into, and someone misunderstands the context. They don't see how this is for your greatest good.

And the stranger sitting there saying, the father doesn't really care for the son. Look at the son screaming, deliver me from this. And if you think even the Lord Jesus mentioned, let this cup pass.

But not my will, but yours be done. We can't interpret that as God not loving us. When we are separated from his felt presence for a season to go into that operating room, he's still there dealing with things in our life that need to be dealt with and can be only dealt with sometimes in immense suffering.

And the father in that earthly illustration, he's out in the hall. What's he doing? He's burdened for his child. He's praying for his son, that his son be okay in the surgery.

He wishes he could take that surgery for his child if he could. But the enemy is there wanting the son to doubt the father's love. So the father's refusal to deliver Christ was not the absence of love.

It was actually accomplishing the very redemption that you and I need. So brethren, love permits pain. True love.

Precious are the wounds of a friend. How does that text? It says precious. But what's profuse? Profuse are the what of the enemy.

Those who flatter you and they just want to speak well of you are your enemies. Those who have the love to wound you and rebuke you are those who are the most precious friends in your life. And that's what our father is.

He displays that perfectly to us as he sanctifies us, as he disciplines us. And so love permits pain, but it's accomplishing something greater than giving you immediate relief to deliver you from your circumstances. So I don't know what sufferings some of you all are going through, but do you recognize what God's trying to do behind the scenes? Do you realize what God is trying to accomplish in your life? Don't conclude He doesn't love you.

Don't conclude He doesn't desire you. He's working all of this for good. That's point two.

God, true love and desire for a child, God doesn't remove the pruning knife. He keeps it right there fresh upon your life. Point three, the mockers fulfilled the scripture they did not understand.

What verse is being fulfilled in Matthew 27, 43? He trusts in God, let God deliver him now if he desires him. What's being quoted right there? What Old Testament passage is being fulfilled right here? Yeah, Psalm 22. Psalm 22, 8. He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him.

Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. It's interesting the end of it is worded a little different. So the mockers at the cross are repeating the language of Psalm 22.

They're mocking Him. Where's God? He's not saving you. And guess what they're doing? They're actually fulfilling scripture.

Same thing in your life, Christian. Something's going on. It looks like it's not going as planned.

It's actually fulfilling a providence of God that He had before the foundation of the world. That would happen in your life to bring you to glory. Psalm 22 is a psalm of the righteous sufferer.

It begins with my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Those are the very words Christ cries from the cross right here, a few verses later in verse 46. So Matthew's showing us the cross is not random. Christ is walking through the suffering described in Psalm 22.

The mockers think that they're proving that Jesus is being rejected by God. But they're actually fulfilling scripture that proves that Jesus is the Messiah. And that's what the enemy does.

If you've got eyes to see it, everything in your life, it's ultimately a defeat for the enemy. It's working for the enemy. It's another opportunity for God's word to be vindicated in your life and His word to be proven is true.

But sometimes in the moment of it, you miss that this is the fulfillment of Psalm 22. And you're just focused on what's happening. When you look at the big picture of all the promises of God, you realize this is actually fulfilling something from God's word in my life.

It's working something for good. What irony. Their very words are fulfilling the psalm that points to the Messiah's suffering.

And so they're wrong in their interpretation. They think they're exposing that Jesus is unloved, but they're actually helping show that Jesus is the promised righteous sufferer who is fully loved by the Father and who's completely pleasing to the Father. They think suffering disproves his identity.

Their words are actually confirming his identity a hundredfold. So what a reality. Think.

What that means is this. Even the mockery was under and submitting to God's word. The suffering was not proof God had lost control.

It actually, because of Psalm 22, it all the more amplifies the fact that God was completely in control in the midst of the sufferings of the Son of God. And you've got to recognize that in your life, Christian. God is completely in control of the sufferings that you are going through as a Christian.

As difficult as it is, it's fulfilling His purposes in your life, even if it's suffering, that it's not just you have a delay. You have no fulfillment in this life. You have to wait for glory, for some sort of fulfillment, or it might never be fulfilled.

It might not be in the will of God. It might be a no from God. Those are some of those difficult things to face as a Christian.

Christ was not delivered immediately. Huh. You know why He wasn't delivered immediately? Because He's delivering you and I eternally.

Man, praise the Lord. There was no deliverance right there. We've got an eternal deliverance.

So yeah, this has everything to do with us. The mockers looked at the suffering, and they got God's heart completely wrong. They saw the pain.

They thought it meant rejection. Same thing is going to happen to you and me in our trials. And we can make the same mistake.

When we suffer, we may think, God does not desire me. I mean, who are some of those counselors in your life who pegged your situation and circumstances wrong? They misread what's happening in your life. Where is the prime biblical example of that happening? Job.

They get there for seven days, and they don't say anything. They're the slowest to speak people. I've never had anyone come to my house and wait around for a whole week and sleep on my couch before opening their mouth.

And that happened to Job. And he didn't just have one friend. He had a plurality of friends.

And yet they look at his circumstances, and they must think he's being displeasing to God in his life. And it was a lie. It was a lie.

It's amazing. Those men got it wrong in Job's day. And you know what happens? And this is basically the fourth thing I have right here.

That lie does more than just confuse your mind. You know what these lies do? It chills your heart towards Christ. And let me, this is point four.

His desire for us awakens our own desire for Him. His desire for you, just like in an earthly relationship when someone really has a desire for you, it can actually awaken your own desire for that individual. Well, the same thing happens in our relationship with the Lord.

If I begin to believe that God has no desire toward me, what happens? I draw back from God. He doesn't desire me. He doesn't want anything to do with me.

I'm not going to approach His presence. I become cold. I stop seeking Him freely.

I stop praying with confidence. I stop coming boldly. I might still believe the doctrines about God, but my heart loses this warmth towards Him because I believe the lie the Lord really doesn't desire me right now.

Desire answers desire. Love awakens love. Affection from someone draws out your own affection towards them.

And so if I believe God's heart is cold towards me, my heart will just become cold towards Him. And so I think this is one of the reasons believers sometimes say, why do I not desire God more? Why is my heart so dull? Why do I feel so distant? It's because they've already started to buy into the reality that God doesn't desire them, and that's a false reality. And because they think God doesn't desire them, that God is somehow against them, they've drawn back from Him.

But what does it say in James? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Yeah, there may be many reasons. Sin can dull the heart.

The flesh can make you resist God. The world can choke your spiritual desire. But sometimes beneath all of it, it's not too complicated.

You start to believe God really doesn't desire you, and you've got to ask why. What lie have I started to believe in my life? Isn't that what we want as kids of our Heavenly Father? Does my Father love me? Can I go to Him? Can I approach Him? Is He pleased with me? Yeah, I've got providences not working out. I don't have a job yet.

I don't have a spouse yet. I've got all these health problems. I've failed this certain test.

Am I going to pass it this next time I take this test? What's the Lord trying to teach me? Why is He putting me through this? We start asking all these questions, and the enemy can be right there. And no, we're not nailed to a cross, but we can face the same lies from the enemy and these things that could appear to be minor trials. But isn't that often where Satan gets a foothold? It's not in the major trial of your life.

He comes in. He comes in at this little thing, and if he can get a foothold there, then he gets into these bigger areas of your life to distort your mind and get you to have wrong views of the Lord. But the cross, it answers the lie.

The beloved Son suffered, and yet He was perfectly loved by His Father. You too, Christian, you and I are going to suffer. Philippians 129 said, It has been graciously given to you that you not only believe in His name, but you also suffer for His name's sake.

Graciously given. But if you have a cold view of God's heart, it's going to produce a cold heart towards God in your own heart. So when your heart is cold towards God, say, Lord, what lie? Lord, show me.

Search my heart. What lie am I believing about God's desire towards me? And you go to the cross again. Some of you know, I never talk about movies from the pulpit.

I don't think I ever do, do I? But I did watch a movie recently, The Great Awakening, and I love that movie, and I put a WhatsApp status out about it. But I appreciated that movie showed a young George Whitefield in an accurate way, where he had a distorted view of what was pleasing to God. And when he got a part of the Holy Club, which you could have called them the Legalistic Club, not the Holy Club, in some ways, that was a bigger issue.

Well, George Whitefield is locking himself in a room, trying to get pleasing to God through all this fasting and prayer. What passage does that make you think of in Colossians? Asceticism, severity to the flesh. It is the appearance of doing something good, but it is of no benefit.

And Whitefield actually fell into that error in his life. And the movie depicts Wesley coming in and sharing with him the truth about being, the son was well-pleasing to the father, and you are well-pleasing to the father through the son in Jesus Christ. And that was kind of what set him free.

But I've seen that among young Christians. You think you got to have a certain amount of zeal, or you think you got to do a certain level here to be pleasing to your father. And it's not random that especially young men can think that way, because often young men grow up in families where that's what the father is doing.

The father might have a conditional love to the son, but he's got to be really good in sports. And if he does really good in sports, his identity is in sports. And the son almost has this idea of being pleasing to the father if he does this right.

Brethren, God's love is unconditional. It's not based on how well you hit baseball, how much weight you can lift. None of that.

God loves you, Christian, in an unconditional way. And we love Him because He first loved us. And that is the glorious reality of the gospel.

And the more you think about that, it awakens your desire for God. And the more you're desiring God, you start to see Him in a true light of His great love with which He loves you. And so these mockers are wrong right here in our text.

I mean, they're throwing all this ammo at Christ. You saved others. Save yourself.

He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now. Yeah, do it now.

Then we'll know that you're really the Son of God. We'll know if God really desires you. If God doesn't desire you, Jesus, that's the enemy.

Well, a few thoughts in conclusion. Trust you see through Psalm 22 even, God answered the mockers. The mockers' mocking was just, it held no weight.

God didn't deliver the Son. Christ suffered. Christ died.

Christ was buried. And what happened? What did He do? Up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph over His foes. That actually happened.

For a moment, it looked like the mockers were right. I mean, think of it. They're saying God doesn't desire you.

And moments later, they hear the Son saying, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? I mean, if you were there and you had just said that, you'd be patting yourself on the back. See, I was right. God really doesn't desire the Son.

The Son is saying that the Father has forsaken Him. And yet when Christ raises from the dead the well-pleasing Son of the Father, it vindicates God. It vindicates the Son.

It vindicates all of the promises, all of the prophecies from the Old Testament. They're all fulfilled. There's absolute victory.

It's finished and the ultimate sense of redemption accomplished. So the resurrection, God answered all of these lies and declared that Christ is the Son of God. And so believer, think about that for you.

Don't let your present trial be the final sentence in your life of what's going to happen. It wasn't for the Lord Jesus Christ. He was raised.

And you might not in this earth get some sort of resurrection, so to speak, in the situation you're facing. But there is a day coming. This light momentary affliction is nothing compared to the eternal weight of glory that waits for us, that is beyond all comparison.

And so we are those who walk by faith, not by sight. Right? Anything that does not proceed from faith is not pleasing to God. I mean, God desires that we seek Him and that we believe that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

He just wants us to trust Him, to simply trust Him, not to trust in our feelings, not to trust in our performance, not to trust in our intellect, but to just be helpless babes, children trusting in our Father who is good to us. So He might not deliver you now, but that doesn't mean He doesn't love you. You've got to believe that.

God has a purpose. All things really do work together for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. The beloved Son, He was not delivered immediately and He wasn't delivered from death, but He was delivered through the resurrection, and yet in all of that He was still loved perfectly by the Father.

So what lie is it you're believing right now, Christian, in your life? What way are you maybe viewing God's love as conditional? What way are you caught up in your performance and trying to do certain things to get pleasing to your Father in heaven? And then take it to a human level. In what ways are you failing to imitate this very love of Christ in your life towards your family, towards the brethren? And maybe that is the connection with what I shared in the beginning about the Corpus Church and this kidney transplant that this sister and this brother did. I mean, that really is just an example of living out the Gospel.

It's seeing how much God loves you and that motive. Isn't that what Paul said in 2 Corinthians? For the love of Christ controls us. What reason does He give for the love of Christ controlling His life? For the love of Christ controls us, for we have what? We have concluded this, that Christ has died.

Therefore, we have died, and we no longer live for ourselves, but we live for Him who for our sake died and was raised again. So Paul had a compelling affection in his life. That was the love of Christ controlling him.

And what was at the root of it? It was the fact that Christ died for him. He loved me and gave Himself up for me. There's no more glorious reality than that.

And I'll tell you, there's no greater reality that the devil is going to attack your mind. He's going to attack you in your suffering to get you to doubt the love and affection of God. And he did that to Christ on the cross through some of these mockers, trying to get the Lord Jesus to think the Father did not desire Him because there was no immediate deliverance.

That is a lie. You will have delays. You will have things that will not happen when you expect they're going to happen.

That doesn't mean God's not there. You're going to actually find out it's a greater manifestation of the love of God in your life. And can't you say that with Christ? If Christ was delivered, that would not have been a loving act.

We'd all be cursed and in hell and there'd be no Redeemer. And so, momentary suffering and we're eternally saved. Incredible, the love of the Lord.

So let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Son. Lord, help each of us to look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among ourselves, which is in Christ Jesus. For though You're in the form of God, You did not count equality with God. A thing to be grasped, but You humbled Yourself to become an obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And Father, we thank You for exalting Your Son. Therefore, You have highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Lord, You are Lord. And what is the reason You're Lord? It's to the glory of the Father. Lord, we want to glorify You, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do.

Lord, we want to do all to the glory of God. Father, You know Your children. Lord, You know Your sheep here who have this lie in their minds that You don't desire them.

Or maybe, you know, the Lord does desire me, but it's not a Solomon type of love. He's as hard as a piston beating faster for me. That doesn't apply to me.

Lord, I pray You'd tear down that lie. I pray You'd give people a fresh, Lord, warmth of Your adoptive love. Lord, You said in Romans 8, 16, Your spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Lord, that's a spirit brought assurance that You can give to the heart. Lord, I pray You'd give that to these dear saints, Lord, that we could be a people who, like in 1 John, Lord, we know, we know that we are Yours, that there's a degree, a greater degree of assurance for those who might struggle with assurance in their life, Lord, and it not come from them doing more, but Lord, but doing less and resting in what You have done in Your great love for us. And so, Lord, here we are.

Father, we're weak. Lord, we need You. Lord, who knows? Lord, what else happened here today? What else gone through our minds? Lord, what acts of selfishness have taken place in this building? Lord, what thoughts of pride and worried about what others think or jealousy have entered our minds? Lord, cleanse us by Your precious blood.

Lord, wash us white as snow. Lord, we thank You for Your mercy. Lord, give us more and more.

Lord, what thoughts of love have happened? What urgent needs have come about in this building today that brethren have sought to meet? Lord, help us to have that very mind of Your Son. Lord, we need You. Lord, compel us.

Help us to keep going forward. I ask all this in Your Son's name. Amen.