The NXR Podcast - June 26, 2022


SUNDAY SERMON - Why The Wicked Hate Your Children - Psalm 8


Episode Stats


Length

59 minutes

Words per minute

142.58925

Word count

8,516

Sentence count

389


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03.340 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
00:00:06.440 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?
00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do
00:00:12.880 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
00:00:17.540 Thanks.
00:00:18.060 One final time, our text for this morning is Psalm chapter 8.
00:00:22.240 The Word of God says this,
00:00:24.340 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
00:00:30.000 above the heavens out of the mouth of babies and infants you have established strength because of
00:00:35.780 your foes to still the enemy and the avenger when I look at your heavens the work of your fingers
00:00:42.340 the moon and the stars which you have set in place what is man that you are mindful of him
00:00:48.580 and the son of man that you should care for him yet you have made him a little lower than the
00:00:54.800 heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works
00:01:01.180 of your hands and have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beast of
00:01:07.140 the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the
00:01:13.720 seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. This is the word of the Lord.
00:01:20.780 All right, please be seated and join me as I pray.
00:01:50.780 to be entitled or deserving of a revelation of your truth.
00:01:55.420 We don't deserve to know you.
00:01:57.500 It is a grace that you have revealed yourself
00:02:01.020 to fallen sinful man.
00:02:04.760 And so God, your word comes to us this morning
00:02:06.840 as it always does.
00:02:08.240 It comes to us as grace.
00:02:10.520 It comes to us as unmerited favor.
00:02:13.060 It comes to us as an undeserved gift.
00:02:16.140 And so our prayer is that by the power
00:02:18.060 that your spirit supplies
00:02:19.380 and by your grace that you might enable us
00:02:22.680 to be good stewards of this grace,
00:02:25.840 the grace of your word,
00:02:27.920 the grace of your special revelation to your people.
00:02:32.020 We pray, God, that you would empower us by your spirit,
00:02:35.200 equip us with spiritual eyes to see,
00:02:38.180 spiritual ears to hear,
00:02:40.020 with new hearts that are softened,
00:02:41.820 malleable and receptive to your truth.
00:02:44.580 And Father, we pray that indeed
00:02:45.860 through the preaching of your word,
00:02:47.660 the exposition of your word, that your people might arrive at a greater, more faithful, more accurate
00:02:53.400 understanding of who you are, of what you've done, what it is that you require from us as a proper
00:03:02.220 and obedient response. Father, we pray that we would see who you are and your work, what you
00:03:11.660 have done, what you have accomplished, your work in creation, that you are the universal creator
00:03:18.660 of all mankind, even more so your work in redemption, that you are the savior of your
00:03:26.720 elect people who you have given the gift of faith to trust in the person and the finished work of
00:03:34.900 your son, Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that we would indeed respond to that grace rightly,
00:03:44.580 properly. We love, according to 1 John 4, 19, because you first loved us. But in our love,
00:03:54.160 a response, no man initiates. No man cries out to God in and of himself, autonomously saying,
00:04:01.880 God, I love you. Please love me in return.
00:04:05.740 No, all of us have fallen.
00:04:07.260 All of us, like sheep, have gone astray.
00:04:09.700 Each man does what is right in his own eyes,
00:04:12.540 and yet you have taken the initiative.
00:04:15.520 You are the one seeker, the hound of heaven,
00:04:18.940 who persistently hunts down and seeks for the souls of lost men.
00:04:25.160 And God, you have initiated, you have revealed to us
00:04:29.100 your love for us through Christ Jesus.
00:04:31.880 We now cannot help but respond with love for you.
00:04:36.300 But the very next natural question is, how?
00:04:40.540 You've loved us, so we respond with love for you.
00:04:43.260 But the question is, how should we love you?
00:04:46.320 And so we are grateful that you have answered this question in many ways and in many texts.
00:04:51.500 But perhaps most clearly through the words of your son, Jesus Christ,
00:04:55.140 in the gospel narratives when he says, those who love me will obey me.
00:05:00.140 and you have given to us through Christ Jesus
00:05:03.680 a synopsis, a summary of your commands
00:05:07.680 that we should love you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength
00:05:12.940 and the second greatest commandment
00:05:15.340 that we should love our neighbor as ourself.
00:05:19.160 In loving you, we seek to have no other gods before you.
00:05:23.700 In loving you, we are diligent to not make any graven images or idols.
00:05:30.120 In loving you, we are diligent to esteem and honor your name and to not take it in vain.
00:05:36.360 In loving you, we are dedicated and diligent by your grace to remember a one day in seven
00:05:42.980 and to keep it holy as a day of rest and worship.
00:05:49.940 But in loving our neighbor, we are diligent to honor our father and mother
00:05:54.100 that you have providentially given us here in this life on this earth.
00:05:58.480 We're diligent not to murder.
00:06:00.460 We're diligent not to steal.
00:06:02.760 We're diligent not to covet.
00:06:04.960 We're diligent not to commit adultery.
00:06:08.900 And all these things, Lord, we seek ultimately to love you and to love people.
00:06:16.660 Loving you and loving people is not left up to our own individual creative license and freedom.
00:06:22.040 You have told us specifically how to do so.
00:06:25.240 So humble our hearts, God.
00:06:28.480 And help us to submit to your word, your precepts, what you have prescribed.
00:06:34.800 Help us to stick to the script and to trust that you know better than we do.
00:06:41.300 We pray all these things that you might be glorified in all the earth.
00:06:45.660 But we also pray these things for the good of those people that you're saving in our city and across the globe.
00:06:52.880 And we pray these things with confidence, but we pray them in Jesus name. Amen.
00:06:57.420 All right, by way of introduction in your sermon notes, I've written this morning the following.
00:07:02.800 Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, who died in 1966, whose driving principles were explicitly racist.
00:07:11.840 In her book, Women and the New Race, she wrote, quote,
00:07:16.180 the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it.
00:07:21.280 She also said in her book, The Pivot of Civilization, that the so-called, quote, inferior races were in fact human weeds and a menace to civilization.
00:07:34.800 She was part of the eugenics movement inspired by Thomas Malthus that purged the human race of defectives, delinquents, and dependents through calculated birth control, including abortion.
00:07:48.760 This past January 22nd, 2021, the United States celebrated 48 years of legalized abortion for any reason in all 50 states.
00:08:00.960 In these last 48 years, there have been an estimated 60 million abortions.
00:08:08.480 An estimated 21 million of these abortions, which constitutes approximately one-third of all abortions, have occurred within the black population.
00:08:17.580 The current total population of the United States is approximately 330 million people.
00:08:24.600 The current living black population makes up approximately 13% of that, approximately 44 million people.
00:08:34.340 So in the last 48 years, roughly half of the current living black population in our nation was legally murdered in their mother's womb.
00:08:43.580 43 or 44 million living black people in our nation today and yet we have 21 million murdered
00:08:55.060 over the last 50 years minus two so in the last 48 years we've seen atrocious crimes and sins
00:09:05.540 committed in our nation and see contrary to what some may say in our current culture the most
00:09:13.040 dangerous environment for a black man is not the streets of Chicago or the side of the road while
00:09:18.600 being pulled over by a police officer, but rather it is in their own mother's womb. All of these
00:09:25.620 statistics do not even begin to account for the number of natural miscarriages and early abortions
00:09:31.380 caused by several different types of birth control, as well as IVF, in vitro fertilization.
00:09:38.700 Since the fall of mankind, people have always taken what God made good and perverted it into something evil.
00:09:45.680 The womb is perhaps one of the most tragic examples of this.
00:09:49.340 What God designed to be one of the safest places here on earth.
00:09:53.420 A place of nurturing, a place of security, a place of love has been perverted and twisted into one of the most dangerous environments in our culture today.
00:10:05.040 My prayer, or my goal this morning, is to profoundly influence our lives through the preaching of God's word for the sake of the unborn.
00:10:13.460 And this vision comes from Psalm chapter 8, which clearly teaches that the majesty of God is worthy of our complete and eternal worship and allegiance.
00:10:23.380 And this majesty is expressly manifest here on earth in the glory of God's supreme creation, that is, human beings,
00:10:31.760 who were each made in the image of God.
00:10:34.900 Therefore, a person cannot worship
00:10:37.060 and glorify the majesty of God
00:10:40.100 while treating the supreme creation with contempt.
00:10:46.020 Each man has an allegiance.
00:10:49.220 He is either for Christ or against Him.
00:10:52.320 To claim to glorify the majesty and supremacy of God
00:10:56.340 while treating His chief earthly creation with contempt,
00:11:00.860 namely, mankind, is a contradiction of terms.
00:11:06.280 It is an oxymoron.
00:11:08.520 It is hypocrisy.
00:11:11.320 You cannot claim to love and cherish your fellow man.
00:11:23.380 Jesus said that the greatest commandment of the Lord our God
00:11:27.000 with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength,
00:11:29.100 And the second greatest commandment is like it, Jesus says, that we love our neighbor as ourselves.
00:11:38.820 Those who are standing by ask Jesus, who is our neighbor?
00:11:43.640 The answer that he gives is this, everyone.
00:11:47.820 I've said it before, but again, the Bible clearly teaches the creatorhood of mankind.
00:11:59.100 Each and every age will promise you.
00:12:04.280 And the book likewise teaches the universal neighborhood, if you will, of humanity.
00:12:10.660 That every single human being on this planet, the tall and the small, like Dr. Seuss would have said with the Who's and Whoville,
00:12:19.520 even those who are so small that they're inside of their mother's womb, just a few weeks old,
00:12:25.460 every single human being the tall the small the old and the young the black and the white
00:12:30.080 they are all our neighbor so the bible is the universal creatorhood of god god is the creator
00:12:36.600 of all mankind and the universal neighborhood of humanity of mankind everyone is our neighbor
00:12:43.620 the bible is only exclusive when it begins to speak of salvation not common grace god's
00:12:52.280 universal creatorhood and the fact that the Psalms say he has compassion in his common grace on all
00:12:57.980 he has made right there is a sense in which God is compassionate even towards the unregenerate
00:13:04.680 even towards the the unbeliever he causes it to rain on both the wicked and the righteous
00:13:10.920 Ecclesiastes says and so God has compassion on all he has made as a creator he is a compassionate
00:13:17.380 and merciful creator in his common grace God has compassion towards all mankind without exception
00:13:23.980 because he is the creator of all mankind and he is a benevolent creator he is a compassionate
00:13:30.020 creator and all mankind likewise as I've already said are neighbors of one another to get exclusive
00:13:37.680 when it speaks special grace when the bible moves from creation to salvation from creation to
00:13:46.700 redemption then the bible begins to speak in more specific terms god is not as i think in our
00:13:54.440 culture and sadly even in the church today god is not a universal father the father of those
00:14:01.940 who have been saved by grace alone through faith alone in the lord jesus christ alone
00:14:06.420 if god was a universal father if people were physically born
00:14:10.760 in the world, already with the same children of God, you might hear often in our culture,
00:14:18.660 no we're not. If we all begin this life as children of God, then there would be no purpose
00:14:26.540 of the doctrine. I was adopted twice, once by God in salvation, by grace, by my parents
00:14:37.240 who are here today with us.
00:14:40.400 Now, if my parents went to the courthouse,
00:14:42.320 if I was biologically their child,
00:14:44.740 if I was naturally born,
00:14:46.280 and they took me to the courthouse
00:14:47.440 and said, we'd like to adopt our son,
00:14:50.760 they'd say, that's a bit redundant.
00:14:53.340 I don't think you understand how adoption works.
00:14:56.640 It's a little silly.
00:14:57.700 He's already yours.
00:15:00.020 My parents only adopted me
00:15:02.240 and only made sense to legally adopt me
00:15:04.880 because I was at one time not theirs.
00:15:10.680 At one time, I belonged to someone else.
00:15:13.180 At one time, I had another father.
00:15:18.380 See, in adoption, I never gained my parents' blood,
00:15:21.720 but I did gain something that we see also a spiritual principle,
00:15:26.100 something profound, their name.
00:15:31.060 A name is stronger than blood.
00:15:34.880 And believing in the name, children of God.
00:15:42.180 But the beautiful thing about spiritual adoption is that it's even greater than that.
00:15:47.020 1 John chapter 3 says,
00:15:49.260 See what God has for us that we should be named, called the children of God.
00:15:55.980 And yet without even taking a breath, the very next phrase is this,
00:15:59.540 And so we are.
00:16:01.400 meaning that when God names someone it changes ontologically their nature
00:16:09.300 that when God gives to someone his name it changes not only what they're called
00:16:17.860 but who they are see what love the father has
00:16:21.920 named the children of God and in being named the children of God by God himself
00:16:29.520 something in us changed.
00:16:32.180 God named us his children, and so we became his children.
00:16:37.700 If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.
00:16:41.380 The old has passed away.
00:16:44.540 People are not naturally born into this world as children of God.
00:16:49.080 In order for that to take place, a man must be born again.
00:16:54.360 birth a spiritual birth a supernatural birth where god adopts us as his children
00:17:04.500 and so the bible clearly teaches in terms and categories theological categories
00:17:10.440 of special grace in terms of redemption salvation he is not a universal father
00:17:17.960 live in this mass of humanity in a universal brotherhood or sisterhood see when God adopts
00:17:30.820 us as his children two things take place at least one we become children of God but secondly we also
00:17:37.980 become brothers and sisters of one another we not only gain God as a father but we also gain
00:17:43.800 siblings spiritual siblings so the bible teaches not universal but a specific a special fatherhood
00:17:52.420 of god for his people and a specific particularized special brotherhood among the people of god
00:17:59.780 that's but over here we have common grace categories that god is the universal creator
00:18:10.100 not universal father but universal creator and a universal neighborhood so at the level of god
00:18:16.000 universal creator common grace at the level of god particular father special grace at the level
00:18:25.940 of man we have universal neighborhood common grace at the level of man once more within
00:18:33.760 And we have particular brotherhood.
00:18:38.200 So everyone is your neighbor.
00:18:41.040 And the child in the womb is your neighbor.
00:18:44.400 And the second greatest commandment, which is like, it extends.
00:18:49.360 It's an extension of the greatest commandment, to love the Lord our God.
00:18:53.780 The second greatest commandment, which is like it, is to love our neighbor.
00:18:57.900 Who is our neighbor? Everyone.
00:18:59.580 And so if those who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ do not love, in biblical terms, the unborn neighbor, then they are not fulfilling the second greatest commandment.
00:19:15.520 And because the second greatest commandment is like the first greatest commandment, to love God, we can say that by virtue of disobedience to the second greatest commandment, we are disobeying the first as well.
00:19:28.480 1 John says this again and again and again,
00:19:30.500 that one of the spiritual tests of genuine conversion,
00:19:35.280 one of the spiritual tests of authentic love for God
00:19:40.720 is that we love people.
00:19:44.400 That we love people.
00:19:47.080 1 John even says that if someone claims to love God,
00:19:50.660 yet hates his brother, he is a liar,
00:19:52.740 and the truth is not in him.
00:19:54.340 and christians cannot be complacent in our call and command to love all of our neighbors
00:20:03.340 by neglecting and failing to love our neighbor we fail to love the lord our god all this is at the
00:20:12.840 heart of the law of god at the heart of what it means to be obedient to god and all we've seen
00:20:18.420 this morning to obey God, he is to love God. It is to love God. And if we do not obey his commands,
00:20:28.760 then what we are proving is to truly love him. And if we truly love him, according to 1 John 4.19,
00:20:35.900 the reverse logic would be if we don't love God, it's probably because he's never loved us.
00:20:41.060 See, we often reverse this logical and biblical progression of love.
00:20:49.460 Often what we'll hear today is this.
00:20:51.900 This would be the heresy of legalism.
00:20:55.280 Obey God, step one.
00:20:58.100 And in obeying God, you may prove, if you're obedient enough, prove to God that you love him, step two.
00:21:04.380 And if you prove by your obedience you love God, then God in return may love you.
00:21:10.320 Step one, obey God.
00:21:12.240 Step two, that'll prove that you love God.
00:21:15.260 Step three, God will love you.
00:21:17.900 The Bible teaches precisely the opposite.
00:21:20.780 The Bible teaches that while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us.
00:21:27.000 Very rarely will anyone die for a good man, a righteous man.
00:21:34.280 Though possibly for a good man, someone might dare to die.
00:21:37.220 but Christ showed his love for us in this, that even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
00:21:44.160 And so God first loved us, not because we were looking for him, but he loved us at our worst
00:21:50.960 point. In the climax of our depravity and rebellion against him, Jesus died for his enemies.
00:21:59.700 so so the logical and biblical progression of love and salvation is not we obey god that proves
00:22:09.240 we love god if we prove we love god god in return will love us no it's god first loved us at our
00:22:15.980 worst point in not our obedience but our rebellion against him and because god has loved us like this
00:22:23.940 we cannot help but respond and love him in return and if we love him in return
00:22:31.260 we cannot help but obey see because when you love someone part of loving someone is trusting them
00:22:39.440 if we have truly seen God's love for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ we cannot help but love
00:22:46.620 him in return and if we love him we trust him and if we trust him we'll do what he says
00:22:54.780 because we know that he has not only his eternal glory in mind which is preeminent
00:23:01.960 but he also has our best interest
00:23:05.000 and so we are commanded to love God and the second greatest commandment is like it that we should love
00:23:13.500 our neighbor as ourself. Who is our neighbor? All of humanity. Everyone who bears the image
00:23:21.000 of God, including the child in the womb. Continuing in your notes, beginning to exposit verse 1
00:23:30.320 and 9, we'll see one major theme of our text, the global majesty of God. I've written the
00:23:38.280 following psalm chapter 8 begins and ends with the statement oh lord our lord how majestic is thy
00:23:44.640 name in all the earth everything else in this psalm is meant to serve this statement our god's
00:23:52.020 name is majestic in all the lord how majestic is thy name in all the earth the majesty of the name
00:24:04.400 of God, the glory of our God is not sequestered to one small region of the globe. He is not
00:24:13.900 limited in his known glory to the city of Jerusalem. God is not merely known and famed
00:24:22.060 and glorified in one region as opposed to the other. Our Lord, our Lord, how majestic
00:24:29.860 is by name in all the earth.
00:24:33.320 He is not merely a tribal god
00:24:35.180 or a territorial deity.
00:24:37.140 He is majestic and supreme
00:24:38.620 over all the earth.
00:24:40.180 The image of this majesty
00:24:42.260 and supremacy is clearly displayed
00:24:44.220 among every tribe, tongue, and nation
00:24:46.840 through his image bearers,
00:24:48.900 whether black or white,
00:24:50.540 man or woman, adult, or female.
00:24:53.500 In part, not exclusively, but in part because the glory of God is globally seen, manifestly, revealed, or you might say reflected.
00:25:13.560 In what way?
00:25:16.480 By virtue of his image-bearing creatures.
00:25:19.380 In the beginning, in the God that was given to Adam and Eve, multiply and to exercise, to subdue dominion over what?
00:25:33.620 In Genesis, the judgment of God that came down, in part, it was because of man's arrogance that he thought he could ascend to the heights of God, his majesty and glory, by building a tower.
00:25:47.660 Well, but also part of what God was judging man for in Genesis chapter 11, the Tower of Babel, was that man was refusing to obey one of the first commands that God gave to the creatures to multiply and fill the earth.
00:26:05.400 Man said, let us not spread out across the earth, but let us stay here.
00:26:11.060 let us stay here together because together isolated in this this area we might be able to
00:26:19.860 do something great we might be able genesis 11 says the narrative to make a name for ourselves
00:26:26.580 see the the cultural mandate to be fruitful multiply and fill the earth was so that man
00:26:33.800 as god's image-bearing creatures tasked and endowed with the ability to reflect his glory
00:26:40.060 that mankind might make a name for God.
00:26:44.880 In Genesis chapter 11, we see the great perversion,
00:26:48.300 the great twisting, the great reversal of that.
00:26:51.540 That man said, instead of spreading ourselves out
00:26:54.120 over the face of the earth to make a name for God,
00:26:56.940 we'll stay together and make a name for ourselves.
00:27:02.160 I like what Kevin DeYoung says.
00:27:03.640 He says, as tall as the Tower of Babel may have been,
00:27:07.060 it must not have been very tall
00:27:08.600 because Genesis 11 tells us that God had to come down
00:27:11.940 in order to see it, as it were.
00:27:15.580 He comes down, he condescends,
00:27:19.040 and he disperses them.
00:27:20.500 He confuses their languages and sends them out by force
00:27:24.640 to do what he had prescribed,
00:27:28.600 to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth.
00:27:34.620 That the man who God would cover the whole earth
00:27:37.260 as the water covers the sea.
00:27:39.800 God is doing this in the cultural mandate.
00:27:43.700 By His common, again, common grace.
00:27:47.760 As the cultural mandate is fulfilled,
00:27:51.180 as image bearers of the living God,
00:27:53.540 both the unbeliever and the believer,
00:27:55.180 as we multiply and fill the earth,
00:27:58.100 the glory and majesty of God is covering the whole earth.
00:28:01.620 Because we reflect, as image bearers, His glory, His majesty.
00:28:06.460 But even more so, God is accomplishing this in terms of his special grace.
00:28:11.280 Not merely through the cultural mandate, but even more so, not as a substitute,
00:28:16.420 but alongside it, in addition, through the Great Commission.
00:28:20.280 It would go, not just mankind at this point,
00:28:24.100 no longer just mankind, this universal neighborhood,
00:28:27.160 but the brotherhood, the children of God,
00:28:30.300 that we would go and disciple the nations.
00:28:33.940 and as we saw
00:28:36.060 the nations
00:28:38.180 are the inheritance of Christ himself
00:28:42.240 who is seated even now
00:28:43.900 in spirit
00:28:44.600 throne
00:28:46.420 that Jesus has
00:28:48.200 descended
00:28:50.200 in his incarnation
00:28:52.000 the one who did not
00:28:54.500 count equality with God as something to be
00:28:56.520 grasped but rather emptied himself
00:28:58.380 not in literal
00:29:00.700 terms but emptying that is
00:29:02.400 subtraction by addition he was always divine but added to himself a second nature
00:29:07.240 flesh this god the son of god he he condescended he descended but the one who descended in his
00:29:17.120 incarnation he has ascended to the highest place to the right hand of god where he is now
00:29:23.960 he is currently not waiting not waiting to
00:29:28.080 the ruling and reigning and he bears a rod of iron the rod the scepter of righteousness
00:29:36.640 to the increase of his government there will be no end he is ruling and reigning and even now
00:29:44.320 systematically one by one eternal decrees of god his enemies are being made a footstool for his
00:29:50.220 feet and the last of these enemies that he will deal the death blow to his death itself
00:29:55.580 this is christ and he has promised to build his church to advance his kingdom notice isaiah says
00:30:04.240 the increase of his kingdom the increase of his government will know no end it is increasing even
00:30:11.640 now as a mustard seed slowly becomes a great tree that's branches cover the and all the beasts of
00:30:19.820 the field find refuge and shade and the birds of the air make their nests as a mustard seed that
00:30:25.120 starts small grows slowly eventually becomes significant or as leaven a little bit of leaven
00:30:31.260 over time is gradually worked into the whole batch of so is the kingdom of heaven and christ
00:30:39.340 is the king he is advancing his kingdom and he is doing this through the church in special grace
00:30:48.220 terms by the great commission as we go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into the
00:30:55.120 name of the triune god and teaching them to be obedient to all of christ's commands and yet in
00:31:02.280 our text today we see that he is also doing this in common not merely through the great commission
00:31:10.480 which is preeminent it's primary it's foremost but also through the cultural mandate that as
00:31:17.940 human beings, God in his sovereignty, in his providence, even among the unregenerate, even among
00:31:23.040 the pagan, God is working and willing in such a way orchestrating that his image-bearing creatures
00:31:28.680 would be fruitful, and that they would multiply, and that they would disperse and spread out over
00:31:36.180 the face of the whole earth, and that by virtue of his image-bearing creatures, mankind growing,
00:31:43.580 increasing, multiplying, and filling the earth, his majesty would be declared and seen in all
00:31:50.620 the earth. We see this confirmed even furthermore in Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 says that
00:31:58.560 the majesty of God, the supremacy of God, the glory of God is clearly seen even to the unbeliever.
00:32:05.660 By what? By virtue of what he has made.
00:32:09.220 Creation itself testifies to at least two attributes of our triune God,
00:32:15.540 namely his divine power and eternal majesty.
00:32:22.560 This is seen by all people, even the unbeliever, by virtue of what God has made,
00:32:28.580 by virtue of his physical, material, earthly creation.
00:32:32.340 And the pinnacle of this earthly creation that displays his majesty, his divine power and eternal glory the clearest is what?
00:32:42.520 Human beings, image bearers of the living God.
00:32:48.180 In other words, what we see in Psalm chapter 8 is this.
00:32:52.040 wherever a human being can be found
00:32:56.040 even for the pagan, according to Romans chapter 1
00:32:59.520 the glory and majesty of God can be seen.
00:33:03.680 Wherever a human being made in the image of God can be found
00:33:07.520 black, white, old, young, infant, adult
00:33:11.700 rich, poor, wherever a human being can be found
00:33:16.080 the glory and majesty of God is clearly seen.
00:33:19.700 even among those who are lying and suppressing the truth and deeds of unrighteousness.
00:33:25.800 Even those who don't want to see the glory of God.
00:33:29.160 They cannot help but see it when they see you and me.
00:33:38.600 Looking at verses 3 through 8 of our text.
00:33:42.380 We'll finish with verse 2 in a moment.
00:33:45.280 But verses three through eight of our text
00:33:47.140 will be the dignity of all mankind.
00:33:51.540 In your notes, I've written the following.
00:33:52.880 Verses three through eight of our text
00:33:54.780 show that the majesty of God is undeniable.
00:33:57.680 It has been clearly displayed in all of creation,
00:34:01.500 but chiefly in the creation of mankind.
00:34:03.920 Therefore, a person cannot worship and glorify
00:34:06.160 the majesty of God while treating creation with contempt.
00:34:10.440 When this text speaks to the glory and dignity of humanity,
00:34:13.740 What is man that God is mindful of him?
00:34:17.000 Or the son of man that God should care for him, be benevolent towards him?
00:34:20.940 When the Bible, when our text today speaks of that dignity of image-bearing creatures,
00:34:25.840 that intrinsic and inherent dignity of mankind, notice,
00:34:32.120 it refuses to discriminate between color, gender, or age that creation might be.
00:34:40.840 The implicit implication, rather, from this text is clear.
00:34:45.140 You cannot assist.
00:34:47.440 Good preaching has application, not just exegesis, not just interpretation, application.
00:34:52.120 So I'm going to get real specific here.
00:34:53.860 You cannot assist the elderly human being in their attempts at suicide
00:34:57.700 and glorify the majesty of God at the same time.
00:35:01.240 You cannot dismember the unborn being
00:35:03.520 and suck them out of their mother's womb with a vacuum cleaner
00:35:07.440 and glorify the majesty of God at the same time.
00:35:10.560 You cannot enslave the black human being
00:35:13.000 merely on the basis of race
00:35:15.320 and glorify the majesty of God at the same time.
00:35:18.380 And you cannot unjustly convict the white police officer
00:35:22.180 out of fearful compliance to the woke mob
00:35:25.040 and glorify the majesty of God at the same time.
00:35:28.920 Can't do any of it.
00:35:32.580 On both sides of the aisle,
00:35:34.220 Now, the way we treat our neighbor, the way we love our neighbor reflects the way we glorify, love, and honor our God.
00:35:45.520 See, Psalm chapter 8, it doesn't give any contingencies, no conditions, no hindrances, no pauses, no fine print.
00:35:56.040 Psalm chapter 8 doesn't say that the majesty and glory of God can be seen
00:36:00.160 in the intrinsic and inherent dignity of his image-bearing creatures, dot, dot, dot,
00:36:05.080 if or once they reach a certain age, or if they have a certain melanin pigment in their skin,
00:36:12.240 or if they achieve a certain economic status, or, no.
00:36:18.160 Our text does not discriminate.
00:36:20.440 the majesty and glory of God is seen clearly revealed by what he has made and chiefly in
00:36:30.060 the pinnacle of his creation namely his image bearing creatures at whatever stage of life
00:36:36.060 or whatever category whatever whatever economic class whatever ethnicity they might be wherever
00:36:44.780 a human being is found the glory and majesty of God is seen. Romans chapter 1 verse 18 through 25
00:36:51.920 we've already dealt with it but just for us to to hear it from the text the word of God
00:36:56.400 verbatim says this for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
00:37:03.140 who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth for what can be known about God is plain to them
00:37:11.160 because God has shown it to them
00:37:13.580 for his invisible attributes,
00:37:15.520 namely his eternal power and divine nature
00:37:17.680 have been clearly perceived,
00:37:20.140 not just displayed, right?
00:37:22.140 It's not that God is simply saying
00:37:23.460 these attributes, my existence,
00:37:25.900 my eternal power, my divine nature
00:37:27.520 have been revealed.
00:37:29.680 No, it goes further and says perceived, right?
00:37:33.080 You can reveal something, right?
00:37:35.360 Right now, as some of you are looking at your notes,
00:37:37.000 I could take my cell phone out of my pocket,
00:37:38.900 hold up a picture and put it back real quick
00:37:40.580 can say, I clearly manifest, revealed, showed this picture on my phone. But many of you would,
00:37:49.640 with a clear conscience, have the excuse to say, but I didn't perceive it. I didn't see it.
00:37:56.640 But see, notice Romans chapter one, it doesn't just say that these things have been clearly
00:37:59.760 revealed, clearly shown. They've been clearly perceived. So that what? Well, the call of
00:38:08.560 Romans chapter 1 is this, so that all men are without an apologetic, an excuse.
00:38:19.120 All men are without an excuse.
00:38:23.300 They are without excuse.
00:38:25.100 Verse 21, picking back up, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,
00:38:30.460 but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
00:38:34.340 Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
00:38:43.640 Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
00:38:55.420 How's God really said?
00:38:58.360 The lie that the serpent said to Eve in the garden, you can be like God.
00:39:04.340 That is the quintessential lie
00:39:06.340 that you can be like God.
00:39:09.960 And so we begin to worship ourselves,
00:39:12.140 the creation rather than the creator
00:39:13.700 who is to be praised, blessed forever.
00:39:17.660 Amen.
00:39:19.100 See, both Psalm chapter eight and Romans one here,
00:39:22.180 the literal revelation,
00:39:24.520 and with natural revelation
00:39:27.700 for the law.
00:39:31.700 That's why all people,
00:39:33.280 even the unbeliever is ultimately standing condemned a dead man walking in this life
00:39:39.460 underneath the just condemnation of God because because God has displayed himself
00:39:44.740 by what he has made chief in all of creation but chiefly in the creation of his image buried
00:39:50.340 creatures and not only has God displayed this but they have in fact perceived this this is
00:39:55.640 the doctrine of natural revelation or general revelation and from natural revelation that
00:40:00.700 doctrine we have natural law that on the hearts of men we have the moral law of god even the
00:40:09.360 unbeliever knows that murder is wrong why because they perceive that there is a god in heaven who
00:40:16.960 will judge both the quick and the dead and that he is righteous and holy and worthy of our obedience
00:40:23.540 and our worship they know this because of what god has made and they know this because they
00:40:28.860 themselves were made in the image of God with a moral compass, with a conscience. They are sinning
00:40:35.020 against their own conscience. The law of God, brothers and sisters, know this. The law of God
00:40:40.160 did not come in, it was not merely introduced into humanity, into human history at Mount Sinai.
00:40:48.200 This is the first time that the law of God was written on tablets of stone, but the law of God
00:40:52.960 is eternal as God himself is eternal. The law of God has always been, there has always been a moral
00:41:00.580 law of God as eternal as the counsels of eternity, the mind of God, as long as the mind of our
00:41:08.180 triune God has existed, so his law has existed. And long before Mount Sinai, long before tablets
00:41:14.580 of stone, long before the prophet Moses, the law of God, although it was not yet written on tablets
00:41:19.920 of stone, it was perceived in the heart of man. It was. This is natural law stemming from natural
00:41:27.380 revelation. People made in the image of God have a conscience. They know the difference between
00:41:33.200 right and wrong. But notice what's interesting is this, that the law of God, because of natural
00:41:38.300 revelation and natural law, every single human being from the beginning of human history,
00:41:43.500 starting with Adam and Eve, had the law of God written on their hearts. But through the fall of
00:41:48.660 man, as sin was introduced, as the image of God was then not utterly lost, but tarnished,
00:41:55.280 a vestige of the image of God still remains, but as the image of God was tarnished by sin,
00:42:01.040 the law of God written on the hearts of man was still there, so that Romans 1 rings true,
00:42:07.320 it was still there, but the conscience became weaker. The law of God became, we could argue,
00:42:14.520 still there and still clear enough to condemn man and his sin if he does not turn in faith
00:42:19.740 to Jesus Christ. So still clear enough on the hearts of men, even unregenerate men,
00:42:25.140 clear enough to justify God when he judges, but blurred because of sin. And so what we see is
00:42:31.480 this, the law of God comes to the hearts of men in the beginning of creation through sin. The image
00:42:37.320 of God is tarnished and the law of God is in a sense blurred, not entirely, but in a sense blurred.
00:42:44.100 Then the law of God comes, not on tablets of human hearts, as it did in the very beginning, but now on tablets of stone.
00:42:52.860 And then with the new covenant, the law of God comes back to the tablet of the heart, but now with clarity.
00:43:00.680 Now no longer blurred by sin.
00:43:04.580 Now ringing loud and clear, so that the unbeliever is without excuse, and the Christian far more.
00:43:12.680 This is what Hebrews, the author speaks of when he says
00:43:16.580 that those who disobeyed Moses and the law,
00:43:19.660 if they will be justly punished, justly condemned,
00:43:22.620 how much even more those who do not obey the gospel.
00:43:27.880 So both Psalm 8 and Romans chapter 1, they are clear.
00:43:31.540 God's general revelation, natural revelation through creation
00:43:34.420 leaves all people, unbeliever and believer alike,
00:43:37.720 without an excuse.
00:43:39.260 God's creation especially his creation of mankind speaks not only to his existence but also his
00:43:45.120 majesty and glory that he is worthy of obedience and worship in the same way that a person cannot
00:43:51.960 worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating God's supreme earthly creation with
00:43:57.040 contempt a person also cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating God's supreme
00:44:02.660 creation with idolatrous affection see romans 1 it introduces a another category the psalm 8 says
00:44:11.920 you you cannot show contempt for god's image bearing creatures you cannot show contempt for
00:44:17.720 your neighbor and claim to be loving god at the very same time romans 1 says you also cannot with
00:44:24.900 idolatrous affection worship your name to worship god at the same time you cannot dismiss your
00:44:33.500 neighbor in complacency in apathy in absence of affection you cannot be silent evil persists
00:44:42.920 because good men do nothing and even further evil persists because good men say nothing
00:44:49.560 you cannot be complicit you cannot be complacent you cannot neglect to love your neighbor
00:44:57.740 and glorify the supreme majesty of God at the same time and you cannot exalt in an idolatrous
00:45:05.540 fashion have idolatrous affection for your neighbor and claim to worship and magnify
00:45:10.840 the glory of God at the same time over under both jail we were talking about that last night
00:45:18.720 parks and recreation uh there's there's a episode where um there's someone from venezuela and he's
00:45:24.640 you know of course being comical when he says you know if you overcook fish right away in venezuela
00:45:30.300 jail if you undercook fish believe it or not jail overcook undercook all right so same same kind of
00:45:36.940 thing using some comedy as as an illustration same thing if you undervalue the dignity of man
00:45:43.900 You cannot exalt the glory and majesty of God
00:45:47.980 if you idolatrously overvalue the dignity of man.
00:45:54.600 Exchanging the truth of God for a lie
00:45:56.660 and worshiping the creation instead of the creator himself
00:45:59.520 who is forever to be blessed, amen,
00:46:02.120 you cannot esteem and glorify the majesty of God.
00:46:06.860 Finally, verse 2 of our text,
00:46:08.480 we see the infinite wisdom of God,
00:46:10.160 not just from mankind in general,
00:46:13.660 but now we get specific.
00:46:15.620 And again, this is not God discriminating.
00:46:17.440 There's no point in Psalm chapter eight
00:46:19.140 where God says that one portion of humanity
00:46:25.260 has this inherent intrinsic dignity
00:46:28.360 as an image bearer of the living God
00:46:30.040 and therefore reflects his majesty and glory
00:46:32.520 in all the earth.
00:46:33.380 And some other portion of humanity does not.
00:46:37.160 That is not in our text.
00:46:39.100 That concept is not there.
00:46:41.420 There's no discrimination in our text that says one portion of humanity reflects the glory of God and another portion does not.
00:46:48.340 Our text does not say that one ethnicity reflects the glory of God and another one doesn't.
00:46:54.440 Our text doesn't say that the rich reflect the glory of God and the poor do not.
00:46:58.360 Our text doesn't say that men do in a way that women don't.
00:47:01.340 Male and female, he created them in his image.
00:47:03.960 He created them.
00:47:06.040 So our text doesn't say that.
00:47:07.100 But the closest our text gets to discrimination, if you will, is verse 2.
00:47:14.480 Now, it's not discrimination, as I've already labored to say.
00:47:17.380 It's not discrimination in the sense of saying this portion reflects the glory and majesty of God, and other portions don't.
00:47:24.160 But what it does seem to imply is that perhaps this portion of humanity, if anything,
00:47:29.560 If there's any specific portion of the mass of humanity that does not exclusively reflect the glory and majesty of God, but perhaps reflects the glory and majesty of God the clearest, it's the infant.
00:47:47.760 Verse 2 of our text says,
00:47:49.600 Out of the mouth of babes and infants you have established strength because of your foes.
00:47:55.620 To still, that is to silence, to shut the mouths of the enemy and the avenger.
00:48:03.200 This verse says that God has adversaries and enemies.
00:48:07.700 That's why we're preaching through the Psalms.
00:48:09.680 That's why we want to sing Psalms.
00:48:11.320 A lot of times this kind of preaching, this kind of doctrine, this kind of Christianity and theology,
00:48:17.080 in the American evangelical church today.
00:48:22.540 It's too militant.
00:48:24.680 But there was a time in the church,
00:48:26.180 the Puritans, they would sing of the church
00:48:28.580 as militant and triumphant.
00:48:32.200 Soldiers, Christian soldiers marching forward.
00:48:35.000 This kind of language was not rare.
00:48:38.260 It wasn't foreign among the people of God.
00:48:41.960 But today it is.
00:48:44.380 I like what Doug Wilson says.
00:48:45.760 He says, you know, if you only sing hymns in the church, one of the problems that you'll experience is this.
00:48:52.060 When you preach the word of God, there is militant language.
00:48:56.720 There is warfare.
00:48:59.040 It inspires and charges Christians to be courageous and to fight.
00:49:08.820 And if you only sing hymns, you don't really prepare the people for the sermon.
00:49:15.760 for the preaching and Doug says this he says because hymn writers weren't fighters with the
00:49:23.060 exception of maybe a couple Martin Luther being one of them on the run for his life
00:49:26.820 a mighty fortress is our God very few hymns have that kind of language most of the hymns are are
00:49:33.440 sweet they're beautiful they're biblical they have rich theology but there's there's a whole
00:49:41.140 theological category, if you will, that tends to be missing.
00:49:46.720 That militant, triumphant,
00:49:49.580 Christian warfare, battle, the church
00:49:52.360 as the battering ram. That's what Christ is saying. I will build my church.
00:49:56.700 It will advance. It will increase. And the gates of hell will not prevail against
00:50:00.580 it. Remember, the gates, I've said it before, the gates are
00:50:04.240 defense. So when Jesus says, I will build
00:50:08.540 my church. He doesn't say, I will sustain my church and the offensive weapons of hell won't
00:50:14.960 prevail, right? That would be a picture. If we were to imagine, that would be a picture of the church
00:50:19.540 on the ropes. But Jesus is in the corner, encouraging us, giving us tips along the way.
00:50:25.440 And he said, you're going to make it all 10 rounds. That's not what Jesus says. He doesn't
00:50:31.780 say, I will sustain my church and hell's blows ultimately won't knock the church all the way
00:50:37.140 down. No, he says, I will build my church. Hell, its gates, its defense. Hell is on the ropes,
00:50:44.300 and the church is the battering of Christ, the king, that's going to ultimately break
00:50:50.480 the gates of hell down. Now, that kind of language is foreign to us. And again, going back to Doug
00:50:56.860 Wilson, part of the reason why is because we sing hymns as we worship the Lord through song,
00:51:02.160 or in many churches today, we don't even sing hymns.
00:51:05.520 We sing, you know, basically any kind of pop song
00:51:09.000 on the radio that doesn't have curse words in it.
00:51:11.180 You just replace the word boyfriend with Jesus
00:51:13.280 and that becomes your worship.
00:51:14.980 And if that's the way that you're singing,
00:51:18.120 then sermons like this,
00:51:20.380 they make people in the pews or the chairs
00:51:23.120 or the couch cringe.
00:51:26.180 But when you sing the songs,
00:51:29.640 you're singing songs that were written
00:51:31.680 by warriors, by fighters, by soldiers, by generals.
00:51:38.680 When you sing the Psalms,
00:51:40.560 of course, the biggest advocacy for singing the Psalms
00:51:44.700 is that you're singing the Holy Spirit-inspired songbook for worship.
00:51:50.620 But beyond that, you're singing songs
00:51:55.260 that were inspired by the third member of the Trinity.
00:51:58.020 That's first and foremost.
00:51:59.020 But in the secondary sense, in terms of their human authorship, right?
00:52:03.340 Because inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not eradicate human authorship.
00:52:10.000 Writings of Paul, although fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, differ from Peter.
00:52:14.620 You can see the human author, his personality, those aspects coming out in the text,
00:52:20.360 but without fallibility, without flaw.
00:52:23.720 Well, so it is with the Psalms.
00:52:24.980 You see the Holy Spirit, his hand, his inspiration, in the sense that they're infallible and eternal and immutable.
00:52:33.600 But you also see David.
00:52:36.000 You see David the poet.
00:52:39.380 David the lover, the romantic.
00:52:42.740 David the sinner, the failure.
00:52:46.800 David the man after God's own heart, the repenter.
00:52:49.520 But you also see David, the conquering king, the warrior, the one who, in one-on-one combat, single-handedly slayed a giant.
00:53:05.100 That's what we get in the Psalms.
00:53:07.440 We get warfare.
00:53:09.700 We get repentance, yes.
00:53:11.040 We get beauty, yes.
00:53:12.720 But we also get blood and guts and tears.
00:53:15.720 and the psalms are just as relevant for today
00:53:20.480 in this church age as they were
00:53:22.600 on the day that they were written.
00:53:27.600 Out of the mouth of babes and infants,
00:53:29.520 you have established strength because of your foes
00:53:32.360 to crush the enemy,
00:53:35.980 to close his jaws,
00:53:39.360 to break his teeth.
00:53:40.800 That's another psalm.
00:53:41.820 We'll get there.
00:53:42.840 Breaking the teeth of the enemy.
00:53:45.720 I mean, there's a psalm, precatory psalms that talk about bashing the heads of the babies of the enemy against the rocks.
00:53:54.700 You preach that sermon in the church today, you better have sang that psalm that morning or people are going to, you're going to be in trouble.
00:54:02.120 You got to make clear that's scripture.
00:54:04.300 This is not my idea.
00:54:06.600 Otherwise, you're going to get thrown off, thrown out, get the hook.
00:54:12.560 So all that being said, it's this warfare language, but notice the weapon.
00:54:17.820 See, that's what I want us to see right here at the very end.
00:54:19.860 I want us to see, notice the weapon.
00:54:22.180 It's going to silence the mouth of the avenger, of the foe, of the enemy of God.
00:54:27.560 The enemies of God are going to be silenced, stilled, rendered completely impotent.
00:54:36.260 What is God's infinitely wise strategy in accomplishing this task?
00:54:41.840 How is God in one foul swoop going through the violence and still the attacks of all his enemies?
00:54:49.880 Only the infinitely wise God would come up with such a plan.
00:54:53.920 You and I would never think of it.
00:54:55.060 If I pose this, if we didn't have, if you didn't already know the answer that I'm getting to here in just a moment.
00:55:01.700 If I just started today and I didn't tell you what text I was preaching.
00:55:04.860 And I just asked a trick question.
00:55:06.700 And I said, church, what is one of the chief strategies that God says he's going to employ in order to render all of his adversaries impotent?
00:55:19.400 I mean, be honest, who would answer the mouth of babes?
00:55:25.940 But that's what our text says.
00:55:29.500 There's something that's going to come out.
00:55:31.560 There's something that does come out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes
00:55:36.100 that silences the acute, that silences God.
00:55:41.920 So that what comes out of the mouth of these little human beings
00:55:45.180 has such strength that it establishes the strength of God.
00:55:49.820 God establishes His own strength by the mouth of babes.
00:55:53.540 And it is so strong, so pervasive that it overcomes the enemies of God.
00:55:58.420 The answer is provided by verse 5 of our text,
00:56:00.640 which shows that these little ones are made by God like no other being.
00:56:06.600 Mankind is made only a little lower than the angels.
00:56:10.300 They are fashioned in the womb by God and crowned with glory and majesty,
00:56:14.020 according to Job chapter 31 verse 15.
00:56:16.560 In other words, their supreme place in creation is so profound
00:56:20.420 that when they open their mouth to cry or coo,
00:56:23.420 they are bearing witness to the incomparable dignity in creation,
00:56:26.920 and therefore they are bearing witness to the majesty of God in all the earth.
00:56:32.120 God does not wait until an infant is rational and independent
00:56:36.080 in order to ascribe to them the glory of God.
00:56:39.980 God is praised and strength is established by the mere truth
00:56:47.140 that a human being who has been made in the image and majesty of God is here.
00:56:52.460 Let all the adversaries of God hear the crying of the infant and tremble.
00:56:57.500 If they treat God's supreme creation with contempt, apart from repentance and forgiveness of sins,
00:57:03.240 they will be silenced in the fire of hell for eternity in the same way that they have sought to silence 60 million people in their mother's wombs.
00:57:11.540 Let's pray.
00:57:13.020 Father, we thank you for your word.
00:57:15.460 We thank you that, Christ, you are a conquering king.
00:57:19.240 You came to this earth once already.
00:57:22.460 as the lamb who was slain
00:57:25.620 for the sins of your people.
00:57:28.500 But you will return as the lion.
00:57:33.260 And even now, as you wait to return,
00:57:36.880 you are not waiting to rule and reign.
00:57:41.200 You are reigning with glory and splendor,
00:57:45.160 majesty and power.
00:57:48.600 And one of the chief agencies
00:57:50.820 that you use in your kingship
00:57:53.880 to extend further and further
00:57:56.160 your sovereign rule over all the earth
00:57:59.080 is your church.
00:58:03.100 Not just the cultural mandate
00:58:04.940 with all of humanity being fruitful
00:58:06.620 and multiplying and image bearers
00:58:08.660 being seen all over the globe,
00:58:11.500 but even more so
00:58:12.560 through your church multiplying.
00:58:17.240 By both the cultural mandate,
00:58:19.320 Christians having children and raising them in the
00:58:21.360 fear and admonition of the Lord and also the
00:58:23.360 great commandment. As we
00:58:25.340 go and make disciples
00:58:27.100 of all nations, baptizing
00:58:29.680 them into the name of the Father, the Son
00:58:31.380 and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey
00:58:33.260 all of your commands.
00:58:35.900 Lord, we love your kingdom.
00:58:38.200 We love your kingdom
00:58:39.400 because we love the King.
00:58:43.380 We love you, King Jesus.
00:58:46.400 Long live
00:58:47.300 the King.
00:58:49.320 May the increase of your government never cease.
00:58:53.600 You rule the nations in equity, justice, fairness, wonder and beauty.
00:59:02.220 Oh, what grace it is to us, the church, to belong to such a kingdom.
00:59:07.000 And that we, with trembling and appropriate fear, would be able to say we love the king.
00:59:15.880 and this king has also called us his friend.
00:59:22.380 We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.
00:59:26.660 Thanks so much for listening,
00:59:28.220 but real quick, before you go,
00:59:30.140 do us a small favor, take a moment,
00:59:32.280 and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show.
00:59:35.400 This is undoubtedly the best way
00:59:37.740 that you can help us get this biblically faithful content
00:59:40.640 to as many people as possible.
00:59:42.800 Thanks so much.