God: A Man of War

If you have your Bibles with you, open them to Exodus chapter fifteen. Exodus fifteen. And in Exodus fifteen we find Israel on the other side of the Red Sea, and we find them singing the Song of the Sea, or the Song of Salvation. The Song of the Sea is the most important hymn in redemptive history. It shakes not only Israel's future worship, but also our own. This hymn and the event that it commemorates, parallels our view and expression of the centrality of the Cross in Christian worship. So just as for the Christian everything begins and ends with the Cross, for the believers prior to the Cross, the Exodus, and for the exact same reasons, the Exodus shapes Israel's understanding of who God is, just as the Cross shapes our understanding of who God is. The Exodus shaped Israel's understanding of who they are, just as the Cross shapes our understanding of who we are. The Exodus shaped Israel's understanding of redemption, just as the Cross shapes our understanding of redemption. And the Exodus became the fountain head for all of Israel's praise, just as the Cross has become the fountain head for all of our praise as Christians. If we are going to praise God, we are going to praise him because He has redeemed us. If we are going to praise God, we are going to praise Him as our redeemer. These songs are linked not only in the contemporary view, but they've also been linked in scripture. Many commentators attribute John's words in Revelation fifteen to this fact. For example, in Revelation fifteen two and three, we read, and I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire. And also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass, with harps of God in their hands, and they sing the song of Moses, the Servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Isn't that interesting here? They are they have conquered, they have overcome. And he doesn't just say that they sing the song of the Lamb, which is what you would expect in Revelation. He says they sing the song of Moses, the Servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Now saying that they sing the song of Moses doesn't mean that they sing the song about Moses the same way they sing the song about the Lamb. But He's saying, as they stand here next to this sea of glass, that just as Moses had brought the people out and they stood by the sea and sang the song of the Sea, the song of redemption, so too Christ's people, as they have been delivered in an ultimate sense, sing a similar song. In essence, all of our worship flows from the fountain head of our redemption in the Cross, just as all of israels worship flowed from the fountain head of their redemption at the Red Sea. As we look at this, there are a number of things to examine. First of all, the song itself. This song, by the way, is the first recorded psalm or hymn of the Hebrew Nation, which in and of itself is significant. It's also not the only psalm to recount God's redemptive work at the Red Sea Psalm seventy eight, twelve and thirteen. In the sight of their fathers, he performed wonders in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoon. He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap in Psalm one O six verses seven to twelve. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works. They did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love. But rebelled by the sea at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power. He rebuked the sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe, and redeemed them from the power of the enemy, and the waters covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left. Then they believed his words. They sang his praise again and saw one thirty six verses thirteen to fifteen to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever, and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever, but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever. This was a clarion call. Again and again Israel was reminded that they belonged to God, and that the evidence of this was never more sure than in the day he delivered them at the Red Sea. The hymn has a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue in fifteen one, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. And in the epilogue in verse twenty one, Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The beginning in the end of the song is the same. It is as though they are following that age old adage that we're often taught when we first give a us speech, tell them what you're gonna tell him, tell him, and then tell them what you told him. That's what's happening here in this song, in the prologue and in the epilogue, he tells us what he's going to tell us, and then at the end tells us what he told us. The hymn is divided into three stanzas. Roughly, the first stanza verses one through six, the Lord as a man of war. The second stanza and verses seven through eleven, the Lord has defeated his foe, and in the third stanza, verses twelve through sixteen, the Lord has chosen Israel as his own. Each stanza ends with the phrase oh Yahweh or oh Lord, And near the end of each stanza there is a simile that is recorded verse five like a verse ten like lead, and verse sixteen like stone. These come at the end of each of the stanzas. So it is as though we are given this visual imagery within the context of the song, and we see how it flows and how it works. One of the first things that I do whenever I begin sermon preparation is a diagram of the text. Whatever the text is, whether it's a text in the Old Testament or the New Testament, long text, short text, whatever the text is, I do a grammatical diagram of the text. And when you diagram this text, because first reading this song again, if you're not reading it in the Hebrew language and you don't understand the meter of Hebrew poetry, it's hard to grasp the rhythm of this song. But when you divide it and when you look at it in terms of the outline of it, you begin to see patterns develop. And when those patterns develop, you see that there's something being said, and that it's being divided into these three portions, and that in each portion there's a point being made about God and his redemption of his people Israel. So let's look at it with that in mind. First the prologue, look at verses one and two. Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing of the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. At the end, you see that parallelism again, and this parallel will go throughout. It's a hallmark of Hebrew poetry, and the great example of this is found throughout the Book of Proverbs. Israel's praise was immediate and spontaneous. This is clear from the grammar in this sentence. It's clear that when he says, then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song right then, in other words, right after this happened. This song was written very shortly after this happened. This wasn't years later. This was on the banks of the Red Sea. This was written in response. This is as there is debris floating in the water. Notice the order first. This is, by the way one commentator's view of this. Notice the order First, the Israelites saw God save them. Then they put their trust in Him as savior. Finally, they sang to His glory, which of course was the entire purpose of the exodus. The Israelites were saved for the glory of God. The Song of Moses was their spontaneous, jubilant response to his grace. Like all worship, this is a response we respond to God in worship. Worship is not designed to initiate. Worship is designed to respond. So Israel is responding to who God is and to what God has done. Oftentimes, we think about worship as a means of initiating, and so we gather together and we think that worship is supposed to create something. So we think that if we get together and if we worship the right way, then God will come. He will descend upon us, we'll get our liver quiver, and then we'll know that we've worshiped God. That's not how worship works. Worship is a response. We don't worship God in order to get something from God. We don't worship God in order to bring God near. We don't worship God in order to manipulate God. We worship God in response to God. And we worship God in the ways that God has taught us to worship God. This worship is directed at God for who he is and for what he's done. That's clear, and it'll become more clear throughout this song. This song is not about how Israel feels about what God did. It's just about what God did. We don't worship God because of what he makes us feel like our feelings change. We worship God because of who he is and because of what He's done. If our worship centers around the way we feel, then there will be times when we will say we haven't really worshiped because the feeling didn't come. And this happens a great deal with people. We get used to our emotions being manipulated. We get used to being brought to this point of catharsis, and we want the catharsis. We expected the catharsis. And if we're ever in the midst of a worship experience where you don't get the emotional catharsis. We feel like we haven't actually worshiped, as though the only thing that determines whether or not we've worshiped is whether we feel a certain way. Who told you that that's what it's supposed to feel like? How do you know that that's actually worshiped that you're feeling when it's based upon your feelings? How do you know? Well? I know because I cry. That's great. Pagan rituals often elicit tears as well. Well, I know because I close my eyes and I raise my hands and I feel this warmth come over our whole body. Pagan rituals do the exact same thing to their followers. I know, because I can't help myself. I just have to jump. I just have to. I just have to. Yeah, I can show you videos of pagan rituals that look exactly like that. And if people who have physical and emotional experiences until sweat drops off of them, but they are worshiping pagan deities. So if the only thing we're going by is the liver quiver, if the only thing we're going by is if we feel like we've met with God, folks, you need to know something. The heart is deceitfully wicked above all else, no one can know it. I've been in situations again. You walk into a situation, watch and experience go down. Watch people say things in their singing and in their preaching that are grossly unbiblical. I'm sitting in the back of the room, going, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe that's being said. I can't believe we're singing that. I can't believe we're okay with this. I can't believe. Spend the whole time sitting there, and then people afterwards are walking out going, oh, that was good, wasn't it? What was good? Well, that worship, But worship was good? What was good about it? I've engaged in conversations with people about this. Did you notice that when we worship, we made this statement, and that this statement is actually not a biblical statement, but it's actually the opposite of what's true biblically. Well, yeah, I guess if you analyze it like that, I guess if you analyze it like that. In other words, words, it's okay that we were saying things that weren't necessarily true because The fact of the matter is I felt God's presence. If it wasn't true, then how can you say that was God? Was God the Holy Spirit falling upon you and confirming that which was not true? Or were you experiencing something other than the presence of God? Were you experiencing your emotions being manipulated? And are you so shallow in your Christian faith that truth doesn't matter to you nearly as much as the liver quiver. This is worshiped directed at the Lord because of who he is and because of what he has done. Because it is true. Their worship was rooted in their covenant relationship with God. This is where our worship should be rooted as well. And actually this fifteen two we read, the Lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The covenant language is dripping all over that verse. Why are we worshiping him because he's God, because he's my God, because he's my Father's God two verses twenty three to twenty five. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God and God heard their groaning. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew why because of his covenant relationship with them. That's why. Not because they cried more pitifully than other people did, not because they meant it more than other people meant it, but because of His covenant relationship with them. This is where our worship is rooted and grounded in our covenant relationship with God. True worship is not just about today and how I feel right now. True worship is about yesterday and tomorrow as much as it is about today. It's about who God was, and who God is, and who God will always be. This transcends the world I feel. Sometimes worship is probably and arguably more important when I don't feel my liver quiver than it is at any other time. It's easy to enter into the sanctuary and to enter in to the emotion of a worship experience when things are going well in your life, But what about when they're not. What about when that loved one has died. What about you when you went and visited the doctor and all was not well? What about when you had a knockdown drag out with your spouse on the way to church. I don't nobody here has ever or whatever experienced anything like that, But I've heard that at other churches that there are people who sometimes show up having had an argument in the car all the way up to the driveway, and then as soon as it went into park they put their smiles off. I've heard that, what's your worship like? Then? What do you do then? Is God no longer good? Is He no longer worthy because you had a bad day? Is God no longer good? Is He no longer worthy because you just don't feel it right now? The song continues after the prologue with the Lord as a man of war, which flies in the face of so much of what we believe about God. If you listen to the manby Pamby mealy mouthed watered down versions of who Jesus is today and who God is today and what Christianity is supposed to be today. As I've often said, the eleventh commandment is thou shalt be nice? And we don't believe the other ten. Amen. So this just flies in the face of that. I mean, we live in a day and age where a person can speak out against sin and yet be attacked by other people, because whatever the sin was that you were speaking out against is nowhere nearly as egregious as the sin of not being nice. So this flies in the face of that. Verse three, The Lord is a man of war. You just stop right there, Just close up and be finished. The Lord is a man of war. Amen, holllo your praise the Lord with that. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name, Yahweh is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the red sea. The floods covered them. They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. There's that ending phrase again, ending with oh Lord, and right before it the stone. Are we okay with that? We worship God? Okay. I worship God because because because he loves me. I worship God because he's gentle. I'll worship God because he's kind. I worship God because he's patient. I worship God because he's died. Da da da da. All that's true. But when's the last time that you said, worship you Lord because you're a man of war? Doesn't even sound right, does it. We are so far removed from this truth, and our culture so hates this reality that it doesn't even feel good. It doesn't even feel right. And some of you are sitting there right now, going, yeah, that's true. But you know that is Old Testament. The God on the left side of the book is he really is like that? But on the right side he's kinder, and he's gentler, and he walks around with lambs on his shoulders. This is the first of many references to God as man of war. As Longmen and Read point out, this poem represents the first explicit statement of the warlike nature of God. This theme of God as a warrior became a recurrent refrain in the Old Testament. Exodus event itself became an important archetype in the Biblical tradition, a means of telling and retelling God's acts of deliverance. This is replete throughout the Old Testament. But we know this, right, But what about the testimony of the rest of scripture. Is God warlike in the New Testament? Yeah, I'd say so. When you get to the New Testament, you come to the gospels. And when you come to the Gospels, one of the things you run into again and again and again is Jesus confronting demons, and he is warlike. In the confrontation, he vanquishes them as his foes. Christ is a warrior. What about spiritual warfare? Two? Granthians Chapter ten and Ephesians Chapter six make it clear that as Christians, we are engaged in a spiritual war, in a spiritual battle. You better believe our God is still a man of war. What about Revelation? You know, every chance I get, I'm gonna read Revelation nineteen. So I'm gonna do it again. Revelation nineteen, beginning at verse eleven, Then I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true, And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of Heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, we're following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of lords. Jesus is a man of war. We worship a man of war. But why is this okay? Aren't we told that we shouldn't be angry? Aren't we told that we shouldn't give vent to our wrath? Folks, There's a difference between divine wrath and human anger. God's wrath is always holy, and it is always holy anger against sin. And if God is not at war with sin, then we have a problem because we have a God who is not holy. His holiness demands that he war against sin, that he poured out his wrath on sin. God is also not moved by passions. God's anger is not like our anger. God's anger is calculated and purposeful, never out of control. And God is the righteous judge who is able and worthy to punish justly. You see, the reason that God says vengeance is mine is twofold number one. I am not holy, and I don't have the right to exact God's vengeance on anyone else. But secondly, even if I did exact vengeance, how would I know how much vengeance is just? I don't. But God does, and as a man of war, he always acts justly and rightly. Folks, If God were not a man of war, he could not save us. He could not redeem us. If God were not a man of war, he could not defeat our foes and our enemies. If God were not a man of war, our salvation would not be secure. If God were not a man of war, Heaven would not be a secure place because others could come in and plunder. But because God is a man of war, I know that I'm saved because God is able to say to the uttermost. I know that Heaven is secure because none will overrun his boundaries. And I know that sin will be dealt with because God is rootless in his wrath as he pours it out against sin. God is a man of war, and in his war he defeats his foes always and completely. Beginning of verse seventeen, in the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. I love that phrase. Now notice he doesn't say in the greatness of your wrath and the greatness of your anger and the greatness of her He says, in the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. God's adversaries are overthrown because of the greatness of his majesty. You send out your fury. It consumes them like stubble. Interestingly enough, this reference to stubble points back as well five verses ten through twelve. So the task masks and the foreman of the people went out and said to the people, Thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it. But your work will not be reduced in the least. So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. What does God reduced them to stubble? At the blast of your nostrils, the water piled up, the flood stood up in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake. I will divide the spoils. My desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. You blew with your wind The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you, o Lord among the gods, Who is like you, majestic in the holiness, awesome, in glorious deeds, doing wonders? And it interesting how that Stanza begins and ends with the majesty of God. The outcome of the war our God is fighting is never in question. Our God is a man of war. But every war he fights, he wins, because there is none like our God. Egypt had opposed God, and God judged them. Look at this, Look at the hubris of Egypt. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoils. My desire shall have its fill in them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. I will, I will. I'm going to do this. And yet God's response, you blew with your whim The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. There it was, and the result the expression of God's holiness. It is because he is holy, because he is God. God did not deliver Israel because they were good, but he delivered them because they were his. God does not fight his wars on behalf of the highest bidder. God fights his wars on behalf of himself. He fought this war on behalf of the people of Israel because they were on his side. Folks, the only way to be sure that God will fight for you is to be on God's side. We even see in the Old Testament that there were times when God fought against Israel Numbers twenty five to three. So Israel yoked himself with bail and pear, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel Judges two fourteen. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Second King is thirteen three. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them continually into the hand of Hazael. King of Syria, and into the hand of ben Hadad, the son of Haaeel. Jeremiah thirty six to two. Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the day of Josiah until today. Folks, Israel is not God's chosen people because they are always holy and righteous. Israel was God's chosen people because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the fact that they were his covenant people did not mean that they were always on his side. There were times other than these as well, when they were against God and God was against them. So no, just being Jewish doesn't guarantee that God's on your side. But being an heir of Abraham, according to the Spirit, that's a different story altogether. This is why we need one who can deliver us and pay for our sin, otherwise we too would remain the enemies of God. Ephesians make this clear, does it not. We were objects of God's wrath before the grace of God found us, even as the rest. But it is by grace that we've been saved. It is by grace that we are made something other than the enemies of God, something other than the objects of God's wrath. So God, as a man of war, wars against sin and unrighteousness. We, as being found under our federal head the first atom, are inherently enemies of God, because we are born in sin and shaped in iniquity. As such, the man of war ought to consume us. The only way that we are not consumed by this God, who is a man of war, is that this God delivers us. The deliverer for Israel. That the Red Sea was Moses, and this rod. The deliverer for us is Christ and the Cross. And it's because of Christ and the Cross that God made him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. As I Saya says, all we like sheep, had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way. But God hath caused the iniquity of us all to be laid on him. God pours out his wrath on Jesus Christ, so that all of us who are found in Christ can be delivered from this man of God war. And now, instead of fighting against us. He fights for us because we are found in Christ, Oh sinner. This also means that if you are apart from Christ, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself from this man of war. God will consume you and destroy you. You cannot be good enough, and as has been said, your arms are too short to box with God. What are you planning to do? Are you planning to point to other people who are bigger sinners than you are and hope that that's enough for this man of war not to consume and destroy you. You know that's not right. From the time that you were a child, you learn to say things like that's not fair, because in your soul you know that sin needs to be dealt with, in your soul that injustice needs to be dealt with. However, in your soul you refuse to acknowledge that there is sin and injustice in you as well, and that if God strikes down all of the people outside of you but doesn't strike you down as well, he has been unjust. Unless there is one who pays for your sin, unless there is one who delivers you from this man of war, the only one who can do that is Jesus himself. Well, next we see that the Lord has chosen Israel as his own. Beginning of verse twelve, you stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. The peoples have heard, They tremble, the pangs have seized the inhabitants of Felicity. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed, trembling sees the leaders of Moab, all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them. Because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as stone to your people, O Lord, pass by, to the people, passed by whom you have purchased. What beautiful words. First we see God's action. He stretched out his hand and the earth swallowed them. Then we see God's affection for Israel. He led with this steadfast love the people whom he redeemed. So now God is not only a man of war, but he's a man of love. You have guided them by the strength, by your strength, to your holy abode. Interestingly enough, they haven't come to the land of Promise yet. And yet the song says, you've guided them to your holy abode. Why, because his holy abode is where wherever his presence is. That's why God's coming judgment on the inhabitants of the Promised Land is foretold here felictia edom moab Canaan. They just come on the other side of the sea, but they know where the promised land is, and they know who inhabits the Promised Land. And so they say, those people are hearing about this even now, and they're terrified because everybody knows that God has promised us that land, and this man of war is going to give it to us. And then we see God's people on the march. Till your people, oh Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased, that is us, God's people on the march. It's interesting there is an already and not yet atmosphere here. Already they are in His abode, because they are in His presence, and yet they are on the march people pass by. That is us. We are already in his presence. We are already in His kingdom. And yet we pray your kingdom come. We recognize this already and not yet tension. We recognize that we are redeemed, and we are victorious, and yet the last battle has not been fought. We recognize that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and yet we long for the New Jerusalem. We recognize that we have been redeemed, and yet we will be redeemed. This is the same reality that we find in this text, this already not yet tension. And as we worship God, we worship God in the midst of this already not yet tension. It's amazing that, you know, sometimes, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that Christianity would be a suicidal cult, because we sing songs about how much we can't wait, and how much we long for being with God, and how we long for Heaven, and how we di and that you if you, if you didn't know any better. But that's the already not yet tension. We long for the coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead, and yet we recognize that he does not yet have the fullness of the reward for which he died. So our desire is for him to come, and we say, come, Lord Jesus. But our desire is for every soul that he has died to redeem, to be redeemed, and so we live with attention. And then finally we come to the epilogue beginning of verse seventeen. You will bring them in on your own mountain, the place, o Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh, with his chariots and his horsemen, went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them. What the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. Then here comes the epilogue. Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing, and Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Here's the epilogue. But in the epilogue there is something interesting here. Number one. In the epilogue there is the introduction of Miriam and the women, the first time that she's named, and she comes and she participates in this in other words, the song of Salvation is for everyone to sing, for the men as well well as the women. Especially in the ancient Nears, the mention of them was highly unusual, and yet the women participated. Secondly, the song that the women sang was exactly the same song that the men sang. Why because the women need the same thing that the men need a redeemer to redeem them a man. This has echoed also in the New Covenant, and that when Christ is resurrected from the dead, the first ones to tell the good news were the women who went to the tune. But there is also this repetition of the prolog to remind us of what the song is all about. The song is all about God, who he is, and what He's done, and how he has redeemed his people. Why did he redeem them so that they would worship? What happened when he redeemed them? They worshiped. They worship what characterizes them after they've been redeemed. Worship This is what characterizes God's redeemed people. We worship him, and we gather together to worship him corporately. One day and seven we gather together again and again and again, not once a quarter right, not just you know, when you're feeling a little down, you feel like you need a little some extra, you go into that. No, that's not. We do this over and over and over again. Why because this is who we are. This is what we do, because this is who we are. We are redeemed on our good days. We are the redeemed who worship our Redeemer. On our bad days, we are the redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we're up for it. We are the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we're not up for it. We are the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we feel like it. We are the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we don't feel like it. We're the redeem who worship our Redeemer when we see it crystal clear. We're the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer when we can't quite comprehend it. Were the Redeemed who worship our Redeemer. It's who we are. That's why, it's what we do. And Christ tells the woman at the well that God is seeking worshipers who will worship him and spirit and in truth not just seeking sinners to save, seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Why because they have this natural predisposition toward being worshippers. No, we worship because we're redeemed. That's why. It's what God makes us when He redeems us. When we understand what Christ has done to deliver us from our sin, when we get a glimpse of the fact that we were enemies of God like the rest, and that we deserve to be the second group in the Red Sea and not the first. It is at that moment that our worship makes sense. But as long as we believe that we're inherently good, that we're better than most people, that we haven't done anything really sinful, and that we try really, really hard, and that God ought to be satisfied with that, listen to me. We will never worship anything but ourselves because we're the only ones that we actually deem worthy. But when you get it, when you get it, when you understand that what my sin deserves was overturned soaking wet wagon wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea, and yet He saved me, then you worship. Let's pray Father, We bow before you as a humble and grateful people who recognize that you have dealt with us not in accordance with what our sins deserved, who recognize that we deserve to be consumed and destroyed. And yet you demonstrated your love for us, and this that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We are overwhelmed by your goodness, by your grace, by your mercy, by your majesty, by your kindness, and by your redemption that is ours in Christ. Grant by your grace that we would never take this regreted, and that we would continue to be overwhelmed by your goodness, by your mercy, by your kindness, by your redemption. Father, I pray for those under the sound of my voice who have come into this room trusting in anything other than the finished work of Christ. Would you remind them that you are indeed a man of war, and that they stand condemned as your enemies, And would you quickly remind them that you have made a way of escape. Grant by your grace that they might flee to Christ, that their sin might be atoned for, that the wrath poured out at the cross would take the place of the wrath that they deserve at the end of the age, and that through repentance of sin and faith in Christ, they too might be saved. And for all of us we say to you that we worship you because of your redemption, in light of your redemption, and we thank you for all that you have done on our behalf through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Thank you again for this one day and seven, this Lord's Day, where we gather together to remember, to confess, to receive. Would you be blessed by it? We pray in Christ's name. Amen.