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[0:00] Good. Well, we turn now to God's Word, and Willie is preaching to us in this last chapter of Deuteronomy. So do turn with me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 34.

[0:14] If you have one of the visitor Bibles, it's page 177. So Deuteronomy and chapter 34. Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho.

[0:41] And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead, as far as Dan, all Nath Valley, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negev and the plain, that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.

[1:00] And the Lord said to him, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.

[1:16] So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Pale.

[1:28] But no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated.

[1:41] And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him.

[1:59] So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. But there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

[2:15] None like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt. To Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land. And for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

[2:32] Amen. This is the word of the Lord. And may he bless it to us this morning. Well, turn with me, if you would, to the final chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.

[2:51] 177, page 177, if you have one of the red visitor's Bibles. Well, this morning is a very special day for us.

[3:01] As a number among us will shortly make public profession of their faith in Jesus Christ. And make vows of commitment to serve him in his church here.

[3:14] In a way, then, they stand on the brink of a new era. Looking to their future. Not only as the Lord's people in the coming weeks and months.

[3:24] But, in fact, all the days of their lives. As do all of us who belong to the fellowship here. As we, too, are reminded of our commitment to Christ and his church.

[3:36] And as we renew that covenant with the Lord. And remember everything that it entails for us. So, what does God want to fill our hearts and minds with at times like these?

[3:50] What does he want us to hold on to as we look to the future? Well, maybe it's no coincidence that we find ourselves today in the very last chapter of Deuteronomy.

[4:01] The end of these five books of Moses. That are the very foundation of the faith of Israel, God's ancient people. Here they are standing themselves on the cusp of a new era.

[4:14] Looking forward to the immediate future as they go and enter the land. But also having been taught by Moses to have their eye on the distant horizon.

[4:25] The great ultimate fulfillment of all God's promises. In what Moses himself called the latter days. The days of God's ultimate blessings in the future.

[4:37] So, what did God want them? To hold on to. As they look to their future calling and service under God. As we do today. And we, I think, have a lot to learn from that today.

[4:49] Because, as the Apostle Paul says, these Old Testament scriptures are preserved for our instruction. Who live already in these last days.

[5:01] These latter days. Because the story of God's kingdom, of course, is not yet complete. And we, too, are still looking forward, aren't we? To the ultimate blessings to come when our Lord Jesus returns to reign forever.

[5:14] The Christian faith is marked out by hope. It's a sure, it's a certain hope. A living hope. Secured in Christ's victory on the cross over our sin and death.

[5:25] But still, as Paul says, we're waiting. Waiting for our full salvation. And we must wait, he says, with patient endurance. And these scriptures of the Old Testament, he says to us, they are ours.

[5:39] To encourage us. To give us endurance and hope. Just as they gave encouragement and endurance and hope to God's ancient people way back then. Now, we've seen already how these final chapters of Moses' ministry urge God's people to keep their gospel moorings in the future.

[6:00] By cherishing all God's words given through Moses. To keep singing the gospel song. To keep savoring the gospel glory. That God will keep his promises.

[6:11] Despite all Israel's waywardness. He will lead them to share in his heavenly glory. But now in this very last chapter. At least some of which, of course, is obviously written by someone other than Moses.

[6:26] Because it speaks of Moses' death. In this last chapter, God is so clearly saying to Israel, Never forget Moses himself. Remember my gospel servant and your gospel servant, Moses.

[6:40] All that he taught you, yes. But also everything that he was. Everything he lived for. All that his very life and his death tell you about the one that he knew uniquely.

[6:55] Face to face. The living God himself. Remember the servant of the Lord. Who reveals to you so much about the salvation of the Lord.

[7:08] That's the message of this chapter, isn't it? It's all about the servant of the Lord. That's what Moses is called in verse 5. It's a term that's used more than 50 times throughout the Bible to refer to Moses.

[7:22] Others are called that too at times. But it is. It's supremely used of this man Moses. Actually, if you turn over the page to the first chapter of the book of Joshua.

[7:34] Don't do it now. Do it later. But you'll read there four times. Moses is called the servant of the Lord. The servant of the Lord. And so it goes on all through the Old Testament.

[7:45] In fact, the very last paragraph of the Old Testament ends like this. Remember the law of Moses, the servant of the Lord. When you get to the very end of the New Testament, in John's vision, in Revelation.

[7:58] He shows us almost at the end a great vision of God's people singing in heaven. And what are they singing? They're singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.

[8:12] So Moses, the servant of the Lord. I want you to remember my gospel servant. That's God's clear word here to his people. All through this chapter and indeed all through the Bible.

[8:27] So it must be of great importance. What does God want his people to remember and understand about this great gospel servant? The servant of the Lord. Well, first, if you look at verses 1 to 4, God says he wants them to remember the unswerving promise.

[8:46] The unswerving promise which his whole life was devoted to and which his ministry constantly held before them. Verse 1.

[8:56] The Lord showed him all the land. In verse 4. At last, Moses sees the promised land.

[9:18] The goal of his whole life's work in ministry. The whole journey that he had led was to this promised land. Everything he taught Israel was for their life in this promised land.

[9:32] And now at last, this unswerving promise, hundreds of years old, is being fulfilled. He sees it with his own eyes.

[9:42] And that's far more than just a tantalizing glimpse of something to torture Moses about something he's not going to inherit. No, no, no.

[9:53] To inspect the land with your own eyes was what you did as a purchaser or as an inheritor. It was part of the title transfer into your hands.

[10:04] Remember that parable that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 14 about inviting people to his banquet. And one man says, doesn't he, no, I can't come. I've bought a field.

[10:15] I must go and see it. That is, I've got to go and take the legal title of my purchase. And that's what's being indicated here. Just as way back in Genesis chapter 13, God said to Abraham, see, I'm showing you all the land, north, south, east, and west.

[10:33] All that you see is yours. So Moses is taking possession of this promised land at last on behalf of all God's people.

[10:47] It was his now for his people Israel. God's unswerving promise is being fulfilled just as God said before his very eyes.

[10:58] And God wants his people Israel, as they look to the future, he wants them to remember and to know that this unswerving promise of God never, ever fails.

[11:11] Moses' life, Moses' work was not in vain. And no one's life or labor devoted to the promise and the purpose of God can ever be in vain, can it?

[11:25] Even when there may be many perplexities, many disappointments along the way for those servants of God. As indeed, there was perplexity and great disappointment here for Moses.

[11:37] Look at the last line of verse 4. I have let you see it with your own eyes. But you shall not go over there. Not now at least.

[11:50] The kingdom of God can't be possessed that way. Only God's way. Only by the servant of the Lord submitting himself humbly to God's kingdom plan.

[12:06] To his will. To his way. And it was a way that was to involve great sacrifice for his gospel servant, Moses. It must have been a great temptation, don't you think?

[12:20] To be taken to that high mountain and shown that great inheritance. And to be a man, as verse 11 reminds us here, remember, a man who did signs and wonders.

[12:33] A man who defeated enemies. A man who wielded the very power of God himself on the earth. A great temptation to say, well, my vigor is unabated.

[12:46] I will go over. I will walk on this land that you've given to me and the people. But what had Moses preached all his life?

[12:59] You shall worship the Lord your God. Him only you shall serve. And so here, just like another who was taken to a high mountain and offered all the kingdoms of the world if he would defy God's appointed way for his life.

[13:17] Here also Moses bowed in humble submission to the will and the word of God. Because he knew that God's promised kingdom could never be inherited that way.

[13:31] Only God's way. And it was God's way for his servant to die outside the land. Outside the camp of Israel. Despite his extraordinary faithfulness to that unswerving promise all his life.

[13:45] And clearly God wants his people to remember this extraordinary truth about Moses, the servant of the Lord. Indeed, verses 5 to 8 are right at the very heart of the passage, aren't they?

[14:00] God is saying here very clearly, secondly, Remember, remember the untimely passing of Moses, the servant of the Lord. A death that he gladly surrendered to for the sake of God's kingdom purpose and for the sake of God's chosen people.

[14:18] So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab. Despite, despite, verse 7, do you see? Despite the fact his eye was undimmed and his vigor was unabated.

[14:33] That seems extraordinary. I'd be glad if you're saying that of me when I'm half Moses' age. But you see, what we're being told very clearly here is that despite his age, humanly speaking, Moses' death outside the land was entirely unnecessary.

[14:49] But not divinely speaking. Look at verse 5. He died according to the word of the Lord. Literally, he died at the mouth of the Lord.

[15:05] I think that's very striking, isn't it? Because not only does it chime with the extraordinary intimacy that it's expressed here in verse 10 about the face-to-face relationship that Moses had with God himself, but also because of what Moses taught so famously.

[15:20] Do you remember back in chapter 8, verse 3? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by what? Everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

[15:33] Moses knew better than anybody that he lived or died by the mouth of the Lord. And so, as one scholar puts it, two great themes of Deuteronomy converge in this narrative and tribute.

[15:50] The gift of the land and the sacrificial death of God's prophet and servant. The death of Moses is a great theme of this book.

[16:01] Remember back three times in the first few chapters, Moses' coming death is announced. And here, right at the very end, in the last chapter, it concludes the book.

[16:11] And the great emphasis here is that he died as a true servant of the Lord. He dies not only in a real sense, in an untimely way, but in a highly unusual, a highly unprecedented way.

[16:28] Rather reminds us of Enoch, do you remember back in Genesis, who was called away to walk with God and had no grave. Or later on of Elijah, who was called up to heaven in a great chariot of fire.

[16:40] But Moses was called by God to go and die on that mountain and to be buried by God himself in a secret grave.

[16:52] Called home before it was naturally necessary. In order that God's promise and his purpose might unfold according to his plan and for the blessing of his people.

[17:07] Well, Moses' death, of course, was unique. But there have been many true servants of the kingdom of God, haven't there, through the ages, who have likewise yielded their lives for the kingdom of God, for the promise of God's salvation.

[17:23] Bearing suffering and death. Loving not their lives, even unto death. So that the blessings of God's salvation might come to many that they have loved through the ministry of the gospel.

[17:36] Death being at work in them, so that life is at work in others. A very strange pattern, isn't it?

[17:48] And yet not at all unfamiliar in the Bible or in the history of the church. Do you wonder why that is? As for Moses' death outside the land, well, as we've already seen, the reason for God's anger and punishment on Moses is never fully explained in this book.

[18:10] Yes, we saw back in chapter 33 last time that Moses' own sin did have something to do with it. But three times elsewhere in the book we're told absolutely clearly that God was angry with Moses because of his people's sin, because of their rebellion.

[18:28] There's something clearly vicarious about the punishment of Moses. He suffers for the people that he loved and he led.

[18:40] He suffered greatly from them, of course, for God's sake. But my goodness, what we're seeing here is he suffered also greatly from God for their sake.

[18:56] But he didn't complain or revile. Although if you remember back to chapter 3, you remember that Moses did plead with God to let him go on and into the land, to take that bitter cup of anger away from him.

[19:11] But God said no. And Moses submitted to the will of God. Not my will, but your will, he said.

[19:24] Numbers 12 verse 3 tells us that Moses was the meekest man, the humblest man in all the earth. And as he was in his life, so also here he was in his death.

[19:34] At God's mouth, at God's call, he humbled himself. He who was mighty in glory and power through seeing the very face of God himself, he humbled himself, taking the form of a true servant.

[19:51] And here humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death, even outside the land of God's life. Some bells beginning to ring.

[20:07] A true servant for whom to live was the Lord and therefore for whom to die was gain. And yet he was just a servant.

[20:19] He was content, therefore, to play his part in life and in death so that having done all, he knew that he wasn't a hero.

[20:31] He was just a servant who had just done his duty. He was a servant of the Lord, not a rival to the Lord, not an equal with the Lord.

[20:42] His whole life had pointed away from himself and pointed only to God himself. There is none like God, O Israel. That was Moses' life cry. And so although God honors Moses here in this chapter with the same epithet, actually, there is none like Moses.

[21:02] God would not let him become a rival in his death or a distraction. Hence, no doubt, the hidden grave. Verse 7, unknown to this day.

[21:15] Moses' grave could have become idolized. It could have become a shrine. God knew that Israel always would prefer the tomb of a dead prophet to the words of a living prophet. Isn't that what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 23?

[21:27] You venerate the graves of the prophets, but it was your own fathers who killed them because they hated the gospel that they were proclaiming. And God wouldn't allow that for Moses.

[21:40] So no doubt, he did what Moses would himself have wanted. Perhaps Moses even asked for it. John Calvin, you know, the great reformer of Geneva, in his will, insisted that he be buried in an unmarked grave.

[21:52] Nobody knows where his grave is. And it was so that none would venerate him instead of the God that he loved and served all his life. Moses' tomb would be forgotten and unknown, but his testimony would live on.

[22:11] It would be his abiding words, not adoring worship, that would lead Israel in their future. Hence verse 8.

[22:23] There was a right and a proper period of grief and of mourning for this colossus of a man, this servant of the Lord. But he was only a servant and his work was done.

[22:36] But God's work must go on. And so we read, the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. There is a time for mourning, rightly for the past.

[22:48] But there's a time also for moving into the future. And God's people are to be not marked by nostalgia, but by vision. Not always reminiscing about the past, but full of resolution about the future.

[23:01] We're not always like that, are we? Often in church life, people can be harking back to a golden age of this leader or that, or the days when we did this thing or that.

[23:14] And sometimes the days seem to become more and more golden, don't they, the longer ago they become. The truth is, back in those golden days, people were reminiscing and full of nostalgia about their golden days, even in the past.

[23:28] We can be like that in lots of ways. Looking to the past. In our personal lives, we can look to the past, the great days when the kids were young and everything was great.

[23:41] And now we're old empty nesters and reminiscing and full of nostalgia. Or maybe when you leave university, you have to enter the real world. You have to get up in the morning and actually go to work and do something difficult.

[23:55] And you're full of nostalgia about those wonderful days of university, the halcyon days of long lies and long holidays and all sorts of things. You're laughing, you students, just you wait.

[24:07] Or maybe you get married and after a while you begin to yearn just a little bit, just a little bit for that simple life that you once had with your mates.

[24:21] Or much harder when real grief grief and loss of a loved one does touch our lives. And of course, there's a time to mourn.

[24:33] Grief is very real, isn't it? Painful, terrible. Death is a terrible blight on this world, on our personal world. And there is a time to mourn, to grieve.

[24:44] But there is a time to move on. And we Christians, of all people, are to have a right perspective, as Moses did, on the transient matters of this earth, for the everlasting realities of the eternal kingdom of God.

[25:04] Moses considered the treasures of this world, indeed all the treasures of Egypt, as nothing, because his eye was on the eternal reward.

[25:14] That's what the apostle tells us. And he had taught his people that all his life. And so they could move on, even without him. And they had no need to fear the post-Moses era because, in verse 9, do you see, God says to his people, thirdly, remember the undiminished provision of the Spirit who rested on Moses, the servant of the Lord, which was not taken away, but remained on his anointed successor, so as to preserve the powerful ministry of the enduring covenant words of God.

[25:53] Joshua, verse 9, was full of the Spirit of Wisdom. The word Spirit there should be capitalized, because, of course, the Spirit of Wisdom is God's Spirit.

[26:04] That's clear back from Numbers 27, verse 16, where we read about Moses laying his hands on Joshua as his successor, on Joshua in whom is the Spirit, the Spirit of God.

[26:16] And that's the point, you see, they need to know that, yes, Moses, the man of God, is dead, but God is not dead. God has not departed from them. Just like with Elijah and Elisha, do you remember?

[26:30] When Elijah, who had been the chariot and horseman of Israel, he'd been the great bulwark of their faith, when he was departing, they needed to know that God had not departed.

[26:43] And he promises the great portion of his Spirit on his successor. And so it is here, God's wisdom, God's power, God's own Spirit is undiminished in their midst.

[26:58] But notice something very important in this verse. Notice what Joshua's charisma, his anointing with the Spirit of God. Notice what it does. It means the people will follow him as their new leader, so the people obeyed him, and, notice, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.

[27:21] The Spirit of wisdom, God's Spirit, is at work powerfully in the next generation to lead people back to the enduring covenant word of God given through his servant Moses.

[27:37] That's so important to realize. And every subsequent prophet right to the end of the Old Testament was similarly carried along by the Holy Spirit, as Peter tells us, to call Israel back to the same gospel revelation that God gave once and for all through his servant Moses.

[27:58] The Spirit of God was at work all through the ages to lead his people back to the living and abiding word of God revealed through the servant of the Lord.

[28:12] Isn't that striking? But if you're theologically awake, it shouldn't be surprising, should it? Why so? Well, that's the fourth thing that's emphasized, you see, in these last few verses, verses 10 to 12, so very carefully.

[28:30] Above all, God says, remember this unique prophet, the servant whose very uniqueness will constantly remind you of the promise back in chapter 18, verse 18, remember, of another prophet like him who will be raised up from among your own brothers to speak what God commands.

[28:55] And in the face of every subsequent prophet, however true, however faithful to God he was, Moses, enduring uniqueness, kept the hearts of God's people seeking for that ultimate servant of the Lord, the ultimate prophet.

[29:16] But who could possibly be greater than Moses, who knew God face to face, who did signs and wonders, who showed such mighty power on the earth? The only person greater than Moses was God himself.

[29:28] Well, as history unfolded, God sent many leaders, Joshua, the judges, the kings, God's anointed ones like the great David and Solomon.

[29:41] But even they strayed and their successes strayed further and further. And God raised up many prophets, many messengers of the covenant, always calling people back to Moses' words, not least Elijah.

[29:54] But Israel's heart was hard. Moses knew that. And just as he predicted, as we've seen, all these terrible curses did at last come upon them until ultimately they were cast right out of the promised land into exile.

[30:12] There was none like Moses who could work the mighty power of God, who could strike holy fear into Israel to bring them to obedience, who could work wonders and victories over their enemies.

[30:28] And then he grew greater and greater and greater. And as it did, God's prophets did speak words of wonderful comfort and promise, calling Israel to hope, to trust in God's promise that one like Moses, even greater than he, would come.

[30:51] Listen, behold, my servant, my chosen one in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit on him, cried Isaiah.

[31:03] He will not only bring back the tribes of Israel, but will be a light for the nations, so that God's salvation will at last reach the ends of the earth, just as God had promised Abraham.

[31:15] A great servant, a great leader and savior, and yet, one who Isaiah makes clear, would have a life marked by mysterious suffering, by untimely death, so that God's people might inherit not only now just a land, but a new heavens and a new earth.

[31:38] Isaiah saw one whom he calls high and lifted up. That's a language he uses all the way through his prophecy, only for the Lord himself, and yet he calls him my servant, who will suffer and be wounded for his people's iniquity, who will be cut off out of the land of the living as an offering for sin, so that many might be counted righteous, so that God's people devastated still by sin might be brought forth singing with great rejoicing in his everlasting covenant of peace, which envelops not only now his people Israel, but peoples of all the earth, just as God promised to Abraham way back in the beginning.

[32:32] And so the Old Testament ends, as I said, with Malachi's words to a people who are returned from exile, but still occupied, still destitute, still so discouraged. And he says, remember Moses and his words.

[32:47] God's covenant promise is still not forgotten, despite all your failure in sin. So honor Moses, he says, and hope for one even greater than Moses, for the messenger of the covenant, the ultimate servant of the Lord, who will at last usher in the great day of the Lord, preceded by another Elijah to prepare his way.

[33:15] And so for many, many dark centuries, the faithful ones in Israel lived by that hope, longing for the Messiah, the great servant of the Lord, the Lord's anointed with the power of God to come and bring them salvation.

[33:29] But none like Moses arose in Israel. Until a strange man called John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness.

[33:46] And people said to him, are you the prophet to come? No, he said, I'm not. But he comes, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

[34:00] And when Jesus of Nazareth raised the widow's son to life in Nain, the people gave great glory to God. And they said, a great prophet has arisen among us.

[34:11] God has visited his people. And just after that, in Luke chapter 9, you read of Jesus going up on a mountain with his three disciples. And they saw not only Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, but Jesus transfigured with all the glory of heaven.

[34:26] And they heard the voice coming from heaven, from God himself, saying, this is my son. This is my chosen one. Listen to him. Listen to him.

[34:36] And now at last came the ultimate servant of the Lord, one who did not turn people back and say, listen to Moses' word, but one who said everything Moses was saying was about me, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[34:58] The apostle tells us in Hebrews chapter 3, has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. For Moses was faithful as a servant in God's house to bring testimony to the things that were to be spoken of later.

[35:14] But Christ, he says, is faithful over God's whole house as a son, as the heir. And he says, we Christians, we share in Christ, we share in the great inheritance he has taken possession of for us, his everlasting kingdom of life.

[35:32] We share in him if we hold our confidence to the end, our confidence in him, our great gospel servant. You see, God wanted his people way back then to look to the future with confidence, with assurance, knowing that all their gospel servant gave to them and promised to them was real.

[36:00] As they remembered those promises and those warnings, as they remembered not only Moses' words, but his life and death for their sakes. But how much more for us as Christian people are we to look to the future and think of all that we have that is so much greater even than they?

[36:25] We remember not just the unique prophet Moses, we remember the unique and ultimate prophet, our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who not only spoke face to face with God, but was face to face with him before all worlds as the only begotten son, himself God.

[36:44] And we have received not only the grace of God's great revelation of himself in the law of Moses, we have received the ultimate grace, in the grace and truth made flesh in the person of our Savior, the Lord Jesus.

[36:59] As John says, from his fullness, we have received grace in place of grace, the ultimate revelation of Christ that supersedes even the unique revelation of God through Moses.

[37:15] And we remember one who himself was in the very form of God, and yet took the form of a servant, humbling himself, becoming obedient, even to the point of death, even death on a cross, in the ultimate act of servanthood.

[37:34] And we remember his untimely passing outside the camp, excluded from the land of God's life for the sake of his people so that they might inherit eternity, redeemed through his great exodus, saving us from the tyrant of sin and death.

[37:52] sin. But of course we also remember that our gospel servant arose to end the mourning of his followers, to turn their tears to joy and to laughter.

[38:06] We remember that he told his people not to fear for the future because he would never leave them orphans. We're to remember also his undiminished provision of his own Holy Spirit of wisdom and power for us to remain with all his people.

[38:22] And of course to empower his apostles to lead his people, his church back ever afterwards by turning them again to obey his words, the words of our true servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bring to remembrance everything that he taught them so that the new covenant ministry of Christ's apostles supersedes even the glory of Moses' unique ministry as the apostles impart the very words of God himself to the church in words taught by the Holy Spirit, not in words taught by human wisdom.

[39:02] So that just as to obey Joshua was to do as God commanded Moses, so for us to obey the apostles is to obey the Son of God himself. Remember the words of the holy apostles, of the prophets, and the commands of our Lord and Savior through your apostles, says Peter.

[39:23] And their words, echoing our Lord's words, call us constantly, don't they, to remember that unswerving promise about the ultimate land of promise, that the patriarchs like Moses rejoiced in only from afar the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he has now led us to forever.

[39:44] Jesus, our servant, has seen it with his own eyes. But he also, unlike Moses, has entered into it ahead of us as the firstborn of the new creation, as the first fruits of the resurrection.

[40:02] And we shall enter, all of us who are true servants of the Lord Jesus, but only in his way and only in his time.

[40:16] What does Paul say? So in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order, Christ the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

[40:30] If we belong to Jesus Christ, we shall enter his glory in resurrection bodies like his glorious body. That is the promise of God. God. But meantime, we are to remember, like Moses, that we are only servants.

[40:53] And we're called to remember that great gospel servant, Moses, and the greatest gospel servant, our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we do, you see, we'll see, won't we, why Moses' life was shaped the way it was.

[41:08] all his sufferings, all his sacrifices, even his death. It was a preview. It was a reflection of the Lord Jesus himself. Moses shared prospectively in his pattern of life because he belonged to him, to the one who is our greatest example, says the apostle Peter, who gives us the pattern of our service to the Lord Jesus.

[41:37] for to this you have been called, says Peter, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an exact pattern, we might say, leaving you the ultimate pattern, so that you may also follow in his steps, just as Moses foreshadowed those steps so long ago.

[41:57] Remember your gospel servant, says God to Israel, as they look to the future. Follow his message and follow his manner of life. which rejected everything about self because he was looking to the true reward.

[42:15] He lived and died for God's promise and for God's people. And remember your gospel servant, he says to us today, let this mind be in you, is how Paul puts it.

[42:29] Not a mind full of ambition, of rivalry, of conceit, all about your wants and your needs. Not a mind that's bitter because God has said no to something that you've pled for in this earthly life.

[42:46] Perhaps a part that somebody else will have in his kingdom work that you've longed to have, and God said no. Perhaps a partner in life that others have and you haven't, or the health, or the healing of a particular thing, or the job, or the family, or whatever it may be.

[43:08] Not a mind of bitter resentment about what God has said no to because you're but a servant. But, says Paul, the mind that is ours in Christ Jesus, in our gospel servant, who made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself to obedience, even to death, even to death on a cross.

[43:37] Friends, the key to the future, to your future, to my future, to our future together as a church, the key to life, the key to faith, the key to fruitfulness, now and forever, it lies in remembering our gospel servant, the servant of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[43:59] And if his mind is truly in us, then we will be able to say with Paul and with Moses, Christ will be honored in our bodies, whether by life or by death.

[44:17] For to live is Christ, and to die is gain. remember our gospel servant.

[44:31] Amen. Let's pray. O God, who has prepared for them that love thee such good things as past man's understanding, pour into our hearts such love towards thee, that we, loving thee above all things, might obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[45:02]  Amen.