OPENING REMARKS
Can we give the worship team a hand please? Awesome. Good morning. How's everyone doing today? How's your holiday weekend? What's again? Awesome. I hope you enjoyed the fourth of July, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this great nation.  hopefully there were no firework injuries. Everybody still have your hands, fingers and toes, all that good stuff? Perfect.  fireworks were going off until 1 a.m. at my house.  not that it was keeping me up or anything, but if I seem sluggish.  you might know why.

INTRODUCTION

But for those of you who may not know me, my name is Nathan Tunison. I'm a pastor here on staff at Evident Church.  if you're new here, I'm just thrilled that you're joining us this Lord Day's morning. I hope you enjoy your time here. And as I was preparing this message this week,  I just had an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I get to do this for you. I'm honored that I get to do this for you and for God's kingdom.  I am thankful. So thank you.  we're going to be continuing this morning in our series in Genesis.

GENESIS RECAP

So if you have your Bibles, please open up to Genesis chapter 10. Genesis chapter 10. If you didn't bring a Bible, , there's some Bibles in the back that you can use. If you don't own a Bible, make sure you take that home with you. We want to make sure everybody has a copy of God's Word. That's a gift from us to you. And if you haven't been with us in the series so far, or maybe you missed a week or two, Genesis is the first book of the Bible. It was written by Moses, and it's an account on how everything came into being. The book opens up with God creating everything out of nothing. God created and it was perfect. It was just the way that he wanted it to be. And what makes the creation account so amazing is that while God created, he wanted a part of his creation to uniquely live with him.

So God created humans out of his own image, out of his own likeness. He didn't create us to be peasants. He created us to dwell in his creation, to live and enjoy in his creation. To love his creation. And it's truly an amazing thing. God is so good. But not too long after the creation account, we learn how sin came into the world, the genesis of sin, if you will. Adam and Eve, they were tempted by Satan. They ate of the fruit from a tree they weren't supposed to, and immediately they were exposed to an almighty God. What is going on? Yeah, those are those those are the fireworks. And over the last few weeks, we've been just chasing on how the story of sin affects mankind.

We saw how sin can develop over time if you don't take rule over it. Cain he gave into his sin and he murdered his brother, which is just a terrible, terrible story in the Bible. A whole generation gave into this into sin, and God wiped them out with the flood. It was only Noah, his wife, his sons, his son's wife that could escape God's righteous punishment, his righteous wrath.

And then last week we saw that sin wasn't eliminated in the flood. Noah gave in to his sin and drunkenness. Ham gave into his son by not honoring his father in that moment. So we see that that sin is an overarching theme in these first 11 chapters in Genesis.

But then there's another theme. We're chasing this account of the one who is promised to redeem sin. It's this account of that there's one that's going to come from Eve that will stop sin that entered into the world. The flood didn't take care of that. A mere man isn't able to take care of that. God has to take care of that. And we know that this is fulfilled by Christ, our Lord, the one unique God man who's fully God and fully man. I think it's when I step back that that happens. Sorry, squirrel.

So this week we are going to be leaving the story of Noah, and we're gonna focus on what happens next. So this chapter is known as the Table of Nations. We are literally going to be reading off so many names. I'm warning you now, there are a lot of names. But if there's any expecting mothers here and you don't know what to name your next son, there are 70 pretty solid options in this chapter. My pick is our pick shad, so you can't take that one, that's mine, alright? So if you're able, please stand with me for the reading God's holy word. Pray for me, church, as I do this. Hear now the word of God.

SCRIPTURE READING - GENESIS 10, ESV

These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.

Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

PRAYER OVER THE MESSAGE

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you that we can come together as brothers, sisters in Christ, that we can meet in this room. Lord, we thank you for the text that makes sense and some of the texts that just don't make sense. But Lord, we know that your word is profitable, it is good, is able to teach us and correct us. And I pray that that's what happens. Holy Spirit, pour upon your church, upon your people, work in them, and draw us closer to you through this word. We thank you for this time that we have together. In Jesus' name, amen.

MESSAGE

You may be seated. Now yes, thank you. I got an applause last service. Like, what is wrong with you guys? No. It's good. Thank you. I had to ask for it, but it's half it's half as good, but it's still good. Some of you might be thinking to yourselves, what does this have to do with me? What do these list of names have anything to do with my life? And actually, it has quite a lot to do with you and all of us, really, because this is the explanation of how all the nations of the world came to be. So from these three brothers, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, all the nations of the worlds of the world came to be. My hard question for you this morning would be: do you believe that?

Do you believe that every people group, American, European, African, Asian, everything in between, do you believe that every group of people, every nation in this world came about by these three sons? That we can be traced back to Noah and his wife, and ultimately we could be traced back to Adam and Eve. Because what this chapter demands us, it demands us to subscribe to the fact that everybody in this room, everybody in this nation, everybody in this world came from Noah and his wife, and who came from Adam and Eve. Do you believe that?

In a world that suffers from and has from its very beginning that suffers from racial tension,  nation hating upon other nations. Are we willing to say that we all come from one people? That's not what the world believes. That's not what's taught in schools.

We grew up in a time where Darwinian evolution was the leading theory of life, and how humanity came to be. It still is today. I got some pictures behind me. So Darwinian evolution tells us that we're all just a product of the big bang. That we're just stardust, that formed over time into a single-cell organism, and then eventually we evolved into fish, and over time we evolved over and over again into monkeys, and from that, that's how humans came to be.

I was watching with my boys this weekend on Saturday Ice Age. There's that part where Sid is he's in the like ice cave and he's walking and then there's like a seagull cell organism, then like a fish, and then it evolves into Cid, right? But this is what Darwinian evolution tells us.

What's not focused in schools, however, is that Darwinian evolution is inherently a racist  ideology. It tells us that that the white man is the fully evolved form that you could be. That black people are the lowest, Asians come next, but if you're fully evolved, you are a white person.  I don't agree with that. That's very unbiblical, but it leaves us to this challenge.

Are we willing to accept the idea that matter exploded somehow it organized itself into a single-cell organism that over time evolved into monkeys? That over time evolved into humans, and that these humans gathered into nations of the world, and that's how things came to be. You have to have a lot of faith, a lot of faith to believe that. Or do you see that a creator God, the God of the Bible, he created everything out of nothing? He works out of the physics that we understand that he created man. He sovereignly led man, he allowed them to disperse into nations who adapted to the geological area that they were residing in. And over time, we get people who look like how we have today. It just begs the question, which one of those two sounds crazier? Which one of those two respects humanity?

So if you're taking notes today, our big takeaway is this, is that we don't have many nations united to one God. We have one people of God making many nations, and then we see Christ as the restorer of those nations.

Many people ask me, well, what about slavery in the Bible? Doesn't that show hatred to one people group? If we all came from God, why did God allow slavery? Josh did a great job covering this in our first Timothy series in chapter six, so I'm not going to go too much. That's on YouTube if you want to write that down. But slavery in scripture doesn't equate to chattel slavery in America or chattel slavery in any other part of the world, not just here. And the Bible doesn't condone that.

The questions I want us to wrestle with today would be these is does God prefer certain nations over the other? Does God prefer certain races over others? Is the gospel for only certain people groups or is the gospel for everyone? And the answer to all the sorry, I I worded that wrong. Is the gospel for just one set of people and not the other? All the answers to this is no. Race isn't a problem in God's creation. We are one people. The gospel of Christ is just as relevant  to one person who might look one way, and it's just as relevant to another person who might look another way. The gospel, it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, the gospel is relevant to you, and amen for that.

The problem here is when it comes to race in different nations, and we'll get more into this here, it's not God. The problem isn't God. It's not his creation. The problem is our sinful flesh. It gets in the way and it distorts what God wanted. This is what God's word says about different people groups. He says this in Galatians chapter 3, verses 2 And if you're Christ, then your Abraham's offspring errors according to the promise. There's no partiality here. We are all one in Christ Jesus, which means that God's love, God's mercy, God's salvation towards you, God's justification, God's favor towards you isn't indicated about your ancestry or what you look like or where you came from. It's solely in the fact that you are one in Christ Jesus. Church, we we would be ignorant to look at s anyone with any indifference. We are all the same. And in fact, modern science tells us that if you take any two people in the whole world, that the genetic makeup that's that there's only point two percent difference between those two people, most cases point one. That there's only a teeny tiny difference in genetic and DNA makeup between two people from one side of the world to the other side of the world. It's almost like we come from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, right?

I love this verse in Revelation. This is a vision God had of the throne room of God in heaven. And it says this, Revelation 7:9-10.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Notice the similar language in that verse compared to some of the words used in the chapter we just read. We're going to reread these verses again. And keep that in mind, that Revelation verse. And keep in mind the similar language.

So if you're taking notes, we're going to focus on three things today. The first being that we are one people who are divided into nations. We see that one people group divided into many nations. Let's reread verses 1-5 of Genesis 10.

These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

Notice that similarity between Revelation 7. So the whole purpose of this chapter is to show that these sons of God spread out across the lands. And to explain this the best way I can, I have to spoil some of Josh's sermon next week. Don't tell Josh, okay. He's not here today, he doesn't need to know. But most scholars believe that chapter 11 comes before chapter 10. Chapter eleven is the Tower of Babel. It's that story. And I'm not gonna get too much into that story, but the people in Babel and their pride they decided to make a ziggurat. It's a big structure, it's a tower, and the aim of this tower is to reach the heavens. , the word Babel to the Babylonians, that's the people who live in Babel, it actually means gate to God.

So in short, in their sinful pride, humans want to elevate themselves on their own accord. It's the Garden of Eden event all over again. So God stopped it. He confused them. He changed their language, but not just the language of the early Babylonians. He changed the language of everyone in the whole earth, the whole face of the earth. To the Hebrews actually means to confuse. Because God confused the people with separate languages.

So chapter 10, the table of nations, it follows this event. And we learn this in verse 5. Look at that again. It says From the coastland, from these the coastland peoples spread into their lands, each with his own language, by their clans and their nations. So they all had their own language because it followed the Babel event.

So I actually have a map here to help visualize this division. So we have Japheth's descendants in red, we have the descendants of Ham in green and the descendants of Shem in yellow. So you see Japheth, he's the first on the list. He goes north and then he spreads west and east. So these would be nations like Turkey, Greece, areas in the Black Sea region, and then possibly into Europe and possibly into Asia Minor. So basically Japheth moved north into Europe and north into Asia.

So Ham's descendants, they're in green, they went south. Right? This would be Egypt, this would be northern Africa,  Sudan, Libya, Canaan, and parts of the Mesopotamia. So this section, a lot of the kingdoms that came up to fight the Israelites came from the areas that are in the green. They also took some of the Middle East as well. So this people group, they moved into northern Africa and some parts in the Middle East.

Now Shem descendants, he's in yellow, they were known for staying into the heartland of the Middle East. So Israel, Iraq, Syria, parts of Arabia, those are countries that we would recognize today. Now, Shem's line, it matters because from Shem's line comes Abraham, which develops into Israel, which that is who Christ comes from. So Shem's descendants are pictured as just staying into the nearest Eastern world, and then that's where the start of Israel's history comes from. But when we read this chapter, there's there's a lot happening in Messi. We're not talking about Noah's sons just moving from one city to another.

We're seeing the nations of the world created. That's what the heart of this is. But looking into this in the light of the Babel event, , there's one thing that we should take away from this verse, and and Pastor Warren Weir Weirsby, he said it best. His last name's harder than the other names. It says this: it says, God is in control of the nations of the worlds, and he can do with them what he pleases. God is in control of his people. The creator of the universe, he can move and act in his creation as he sees fit. Babel isn't direct act of God's divine judgment on his creation. When they acted together in selfishness and greed and gain, God rendered a just punishment on them, and in turn they, scattered across the nations. Which moves us to our second point.

We see sin's influence over divided nations. Sin's influence over divided nations. So we're going to move into Ham's descendants. If you remember from Joshua's sermon last week, Ham is a brother that was cursed. Well his son Canaan was cursed, and he became a servant to his brothers. So there's many in Ham's line who directly fights people out of Shem's line who becomes Israel. So let's reread verses 8-12.  there's gonna be a few nations that you recognize here. So verse 8-12 it says:

Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah

So it's interesting to read some names that we might recognize. So Babel becomes the Babylonians, Nineveh becomes Assyria. And then if we read verses 15 through 17, which I'm not reading that again, we get a lot of people that come out of Canaan. And these are the same people that Israel has to fight to get the promised land after their time in the wilderness. But it's not so cut and dry, but what does this show us? What's the greater reason between for this list of nations?

I don't want us to get lost in a list of names, in a list of nations. This isn't just a division of nations. This is sins further developing into humanity. Pastor Brian Chappell, he wrote this. He said that “Satan is at work through dark forces that are in the world before our eyes evil leaders, descendant pursuits, poverty, injustice, racism, promiscuity, and materialism.”

Before you go into Genesis 10 and 11, you don't see wars. You don't see racism. You don't get any clear ill illustrations of one leader trying to pursue over another leader. I mean, I'm not saying that none of that happened, but it certainly didn't happen to the degree that we see after chapters 10 and 11. God's dispersing of the nations is a direct response to man's sin. So as we get further and further away from Eden, we're getting further and further away from God's intended design for his people.

I mean, just think about it. Genesis starts with two people in Eden, and then they're driven away. They have children, one kills his brother, and then he's driven further away. The world is corrupted, and they're fully taken away. Then civilizations begin to work itself away from God and they are driven further and further away from where Eden started. That's why through chapters 1 through 11 you see sin getting worse and worse.

It reminds me of parenting, right? Like when your kid does your kid punches his brother and then what do you do? You separate them, right? Morgan's like, yes, we yes, I do. Or if you're if your son or your daughter just does something so annoying to you that you're getting a migraine, you're seeing dots in front of you, what do you do? You send that kid to the room, right? These are your children, not my children. I'm not talking about my children here. But that's what's happening here. If the people are going to work in sin against a holy God, God's going to split them up. Being removed farther and farther away from God, it comes with consequences. They choose to live for their own desires instead of living for the glory of God.

Murder wasn't created by God. It was a response from sin. Slavery wasn't created by God. He didn't create slavery. It was a response from being split from people into different groups, and then those nations pursued other nations, those people pursued other people, and that's how we get slavery. That's how we get racism. It shows us that when left alone, man and women will do wicked things. And when you let this groove of sin become part of your life, and you're just too stubborn to repent and give that sin to God, you're driven away from God as a consequence.

This got me thinking this week. Why do you think Sunday mornings at church are so important? because it's a reversing of what happened in Genesis 10. Instead of God creating  instead of God's creation separating themselves, when we come to church, we gather together here as one body, one people group. It's the total opposite of today's text. And if I'm being honest, I can't stand holidays like this where people would rather travel somewhere than to be in God's house. Or organize sports. Or anything else where we're willing to be away from God's people on a Sunday morning.

I mean this may step on some toes, but the truth is we make so many excuses to show up to church sometimes. We let too many things come before God than being here at church with body of believers. What we're doing here is so important. To be Christian, it means to gather with other Christians with one thing in common, and that is Christ. What we do here is so crucial. Think about it. When we come here, we sing praises together as one people. We fall under the word of God as one body. Yes, I might be up here preaching, but I fall under that same word as you guys do, as everyone else.

You might wonder why we have so many memberships classes in the year? It's because we know it's important for the church to actually be one church where we can pray together, meet together, where we can encourage each other because unity drives us toward God instead of separating into the world like we see in today's text.

Later on in the service, we're gonna come to the Lord's table and communion. And guess what? We're going to do that as a body of believers together. We don't do this in any ritualistic fashion. We do this because scripture tells us to take communion as a family because it's important. It's what we do together, not separated. When people are driven away from God, when they're driven away from each other, they're left to deal with their sin on their own and not with God. And this is where racial tension is formed. This is where hatred between people happens. This is where pride and greed take over. This is where lust and impurity takes over.

Instead, what we should see from today's text is that we're sin drives away God unites back together and one primary way that he does it is being here at church with believers it's a taste of what's to come. Lord willing, we are going to stand before God and his throne in front of God Almighty. And when we look around, we're going to see so many people from different nations, from different languages, from different tribes that were no longer separated, were joined together, surrounding each other as one family before our Heavenly Father. And we'll see these people, and some will look like us, and some won't look like us. But we won't see that what we'll see instead we'll see the Father and we'll see Christ and we'll fall on your knees and worship and praise him.

My prayer for this church is that Sunday after Sunday, we might catch a glimpse of that here in service. It's my prayer for the church. So I want to challenge you, and I don't do this to be mean, I don't, I do this out of sincere love for you. But what are you doing to separate yourself from a world that is separated from God? Is Sunday just a box to check off? Is your faith revolving around your life or are you letting your life revolve around your faith? What do you have in your life going on that's getting in the way of your relationship with God. These aren't questions to think about later, these are like answer right now questions. Our God is strong and He's mighty and He's far greater than anything that this world has to offer, church. If only you would pursue him the way you pursue other things. Myself included sometimes. And I promise you, if you're not bought into church, if you're not bought in, if you think that this is a waste of time or giving more time to the church is a waste of time, I promise you, I promise you, church, that the more you give, the more you gain. I promise you.

That moves us to the last point. Today's text shows us that we see God's fulfillment of unity. God's fulfillment of unity. Let's reread verses 21 through 25. And also we're going to hop down to verse 32. Oh, this has big names. I don't know why I I redid these ones. It says:

“To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan.”

Let's hop down to verse thirty-two.

“These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood”

So a little bible nerd thing when it comes to these genealogies where you have multiple people in the gene genealogy, so here we have Japheth, Shem, and Ham. The last person mentioned is a family that God uses for his kingdom purposes. It's God's chosen line. So from Shem, we get a couple names that show up in another genealogy in chapter 11 that Josh gets to do, not me. Which this genealogy leads to Abraham.

So Arpachshad, Eber, and Peleg, those are great grandfathers to Abraham. And so from Abraham comes the nation of Israel, through God's covenant promises, and through Israel comes the line of David from the tribe of Judah and, this is where Jesus comes from. This is why genealogies are so important in the Bible. They trace the names and the ancestors of God's redemptive work. That's their purposes. You want to know how God works in a people? You look at the genealogies and see how God works through them. And I want to make sure that we read verse 32 because it tells us that these nations went and spread abroad the whole earth to the nations we have today.

But after they did that, they followed different gods, they fell into their own sins, and then God created a great work through the nation of Israel, which is the nation where Christ is brought forth. But when we're talking about nations, it can get really, really confusing because when we read the Old Testament, you can think that God only cares about the nation of Israel, which isn't true.

I want to end our sermon today on that because it's important. What we see instead is that God shows favor to Israel because that's where Christ comes from. They're just a chosen line where the Messiah comes from. And then what we see from this Messiah is we see somebody who reforms the nations to what they once were, and that's one people of God. We see this in Mark eleven.

How about you flip there with me in your Bibles? So the second gospel, the Gospel of Mark, flip to chapter 11. I was just reading these verses with my children the other day, and something stood out, and I'm like, you know what? It has to be in the sermon. Mark chapter 11. Let's read verses 15 through 19. It'll also be on the screen behind me.

And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city.

So Jesus pointed to some old testament verses here. But what did it call the temple? A house of what? A house of prayer. But who was it for? For all nations. And this is what drove the priest to want to kill Jesus that day.

David Garland, he explains why the Pharisees got so maddened. He said this in his book. “In Jesus' day, the temple had become a nationalistic symbol that served only to divide Israel from the nations. If it were to become what God intended, a house of prayer for all nations, walls would have to crumble.” So Israel can often be looked at as at the separate chosen people of God, and that's a half-truth because that's where Christ comes from. But salvation isn't just for Israel, salvation is for all nations.

So I want to close today by reading some verses that Jesus was quoting in this chapter. If you will, if you want to follow along with me, flip to Isaiah 56, just past your halfway point in the Bible. Isaiah fifty six:

Thus says the LORD:

“Keep justice, and do righteousness,

for soon my salvation will come,

and my righteousness be revealed.

Blessed is the man who does this,

and the son of man who holds it fast,

who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,

and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say,

“The LORD will surely separate me from his people”;

and let not the eunuch say,

“Behold, I am a dry tree.”

For thus says the LORD:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please me

and hold fast my covenant,

I will give in my house and within my walls

a monument and a name

better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

“And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,

to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

and holds fast my covenant—

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples.”

The Lord GOD,

who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

“I will gather yet others to him

besides those already gathered.”

Church, I can't tell you how much joy these verses brought to me this week. Praise God. Praise God that he doesn't turn his head away from his creation. Praise God that he allows us to join with him despite where we come from. Praise God that he gave us an everlasting name that won't be separated from him ever. And said he accepts their sacrifice. And praise God that we have the ultimate sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice through Christ Jesus.

Now his children of all nations can be united to him through Christ. I hope you can find rest in these verses this morning. If you're without hope, find rest knowing that the Father doesn't cast you away. If you're depressed, lonely, or if you're saddened, knowing that your father, your heavenly Father, takes you to his holy mountain and he brings you to an everlasting joy.

If you're lost in sin, know that Christ died for your sins. Sins that are great and sins that are small. You can find rest from your sins by calling upon his name and believing in him with all your heart. And that's exactly what Christ does. He rescues us from our sins. Our sins, it scatters us away, just like we see in this chapter, the scattering of away. He scatters us away like sheep. But the great shepherd, he knows his sheep, and he gathers them and he rescues them and he restores them. He will wash away your sin church and he'll make you into a new creation. But like a lost sheep, first you need to call him but you can know that he'll come to you he'll hear you and I hope that you'll do that this morning let's pray

CLOSING PRAYER

heavenly Father, I thank you for this time that we have together. I thank you for your word. Lord, we read in today's text how our j how much our sin drives us away from you. But you are a God who unites. You are a God who brings people back together. And you do that through Christ.

Lord, I pray for anyone here who doesn't know you. That if they're calling for you, Lord, that Holy Spirit, you do a good work in them. That they can have a true saving faith in you. And I pray for my brothers and sisters here, who might have things going on in their lives that it just feels too much to bear. I pray that you'll give them rest and that you'll give them peace.

And now as we join as a church to your holy table, Lord, to share in this meal, help us remember Christ. Lord, be so present with us in this moment that we can sense you. And we can find hope. And we can find joy. We thank you for being gracious to us even when we don't deserve it.

We thank you for being mighty when we don't feel strong. We thank you for being our refuge when sin seems so great. Lord, I pray that you help us come to your table in a worthy manner. And we love you. Amen.