Matthew 27:37-40 “Above his head they placed the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!’”

            Pilate’s mocking sign was aimed as much at the chief priests and Jewish elders as it was at Jesus. In some ways it was a snub of the entire Jewish nation. “The best you people have to offer, the highest and the mightiest, is nothing more than this pitiful man slowly suffocating to death. If this is your King, the rest of you should know that you fall somewhere below him.” In Pilate’s eyes, Jesus’ sacrifice found no respect.

            Pilate’s sarcasm reflects the value system that so infects our world. We should not believe we are immune, no matter how much we think we champion “Christian values.” Worldly values don’t revolve so much around sex or violence, but success and victory. Valuable people, the ones worth knowing, befriending, or following, are only those distinguished by a certain standard of wealth or power. Truly worthwhile careers are only those that promise a high standard of living, or require a high level of education. Those who faithfully serve in obscurity all their lives, or who can’t pull themselves above the poverty line, deserve no dignity. God have mercy on us if we adopt such worldliness as our own, or worse yet, try to sanctify it by making it sound as though it were somehow Christian!

            The great irony in Pilate’s sign is that the bare words are correct. This was in fact the King of the Jews. Even more, he is King of the universe. The highest and greatest King of all so loved the people he ruled that he gave up his life in their place in the most horrible death we can imagine. The most valuable man who ever walked this earth did not prove his value by how high he climbed, or how much he had, but by how much he gave, and how much he suffered, because of how much he loved.

            Jesus’ companions in death were also chosen to deny him any respect. “Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.” More than robbers, these men were enemies of the Roman state. Jesus’ accusers made the case before Pilate that Jesus belonged to the same class. They were Zealots, Jewish freedom fighters. The Romans disparaged them as mere robbers, mere bandits.

            Jesus’ execution alongside such criminals was another insult to his dignity. Later we read that even these men heaped insults on him. Perhaps they considered Jesus a sorry excuse for a Jewish patriot, and they resented being associated with him.

            For his part, Jesus was not ashamed to be associated with even the lowest people of society There is not a single human being–rich or poor, respected or rejected–that he is unwilling to seek with his love. No one is too low for him to claim as his own by faith. These bandits held no respect for Jesus or his sacrifice. Yet this day did not end before Christ converted one of them to faith and promised him a place in his kingdom.

            Other Jewish countrymen joined in the attack on Jesus’ respect. “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!” “Save yourself” was more than a taunt hurled at Jesus. It was the creed of those who hated him most. The Pharisees and the priests lived their entire lives by this principle. They imagined their hard work and discipline would eventually save themselves.

            Of course, this is a delusion. The idea is preposterous. A person who needs to be rescued is not in a position to perform the rescue. By definition, rescues come from others.

Except for Jesus. If he wanted, he could rescue himself from the cross. He was the only person able save himself. But then he would not have saved the rest of us from the delusion of self-deliverance. His enemies neither respected nor believed the sacrifice he was making for them. But Jesus’ love, not their nails, kept him fastened to the cross.

Matthew 27:32-35 “As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). There they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall; but after tasting it he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. And sitting down, they kept watch over him there.”

            It was a Roman custom to make a condemned man carry his cross to the point of crucifixion, but few such men had suffered as Jesus already had. He had been sleepless for 24 hours. His captors beat him repeatedly. They whipped him in a way that itself took the lives of many men. Now here, somewhere near the edge of the city, Jesus collapsed in total exhaustion. He simply had no strength to carry the cross any farther.

            Did any of his followers jump to his side to lighten his burden for this little part of the way? They had all melted away into hiding long ago. Roman soldiers certainly weren’t going to stoop to carry a cross for a Jewish criminal. Finally, an unfortunate stranger coming into the city from the country had to be forced to carry the cross the rest of the way.

            “If I had been there, I would have carried the cross for my Savior,” we might think. “I would not have been ashamed to ease his burden.” But then, why don’t we do it now? His kingdom today cries out for workers willing to bear the heat of the day. It suffers under the burden of unfinished tasks, messages never delivered, souls never reached. It struggles with offices, positions, and other services no one ever fills. Do we, his present day disciples, find ourselves hiding? Or do we wait to be driven to serve him practically by force?

            When they came to the end of this trip, they arrived at the place Jesus would leave only by death. “They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). There they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall; but after tasting it he refused to drink it.” This mixture was intended to stupefy Jesus, to anesthetize him to some degree. If he had taken it, it may have eased the pain, but don’t make these soldiers out to be humanitarians. With most victims of crucifixion, the mixture may well have made the soldiers job easier. The victim struggles less if he can’t feel the nails attaching him to the wood.

            In this case Jesus refused to drink. He was not a defiant man trying to “prove” himself to his enemies, even in torture. He was not trying to teach some last hour lessons on self-discipline, or making a statement about accepting pain.

            This was another demonstration of his wondrous love on the cross. His presence here was not an accident. It brought him to the fulfillment of his purpose.  He intended to suffer the full pain, agony, and punishment our sins deserved. He did not refuse to find relief in the drink because there was something good about the pain itself. He had come to drink another cup, the cup of suffering, to the dregs–that we might never know the pain of ultimate justice ourselves.

            Finally, he chose not to escape the shame of being exposed there for all to see. When people are accused of some terrible crime, when they face their judge or receive their sentence, you rarely see them with chin up, head held high. Usually they try to cover themselves. The sense of shame is intense. All eyes burn in on them. They cover their face with their hands. The pull a jacket over their head. They shield themselves behind other people. They are desperate to conceal their identity.

            There was no hiding for Jesus on the cross. The nails piercing his hands kept his arms outstretched. They stretched his entire body upright as they held him there. Almost every inch of him was exposed to public view as the soldiers took his last earthly possession, his clothes, bloodied as they were, and divided them up among themselves. He was put on display for the world to gawk at.

            In spite of the shame, we, too, need to look. It is good that this shameful scene has not been hidden from our eyes, that we can see him hanging there clearly. Then we can see that the shame Jesus’ bore was not so much his own as it is ours. There hangs the shame of our sins. There hangs the wondrous love that would not seek relief from them.

1 Corinthians 3:10 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.”

Paul built with God, but he did not mean to boast when he describes himself as an “expert builder.” After all, he did so only “by the grace of God given to me.” Still, Paul provides us with a pattern or example that we can follow.

The key is in that grace of God by which Paul himself built. God’s overwhelming love for Paul, in spite of his murders and persecutions against God’s people, changed the man. Now that same grace, the forgiveness of all his sins, the love of God for him that could not be exhausted became the focus of his life. It moved him to share that gift with others. It bestowed on him the gifts he needed to share that gift with others.

It also gave him the message, the tool by which he would share that gift with others. How does one lead other people to Jesus and attach them to his church? When putting together a structure, there are always shortcuts you can take. At best they weaken the structure. At worst they doom it.

In God’s kingdom, there are many false methods that may appear to gather a large number of people together and build a church. Sometimes the “building” that then appears is only an illusion. I have listened to sermons that didn’t make mention of Jesus from start to finish, not to mention his saving work for us. You probably have, too. Every word of the sermon may have been true. But the preacher was not building with God or using his tools. How could he be when the gospel was missing?

Paul called the gospel “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” in Romans 1. He told the Corinthians earlier in this letter, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Where there is no gospel there is no progress on the house God is building. Everything God builds has to be built with his grace.

Paul urges us to give special attention to this: “…I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.” Every Christian today builds on a foundation that others have laid down in the past. Many things about ministry have changed over the years. Some of these changes are legitimate as God’s church faces new challenges. We worship in a different (earthly) building. We sing and pray from different books in different languages led by different men. The faces of those sitting in the pews change across the years.

Only let this be the same: that we build using the gospel as our tool, and on the sure foundation God himself has laid.

Matthew 26:1 “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away–and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’”

The Passover was just two days away. The Passover was the celebration of God’s great deliverance of Israel from Egypt. It taught them, like nothing else did, that their God was a God who rescues his helpless people from death. It also taught them to look forward to an even greater deliverance from an even darker death when the Messiah appeared in the future. Jesus was that Messiah, and this Passover was his chosen time to execute that great deliverance.

If we step back for a moment and look at the timing of Jesus’ plans, we are impressed by the artistry and poetry of the way that Jesus orchestrates and conducts his saving work. In the Passover a Lamb died to free God’s people from slavery and death. On this Passover, Jesus the Lamb of God, would die to free God’s people from slavery to sin and death. In the Passover God brought deliverance and victory to his people when it looked certain that they were going to suffer death and defeat. On this Passover Jesus brought everlasting deliverance and victory to his people from what looked like certain death and defeat. The enemies of Jesus could oppose the timing of his Passover plan to save us, but they could not stop it.

Have we learned to trust God’s timing as he continues to work in our lives for our salvation? Do we catch glimpses of the artistry and the poetry in the way he still conducts and orchestrates his plans as we live them? Like Israel under Pharaoh’s heavy hand, or trapped by the Red Sea; like the disciples watching Jesus slowly die on the cross, we may find it difficult to see past the darkness of the moment in which we are living. It must seem to us like God brings help too late. Remember Martha’s words to Jesus when he visited after Lazarus had died? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Thanks for coming, but isn’t your timing off, Jesus? But was there something wrong with Jesus timing when he performed an even greater miracle and raised Lazarus from the dead?

Admittedly, it is hard to keep carrying our heavy load when we are pleading with Jesus for help. We want the pain to go away. We fear the future. It is hard to wait. But Jesus’ enemies are the ones who oppose and reject his timing. His friends trust it and accept it. So easily, so many times, we become guilty of fighting the very plans he has made to serve our souls and increase our faith.

Still, we may think to ourselves, “If only I could get control…” Would it surprise you if I admitted that I want control–control over my own life? I not only want to keep control from people around me, people who have different plans than I do, people who might use their control to take advantage of me. I would also like to control Jesus’ involvement in my life. I plot and I plan. Sometimes I even think that I have control, or I am gaining control. But it is all an illusion. You and I have to act responsibly, but with our cooperation or without it, Jesus is still the one who holds control.

And isn’t that a comfort when we look at his plans for this Passover? As we review all that he suffered during these weeks of Lent, as we sit at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and look up at his bruised and blood-drenched body, it is easy for us to forget that he is there because he wants to be. He chooses this, not because he enjoys suffering. It filled his soul with such dread that he pleaded with his Father in Gethsemane to take it away if possible.

But it wasn’t possible, and so he chooses to let these men arrest him and commit all their crimes against him because it saves and serves us. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,” the prophet Isaiah says, not because of some accident, not because God lost it for a little while, but because this was Jesus’ Passover plan. And he was in control of the process from the start to the very end.

Luke 9:28-29 “About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”

There is nothing else like this in Scripture. We are told that the face of Moses glowed after he met with God, but that was a fading reflection of the glory of God. This light was emanating from Jesus himself, bright like flashes of lightning. Matthew tells us that his face shone like the sun. Mark tells us that the clothes became whiter than anyone could bleach them. What was this all about?

For a few blessed moments Jesus was enjoying the glory that belongs to him as the Son of God. This was the glory that he ordinarily kept concealed behind his human skin and hair and clothes. This is the glory that today makes the sun obsolete in heaven, “… for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Rev. 21:23). This is the glory that gives us a fuller and truer picture of who Jesus is: the eternal God, Lord of heaven and earth, Master of the universe and rightful Master of our own hearts.

Traditionally this event in Jesus’ life has been celebrated on the last Sunday before Lent. Before we spend the next 40 days remembering just how human, how weak, how vulnerable, how mortal Jesus had made himself, we have this reminder that Jesus possesses all the power and glory of God in heaven. The severity of his suffering should not rob us of our confidence that he is in control. It should not weaken our faith that he is the living Son of God. In the time line of his earthly life, this is also about where this glimpse of his glory fits. No doubt it served to fortify Jesus for the painful and frightening work ahead of him. It also offered Peter, James and John something to hold on to as they watched the events leading to his execution unfold.

But we don’t need to be entering the season of Lent to find challenges to our focus on who Jesus is– God clothed in human flesh. The challenges come from without and within. I once read an article by a rabbi complaining that Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ was going to close the hearts of many Jews to Jesus. Now what did he mean by that? He wasn’t interested in Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus as their Savior and God’s Son. He wanted a depiction of Jesus that would leave him at the level of a wise sage. He wanted a depiction of Jesus that would acknowledge historical inaccuracies in the gospel accounts. He wanted Jesus sanitized of both his divine glory and the depths of his human suffering for us.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like it has much to do with us. We don’t want Jesus stripped of his divine glory, do we? Actually, we struggle with this every day. In our hearts we would like to reduce Jesus to advice columnist or radio talk show host: people we generally respect for their opinions but feel free to pick and choose from their ideas. We would like to take Jesus a la carte.  Against Jesus’ warnings we freely indulge our lusts because no one can see into our hearts anyway. We rationalize and defend our angry and hateful feelings, convincing ourselves that it is okay because, “I’m the victim of an injustice.” Maybe we don’t have the gall to address him about it out loud, but in our thoughts we complain about the way he is running the world. We object to the things he lets into our lives. Does that sound like people who acknowledge his glory as God and admit that they are beneath him? It is soul destroying sin that cannot coexist with trust and love.

Now look at Jesus on the mountain. If Jesus’ glory helps to keep our focus on him and his divinity, we get so much more than an earnest correction to our broken moral compass. Many world religions call for us to follow them. Jesus’ divine glory gives us the confidence that we are following the right one. Jesus isn’t just an expert on the subject, like so many other prophets. He is the subject. You see, if you want to get to know someone you could interview his friends, research his achievements, inquire about his tastes and preferences. That would be fine if all you wanted to do was hire him for a job.

But if you really want to get to know the person, don’t you have to give the individual your attention and focus? Jesus’ transfiguration assures us that Jesus is God. Get to know this individual, Jesus, then, and you’ll get to know God. And when we get to know him, we learn such wonderful things about him, if only we’ll remember to keep our focus on who he is.

1 Corinthians 3:10 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.”

As Paul built with God, he did not mean to boast when he describes himself as an “expert builder.” After all, he did so only “by the grace of God given to me.” But Paul does provide us with a pattern or example that we can follow.

The key is in that grace of God by which Paul himself built. God’s overwhelming love for Paul, in spite of his murders and persecutions against God’s people, changed the man. Now that same grace, the forgiveness of all his sins, the love of God for him that could not be exhausted became the focus of his life. It moved him to share that gift with others. It bestowed on him the gifts he needed to share that gift with others.

It also gave him the message, the tool by which he would share that gift with others. How does one lead other people to Jesus and attach them to his church? When putting together a structure, there are always shortcuts you can take. At best they weaken the structure. At worst they doom it.

In God’s kingdom, there are many false methods that may appear to gather a large number of people together and build a church. But sometimes the “building” that appears is only an illusion. I have listened to sermons that didn’t make mention of Jesus from start to finish, not to mention his saving work for us. You probably have, too. Every word of the sermon may have been true. But the preacher was not building with God or using his tools. How could he be when the gospel was missing? Paul called the gospel “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” in Romans 1. He told the Corinthians earlier in this letter, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Where there is no gospel there is no progress on the house God is building. Everything God builds has to be built with his grace.

            Paul urges us to give special attention to this: “…I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.” Every Christian today builds on a foundation that others have laid down in the past. Many things about ministry have changed over the years. Some of these changes are legitimate as God’s church faces new challenges and works in new contexts. We worship in a different (earthly) building. We sing and pray from different books in different languages led by different men. The faces of those sitting in the pews change across the years.

Only let this be the same: that we build using the gospel as our tool, and on the sure foundation God himself has laid.

1 Corinthians 3:9 “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

Paul describes people like himself, and Peter and Apollos–the men who preached and taught God’s word– as God’s “fellow workers.” That term is especially true of those who have been called to serve full time in the Ministry of the Gospel. It also has application to others who teach God’s word to his people. Those who do so have been invited by God to work next to him on his building project.

But what are they building? Paul reveals the answer when he says, “You are God’s field, God’s building.” You and me, the people of God, whether living in Corinth, Greece 2000 years ago or Twenty-first Century America, are the project God is building. The Lord once had his people build a temple worth billions in Jerusalem. But he is not so interested in literal buildings anymore. He lives in people. The houses of worship we build aren’t important for their own sake, but for the people they serve. They are a tool for the Lord to use for what he is building, but they are not the structure itself. The building is you and me, and the other people the Lord may add to our church family.

As God’s people, let’s realize that we are constantly under construction. We are a work in progress. If we are honest, we must admit that it is amazing the Lord would use us as the raw material to make a place where he himself chooses to live. The sin that infects us is more than a mere idea we confess on Sunday morning or learn about in Bible class. It is a thorough corruption that infects us. It makes us unfit for contact with God, much less a place for him to stay. If the Lord had gone shopping for us at Lowe’s or Home Depot, we would have been a severely warped and knotty piece of pine, already so rotted and full of splinters that we would be good for little more than kindling.

Thankfully our good Lord Jesus is a master carpenter. He works miracles with such useless raw materials. In spite of our condition, he loves us. He bought and paid for us with his own blood. He regards us as the most exquisite and flawless piece of walnut or mahogany for the home he is building. He bought us and took us home to build himself a place to live.

Now that he owns us, he has gone to work on us. It is true that, by the forgiveness of sins, Jesus has received each of us “just as I am.” But he has no intention of leaving us that way. We are God’s building, and he is fitting us together for himself. That means change. He is constantly reshaping us, straitening us, boring out the rotten places and filling them in, polishing and refining us. Sometimes his work of cutting, shaving, and straightening is painful. At all times it ennobles and beautifies us. At no time this side of heaven does that work ever end. Jesus will continue to shape and form us into his dwelling place on earth until we join him in his dwelling place above.

1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” 

What better way to assure us that Jesus’ own body took our place on the cross, that his own blood was spilled to wash away our sins, that all of this was real, that it truly happened, than to give us that very same body and blood in our time? The Lord’s Supper is more than just a bite to eat. It is a preaching of Jesus’ death on our behalf thousands of years later. It is a particularly vivid way in which he preaches the Gospel to you and me.

Someone might be tempted to ask, “Isn’t God’s word enough for that? Doesn’t God’s word preach all the Gospel I need to know?” Of course it does. God’s word contains all that we need for faith and life. But that doesn’t mean God wouldn’t give us more, or that we couldn’t benefit from having more. Consider how intimately, how personally he applies his promise of forgiveness in Jesus’ supper. Here we receive a personal promise from God, given directly to each of us.

“This is my body, which is for you…” Jesus says. Those two little words “for you” are as important as any Jesus spoke on the night when he instituted his supper. Hours later Jesus died for the sins of the world.  He reconciled the world to God. God wants all people to be saved.  I know that.

But sometimes I need to be assured that all of this applies to me.  Jesus died for my sins.  He reconciled me to God. God wants me to be saved. 

When we receive Jesus’ very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, we receive that personal assurance in a way in which nothing else does. Here my Savior is coming to me directly with his body and blood. He applies all that he lived for, all that he died for, immediately to me. He gives me a personal promise from God.

Perhaps we can better understand why the Lord does it this way when we look back to the customs involved with Old Testament sacrifices. The Lord once made a covenant with the children of Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai. There he made them his chosen people. In the ceremony formally marking this relationship, sacrifices were offered for the whole nation. God assured the people that they were included as a part of his covenant with them. They were reconciled to God, he loved them, and he had nothing but good intentions for them. 

Then, in addition to his word, he gave them something more. Moses took some blood from the sacrifices and he sprinkled it on all the people. As that blood showered down on the people, each person who was spattered received the individual assurance that they were included in all that those sacrifices stood for. They could be sure, “God’s promise counts for me.”

Future fellowship offerings throughout Israel’s history offered a similar assurance. Part of each sacrifice was burned up to the Lord. But a part of that same sacrifice was also eaten by the person who brought it. This made the sacrifice a meal between the worshiper and the Lord. Again, the person who participated in the sacrifice could be sure, “This all applies to me. No sins stood between me and my God. We have eaten from the same table and the same food today.”

You and I were not able to be there when Jesus first hung on the cross. Jesus had no intention of offering himself for sin over and over again, nor did he need to. His one death paid for them all. But we can still say with all confidence, “This applies to me,” because Jesus continues to gives us that same body and blood in this supper. It is our personal promise from God.

Isaiah 40:31 “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

If we think of weariness and exhaustion pulling us down until we collapse in a heap on the ground, then soaring on wings like eagles is as near to the opposite as anyone could relate in Isaiah’s day. For all their impressive size, wing spans as great as 8 feet across, eagles are able to lift themselves into the air without any hint of strain or effort. They soar at speeds up to 45 miles per hour, and dive at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, which were particularly impressive before the days of planes, trains, and automobiles. They do it all without betraying any weariness. Who ever saw a tired eagle?

God’s promises provide a similar lifting power, a power we don’t fully realize until life has laid us low. I can think of no better example from my own life than a number of years back when our son was just a few months old. We had to rush him to the hospital one evening because a virus known as RSV had made it almost impossible for him to breath. After a sleepless night spent in two different hospitals, we were exhausted. The devotion our pastor brought us the next morning on Joshua 1, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go,” was a simple one. But it had an incredible lifting power on a couple of weary souls. Those same promises can give us strength to soar like eagles as well.

And after they have lifted us up, they empower us for the race ahead. “They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Do you remember when you were a little kid, and running was just fun? There was the exhilaration of the speed, and wind in your face, the joy of being free to let your little limbs carry you as fast as they can? I suppose that we got tired even then, but it seems that it is when we get old that we feel the burn in our lungs. Our joints ache. Our legs grow heavy. Our faces flush, and it all makes running a drag. Few things tire us as quickly as running.

But those who hope in the Lord “will run and not grow weary.” The race ahead of us may take us through family problems, work problems, health problems, or even church problems. But when we are living in God’s promises, trusting and hoping in the gifts he has promised to give, then the Lord renews our strength. Then we can run through all the tasks and challenges ahead of us with a childlike sense of exhilaration, because the Lord himself will be the breath in our lungs, and the power in our stride, because he has also been the rest and the nourishment for our souls that makes us strong.

Maybe it all sounds too good to be true. Is Isaiah feeding us nothing more than pleasant platitudes, refreshing fantasies, nice sounding words to fool us into feeling better? I’ll let him answer our doubts himself. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (Isaiah 40:28). The promise comes from the One who has always been there, who made us and all we know, whose power and wisdom knows no limits. He can’t make a promise too big. He won’t make an offer he is not good for. You will run, and not grow weary. You will walk and not be faint.