Amen, Pastor Sean. We need to not only be imbued with His Spirit, we need to remember who we are apart from God and how easy it is to forget who He is, and that He is at our right hand to sustain us in our great trials. We are the Remnant of God. As such we are to remember that we have a purpose in these last days that is very different from the mission of the church in days past. Yes, all were and are to be witnesses of God's love and justice, but the last church when Jesus comes will vindicated His character in a manner that will establish God's government for eternity. Never again will sin arise, even though all of His creatures will have free will.
We poor fallible humans are so fallen that it is hard for us to remember both our continual need of Jesus and the power of His grace to keep us from sin. When probation has closed and Satan is allowed to do whatever he wants, except take our lives, we shall remember our need of Jesus and will cling to Him every moment. The story of Job is for this our day. Unlike Job, the Remnant Church of God will not take their eyes off of Jesus and will reveal to the world and the unfallen universe that God's love, His grace, can keep from sin, even the most lowly generation ever to inhabit this planet.
But, if we will develop a character that daily spends a thoughtful hour in the morning beholding the life of Christ, especially the closing scenes such as we are reading today, we will be strengthened and remember who we are and what our mission is. We will not be asleep when Christ calls, nor will we forget that the most weighty trust and the highest honor Christ can bestow upon us, is to partake in His sufferings.
Christ suffered before He died:
Christ suffered keenly under abuse and insult. At the hands of the beings whom He had created, and for whom He was making an infinite sacrifice, He received every indignity. And He suffered in proportion to the perfection of His holiness and His hatred of sin. His trial by men who acted as fiends was to Him a perpetual sacrifice. To be surrounded by human beings under the control of Satan was revolting to Him. And He knew that in a moment, by the flashing forth of His divine power, He could lay His cruel tormentors in the dust. This made the trial the harder to bear.
The Jews were looking for a Messiah to be revealed in outward show. They expected Him, by one flash of overmastering will, to change the current of men's thoughts, and force from them an acknowledgment of His supremacy. Thus, they believed, He was to secure His own exaltation, and gratify their ambitious hopes. Thus when Christ was treated with contempt, there came to Him a strong temptation to manifest His divine character. By a word, by a look, He could compel His persecutors to confess that He was Lord above kings and rulers, priests and temple. But it was His difficult task to keep to the position He had chosen as one with humanity.
The angels of heaven witnessed every movement made against their loved Commander. They longed to deliver Christ. Under God the angels are all-powerful. On one occasion, in obedience to the command of Christ, they slew of the Assyrian army in one night one hundred and eighty-five thousand men. How easily could the angels, beholding the shameful scene of the trial of Christ, have testified their indignation by consuming the adversaries of God! But they were not commanded to do this. He who could have doomed His enemies to death bore with their cruelty. His love for His Father, and His pledge, made from the foundation of the world, to become the Sin Bearer, led Him to endure uncomplainingly the coarse treatment of those He came to save. It was a part of His mission to bear, in His humanity, all the taunts and abuse that men could heap upon Him. The only hope of humanity was in this submission of Christ to all that He could endure from the hands and hearts of men.