Psalm 112, praise ye the Lord.
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly
in his commandments. There are two ways that this
kind of language always has to be understood in the scriptures.
Every time you see, in the Psalms especially, this is written a
lot, It talks about the man in the first Psalm, blessed is the
man, blessed is the man. The man is always Christ primarily. There has never been but one
man that has ever lived up to what it is to even be a man. And we need to understand that.
Adam was a man for a while, but he fell. And even Adam could not ever
have been the man that Christ is. Christ is the only true man
in a very, very real and wonderful sense. And we as men need to
understand that. And it's always primarily Christ. There's really only one man that
ever feared the Lord. Let's just face it. There's only
one man that delighted greatly in the commandments of his God.
And that's Christ. So this is primarily the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now we're blessed in Him. Blessed
is the man. Our verse says. And that's Christ. As we consider Christ inheriting
every blessing from his father, we have a vital interest in that
because we're joint heirs with Christ. We're blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And that's
what it means. He has procured the blessing
of God for us by fearing God, by delighting in his commandments,
by fulfilling the law in every jot and tittle, by finishing
accomplishing the work that the Father sent him to do, which
is the redemption of his people. He has procured the blessing
of God. He deserves it. And we get in on it by virtue
of being in him, being represented by him, being chosen in him from
the foundation of the world. Had Christ not come to this earth,
here's what I'm saying. I want to say it in a few different
ways because it needs to sink into our hearts that Christ is
the man. Pontius Pilate had no idea what
he was saying when the Lord Jesus Christ was led out onto that
porch and he had been beaten and the crown of thorns had been
mashed down upon his head. They had spit on his face. They
had ripped the beard out of it. I can't even think about that. They had buffeted him with their
fists. His face was swollen. It says
in the Old Testament that he didn't even look like a man.
His visage was scarred more than any man. And he walked out on
that porch and Pilate said, behold the man. I'm sure he had no idea
what he was saying, but there is the man right there. That is the one man who ever
lived up to why God made men. Let me say it this way, if the
Lord Jesus Christ, if God had not become a man, if he had not
been born of a woman and took on him the nature of
Abraham, and become a human being, there would be no such thing
as blessed is the man. There would be nobody that would
measure up. God made man to bless him. But
Christ is all in that. As our text says, Christ was
the man who had perfect reverence for his father. He feared the
Lord. And he delighted greatly in the
commandments of God. Only him. And we will talk about
us in a minute. But Christ is the man. And this is the conclusion of
the whole matter. I don't know if you remember. But to fear
God and keep his commandments, the wisest man other than Christ
himself who ever lived. Solomon said that this is the
conclusion of everything. Solomon had tried everything.
He had done everything. He had lived every possible scenario. He had the means and the wisdom
to seek out every possible venture and experience that man could
have. And he said, I did every bit of it. It was all vanity.
Vanity and vexation of spirit. No matter what you earn in this
world, it's going to go to somebody that doesn't deserve it sooner
or later. Sooner or later. You read the
book of Ecclesiastes and tell me that's not what he said. Everything
is vanity. Does that depress you a little
bit that you wake up every day and what you do is vanity? Well,
it's only vanity if you don't know Christ. If you don't know
Him, it's vain. It's a waste of time. It's a
waste of energy. But here's what he said after
experiencing everything and you read it. He pursued everything
and had the means to do it now. He said let us hear in Ecclesiastes
12 13 let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. He said
here's my advice to you as the wisest man that ever lived who
has been there and done everything there is to do. Fear God and
keep his commandments. That's verse one of Psalm 112
right there. Blessed is that man. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
now and that's that's us too. We're going to
see that this is the point of being human. That's what he said. Everything else is vanity and
vexation of spirit. I don't care what it is. But this is the point of everything.
That's what Solomon said. This is the point of everything.
Fear God and keep his commandments. And then even the vain things
of this life are beautiful. Even the little stuff. Even the
petty things. Even the temporal things are
beautiful then in him. Fear God. Keep his commandments. Only Christ ever truly lived
up to what it is to be a man. Our text goes a little further
than just keep his commandments Solomon said keep his commandments,
and there's a lot more to that word keep than just Doing or
following or obeying? But you may not know it, but
it's made pretty clear in Psalm 112 1 he said he delighteth in
them It's one thing to obey out of
fear or out of dread of punishment or accountability But our Lord Jesus Christ said,
it is my need to do the will of Him that sent me. It's what
keeps me going. It's what sustains me. It's what
my soul delights in. It's what pleases me. It's why
I'm here. Now the second way that we have
to see this now, and this is important too, is that there
is a change in the believer in this regard as well. Whereas
before we had no fear of God before our eyes We had no respect
for God We were in this world and had The spirit of this world
only the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
We were the children of wrath even as others No fear but now And when I think
about fear lately, I've been thinking about that thief on
the cross. What a beautiful example of this he is. Whereas before
we had no fear of God before our eyes, that's God's indictment
from the word of God upon all men by nature, no fear of God. But that thief, now we're like
him kind of in this sense. We can't believe we see somebody
that doesn't fear God. How can you not fear God? He
asked that other thief, does not thou fear God? See, you're
going to die today like him, but you're going to die because
you deserve it, not him. How can you not fear God? That's
a big change now. That's a big difference. And
with regard to his law, We can all say with the Apostle Paul
in Romans 7.22, he said, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. That's what our verse says, he
delights in his commandments. Paul could say that honestly. Now our personal delighting in
God's law is full of sin. We still, as believers, do not
measure up to what it is to be a man. A true man, a God-glorifying
obedient man before God. We still as believers don't measure
up to that. Delighting in God's law does
not mean you're able to perform it. In the very context there
in Romans 7 where Paul said, I delight in the law of God after
the inward man, he also said how to perform that which is
good, I find not. I want to though. And the reason
we want to is because one of God's promises, one of his eternal
blessings of the new covenant was, I'm going to write my law
on your heart. It's not just going to be on tables of stone
or just in letter. It's not going to be your rule
of life. It's going to be something that you're actually going to
love and desire. You're going to be like, oh,
I want to. I want to. The things that I would do, I
can't do them, but I sure would, wouldn't you? That's the law
being written on your heart. But we're full of sin. He said,
I'm a slave to sin. Though free in Christ, my body,
my flesh is a slave to sin. But we don't despair about that
because Christ is our righteousness. We don't have any righteousness
before God. Our delighting in God's law is
not meritorious because it's full of sin. It falls way short
of God's glory. But I don't despair of that because
I don't need any righteousness of my own. Paul said, I wouldn't
have it anyway. If I had some, I wouldn't want
it. Christ is our righteousness. We want to delight in God's law
even more than we do and we're thankful that we do it all because
it's by his grace that we do. But we don't boast or trust in
our delighting in the law and our fear of God. We don't trust
in our anything. We don't delight in our anything.
In fact, Paul said, God forbid that I should glory save in what
he did. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God forbid that I glory in anything that I do. And that's the context
there. He said others glory in the flesh.
God forbid that we glory save in Christ and what he did on
Calvary. And then number verse two in
our text. His seed shall be mighty upon
the earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. Now think about the context here.
Blessed is the man. We know who the man is in the
ultimate sense. And his seed shall be mighty
upon the earth. Now I want you to look at some
scripture. I want you to understand. I believe just the simple language
of the word of God will teach us what this is when it talks
about his seed. His seed. Very simple turn to Genesis 15 Genesis chapter 15 God promised
Abraham 6,000 years ago give or take give or
take a couple hundred years or so That this blessing would come
through him I want you to see the language that we're talking
about. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. Forget about
the last part of verse 2 of our text for now. His seed shall
be mighty upon the earth. What's that talking about and
what difference does it make? Why do we care? Well, this is
God's promise to Abraham about 6,000 years ago. Genesis 15 verse
1. After these things, the word
of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what
wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of
my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me
thou hast given no seed, and, lo, one born in mine house is
mine heir. And, behold, the word of the
Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir. But
he that shall come forth out of thine own bow shall be thine
heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward
heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.
And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. Alright, now maybe you're thinking,
what has that got to do, is that the seed talking about in Psalm
112 too? Same seed there? And how do we
know that? This is talking about Abraham's
seed. So show your seed, Abraham. B. And he believed in the Lord. And he counted it to him. Righteousness. He believed God. Alright. Believed God concerning what?
What is this seed? Is this the Jews? The Jews, the
earthly Jews, say Abraham is our father. That's what they
said to the Lord, because he was the first one. But the Apostle Paul, four hundred,
four thousand, I guess, years after that, give or take a couple
hundred years or so, said that the Lord wasn't talking about
the Jews when he said to Abraham about the seed. Look at Galatians
3. And a lot of people still say
that he was talking about the Jews. Now the Jews are God's
people and they're gonna, you know, they're God's special people
and all that. God has dealt in marvelous ways
with the earthly Jews. There's no question about that.
They had much advantage every way, Paul said. No question about
that. Under them were committed the
oracles of God. God blessed them. But they're just a picture. They're
just a picture. Look at Galatians chapter 3.
I'm talking and not getting there, so I'm taking a while. Galatians
chapter 3 verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. That's what we just read. Your
seed is going to be like the stars of heaven. In the context
also there in Genesis He said, he showed him the sands of the
seashore. He said, so shall thy seed be.
Can you count all that? Can you count the stars? So shall
thy seed be. And that's the blessing upon
Abraham. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
But God didn't say seeds. And you know, we probably never
would have even thought anything of that. And we had not Galatians
chapter 3, I I wouldn't have noticed that he said seed just
sounds like plural because there's a whole bunch of them, right?
He talking about the stars. That's quite a few That sounds
like plural to me. But Paul said he didn't say seeds.
He said seed, you know what because that seed is Christ I'm glad
the Lord used Paul to reveal that aren't you because I never
would have figured that out. I That seed is Christ. What do you mean
by that? Well, look at verse 26 of the same chapter, Galatians
3, 26. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now, when God was talking about
the sands of the seashore and the stars of heaven, so shall
thy seed be. In other words, all of your children,
Abraham, he's talking about the posterity of Abraham. That's
true, but not the earthly Jews. Look at it. You're all children
of God. by faith in Christ Jesus, not by human lineage, by faith
in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ, immersed into Christ, have put on Christ,
and in Him there's neither Jew nor Greek, it doesn't matter
what heritage you were born from. That's why Paul said, I was a
Hebrew of the Hebrew in Philippians chapter 2, and he talked about
the context there being chapters 2 and 3 there. He said, I'm a
Hebrew of the Hebrews. or used to be, and am by physical
nature, but I count that but dumb, that I may win Christ. It's not about earthly human
heritage. There's neither Jew nor Greek
in Christ. There's neither bond nor free. There's neither male
nor female, but you're all one in Christ Jesus. That's why it's
seed singular. It's a whole bunch of us. There's
a whole bunch of stars, but one seed. And if you be Christ's
you see that verse 29 If you be Christ, I love that apostrophe
f we belong to the king. I like that song. Don't you?
I belong to the king. I'm a child of his love if we
be Christ's Then we're the ones god was talking about to abraham
6 000 years ago when he said thy seed shall be blessed And
multiplied in the earth He's talking about Christ and God's
blessings in Christ. Your heirs according to his promise. That's the promise he was making
to Abraham. Not that the nation of Israel
would ever be anything, but that God's spiritual Israel is something. So you see our original premise
here. The man is who? Christ. But blessed
is the man, every man, all of us, who fear God and delight
in His law like Paul did. Not because we measure up to
God's perfect standard of holiness and righteousness. That's not
why we're blessed. We're blessed because of the promise of God.
We're the seed of Abraham. So you see, again, the premise,
it's Christ and it's us. The seed is Christ. Paul said,
but it's also us. If we're his, then we're Abraham's
seed too. You see that? Singular, but plural. All of us, all those who are
in him. As he is, so are we in this world, Paul said. Is he
perfect before the law of God? Does he fear God perfectly? Does
he delight in his commandments completely and utterly? Is he
able to say, I do always those things that please the Father?
Is he perfect before God? And so are we. Is he the promised
seed of God? And so are we, because we're
his, we're Christ's. He said seed because it was Christ.
But if we're his, it's us too. Is he eternally and infinitely
blessed of God? Verse one of our text, blessed
is the man, is he blessed? And so are we blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in him you see that so
we always got to consider that it's him But it's me too. It's this wretched vile sinner
too as he is Let me read you that verse 1st John 4 17 herein
is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment because as he is So are we in this world. If you're going to say anything
about me is perfect, you better say it in this sense. As he is,
so am I. That's what John did there. First
John 4, 17. You talk about a beautiful truth.
Beautiful truth. All right. So verse three of
our text. Wealth and riches shall be in his house. and his righteousness
endureth forever. Wealth and riches. What is that? What do you think of when you
think of wealth and riches? You think of like a treasure
chest full of gold and diamonds and rubies or something? Wealth
and riches. You know, a picture comes into your mind, I'm sure,
and it's probably something like that. But what is wealth and
riches? It depends on a couple of things,
doesn't it? It depends on a couple of things. First of all, it's
relative. It's very relative. No one would consider me a wealthy
man in terms of the conventional thinking of this world. But you
know better because we've talked about this before. Solomon was richer for his time. If you think about all of the different factors
involved, There's probably never been anybody richer than Solomon.
He was the richest man in the world at that time, and probably
of all time, considering everything, all of his, the details of his
time and his situation. But he didn't have very much
compared to me. You ever thought about that? We've talked about
this before, haven't we? He didn't have very much. I tried
to think of my lowliest possession. You know, and this is kind of
silly, but just bear with me for a minute. What's my humblest,
most modest possession? You may think about something
else, but I thought about my toilet. You probably wouldn't
brag on your toilet, would you? You know how much Solomon would
have paid for one? Think about that for a second. If you were talking about my
net worth, my toilets probably wouldn't come up in the conversation.
I got three of them. Wow. How much money do you think Solomon
would have given me for one of my toilets? Of course a toilet
is not much good without a sewer system to go with it, but assuming
we could make all that happen back then, how valuable would
that have been? I would say he probably had some
kind of an outhouse, wouldn't you? Because out is good in that
situation. Have you ever gone to the bathroom
in an outhouse? Blackwood or Spatter don't care
how much money you got, does he? I've been in them a lot. I don't like them. I'm sure you
had a pretty nice one. Don't even get me started about
my TV. A phone to be able to communicate with somebody across
the world. You think about that. Solomon didn't have anything. He didn't have much compared
to us, did he? It's relative. And you know what? The other thing about wealth
is this. What is valuable to you? What's worth something to you?
Well, it depends on your nature, doesn't it? It depends on your
nature. Wealth is an abundance of what's
valuable to you. What is wealth to a squirrel?
If a squirrel ran out, if he's scampering around out here and
he ran under that big oak tree out there and saw all those acorns
on the ground, he'd say, I've hit the mother load. This is
it. I'm set for life. I got enough acorns for the rest
of my life. Acorns aren't worth much to me. I don't collect acorns. Do you? But to him, that would
be wealth. And we could give, of course,
a lot of different things. You toss that squirrel a dollar bill,
he might put it in his nest or something. I don't know. But
twigs and grass or probably leaves are probably better for that.
He'd probably just stare at you like, What else have you got,
you know? But you get the point. What is
your nature? What's valuable to you? And even
that's subject to change. Money may be valuable to you
right now, but in wartime even money's not worth much. You know
the scriptures talk about a time when bird droppings were worth
more than money. You remember that scripture? Do you know the only reason that
your money is worth anything? Because somebody said it was.
That's why. That's the only reason. And if
they say it's not, then it's not. It may come to that. And I'll
tell you this, somebody said it was worth something, but it
wasn't God that said it. It wasn't God that said that. What is wealth
to you? We talked about Abraham a while
ago, and we read verse 1 of Genesis 15, but we kind of passed over
it because we were trying to get to the point where God promised
him concerning his seed. But listen to Genesis 15, 1 again. After these things, the word
of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram,
I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. You know if you have God, if
God is for you, if you have the blessing of God, it doesn't matter what else you
have. We understand that, don't we? It doesn't matter what else
you have. You have exactly what's best
for you if you have Him. We'll spend our whole lives learning
that. But it won't be any more true at the end of my life than
it was at the beginning of my life. Our Lord told a parable of a man who sold everything
that he had. Think about that because it doesn't
matter how much you have. Everything you have is everything
you have. Everything I have I don't know
how much that would be worth on paper. But this man sold everything
he had to obtain one thing. And we know that that pearl is
Christ. Wealth and riches are in his
house. That's why Jacob was able to
say to Esau, I have everything. Why? Jacob have I loved. That's everything. The last part of verse three,
and his righteousness endureth forever. What was wrong with
Adam's righteousness? You know what was wrong with
it? I know what's wrong with mine.
That's pretty obvious, isn't it? Paul said in Philippians
3.9 that he wanted to be found in Christ not having his own
righteousness because his righteousness was dumb. And it's only perceived,
really, to be righteousness. It's not really righteousness.
There's just one. And it ain't you and me. Our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags to God. But what was wrong
with Adam's righteousness? Was there anything wrong with
it? He was perfect. He had communion with God. Do you want Adam's righteousness?
Would that do for you? I don't want it. I don't want
it. Only the righteousness of God
himself endureth forever. That's what's wrong with Adam's
righteousness. He lost it. It was susceptible to change.
It was not immutable righteousness. But there is immutable righteousness. And that righteousness is found
in Christ alone. What about in the Father? The
Father has righteousness. Well, righteousness for me that
endureth forever is found in Christ alone. Because you see,
it must be human righteousness. It must be human righteousness.
And that man, that man Who has it must be representative man.
He must be Adam. He must be my Adam. The last
Adam. Romans 5.19 For as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Now you think about that verse
for a second. You've heard it many times I'm sure. Understand it to some degree
pretty simple language really one man Everybody's a sinner
because he fell because he sinned everybody's born in sin Because
all men come from him and as our Lord taught us you can't
get clean water out of a dirty fountain But so by the obedience of one
shall many be made righteous and This is not just Christ's
obedience to the law But it's his obedience unto death, even
the death of the cross. It's the law and it's him keeping
the law for us as our Adam, as our representative. That's the
only way everybody can be righteous by one man doing the right things.
Representation. Adam represented us in the garden
and everybody he represented. Does this verse mean? It said,
by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. That's everybody,
right? Was everybody then made righteous by the obedience of
Christ? No. Representation. Everybody Adam
represented fell in him. Became sinful in him. By nature
sinful. And every one Christ represented,
many are made righteous, not all. but all whom he represented
all who for whom he was high priest in the in the garden of
Gethsemane he said though i'm not praying for everybody i'm
not representing everybody i'm not coming to that holy place
not made with hands on behalf of everybody but for those that
you've given me because thine are mine and mine
are thine and we're one everybody he represented was made righteous
how were we made righteous by his obedience. As Christ walked
this earth and did always those things that pleased the Father,
I wasn't around then, and yet I was. My righteousness was accomplished
by Christ in the flesh as a man, as the man, as the last Adam,
the only one who ever lived up. to what it is to be a man. He
did it for me. What happened to Adam's righteousness?
Well, Adam fell. What about in Christ? Can we
ever fall? Jude 124, Now unto him that is able to keep you
from falling, his righteousness shall endure
forever. We're not ever going to fall.
And to present you faultless, There's our righteousness. His
righteousness which is mine. To present you faultless before
the presence of God's glory with exceeding joy. Whose joy? His or mine? Yes. You ever wondered
about that? He's going to present you faultless
before the presence of the glory of God with exceeding joy. Does
that mean he's going to enjoy doing it? Or you're going to
enjoy him doing it? Both. I don't see any reason to pick
between those two, do you? There's going to be joy all around
that day. Joy all around. To the only wise
God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both right now and ever. Amen. He's able to keep us from
falling, but will He? Is He willing to keep me from
falling? Romans 8, 37. In all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. He is able to present us faultless
before the presence of God's glory with exceeding joy because
he loves us. Jacob have I loved. He said that
concerning every one of his elect. The purpose of God according
to election stands upon that. I love you, he said. I love you. And I'm persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come. Our text has the word
forever in it then. Things to come. Nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creation shall be able to separate us
from the love of God. which is in Christ Jesus, our
Lord. You see why it's important when we see blessed is the man
that we see Christ? Because God's love is in him. God doesn't love everybody, but
he loves everybody in him. That's why Paul said, oh, that
I might be found in him. Let's pray together.