Alright, brethren. Psalm 111. What will make God's children
keep those commandments of our Lord? What will make God's children
have no other gods but our God from the heart? What will make
us love our brethren as Christ loved us? And love our neighbor
as ourselves? What will make us obey the voice
of the Lord? Psalm 111 ends with this word,
verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. A good understanding have all
they that do His commandments. His praise endureth forever."
This is not a legal fear. It's not a torment and a fear
of being condemned by God and damned by God. It's not a fear
simply from those curses you just heard read that makes men
seek to obey Him. And it's not... using the law and using the Word
to try to strike fear in others, to constrain them to do. This
fear of the Lord is from the love of God when He gives you
a new heart. It's from beholding that Christ
has entirely saved His people by His blood and His righteousness.
It's by having the Spirit of God in you, giving you faith
to believe Him, trust Christ, and to love one another, by speaking
this gospel to one another, reminding one another what He has done
for us, praying for one another, trusting Christ alone can work
in His people, and all the while doing in a small measure what
Christ did for us, that's bearing the sin of our brethren, being
merciful to their unrighteousness, being merciful to their hardness,
and waiting on the Lord to work in the hearts of His people.
That's the love God puts in the heart when He puts the fear of
God in our hearts because we've experienced God's power and the
fear of God is in our heart, a filial fear, a trusting fear. We're like little children looking
to their father. We trust Him and we know He will
work what's right. Now this psalm is how God gives
this fear to His child. It shows us this. It shows us
how He grows us in fear and the effect of it. Now let's begin
in verse 1. First of all, the fear of the
Lord begins with the Lord's revelation of Christ. And with that revelation,
that whole revelation itself, is how God gives the command
for us to glory only in the Lord. The psalm begins, Praise ye the
Lord. I'm sure that David or whoever
was used to pen this psalm has given us an exhortation. But
this is the command the Lord speaks into the heart of His
child. He commands us when He circumcises us inwardly in spirit
and reveals Christ to us. He commands His child to praise
ye the Lord. Glory only in the Lord. Boast
only in the Lord. The power of the Spirit makes
us behold God's works in Christ. And He makes us see that Christ
is all salvation to us. He is salvation to us. And that's
how God creates in the heart a reverential fear for Him, makes
us cease glorying in ourselves. Turn over to Jeremiah chapter
9 verse 23. Thus saith the Lord." Now God
has to speak this into our hearts to make us understand, to make
us hear, to make us obey Him in this. Let not the wise man,
glory, praise his wisdom. It's the same word as praise
in our text. Let not the wise man praise his
own wisdom. Neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but
let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and
knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness,
that word is mercy and favor, I exercise judgment, he's the
judge who exercises judgment, and righteousness. Everything
he does is righteous. I do this in the earth, he said.
For in these I delight, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will punish all them which are circumcised
with the uncircumcision. Those who are circumcised in
the flesh, who are trying to keep God's commandments in the
flesh outwardly, will be condemned right along with those who are
irreligious and uncircumcised. Egypt and Judah, Edom and the
children of Ammon and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners
that dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised,
and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart."
1 Corinthians 1. You can keep your
place here in Jeremiah 9 if you want, or you can look to 1 Corinthians
1. But I want you to note, Paul quoted Jeremiah 9 when he was
telling us what our God works through the preaching of the
Gospel. And he declares exactly what the Lord said here. Paul
is saying, he's telling us how the Lord speaks this in to our
heart and makes us cease glowing in self and glory in the Lord.
When he does this that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 1, he makes
you see the loving kindness of God, the judgment of God, and
the righteousness of God beholding Christ and Him crucified. That's
where you behold it. And that's when we'll cease glorying
in ourselves and glory in the Lord. Listen to this. This is
what the Lord said in Jeremiah 9. This is just a little different
wording, but this is what God works when He speaks to the heart.
Through the Gospel, He makes it so, verse 29, that no flesh
shall glory in His presence. But of Him, This is how He makes
us stop glorying in our wisdom, glorying in our might, and glorying
in our riches. Of Him are you in Christ, who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness. and sanctification
and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord." What happens, now go back to Psalm
111, what happens when God works this through the preaching of
the Word and makes you behold that it's of God that you're
in Christ, it's of God that Christ has made to us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. What happens then? What goes
on in the heart when God does this? You have a fear of the
Lord. And what will be the sure result of that? Verse 1, he says,
Praise you the Lord. And then he says, I will praise
the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright
and in the congregation. To praise the Lord is to glory
in the Lord. It's to boast in the Lord alone. It's to praise the Lord alone
for all your salvation. It's to attribute all our salvation
to God in Christ Jesus. And as we're born the first time
in sin, we want our desire, our covetousness, this is the wisdom
and the might and the riches God said we have to cease glorying
in. We want some aspect of salvation
to be of self. We want to be able to glory.
We want to be able to glory. But when the Lord makes you behold
Christ, the Lord God speaks to the heart and He says, I am the
Lord. That's my name. My glory will
I not give to another. My praise will I not give to
graven images. And He makes you to know He's
the Lord. He's the Lord. And with that
revelation comes the command and the sure result. He speaks,
He said in Psalm 27.8, When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart
said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. That's what happens
when He speaks in power. He gives a whole heart. That's
the only way we have a whole heart is He gives it. And the
only way we'll come to Him with our whole heart, turning to Christ
with our whole heart, is by Him. He said, I will give them a heart
to know Me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be My people,
and I will be their God, for they shall return unto Me with
their whole heart. This is the work of our Lord.
We don't have this heart to begin with. God has to create it. He
has to give us a new heart. And that's how He gives the fear
of the Lord. He makes us know Christ is all
our salvation. He's the wisdom, the righteousness,
the sanctification, the redemption God has provided who has saved
His people. That's everything we need for
salvation. And God makes us to know this so that we glory in
the Lord alone. Salvation is of the Lord. And
He unites us when He does this. He unites us. He assembles us
with His people where all His people give Him the glory. He
said, I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly
of the upright and in the congregation. Upright means righteous. The
upright is Christ our righteousness. He's the upright. Christ's church
is the assembly of the upright. It's the assembly of Christ Jesus
the righteous. It's the congregation. It is
His congregation. It's the church of God which
He's purchased with His own blood. Not everybody who comes together
to hear the Word preached is the church of God. But those
that He has made righteous in His righteousness and given a
new heart to glory only in the Lord, That's His church. And
He assembles us and unites His church together, fitly framing
us together by Him. His church is made up of sinners
that Christ has made upright, that He's made righteous in His
righteousness. That's who His church is. Assembled
and united by one Spirit, given one faith to give one Lord, our
Lord Jesus, all the glory for our salvation. Psalm 44.8 says,
In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever. And that's who's going to get
all the glory in the church where Christ has assembled His people
and made us to glory only in the Lord. Now, this is the first
work He does. This is how He does it. He makes
Christ all to us. And from then on, we obey His
command. to seek His works. We obey His
command to seek His works because we are satisfied therein. Look here in verse 2. The works
of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure
therein. From the hour He creates a fear
of the Lord and makes us seek Him with our whole heart, from
the first hour He does this, He makes good on His promise.
This was our Lord's promise. He said, You shall seek Me and
find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart. And when He's given you a new
heart and made you to search for Him with all your heart,
He makes you to find Him. Notice verse 10 again says, The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding
have all they that do His commandments, His praise endureth forever.
Christ commands each believer not only to believe on Him and
not only to love one another, but to take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. That's what Christ commands.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. learn about me and learn
by me teaching you." That's His command. And by His power and
His grace, when He calls us, we begin seeking His works because
we have pleasure therein. We have pleasure therein. God's
pleased. He's satisfied with the Lord
Jesus Christ, His Son. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. He's satisfied with His Son. His Son is satisfaction
to our Father. And when He works this in us
and creates the fear of the Lord in our heart, He makes us satisfied
with Christ. He makes the works of Christ
to be that wherein we find all pleasure. Because Him and His
works are all our salvation. The works of the Lord are great.
There are many. You have creation. It's all the
work of God. Providence is all the work of
God. But especially our salvation. Especially our salvation. We
find God's person, we find His attributes, we find His works,
His offices, His character in all that He's done in Christ
Jesus and what He's done for His people. All His works are
revealed to that new heart He's given by the Spirit of God, making
us behold God in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is
why we want to hear about Christ. I'm preaching to you what this
book is saying, trying to show you the works God works, because
these are the works God's people find pleasure in. We take pleasure
in His works. Now once He's begun this, And
the chief of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. It's the beginning.
But He's going to grow you. He's going to grow us and teach
us more and more of our triune God in Christ. We're going to
learn of His wonderful works because this is what's going
to grow us in fear. This is what's going to grow
us in reverence to Him, in love to Him, to trust God as our Father,
to follow Christ as He teaches us. He teaches us His works through
His gospel, through His word, through His works of providence,
and He does it our entire lives as believers. From the moment
He calls you to the end. And then we're going to spend
eternity rejoicing in what? All His works. What He's done. That's what we rejoice in now
by His grace. We find our pleasure in hearing
of all His works. So He's going to grow us from
then on, teaching us through His Gospel, through His Word,
through the providence He sends to us. What's He doing in all
of this? He's showing us more of Christ
and showing more of His faithfulness to save His people by His works
alone. That's what He's doing beginning
to end. Lastly, I want you to see this now. He grows us in
fear and reverence for Him by showing us these works more and
more. And here's what He teaches us.
Verse 3, His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness
endureth forever. You notice here the word work
is singular. Before it said works, and a little
while later it says works, but here it says work, singular,
work. His work of salvation includes
many works. He created the world for it to
be the stage on which he worked his works of salvation. There's
a lot involved in the works. There's the works Christ accomplished
for us. There's the works of the Spirit
within us. There's the works He works in providence for His
people. There's going to be the work
He works when He returns and when He redeems us out of this
earth and calls His people out of the grave and brings us into
glory with Him. But all His works is just one
work. It's the work of the Lord. It's all one work. And His work
is honor and glory itself. It's honorable. It's glorious. His works are all glory and honor. It's glory and honor itself.
All performed in His righteousness. Listen to Deuteronomy 32. He
is the rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is He." He said in Psalm 145, 4, He said one
generation, this is the generation that He's made, He's regenerated
and made His generation, one generation shall praise their
glory in thy works to another, and they'll declare thy mighty
acts. I will speak of the glorious
honor of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works. He said in verse
10, All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord, and thy saints
shall bless thee. His saints are his works, and
he brings us all to glory only in him and praise him. They shall
speak of the glory of thy kingdom and talk of thy power. to make
known to the sons of men His mighty acts and the glorious
majesty of His kingdom. He said in verse 17, the Lord
is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works. Where
do we see this? Well, you're going to see it
plainly shown on the cross. This is where we see His work,
His honorable and glorious work on Calvary's cross. There we
behold that His righteousness endureth forever. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the God-man, is the righteousness of God. The righteousness of
God is, some people treat it like it's a doctrine, some people
treat it like it's works that we do. The righteousness of God
is His Son. The righteousness of God is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the righteousness that God
has provided for His people forever. What did it take to save His
people according to God's honor and God's glory and God's righteousness? What did it take to save us from
our sins according to God's honor, to honor God, to glorify God,
and to show that He is righteous? What did it take? It took God
Himself doing all the works. It took God Himself coming in
the person of His own Son and doing the works for His people. That's what it took. It took
Him fulfilling all God's holy commandments Himself to honor
God's holy law. It took the Lord Jesus Christ
Sparing our sin and putting our sin away to justify His people,
to make His people the righteousness of God in Him. It took God to do this. How honorable
and how glorious and how righteous is God in His work. How honorable
is He? How glorious is He? How righteous
is He in this work? He hath made Him sin for us who
knew no sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Sin can't be two places at once. He laid on Him the iniquity of
all His people to make His people the righteousness of God in Him,
to honor His law, to satisfy His justice, to make His people
righteous, to make us to where God could have communion with
us and fellowship with us and receive us to Himself. And when
our sin was found on Him, how honorable, how glorious, how
righteous is God, He spared not His own Son. He delivered Him
up for us all, for all His people. Now God shows us this and this
is how He is going to put this filial fear in us to trust Him. And how He is going to keep growing
us in this fear To trust Him. It's all based on trust in the
Lord. Knowing He's faithful. Knowing
He's true. Knowing He is our salvation.
He will not let us forget. And this is one thing He is going
to show us. He is going to make us continue to remember Him. And remember He is all our righteousness.
He said there in verse 4, He hath made His wonderful works
to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion. He made His wonderful works to
be remembered. He did everything He did to be
remembered. And He's going to make His works
be remembered in the hearts of His people. But due to our sin,
due to the unbelief that's in every believer, due to the cares
of this world, we would surely forget if it wasn't for Him. We would. We would forget. And He may let you forget. He
may let you come to a place where you can't get this joy and this
newness and see His mercies as new and spiritual and filling
your heart with joy. But by His faithfulness, by His
grace and compassion, He's gracious and He's compassionate. He makes
all who He redeemed to know Him. And by that same grace and that
same compassion, He keeps all His children remembering all
His wonderful works. This is one of His wonderful
works. Keeping us remembering Him and
trusting Him. Well, how does He do this? Because
the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. If somebody is telling us something,
a boss or somebody is telling us something, and we just keep
forgetting, keep doing it wrong, keep messing up, you know, we'll
get tired of it. I'm not going to tell you anymore,
you just keep forgetting. Not the Lord. The Lord is full of
grace, He's gracious and He's full of compassion. It was His
grace and His compassion that came to us, that sent the gospel
to us when we were dead in our sins and taught us the gospel,
gave us life and taught us the gospel when we were dead in our
sins. That was His grace. That was His compassion toward
His people. He chose His people by grace.
He loves us because He would. Grace, grace, grace is never
going to let His people go. His compassions never fail toward
His people. You read that passage Brother
Rob just read, and he said about those curses he'll bring on you
if you don't keep his commandments. Have you kept his commandments
in the way that God could look at you and say, well you're righteous,
you don't need my son, you've kept them. Anything less than
that is not righteous. Anything less than obeying His
commandments in the righteousness of God is not keeping His commandments. That's why He had to send His
Son. Why doesn't He curse you when you don't keep His commandments?
You have a heart to want to and you try to keep His commandments,
but we know we don't. What keeps Him from cursing you?
Because Christ bore that curse. And it was that same grace and
that same compassion that made God send the Gospel to His redeemed
because He had loved you. He had been gracious to you.
He had redeemed you. And when you were dead and didn't
know Him and didn't want to know Him and hated Him, He sent the
Gospel to you in grace and compassion and taught you this Gospel. And His grace and compassion
is going to keep the gospel preached in our midst. It's that very
grace, brethren, that very compassion of God to reveal Himself to us
when we were enemies in our minds and hated Him. That very truth
that He did that when you were a God-hating rebel against Him. That very truth is the assurance
His child has that now that He has reconciled us to Him, We
shall be saved by His life. He will keep being gracious and
compassionate and keep the gospel in your heart and keep you looking
only to Christ. He will do that for His people.
He's going to keep us remembering His mercy. He's going to keep
them new every morning to His child. The high priest, under
the old covenant, when he went into the holiest of holies, he
had bells on his garments. They tinkled the whole time he
was in the holiest of holies. And as the Lord said, those bells
were on his garments that he die not. That he die not. The high priest, when he went
into the holiest of holies, he's out of sight of the priests in
the tabernacle. They couldn't see him. Only the
high priest would go into the holiest of holies. They couldn't
see him at all. But he died not. in their heart. He died not in their hearing.
He died not in their remembrance. They were kept remembering He's
the High Priest and He's doing a ceremonial work of atonement
for the children of Israel. They were kept knowing this and
kept remembering this by that sound of those tinkling bells
in that holy place. Well, Christ right now is gone
into the holiest of holies. We can't see Him. How are we
going to keep remembering Him? How are we going to keep knowing
Him? This gospel is like those tinkling bells. He keeps sending
it forth, and He keeps blessing it to your heart, and He keeps
you remembering, and He will not let you forget. He will not
let Himself die in your memory and in your heart. He's going
to keep Himself new in your heart to the end. This is what our
Lord does. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of Thy countenance. In Thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted, for Thou
art the glory of their strength. And in Thy favor our horns shall
be exalted. By Your grace we're going to
be strengthened and exalted and kept looking to You. For the
Lord's our defense. He's the Holy One of Israel,
our King. It's the only way you're going
to keep remembering Him and trusting Him. These are the works God's going
to keep working in His people. What I'm trying to show you,
to grow you in a reverential fear of the Lord by showing you
He's faithful to you, His grace to you, His glory and His righteousness
in saving us, beginning to end. Look here at verse 5. He hath given meat unto them
that fear Him. He will ever be mindful of His
covenant. What's the meat He gives us?
Christ said, My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth
in Me, and I in him. As the Living Father has sent
Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he
shall live by Me. It's not that a sinner fears
the Lord, and therefore the Lord gives him meat. That's not how
it started. We didn't fear Him. What did
He do? He came and gave us Christ the
living bread, and He gave us the fear for Him by doing so.
And so then, now we fear Him. Now we believe Him. He commands
us to believe Him. God spoke from Heaven and said,
this is My Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. Christ
says, follow thou Me. Well, what about John? What's
that to you? Follow thou Me, He said. What's going to make me personally
and you personally follow Him? It's Him giving us the bread
and making us partake of His flesh and His blood and living
by Him. That's how He's going to do it. It's because He'll be ever mindful
of His covenant. See that? He'll be ever mindful
of His covenant. He said, He has given meat unto
them that fear Him. He will ever be mindful of His
covenant. Do you ever get troubled sometimes
and think, well, God's forgotten me. God's forgotten me. He will be ever mindful of His
covenant. He'll keep giving meat to His
people. He's taken the prey and He's taken the spoils and He'll
keep giving them to His people. He was long suffering when Adam
fell in the garden until Christ came and laid down His life for
us. You know why? He's ever mindful of His covenant.
He was faithful to send the gospel to you all the years you went
in darkness and didn't know Him, and He didn't pour out the curse
on you. He sent the gospel to you and
gave you a spirit to know Him and fear Him. Why? He's ever
mindful of His covenant. He's going to wait till the last
child is called and granted repentance and brought to faith in Him.
Why? He's ever mindful of His covenant. And He's going to keep us looking
to Him and trusting Him, giving us the living bread, the living
water, preserving us in faith, and providing every lesser thing
you need. Why? Because He's ever mindful
of His covenant. When He gives us a trial of faith,
it's to teach us what we are if left to ourselves And it's
to teach us that He will ever be mindful of His covenant. That's
what we learn. We learn the same lesson over
and over. I'm grass and He's my salvation. When He gives us
the trial, it's His grace and it's His compassion. It's Him
giving you the bread, keeping you mindful, keeping you remembering
Him that keeps us believing in Him. against hope keeps you believing
Him. That's a work He works in the
heart. That's how the commandments fulfill. You have no other God
but Him when He brings you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
as your only righteousness. And He's saying to you, I will
be mindful of my covenant and I'll keep you remembering that. He keeps forgiving us our sins
for Christ's sake. He keeps turning us to Christ.
He keeps preserving us in Christ because He's ever mindful of
His covenant. He has not dealt with us after
our sins. He hasn't rewarded us according to our iniquities.
If He did that since God called you, what would He have given
you? If He did that since He called you, what would He have
given you? He'd have cursed us. But He hadn't. Not before, not
after He called us. As the heaven is high above the
earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As
far as the east is from the west, so far have He removed our transgressions
from us. And so like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knows
our frame, He remembers that we're dust, our flesh is grass,
but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear Him and His righteousness unto His children's
children. And when He's shown you that,
He put the fear of the Lord in your heart and brought you to
trust Him as your Father who loves you and who's providing
for you. That's also how He puts love
in your heart to love one another as Christ loved us. Do you want Him to reward you
according to your iniquities, according to how well you've
loved one another? He's not saying we've done that perfectly either.
But He keeps that in our heart. He keeps it in our heart. We
don't have strength in ourselves. Yet He keeps us believing on
Christ. We just sing it, we have no strength but Thee, Lord. But
He keeps us believing Christ and He grows us more and more
to know He'll be ever mindful of His covenant. When everything's
dark and troublesome and there's no consolation in anything carnal
whatsoever, That's a glorious place to be for His child when
He puts you there. You know why? Because in the
midst of that, by His Spirit, He will make you trust the Lord
and comfort you in your heart and make you to know without
a doubt He's ever mindful of His covenant. In His favor is
life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. So by all these works, brethren,
He shows us and He teaches us the power of His works. That
He's established His law for His people, so that His commandments
are sure. He continues to grow us in fear
and reverence for Him. Verse 6, He showed His people
the power of His works, that He may give them the heritage
of the heathen. Just like He showed Israel the
power of His works and brought them into a strange land and
gave them that inheritance. That's what Christ is doing for
His people now. The works of His hands are verity
and judgment. All His commandments are sure.
They stand fast forever and ever and are done in truth and righteousness. He sent redemption unto His people. That's how they've all been done
in truth and uprightness. He sent His Son. They're all
done. He's kept His Word. He's kept
His Law. He's honored His Law in truth
and righteousness. He's fulfilled His Law in verity
and in judgment, in truth and in righteousness. And He's made
His people righteous doing it. And He's shown us the power of
His works by regeneration, the power of His works by keeping
us, the power of His works by which He continues to show us
that power by which we were redeemed. Paul said in Ephesians 1, the
same power that raised Christ from the dead is the power it
took to regenerate you. and it's the power it takes to
keep you. He hath commanded His covenant
forever. Holy and reverent is His name."
That means, brethren, this is how it gives us this fear of
the Lord and how He grows it. It's not a legal, servile, tormenting
fear. It's not a fear of God's wrath
and damnation. That legal servile fear makes
men run to the law and try to do works to come to God by their
deeds. And that servile fear makes men
hate other men by taking that same law and trying to whip them
with it and sling it at them and throw scriptures at them
to pronounce them condemned if they don't do what they say.
That's hate, that's not love. But that fear is cast out. True
fear. cast out is not that kind of
fear. Love of God in the heart casts
that fear out when He reveals His love and His grace in Christ.
He makes us know He first loved us. That's so from the eternity,
that's so when He called you, that's so when you're in the
trial and He comes and saves you, He's loving you first. He makes you know the power of
His works. He makes you know that by His blood and righteousness,
He's made us complete in Christ. And as Christ is at God's right
hand, that's how His saints are in this world. And that's when
He makes us know how holy and reverent is His name. That's
how He gives the fear of God and grows us to trust Him in
reverence Him. That's when you don't much care
about the judgment of men anymore. It don't really matter. It's
a very little thing if I'm judged if you pause it. It's a loving,
trusting, humble, reverential love like a little child for
his father. You've not received the Spirit
again to fear. And we're not going, if we haven't,
we're not going to bring each other to fear. What are we going
to do? We're going to call Abba Father. Abba Father. It's a filial
fear. We trust the Lord. His Word is
sure. His covenant is everlasting in
Christ. It's a fear from His love and
His grace forgiving us, forgiving us of all our sin. Over and over and over and over. That's what makes you love Him.
That's what makes you obey Him and believe Him. That's what
makes you love your brethren. That's what makes you preach
the truth of Christ to them. That's what makes you trust them
to Christ and pray for Him to intercede. That's what makes
you wait on Him and as you do, bear their sin, bear their downfall,
bear their whatever, knowing this is what Christ did for me.
That's what He did for me. He didn't stand at me and shake
His head at me and say, Aha! He didn't hide Himself from His
own flesh. He came to me and taught me the
gospel. And now we use the gospel to
help one another to look to Christ. This is what John said, 1 John
4, verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect.
And you can put fear there because it's one and the same with love
and faith, the fear of our Lord. That we may have boldness in
the day of judgment because as Christ is, so are we in this
world. There He is at God's right hand.
There we are too. Paul said that clearly. There's
no fear in love, not that legal fear, not that servile, tormenting
fear. Perfect love casteth out fear
because fear hath torment. He that fears not made perfect
in love. We love Him. And we fear Him. And we believe Him. And we love
one another. Looking to Him like a little
child toward our Father because He first loved us. It's all of
Him. And it's what He keeps you knowing.
I pray He'll bless that. Father, thank You for this Word. Make us fearful, Lord, of condemning
somebody you've made righteous. Make us fearful, Lord, of reading
Scripture at them and treating them like we never knew
them. Make us fearful, Lord, of condemning. Make us see our own sins in your
glorious forgiveness, your perfect righteousness. Make us see your
loving kindness, your judgment, and your righteousness. And make
us delight in your works and take pleasure in them just as
you do, Lord, in Christ our Redeemer. Make us be helpers. Make us serve
your brethren. preaching the gospel to them,
laying down our lives for them, giving up all the things that
this world offers for them. Make us keep speaking the truth
to one another, waiting on you to make it effectual. And Lord,
we thank you for your continual mindfulness of your covenant
and for these sure mercies you've given us. For Christ's sake we
ask, amen.