We're going to read Psalm chapter
4. I'm going to just read right
through it if you want to follow along in your Bible. There's
only eight verses. It says under the heading Psalm
4 to the chief musician on Neganoth, a psalm of David. And it turns
out Neganoth means stringed instruments, as nearly as I can tell from
what I've read. So you'll see some more about
that as we go through this. Verse one, hear me when I call,
O God of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I
was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my
prayer. O you sons of men, how long will
you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity
and seek after leasing? Sila, the word leasing means
lying. But know that the Lord hath set
apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call
unto him. Stand in awe, and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed, and be still, Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say, who will
show us any good, Lord? Lift Thou up the light of Thy
countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my
heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace
and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Now
remember that first and foremost, the Psalms are about the Lord
Jesus Christ. They are prayers that he prayed.
They are prophecies about him. They are prophecies of his words
and his sufferings and his resurrection and his ascension and his sovereign
rule. And they are about his works
that he fulfilled while on earth and even now in heaven. And you
can read about this throughout scripture. In the handout, I
have several references that you can refer to on your own
time. But remember a few of them. In
Hebrews chapter 10, it says, in the volume of the book, it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. So we know it's about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Throughout the scroll of scripture
from the top to the bottom is about Him. He is the Word of
God. He is the eternal Word, the living
Word, who was with God from the beginning, before time began,
and He was God in the beginning. Of course, if He's God, He is
immutable and still is God, which He most certainly is. God is
both eternal and immutable, as we read throughout scripture.
From the top to the bottom of that scroll, as I said, God has
spoken about him in the volume of the book. And God has spoken
by him. It says in Deuteronomy 18 and
in Acts 7 that he is the prophet. And it also says in Hebrews 1-2,
God has spoken in him or by him. In Hebrews chapter 1 verse 2,
God has spoken in these last days in his Son or by his Son.
And David said in 2 Samuel 23 that Christ spoke, that he spoke
of Christ by the Spirit of God. You can see that in Acts throughout.
Now, according to Charles Spurgeon, Robert Hawker said this, Quote,
the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old
Testament scripture, the Septuagint reads the words which we have
rendered in our translation, Niganoth, as the chief musician,
laminets, instead of laminetzoth, the meaning of which is unto
the end. These are the words of Robert
Hawker I'm reading. From whence the Greek and the Latin fathers
imagined that all Psalms which bear the inscription refer to
the Messiah. the great end. He is the great
end. And if so, then this psalm is
addressed to Christ. And well, it may be. For it is
all of Christ, and spoken by Christ, and has respect only
to his people as being one with Christ. Now those were the words
Spurgeon quoted from Robert Hocker. And since the Psalms are the
prayers of Christ as a man while he was on earth as our surety
and mediator, then they are not only prayers by him for himself
and his church who are joined to him as one in the everlasting
covenant that God made but also they are prayers of the righteous
man, prayers we have warrant to borrow as we come to God by
him, that is by Christ, looking to him as our surety and our
mediator, our intercessor, our captain, our forerunner, so that
we run this race expecting to win and to be saved to the uttermost
by him. Now, that's a mouthful, but what
I'm saying here is that the Psalms are prayers. They're the prayers
of this man. The man is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the son of David. He's David's Lord and David's
son. And his prayers are for himself
in the first person here, but also for his people because they're
joined to him and he stands for them as surety. A surety is someone
who takes all the obligations for those he represents and he
makes them sure to God in this case. Okay? So, that's the background. Now, since this prayer is Christ's
prayer as both surety, standing in the place of his people to
fulfill obligations under God's law, and fulfilling his office
for them as priest and king and as intercessor, praying the very
words of the psalm with the salvation and blessing of his people in
view, then by faith, we may come to God by him taking his prayer
as acceptable to God and as for us. If Christ prayed, He was
heard. He obviously did pray. The subject
of His prayer was His own salvation, but not His alone, His people
with Him. Therefore, the answer to His
prayer, which was certain and sure, is the answer to our need,
our salvation, and our prayer. And therefore, we can take the
words of the Psalms as our very own, since He prayed them for
us, and we pray them in His name. We know that if God, our Father,
delivered up His Son and did not spare His own Son for us,
and if Christ gave Himself for us in that way, then He will
hear us for Christ's sake. If He gave His Son for us, then
He's going to hear us for His sake. So therefore we cry in
faith, and we cry in hope, we cry with assurance and confidence,
not because of what we find in ourselves or hope to find in
ourselves, but because God our Father appointed Christ and anointed
Him to stand for us in all things, and He has received Him for us
when He chose Him, and when He made a covenant with Him, and
when He gave us to Him to save us, and He has justified us and
exalted us. in Him according to that will. So let's look at the first verse
here in Psalm chapter 4 and verse 1. Notice, he says, this is the
prayer, first of all, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear me when
I call, O God of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I
was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my
prayer. Now picture the scene. All of
heaven surrounds the throne of God, our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who sits on the throne of His Father, is the
Lamb of God, the Son of God, and the Lamb of God on His throne.
That's in Revelation chapter 4 and chapter 5. This is God's
view of time and eternity, His view of heaven and earth, that
He sits on the throne and Christ is seated with Him in glory.
Now, that's the revelation God has given. It's in the book of
Revelation, but that's the revelation God has given to his son to give
to his people. The eternal will of the Father
is to exalt His Son, obviously, because that's where He is. And
that will has been given to His Son to do, and Christ has finished
the work, according to Scripture. So now, understanding this scene
of God the Father and Christ the Son of God and Lamb of God
on the throne of eternity and heaven and earth, This scene
helps us to understand this psalm. Indeed, it helps us to understand
all of scripture. For it is all about Christ, the
eternal word of God. What God gave him to do is the
righteousness here spoken of. I want to underscore that word.
Notice, he says here in verse one, hear me when I call, O God
of my righteousness. What righteousness is that? is
what God gave His Son to do. What is righteousness, after
all? It's what is right in God's sight. Whatever God thinks is
right, that's righteousness. whatever the right is. In Psalm
17, verse 1, it says, hear the right, O God. In other words,
hear God's view of things. Hear what's right in your eyes.
And so Jesus Christ here, as our Savior, as our covenant head,
he speaks here, hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. Whatever God gave him to do,
Now, I want to understand the picture here. The scene is the
throne in heaven, God the Father, God the Son, as the Lamb of God
seated on the throne because he fulfilled God's eternal will.
Whatever God gave him to do, that is the righteousness of
God. God gave it to him to do in order
to make known his righteousness and establish an everlasting
righteousness for his people, because when he did that will,
he didn't do it for himself. He himself didn't need a righteousness
as the Son of God. He's righteous. He's one with
the Father. But as man, as the covenant head
for his people, they needed a righteousness, and he with them worked out this
righteousness. In other words, he fulfilled
the conditions of the everlasting covenant, and that is the righteousness
Christ fulfilled. And so he says here, hear me
when I call, O God of my righteousness. God the Father gave him the will,
the eternal will to do, and he was made under the law, he laid
aside his glory, he made himself of no reputation, he took upon
him the form of a servant, and he was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. So his obedience in submission
to the will of God, which we hear him in Gethsemane praying,
Oh, my father, take, if it be possible, take this cup from
me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. That was him
standing for his people, fulfilling all that God required of him
for us. Okay, so Jesus Christ is the
God-man with whom God covenanted from everlasting, Hebrews 13,
20. He's the great shepherd of the
sheep by whose blood the everlasting covenant is made sure to us.
The covenant was made in his blood. Christ was made the surety. He took all of the obligations
of his people. God laid them upon him in order
to make them sure to God, to bring them again, like Judah
promised his father Jacob to bring Benjamin back when he stood
before Joseph's council there in Egypt. Remember, he said,
I will be surety for him. And he was. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ in eternity became the covenant surety for his people.
And so the will that God gave him to do was to do what? What
was to fulfill the law. Remember in Galatians chapter
four, I'll read that to you. In Galatians chapter four it
says, in the fullness of time, what happened? Let's read it
here. He says in verse four, when the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law. This was a point when our own
personal obedience to the law was a complete failure. We were
under the law as a servant. Even though we were promised
in this covenant to be the sons of God, we were still servants
until Christ came to fulfill it. Verse four, when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman,
made under the law, that was the obedience God required of
him, to redeem them that were under the law, that obedience
included his death, enduring our curse, that we might receive
the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, sons
by God's electing grace and predestinating will, giving us to Christ, having
been redeemed from the curse of the law, God has sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, and the Spirit in us
cries, Abba, my Father. Now, this is the righteousness
around which all of heaven is focused, what Christ, the Lamb
of God, did that God gave him to do. And so he speaks of that
as coming from his Father. Hear me when I call, O God, of
my righteousness. It's his because he worked it
out. It's God's because God specified it. He laid it out. It was his
commandment to him. Remember in John chapter 10?
He says, I lay down my life for the sheep. Remember that? And how did he, why did he do
that? Because it was the commandment his father gave him to do. John
chapter 10 reads this way, in verse 15. As the father knoweth
me, even so I know I the father, and I lay down my life for the
sheep. And other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring. That was the obligation. God, as the surety, he said,
bring them. And so he went after them and
he did what was necessary. What was necessary? He says,
and they shall hear my voice. There shall be one fold and one
shepherd. Therefore does my father love me because I lay down my
life that I might take it again. No man takes it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down.
I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father. And you can go through the book
of John, for example, over and over again. John 5, 36, he says,
the will my father gave me to finish, that's what I do. John
6, 38, the will of God, that's what I came to do. John 4, 34,
he says, my meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent
me. And it just keep going. Every chapter in the book of
John, John 3, he was the one who, as the serpent was lifted
up on the pole by Moses, so the law lifted up the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross in order to bear our sins and to obtain
our redemption by his own blood. That's the will God gave him
to do. Hebrews chapter 10 unfolds it.
He fulfilled the entire Old Testament law when he gave himself as an
offering and sacrifice to God for us, to sanctify us, to perfect
us forever by his one offering. Hallelujah! Christ has fulfilled
the righteousness of God, the commandment God gave him to do.
Now, if you think about the law, All of God's law, you can distill
it into these two parts. What God required of his people
in obedience, right? Say the Ten Commandments, for
example, is a summary of that. But throughout the rest of the
law, God laid several different things that expand the Ten Commandments. Jesus said in the New Testament,
it's a matter of the heart. So the law contains, first and
foremost, the obedience we must yield to God. And the second
part of the law is found in the priesthood, isn't it? God required
an atonement for the sins of his people from the high priest.
The high priest had to make the atonement. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ did both of these. This was the will God gave him
to do. And he said, I delight to do thy will, O God. Yea, thy
law is within my heart. He both fulfilled the obedience
required in God's law that we couldn't yield. We've all fallen
short of the glory of God. Our hearts, every one of us,
God searched our hearts and he found none that did good. None
righteous, no not one, but Christ did. He fulfilled it from his
heart. Not only did he fulfill the obedience
required in the law, but in his death he submitted in obedience
to death himself, Christ on the cross. in our nature, in our
place, bearing our curse, satisfying God, obtaining by his own sacrifice
of himself to God for us a complete and full redemption from our
sins. That's the righteousness God
gave him to do. So he says in Psalm 4, verse
1, hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You gave
it to me. You enabled me to fulfill it.
I depended upon you to fulfill all of the will of God, and you
sustained me through that, and then you accepted the sacrifice.
And so God's people are counted righteous in their surety, in
their mediator, okay? This is such a huge topic in
scripture that we could go on and on, and we do go on and on
about this week to week. There's always some mention of
this fact. In Psalm chapter 4 and verse 1, the Lord Jesus Christ
then comes in prayer to God as the man, the second and last
Adam, the one called that was called in righteousness and given
as a covenant for the people. In Isaiah chapter 42, Isaiah
42 and verse 6, listen to these words. I the Lord have called
thee in righteousness. I've called thee in righteousness
and I will hold thine hand and I will keep thee and give thee
for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles. At this time of the year, we
often quote the New Testament where the promise of Isaiah is
fulfilled, where he says, the people who sat in darkness have
seen a great light. And what is that light? It's
the Lord Jesus Christ, who God gave and called in righteousness,
and held him, held up his hand, kept him, and gave him for a
covenant of the people, to save his people. He did everything
in the covenant that God required to save them and bless them.
And he's the one that God called in righteousness. So it is here
in verse 1, he is the Lord, God is the God of his righteousness.
And it is Christ who in the psalm makes this supplication to his
God and to his Father, to be heard for mercy. and for deliverance. Notice he goes on in verse one,
he says, Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have
mercy upon me and hear my prayer. He calls for mercy. That's a
supplication he makes. He prays for mercy. He cries. He's asking for deliverance to
be heard in his prayer. His prayers are always heard.
And so his request here, because that's what praying is in large
part, is just asking God. for stuff, asking him for the
will that he has to save his people, especially me in particular.
And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ is praying here for himself,
for his people together. Have mercy upon me and hear my
prayer. And God heard him. And here also
in verse one, the Lord Jesus Christ worships his God with
his epithet, which is a fancy word for a short, descriptive,
but highly endearing title when he calls him, O God of my righteousness. He's worshiping his Father as
his God, God of his righteousness. And secondly, or not secondly,
but maybe third or fourth, he entrusts himself to God. Notice,
hear me when I call. That's trusting. Thou hast enlarged
me when I was in distress. That's trusting. He refers back
to what God had done before. And he trusts again when he says,
have mercy on me and hear my prayer. He's constantly depending
on God. The Lord Jesus Christ has a perfect
faith. He perfectly believed and trusted
His Father, even under judgment. So important that we understand
that. It's Christ's faith, Christ's prayer, Christ's tears, Christ's
sorrow, Christ's righteousness. In every way, that is our salvation. It makes us perfect before God.
It was His sacrifice which was offered to establish that righteousness. We're justified by His what?
by his blood, Romans 5, 9. Justified by his blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through him. And so he praises God as, O God
of my righteousness. He credits him. He thanks him
for enlarging him when he was in distress. So he recounts God's
righteous will and command given to him to do, and he draws upon
God's former mercies in his life at this time when he says to
him, now at this time, deliver me. You delivered me before.
Deliver me again. Spurgeon said this about this,
looking back and recounting this. He said he is pleading past mercies
as a ground for present favor. Here, he takes his Ebenezers,
as Spurgeon puts it, because the word Ebenezer means my help. He reviews his Ebenezers, his
help from God, and he takes comfort from that help God has given
to him. It is not to be imagined that
he who has helped us, Spurgeon goes on, who has helped us in
six troubles will leave us in the seventh. God does nothing
by halves. He will never cease to help us
until we cease to need. The manna shall fall every morning
until we cross the Jordan." Meaning, until we enter glory. And so,
in all these things you see how Christ prays. He refers back
to God's mercies to him in the past. You enlarged me when I
was in distress. And enlarge means to make more
room. How is it that God enlarged Christ? Well, because remember, he was
the heir of all things. And not only that, but in chapter
2, Psalm chapter 2, he says, ask of me and I will give you
the heathen for your inheritance. And that was according to the
promise God made to Abraham that he's going to bless all nations
through Abraham's seed, which is Christ. He enlarged him. He
gave him a multitude, more than the sands of the sea, an innumerable
number of people, sheep out of every nation, tongue and kindred
and people. And so he refers to it here,
you have enlarged me in distress. And the distress he suffered
was the distress he endured because he was doing the will of God
for his people. Okay, so I'm giving you a sense of what this
means here when spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ. But remember
the scene again. The scene again of God on His
throne and Christ seated on that same throne because He has fulfilled
God's will and was exalted and given all things because He alone
is worthy. And in the center here we have
from this psalm and throughout scripture what Jesus Christ did. that was the cause of God's exalting
him, Philippians chapter 2. He humbled himself, he made himself
of no reputation, he laid aside his glory in order to take our
nature and in that nature submit in obedience to death, the death
of the cross. Therefore, remember Philippians
2, God has highly exalted him. And so what we see here is that
from Christ's perspective, he's rejoicing, he's thanking God,
he's praising God, for what God gave him to do, and then we,
as the recipients of his righteousness by grace, what do we do? We call
on God through Christ our righteousness. So there we have it. All that
Christ did is at the center of all that we consider. We don't
consider the strength of ourselves or our flesh or anything. We
consider only Christ because that's whom God has set forth
to us in scripture, all of his righteousness. It's just like
when Jesus was in that upper room with the disciples at the
last Passover. What did he do? He took the bread,
remember? He break it. He gave thanks for
it. And then he distributed to his
disciples, take, eat, this is my body. And then he took the
cup, the same thing, he thanked God for it, and he blessed it,
and he gave it to his disciples, drink this, this is the New Testament
in my blood. So the Lord Jesus Christ is thanking
his Father. Here he's exalting him because
he gave him that righteousness to do and we stand back having
seen on this side of our mediator now we come to God through him.
We look at his righteousness and we also thank God for giving
him this to do and him fulfilling it and so we come to God trusting
only what Christ has done. Okay, very important. Look at
Galatians chapter two. I want to take you to this verse.
I've referred to it before, but I want to draw your attention
to it in this context again, because it's important we see
these things connected. Galatians chapter two and verse
21. The Apostle Paul says this. In
fact, I'll read from verse 19. He said, I through the law am
dead to the law. The law required my death. I
fulfilled that in my death. I, through the law, am dead to
the law. How did he die, though? Well, we'll read on. That I might
live to God. I died to the law that I might
live to God. I am crucified with Christ. Galatians 2, verse 20. I am crucified
with Christ. That's how I died, when he died. And though I'm crucified with
Christ, he says, nevertheless, I live. Obviously because with
Christ I not only was crucified but I was raised to life and
so therefore I live because Christ lived. Jesus said it in John
14, 19, because I live you shall live also. He says here, Galatians
2, 20, I'm crucified with Christ. In union with the Son of God,
in His death as my mediator, the surety, I died then to sin. I died to the law. Nevertheless,
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. By His Spirit,
the Lord Jesus Christ lives in His people. That's my life. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, because this flesh is a body of sin, That life that
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. He's the object of my
faith, the author, the finisher of my faith. He's the one who
perfectly fulfilled all of the law in a perfect faith. I look
to him for everything. That's the righteousness being
spoken of. But now look at this, in verse 21. The apostle says
this, It's like he can't get enough emphasis here on the Lord
Jesus Christ and his righteousness. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, my own personal
obedience to whatever God requires, if that's the way righteousness
comes, then Christ died in vain. That's what he's saying here.
Christ did not die in vain. Nothing could be more impossible
than Christ died in vain. He did not die for nothing. God
did not deliver up his son, did not put his son to death for
nothing. He actually accomplished the
thing for which God gave him to die, to lay his life down.
And what was that? Well, he says, notice, if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ died in vain. Since he didn't
die in vain, then how does righteousness come? By his death. Righteousness is imputed to His
people because Christ's death was the fulfilling of all righteousness. The whole law in its obedience
and in its atoning work is fulfilled in the death of Christ. And so
that's why we read throughout scripture, we're justified by
His blood and so many other things. It's His righteousness. And so
I emphasize this because it needs to be emphasized. Verse 1 of
Psalm chapter 4 is going to drive the stake deep so that we can
understand the rest of it. It's God's righteousness. He
gave it to Christ. Christ fulfilled it. It's Christ's
righteousness. We're justified for His righteousness. for his sacrifice, for his obedience
in yielding himself. He offered himself to God once
and he sanctified his people. He perfected them forever by
that one offering. Amazing grace. That's what we're
saying here. This is what God has said and
this is what every believer We camp here, we look at this, we
consider it, we talk about it, we praise God for it, we thank
Him for it, we worship God because of the salvation that is in Christ
Jesus. Now the next part of the psalm,
in the next part, the Lord Jesus speaks against all who oppose
God's righteousness. They live in idolatry, they love
lies, they would rather trust in the false claims of anyone
and anything but Christ and Him crucified. They don't consider
that Christ and Him crucified to be good news, and they consider
all other false things to be good news. Notice, he says, the
Lord Jesus Christ again. Now in verse one, remember, first
of all it was Christ speaking, but also us. When we call, what
do we say? Hear me when I call, O God of
my righteousness, because it's the Lord Jesus Christ who is
our God, our Lord, our God, our righteousness. You have enlarged
me, obviously. God has enlarged us in His Son,
has given us all things in Him. When we were in distress, when
we were under the condemnation of sin, the guilt of sin, and
we had no hope, no strength, we were helpless, sinful, and
worthy of hell. And the Lord heard us for Christ's
sake. Verse two. Notice now, he turns and he says,
oh, you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity
and seek after lies? Or leasing, it says here, selah.
Now, the sons of men described what we are by nature in our
first father, Adam. All men are sons of men by nature. And by nature, we are? Disobedient,
we are deceived, we're idolaters by nature. Remember Titus 3,
3? You also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and
hating one another. In so many cases, we could read
Ephesians 2, and in so many places, that's what we were by nature.
None righteous, no, not one. We were dead in sins, and so
scripture throughout tells us what we are in Adam. So we dislike,
naturally, we dislike the truth until God turns our hearts to
love the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2, it says they
did not receive a love of the truth. God has to give it to
us. That's what we need. And so the Lord Jesus asked this
question, you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into
shame? What is Christ's glory? Christ's
glory is the will God gave him to do and the will that he finished.
Remember in John, let me read just a couple of texts of scripture
to you. In John chapter 12, in verse
23, he says this, Jesus answered, he said this in verse 23, the
hour has come that the son of man should be what? Glorified. Verily, he said, verily, verily,
I say to you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth
much fruit. He that loves his life shall
lose it. He that hates his life in this world shall keep it until
life eternal. If any man serve me, let him
follow me. And then he goes on, verse 27,
now is my soul troubled. What shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour? No, but for this cause came I
unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. And there came a voice from heaven
saying, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.
And we see that this was talking about him being lifted up on
the cross. So the Lord Jesus Christ was
glorified in his submission of obedience to fulfill the will
of God in his death on the cross for his people in satisfaction.
He magnified the law. He glorified and honored his
God. We fell short of the glory of
God. He did not fall short. He did it all. And in chapter
13, John chapter 13, in verse 31, he says, therefore, when
Judas was gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of Man, what?
Glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in
him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway
glorify him. Christ, for his obedience, was
exalted to the throne of God. And he says, O you sons of men,
how long will you turn my glory into shame? Remember what the
Apostle Paul said in Galatians 6, 14? God forbid that I should
glory in anything but the cross of Jesus Christ, by which the
world is crucified to me and I to the world. Remember? His
boast, his confidence, his glory. was the cross. That shameful
thing to all of religion, that shameful thing to the world,
that was His glory because there God made Himself known in all
of His perfections. There God saved His people. There
God exalted His Son. He glorified Himself. And so
the sons of men by nature will turn the cross of Christ into
shame just like they did When he was on earth suffering at
the hand of God, he suffered unjustly at the hand of men through
mocking and spitting and pummeling and whipping and nailing him
to the cross. All that they did was to shame
him, and yet that was to his glory. The thing that Satan and
his kingdom thought was their victory was actually the defeat
of Satan and his kingdom and the exaltation of his son, God's
son. All right. So that's verse two. Why will you turn my glory into
shame? The glory of the cross, isn't it? In the cross of Christ
we glory. Paul said, I am determined not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. So, you unbelieving sons of men,
how long will you turn Christ's glory to shame? How long will
you love vanity? How long will you seek after
lies, false gospels, idolatrous false hopes of men, inventions
of men? What could be worse than to trample
underfoot the Son of God and to put Him to an open shame by
turning the glory of the cross into a shameful thing? That's
what we do by nature, and the Lord tells us to turn from it.
Notice in verse three, Psalm chapter four, But know, know
this. that the Lord has set apart him
that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call
unto him. Who is the one that's godly? Who is that one God has
set apart for himself? He anointed and appointed his
son. My son, behold my son. This is the one in whom I'm well
pleased. He's the godly man. Remember in Psalm chapter one,
blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
He's the godly man. So he says, know that the Lord
has set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear
when I call. But who else are godly? Remember,
the prayers of the Psalms are Christ praying as our covenant
head and mediator and intercessor, but praying for us. It's true
also of us. Are we godly? Not in ourselves. But when the Lord himself gives
us his spirit to birth us into the kingdom of God, as sons of
God, what is it called? That which is born of the spirit
is what? Spirit. It's spirit. Ephesians chapter
4 and verse 24 says that God has created us in Christ Jesus.
Let me see. I mean, how does it say that
there? Ephesians chapter 4. Give this to you. Verse 24. He says, Put on the new man. This is the
part of us that you can't see it, but it's inside, it's Christ
in you. Remember? Galatians 2.20, Christ
in you. Christ liveth in me. Christ is
all holy. He's the new man in us by his
spirit. Put on the new man. In other
words, believe what God has said about Christ, our righteousness,
and Christ in us. which is which after god is created
in righteousness and true holiness that's what godliness is righteousness
and true holiness god has set apart him that is godly for himself
first his son and all in his son they're set apart sanctified
by the father in the lord jesus christ we were sanctified in
his eternal election he made us for himself remember romans
chapter nine what are we called vessels of mercy, vessels of
mercy unto the glory of God. He saved us by his own work. Okay, look at the next verse,
chapter 4, verse 4. What does he say? He says, stand
in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed and be still. When we consider what God has
given Christ to do and that the Lord Jesus undertook for God
and for us to do all to His glory and for our eternal salvation,
and when we consider that this was God's eternal will that He
laid on His Son, He laid help on one who is mighty. When we
consider that the Lord Jesus fulfilled that will and did that
work, and that this was in his humility that he did it, in his
utter humiliation, when he owned our sins, took our nature, and
stood before God, and was condemned and cursed, and endured that
curse and answered God's justice and fulfilled all righteousness
in that humiliation, when we consider this to be all of our
salvation, that we are complete in Him, what is the answer? What should we do? Stand in awe. We must no longer think of all that cannot
save us, but in the obedience of faith, that's what this obedience
being spoken of here, sin not, in the obedience of faith, we
see with God-given persuasion, and we embrace with God-given
trust that Christ is all, And all glory goes to Him that He
has saved us and brought us to God by His blood and made us
holy. That's the obedience here of faith. By faith we ascribe
to God all that His law required, both for obedience and for the
atoning sacrifice needed for us, and so we give God the glory. He says in Romans chapter 3,
Do we make void the law through faith? No. God forbid. We establish
the law through faith. We look to Christ. When we believe
Christ, we're coming to God as it were with the offering God
has made, with the offering God has given, with the offering
God has accepted, with the righteousness God has established. We're calling
it His righteousness, and we're coming in that righteousness,
trusting Him. And so we stand in awe. We don't sin, we trust Christ
and we commune with our own heart upon our own bed and we're still
because we depend on, we wait on God to save us by his power. We have no strength in this thing.
Look at verse 5, Psalm chapter 5, verse 5. Offer the sacrifices
of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. How do we
offer the sacrifices of righteousness? By trusting the Lord. We look
to Christ only. We come to God through Him alone.
We don't come some other way. We don't trust our own personal
obedience. We trust His. We don't consider
what we do. We don't consider what we might
do. We don't resolve to do better thinking that somehow we're going
to achieve that goal. We cry, O wretched man that I
am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then
we thank God. I thank God through Jesus Christ
my Lord. We're giving all glory to Christ.
That's what we offer. We're offering the sacrifices
of His righteousness when we come to God by Him and thank
God for what He has done and trust Him in all things. Psalm
4, verse 6. There be many that say, who will
show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light
of thy countenance upon us. Now, the good that is spoken
of here is any blessing. Who's going to show us any blessing?
The only way a child of God is blessed, truly blessed, is when
God lifts up the favor of His grace upon us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at Psalm chapter 80. Ah,
this is one of my favorite psalms, Psalm chapter 80. In this psalm,
it's all about Christ. He says, Give ear, O shepherd
of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that
dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim and
Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up thy strength and come
and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause
thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. How are we going to
be saved? God makes himself known, his
face to shine. How does he do that? The glory
of God is seen in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the gospel. God
makes Christ's face to shine. God's face towards us shines
in favor and in grace because he shows us his face in Christ
as our Savior. So some say, many say, who will
show us any good? And the prayer of the psalmist
is, Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Verse
seven, Psalm chapter four, verse seven. Thou hast put gladness
in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their
wine increased. Now, we all love the blessings
of this earth, corn and wine, bread and wine. But in the scriptures,
what is it that truly blesses the child of God? It's the bread
of Christ's body broken for us. It's the wine of his blood that
fulfills all righteousness for us, that makes us holy to God,
that perfects us forever. And so even though in the world
that we seek after things like corn and wine, the child of God
really wants nothing except to be found in Christ and to live
upon Christ. He is their corn and their wine,
remember? He's his broken body and his
shed blood. Verse 8, Psalm chapter 4, verse
8. He says, I will both lay me down
in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in
safety. When are we at peace? We're at
peace when God first makes peace for us in the blood of his son,
but we're at peace when we understand that. And the Lord has to minister
to us the gospel daily in order for us to be at peace, doesn't
he? So we're constantly dependent upon him. We're constantly waiting
for him. to make Christ known in the gospel
so that we see all is done by Christ for us, and all of our
acceptance before God, our access, our blessings, our life, everything
is what God thinks of His Son, and nothing gives us peace but
that. And knowing that, we will lay
down and sleep. We sleep at night. I mentioned
this when we went over this in Psalm chapter 4. We sleep at
night. We're most vulnerable when we
sleep, but we sleep when our bodies also lie in the grave. But we rest in that. We know
that the Lord will keep us safely. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God. Neither life nor death, neither things present
nor things to come, nothing. Nothing in our body, not even
our sin. That's the main point of Romans
chapter 8. Let me read that to you. This is so important. This
is an issue for the child of God because we know we're sinners.
Oh, who's going to deliver me? Romans chapter 8, notice this.
He says, Verse 31, what shall we say then
to these things if God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image
of his son? He said this, if God be for us, who can be against
us? Now notice, this has to do with
our sin. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? God has taken care of our sin
in Christ. And therefore He's going to give
us all things. Verse 33, Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Bring them forth. Let them accuse. It's God that justifieth. Verse 34, Who is He that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. Therefore, it goes on, who
shall separate us from the love of Christ, his love to us? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword Nothing. As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. We're going to be brought to
glory and God's eternal will is going to be done. because
he did it. It's his salvation, his righteousness,
and we come to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We praise God for
him. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for the Psalms that the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of in
them, and the words given by the prophet David are the words
that he spoke in many of these Psalms. They are the account
of his life, the account of his sufferings, His affliction under
the sufferings that He endured in order to fulfill all obedience
and establish our righteousness by doing Your holy and eternal
will to save us from our sins. And we know that ultimately His
sufferings and death were the payment for our sins, and so
we pray and thank You, Lord, that we can look at the Psalms
and we can magnify our Savior, we can stand in awe We can trust
Him and we can find peace and we can rest, even in death, that
You would save us from so great a death by Him. In Jesus' name
we pray, Amen.