I'd like to follow along. It's
number 10 in the spiral gospel hymn book. Number 10. There is a redeemer Jesus Christ, God's Son Precious
Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One Jesus Christ, Redeemer Name above
all names Precious Lamb of God, Messiah Hope for sinners slain
Thank You, O our Father For giving us Your Son and making sure the
work for sinners was completely done. When he rose to heaven
to his throne on high, He sat down, His work was finished,
Chosen ones He can't deny. ? We will see His face ? ? There
we'll worship Christ forever ? ? In that holy place ? ? Thank
You, O our Father ? ? For giving us Your Son ? I have to try to
preach after that. Wow. Thank you, Caleb. The work for sinners completely
done. Nothing left to be done. Every
single thing that God requires from you and me, he looks to
Christ for. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 145. the unsearchable richness and
greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said in Romans chapter 11,
oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways
past finding out. David said these things are too
wonderful for me. Truth about who God is, truth
about who we are, truth about how it is that God's pleased
to save sinners cannot be understood. We're not called on to understand
it. We're called on to believe it. And if God gives you faith
and you just believe God, You believe everything he said. Psalm 145, beginning at verse
one, I will extol thee, my God, O King, I will bless thy name
forever. Three points to this message
is we are looking at the unsearchable riches of who Lord Jesus Christ
is as God, the power of our salvation. We're looking at the unsearchable
riches of who the Lord Jesus Christ is as King, the one who
reigns sovereign over his willing servants. And we're looking at
the unsearchable riches and greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ as Jehovah,
the glorious I Am, the name that he gave us, to define himself
and declare himself to sinners. Notice in verse two, every day
will I bless thee. I will praise thy name forever
and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised. And his greatness, his greatness
is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy
works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. How we hope and pray that the
Lord will be pleased to give not only us ears to hear, but
our children and our grandchildren as we gather together one generation
declaring to another the wonderful works of God, what he's done,
and accomplishing the salvation of his people. These things truly
are unsearchable. Paul goes on to say in Romans
chapter 11, who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath
been his counselor? How can we publish scratching
the surface? We truly, truly are. Here is the truth about the gospel.
The gospel is simple enough for a child to understand it, and
it is profound enough so that all eternity will not be sufficient
to plumb its depths. For all eternity And that's,
I mean, even using the word all is not accurate. The word all
has time attached to it, doesn't it? For eternity, we will be
discovering more and more of the unsearchable greatness of
our God. I mentioned Wednesday night that
Everything in this life, everything in this world loses its luster. You don't want to be doing the
same thing over and over and over and over again. You get
bored, don't you? You get bored. We have to have different meals
and different clothes and different hairstyles. And we have to go
on vacation. And why? Because this world loses
its luster, however enjoyable something might be. Heaven's going to be just the
opposite of that. Oh, eye truly has not seen, nor has ear heard,
nor has it entered into the imagination of man the things that he's prepared
for us. We can't begin to contemplate all that heaven's going to be
like, but here's what we know. Here's what we know. That we'll
be plumbing the depths of his unsearchable greatness for all
of eternity and we'll never be bored. Oh, to the contrary, we'll
be rejoicing and loving him from the heart forever. Paul went on to say in Romans
chapter 11, who hath first given to him that he should recompense
unto him again? You know, that's what freewill
works religion is all about. And here's what the Lord's saying
to you and me. You think you're going to give
something to God and obligate him to recompense something back
to you? Is that who you think God is?
Oh, no. No, you can't obligate God. You can't force his hand. You
can't demand of him something. That's why believers are always
just mercy beggars, aren't they? Who hath given to the Lord that
he should recompense unto him again? For of him and through
him and to him are all things. To him be the glory. He's the creator of all things,
He's the sustainer of all things, and all things were made for
Him and for His glory. This is all about Him. Go back with me to the first
verse of this psalm. These glorious truths we admit
at the very outset are unsearchable. Every time I stand to preach,
I know that when I sit down, I'm going to have been a failure. I'm engaged in something that
there's no way I can succeed at. There's no way I can tell
you the truth about who he is in this splendor like I want
to and like you want to hear him. We're dependent upon the
spirit of God to take the voice of a man, make the word of God
effectual to our hearts. We trust that he'd be pleased
to do that. But we admit from the very beginning, these things
are unsearchable. These things are so glorious.
They are the nature of God. the immutable, sovereign, omnipotent
God. And yet He's called us to come
before Him in worship and depend upon His power for everything. Look at verse one, I will extol
Thee, I will exalt Thee, I will glorify Thee, I will bow down
before Thee, I will worship Thee. This is a work of the Spirit
of God in the heart. We're not engaged in some sort
of theological debate. We're not interested in just
information. We want to be brought by the
Spirit of God to the throne of grace to worship and to love
and to exalt the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
the Lord told that woman at the well. He said, when she wanted
to engage in a theological debate. Well, you know, our fathers say
that we should worship here on Mount Gerizim, but you Jews say
that we have to worship in Jerusalem. What'd the Lord say? The hour
is coming and now is that man shall worship God in spirit and
in truth for such the Lord seeketh after to worship him for God
is spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit. That's why we cry out when we
come together to worship. That's why in your private worship
and in your private prayer, you cry out, Lord, enable me. Lord,
I don't want this to be just some sort of intellectual exercise. I want to know you. I want to
worship you. And if that's to happen, you're
going to have to make it happen. You're going to have to put the
power of God and make me willing and make me able Michael, you
quoted it from Psalm 103, he makes his people willing in the
day of his power. Lord, let this be the day of
your power. When we think of the word God, that's the first
thing we think of is power, omnipotence. Men call God, God, and then they
strip Him of the very essence of deity when they make Him dependent
upon something that they have to do in order for Him to have
His way. That's not God. We're bowing
before a God that is all-powerful. In doing so, what are we saying?
What are we saying? We're saying, Lord, we're completely
dependent upon Your power to save us. to save us, not only
from the eternal consequences of our sin, but from the temporal
consequences of our sin. Lord, you're the only one that
has the power to do that. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you
did not call me, you did not choose me, I chose you. Lord,
if you don't choose me in the covenant of grace, according
to your will and according to your power, there's no way I'm
gonna choose you. And so when we call upon our
God in His unsearchable greatness, we are confessing our inability
to choose Him lest He choose us. We're confessing our inability
to believe on Him. Lord, I can't just drum up faith. I can't make myself believe.
I can't decide that I'm going to follow after you. You are
God, and if I'm going to have faith, you're going to have to
give it to me. That's what we're confessing. This unsearchable
greatness of our God is declaring His omnipotence in salvation. Lord, you have to choose me.
You have to fulfill the law for me. I can't keep the law of God,
never been able to keep any part of it. Lord, I extol thee, I
worship you, I praise you and come before you as the only one
able to satisfy the demands of God's holy law. What about justice? Lord, I can't, I can't satisfy
your divine justice. Your holy justice, what sacrifice
am I going to make that's going to atone for my sin? If you as
God don't apply, you know, I've heard men say, well, you know,
the blood's been shed, but you have to apply it. Lord, I don't have the power
to apply the blood of Christ. Lord, you're going to have to
put that blood there. You're my hire. Aaron stood and
he sprinkled the blood upon the people. Lord, you're going to
have to take the blood of the sacrificial lamb. And as the
gospel is being preached, you're going to have to sprinkle it
out. You're going to have to cover my sins. I can't atone
for myself. This unsearchable greatness is
in light of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. First time that that confession
was made of him was when Thomas saw him in that upper room. You
remember, Thomas wasn't there the first time the Lord appeared.
Prior to that, he was called Lord, he was called Master. And
Thomas said, I won't believe unless I can put my hands into
his side and my fingers into his hands. I will not believe.
Thomas. The Lord spoke his name and no
evidence that Thomas put his hands on the Lord Jesus. No,
he fell straight to the ground. And what did he say? My Lord
and my God. God's the only one that could
do this. Defeat death, raised from the grave. Put away sin? God has to do that. And I extol
thee because you are God. I'm not going to honor you with
my lips by calling you God and have my heart to be far from
you by denying the very essence of deity. Lord, you are God.
If I'm going to be saved, you're going to have to save me. Don't
you love what that centurion said when he came to the Lord
and pleaded for the salvation of his servant, and the Lord
said, I'll come, and the centurion said, oh no. He said, I'm a man
of authority. I say unto this one, go, and
he goes. I say unto this one, come, and he comes. I know authority,
and I know. that you have ultimate authority,
ultimate power. All you have to do is speak the
word and my servants shall be healed for I am not worthy that
you should enter into my dwelling place. Now that's God. He was convinced that the Lord
Jesus Christ was God. All he had to do was speak it
and it would be so. Let there be light and there
was light. If God speaks right now, everything
we read about in the first chapter of Genesis is a picture of salvation. The earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the surface of the deep, and that's
us spiritually. And God said, let there be light,
and there was light. Oh, the only way light's gonna
come into my heart is if God speaks it into my heart. Lord,
you have the authority to do it. I can't turn the lights on. I can't make myself to see. I'm blind. I'm blind and the
Lord Jesus said I've come into the world that the blind might
see and that those who do see might be made blind. What's the
Lord saying? If you think you can make yourself
see. Then you're blind. If you realize. and believe that
all light has to come from him and that you're unable to see
left to yourself, that you need God to intervene, you need God
to stop you, you need God to do for you what God did for Saul
of Tarsus when the heavens opened up and the light shined down
and Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who art thou, Lord?
I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Oh, he's the light that came
down into the world. Lord, you're going to... These
things are unsearchable and yet I know and I believe that I have
to have God to save me from my sin. I can't make any contribution. I cannot save myself. If I'm going to be kept in the
faith, he's going to have to keep me. If I'm going to be presented
before the throne of God, faultless, without sin, He's going to have
to present me. I'm dependent upon God to save
me. Not only from the eternal consequences
of sin, which is the wrath and the judgment of God, which is
to come eternal separation from God in hell. But I need God to
save me from the temporal consequences of sin. Do you need to be saved from the
temple consequences of your sin? Where do you think your fear
comes from? What do you think causes you to wake up in the
middle of the night and your heart gripped with fear? And you think, how can this be? What do you think? We just sang
the song about the coldness of our hearts and how the toys of
this world are so attractive to us. What do you think the
cause of that is? What do you think the cause of
all of our unbelief is? It's sin. Lord, not only do I
need to be saved from the eternal consequences of sin, I need to
be saved right now. Turn with me to Psalm 56. Somebody said, well, I don't
know anything about fear. I'm not afraid. I'm confident.
You're a liar, or you're stupid. One of the two. Ignorance is
bliss. You've got any conscious awareness
of anything, you know the experience of fear. When the world comes crashing
in, on you and you're overwhelmed with the circumstances of this
life and you're afraid and you can't believe and you just don't
know which end is up. What is that? That's sin. That's
what we need to be saved from and only God can do it. You can go to a therapist, or
you can read a self-help book, or you can put a band-aid on
it, but it's not going to help. Only God can speak to that. Look
at Psalm 56. beginning at verse one. Be merciful
unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighteth daily
and oppresseth me. Mine enemies would daily swallow
me up, for they be many that fight against me, O thou most
high. What time I am afraid I will
trust in thee. In God I will praise his word. In God I have put my trust. I
will not fear what flesh can do to me. Oh, perfect love casteth out
fear. God, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that can put away those doubts and those fears
and those wanderings that we're all
guilty of in our flesh in this life. God, if I'm going to be
saved, I need to be saved for myself. Do you need to be saved
for yourself? From this world. And we talk
about salvation. We're not talking about just
the eternal consequences of salvation. We're talking about right now. Lord, save me. Save me right
now. Here's my point. Only God can
do that. Only God can do that. Anything
else is a false hope. Oh, but when he does, when he
does, when he draws you to himself, when he makes himself known. None of your circumstances have
changed. The world's still crashing in
around you. You've still got all of these doubts and all these
uncertainties, and yet you have peace. And the peace of God is better
than understanding. You're trying to understand your
circumstances and you cry out to God and he comes along beside
you. And only the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ can do that. A doctrine won't comfort you.
Just saying, well, God's sovereign. You know what? All things work
together for good for them that love God and those that are called
according to his purpose. And I'll just believe that and
rub that rabbit's foot until I feel better. I'll fake it until
I make it. You can try that, but that's
all it is. It's just fake, isn't it? It's
just fake. That's the world we live in. It's not Facebook, it's fake
book. It really is, isn't it? It's just fake book. Everybody wants to present something
that's not true. And in your private, secret moments
of truth, when you need God, and he's the only one that can
help you, you got a sin problem that's eating you up. And only
God can fix it. That's who the Lord is. Notice that not only does he
come in power as God, but he comes in the position and place
as king. Look what, look what, By the
way, go back with me to the beginning of Psalm 145 and notice all the
Psalms up until now have had a title to them, which is part
of the text. And if you'll just scan with
your eyes through the rest of the book of Psalms, you'll notice
that the next five Psalms don't have a title. This title applies to the last
six Psalms of the Bible. So what we're talking about right
now, the Lord has given the last six of the Psalms to his praise
and his worship as God and King and Jehovah. Here's our hope. Our hope is not that we've just
acquired some knowledge or that we're just faking it till we
make it, but that God has enabled us to enter into worship, a worship
that's empowered by his spirit, a worship that's done according
to the truth of who he is and what he's declared. And God's
people say, you know, I don't want to settle for anything less
than that. I don't know that often. You know, most of the
time I'm just caught up in this world, but Lord, this is what
I need. This is what I need. I need for
God to come alongside me. I need to be made a willing servant
of a king. You know, the rugged individualism
of Americans can't appreciate much this idea of a king, can't
we? A monarchy, a sovereign who rules
and reigns. You know, Americans say, we broke
loose from that. You know, we're a democracy.
We'll vote and we'll make our own decision. And then God makes
himself known to you in Christ and you become a willing servant.
to an absolute sovereign. Now, monarchies don't work in
this world very well because we know that power corrupts,
and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. But what about one who has ultimate
power and at the same time has nothing in his heart but love
for his subjects? How about that? He's got nothing in his heart
but the love and well-being of his subjects. I mean, this is
not just a benevolent monarchy. This is a sovereign theocracy
whereby God has said, I've loved you with an everlasting love. And here it is love, not that
you love me, but that he loved us and gave himself to be the
propitiation of our sins. What a king! This is the kingdom
of God. This is the rule and reign of
the Lord Jesus Christ, whereby his servants are glad to bow
before him, glad to follow after him, glad to look to him, knowing
that every thought and every intent of his heart is only for
our good, only for our good. And everything he's ever done
is out of love for his people. Now that kind of king you don't
mind following? Oh, you rejoice to follow him. Israel told Samuel, we want a
king like the other nations have, one that we can see with our
eyes. Goes back to what we saw in Acts
chapter 14, doesn't it? We gotta have something we can
see. Something we can hear with our ears, something we can touch.
We wanna be like the other nations. Samuel came back and said, no,
God said he's gonna be your king. No, we want a king. And they
persisted. And here's the lesson. You persist in wanting something
that's not good for you, God may give it to you to show you
how not good for you it is. And God gave him Saul. Boy, what
a problem. What a problem. Saul died and God raised up David,
a man after God's own heart. And Israel had peace with God
through the reign of David. What a blessing. And ever for
the next 1,000 years, they kept looking for the son of David
to reestablish the kingdom of David. Why? Because the reign of David was
a reign of peace. The reign of David and Solomon
was a reign of prosperity. Oh, give me David as my king. Oh, we have one that's so much
better than David, so much better. But he's not sitting on it. Those
disciples said at the ascension of the Lord Jesus from the Mount
of Olives, is it time now for you to establish your kingdom?
We know that you're the son of David. Are you gonna set up your
kingdom, your earthly kingdom now? My kingdom is not of this
world, the Lord told Pilate. If my kingdom was of this world,
my disciples would fight. All this stuff with, Conservative religion, religious
people fighting against the government. There's no evidence of that in
the New Testament. The government that the New Testament
believers lived under was so much worse than any governmental
system that you and I have ever been a part of. And yet not a
single word is spoken against it in the New Testament. Why? Because God's kingdom is
not of this world. It's a spiritual kingdom. We
live in this world, we're not to be of this world. We may have
our political opinions, fine. As citizens of a country, we
have some political opinions. Vote your opinions. But the kingdom
of God doesn't have anything to do with this world. No, it's
a spiritual kingdom. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
7. Hebrews chapter 7. First time King is mentioned
in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 14. the battle of the kings when
Abraham goes against these wicked kings and Melchizedek comes and
Abraham pays tithes to Melchizedek. And the scripture makes it clear
that this Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And here in Hebrews chapter 7,
and this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High,
who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and
blessed him. And the blessing always goes
from the greater to the, you see these, These Jews were looking
to Abraham, and what God's saying, don't look to Abraham. There's
a priest long before Abraham. Before Abraham was, I am. And what the Lord said? Before
Abraham was, I am. Well, you're not yet 50 years
old. Do you think you're older than Abraham? No. No, before
Abraham was, I am. And now he says, to whom also
Abraham gave a tenth part, being by interpretation King of Righteousness,
and after that also King of Salem, which is King of Peace. Without father, without mother,
without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of
life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth the priest
continually. The Lord Jesus Christ, without
father, without mother, without descent, the King of Righteousness
and the King of Peace, has established his kingdom. He ascended back
into glory and he rules and reigns in the hearts of his people.
And we rejoice in having him as our king. This is not a resistant
lot that are being forced to bow before a king. This is God's
people. Being made willing in the Davis
power. Saying. To the Lord Jesus Christ, you're
going to have to be my commander in chief. You're going to be
my king. You're going to have to go before
me in the glory. Present yourself as my righteousness. And the fact that you loved me.
Oh, you've loved me. I rejoice to be able to follow
you. Rejoice to be able to bow to Christ. These things are unsearchable,
aren't they? And yet they're true. The Lord
Jesus Christ is God. The Lord Jesus Christ is King. And notice back in our text,
we'll close with this. The Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah. Look at verse 1. I will extol
thee, my God, O King. I will bless thy name forever. Moses asked the Lord Jesus at
the burning bush, whom shall I say sent me? And the Lord said,
I am that I am. And that name translated Jehovah
all throughout the Old Testament. represents and speaks the truth
about who the Lord Jesus Christ is, who the Father is, and who
the Son is. For they all three, it declares
the perfection of the divine nature in God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Their eternality, their immutability,
their self-existence, their omnipotence. their invisibility, their immensity. Oh, here we
are. I am. I am has sent you. And we see
these, let me just tell you a few of them in closing, because this
is the person, this is the person of our God who reigns as King. This is the one who is unsearchable. This is the one who we come before
in order to deliver us from all our sin eternally and temporally. This is the one that the poor
and needy need. And they come before him. Lord, I can't settle for an idea.
I can't settle for a doctor. I can't settle for religious
activity. I need you to be my God and to
be my king and to reveal yourself to me for who you are. And the
first time we see our Lord using this name, Jehovah, is in Genesis
chapter 22. when Abraham takes Isaac upon
the mountain to sacrifice him. And Isaac asked his father, he
said, father, here's the wood and here is the fire, but where
is the lamb? Where is the lamb for the burnt
offering? And what did God say to his son,
Abraham? God will provide, and there's
the word, provide Jehovah-Jireh. God will provide himself a lamb. Three things about that. God
will do the providing. God will provide himself to himself. God will provide himself a lamb. God, I need for you to provide
for me. I need you to be my Jehovah Jireh. And we know what happened, the
ram that was caught by its horns in the thicket, a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the horns being a picture of strength,
and the thicket being a picture of our sin. And the Lord Jesus,
the Lord told Abraham, look behind you. And that's the only way
you're gonna see Christ is look behind you. You gotta look all
the way back to Calvary's cross to see the Lord Jesus Christ
in all of his glory, in all of his power, in all of his strength,
caught up in the thicket of the sins of his people, being made
by God the provision for sacrifice. God shall provide himself a lamb. His name is called Jehovah, Jehovah-Jireh. That's what Abraham called that
place. He said, this place now is Jehovah-Jireh for God has
provided himself a lamb. And God's people say, Lord, I
will extol thee as my God and as my king and as the one whom
God provided as my sin bearer, as my substitute, my surety,
to satisfy all that God requires. The second time we see this name
Jehovah, David is saying, I will praise thee for thy name. And
he gives us his name over and over again. We're not going to
be able to get into all these for time restraints. But in Exodus
chapter 17, after the children of Israel had left Egypt and
they're attacked by the Amalekites, And the Amalekites are a picture
of our flesh and our sin. Because God told the children
of Israel after, he said, this is gonna be a lifelong battle
that you're gonna have with these Amalekites. It's never gonna
go away. And you remember Moses went up on the mountain and Aaron
and Hur were there with him. And as long as Moses' hands were
lifted up, the Israelites won the battle. And when Moses' hands
got tired and they lifted down, The Amalekites won the battle.
You and I are in a battle, a spiritual warfare, not a battle against
flesh and blood, but a battle against principalities and powers
and evil and wicked places, a battle against our sin, a battle against
our flesh, a battle against death, a battle against the grave, a
battle against Satan. It's a spiritual warfare. And Moses called the place Jehovah
Nisi. The Lord is my banner. A banner is one that goes before
an army into battle and declares the victory of the battle. And
the Lord Jesus Christ has gotten the victory. And so we look to
him, we look to him. And his victory over death and
over sin and over the grave and over hell as our banner in this
battle. That we're in. We're following. Our God. King Jesus Christ. Who is our provider and who is
our banner? And all the glorious truths about
him. are unsearchable. And yet faith
believes and faith bows and faith rejoices that we have a God. We have a God who has gotten
the victory and we in him are more than conquerors through
him who loved us, through him who loved us. Our Heavenly Father, our hope and prayer is that you
would minister grace in our hearts, giving us repentance and faith
and allowing us to see but a glimpse of your glory in Christ and rest
our hope in his glorious person. as our God and as our King. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. 42, number 42, let's stand together. In the spiral handbook, number
42.