Let's turn together in our Bibles
to Psalm 143. Psalm 143. We're going to be looking at
the first verse in this psalm tonight. I want to read the whole
psalm for our call to worship. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give
ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me,
and in thy righteousness." The only grounds I have to asking
the Lord for anything is his faithfulness and his righteousness.
And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified. For the enemy hath persecuted
my soul. He has smitten my life down to
the ground. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that
have been long dead. All these Psalms, particularly
the ones of David, are clearly prophetic. It's Christ praying
to his father. But it's also the prayer of the
believer. And our greatest enemy is our
own sin. And this is a call for the Lord
to have mercy upon us and to forgive us for Christ's sake.
Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me
is desolate. I remember the days of old. I
meditate on all thy works. I muse on the works of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto
thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Selah. Hear me speedily, O Lord. My spirit faileth. Hide not thy
face from me. lest I be like them that go down
into the pit. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness
in the morning, for in thee do I trust. Cause me to know the
way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee.
Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto thee to
hide me. Teach me to do thy will, for
thou art my God. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy name's
sake, for Thy righteousness' sake. Bring my soul out of trouble. And of Thy mercy, cut off my
enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul, for I am. thy servant. The Lord took Wayne Neal home
this morning. David called me and Wayne's request
was that we would have a service here for him. So David's meeting
with the funeral home tomorrow and probably try to schedule
that for maybe Monday or Tuesday of next week. So I'll go by and
see him tomorrow. Haven't talked to her yet, but
David says she's doing OK. So had a heart attack so. David said he went very quickly
and. So. We're. I told David, I said,
well, your dad had had a good hope. He really did every time
I talked away and he he listened to every service. David told
me he said he watched the whole conference. and was rejoicing
in what he was hearing. So pray for him. We'll let you know Sunday, I
guess, what the arrangements are for the funeral service. Let's pray together. Our merciful and gracious heavenly
father, What good hope we have when you
assure us by your faithful promises that all that you require of
us was accomplished by thy dear son. What hope we have in knowing
that your justice has been fulfilled. The law has been satisfied. We
have a sin bearer. We have an advocate at thy right
hand pleading our cause and presenting himself on our behalf. We pray,
Lord, that you would send your spirit and power and give us
a greater hope in Christ and give us eyes to see him. Spiritual eyes, Lord, to place
our hope in his glorious person and in his accomplished work.
Lord, we thank you for the. For the fellowship that we enjoy
with our brother Wayne for so many years and we thank you Lord
for. The good testimony that you gave
him to rest all his hope in Christ. We pray for Ann and ask Lord
that you would. And she would give her. Extra
grace and. And love and mercy. in these
days while she grieves the loss of Wayne. Father, we pray for
the service and pray for David, Lord, that she would be pleased
to open their heart and give them hope in Christ. For it's in the Lord's name we
ask it, amen. Number 11 in the Spiral Hymnbook. Let's stand together again. With broken heart and contrite
side, a trembling sinner, Lord, I cry. Grace is rich and free. O God, be merciful to me. I smite upon thy troubled breast,
With deep and conscious guilt oppressed. Christ and His cross my only
plea. O God, be merciful to me. No works nor deeds that I have
done Can for a single sin atone. To Christ the Lord alone I plead,
O God, be merciful to me. And when redeemed from sin and
death, With all the grandson from I
dwell, my raptured son shall never be. God has been merciful to me. Please be seated. Let's turn our Bibles again to
Psalm 143. Psalm 143. I've titled this message
effectual prayer. Effectual prayer. I want my prayers
to be effectual. James said the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And we know that First
and foremost, that relates to our Lord, whose all his prayers
were effectual, and everything about him was righteous, and
all that he asked the Father for, the Father gave him. But
in Christ, we have righteousness. And I want us to pray effectually. And I wanna ask two questions
from this first verse of Psalm 143. For what do we pray? And on what grounds do we approach
God in making our supplications? And both those both those things,
I believe, are answered in this text, as well in all of scripture. The disciples, when they saw
our Lord praying, said, Lord, teach us to pray. Oh, we want
to know how to pray. And then you remember when he
cleansed the temple twice, once at the beginning of his ministry
and once at the end of his ministry, he accused those money changers
of turning the house of prayer. And there's a definition, that's
the definition the Lord gives of the church. We come together
with hearts pleading with the Lord to meet with us, to forgive
us, to reveal himself to us. Worship is prayer. We pray that
our hearts are in prayer right now. We're just asking the Lord
to rend the heavens and come down and show us his mercy and
his grace. He said, you've turned the house
of prayer into a den of thieves. You're merchandising men's souls. You're selling the gospel for
gain. That's not how we come to God. We don't come to God with our
own works, with our own will. We come to him as mercy beggars
in prayer, pleading with him to provide for us all that we
need. And this prayer of David is just
that. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear unto my supplications. What is it that we pray for?
What do we need God to supply us with? And then he gives us
the two grounds upon which we are able to come into the presence
of almighty God, a holy, sovereign, omnipotent, immutable God, and
have the hope of knowing that we are accepted according to
thy faithfulness and according to thy righteousness. That's
the grounds upon which we come into the presence of God. That's
why the Lord tells us in Hebrews 4, verse 16, let us therefore
come boldly with confidence before the throne of grace that we might
find mercy and help in our time of need. And just before that
verse, the Lord says we have not a high priest who's unable
to sympathize with our weaknesses, but in all ways was tempted as
we are. We have a glorious, compassionate,
faithful, and righteous high priest seated at the right hand
of God who calls us to come unto him. And prayer is the means
by which we come before the Lord. Prayer is as natural to the spiritual
life of the believer as breathing is to our physical life. We're brought by the Spirit of
God to always acknowledge our need and to lift up our hearts,
as David's doing here. Lord, hear my prayer. Hear my
prayer. The first question is, what is
it that we need God to supply us with? And the answer to that
question is very simple. everything, everything. Oh, if the Lord doesn't supply us
with breath, we won't live. If he, if he, if he doesn't give
us our daily needs, we won't, we won't be sustained. Uh, everything
that we need comes from the Lord and, and we acknowledge that
it all belongs to him. You know, it's easy to be thankful
and generous with something that's not yours, it was given to you. You know, the Lord said, you
brought nothing into this world and it is certain that you shall
take nothing out of it. It was all given to us of God,
everything that we need. Acts chapter 17, verse 28 says,
in Him we live, We move and we have our being
in him. We need him for the... David prayed in the Psalms, he
said, Lord, forgive me my presumptuous sins. How presumptuous we are.
We spend most of our time presuming that we're gonna wake up the
next day, that we're gonna draw our next breath. We don't even
think about those things, do we? We just presume upon the
Lord. But when we're brought to think about them now, we say
amen. Yes, that's true. I am dependent
upon the God who holds my life in his hands to sustain me and
provide for me all that I need in this life and in the life
to come. That's why David said in Psalm
23, the Lord is my shepherd. I'm just a dumb, dirty sheep,
and if I don't have a shepherd, I'm prey to every wild thing
in the wilderness. I won't survive. The Lord is
my shepherd, but with Him as my shepherd, I shall not be in
want of anything. He will provide for me all that
I need. Psalm 100 verse 3 says, know
ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. He is God. We are His people. We made not ourselves, He made
us. He created us. He sustains us. He keeps us. You know, we acknowledge our
gratitude to him for everything, and we confess our dependence
upon him for everything, don't we? Lord, we need you for everything. Job put it like this in Job chapter
12. He said, the hand of the Lord hath wrought this. Acknowledging
that God had brought this suffering into his life, he said, The hand
of the Lord hath wrought this, in whose hand is the soul of
every living thing and the breath of all mankind. In whose hand
is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. In his hand. Oh Lord, keep us. Provide for us. And what pride
men have that won't even acknowledge that when they're hearing it
from God's word. You remember in Daniel chapter
five, Belshazzar was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar
is the one that God turned into a beast and then God saved him.
And now his grandson is the king of Babylon, greatest nation in
the world. And Belshazzar takes the vessels
that Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem
and brought them in to this great feast and blasphemed the name
of the God of Israel when he began to drink out of those holy
vessels. And that's what we see going
on in religion today. Men take the very holy things
of God, the word of God, and the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and they bring them into their pagan worship, and blaspheme
the Lord. And this is the story in Daniel
chapter five, when God came in the form of a hand, and wrote
on the wall in that room. And the knees of Belshazzar shook,
and he brought in his soothsayers and tried to get them to interpret
the writing that was on the wall, and no one could. And finally,
Belshazzar's wife said, there's a prophet. He interpreted your
grandfather's dream, and he can interpret your dream. And they
brought Daniel in. And Daniel rehearsed what Belshazzar knew
about his grandfather. and what Nebuchadnezzar had said
toward the end of his life when he acknowledged that God was
the owner and sustainer of all things and that he had erred
in thinking that he had built that kingdom himself. And now
Belshazzar is doing the same exact thing that his grandfather
did. And Daniel tells him, he said,
well, the handwriting means this. It means this. God hath numbered
thy kingdom and finished it. Secondly, you've been weighed
in the balance and been found wanting. And thirdly, he has
divided your kingdom among the Medes and the Persians. And as
soon as he interpreted that dream and Daniel was out of the room,
Darius comes in and kills Belshazzar and the Medes and the Persians
take over the... But what was it he didn't... Daniel tells
him, you're not acknowledging that all of this is of God. And that's the reason the Lord
is taking your kingdom from you. That's why you've been weighed
in the balance and been found wanting, and that's why it's
being divided among these other nations, because of your pride
in not acknowledging your dependence on God and pleading with Him for His mercy. Scripture says, having food and
raiment, let us be there with content. Oh, contentment, godliness
with contentment is great gain, isn't it? It's, Lord, we, well,
one of the writers of the Proverbs in Proverbs chapter 30, Turn
with me there over just a few pages to Proverbs chapter 30. I think it was Agur was the writer
of Proverbs chapter 30. Yes, the words of Agur, the son
of Jacob. And now look down, look down
at verse seven. Two things have I required of
thee. Deny me them not before I die. Lord, I just need two
things. Number one, remove far from me
vanity and lies. Jonah said those who observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And the wise man wants
to, he just wants to, Lord, don't let me be deceived. Don't let
me believe a lie about you and about salvation and about myself. That's all that's being told
in religion. Men are being told that they've got the power of
free will and that God wants to save everybody and that God
loves everybody and Christ died for everybody. Lord, don't let
me observe lying vanities in the forsaking of my own mercy.
And if there's anything, Lord, just deliver me. Remove far from
me vanity and lies, and give me neither poverty nor riches.
Feed me with food convenient for me. That word convenient
means ordained. And what Edgar is saying there
is, Lord, let me be content with what I have, because whatever
I have was ordained for me. That's my convenient food. So we, what do we, what do we
ask God to supply us with? Everything. Everything. But the things that we need most
are not physical. They're not material. The things
that we need most are the spiritual blessings of God. The things
that we need most is the forgiveness of our sin. grace, mercy, love,
righteousness. Oh, these are the things. These
are the weightier matters of the law, aren't they? These are
the things that we, that we're always coming before the throne
of grace. to find help and mercy in our
time of need. Lord, this is what I need most
of all. I need forgiveness. I need wisdom. I need understanding. I need
joy and peace and justification before God and righteousness.
I need Christ. You see, the blessed truth is
that all those spiritual blessings come with Christ. They come with
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we get Christ,
we get all these things, and we come asking for him. Lord, let Christ reign in my
heart. Let him be my righteousness. Let him be my justification before
God. Let him be all my wisdom. God
has made him to be our wisdom and our righteousness, our sanctification,
and all our redemption. God made Christ to be that. Those
are the things we need. So the thing that we ask for
more than anything else, whether we be in public worship or whether
we be in private devotion or whether we just be driving our
cars, Lord, I need Christ. I've got to have Christ. Got
to have him. The real supplication. This is what I need supplied
for me more than anything else. Holiness. faith, faithfulness,
all that comes with Christ. So when I need a sin bearer, I need a,
I need a substitute. I need a surety before God. I
need one who's going to provide everything that God requires
of me. He's going to stand in my stead and present himself
on my behalf and be everything before God for me. I've got to
have that. If God sees one part of me, we
just read that in here. Look at verse two in our text.
Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified. Lord, if you look at me for anything,
I'm not going to be justified in thy sight. I've got to be
justified freely by the redemption that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
God to give me Christ. And we're always coming to Peter. Peter said it like this. He said
to whom coming in religion, they said, well, I've got Christ,
you know, let's go on to something bigger and better. No, there
is nothing bigger and better. And to have more of him and to
see him more clearly and to to rest more securely in him, to
believe on him more fully. That's what we need. That's our
greatest need. There's no need outside of that.
This enemy that David's talking about in this psalm, this is
the enemy of our sin. It's the enemy of our unbelief.
It's the sin that does so easily beset every one of us. You know,
that's not a Every person's got a different weakness perhaps
from another, and one person struggles with one thing over
another person struggling with something else, but there's one
sin that's the mother of all sin. It's the cause of everything,
and that's unbelief. And that's where we wrestle.
That's where we wrestle with flesh and blood, and that's where
we wrestle between the spirit. And Lord, you're gonna have to
give me faith. Forgive me for my sin, forgive
me for my unbelief, forgive me for my unfaithfulness. These are the weightier matters
of the law. These are the things that we
are in need of. Lord, I can't supply anything
for myself. I can't supply my physical needs.
If you don't give me the ability to work, if you don't give me
breath to breathe, if you don't give me or put me in a sane mind
and enable me to function in this world, you know, somebody
takes pride in what they've accomplished, like Belchazar and Nebuchadnezzar,
look what I've done. Well, maybe you were involved
in getting that done, but who enabled you to do that? The spiritual needs are the greater
needs, and all of those things are in Christ. All the promises
of God are yea and amen in Christ. The short answer for the first
question is, what do we ask for? Ask for Christ. With Him will
come everything. Everything. On what grounds do
we come before the throne of grace boldly? On the grounds of our faithfulness?
Are we going to do like Cain did at the very beginning when
he brought the fruit of his labors before the Lord? And the Lord
had no respect for his offering? That's what men do. That's what
Job did. Job said in Job chapter 23, verse
40, he said, if I knew where God was, this is what he said,
in Job chapter 23, he said, if I knew where God was, I would
order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would protest to God. And that's
why Elihu got angry at Job and his friends because Job, the
scripture says, justified himself. He was coming before God based
on his own... and he was a faithful man. The
Book of Job begins with that. He was a God-fearing man. And
he was a servant of God, but he had to learn that you don't
come to God based on your faithfulness. You don't do that. You don't
bring the labors of your own fruits before God. The goats
are gonna do that on the Day of Judgment when they say, but
Lord, we've done many wonderful works in your name. We've cast
out demons in your name. We've been prophesying in your
name. And what's the Lord say to them? Depart from me, you
workers of iniquity. The very things that you're claiming
as the grounds of your acceptance, I see as iniquity. unacceptable
in the sight of God. On what grounds do we come before
a holy God and present our supplication, our need for Christ, and our
need for the Lord to supply us with everything that he requires? On what grounds do we come? The
grounds of our own righteousness? No, why was Abel's sacrifice
accepted before God? Because it was a blood sacrifice,
that's why. That's why. Abel knew that. Adam had taught his boys that.
He taught them the gospel. Adam learned the gospel in the
garden when God slew that lamb and took off his fig leaf apron
and clothed him in that fleece that came from the lamb that
was without spot and without blemish. That's the grounds upon
which we come. The faithfulness and the righteousness,
look at our text. Hear my prayer, O Lord, give
ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me
and in thy righteousness answer me. There's my grounds, not anything
else. The rich young ruler wanted to
know how he could be accepted before God. He said, what must
I do to inherit eternal life? And what did the Lord say? He
gave, he recounted the law. He said, well, and he gave him
the law. And what did, what, what did
the rich young ruler said? Well, these things I've done
for my youth. I've been doing that all my life. So does that
mean I've got acceptance with God? Second Timothy, it's his faithfulness. He's the one that's faithful
and true. Second Timothy chapter two, verse
13 says, if we believe not, and we're so full of unbelief believer,
a believer always believes, but he always got unbelief with him
too, doesn't he? That's our prayer all the time. Lord, I do believe.
Oh, help thou mine unbelief. Lord, my new man believes you
perfectly and rejoices in you. My old man doesn't believe anything.
And I'm conflicted with these two natures. Lord, help me. Help
me. If we believe not, Yet he abideth
faithful for he cannot deny himself. Oh, what hope. You see, it's
not our faithfulness, it's his faithfulness. So when we're unfaithful,
he abideth faithful. He remains faithful for he cannot
deny himself. If we believe on Christ, we're
part of his body. He cannot deny himself. My hand's
hurting right now, and it's not what it ought to be, but it's
part of my body, and I'm not gonna deny it. I'm gonna keep
it. I'm gonna protect it, and I'm gonna make sure it gets the
nourishment that it needs to be right. When we're not faithful, he's
faithful. David's praying here, Lord, hear my supplications according
to thy faithfulness. Don't look at my faithfulness
as the grounds for my acceptance before you. Look to the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with me to the book of Revelation
chapter 19, Revelation 19. This is the ground upon which
we come before the throne of grace. to find mercy in our time
of need. This is how we come. Revelation
chapter 19, verse 11, and I saw heaven opened
and behold a white horse and he that sat upon him was called
faithful and true and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Remember, John had bowed before
the angel just before this. The angel said, get up, man.
Don't worship me. I'm your fellow servant. Worship
Christ. He's the fulfillment of all prophecy. And then John sees him riding
upon a white horse and his name is called Faithful. Faithful,
perfectly faithful. Faithful to God, faithful to
his church, faithful to the law. That's the grounds upon which
we come. We come on the grounds of His faithfulness. Lord, for
Christ's sake, Lord, look to the Lord Jesus Christ for my
faithfulness, that my supplications might be met. You there in Revelation, turn
over just a page or two to Revelation 21. And look with me at verse
five. And he that sat upon the throne
said, behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, right
for these words are true and faithful. Oh Lord, based on the faithfulness
of your word. Your inerrant inspired word. Lord, I don't have any place
to go but just to believe what you said. That's what faith is. Faith is not believing that God's
going to do something for you in the future because you believe
it hard enough. Faith is believing what God has
done and what God has said. It's just taking God as word. And here's his word. His word is faithful. His word
is true. Father, I'm coming into thy holy
presence, looking to the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ as the
living word of God, who fulfilled all the promises of your word. And he's the only grounds that
I have. I can't come on my own faithfulness. I'm not faithful,
but he is. He is. Look at Revelation chapter
17, just back a couple of pages at verse 12. Revelation 17 verse 12. And the
10 horns which thou sawest are 10 kings which have received
no... I'm sorry, that's not the passage
I want us to look at. I think it may be Revelation
19. It says they that were with him, they that were with him,
let me just quote the verse. They that were with him are called
and chosen, and faithful. so that as he is, so are we. When we come into the presence
of God, seeking mercy, seeking those spiritual blessings of
forgiveness and grace and faith and faithfulness, we have acceptance
in the beloved and we have the righteousness of Christ so that,
he says, they that came with the Lord Jesus Christ on the
day of establishing his kingdom, they're the called ones They
are the chosen ones and they are the faithful ones. They're
faithful because they're found in Christ, perfectly faithful. Oh, he's faithful to all of his
covenant promises. The very first reason that the
Lord Jesus did everything that he did and Donny Bell brought
this out, I think in the message Saturday morning, he came to
glorify his father. He came to fulfill the covenant
promises that he made with his father in the covenant of grace
before time ever began. That's what he came to do. He
was doing business with God on Calvary's cross. And all of his
faithful obedience to the law was to glorify and honor his
father and to keep his promises to his father. What was his promise? that he was gonna glorify the
father. He said, I've glorified thee upon the earth, John chapter
17. And now father, I pray that you
would glorify me. For I have finished the work
which thou has given me to do. What did he finished? He finished
the work of redemption. God almighty had chosen a particular
people. Those that are called, those
that are chosen, those that are faithful. They, they, God called
them and Christ came to redeem them. And, and he was, he was
doing business with his father throughout all of his life, particularly
on the cross. And he was faithful to that. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse
11 says, know therefore that the Lord, thy God, he is God,
the faithful God, which keep covenant and mercy. for all them
that love him. He kept his covenant promises
with his father. Father, I will redeem them. I will shed my precious blood
as a covering for their sins and justify them before thee. I will establish a righteousness
that will make them acceptable before, and he was faithful.
That's why his name is called faithful and true. So when we
come into the presence of God, we're never coming on the basis
of our faithfulness. Lord, I did this, or I did that,
or I prayed this, or I prayed that. That's why we get so, I
don't even know what word to use. We're listening to religious
people when they're telling you everything they're doing for
God. You know, you just don't even want to listen. You know,
well, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. The church is doing
this, the church is doing that. I had a guy tell me the other
day, he said, and he wasn't a pastor, but he was glorying in the fact
that he had baptized six people in his life. A guy working on
our church just the other day in the fellowship hall. And he
said, you know, I've baptized six people in my life. They're
all going to be They're all gonna be standing on my, I guess he
thinks he's gonna stand with three on one side and three on
the other side and stand before God and look at what I've done. No, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that was faithful to the law of God. He's the one
who's holy, harmless, higher than the heavens. The Lord Jesus
Christ, undefiled, he said to his enemies, he said, can anyone
here accuse me of sin? Would you be so bold to stand
up in a group of the enemies and ask them if they could accuse
you of anything in your life that you've done wrong? No, he
could. You know, the only charge they
came up with? Blasphemy. No, we're not wanting
to kill you because of the good things that you're doing, but
because you being a man, make yourself out to be God. And if
he wasn't God, he would have he would have been guilty of
blasphemy. But that's the point that they
missed. He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the second
person of the triune Godhead. God, who has made flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld his glory. Oh, he's the, God's the only
one that can keep the law. I know I've told you all this
story before, but Trisha and I were talking to a Jewish lady
one time and she was complaining about her friends who were hypocrites
because they pretended to keep the law. But she said, I know
they don't keep the law. She said, nobody can keep the
law. And I said, well, there's one
that can. And I mean, just like that, she
said, you're right. And the difference between you and me is that you
think he's already come and I'm still waiting on him. That's, you know, the woman at
the well, I mean, yeah, the woman at the well who was only a Samaritan
and only had the first five books of Moses said, we know that when
Messiah comes, And we know that when Messiah comes, he's gonna
make everything right. He's the only one that can keep
the law. See, every Jewish person knows that. This idea that Gentiles
have of, you know, man being able to keep God's law. You never
kept one letter of God's law. He said, I did not come to destroy
the law, I came to fulfill the law. And not one jot or tittle
will pass from the law of God until the kingdom of God is established.
And unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of
the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Now, those scribes and Pharisees, they were the
religious elite. I mean, they walked around with
their heads held high and the super spiritual. And the Lord
said, you've got to have a better righteousness than that. You've
got to have a perfect righteousness. That's the only grounds you can
come into the presence of God. It's David saying here, Lord,
hear my prayers. Answer my supplications, I'm
coming to you on the grounds of thy faithfulness and on the
grounds of thy righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that God requires absolute perfection. Absolute perfection. No exception. No No loopholes in his law. You've got to be. You've got
to be absolutely perfect before God. How can it be? Come before
God in Christ, not having your own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that righteousness, which is by the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a savior. We've got to have one. who goes
like Boaz did. He said to Ruth, he said, there's
a kinsman nearer to you than me, and I've got to go reckon
with him. And Boaz, you remember, went to the city gate. And what
did he do? He took off his shoe. And he
reckoned with that kinsman at the city gate. And he said, if
you can redeem her, you redeem her. You can redeem. Naomi, you redeem Naomi. But
remember, with Naomi comes the Moabitess. And what did the kinsman
say? He said, I can't redeem her.
I'll mar my inheritance. The law can't save you. Your
faithfulness to keeping God's law can't save you. God would
have to lower his law all the way down to where we are in order
for the law to save us. That's what that kinsman was
saying. If I take that Moabitess into my family, I'll mar my inheritance. I'll destroy my family lineage
with that woman. Only Boaz could do that. And
as it turned out, Ruth became the, the, the mother of Obed
and Obed was the father of Jesse and Jesse was the father of David.
And we've got this Moabitess woman in the lineage of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What a, what a glorious picture
of Christ reckoning with the law. And he took his shoes off
at the cross. And he died satisfying. He was obedient unto the Father,
even unto death, the scripture says. We think of God, we think
of Christ's obedience only being his act of obedience, keeping
the law in his life, but he also had to keep the law passively.
In other words, the law required justice. It didn't just require
obedience, it required justice for the sins of his people. And
so he had to be, he had to receive the full penalty of the law. And that's what he did on the
cross. He reckoned with that kinsman that's nearer to us than
he was, and he fulfilled the law by his death. Satisfying
divine justice, that's how we come. He was faithful to the church.
He laid down his life for his sheep. And the scripture says
in Ephesians chapter 5, husbands love your wives even as Christ
loved the church and gave himself for her. He was faithful. The law demanded justice and
he redeemed us from the curse of the law. He is faithful and
just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all of our
unrighteousness. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
two. Look at verse, look at verse
17. Hebrews 2, 17. Wherefore, in
all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God. That's what he was. He was He
wasn't a priest to us, he was a priest to God. He was faithful
in all things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the
sins of the people. God required a perfect sacrifice,
a sinless sacrifice. And only the one who's holy and
harmless and undefiled and higher than the heavens could bear the
sins of his people and satisfy justice and righteousness and
faithfulness before his father. What am I saying? Here's how
we come to God. Here's the basis on which we
pray. We should come for salvation.
Lord, I've got to have Christ. I've got to have forgiveness.
Hear my supplications according to thy faithfulness and according
to thy righteousness. I cannot come to God based on
any of my faithfulness and I have no righteousness. All my righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. He is faithful to his promises.
You there in the book of Hebrews, look over in Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews chapter 10. Look at verse 23. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful to his promises. He's faithful. He's faithful
to keep his people to the end. He's faithful to all of his promises. Look over, look in chapter 11
of Hebrews, verse 11. Through faith also Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had
promised. Now that's only in Christ she
did that, because if you go back to the book of Genesis, when
she heard what God was going to do, she laughed at God. She
said, that's not possible. I'm a 90-year-old woman. I went
through menopause years ago. I can't have a child. And she
laughed. And the Lord said, come back
this time next year, you're going to have a child. She did. He's faithful to keep us. He's
faithful to keep us to the end. Turn with me to First Thessalonians. First Thessalonians chapter five. Look at verse 23. And the very
God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless until the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that called you
who also will do it. Oh, what I'm saying, brethren,
is what the Lord's teaching, what the Lord's saying here is
we bring our supplications before God and we bring them on the
grounds of his faithfulness and his righteousness. We can have
We can come into his presence with confidence, with boldness,
knowing that for Christ's sake, he's going to supply us with
everything that we need in this life and in the life to come. His name is Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. All our righteousness is as filthy
rags. According to his promise, we
look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth nothing
but righteousness. Oh, what a day that'll be. No
more sin, no more unbelief. What dwells in heaven? Nothing
but righteousness. Hear my prayer, Lord, give ear
to my supplications. Supply me with Christ and with
him will come everything else I need. And the only grounds
I have to make this plea. Is his faithfulness and his righteousness? For if you take me into judgment,
no man will be judged or justified in my sight. Outside of Christ. Father, we thank you for your
Word and we thank you for the glory, the faithfulness, the
righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray that for
his name's sake, you would hear our prayers, that you would bless
us with your grace and mercy for Christ's sake. Amen. Number 352, let's stand together.