Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with a hymn from the hardback temple, number
103, 103. Let's all stand together one day. heaven was filled with his praises. One day when sin was as black
as it would be, Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, dwelt
among men by example is he. Living he loved me, dying he
saved me, buried he kept Rising he justified, freely forever
One day he's coming, a glorious day Suffering, anguish, despised
and rejected, Buried our sins, my Redeemer is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising he justified, freely forever. One day he's coming, a glorious
day. One day they left him alone in
the garden. One day he rested from suffering
free. Angels came down, How hopeless my Savior is He! Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Married,
He carried my sins far away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, a glorious
day. One day the grave could conceal
it no longer. One day the stone rolled away
from the door. Then he arose over death he had
conquered. Now is ascended. Living He loved me, dying He
saved me Married He carried my sins far away Rising He just
and died, freely forever One day He's coming, a glorious day
One day the trumpet will sound for His coming, One day the skies
with His glory will shine, Wonderful day His beloved ones bringing,
Glory a Savior, this Jesus is mine! Please be seated. Bert reminded me last Sunday
that what we do here is dress rehearsal for that day we just
sang about. And what a what a glorious day
it'll be. Pray the Lord will give us a
glimpse of his glory as we open his word and as he opens our
hearts this morning. Good morning. We're going to
be in Psalm 123 this morning. If you'd like to turn with me
there, in your Bibles. We looked at this Psalm Wednesday
night. I'd like to go back and consider most especially the
last two verses. It's a very, very short Psalm.
It's only four verses long, but so full of grace and glory and
hope for a sinner. I've titled this message mercy
beggars, mercy beggars. So let's, let's ask the Lord's
blessings. Our merciful heavenly father,
we come into thy holy presence, looking in faith to thy dear
son for all of our acceptance, all our righteousness, all our
justification, all the hope of our salvation. What great hope
you've given us by your spirit to believe that he actually accomplished,
finished, satisfied all the demands of your holy law, secured the
salvation of his people by the sacrifice of himself, that he's
seated at thy right hand, that he ever lives to make intercession
for us. He is our surety. our sin bearer, our substitute. Lord, we pray that you would
open what no man can shut, open the windows of heaven, come down
and meet with us and speak to our hearts, open our hearts,
Lord, they would be shut to your voice, except you would give
us ears to hear and eyes to see. Lord, we pray that you would
open the mystery of the gospel and open your word and open the
eyes of our understanding and enable us to set our affections
on Christ and find in him all our hope and all our salvation. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Let's read these four verses
together. Psalm 123, you have your Bibles open. Unto thee lift
up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the
eyes of the servant look unto the hand of the master, and as
the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our
eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon
us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have
mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul
is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at
ease and with the contempt of the proud. This is the prayer
of a sinner. Like many of you, we had family
time this weekend While we were gathered together, I noticed
that the religious hucksters were on the television selling their wares and lying
to people. And I thought, what dribble? What dribble is coming out of
their mouth? You know, everybody gets real
religious this time of year, don't they? They talked about
Jesus being the reason for the season. We know that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the reason for everything. Everything. He holds all things together
by the power of his word and all things exist for his glory. He made all things and he uses
all things for his own glory. They talked about the anxiety
of people and how God could help you with whatever stress and
troubles you might be experiencing as a result of the COVID virus
or whatever else. And they talked about the love
of God, but their talk about God's love had nothing to do
with his justice. The love of God without the justice
of God is nothing but sappy sentimentality. And that's all that was coming
out of their mouths. Just sappy sentimentality. There was not a single word about
sin. Not a word. Peace, peace, when
there is no peace. Not a single word that sounded
anything like God's Word in giving sinners hope, in pleading
for God's mercy and for God's grace. Jude said, their mouths
speak great swelling words, having man's persons and admirations. In other words, they say what
they say in order to impress men. They have no No concern,
no interest in the things of God. They're just trying to win
to themselves a following. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, Paul
said in 1 Timothy chapter four. And the Lord tells us in Acts
chapter 20 that these false prophets speak perverse things to draw
away disciples unto themselves. That's all they're doing, promoting
themselves. The Lord tells us in 1 John 4
that we're to try the spirits, whether they be of God, for many
false prophets have gone out into the world. We know that our problem is not
our circumstances, not really. Our problem is not COVID, Our
problem is not the economy, our problem is not government. Our
problem is sin. That is the problem that man
has. That's your problem, and that's
my problem. Sin. Unbelief. Unbelief. And the hope that we have, brethren,
is that our God is full of mercy. This word mercy means pity. He
pities sinners. This is a faithful saying. The
saying is worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. If you're a sinner, you have
no righteousness. You have no one to blame but
yourself. You have no excuse. You can't You can't find anything
to force the hand of God or to require God to bless you. You're
coming to him pleading for his pity. And as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. There's our
hope. This is the prayer of a mercy
beggar. Lord, I, I, I need mercy. I don't know anything. I don't
have anything. I can't do anything. I'm completely
dependent upon you. You see what, what the Psalmist
said about, about the servant with his master. Look at it. Let's read it again. Verse two.
Verse two, behold, as the eyes of the servant looks unto the
hand of his master, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand
of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God. Now
this servant, this word servant here is a bond slave. It's a person that is completely
dependent upon their master to provide all their needs. It's
a person that if their master doesn't clothe them, they will
be naked. If the master doesn't feed them,
they will starve. If the master doesn't give them
something to drink, they will die of thirst. If the master
doesn't provide them shelter, they will be homeless and destitute. They look to the hand of their
master for all things. We in faith look to the hand
of our master for the material needs that we have, like that
servant would have looked to their master, but we see the
spiritual truth of this. If the Lord doesn't clothe us
in the righteousness of Christ, if he doesn't take that fleece
from the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the
world and cover our nakedness, then we'll be naked before God,
we'll be shamed before God, We're completely dependent upon our
master's righteousness. We have no righteousness of our
own. If the Lord doesn't feed us with
the bread that came down from heaven, and the Lord Jesus said,
my body is your meat indeed, and my blood is your drink indeed,
and except you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you have
no life in you. And as the hand of the servant,
the slave, looks as the eyes of the slave looks to the hand
of the master for these things. So we look, Lord, if your body
doesn't become my sustenance. If the revelation of who you
are and what you've accomplished, and that's what the scriptures
are, we're breaking open the bread of life. Don't you love
it when the disciples were walking with the Lord on the road to
Emmaus in Luke chapter 24, and the Lord said, oh, slow of heart
to believe. Ought not these things to be
fulfilled? And beginning with Moses and the Psalms and the
prophets, he expounded unto them those things concerning himself.
And when they got to the house, their eyes were still holding,
they didn't know it was the Lord. The Lord had not revealed himself
yet. And they pleaded with him to stay. And they sat down at
the table and then the breaking of bread, the scripture says
their eyes were opened. That's what we're hoping for
right now as we break open the bread of life. Lord, the eyes
of the servant, look to the master. Lord, reveal to us the glory
of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is and what
he's done to successfully save sinners, because I'm a sinner.
I'm a sinner. And if I don't have Christ, I've
got nothing. I'm completely without hope.
This is my problem. It's not my circumstances. It's
not the environment. It's not the economy. It's not,
no, it's my sin. That's my problem. That's my
problem. I'm in need of mercy. Lord, if
you don't give me to drink from that river that flows clear as
crystal from the throne of God, that inexhaustible source, that
well of living water, Lord, if you don't give me that to drink,
I'll die of thirst. I'll die of thirst. This is my
need. My need is not to feel better
about myself. My need is not to have some better
hope in my circumstances. My need is to know God. It's
to have Christ. It's to have my sins forgiven.
That's my need. This is life eternal that they
might know they the only true God. Lord hears my need. This is the clear, plain truth
of the gospel that you don't hear from the religious experts
today, do you? Heard one preacher, Robert was
telling me about a preacher that is selling this little box that
you can put on your desk and you touch it and it spurts out
some positive message. It gives you a sentence, a phrase,
a statement that you can live on for that day. I'm certain
that probably most of them aren't even the word of God. They're
just something about, that's the dribble that you hear from
religion. They don't tell us the truth. They don't tell us that we're
sinners in need of a savior. They don't tell us that we're
dead and dying and we're in need of life eternal and that Christ
is the only one that can give it to us. They don't tell men
to plead with God and beg with him for mercy. Be a mercy beggar
and know that the Lord delights in showing mercy. You know, the truth is that all
men are servants, all men are slaves. Scripture's clear on
that. Romans chapter six says that
you're either a slave of sin unto death or you're a slave
of righteousness unto life. Know ye not that to whom you
yield your members you are servants to obey? His servants you are
whom you obey? You're either under the law or
you're under grace. You're a slave to blindness and
unbelief and rebellion, or you're a slave to Christ, a bondservant
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Men pride themselves and say,
well, I'm not a slave. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. The difference is that the slaves
of Christ are free. They're free. This cry for mercy requires grace,
it requires faith, it requires humility, it's the work of grace
in the heart. God has to make you to be a sinner
before you can cry out for grace. Regeneration, the new birth,
the new birth, necessarily precedes faith. not in time, chronologically
they happen simultaneously, they happen at the same time. But
in order of events, the Lord told Nicodemus that except you
be born again, that's the new birth, you shall not see the
kingdom of God, you cannot see the kingdom of God. So the Lord
has to do a A sovereign, unilateral work of grace in our hearts.
And he does that through the hearing of the gospel. Faith
comes by hearing. And when he does, when we're
able to see Christ for who he is, the first conclusion we come
to, woe is me. I am undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. I live among a people of unclean
lips. We say with our brother Job, behold, I am vile. I can't justify myself. I can't
excuse myself anymore. Everybody knows that shame and
guilt is at the root of all of our problems. And yet men do
exactly what Adam did. They either, shame and guilt
will cause you to hide from God. They do. They went into the woods
and they try to hide behind the tree from God. Shame will cause
you to establish your own righteousness. That's what they did. They sewed
together fig leaves. Shame and guilt will cause you
to blame other people for your problem. The blame game goes
all the way back to the garden, doesn't it? We have the only message that
puts away shame and guilt. We have the only message that
sets a man right with God. We have a Savior who has borne
all the shame and all the guilt of our sin and put them all away
all by Himself. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Psalm 38. Psalm 38. Look at verse 3. Now David's
speaking prophetically of Christ in this whole psalm, as he is
clearly in all the psalms, but very clearly here. Look at verse
3 of Psalm 38. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones
because of my sin. God made him who knew no sin
to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. The Lord Jesus Christ bore our
sins in his body upon the tree and he owned them as his own. And he suffered the full wrath
of God's justice in order to put them away. Now there's the
only way you're gonna have a clear conscience is if you've got nothing
to be guilty of. Look at, look at verse four,
for mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden.
They are too heavy for me. Here's the Lord. You see, you
see religion and, and, and I guess psychiatry, I don't know. You
know what, if you can just, you can just, well, religion in particular,
what did they say? Well, if you'll pray this prayer
and really mean it, really mean it. Well, how much do you have
to mean it? I've said this to you all before,
and you know it's true. Don't inspect your motives too
closely. You will find that they are never
pure. If you're an honest person, if
you're honest, you know that there is selfishness involved
in every decision, every choice, every commitment that you make.
And yet the religious world will tell you, well, you know, you
just really need to mean it. And the liars can live with that.
Because they can say, you know, I gave my heart to Jesus. I meant
it with all my heart. All my heart, I meant it. I stand
before you saying to you that I've never done anything with
all my heart. Ever. Can't. Heart is wicked and deceitful
and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You know, we've
just got such This is the sin problem that we're dealing with.
But here we have the Lord Jesus Christ, who with all of his heart
and all of his soul and all of his mind, all of his time, bore
the full shame and burden. He meant it. He meant it. And God looks to him for those
who are in need of mercy. And so we look to the one that
God's looking to. Look what he says in verse 11
of this same song. My lovers and my friends stand
aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off. They've all forsaken
me. He hung there suspended between
heaven and earth all by himself, bearing all the sins and all
the shame and all the sorrow of all of his people to satisfy
God's justice This is what David's saying in Psalm 123, I'm looking
to the heavens for mercy. Look at verse 12. They also that
seek after my life lay snares for me, and they that seek my
hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits. All the
day long they lie against me. Here's our Lord pouring out his
soul to his Father, pleading for grace and mercy. And look
at verse 17. For I am ready to halt. I'm ready
to die. And my sorrow is continually
before me. Let me ask you a question. How sorry do you need to be for
your sin in order to satisfy the holy justice of God? How sorry do you have to be? You have to be as sorry as Christ
was. We can't do it, can we? We'll
be honest with ourselves, our sorrow for sin is mixed with
the offense that we've had towards the God who loves us and the
one that we love and the consequences that we're having to suffer because
of what we've done. The Lord Jesus Christ bore pure,
holy sorrow toward his father, godly sorrow. Look at verse 18, for I will
declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin. I will be sorry for my sin. Sinners, sinners who are pleading
for mercy understand at least in part their inability to express
and feel the sorrow that they ought to have for their sin. Someone said, well, you don't
know how bad my sin is. Neither do you. It's a whole
lot worse than you think it is. A whole lot worse than you think
it is. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who felt the
full sorrow for sin. And so we come looking to Christ
and saying, Lord, have mercy upon me. Even in my repentance,
I'm sinning. My faith can't be pure. Nothing
about me. Not before God. I'm not saying
we're not honest and sincere with one another. As someone
said to me recently, well, you know, I can't be trusted. Well,
I trust you. We ought to be able to trust one another, believe
each other. Our relationships are based on
trust, aren't they? I'm talking about standing before
a holy God who's absolutely other than we are in every way and
seeing that everything about me is sinful. I'm not capable. of standing in his presence without
a substitute, without a sin bearer, without one who has felt the
sorrow that I should feel and expressed it fully to his father
and put my sin away. Here's our, we have have mercy
upon us. Look at, go back to, go back
with me to our text. They, you know, the religious
world talks about mercy but they never talk about justice. You
can't have mercy without justice. They present God as if he's some
sort of doting grandfather who just sort of looks over the offenses
of his grandchildren and just lets it go. No. Our God is holy and he's just
and he must punish sin. And not one single sin will go
unpunished. And there is no mercy in the
heart of God and there is no love in the heart of God without
justice. without justice. And that's why
the scripture says that God has loved us with an everlasting
love because his justice was satisfied in the covenant of
grace from everlasting to everlasting when Christ entered into that
covenant relationship with his father and became the lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. There's the justice of
God. You see, the justice of God and the love of God have
always been Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
They've kissed each other. Where did they kiss each other?
Justice and mercy kissed each other. Where? At the cross. At
the cross. And God poured out his wrath.
And when we say, Lord, have mercy upon me. We're saying, Lord,
pity me. I don't have any claim on you. I don't have anything to force
your hand. If Christ doesn't stand in my
stead, I'm without hope. If he doesn't clothe me with
his righteousness, I'm naked. If he doesn't feed me with his
body and give me his blood to drink, if he doesn't put me in
the family of God, and in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ
and hide me in the ark and enable me to escape to the city of refuge,
I'll have no home. As the servant looks to the hand
of the master, so we wait upon him to provide all those things
for us. Or I've got no place else to
go. Our God delights in showing mercy
because it glorifies him. It glorifies him. It's all about
the glory of God. You listen to the dribble of
the religious leaders and they act like it's all about me. It's
all about you. No, it's not. It's about God.
It's about his glory. And he delights in showing mercy
because it glorifies him. James chapter five, verse 11
says, the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. He delights
in showing mercy. Why? Because it causes sinners
to bow. It causes those who are in rebellion
against God. It causes those who are otherwise
left out in the world with their fists raised to heaven. I will
not have that man reign over me. It causes them to love him
and to bow before him. Titus chapter three says, not
by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to
his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the
renewing of the Holy Ghost. He regenerates us. The washing
of the water of the word of God gives us new life. And the spirit
of God opens the eyes of our understanding. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3 says,
but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sins has quickened us
together in Christ for by grace are you saved. By grace are you
saved. He does it according, this is
the, This is the cry of every sinner. Lord, go back with me,
look at our text. Have mercy upon us, oh Lord,
have mercy upon us for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Contempt. The definition of the word contempt.
The feeling with which a person regards anything considered vile,
worthless, disdained, or scorned, hatred, mockery, and ridicule,
that's contempt. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, for
we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Paul put it like this, oh, wretched
man that I am. Lord, you see the longing in
the believer's soul is to be freed from contempt. The things
that we consider vile and worthless and disdained and scorned and
hated in our hearts is our sin. It's our sin. Lord, you're going to have to
have mercy upon me, because everything I do is mixed with my sin. I hate it. I can't love you like
I ought to love you. I can't worship you like I ought
to worship you. I can't see you like I want to
see you. I can't believe. Lord, have mercy
upon me, for I'm filled with contempt. Men have contempt toward other
men, but only a sinner has contempt toward himself. Lord, I just, I hate the way
I am. I hate the way I am. You're going to have to have
mercy on me. The false prophets of our day
are not gonna talk like this. They're gonna tell you how wonderful
you are. How much God loves you and how
much he wants to save you and he's doing everything he can,
bless his heart, if you'll just let him have his way. If you'll
just let him have his way. Just make Jesus Lord of your
life. What a lie. What a lie from the pit of hell.
And it's, it's peace, peace when there is no peace. You know,
men go around with their heads held high and they think, well,
I'm, you know, I'm right with God. I've done what I was supposed
to do and I've obligated God to save me. What does the sinner
do? He would not so much as even
look up, but smote himself upon the breast and said, have mercy
upon me, oh God, the sinner, the sinner. Lord, I just need
mercy. I need you to pity me. I need you to look to Christ
on my behalf. I need the work that the Lord
Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross to be sufficient for my
salvation, because I can't save myself. Lord, I can't blame anybody else. Everybody knows that shame and
guilt is what causes all of our personal problems. So the world says, well, you
know, you're really not guilty. I mean, it's really not your
fault. It's not your fault. Everything is the disease and
everything is result of the world. Believer, God makes you to be
a sinner. It's all on you. It's all on
you. It's not our circumstances that
cause our problem. It's our unbelief. It's our unwillingness
to look to Christ for all our righteousness and all of our
satisfaction, all of our justification before God. Psalm 119 verse 22, remove from
me reproach and contempt. Well, you've got your Bibles
right there open to 123. Just look back a page or two.
We spent a lot of time in Psalm 119, but I want you to look at
this verse one more time. Look at verse 22 in Psalm 119.
This is glorious. You want to have a clear conscience?
You want to have an answer of a good conscience towards God?
You want to be rid, completely delivered from all the shame
and all the guilt of all of your sin? And be able to stand in
the presence of a holy God and enter in to that throne of grace
boldly? Boldly, with confidence. Well,
here it is. Look at verse 22 of Psalm 119. Remove from me reproach and contempt,
for I have kept thy testimonies." That's what faith does. Faith in looking to Christ. who God made to be sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, so that as he
is, so are we. In spite of our sin, the Lord
Jesus has put that sin away, separated them from us as far
as the east is from the west, imputed to us his righteousness
so that we can come before God. we can come before God and say,
Lord, remove the reproach and the contempt that I feel for
myself, for I have kept thy testimonies. I've kept your whole law, every
bit of it. Every jot and every tittle of
the law of God was kept by the Lord Jesus Christ and all those
that are found in him. We'll close with Hebrews chapter
10. Will you turn with me there, please? Hebrews chapter 10. Look at verse 22. Well, we begin in verse 21. And
having a high priest over the house of God, that's Christ.
He's our high priest. He intercedes for us. Let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. And here's
the profession of our faith, for he is faithful, that promised. We're looking to Christ for all
our faithfulness before God. Let us consider one another.
Encourage one another. To look to Christ. I said it
was enclosed, but I've got to show you this. Go back with me
to our text, I'm sorry. Told you I was a liar. Look at verse four. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease. The flesh is always
looking for an easy way out. When it comes to the forgiveness
of sin, it's easier for the flesh. clothe itself in its own righteousness,
it's easier for the flesh to excuse itself, to justify itself,
to blame, and to hide from God. That's easy. The flesh does. That just comes natural to the
flesh. That's what all man-made religion is about. What's David saying here? What
does the Psalmist saying for us? Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease. Lord, there's something
about me that just wants the easy way out. But in order for me to find true
salvation and true forgiveness, that's gonna be a work of grace.
That's not something that's gonna come just in the ease of the flesh.
That costs God everything. It costs God everything. It's a whole lot easier. Let
me ask you a question. What's easier for you to work
eight hours a day or to pray sincerely for 15 minutes? What's easier for you? You know the answer to that. It's easier for me to work hard
labor than it is to stand up here and try to preach to you.
You see, this is the ease of the flesh that's always looking
for it, isn't it? And Lord, I've got to have your
power, your spirit. This is not by might nor by power,
it's by God's spirit. Lord, this scorning is always
looking for something easy. But the battle that we fight
is spiritual. It's a spiritual battle. Look at the rest of this verse. And with the contempt of the
proud, oh, the flesh is always proud of what it does. You see,
We're not saying, Lord, those people out there are scorning
me because they've got it easy and I've got it hard. Or the
proud out there is ridiculing me or persecuting me. No, Lord,
the ease and the pride is right here. This is the contempt of
my own flesh and my own sin. Lord, I would pride myself in
my accomplishments. Now, I would pride myself in
what I'm not doing and what I am doing for God. I would take pride
in that. Lord, deliver me. Have mercy
upon me. It's only more evidence of my
sinfulness. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.