Good to see everyone this morning. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 21 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnal, and
let's stand together, number 21. my father eternally. God the Son agreed
to come in the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's
holy law and retrieve me from the fall. Christ, in love so
willingly, Stood as my great surety. For my price He offered
blood To appease the pain. Promise to come down in love
Bringing life and peace and grace To the chosen church's praise
He seeks the lost, heals the lame And He brings us to the
Lamb By His mighty sovereign call God's elect are gathered This poor sinner is secure, For
God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
By His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy God, Please be seated. Good morning. I love that hymn,
don't you? I'm just so very thankful that
we can sing it with some understanding. A title of the message this morning
is cry for understanding. Try cry for understanding. The
Lord gives us understanding. Will. Well, we'll know him for
who he is. And will be. Made like him. In spirit and one day. even in
our flesh. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 119. Some of you in years past met
Bert Dunbar's father. He stayed here for a while and
lived with the Dunbars. He passed away Friday. Bert,
we're sorry for your loss. And for Logan and Noah and Rachel
and Olivia. their grandfather. Let's ask
the Lord's mercy and blessings on our time together. Our Heavenly
Father, we come before thy throne of
grace, grateful that we're able to address you as our merciful,
loving Father, grateful that The covenant of grace that we
just sang of opened up the throne of grace so that we need not
fear your judgment. We pray that you would give us
the faith to set our affections on things above where Christ
is seated at thy right hand, that we would look to him for
all our righteousness, all our justification, all our salvation,
our life, our hope, our peace with God, or lift up Christ,
lift him up in our hearts, or we confess to you that we become
so easily distracted by the things of this world. Our flesh, our
sin, Satan, all the temptations of life, Lord, caused us to lose our our focus
on Christ. We pray that you would give us
a clear vision of his glory and enable us, Lord, to rest our
soul on him. Forgive us of our sin. Lord,
we thank you for the Dunbar's and we pray that you would comfort
them in their time of loss. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 119. Look with me, if you will, to
verse 169. Let my cry come near before thee,
O Lord, give me understanding according to thy word. I have three questions from this
verse of scripture that I want to try to answer. What does faith
do? That's the first question. And the answer to that question
is that faith cries. What does faith cry for? And
the answer to that question is understanding. And where does
faith look for that understanding? And the answer to that question
is the word of God. Now believers walk by faith,
not by sight. Faith is always in need of more
faith. The believer is always crying,
Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. We join with the apostles
in saying, Lord, increase our faith. Give me more understanding. Enable me to know who you are,
who I am, how it is that you're pleased to save sinners. That's
what I need to understand. And Lord, open that which no
man can shut. Open your word. Open my heart. Reveal to me the meaning of scripture. Now, there's a article in your
bulletin this morning that Todd Nibert wrote, and I love one
of the statements that he makes in there. He said, we know the
meaning of a passage of scripture before we even read it. And that's
true. In the volume of the book, it
is written of me. But the natural man's eyes are
closed to the meaning of scripture. And unless the Lord's pleased
to shine the light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the power of his Holy Spirit, the Bible will be a closed
book to us. We'll not see Christ in his word. Children are always crying. I
started to title this message Cry Babies. I thought, you know, the Lord
did say, lest you become as a little child, you should not enter into
the kingdom of heaven and suffer the little children to come unto
me, for such is the kingdom of God. We're always seeking for the
Lord's pity. That's what babies do. That's
what children do. We're not crying out to me. Notice
in our passage, verse 169, let my cry come near before thee,
O Lord. Men can't help me, not with what
I really need. My real need, only God can meet. Only God can
meet. We don't seek pity and sympathy
from men. You know, you really are sympathetic
towards people until they demand sympathy. Is that the way you
are? That's the way I am. I mean,
my heart goes out to people that are in trouble. And I pray for
them and I will do whatever I can until that person demands pity
and sympathy from me. And then at that point, it's
just, it's hard to give it at that point, isn't it? We don't
look for pity from one another, but we do look for pity from
God. And the scripture tells us, as
a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him. What is it to fear God? It's
to come before him in faith, crying out for understanding,
for mercy, for grace. Lord, have pity on me. Lord, remember, remember that
I'm made of dust. Lord, I'm a pitiful person and
I need God's pity. That's what faith does. Notice, you have your Bibles
open to Psalm 119. Look with me at verse 145. I
cried with my whole heart. Hear me, O Lord, and I will keep
thy statutes. Lord, if you hear my cry, then
I'll find myself in Christ looking to him for all my righteousness
before God. And in him I will have kept all
thy statutes. Lord, I cry. Look at verse 146,
the next verse. I cried unto thee, save me. Believers are always crying out
for salvation. Lord, save me. We keep coming
to Christ. You know, people say, well, you
know, back in religion, we used to say, well, you know, I nailed
that down already. I've already got saved. We believers
don't talk like that. We're being saved, aren't we?
We were saved in eternity past in the covenant of grace when
the Lord Jesus Christ, as the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world, became our surety before the Father. Salvation,
the work the scripture says in Hebrews chapter four, was finished
before the foundation of the world. But that work had to be
carried out in a blood sacrifice, didn't it? And so when the Lord
Jesus Christ cried out to his father to save him, and we know
that these passages are first and foremost prophetic. Here's
the cry of Christ, crying out to his father to save him according
to his word. And as the father remembered
the promises that he made in the covenant of grace, he rewarded
his son with all that he had promised and saving him, delivering
him from the grave, satisfied with all that he offered. And
in that work of redemption, we were saved. We were saved. When our Lord cried on Calvary's
cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And
then he said, it is finished. The work of redemption was accomplished
and our salvation was made sure. And then we're saved also when
we hear the gospel as the gospel. And that requires the spirit
of God to open up our ears. We're not hearing just the voice
of a man, we're hearing from God and we're believing everything
that God said. And we're saved in the work of
regeneration. So in election and in redemption
and in regeneration, we're saved. We're saved, but we don't look
back at that moment of regeneration and lean on an experience or
an event for the hope of our salvation. What do we do? We
continue to cry, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Salvation is an
everyday experience. To whom? Coming. We are being
saved. Here's the truth of salvation.
We have been saved. We are being saved. And we shall
be saved. For the salvation that we know
now is nothing compared to what it will be. Truly, eye has not
seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the imagination
of man the things that he's prepared for us. All the salvation that
we'll experience when this mortal is made immortal, and when this
corruptible is made incorruptible, we'd see him as he is. who shed
this sinful flesh, what a glorious, glorious day that will be. So when the scripture speaks
of salvation, it's speaking of all those tenses, if you will,
past, present, and future. And we don't separate them. They stand or fall together,
don't they? So, We're always crying out,
Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Look at chapter
120 in the Psalms, in the very first verse, chapter 120, verse
one. In my distress, I cried unto
the Lord and he heard me. You see, the believer's experience
is that his sin is ever before him. He's completely sinless
in Christ Jesus. perfectly righteous before God
and completely sinful in his own old nature, which he carries
around as a dead corpse on his back. And so he's always, always
crying out in distress, Lord, help thou mine unbelief. And he's crying out for understanding.
What did Bartimaeus? They tried to shut him up, didn't
they? And he just kept crying the louder. Jesus, son of David,
have mercy upon me. And when he went to the Lord, the
Lord asked him, what would you have me to do for you? Oh Lord,
that I might see. What a malady blindness would
be to have in this world. And yet there's no blindness
as blind, as spiritual blindness. And there's no spiritual blindness
as blind as the one who thinks he can see when he can't. That's
darkness. That's darkness. That's where
the Pharisees were. What did the Pharisees say to
the Lord when the Lord rebuked them about being blind? They
said, are you suggesting that we're blind? We're blind? And the Lord said, if you were
blind, then you would be able to see. But because you say you
can see, therefore your sins remain. He and the child of God
is wondering all the time, Lord, I'm looking through a glass darkly
right now. Am I seeing the truth? I need
more understanding. I need more light. I need more
faith. Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm walking
by faith. I've got to have you. That's
the prayer here. And that's the believer's experience
always, always. Mourning and rejoicing at the
same time. Our Lord cried, the scripture
says, with a loud voice from Calvary's cross, when he said,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was crying out
for God's mercy. That the Lord Jesus is expressing
his perfect faith as he's relying upon his father To reward him
according to his word according to his promises How much more
do you and I need to cry out to him? And then when he cried
it is finished the scripture says he cried with a loud voice
It is finished father into thy hands. I commend my spirit Everything
necessary for the salvation of a sinner was accomplished on
Calvary's cross by the sacrifice that Christ made of himself to
his father for the sins of his people. Lord, I need to understand
that. I need to see that. I need to
believe that. Remember that man who brought
his son to the disciples and they weren't able to heal him
and he brought him to the Lord. And the scripture says that the
father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I
believe help thou mine unbelief. The Syrophoenician woman, the
scripture says that she cried with a loud voice. She brought
her daughter who was vexed with a demon and she said, Lord, have
mercy upon us. Son of David, have mercy upon
us. And the Lord called her a dog.
What'd she say? Truth, Lord. Yeah. Oh, but if
this dog could just get a few crumbs from the master's table.
You see, the truth is that one crumb from God's table will feed
the soul of a sinner, really will. That's the glory of the
gospel. That's the glory of Christ. Lord,
just give me a taste. Give me a taste. Turn to me to
the book of Jonah. Look with me, if you will. Jonah
is one of those small prophets in the back of your Bible between
Obadiah and Micah. Look at Jonah chapter two. At verse one, now you remember
the story. Jonah is. Running from God. Disobeying
what the Lord had commanded him to do to go to Nineveh and preach
the gospel and he boarded a ship and Scripture says he went down
to Joppa, and then he went down to the ship, and then he went
down in the belly of the ship, and then he fell asleep. That's
the progression of fleeing from God, isn't it? It's always a
downward spiral. Always a downward spiral. Until
the Lord put that ship in a storm, and they woke Jonah up. And Jonah
confessed that he was the one. He was the one. He was the reason
for the storm. And he told him, he said, cast me out, cast me
into the water. And as soon as Jonah hit the
ocean, it became a sea of glass. And all the mariners on the ship
were saved by the sacrifice of Jonah into the ocean of turbulence
and sin. And there's a picture of Christ.
Christ is our Jonah. He's cast himself in. and he's gone down into the pit. Look what Jonah says, and Jonah
prayed unto the Lord in verse one, his God, out of the fish's
belly and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
and he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest
my voice. Now there's the Lord Jesus Christ.
I cried unto my father from the belly of hell. That's where he
was. That's where he was. Hell is separation from God.
That's what hell is. And eternal hell is eternal separation
from God. But here the Lord was forsaken
of his father, having become sin. The father saw our sin on
his darling son and had no choice but to forsake him. And our Lord
cried out to his father. The father heard him. That's
what we cry. We cry because of our sin. Verse three for thou has cast
me into the deep in the midst of the seas. The floods can pass
me about and all by billows and by waves passed over me and I
said I'm cast out of eyesight. Yet I will look again toward
thy Holy Temple. When the Spirit of God. Makes
us to be sinners. We think, oh no, oh no. Is there any hope for me? Well,
we become mercy beggars at that point. Then we look, we look
unto his temple and what happened with Jonah. And the waters can
pass me about even to the soul. The depths closed me round about.
The weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains and the earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet has thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God. And here's what we have the hope
of. This corruptible is going to be made incorruptible. We
have the hope of the promise of God in the resurrection that
when Christ was raised from the dead, so shall we be. So were we in him and shall be. in our own experience. Look at
verse seven. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord and my prayer came unto thee, into thy
holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. Look at that verse. They that
forsake. They that observe lying vanities. What is a lying vanity? It's
robbing Christ of his glory and salvation. It's giving to man
some credit. for earning his favor with God
by something he does, a decision he makes, a work he performs,
it's a lying vanity. Christ is the only truth. And
men that observe lying vanities, and that's most of the people,
well, that's everybody except for God's elect that have been
given understanding. Everybody's observing lying vanities. And they do it to the forsaking
of mercy and the destruction of their own souls. Look at verse
nine. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have
bowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. All
of salvation is of God. In election, it was all of God.
In redemption, it was all of God. In regeneration, it's all
of God. In sanctification, it's all of
God. In glorification, it's all of God. He has to do it all.
Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish
and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry ground. As soon as God
gives us understanding to say, yes, salvation is of the Lord,
then we have the hope of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What are we crying for? We're
crying for understanding. Go back with me to our text.
We're crying for understanding. Let my cry come near before Thee,
O Lord. Give me, give me. Lord, the only grounds on which
I can ask for understanding is your mercy, your grace. I've got nothing to obligate
you to do that. I've got no other plea to make
other than, Lord, you're going to have to give it to me. Give
me. You see, that's why believers
are always mercy beggars, aren't they? Lord, we're just begging,
we're crying out for mercy. You're gonna have to give it
to me. I can't earn it. I can't prove to you my worthiness
for it. Lord, you're gonna have to give
it to me if I'm gonna have it. It's got to be a free gift. And
what is he asking for? Understanding. Oh, the believers always looking
through a glass darkly. Always squinting to understand
better and always always feeling like the understanding that they
have could slip away. It could slip away. I feel that way all the time.
Or do you? You've shown me some things and
I believe some things, but Lord, I I find these things so so close
to losing them all the time. Lord, give me understanding.
I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me. But
this one thing I do, press towards the mark for the prize of the
high calling of Christ Jesus, that I might know him, know him,
and the fellowship of his suffering, that when Christ suffered on
Calvary's cross, Lord, that's my, there's my judgment before
God. My judgment before God is that
I was in Christ, that if Christ didn't die for me, then I've
got no hope. If faith is not believing that
he did die for you, faith is believing that if he didn't die
for you, you've got no other place to go. Christ is all your
hope before God. And that's what Paul was saying
in Philippians when he said, I might know him and the fellowship
of his suffering. I might say that I was crucified
with Christ. When he suffered, God, you were
pleased with his suffering. And the only way you're going
to be pleased with me is to find your satisfaction in him and the power of his resurrection.
That's not talking about having some sort of unnatural, supernatural
power in this life. It's talking about the power
of God to raise one from the dead. That's what Christ did,
and when he was raised from the dead, that's what baptism's all.
I was buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk a new life
in Christ Jesus. We're union, our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. I've got to, we're always struggling
to understand that, always. And we're so easily distracted
from it. We're so easily caught away by
the things of this world and so we come again and again and
again. Lord, give me understanding. Give me understanding of who
Christ is. This is life eternal that they
might know thee. That's understanding. The only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. Lord, give me understanding as
to your sovereignty. Why do we get why do we get disquieted
and anxious and fearful? Because we lose understanding,
we lose sight of the fact that our God is sovereign. He's sovereign. He's absolutely ruling in sovereign
control over all things in creation, in providence and in salvation.
Our God reigns. If he doesn't rule over everything,
then something's ruling over him. If he doesn't control everything,
then he's being controlled by something. And that's man's opinion
of God, that they can control him. I can demand from God certain
things and he's required to give them to me. And man sets himself
up on the throne of God and puts God down and says, I'll be saved
when I want to be saved. No, you won't. No, you won't. Our God reigns. Lord, give me
understanding of your sovereign control in all things, especially
in salvation. If our God is not sovereign,
then none of the promises of God can be sure. If our God is not sovereign,
then none of the prophecies of God are absolute. If our God is not sovereign,
then no word from God can be believed. Our God is sovereign. Lord, give me understanding.
I'm crying, crying out for understanding of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. If our God's not sovereign, then
everything is by luck or chance or man's free will. And we're
in trouble. We're in trouble if our God's
not sovereign. No, our God is sovereign and
he hath done whatsoever he wills. Lord, give me understanding as
to the successful work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross. You talk to most people and they'll
present the work of Christ on the cross as an offering to man. He didn't really accomplish anything.
He didn't successfully save anybody. He's just making you an offer,
hoping that you'll receive it, hoping that you'll accept it,
hoping that you'll let him have his way, hoping that you'll invite
him into your heart. No. Lord, give me understanding
as to the successful work of redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ
offered himself to his father as a sacrifice that the father
was satisfied with. The father accepted that sacrifice. Isaiah chapter 42, God says,
he shall not fail nor be discouraged. He shall not fail nor be discouraged. Lord, give me understanding.
Give me understanding as to who Christ is and his sovereignty
and his successful work of redemption. Give me understanding that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior of sinners. He's the Savior. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Lord, I need to know. As a sinner,
I need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ saves people like
me. You see, what qualifies us and
what is that we're sinners. That's what qualifies one for
salvation is that they have no righteousness, that everything
about them is sinful. Turn with me to First Timothy
chapter one. First Timothy chapter one. We've been studying the book
of Acts and we're fixing to get into chapter eight of Acts, where
Saul of Tarsus is introduced as one who is giving consent
to the stoning of Stephen. And then he, in chapter nine,
he leads the persecution against the church. And that word consent
means that he was full of joy Can you imagine watching a man
stoned to death and have your heart filled with joy to be able
to stand there and watch it? That was Saul of Tarsus. I mean, how far was he? And he went in rage, arresting,
the scripture says, dragging men and women out of their homes
and bringing them to prison and having put them to death. That
was the apostle Paul. And now he's presenting himself
for what he was and putting himself up as a pattern. What Paul's
saying here in 1 Timothy chapter one, if God can save someone
like me, he can save you too. That's what he's saying. If he
can save a man like me, who in rage took delight over the murder
of a child of God, He can save you too. That's what he came
to do, to save sinners. He's saying, I'm the chief of
all sinners. Look at verse 1 Timothy chapter
one. Verse 12, and I thank Christ
Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful. Now that doesn't mean that God
looked at Saul and said, well, there's a faithful man. I'm going
to count him faithful. No, that word counted means imputed. He imputed to me faithfulness. There was nothing faithful about
me. But he counted me worthy after he imputed to me in faithfulness. He charged it to me. He gave
me the ability to be faithful. Putting me in the ministry who
was before a blasphemer, a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious. Now the word injurious means
proud and self-righteous and arrogant. and wanting to shame people. He's talking about his experience
with arresting all these believers, but I obtained mercy because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief. I didn't know. I was ignorant. What's the Lord saying? You do
those things now, there'll be no more sacrifice for sin. You
depart from the gospel now, Now that you can't claim ignorance
now, Paul. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ
Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. What's all saying, what's
Paul saying? God can save a man like me, he
can save anybody. And every believer believes that
about themselves, don't they? God can save me, he can save
anybody. Anybody beyond his reach? No. How be it for this cause
I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth
all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter
believe on him to life everlasting. He said, I'm a pattern. Lord,
show me, give me understanding. Show me your sovereignty. Show
me your successful work of redemption. Show me your mercy toward a sinner
like me. I'm so prone to wonder. I'm so
prone to leave the God I love. I'm so prone to find my attention
to be on earthy things or give me understanding. And do it,
go back with me to our text quickly. And do it according to thy word. If the Lord is gonna give us
understanding, he's gonna give it to us from his word and from
his word only. not from a confession, not from
a creed, not from tradition, not from feeling, not from experience,
not from, well, I think, no, from thus saith the Lord. That's
the only place God's gonna work. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. Turn with me to first Peter and
we'll close. First Peter. Hebrews chapter four says the
word of God is sharp and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Dividing the son to the soul
and the spirit and the joints and the miro and tense of the
heart, that's God's word. It's God's word. It's it's his
word that he uses. That's why we. That's why we're
spend so much time in this book, isn't it? This is the. This is
the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. This is where he
slays us and this is where he heals us with his word. Look at. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse
23 being born again, not of corruptible seed. What is corruptible seed?
What is corruptible seed? Your opinion, your will, your
feelings, your experiences, the words of men, the traditions
of religion, those are corruptible seeds. And God says, you are
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all
flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of
grass. Oh, men love to glory in themselves,
don't they? Men love to glory in their accomplishments
and glory in their wills and glory in their works and glory
in their words. And God says, all flesh is this
grass, just grass. The grass withereth, the flower
thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. You see what we believe now from
God's word, we'll believe forever. We'll believe forever. No, we'll
change. God's word doesn't change. Tradition
changes, men and religion changes. You know, we live in a changing
world. A lot of things celebrated today that were considered to
be shameful in my youth, you know, things are just always
changing. God hadn't changed. The word of God endureth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. What's the Lord saying? Christ
is the word of God. And we know what every passage
of this Bible means even before we read it, because it points
sinners to Christ and causes them to cry out for understanding
according to his word. All right, let's take a break. Thank you.