Good morning. We're going to
open this morning's service with hymn number 37. Hymn number 37
in our hardbacked hymnal. And let's all stand together. O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder Consider all the works Thy hands have made, I see the
stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe
displayed Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great
Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When through the woods and forest
glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and
feel the gentle breeze Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think that God, His
Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross my burden gladly
bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When Christ shall come With shout
of acclamation And take me home What joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, My God, how great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be in Psalm 119
this morning. If you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bible, Psalm 119. Every time we sing that hymn,
I feel a little frustrated in that. We're just not able to
understand how great he is. One day. One day see him in the
fullness of his glory. Will sing. In a way then that
we can't sing now. How great thou art? Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father. If you don't send your spirit
in power and enable us to worship you. In truth, Lord, all that we do here will
be worse than in vain. We ask Lord that you'd be merciful
to us. We ask that you would. Open our
hearts, open that which no man can shut. Open the windows of
heaven. She would come down and visit
with us and. Make yourself known to us and. Give us faith to rest
all our hope Lord, if you would just send a glimmer of light
from the throne of your grace and reveal to us a little bit
more of how great thou art, we'll be able to rejoice and worship
and rest. Lord, we thank you for your word
and we pray that you'd bless it. Pray that you would open
to us the. The meaning of it and. Give us light to to see Christ
through it. We ask it in his name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 119. I've titled this message justified. Justified. Look at look at verse
22. Remove from me reproach and contempt,
for I have kept thy testimonies. The only way that you and I are
going to have the reproach, the guilt, the shame, and the contempt,
the condemnation of our sin taken away is if we're able to say
with David, for I have kept thy testimonies. Now that's what
it means to be justified. To be justified in the sight
of God means that we have kept every letter of his holy law. How can that be? How can a sinner
be justified before God? How can he be declared equal
to the law of God? How can he be perfect in the
sight of God? How can he be faultless and guiltless
and righteous in the presence of a holy God? How is that going
to be? only if we're able to say, I have kept thy testimonies. Now, testimonies is the whole
revelation of truth given to us in the word of God. It's the
moral law. It's the civil law. It's the
ceremonial law. It's everything that God requires
in his word. Lord, the only way that I'm going
to be able to lose the contempt and the shame and the guilt of
my sin is that if I can find a place where I can say, I have
kept thy testimonies. Turn with me, if you will, to
Galatians chapter two. Galatians chapter two. Verse 16. Very familiar passage. Knowing this, that a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we may be
justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Now, no
honest person would ever dare say, I have kept all thy testimonies. I have been faithful. in thought,
in word, and in deed to keep all of God's law. But here's
our hope, brethren. We lose the contempt. We lose
the shame. We lose the condemnation of sin
when we are found in Christ, not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness, which is by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way that
sinner can stand justified before God. I mean justified. And justified is more than just
if I'd never done it. Justified is God saying, I have
separated your sin from you as far as the East is from the West.
And I remember them no more. Justified in the sight of God,
a God who sees everything. How can I stand in his presence? How can the contempt and the
shame and the guilt of sin be taken away? Only if we're able
to say by faith, I have kept thy testimonies. Look over with
me just a couple of more pages to the book of Colossians. Colossians
chapter one. This is the gospel of God's free
grace. This is the only hope that you
and I have to have the Lord Jesus Christ to stand in our stead
before God for him to bear in his body all the guilt and shame
of our sin and put it away by the sacrifice of himself once
and for all. God is satisfied with Christ.
And if we're looking in faith to Christ, we can say, Lord,
remove from me, remove from me the shame and the contempt of
my sin for I have kept thy testimonies. Look at, uh, look at verse 21
in Colossians chapter one and you that were sometimes alienated
in the time past. That's what that word sometimes
mean. You who were in times past alienated, separated, and enemies
were born into this world alienated from God because we inherited
from our father Adam a sin nature. We're separated from God. We're
at enmity with God. How can a man, Job asked, Bildad
asked in the book of Job, how can a man born of a woman be
just before God? How can it be just? And you,
that were in times past alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works. Yet now hath he reconciled. Now notice the Lord says you
were enemies in your mind. God's people were never enemies
with him. He has loved his elect with an
everlasting love. All of God's people have been
in Christ from eternity past, the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. He's never had anything for them
but perfect love. But in our mind, in our mind,
we were enemies, alienated. by our wicked works. Now that doesn't mean that we
were all engaged in some sort of shameful behavior that we
don't want anybody to know about. It means that our works, the
things that we performed in hopes of reconciling ourselves to God,
God calls wicked. God calls evil. Everything we
put our hand to is sinful. So how can I, a sinner, have
my shame removed? How can I have the contempt of
my guilt removed only if I'm able to say, I have kept all
thy testimonies. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He
kept all the testimonies of God. And he's the only one that God's
pleased with. And salvation is looking in faith and resting
the hope of our justification before God in the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel, isn't it?
That's our hope. Look at the next verse. After
he says, you who were alienated and separated and at enmity with
God because of your wicked works, has he reconciled, how did he
reconcile us? In the body of his flesh through
death to present you to present you holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in his sight. How am I going to be presented
into the very sight of God? Holy. Perfect. Sinless. Unblameable. Unreprovable. No charge can be
made against God's people. That's our hope. Oh, the accuser
of the brethren. This is not just a message for
those who don't know Christ. This is a message for every child
of God, isn't it? We all deal with the contempt
and the shame of our own sin all the time. And the accuser
of the brethren, let me ask you this, brethren, child of God,
is there a day that goes by that you don't have this thought? How could you be a child of God
and think what you're thinking? How could you be a child of God
and act the way you're acting? Now that's the accusation of
Satan. And you understand what the meaning
behind that is. Had you not done that or thought
that or been that way, you might be able to look at yourself and
get some sense of comfort that you're a child of God. You see
the self-righteousness in that? You see, the very accusation
of the accuser of the brethren that causes us to think, well,
if I hadn't done that, well, what if you hadn't? Would you be more redeemable?
Would you be more righteous? Would there be more hope for
your salvation had you not thought that or done that? That's self-righteousness. That's looking to what you do.
and what you fail to do as the evidence of your salvation. What
is the only evidence of our salvation? Faith. Faith is the evidence
of our salvation. Looking and resting in and hoping
in the Lord Jesus Christ to remove all the guilt of my sin so that
I can say in Him, in Him, I have kept all thy testimonies. That's the only way we're going
to be unblameable, unreprovable. The only way we're going to be
perfect in God's sight, because God sees everything. He sees
everything. He knows our thoughts before
we think them. He knows our words before we
speak them. Nothing's hid from the sight
of God, except when we're found in him. And then he says, I remember
them no more. All your sin has been put away
by the sacrifice of Christ. You were alienated. You were
at enmity in your heart by your own wicked works. And he has
reconciled you to God by the sacrifice of his own son and
made you unblameable, unreprovable, holy, and perfect in his sight. And that's the only thing that
matters. It doesn't matter what you think of me or what I think
of you. There's going to come a day when each one of us has
a God with whom we must do. And we're going to stand before
him, nobody that we can point to, to justify us apart from Christ. He's the only one. He's the only
one that can make us unreprovable and holy. in the sight of God. That's what 2 Corinthians chapter
5 verse 21 means when God says that God the Father made him,
the son, sin. Who knew no sin? He had no sin
of his own but God made him to be sin. All the sins of all of
God's people were placed on Christ on Calvary's cross. That we might
be justified before God. The sin might be eternally put
away by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. You and I have no
righteousness of our own. The scriptures are clear. Our
righteousness deserves filthy rags. And David said, I will
speak of thy righteousness, even of thine only. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the only one who stands righteous in the sight of God.
He's the only one that's able to say, I kept all the testimonies
of God and God made him sin. Whose sin? The sins of his people.
All the sins of all of God's elect of every generation were
put on Christ and put away once and for all. That's what it means
to be justified. How can I be? We justify ourselves
all the time, don't we? You make a false accusation against
me, and you find out how quickly I can justify myself. Matter
of fact, it doesn't even have to be false. You can make a true
accusation against me, and I'll justify. But I'm especially fervent
in defending myself if somebody makes a false accusation against
me. Isn't that true? You just ask my wife. She'll
tell you. But we're not talking about justifying
ourselves in the sight of men. We're talking about being justified,
unreprovable, perfect, sinless, holy, no charge in the sight
of God. Lord, go back with me to our
text. Verse 22, remove from me reproach. Now, All men know, regardless of what
they say, I've heard people say, well, I'm an atheist. No, you're
not. No, you're not. All men know that there's a God
with whom they must do. And so, and all men know that
they have sinned against that God. So what am I going to do?
How am I going to be reconciled to God? Well, I have two options. I can lower God's standard so
that I can meet it. And that's the world in which
we live. Just convince yourself that sin
is an outdated idea. It's an outdated puritanical
idea that doesn't really apply to modern culture. You can lower
God's standard and find your place to fit in, but I'm here
to tell you, God hadn't changed his mind about sin. And we're
not talking about just the shameful things that you and I are guilty
of, we're talking about our nature, what we are. Turn back with me
to Job chapter 13. Job chapter 13. Look at verse
23. How many are my iniquities? The word inequity means inequitous. It doesn't measure up. God calls
anything that doesn't measure up to his standard of righteousness
sin. All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. What in your life falls short
of his holiness and of his glory? And if you've got any sense about
you at all, you know what the answer to that question is. Everything.
Everything. And so Job says, how many are
mine iniquities and sins, plural. Make me to know my transgression
and my sin, singular. Now sins in this text is behavior
and sin is nature. In other words, sin is what we
are and sins are what we do. We do what we do because we are
what we are. If a man robs a bank, does that
make him a robber? Yeah. But you know what? He was
a robber before he robbed the bank. God's looking at the heart. The
Lord said, You've heard it said that if you take your neighbor's
wife, you're guilty of adultery. But I say unto you that if you
look upon a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery in
your heart. You've heard it said that if you, that thou shalt
not commit murder, but I say unto you, if you have ought in
your heart towards your brother, without a cause, how many times
we've been angry at somebody, it just cause we were in a bad
mood, not because they did anything. The Lord said, you've committed
murder against them in your heart. God, man looks at the outward
appearance. God's looking at the heart. And so, and so the
Lord, the writer of Job says, how many are my iniquities and
my sins make me to know my transgression and my sin. See everybody's conscience. Man has a conscience and man
and band has the law of God. Romans chapter one, the law of
God, the 10 commandments are written on every man's heart. He knows that he knows that murder's
wrong. He knows lying's wrong. He knows
adultery's wrong. He knows stealing's wrong. He
knows everything that's the commandments require of man, whether he's
ever read them or not. God says, I put them on your
heart. He knows those things are, you know, that several years
ago, young people don't know this, but several years ago,
the 10 commandments used to be posted in public buildings, schools,
and all the religious people got up in arms because they took
the 10 commandments down. off the walls in public schools.
And I thought, can't take them down off man's heart. Those kids
know right from wrong. They know what's, but you know,
so what do we do? Lord, make me to know my sin,
my sin nature. Lord, reveal to me my need to
be reconciled to God and how it is that I can be just before
a holy God. You're there in the book of Job.
Turn over just a few pages to Job chapter 25. We read this
this morning in the study before the service. Look at verse 4
in Job chapter 25. How then can man be justified
with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? Behold, even the moon in it shineth
not. Yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight. How much less man that is a worm
and the son of man which is a worm. How are we going to be just in
the sight of a holy God? God's holy. How are we going
to have the contempt and the shame and the guilt of our sin
taken away? How are we going to have a clear
conscience before God, unreprovable in His sight? Well, we can lower
the standard of God's law and convince ourselves that these
things really aren't sin, or we can engage in self-righteous
religion or some other self-righteous behavior and try to atone for
our own sins. And that's what man-made religion
is all about. You know, all the do's and don'ts of man-made,
self-righteous, free-will religion is all about you doing something
to atone for your sin because you know you're a sinner and
you know there's a God with whom you must do. How are you going
to be justified before God? And what's religion do? They
use fear and manipulation in order to get you to do something
to atone for your own sins. You can't atone for your sins. Someone says, well, you don't
know how bad my sin is. And I say to you, it's a whole
lot worse than you think it is. Whole lot worse. You've never
felt the true shame and guilt and contempt for your sin like
it really is. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that ever did that. He's the only one that was able
to say, I'm sorry for my sins. And he said that in Psalm 38.
He said, I'm sorry for my sin. He took our sin and made it his
sin. And he suffered the full wrath
of God's justice and the full contempt and What's the word? Reproach. You see that? Go back
with me to our text. So, how are you going to avoid
a guilty conscience? Well, you can either lower the
standard of God or you can try to raise your own standard. The
problem is those two can never meet. God's standard is too high. No, we have to be found in Christ. Dead in Christ. Turn with me
to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. Look with me at verse 22. As already said, that which I would do, I do not. And that which I would not do,
that I do. He calls himself a wretched man.
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He says,
we know that the law is holy. The law is holy. But he says,
I'm carnal. I'm carnal. I'm a slave to sin. With the new man, I serve the
law of God. And with the old man, I serve
sin. Look at what he says. In verse 21, I find then a law
that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Prior to that, he said, you know,
I cannot find the ability to keep God's law. Verse 22, for
I delight in the law of God after the inward man. That's the new man. That's the
new nature. That's the spirit of God that
the Lord gives us in the new birth, enabling us to look to
Christ and rest all the hope of our righteousness in him.
And Paul says, the new man, he delights in the law of God. Why? Because he can say, I have kept
all by testimonies. God's law is holy. We love God's
law. God's law reveals the Lord Jesus
Christ for his perfection and for his glory and for his holiness. It reveals us for our inability
to keep it. Paul said to do good is present
with me. I want to be without sin, but how to perform that
which is good, I find not. I can't perform it, but he did. He performed it for me. And all
my hope in having kept his testimonies and all the contempt and all
the shame of sin. He says, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man. Look at the next verse, but I
see another law in my members, warring against the law of my
mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in
my members. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? So I look at my old man, I look
at my fleshly nature and everything about it's sinful. Everything
about it's sinful. Who's going to deliver me? Thanks
be to God. Look at the next verse. I thank
God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord. So then with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God and with the flesh, the law of sin. What a glorious thing. You say,
well, preacher, are you justifying sin? No. No, every child of God who serves
the law of God with his mind, who has the mind of Christ and
can say, I love God's law, would never sin again if he could.
But the same, we're not justifying sin, we're explaining it. We're
explaining it. We're, we're, we're, we're showing
the children of God why they are the way they are. Will I
ever get over this? Nope. Not in this life. There is look at verse one of
chapter eight. There is therefore now no condemnation. There's no condemnation to them,
which are in Christ Jesus who walked not after the flesh. They're
not looking at their justification before God by fleshly means.
Now this walking after the flesh and walking after the spirit
doesn't mean that you're, if you're walking after the spirit,
you're, you got your feet in the clouds and your head in the
clouds and feet off the ground. And you're, you just kind of,
you know, walking in this spiritual state of euphoria. No, it means
you're looking to the spiritual truth of who Christ is and what
he's accomplished for all the hope of your justification before
God, rather than looking at your works as the hope of your salvation. That's the walking of the spirit
and the walking after the flesh. There is now therefore no condemnation. Turn with me back to chapter
six of Romans chapter six, verse 14 for sin shall not. Now you can look this up. The
verb shall not is in the future tense. And the word dominion doesn't
mean power. Paul's already said in the flesh,
I'm under the power of sin. It means authority. It means
I'm not under the jurisdiction. It means that sin cannot condemn
me. The law cannot condemn me. The
law has been fulfilled and my sins been put away and I'm in
Christ and I'm justified before God. That's what Romans chapter
6 verse 14 says. For sin shall not, in the future,
standing before God, sin's not going to have authority over
me. Sin's not gonna condemn me. Sin's got no jurisdiction over
me. Why? Because you're not under the
law. You're under grace. If you're under the law, You
got to keep the whole law, every bit of it. If you're under grace,
then you're looking to Christ to keep the law for you. Lord,
remove from me the contempt and the shame and the guilt of my
sin, for I have kept all my testimonies, all my testimonies. This word dominion is used again
in chapter 7 verse 1. Look over just a page to Romans
chapter 7 verse 1. Know you not brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law, how that the law has dominion
over a man as long as he liveth. The law has authority over you.
The law, you're under the jurisdiction of the law as long as you're
alive. That's why coming to Christ, is being buried with Christ in
baptism and raised again to walk a new life in Christ Jesus. Paul
said, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. You see,
the law has no jurisdiction over us because we're not alive. We're
dead. We're not looking to our life
and our righteousness as the hope of our salvation. We're
looking to Christ. For he kept all God's testimonies. And the law has no jurisdiction.
It has no dominion over you. It has no authority over you
as long as you're dead. But if you're not dead, if life,
if Christ is not your life, but you're still trusting in something
you've done for the hope of your salvation, then you haven't been
put to death yet. Paul said, I was alive without
the law once. But when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. I died. I saw what God was required
of me. He was required of me to keep
all of his statutes. Not just in my outward behavior,
but in my heart. That's what he required. And
I was slain by the law. I was put to death by God. And
I was raised again in newness of life in Christ Jesus, who
has kept all of God's law for me. Justified. How are you going to have a clear
conscience before God? How am I going to have a clear
conscience before God? Only if there's nothing to condemn us.
There's no sin. Hebrews chapter 10, we'll close
with this, Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 17, and their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more. For where remission of
these is, there is no more offering for sin. Christ remitted our
sins by his shed blood. There's no more offering for
sin. There's nothing you can do to satisfy the demands of
God's law or to put away your sin. Either Christ did it all
or we're still under the law. Having therefore brethren and
God only speaks to his people. The Lord's never Try to convince
an unbeliever of anything. He gives you ears to hear. And
then, and then, then you hear your child of God having therefore
brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. I can, I can come this word boldness
doesn't mean to be cocky. It means to be, it means to be
confident. I can come into the very presence
of God with confidence that God is pleased with Christ, that
he kept all of God's testimonies. And the only hope that I have
of standing in the presence of a holy God and being justified
is to be found in him. by a new and living way, which
he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his
flesh. Now the writer of Hebrews is liking in that veil that goes
into the Holies of Holies as the body of Christ, which was
rent when the Lord said it is finished. That veil was rent
from top to bottom, wasn't it? God says the sacrifice has been
made. The blood has been put on the mercy seat. Come, come,
come to Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rest all your hope in him. You have no hope outside of him.
And all of your attempts to lower God's standards or to raise yourself
up to God's standards are in vain. And having a high priest. The
Lord Jesus Christ ascended into glory. God gave him his rightful
place and said, I've made you a priest forever. After the order
of Melchizedek, sit down here at my right hand until my make
that enemy is thy footstool. We have a high priest. We don't
make a priest out of men. We have the Lord Jesus Christ
as our priest. 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 what
is the profession of our faith? For he is faithful. He's faithful. He's kept all of God's law. Conscience is clear. Assurance,
hope. Assurance doesn't have anything
to do with believing that you're saved. There's not a day that
goes by that every child of God, I can't speak for every child
of God. I'll speak for myself. Not a
day that goes by that I don't have a moment of doubt in my
own salvation. How could I, could I be a child of God? Is that your experience? That's not assurance. Assurance
is not believing you're saved. Assurance is believing that the
only hope you have of being saved is that Christ is standing in
your stead. That he's the successful savior
of sinners. He's the sovereign substitute
who must stand in your stead in order for you to have any
acceptance with God. Faith is looking to Christ, not
looking to your assurance or your experience. And the glorious thing is that
when God gives us the grace to rest our hope and faith in him,
that's the only time we have any assurance at all, isn't it? Lord, remove from me the shame
and the reproach and the contempt of my sin. For I have kept all
of my testimonies, every one of them. That's the only way
you're going to have shame removed. It's for you to believe that
in Christ, all the law of God has been satisfied and there's
no condemnation. That's what it is to be justified,
justified before God. All right, let's take a break. Okay.