Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 28 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn
book, number 28. Let's all stand together. God has mercy on whom He will,
and whom He will, He hardens still. To whom He will, He gives
His grace, and when He will, He hides His face. Let none despise
God's sovereign throne. He does what he will with his
own. It is his right to save or kill
according to his sovereign will. Yes, God saved some and others'
leaves to reap the fruit of their own ways. In the eternal ages
past, God made His choice and it stands fast. Aware that I'm
a guilty man, and that I'm in God's sovereign hand. Prostrate I fall before His throne,
a wretched, helpless, guilty one. Lord, if you will, you can,
I say, take all my guilt and sin away. A guilty sinner at
your throne, I beg for mercy through your Son. Now trusting
Jesus Christ, God's Son, I know that I'm his chosen one. ? And God's eternal sovereign
choice ? ? Makes this poor sinner's heart rejoice ? Please be seated. Evening. Let's open our Bibles
together to Ephesians chapter two, for our call to worship. Ephesians chapter two, and we'll
begin reading in verse one. If you walk around the building,
be really careful. There are some 10 foot holes
that you really have to watch out for over there. So they should
be all covered up in the next day or so, but there's some dangerous
stuff over there right now. Ephesians chapter two, and you
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. It was
a time when we were spiritually dead, unable to believe, unable
to worship God, unable to hear, and the Lord quickens us. He
makes us alive through the preaching of the gospel. Wherein in times
past, you walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, but God, who
is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
By grace, you are saved and have raised us up together and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus right now, right
now seated at the right hand of the majesty on high in the
person of our substitute in Christ. That in the ages to come, he
might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, we're
his creation, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. God ordains
us to walk in something that we're going to be walking in
it. And that. That is the walk of faith and
that's the. Title of the message tonight
walking by faith. Pray the Lord will. Bless our
time together. Let's ask him together to do
that. Our merciful Heavenly Father. You've told us that this. is
the house of prayer. Lord, we confess to you that.
We would make it nothing more than a den of thieves, but by
your grace. Lord, we would merchandise one
another souls and pervert the gospel. Lord, how needful we
are that you would quicken us together in Christ that you would
reveal to us. the glory of your dear son and
his accomplished work of salvation, that you would bless us with
the gift of faith, enabling us to rest all our hope in him.
Thank you for this time and for this place of worship. Might
you enable us to do it in spirit and in truth. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. Number 125 in the hardback timbral.
125. Let's all stand once again. I hear the Savior say, Thy strength
indeed is small, Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in me thine
all in all. Jesus paid it all, All to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find thy power
and thine alone can change the leper's spots and melt the heart
of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I Whereby
thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garments white In
the blood of Calvary's Lamb. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. And when before the throne I
stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, my lips
shall still repeat, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with me
to Psalm 119. Psalm 119. I've titled this message, Walking
by Faith. Believers walk by faith, not
by sight. That's what the scripture says.
In other words, the evidence of our salvation is not seen
with the outward appearances. We're looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of our faith. And that takes spiritual
eyes to do that. It takes, well, it takes a miracle
of grace. It takes a new nature. It takes
faith to be able to see something that's not physical. And that's
the glory and the mystery of the gospel, to be found in Christ,
to be looking unto him, to have Christ to be our all in salvation. Before I heard the gospel, I
was guilty of mixing faith with works. And I actually was guilty of mixing
grace with works. Didn't have any faith. And I
called it grace, but in fact, I was looking to some outward
evidences in order to prove that I had faith. And that's walking by sight. That's not walking by faith.
This is a miracle that only the new man can experience. And because
what you and I see in terms of outward appearances, it gives
us no hope. The child of God finds no comfort
and no hope for their salvation in observing the outward appearances
of their life. We did that in religion, that's
what self-righteousness does. I remember when I first heard
the gospel, I thought, well, what about the law? What about
good works? Well, we just read in Ephesians
chapter two, verse 10, that we are his workmanship created in
Christ Jesus, yes, unto good works, which he hath ordained
that we should walk in them. Now that word should doesn't
mean, well, we should, but we don't. It means that what God
has ordained will come to be. So the believer walks by faith
and that's the good works that he's ordained that we should
walk in them. We're looking to Christ. We're walking after him. We're resting all the hope of
our salvation in his glorious person and his finished work.
If the Lord's ordained, us to walk in good works then we will
walk in good works. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 119. This is the longest of the Psalms,
176 verses. And if your Bible is divided
up like mine, you'll notice that there are 22 sections of eight
verses each in Psalm 176. And the significance of that
is that there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And each one of these 22 sections
of eight verses each starts with the next letter in the Hebrew
alphabet. Now what is the Lord saying then
to us? I am the alpha, we know that's Greek, but I'm the alpha
and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last. The Lord Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of faith. where we're looking unto him.
This is all about him. We've seen that clearly in the
Psalms up till now, haven't we? And the only rejoicing that the
child of God can have in the Psalms is to be found in Christ,
is to be found in him. There's only one verse in this
entire Psalm that doesn't have the word way, law, testimony,
precept, statutes, judgment, word, righteousness, or truth
in it. Now all those words are used
to define the whole of God's word. This is his statutes. These are his precepts. These
are his commandments. This is his word. This is his
way. And we know that the entire scripture
is written in order to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ. In the
volume of the book, it is written of me. And so from the very beginning
of Genesis to the end of Revelation, everything in the Bible reveals
to us the glorious person and accomplished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this Psalm in every verse
speaks of that, except for one. And I want to show you this one
verse. Look at verse 122, 122. This is the only verse in the
entire Psalm that doesn't have a reference to the Word of God. And yet the reference that's
made is to the Word of God. The word way or law or testimony
or commandment or precept is not in this verse, but look what
word is in this verse. Verse 122, be surety for thy
servant for good. Let not the proud oppress me.
Now, what is a surety? A surety is a person who covers
everything necessary for another. That's what surety was. Judah
was surety for Benjamin, wasn't he? He said, you hold it to my
account if I don't bring him back. I'll be surety for him. And he put his life on the line
to provide for and take care of and bring home safely Benjamin
and the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our surety. And so this
is what this whole Psalm is about. Lord be surety for me. All that
thy word requires, you're going to have to fulfill. All that
your commandments require, all the glories of your precepts,
Lord, you're going to have to be my surety. There's one other verse in here
in this Psalm that I want to point out to you, and that's
found in verse 139. 139, my zeal hath consumed me because
mine enemies have forgotten thy words. Now, when did the, when
did the disciples remember that verse from this song? In John
chapter two, when the Lord Jesus Christ made a whip and turned
over the tables of the money changers and chased them out.
And he with great holy anger said, you have turned my house
of prayer into a den of thieves. And his disciples remembered
that his zeal had consumed him. The zeal for God's glory. And what were they doing? They
were merchandising men's souls. They were operating as all religious
people do under a system of works and laws and commandments and
requirements for men to meet and measurements that were being
made in order to find out if someone was right with God. That's man-made works religion. So this Psalm in the one verse
says, Lord, be surety for me. You be for me what Judah was
for Benjamin. You bring me back to my father
safely and you provide everything that I need in order to be able
to stand in the presence of God. What do we need? We need a perfect
righteousness. We need a perfect obedience to
the law of God. We need our sin to be put away.
And the Lord is consumed with His zeal for the glory of His
Father. And everything He did was for
that. Prayer is what faith does, isn't
it? We're talking about walking by faith. That's our life. Our
life in Christ is a walk of faith. We're not walking by sight. We're
not looking at outward appearances. We're not judging ourselves or
one another by what we see on the outside. We are, through
the eyes of faith, looking to Christ. as our surety, looking
to him as the one who upheld the glory of his father and made
what men would turn into a den of thieves, what? A house of
prayer. Because prayer is what faith
does. Prayer just prayers, just pleading
with God. It's just bowing before him.
It's just pouring out our hearts that we know. I'm not, I'm not
suggesting that any of we're not, we're not looking to the,
to the, the quality or the, or the, the commitment of our prayers. That would just take us back
to works. Wouldn't it? But prayer is what faith does. Lord, you're
going to have to, you're going to have to be everything that
God requires for me. You're going to have to be that
for me. You're going to have to be my surety. You're going
to have to maintain the glory of God on my behalf. Now that's
what Psalm, that's what this whole book's about, but this
is what Psalm 139 is about. When the scripture speaks of
the tabernacle of God in these Psalms, we know that the Lord
Jesus Christ, uh, as the word of God was made flesh and he
tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten
of the father, full of grace and full of truth. He's the only
one that can, that can maintain. the requirements of God's law. And he's the only one that can
quicken us together. In Revelation chapter 21, verse
three, the scripture says, behold, the tabernacle of God is with
man and he will dwell with them. And that's what John saw in heaven.
The Lord Jesus Christ says the tabernacle of God is with man. That's, that's what you and I
are in need of. We're in need of God to tabernacle in our presence. And, um, and the, and the, the,
the concept of testimony that's mentioned time and time again
in Psalm 119, every verse has got one of these words in it. Um, the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy. So. There's this testimony, the
precepts, everything that's referred to in here first and foremost
applies to the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. I got a letter from somebody
this week who was accusing me of perverting the scriptures
and they quoted the passage where the Lord said, I did not come
to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And they were using that
verse to say that I need to be preaching more, uh, responsibility
and need to be telling people what they need, how they need
to be living. And, uh, and that's exactly what that verse doesn't
say. The Lord Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law to satisfy
all the demands of God's holy justice and all, and God's holy
law. That's what he came to do. He's
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe us.
How does it, does that mean that we're lawless people? No, no,
we're not lawless. We have a law. It's called the
law of grace. It's called the law of truth.
It's called the law of the spirit. It's called the law of liberty. And it works through faith in
the heart. Let the self-righteous and the
religious, and we've all been there. I know most of you have
been there. Always looking to outward appearances in order
to try to find some hope of salvation. And there's something in us even
now that does that, isn't there? There's a Pharisee in every one
of us. And the accuser of the brethren is quick to say to you,
when there isn't evidence of salvation in your behavior, look
at you. How could you be a Christian?
And we ought to be responding, but our immediate response is,
oh no, I know I am. And we, you know, we defend ourselves.
We ought to be saying, listen, I'm a whole lot worse than that.
The hope of my salvation. is in another. He's my surety. You know the truth is that I
don't know of anybody in this world that's more giving, more
forgiving, more gracious, more humble, more kind, more willing
to To be considerate of other people
and loving. I don't know of anybody in this
world. That's more that way than the people of God. And yet no
child of God looks at themselves and believes that to be true
about them. You know, let the, let the world make accusations
against, you know, when they hear one, when they hear what
I'm about to, what I'm about to bring out of this passage.
They accuse us of being lawless. They accuse us of being antinomian.
And it's just not true. It's not evidenced in our lives. Is it now you look at your own
life and you think, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty lawless. I mean, I
can, I, but it, but you understand what I'm saying. The spirit of
grace and the law of grace and the law of the spirit and the
law of Christ and the law of Liberty goes a lot further. Then the written law, as far
as restraining someone's behavior, does it not? Sure it does. Sure it does. Our love for Christ
constrains us. What this scripture says constrains
us. You know, people, people talk
about wanting to do great things for God. And we used to do it.
I mean, we, we traverse land and sea to make one disciple
and turn him into twice the devil of ourselves. You know, we just
wanted to do great things for God. You know, I've, I've made
full circle from there. Lord, just keep me from, from
shaming the gospel. I've got no ambitions of doing
something great for God. If he's ordained, whatever good
works, I'm supposed to walk in, he's ordained them and they'll
happen. They'll happen. But I've got no, where did that
come from? Where'd it come from? It came
from my need to see something in my life that I could glory
in. And when someone says you need to tell people how to live,
What they really mean by that is you need to preach the law
so that I can find some hope and comfort to glory in the behavior
of my life. You know, the things that I'm
doing, the things that I'm changing, that's what they really mean
by that. And someone says you need to
preach responsibility and tell folks
what they need to do. Well, let me ask you that person
that asked that, that says that, let me ask you this. Do you need
to be told what to do? The scripture says the law is
written on the heart. Even before the 10 commandments
were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, the moral law was already
written on the heart. Everybody knows right and wrong.
It's not, it's not complicated. It's simple. You don't need to
be told what to do. You need to have the power to
do it, don't you? And that comes from grace. That
comes from love. That comes from the spirit. That
comes from the law. The strength of sin is the law. It is. There's something behind
that. I don't want to get into anything
political here because I know we're a nation of laws. And people get in trouble when
they don't submit to the authority of the law. But at the same time,
and this applies to parenting as well, you want to drive someone
into rebellion, you just flex the muscle of the law against
them. And that's all it's going to do. The strength of sin is
the law. It brings out rebellion, doesn't
it? You know, maybe some of these discussions they're having about
how to police people a little bit better is maybe that's a
good thing. You know, because if you just crack the whip of
the law against people, all you're going to do is incite, incite
rebellion. You know that to be true in your
own life, don't you? You don't mind doing something
until you're told you have to do it, right? All right. This whole Psalm is about this.
I used to read Psalm 119 and in my self-righteous pride, I
thought, I can do that. I can do that. First verse goes all the way
back to Psalm 1, blessed is the man. Blessed of God is the man. And the only way I'm gonna be
blessed of God is to be found in the man. And he's the perfect
man. This word that you find in, uh,
in verse one, blessed are the undefiled. By the way, you see
that, that word R A R E it's in italics in your Bible, isn't
it? It's actually singular. It actually ought to be is the
subject in this verse is singular. The subject in the next verse
is plural. And so R is proper in the next
verse, but in the first verse, Is is the proper verb. Okay? So blessed is, and that word
undefiled is perfect. Blessed of God is the perfect
in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Now who's that,
who's that a reference to? Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
42. Isaiah 42. You remember that verse in Psalm
37, verse 37, mark the perfect man and behold the upright for
the end of that man is peace. Mark the perfect man. There's
one perfect man who perfectly fulfilled everything that God
required in his law. He walked according to the law
of God in the fullness of his heart. And his outward behavior
in his, in his intentions and his, in, in his desires, everything
about him was perfect before God and God's pleased with him. And now look what, look what
Psalm 42 says about this, this perfect man would begin reading
the verse 19 who is blind. but my servant, or death as my
messenger that I sent, who is blind as he that is perfect,
and blind as the Lord's servant. Now who's that talking about?
It's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that God
sent. And God's saying he's blind.
Now wait a minute, what's that all about? Well, look. Seen many
things, but thou observeth not. Open in the ears, but he heareth
not. Now what the Lord's telling us here is that this perfect
man is going to separate our sins from us as far as the East
is from the West and remember them no more. How can omniscient
forget? I don't know. I don't know. How can omniscience forget? But
he said he remembered. He doesn't charge our sin against
us. In other words, he doesn't see our sin. Well, we're found
in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Mark the perfect man. Mark, look,
look to Christ. He's the one that walked according
to the law of God. Look at verse, look at verse
21. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He
will magnify the law and make it honorable. Who magnified the
law? Who made the law honorable? Who
did the father look down from heaven and say audibly, this
is my beloved son in him. I am well pleased. How is God going to be pleased
with me and you? By us trying to pretend to be
more righteous. I was trying to, trying to prove
to others that we're spiritual or I don't know what, no, we're
going to be found in Christ. He's God's servant. He said,
he's, he's the one I sent. He's the one I'm pleased with.
He's the one that's going to make the law honorable. And you know what?
When it comes to your sin, he's going to be blind. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter
16. Ezekiel 16. Look at verse 14, the Lord speaking
to Israel, speaking to his church and thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. For it was perfect through my
comeliness. How are we going to be found
perfect? Only to be in Christ. You're renowned for your beauty
and you've been made beautiful by my comeliness. When Daniel
saw the Lord Jesus Christ, He said, my comeliness has turned
into corruption, my beauty, my strength, my ability, my righteousness,
my goodness, my law-keeping, all the outward appearances of
my life have turned into corruption. That's what Job said when he
saw the Lord and he said, behold, I'm Baal. Was Job and Daniel and Paul who
said, I'm the chief of all sinners, were these lawless men? Were
they men that were just indulging themselves in all sorts of, no,
no, they saw Christ and they came to one conclusion. There's
nothing in me like him. Nothing. And the only hope that
I have for having any righteousness before God is to be in him. He's going to have to be blind
to my sins. He's the only one that made the
law honorable. And God says, bless. You see, this is the only
thing that this is the message of the gospel that causes the
heart to be in love with Christ. Doesn't it? And if there's anything
that's going to constrain our, our lives, it's the love of Christ. It's the love of Christ. It's
not the law. The law is given in order to make sin utterly
sinful. That's all the law does. This law just inspires sin, exposes
sin, reveals sin. The law can't make one righteous
or lawless or law-keeping. We can't do it. Go back with me to Psalm 119.
Oh, no, you know what? Let's go to Philippians chapter
three. We quote from this a lot, but Let's, let's read, let's
read several verses out of Philippians chapter three, beginning of verse,
verse seven. But what things were gained to
me? What things were gained to him? Those outward appearances.
He was of the tribe of Benjamin, he was circumcised the eighth
day, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, he was concerning the law, he
was blameless, he had all these, he had all the pedigree and all
that he had. Everybody was impressed with
Saul of Tarsus. Look at him. And then Paul said what? When
the law came, sin revived and I died. What does the law do? The law The law is not our schoolmaster
takes us to Christ. Christ takes us to Christ. The
spirit of God takes us to Christ. The law reveals the glory of
Christ. That's what it does. Somebody, I heard somebody say
recently, well, I'm just, I'm just loving the Lord with all
my heart and all my mind and all my soul. Yeah. How's that working out
for you? The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that ever did that. No, all the laws summed up in
this. You love God with all of your heart, all your mind, all
your soul, love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah. We don't, we don't love anybody as much
as we love ourselves. Whose hunger are you more concerned
about yours or somebody else's? Yeah. You know, I mean, what
kind of, you know, you see it, don't you? You wake up in the
morning, you open your eyes, and all of a sudden you discover
that you're at the very center of your own little universe.
And everything revolves around you. That's the way we are, isn't
it? The Lord's the only one that
loved others more than himself. He's the only one that loved
God with all of his heart, all of his mind, and all of his soul. And that's the summary of the
law. So he's the one that kept the law. Now, does that mean
that we don't love people or we don't love God? No, it doesn't
mean that at all. It means we're looking in faith
to Christ for the fulfillment of the law. So Paul says what things were
gained to me. I thought they were helping me.
I thought they were giving me an advantage. I thought they
were giving me evidence of salvation. I was glorying in those things.
And we all did. We gloried in our behavior. And
believers now, they're ashamed of their behavior. I see your
good works and I glorify my Father which is in heaven when I see
it. But I don't see my own. And you
can't see yours. Isn't that the way it works?
And you show me somebody who's looking at their good works. I'll show you somebody who's
walking by sight, not by faith. So Paul says, that was the time
I was walking by sight and I was looking to these good things
and I thought, you know, they were, they were an advantage
to me. Yay, verse 18, doubtless I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them
but dumb that I may win Christ. Best thing I've ever done, because
I did it. It was infected with sin, it
says it's dumb. We've got to have the Lord Jesus
Christ as our high priest to bear the iniquity of our holy
things, don't we? This is every believer's experience.
There was a time when I was looking at my outward behavior and my
appearances and what other people thought of me and what I was
doing good and what I was doing bad to get either, either the
cause of my salvation or the evidence of my salvation. But now I count those things,
but don't that I may win Christ and be found in him. Look at
that. Be found in him. Not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith for by grace,
or you say through faith and that not of yourselves, it's
a gift of God. That's what we need, isn't it? That's what we
pray for. Lord, increase our faith, increase
our faith. Give me, give me more hope in
Christ. Show me more of his glory. Give
me a firmer grasp of him because I've not yet apprehended him.
Look at let's read this on look that I may know him and the power
of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering be made conformable
to his death. Now that doesn't mean that I
want to, you know, I want to go through life suffering, you
know, the persecution of, no, it means that, that I could see
myself in him. When he died, I died. When he
was raised from the dead, I was raised from the dead. There's
power of the resurrection is through faith. It's not where
you see somebody acting real spiritual and you say, well,
they've got the power of the resurrection. Look at that. No,
the power of the resurrection has already been, that's already
happened. It happened 2000 years ago. And
faith looks back to the resurrection of Christ. That's what baptism
is. We're going to have baptism Sunday,
by the way, Daniel Murray's going to be baptized. been expecting
that for some time and just, he called me Monday and he said,
you know, we had a great conversation. So, or maybe it was Sunday night,
Sunday night when he got home, Sunday night we talked. So, but
that's what baptism is. Buried with Christ in baptism
and raised to walk a new life in Christ Jesus. It's my identification
with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as all my righteousness
before God. And that's what Paul's saying
here. And that's what this Psalm is all about. We walk by faith. If by any means, verse 11, I
may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. That's all I, my
hope. You know, we, we walk by faith
right now and we walk by, we're saved by grace. We walk by faith
and one day it's going to be our experience. And that's what
we're hoping for in it. We're longing for that day, watching
and waiting for his return. If by any means I may attain
to the resurrection of the dead, not as though I'd already attained,
I'm not there yet. Either we're already perfect.
I am perfect. through faith by grace in Christ,
I'm perfect. But my perfection is man. I saw
my experience. That's not my experience right
now. It's not your experience. He's it is it. And, uh, the self-righteousness
that would boast in while I'm getting better. No, we're not
talking about getting better. We're talking about being perfect.
God's not impressed with anything less. Yeah. Be perfect. One day in my experience,
but I follow after I'm following after. If that I may apprehend
that for which also I am apprehended of Christ, brethren, I count
myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do for getting
those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those
things, which are before I press towards the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God. In Christ Jesus. There's the
prize to be found in Christ. That's the prize. He's the perfect
man. We walk by faith. We walk by love. We walk by the
power of the spirit. We walk by grace. These things
cannot be observed in outward appearances. They are seen only
as the Lord enables us to set our affections on things above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And we press
towards that mark for the prize of God in Christ Jesus. This is so important to understand.
Otherwise you're going to read Psalm 119 and you're going to
think, boy, I can, you know, I can do that. All right, go
back with me to our Psalm and we'll just read these verses
quickly. We're going to deal with, Lord willing, we're going
to take this Psalm eight verses at a time. So there's 22 passages
here in this Psalm. A lot of repetition. And we're
going to be, and I wanted to belabor the point that I'm making
tonight because it's the same point that's going to be made
over and over again. Okay. Blast is the perfect. In the way, the perfect man is
blessed of God. And if I'm going to be blessed
of God, I'm going to have to be in him who walk in the law of the Lord. We walk in God's law for walking
in Christ. We're looking to Christ. We're
walking. That's what that's the good works
that he's ordained that we should walk in them. Blessed are they. Now this is the this is the church. The first one is a reference
to Christ. Clearly, the second is a reference to his church.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies that seek him with
the whole heart. So we do. We seek him with all
heart. Seek me with all of your heart.
What did Philip tell that Ethiopian? If you believe with all of your
heart, I've got no place else to go. I've never loved God with
all my heart, but I believe the new man believes God. He's got
nothing else to believe in. He believes on Christ, doesn't
he? So we've been blessed. And this
doesn't mean this is like the beatitudes. Don't think what
God's saying is, well, you know, if you'll, if you'll, uh, keep
his testimonies and seek him with a whole heart, then I'll
bless you. No, no, sir. That's not what this means at
all. It's just the opposite. If you see Christ looking to
his testimonies. The revelation made of him in
his word. And Christ is all you have, and
Christ is all you need. It's because you've been blessed
of God. What a difference. How easy it
is for us to turn grace into works. And we'll do it though,
don't we? We turn grace into works. That's
our unbelief, isn't it? Lord help thou mine unbelief.
increase our faith. They also do no iniquity. No iniquity. Peter said, seek the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. And we're looking for Christ in the
scriptures. We're looking for hope. We're
looking for life. We're looking for him. We have
him, we have everything. And God says, you have no inequity. There's nothing out of balance.
There's nothing lacking. You have everything you need
in him. And you walk after him. My sheep
hear my voice and they follow me. They walk after Christ. Thou hast commanded us to keep
thy precepts diligently. That's faith. That's walking
by faith. And we do what God commands, God provides.
And God only accepts that which he provides. And everything he
provides, he provides in Christ. Everything. No exception to that
rule. So now the Lord, now the believers say, Lord, you commanded
me to pursue you with all of my heart. And you provided that. You've given me a desire for
Christ. To know him. The fellowship of
his suffering. The power of his resurrection.
I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me. But
Lord, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
I press towards the mark for the prize, the high calling in
Christ Jesus. And we just keep... Daniel, I was talking to Daniel
Sunday night and Daniel Murray is going to be baptized. And
he said, he said, you know, he said, I've been reading and listening.
And I know he's been listening. I can tell when God's usually
I can tell, not always, but usually I tell God's dealing with somebody.
And, and, uh, he said, uh, he said, I can't not believe. And I thought, that's good. And
that's your experience. I mean, you always try and not
believe, aren't you? You're always being distracted
away from Christ. You're always finding something
else to believe in and something else to, to, to find comfort
in. But what happens? The Lord is
diligent. He pursues you. He brings you
back to himself and he makes this thing diligent. You can't
get away from him. You cannot not believe on Christ. That's grace. Because if you
could not believe you would. If you could leave the gospel,
you will leave the gospel. You will eventually. But you can't, can you? Why? Because he commanded you. to
pursue him diligently and then he provided with you, for you,
the faith to do that. That's grace. You see, the lawmonger
reads this and says, I'm going to be more diligent. I'm going
to get up an hour earlier. I'm going to pray more. I'm going
to, you know, that's great. Do that. We ought to all pray
more. We ought to be reading our Bible
more. We ought to be witnessing more. But don't think that you're
going to be committed to fulfill these commandments outside of
Christ. He's the one that did these things. And the thing about it is if
you prayed 10 times more than you do now, and you're a child
of God, you'd still be ashamed of your prayer life. Wouldn't you? You wouldn't be
telling anybody about it. You wouldn't be bragging about
it. You wouldn't be taking comfort in it. You wouldn't be thinking,
well, I'm doing a lot better now. No. Matter of fact, the more
you pray, the more you would see of your own evil and the
more you'd recognize your need for Christ and the humbler you'd
get, the more dependent upon the Lord you'd be. Isn't that
the way it works? Look at verse five, oh that my
ways were directed to keep thy statutes. We love God's law. We do love God's law. We're just
not looking to our law keeping for any of our righteousness.
I've said this before, God's law is holy, it's just, and it's
good. And we love holiness, and we
love justice, and we love goodness. But the law of God has never
made anybody holy. It's never justified anybody
and it's never added any goodness to a man's life. The law is not
capable of doing that. The Lord Jesus Christ is holy,
undefiled, separate from sinners. He kept God's law. He justified
God's people before Christ. And he's the only one that's
good. Why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. Christ
is the good one, isn't he? You know, it's been said, if a preacher
hadn't been accused of being an antinomian, it's because he's
not preaching, he's not being clear with the gospel. That's what the lawmongers, that's
what those who are looking to outward appearances say when
they hear the gospel. Well, what about good works?
What about the law? What about this? What about that? It's not because they can find
something in our lives to, you know, that's... It's because the gospel strips
all that away and leaves a man with one thing. What was that quote you gave
of Todd Scott tonight? You said that a lot of things,
a lot of things are important, but only one thing's necessary.
Was that, was that how that quote went? Oh, a lot of things matter,
but only one thing counts. A lot of things matter. But only
one thing counts. I like that counts with God. Lord, if you'll direct my steps
and keep me looking to Christ. Then shall I not be ashamed when
I have respect unto all thy commandments and we do we We have respect
all of God's commandments. The Lord Jesus kept them. I will praise thee with uprightness
of heart. For I've learned by righteous
judgments. God makes you to be a center.
You know that the only way that you can stand righteous in the
presence of God is for the Lord Jesus Christ to judge your sin
by his death on Calvary's cross. And all the judgments of God
were satisfied in Christ. And there's nothing you can do
to add to that or take away from that. He has taught you his righteous
judgments. And that's why, you know, we
don't stand self-righteously judging other men. We believe
ourselves to be worse than them, but we are to judge righteous
judgments when it comes to the gospel. We don't compromise that. A little bit of leaven, leaven's
a whole lump. You put a little bit of works in a message of
salvation and it destroys. If it is of grace, it can no
longer be of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace.
It's either all of grace, You cannot preach Christ high
enough. You cannot preach sinners low
enough, and you cannot preach grace free enough. And the people of God, they rejoice. Amen. Strip me. Remind me again
what a sinner I am. Don't leave me with any of my
righteousness. Exalt Christ, lift him up, because he's my
only hope. And don't give me something to do to get there,
because I can't do it. Look at verse 8, I will keep
thy statutes, oh forsake me not utterly. We do keep his statutes. We do,
every one of them. Our Heavenly Father. Thank you. For the gospel of your free grace. Forgive us for our unbelief.
Increase our faith. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Spiral had a number 24. Yeah. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkenu, The God-man
lived for us, bringing eternal righteousness, which God imputes
to us. Jehovah Sidkenu, our substitute
who died. Your blood has put away our sin,
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkei Du, Your love
has won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our
righteousness. Christ Jesus, you alone we call,
the Lord our righteousness.