Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 62 in your hardback timbrel,
number 62, Crown Him with Many Crowns. Let's all stand together. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love, behold
his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky Can fully
bear that sight But downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries
so bright ? Crown Him the Lord of life ? ? Who triumphed o'er
the grave ? ? Who rose victorious to the strife ? ? For those He
came to save ? ? His glories now we sing ? ? Who died and
rose on high ? who died eternal life to bring and lives that
death may die. Crown him the Lord of heaven. One with the Father known, One
with the Spirit through Him given, From yonder glorious throne. To Thee be endless praise, For
Thou for us hast died, Be thou, O Lord, through endless days
adored and magnified. Please be seated. Good morning. Let's open our
Bibles together to Psalm 86. Psalm 86. announced last Sunday that the
city was making us have a community meeting this past week to invite
the neighbors to see if anybody had any objections to what we
were going to do. And so we sent out the letters,
announced the meeting. It was scheduled for Tuesday
night and nobody showed up. So that's a good thing. We reported
that back to the city. The plans from the contractor
are on the wall in the hallway if you'd like to take a look
at them. And right now we're scheduled to have our final meeting
with the city on the second Tuesday of August. So after that, we
should be ready to get started. All right, let's ask the Lord's
blessings on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father. We come. Before thy throne of
grace. Looking in faith to thy dear
son for the hope of all our acceptance, all our righteousness. And all
our salvation. And father, we do. Come to this
place. With hopeful anticipation that
you will be pleased to send your spirit in power. that you will
cause Christ to be lifted up in our hearts and that we would
see him as we've just sang, crowned, crowned King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. And Lord, in response to seeing
the Lord Jesus Christ high and lifted up, that we would find
ourselves in a spirit of worship, And that you would enable us
Lord to enter into that. Worship that's done in the power
of your spirit and according to the truth of thy word. This
is our hope and this is our prayer. We thank you for it in Christ
name. Amen. You have your Bibles open
to Psalm 86. I've titled this message. Hope for the poor and needy. Hope for the poor and needy.
And I would say on the outset that the only way to be truly
blessed by the words of this psalm is to hear them first and
foremost spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ. who though he was holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than
the heavens, when he bore the sins of his people on Calvary's
cross, he became poor and needy. He that was rich, the scripture
said, became poor. that we, that we by his poverty
might be made rich. And so all of these Psalms as
we've seen over and over again are first and foremost prayers
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice the title of this Psalm,
A Prayer of David. This is an intercessory prayer
that the Lord Jesus Christ is praying on behalf of his church. When the Lord Jesus Christ became
our sin bearer, he became for us in need of God's mercy. And so we hear our Lord praying
as a mercy beggar, asking God to put away those sins that he
took on himself and owned for his own, the sins of his people. When the Lord Jesus Christ prays
to the father for himself, he is praying as the head of the
body. And so how encouraged we are
to know that we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous one who ever lives and makes intercession for us. We're reminded of Peter's experience
when Peter said to the Lord, they may leave you, but not me.
I'm staying with you to the end. And the Lord said, Peter, Peter,
Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you. But then he goes on to say, but
I prayed for you. I've prayed for you and that
your faith fail not. And so in all of Peter's failures,
the Lord Jesus Christ, because he had prayed for him, what was
the difference between Peter and Judas? Peter prayed for,
the Lord prayed for Peter, didn't pray for Judas. Um, Don, you
read in the study this morning, uh, where's Don? It's around
here somewhere. Um, that, uh, there you are from John chapter
17. where the Lord in his high priestly prayer prays for his
church. He prays for his people. And
he says, Father, I pray not for the world. I pray for them which
thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou
hast given them unto me. And so, here's our hope when
we read these prayers. Yes, this is the prayer that
we offer up, but when we pray, we're praying looking to the
one who made this prayer perfect. We've never seen our poverty
as it really is. We've never seen our need as
it really is. But the Lord Jesus Christ did.
And so, yes, this is the prayer of every believer. I am poor
and needy. But our hope is that the Lord
Jesus Christ prayed it perfectly. Who of us would want to stand
before God based on the sincerity and the truthfulness of our own
prayers? We come in the name of Christ,
looking to him for all our acceptance and all our righteousness before
God. So the only way that we can truly be blessed by the words
of this Psalm is to hear them spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read a few verses together.
Bow down thine ear, O Lord. Hear me, for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul, for I am holy. The child of God can pray this
prayer. We can say, Lord, I'm holy, but
my holiness is in him. He's all my righteousness before
you. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only one who could say, I am holy in and of myself. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. The Lord Jesus Christ was God's
servant. He came, sent of the Father,
to bear the guilt of his people, to become poor and needy on Calvary's
cross, and to satisfy the demands of God's justice. And so he says,
he says, preserve my soul, I am holy. O thou, my God, save thy
servant that trusteth in thee. Every believer does trust Christ
for all their righteousness. But our faith is faltering, isn't
it? Every child of God can say with
that father, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. The Lord Jesus Christ had perfect
faith, perfect faith. And so when he prayed this prayer,
he's offering his faith to the father on behalf of his people. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto thee. Now, I don't know if you have
it in the margin of your Bible, but that word daily translated
means all the day long. The Lord, we're called on God,
we're called by God to pray without ceasing, to pray without ceasing. But how many of us do that? The
Lord Jesus Christ did. He stayed in perfect communion
with the Father every moment of his life. I cry unto thee
all the day long, he prayed to the Father. Rejoice, the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Now here's our hope,
brethren. This is the prayer of the son
of David that was heard by the father. Is it possible? Oftentimes
when you and I pray, the scripture says in James that we pray amiss,
that we may consume it upon our own lust. We don't often know
what to pray for. And so we have to conclude all
of our prayers with, Lord, if it be thy will, if it be thy
will. Or we don't know, we're praying
the best we know to pray. Every prayer the Lord Jesus Christ
offered to the father was according to his will, was prayed in perfect
faith, was heard and answered by his father. There's our hope. We have an advocate with the
father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We have one who's interceding
on our behalf. And so Paul concludes in Romans
chapter 8, he says, Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
is even risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who also
maketh intercession for us. Now there's the reason why the
law can't condemn us. Nobody can condemn us. There
is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Why? Because Christ died, is seated at the right hand of God,
and he makes intercession for us. It is God that justifieth. Who can condemn? Who can condemn? There's our hope. All the thoughts
and temptations and accusations of condemnation are taken away,
are taken away in Christ. Poor and needy. If we only knew how poor and
needy we were, we would be people of a lot more prayer than we'd
pray, wouldn't we? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Not the first of the Beatitudes
in Matthew chapter five, blessed. Blessed of God are the poor in
spirit. And what that means is, if you're poor in spirit, you've
been blessed of God. It's God that made you poor.
We don't make ourselves poor. You know, I was thinking about
if any of us were cast into the world of a multi-billionaire,
or a group of multi-billionaires, and they're jet-setting all over
the world to this mansion, we would be very uncomfortable in
that environment, wouldn't we? We'd come to a quick conclusion,
I don't belong here. This is not my world. And we'd
want to get back to our rightful place in society as quickly as
we could. Unless one of those billionaires
adopted us as their child, put our name on all their accounts,
and said, everything I have is yours. Everything I have is yours. You know, that's, we are poor
and needy when we stand in the presence. It's a bad illustration,
I'm sure. But when Isaiah stood in the
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he saw him high and lifted
up, he said, I don't belong here. This is not my world, this is
not my place. He's holy, my eyes have seen
the king. I'm going to die. Woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. Isn't that the conclusion he came to? You see, God makes
us poor and needy when he reveals to us the glory of his own riches
and the glory of his own holiness and the glory of his own righteousness.
It happens every time, every time. We're not going to see
ourselves. We're going to compare ourselves
to other men. That's what we do socioeconomically,
isn't it? We compare ourselves. We pretty
much hang out with people that are in the same strata as we
are. And that's what men do spiritually. They compare themselves to one
another. But when God separates you outside
of all men and puts you in the presence of himself, then the
only conclusion you can come to is that conclusion that Job
came to. Job heard the gospel and he saw
Christ. He said, behold, behold, I see
something I've never seen before. I am vile. I'm vile. I had heard of thee by the hearing
of mine ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee, and I repent
in dust and ashes. Peter came to the same conclusion,
didn't he? What did Peter say? Depart from
me, Lord, I'm a sinful man. I'm a sinful man. If we stand
in the presence of God, God's pleased to make himself known,
and the only conclusion we can come to is that we're poor, poverty
stricken. without any righteousness, without
any reason in and of ourselves whereby God should accept us,
and we cry out, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am
poor and needy. Preserve my soul. And the only
hope that I have that you preserve my soul is that you would credit
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to my account and
make me holy in thy sight. Adopt me as your child. Write my name into all your accounts
and give me access to all your blessings. They're all in Christ. They're all in Christ. You know, sometimes we say about a person or about ourselves,
perhaps, that we're just not committed like we ought to be. Commitment is the result of need. I'll say that again. Commitment is the result of need. If a man or woman is not committed
to their marriage, it's because they don't need that marriage.
If you're not committed to a friendship, it's because you don't need that
friendship. You only commit yourself to that
which you need. People say about their job, you
know, well, you're just not committed to this job. A man or a woman
is not committed to their job, has no need for that job. They've
got their eyes on something else. You commit yourself to that which
you have a need for. Commitment is the result of need. And I can remember in religion,
preachers using the law, the threat of punishment or the promise
for reward to bolster men's commitment. You need to get more committed
to the church, get more committed to the gospel, get more committed
to God. And religion was nothing more than just whipping men up
into a frenzy of commitment. And it'd last a little while
and people make rededications and recommit themselves until
they'd wear off and then you'd have to get them committed again. If the Lord makes us poor and
needy, I will be committed. If you've got to have Christ,
you're going to be committed to him. If you don't, if you're
not committed to him, it's just because you don't need him. And
so as, as frustrated as we might get with ourselves or with other
people about the lack of commitment, um, the real problem is not lack
of commitment. The real problem is lack of need.
It's lack of need. Lord, make us needy, make us
needy and we'll be committed. We talk about being sinful a
lot and God's people are encouraged to be reminded that they're sinners. They really are. When the Lord told Isaiah to
speak a word of comfort to the church, speak ye comfortably
unto Jerusalem. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
What did Isaiah say? Isaiah said, Lord, I want to
comfort them. Where do I begin? What do I tell
them? And what'd the Lord say? Tell
them they're grass. Tell them they're grass, that'll
be a comfort to them. Tell them they have no righteousness in
and of themselves, that'll be a comfort to them. Tell them
that they're fully, completely sinful in my sight, and that'll
be a comfort to them. Anybody's not comforted by being
a sinner, by being told that they're a sinner, is just not
been made a sinner. I remember a lady asked me one
time, she said, are you a positive preacher? And I could tell by
the way she asked the question that she didn't have any idea
what she was talking about. And secondly, I could tell that
she literally wasn't interested in an answer to that question.
What she wanted to know was, do you tell everybody how wonderful
they are? Are you one of those preachers
that tell people that they're sinners all the time? Nothing's
more positive to the child of God than to be reminded that
they have no righteousness whatsoever before God. Nothing drives them
to Christ. Nothing makes them poor and needy
and dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ more than to be reminded
that they are sinners. Christ came to save sinners.
And I get accused a lot, well, you know, you sure criticize
other people's religion a lot. If what they're teaching out
there is no different than what we have here, I've got no hope. I've got no
hope. I've got to know that there's
a difference. I've got to know that there's a difference between
a man made works religion and a religion of free sovereign
grace accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got to know
there's a difference. And if there's no difference,
I'm I've got no hope. I've got no encouragement. I've
got to know that what I'm hearing is the truth. The whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And and so Being reminded that
I'm a sinner and being reminded of the difference between the
gospel of God's free grace and works religion, that's the most
positive message I can hear. Yep, I'm a positive preacher.
Lord, I'm poor and I'm needy. Be merciful unto me. Be merciful
unto me. Lord, I need your mercy. Rejoice the soul of thy servant,
verse four. Return unto me, David said in
Psalm 51, the joy of thy salvation. Lord, I've taken my eyes off
of Christ. I've forgotten how poor and needy
I am. I've tried to find my comfort,
my happiness, my holiness somewhere else. Return unto me the joy
of thy salvation. Rejoice the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." I've got no place
else to go. I've got no place else to go
for any hope. I've tried drinking from those
broken cisterns of polluted waters in the world and they've only
made me sick. Lord, I need the I need that
fountain to be opened the fountain for sin and for uncleanness.
Lord, I'm the center that Christ died for. I'm the one in need
of salvation. I've got no righteousness outside
of him. That's a that's a great hope.
That's the that's the cause of the rejoicing of the soul. Rejoice
in the Lord. Not in anything else. Rejoice
in the Lord. And again, I say rejoice. Let your gentleness, let your
moderation be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord's
at hand. The Lord's at hand. Look at verse
five. For thou, Lord, art good. Lord in me there's no good thing,
but thou art good. Why callest thou me good? And
what the Lord said to that rich young man, there's none good
but God. When we call a man good or a
man bad, we're just referring him to comparing him to another
man. I don't want to be called a bad
person. I want to be a good person as
I relate, as I compare to other men, and you do too. You do too. But man at his very best state
is altogether vanity in the presence of a holy God. You see, God doesn't
grate on a curve. God, we're not gonna stand before
God and be compared to other men. We're gonna stand before
God and be compared to Him. He has a standard of righteousness
that's absolutely perfect. Lord, I'm poor and needy. I'm
in need of Christ to make me holy. He's ready to forgive. Now here's
the good news, brethren. God is a lot quicker to forgive
than we are to ask for forgiveness. The lack of forgiveness is not
on God's part. It's on hours. We're the ones
that are reluctant to come into his presence as a poor and needy
mercy begging center and seek his face. It's not. The problem with forgiveness
is not on his part. It's on our part. He's ready
to forgive. Ready to forgive. Plenteous in
mercy. There's no lack of mercy with
him. There may be a lack of mercy begging from us, but there's
no lack of mercy from him. Unto all them that call upon
him. Oh Lord, I've got no, I've got
to call. I've got to call. Give ear, oh
Lord, unto my prayer and attend to the voice of my supplication. Now, as I've already said, the
Lord Jesus Christ is praying this prayer and he prayed it
perfectly. And we pray it. We conclude it
with in Jesus name. I pray Lord this is this this
prayer. I'm praying in the faith that
you've given me looking to Christ alone. As the one who prayed
it perfectly. In the day of my trouble, I will
call upon thee and thou will answer me. When was the day of
our Lord's trouble? Well, you know when it was. When
he hung suspended between heaven and Earth. when he bore the sins
of God's people, when that sky was blackened and his fellowship
with the Father was broken, and he cried in agony, my God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew more than any man has
ever known, more than any man could ever know, the sorrow,
the pain, the suffering, the burden of sin. We, we, we just
don't know our sin like we like, like he did. We don't know it,
but he did. And he said in my day of trouble,
and he gives us, he gives us just enough trouble from our
sin to cause us to say, Lord, I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. If we knew how much trouble we
were really in, it would overwhelm us. If we knew how bad our sin
really was, we couldn't bear it. He bore it, but he shows
us just enough of it to cause us to say, Lord, I'm in trouble.
I need your mercy. I'm poor. I'm needy. I don't have anything. I can't
do anything. I've got to have Christ. It's
not a matter of commitment. It's a matter of need. Lord,
what I have a need for, I'll be committed to. Look at verse 8. Among the gods. Now the scripture is clear, there
is but one God. But men make idols, and that's
the reference here. They're not really gods in the
sense that they have any power or that they even have any life.
but they present themselves as gods and they deceive us in causing
us to turn to them for our hope. And in one sense, we're guilty
of idolatry all the time, aren't we? Looking away from Christ
and trying to find our hope and our satisfaction somewhere else.
And now what does the believer say in faith? Among the gods there is none
like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto
thy works. Now, when Christ is praying,
he's looking back to the work that he and the Father agreed
upon in the covenant of grace. And he's saying, there's no works
like thy works. Father, here's my hope. I'm laying
down my life for the sheep. I'm laying it down in faith,
believing that you're going to honor the conditions of that
covenant, that you're going to raise me. There's no works like
thy works. And the child of God looks to
the work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. He said,
I came to do the work of my father. That's what I came to do. And we look at his work and we
say, there's no work like his work. What kind of work can I
produce that's going to compensate for my sin? What kind of work
can I produce that's going to redeem me in the sight of a holy
God? What kind of work can I do that's
going to satisfy the demands of God's holy law? What kind
of work? I can't. There's no works like
His works. He's the only one that satisfied
God's law. He's the only one that was able
to put away sin. And so we say in faith, Lord,
there's no works like your works. There's no hope outside of what
you've accomplished. Look at verse nine. All nations
whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord,
and shall glorify thy name. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the scripture says in Revelation chapter 5, is made
up of every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people.
God has a people in every generation scattered about throughout all
the world. And this promise is made to the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to give you the heathen
for thine inheritance. That's what the Lord said in
Psalm 2 verse 8. He said, ask of me and I will
give you the heathen for thine inheritance. You know, we, we
read that verse back in religion and we thought that it was a
mandate that God was given to the church to go out and evangelize
third world countries. There's nothing wrong with taking
the gospel to third world countries. But this promise was not to the
church. Ask of me and I will give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance. We traversed land and sea to
make one disciple and turned him in twice the devil that we
were of ourselves. This promise is given to Christ.
What we didn't know is that we were the heathen. You don't have
to go to a third world country to find a heathen. The Lord said in Isaiah, He said,
I will give you Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Saba will
be given for thee. We didn't know that we were the
Egyptians. We were the Ethiopians. We were
the Sabians. We were the pagans. That's who
the, this promise is made by God to Christ to redeem to himself
for his inheritance, the heathen. who left to themselves are poor
and needy and in need of God's mercy. This is our prayer. Lord, I'm poor. I'm needy. I don't know how poor I am. I
don't know how needy I am. But I know I have no righteousness
standing in the presence of God. And I know that if I've got to
pay for one of my sins, I'm going to go to hell for it. If I've
got to stand in the presence of God and be judged by the most
sincere prayer that I've ever offered up, I'm gonna go to hell
for it. I believe that. Do you believe that? That's the
testimony of a poor and needy person. That's the testimony
of someone who's got to have Christ. I've got to have a savior. I've got to have an advocate.
For in his day of trouble, God heard his prayer. God heard his
prayer. What did he pray? What did he
pray from the cross? Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do. Now, was the Lord Jesus Christ
praying that for everybody? No. If he prayed that for everybody
indiscriminately, then God the Father would be obligated to
forgive all men. The truth is, when you and I
sin, we don't have a clue what we're doing. We really don't. We really, really don't. We don't
know the offense that we don't know what it did to Christ. We
don't know how far God came in order to put away that sin. We
sin and it doesn't bother us much, does it? You know, we do
something really bad and we gotta suffer the consequences of it.
You know, that may, but here's our hope, brethren. We have an
advocate with the father who became poor and needy for his
people. And he prayed in his day of trouble
and the father heard him. And he said, father, forgive
them. Forgive them. They don't know
what they're doing. They don't know what they're
doing. He's plenteous in mercy. Verse 10, For thou art great,
and doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Oh, great and greatly to be praised. He is God alone. There's no other
place to go. There's no other hope for salvation. Not for the poor and the needy,
not for the center. He's great and he is God alone. And so what do we say? Lord,
teach me that way. Now, that's just another way
of saying, Lord, show me Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way. He is the way. He himself is the way. Lord,
show me Christ. And if he does, oh, you'll become
a mercy beggar, don't you? You become poor and needy. You
see. your absolute desperate need
for Christ. Oh Lord, I will walk in thy truth,
unite my heart to fear thy name. To walk in truth is to walk after
Christ, is to walk in the light as he is in the light and to
have fellowship one with another. That's any man say he knows God
and he doesn't walk in the light. He doesn't walk after the gospel.
He's not looking to Christ for the hope of his salvation. He's
a liar and the truth is not in him. I will praise the old Lord. My
God, with all my heart, I will glorify thy name forevermore.
And that's what every poor and needy mercy beggar is gonna be
doing, glorifying his name forevermore. For great is thy mercy towards
me, for thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Again, this is a prayer of the
son of David. This is the prayer of Christ.
And he's saying, Lord, I know you're gonna bring me forth from
the grave. You're going to, I'm gonna be the firstborn among
many brethren. You're going to cause me to be victorious over
death and over hell and over the grave and over sin. You're going to bring me forth
from the lowest hell. And that's where Christ gets
every one of his people. Let me say, let me conclude with
this. Every person in this world is a slave. No, I'm not going to condition
that statement. Period. Every single person in this world
is a slave. Okay. Now I know men and their pride.
So I don't, I don't answer anybody. I'm free. I can do what I want.
I'll do, I'm not going to know. Every person is a slave. You
either slave to Satan or you're slave to God. That's it. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I came to set captivity free. He said, I came. He said, the
gates of hell shall not be able to prevail against this gospel.
I'm going to go into the very pit. Thou hast delivered me from
the lowest hell. Is that where God got you from?
Do you have to go into hell to get you? You say, well, I've
not been in hell. Well, then God hasn't got you
yet. Because that's where he gets his children. He breaks
down the gates of hell, and he takes those who are held captive
by Satan, who are blind, who cannot believe the gospel, who
cannot see the truth, who have no love for God, and he makes
captivity captive. He makes captivity captive. He
takes those who are captive to Satan and translates them into
the kingdom of his light. There's our hope that the depths
of hell are not too far for him to deliver his children from.
He makes them poor and he makes them needy. And none of us see how poor and
needy we are like Christ saw his poverty and his need for
the Father. All right, let's take a break.