Good evening. Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 19 from your Spiral Gospel Hymn Book,
number 19, Pleading for Grace. Let's all stand together. Sovereign ruler, lord of all,
prostrate at your feet I fall. You are holy, wise, and just. I'm a creature of the dust. All things move at your command,
governed by your mighty hand. ? Heaven, earth, and hell I see
? Fulfill all your wise decree ? Dares a man resist his Lord
? Stand against the sovereign God ? I will bow before your
throne ? Seeking grace in Christ your Son ? Through his blood
and righteousness ? ? Lord I plead with you for grace ? ? If you
will you can I know ? ? Grace and mercy to beshow ? ? Will
you Lord my soul forgive ? ? Grant this sinner grace to live ? I've
no other hope but this, Jesus' blood and righteousness. Now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hide my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. Oh, for mercy now I plead. Grant me, Lord, the grace I need. Turn, oh, turn to me and say,
all your sins are washed away. In my son, your debt is paid. He, for you, the ransom made. Please be seated. Turn, oh, turn to me and say,
all your sins are washed away. Our hope tonight is the Lord
will speak that effectually to our hearts and show us the successful
work of our Savior and the hope that we have in Him. Good evening. Good to have the
Hanley's with us from College Grove. They were here. Jason
and Haley were here. You guys, the girls weren't here,
were they? In January. We're glad they're here. Their
guys are on spring break, I assume, right? Yeah, okay. Turn with me in your Bibles to
2 Thessalonians for our scripture reading. 2 Thessalonians. We
often make reference of the verses in this chapter that refer to
those who have no love of the truth and are deceived by their
own unrighteousness and are turned over to strong delusion. But I want to begin reading tonight
in verse 13, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you brethren. Beloved of the Lord. Because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Through sanctification
of the spirit. And belief. Of the truth. That's faith and that's the new
birth. And that's how the Lord brings
us to himself. Where into he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't miss that. He calls you
by his gospel to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
union with Christ. Therefore, brethren stand fast. and hold the traditions which
you have been taught, whether by word or by epistle. Here, the word tradition is used
in a good sense. It's the teachings of the scriptures. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort
your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. I assume everybody has heard
that Don Fortner has been diagnosed with lung cancer, and you haven't
heard that, Michael. He's known since January, but
he didn't announce it to anybody until this past Sunday. They're
going to do some radiation treatments, I think, and see if they can
eradicate the tumors. I understand it's like a stage
one, but he's having some symptoms as a result of it. So I want
to pray for the church in Danville and pray for Don and for Shelby
and Grace, Faith. That's close. All right, let's pray together.
Our merciful heavenly father. How we do hope that you would
send your spirit in power and that you would. Show us once
again the glory of thy dear son and the hope that we have being
found in him. Father, we. Pray that you would
open our hearts and open your word and. Pray that you would
run the heavens and come down and speak to us. We pray for
our brother Don. We thank you for him and ask
Lord that your. Hand of healing would be upon
him. We pray that you would comfort him and encourage him in this
time of trial. Pray for Shelby and faith and
the church there in Danville. We know Lord that. These things
are ordained of you for your glory and for our good and. Pray
that you would increase our faith, enabling us to believe you. And
we ask it in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number 294 from the hardback temple, 294. Savior, like a shepherd lead
us, much we need thy tender care. ? In thy pleasant pastures feed
us ? For our use thy folds prepare ? Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus
? Thou hast bought us, thine we are ? Blessed Jesus, blessed
Jesus Thou hast bought us Thine, we are. We are Thine, do Thou befriend
us. Be the guardian of our way. ? Keep thy flock from sin, defend
us ? Seek us when we go astray ? Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus
? Early let us turn to thee Oh, sorry, pray. ? Blessed Jesus,
blessed Jesus Hear, O hear us when we pray. Thou hast promised to receive
us, poor and sinful though we be. Thou hast mercy to relieve us,
grace to cleanse and power to free. Blessed Jesus, blessed
Jesus, early let us pray. let us turn to Thee. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
early let us turn to Thee. Early let us seek Thy favor,
early let us do Thy will. Blessed Lord and only Savior,
with Thy love our bosoms fill. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast loved us, love us still. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast loved us, love us still. Please be seated. Notice how Tom always tells us
what verse we're going to be on. I heard him tell somebody
one time that thanked him for doing that. He said, I do that
for me. So you weren't listening to yourself that time, were you?
All right. I've titled this message prayer
and faith. Prayer and faith. Prayer is what
faith does. And I don't suppose there's anything
that reveals the weakness of our faith more than our lack
of prayer. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
had perfect faith. We are admonished of the scriptures
to pray without ceasing. He prayed without ceasing. And
it's his prayers that save us. It's his faith that saves us.
He does give us faith, enabling us to believe on him. And he
does, through that faith, cause us to be people of prayer. But
in Psalm 69, we have a glorious prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ
himself offers up to the father before we go to sixteen psalm
sixty nine if you'd like to turn me to philippians chapter two That's not the verse I wanted
to look at. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
2. Or Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 2. I'm sorry.
Galatians chapter 2. In verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law. God's law is holy. God's law
is just, and God's law is good, and we love God's law. But God's
law can't justify us. The only thing the law will do
is condemn us. And as we saw Sunday, God's law is not our
schoolmaster that brings us to Christ. We were once under the
law, and then the Lord gave us ears to hear the gospel and faith
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and delivered us, delivered
us from the rigors and the curse of the law. And so he says here,
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ. That's how we're justified before
God. The Lord Jesus Christ believed God perfectly all the time with
all of his heart and his faith justified those whom he came
to live and die for. Even we, which have believed
in Jesus Christ that we might 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. Look over verse 11 in chapter
3. Well, verse 20 of chapter 2, I am crucified with Christ. When Christ died on Calvary's
cross The hope of our salvation is that we were in Him, and cursed
is everyone that hangeth upon the tree. And God's justice was
satisfied through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
all those that were in Him were crucified in Him. Nevertheless,
I live, yet not I. I'm not the source of my life. It is Christ that liveth in me.
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do
not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness come by
the law then Christ is dead in vain." There are several of those
passages we could spend some time to look at them but I want
to get to our text in Psalm 69. I wanted to introduce this message
by by showing you that our justification before God is not by our faithfulness,
it's by His. It's not by our obedience, it's
by His. It's not by our prayers, it's
by His. And do we pray? If we have faith, we do. If we
have faith, we do. And the Lord knows how to increase
our faith, and he knows how to increase our prayers, doesn't
he? He knows how to draw his children back into fellowship
with him, and how oftentimes he does that. Faith and prayer
is a demonstration of dependence. You know, I hear people say,
You know, well, they're a great man of faith, or he's leaning
on his faith, or his faith is his strength. No, no, faith is
our admission of our weakness, and that's why Paul said, when
I am weak, then I am strong, for his strength is made perfect
in my weakness. And faith and prayer are an expression
of our weakness and our dependence upon the faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So as the Lord reveals to us
our need, that faith turns in hopes of Him and looks to the
Lord Jesus Christ for all the hope of our salvation. Our faith
is not in our faith. We're not leaning on our faith.
We're leaning on Christ. And faith is what enables us
to believe on Him. So this matter of prayer and
faith, Well, they're two sides of the same coin. And because
our Lord's faith was perfect faith, and that God is looking
to his faithfulness, his prayers were perfect. And in Psalm 69,
you know, even those who only see Christ in a few of the psalms,
we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the subject of every
psalm. and that the whole book of God is messianic. But there
are those self-professed scholars who would say, well, you know,
there's eight, some say 10, some say 12, some say 15 messianic
psalms, and they don't see Christ anywhere else. Even those people
will say Psalm 69 is a messianic psalm. You cannot deny it. and it's so clear we saw that
we saw that in verse four Sunday morning when the Lord said and
I will restore that which I took not away and the Lord Jesus Christ
restored back the glory of God he restored back our salvation
he restored back so much more than we ever lost in our father
Adam and then in verse five Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. Now at first reading I
confessed to you that I thought, you know, that's what I need
to, you know, Lord you know my foolishness, you know that my
sins are not hid from you. And I thought, wait a minute,
my sins are hid from God. He separated my sins as far as
the East is from the West. He said, I remember them no more.
I've sewed them up in a bag. I've thrown them behind my back.
I've buried them in the depths of the sea. Only the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself can pray, verse 5. He's the only one that can
pray that verse. Because God saw our sins in Him. And God made Him to be sin for
us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And that's the reason that God
forsook the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a prayer that the Lord's
praying in the garden and on the cross. And the father forsakes
his son because he saw sin on his son. And the reason that
he doesn't forsake us is because he doesn't see sin on us. Sin's
been put away. If God sees sin on us, if he
should, we often quote that passage, if God should mark iniquity,
who shall stand? And we think, well, if we stood
in the presence of a holy God on the day of judgment and we
had one sin left on us, we'd go to hell for it. But the truth
is that we cannot come into the presence of God right now with
him looking at one sin on us. That's why we come before the
throne of grace to find help and mercy in our time of need. We can't stand in the presence
of God with sin on us. We can't. Thou knowest my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. When David prayed in Psalm
51, he said, my sins are ever before me. And they are. They're before us. And they drive
us to Christ, don't they? The older shall serve the younger. And Esau, our old man, our flesh,
at firstborn, drives the new man to Christ. Our sin is ever
before us. But here's the truth, brethren.
It's not before God. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the only one that could pray Psalm 69, verse 5. My sin is ever before Thee. Christ owned our sin as His own,
and it was before God, and that's the reason that God slew Him. Let not them that wait on Thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for My sake. Let not those that
seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel." The Lord
Jesus Christ is praying for his church. He said, Lord, don't
let them be ashamed because of me. Don't let them be afraid.
Don't let them be confounded. Don't let them be confused. Give
them clarity as to what I'm accomplishing for them. And what is it he's
accomplishing for us? The fullness of our salvation.
He's accomplished the putting away of our sin so that we can't
pray, God, my sin is ever before thee. It's not, it's not. The disciples were confounded
and confused. They were ashamed and afraid
when the Lord went to the cross and they all forsook him. And
he's gonna speak of that in this Psalm. But what did the Lord
say to Peter? Peter, be of good cheer. I've
prayed for you. I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. Faith cannot fail. Oh, it falters. It falters, and no child of God
could ever misunderstand what that man said when he said, Lord,
I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. We know
what that means by our experience, don't we? But even though we
have so much unbelief, faith is always there because the Lord's
prayed, said, Lord, don't let them be confounded. Don't let
them be confused. Don't let them be afraid. Don't
let them be ashamed. And we are often, aren't we?
We have opportunities to stand for the truth or to stand for
Christ. And sometimes we're afraid of what people might say or think.
But here the Lord prays for his church. He said, Father, don't
let them be that way. Look at, I love verse seven. Because for thy sake I have borne
reproach, shame hath covered my face. What the Lord Jesus
Christ did, in coming to this earth, in being made in the likeness
of sinful flesh, in being born of a woman, in being put under
the law. What he did in being under the
contradiction of sinners, as the scripture says, and what
he did on Calvary's cross. when he suffered the full burden
of God's justice and God's wrath in order to put away our sins
so that we don't have to pray, Lord, I know my sin is ever before
thee. What he did all of that for was
for his father. It was to fulfill the promise
that he had made in the covenant of grace to his father. And that's what kept him going.
And so when the disciples were afraid, when they were confounded,
when they were confused, when the Pharisees called him Beelzebub,
in his heart of hearts he was able to say, I'm not doing this
for you. I'm doing this for my father. And child of God, when
you feel like, you know, no one seems to care, notice what I'm
doing. I keep giving and other people
keep taking and nobody's appreciating what I'm doing. Consider this,
who are you doing it for? Who are you doing it for? That's
what the Lord Jesus Christ considered, because for thy sake I have borne
reproach. The Lord says whatsoever you
do, do it with all of your heart, unto the Lord, not as unto men. And just remember who you're
doing it for and you'll be able to keep serving even though you're
unappreciated, even though nobody notices, even though you might
feel like Elijah in the cave. You know, Lord, I'm all alone.
You know, I'm the only faithful one here. Nobody else, everybody
else has rejected you. And when that happens, just remember
who you're doing it for. Because for thy sake I have borne
reproach. And what reproach he bore. We don't, we don't bear any reproach
compared to what he bore. Shame hath covered my face. He
knew what, he knew what shame was. Infinitely more than you and
I do. Verse 8, I have become a stranger
unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children. His mother's children, that was
his brethren. They didn't believe on him until after the resurrection. His own, I mean, can you imagine
growing up in the same home with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, and yet they didn't have any idea who he was? That's a
testimony of our need for divine revelation. If a person can spend
30 years with the Son of God and not know that he's God, until the Spirit of God opens
their eyes, you won't know, you won't know. So he says, I've
become a stranger to my brethren. The disciples have forsaken me.
They don't know me. Peter, I know him not. With cursings three times he
denied him. He said, I don't know who you're
talking about. Now that's becoming a stranger
to your brethren, isn't it? Verse 9. for the zeal of thine
house hath eaten me up. Now that passage is quoted in
John chapter two, the Lord at the beginning of his earthly
ministry and at the end of his ministry went in and cleansed
the temple. It's recorded twice, he made
cords of whips, he chased out the money changers, he turned
over the tables and he declared unto them, you have turned the
house of God into a den of thieves. And the house of prayer, he called
it one time, the house of God, you've turned it into a den of
thieves. And that's the zeal that he has for prayer and faith. That temple was a place of prayer. It was a place of worship. It
wasn't a place of bartering with God. That's what they had turned
it into. You, you bring your sacrifice and you make your offerings
and you, you know, exchange the monies and all that sort of thing.
And it's just, it's works. Religion is what it was. Works
religion. You bring your part and God will
do his part. And there's the religious hucksters that were
there to monitor everything. And, and the Lord was, was eaten
up with zeal. And after he had done that in
John chapter 2, the disciples remembered, the scripture says,
and they remembered this verse, for the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. You know, he still has that kind
of zeal for his house. He has that kind of zeal for
this house. He ever takes his hands off of
us and we lose sight of Christ and God forbid that we should
ever make works and means of salvation, his judgment will
come upon us. But as long as he gives us grace
to lift Christ up, the zeal of his grace and the zeal of his
love and the zeal of his favor is upon us. The zeal of thine
house hath eaten me up and the reproaches of them that reproach
thee are fallen upon me. Now, what reproaches fell on
the Lord Jesus Christ? The reproaches that we that we
put on him. He's not talking about the reproaches
of the world, he's talking about the reproaches of his people.
They have fallen on me. The reproaches of them that reproached
thee have fallen upon me. When I wept and chastened my
soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. And when did the
Lord Jesus Christ weep? He wept in the garden. He cried
out before the father. And that's when, I don't understand
this, I don't know, well, I don't understand any of it, but it
seems like to me that the beginning of the father forsaking his son
took place in the garden. And that everything he went through
that night and the next day, he went through alone. And here he's saying, I have
chastened my soul with fasting. And what was the food of the
Lord Jesus Christ's soul? Well, what's the food of your
soul? He is, isn't he? He's the food
of your soul. You can't feed your soul with
anything else. You can't feed your soul with
material wealth. You can't feed your soul with
pleasure. You can feed your flesh with those things, but you can't
feed your soul with anything other than the bread of life.
So what was the, if you fast your soul, what you're doing
is you're separating yourself from the very food of your soul. You're separating yourself from
Christ. So when the Lord Jesus Christ said, I chastened my soul
with fasting, he's talking about separating himself from the Father.
And the Father separated him because his food was his fellowship
with the Father, his love with the Father. His communion with
the Father, that was His food. I have made that you know not
of. He was in constant fellowship and communion with His heavenly
Father. And something happened to that
communion, beginning in the garden and going all that night and
the next day. And as He hung on Calvary's cross,
finally, in great agony, He cried out, My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me? He had chastened His soul with
fasting. Now, you and I can go without
spiritual bread for lengths of time and not think much about
it, but that wasn't true of him. Wasn't true of him. And that was to my reproach. His reproach from the Father
began when he chastened his soul from the Father with fasting. He said, We broke fellowship, you forsook
me. I fasted my very soul in the meat of my communion with
you. And in return, you bruised me. You bruised me, you didn't have
pity upon me. Your wrath fell upon me. Why? Because he's bearing sin. And
the eyes of God are too pure to look upon sin. Here's the
hope, brethren. They looked upon his sin and
God poured out the full fury of his wrath on Christ, our sin
bearer, our substitute, so that he would never see sin on us,
ever. I made sackcloth also my garment
and I became a proverb to them. Well, sackcloth, we see that
oftentimes in the scriptures, don't we? When God puts his people
under great trial and trouble, they take off their clothes and
put on sackcloth and ashes and some kind of rough burlap kind
of clothing that was symbolic. It was symbolic of sorrow and
trouble and of mourning. And what does the scripture say
about the Lord Jesus Christ? He was the man of sorrow, acquainted
with grief. All those symbols of sackcloth
that we see in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ, he wore
that to his soul. I mean, the fulfillment of all
those types and pictures of sackcloth in the Old Testament were fulfilled
in what he went through. I made sackcloth also my garments
and I became a proverb to them. They mocked me and men still
do. If you'd be the son of God, come
down. He saved others, he cannot save himself. And they made jest
of him. They cast lots for his garment.
They put a crown of thorns on his head. They struck him with
their fist and ripped out his beard. And what did they do all
this? They were making a proverb out
of the very one who had put on spiritual sackcloth. They that sit in the gate speak
against me. Now brethren, this is our encouragement,
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ went through what you and I go
through in such a small measure. He went through it in an infinite
measure. And so we're looking unto Him,
we're following after Him, and we're crying out to Him in the
same way when we, in our weakness, find ourselves in this same situation,
we have to remember that our situation is nothing like His
was. And He understands. He understands. We have a high
priest who is able to sympathize with our infirmities. Why? Because he was tempted in all
ways, even as we are, yet he was without sin. Why was he without sin? Because
he believed God. You see, perfect faith, that
which is not of faith is sin. Isn't that what the scripture
says? So the Lord Jesus Christ had perfect faith all the time.
The sin that he bore, he owned as his own was our sin. They that sit in the gate speak
against me. Who are they that sit in the
gate? Well, those were the elders sat in the gate in the Old Testament.
We see that many times where the leaders of the community,
they've got a place where they hold their council meetings and
where they hold court and make decisions and judgments. Well,
who sat in the gate? It was the Pharisees. It was
the religious leaders. It was the Sadducees. And so
the Lord is saying, they that sit in the gate, they speak against
me. They declared things about me
that were not true. They hated me without a cause.
They made accusations about me that were not true. And I was a song. of the drunkard. So from the leaders of the community
down to the homeless guy who's drunk all the time. No one had any regard for Christ. So he's rejected of everybody.
rejected of his brethren, rejected of his disciples, bearing, rejected
of his father, he's bearing all of this shame and sorrow and
trouble alone, alone. But, but, as for me, in spite of all these troubles
in spite of all these things that i'm going through what i'm
gonna do i will pray i'm gonna pray why because i'm out here
all alone and i'm and i'm bearing a burden that i can handle and
i i i've got to have the father i've got to go before god i've
got to pray for the father what do we're gonna see what is a
pray for what he's praying for is for the father to raise him
from the dead that's what he's praying for and that's the most
important thing you and I can pray for we we just contemplated it's a it's a sobering thought
isn't it or you don't have to You're gonna have to take me
through the shadow of the valley of death. I can't take this lightly. But as for me, my prayer, oh,
what a man of prayer he was. He continued to pray, didn't
he? Even when the heavens were brass, And the father had showed no
evidence of hearing his prayers. Even then, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in his faithfulness to his father, prayed to his dying breath, to
his dying breath, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
It's the last thing he said. But as for me, I will pray. Pray to who? Pray to my Lord. Pray to the father. Child of
God, when you find yourself having some of these experiences. No
one understands. No one cares. You have a burden that you can't
carry. Your sin is before you. It's
not before God. Pray. Pray. That's what the Lord
is telling us to do. But as for me, my prayer is unto
thee." And when did the Lord Jesus Christ pray? Well, he prayed
always, didn't he? What's it say? What's it say?
In an acceptable time. Oh, it's always an acceptable
time to go before the Father. He never sleeps nor slumbers.
We're called on, we're admonished to pray without ceasing. There's
never a time when God's going to say, no, It's not an acceptable
time, not a pleasing time. Now you remember in Luke Chapter
4 when the Lord Jesus Christ is quoting from Isaiah Chapter
60 and declaring Himself to be the Messiah. Isaiah 61, He declares
Himself to be the Messiah. Turn with me to that passage.
This goes right along with the message from last Sunday. Luke
Chapter 4. Remember the passage in Psalm
69 verse 4, and I restored that which I took not away. And here
I want you to see in Luke chapter 4 verse 18, the
Spirit of the Lord is upon me. You remember he went in, he took
the scroll, and he stood up and he read this. clear messianic
passage. Everybody there knew this verse
of scripture. Everybody there knew that this
applied to the Messiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. That's what Messiah means, the Anointed One. Here's the
One who comes in the full power of the Spirit of God. Because
He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and the recovering of the sight to the blind, and
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. Now go back with me to our text.
When did the Lord Jesus Christ pray to the Father? But as for
me, verse 13, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable
time. Now that's a reference to the
year of Jubilee. The acceptable year of the Lord
was the year of Jubilee. The Lord had given the law that
every 50th year, all debts were to be canceled. All indentured
servants were to be set free and all land was to be returned
back to its original owner so that the tribes would remain
in contact with the things that had been distributed to them
when they took over the promised land. Now there's no evidence
that the Jews ever did celebrate the year of Jubilee. Why? Because the leaders were the
ones that owned the slaves. The leaders were the ones that
owned the debt. The leaders were the ones that
owned all the property. Why would they want to lead the
people to observe the year of jubilee? And when the Lord Jesus
Christ came, he restored that which he took not away. All debt
was canceled. All property was returned back
to its owner. And all slaves were set free. And the entire life and ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ was the year of Jubilee. It was the
year of Jubilee. And he prayed to the Father in
an accepted time. And when we go before the Father,
we're praying based on the accomplishments that he made in restoring that
which he took not away. We have a debt that we cannot
pay. He paid it. We lost everything in our father
Adam. All paradise had been lost. All
fellowship had been lost. He restored it. He restored it. We're in bondage to our sin.
We can't believe our sin is ever before us. We've got to get it.
We've got to get that sin so that it's not before God. He
did that. He did that. So when we pray,
we are praying in light of the acceptable year of the Lord. And it's always an acceptable
time to pray when you come before the throne of grace based on
the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did to restore that which
he took not away. What was the basis of our Lord's
prayer? And what's the basis of our prayers?
Well, mercy and truth. Mercy and truth. Mercy is God
withholding from us what we deserve because he's already spent his
wrath on our propitiation, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he delights
in showing mercy. Oh, our God is full of mercy. He's so much more willing to
show mercy than we are to ask for it, isn't he? We revert back
to the law when we think, well, I've got to... I've got to go
through some shame and sorrow and I've got to bear the burden
of my sin in order for me to show my sincerity and my commitment
to God. Look what the Lord Jesus Christ
said, but ask for me. As for me, my prayer is unto
thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time, O God, in the multitude
of thy mercy. Hear me. So we're not coming before God
in prayer with a bargaining chip. We're not bartering with God.
We're not saying, O God, forgive me. We're coming based on nothing
but pure mercy. pure mercy. And the only way
that God can have mercy towards us is if he has no anger and
no wrath and no judgment left. And in the truth of thy salvation.
So the basis upon which we come before the Father is mercy and
truth. Now what is the truth of God's
salvation? Well, four things I want you to see on the truth
of God's salvation. The first is that the truth of
salvation is that God is sovereign in salvation. I will have mercy
upon whom I will have mercy and whom I will out harden. God sovereignly
chose and elected a particular people before the world ever
began. God is, it's his salvation. We come before his throne of
grace, knowing that he is sovereign. It's the only way, the only thing
that's gonna make us to be a mercy beggar is to believe that God
possesses salvation as his and will distribute it as he wills.
That's what causes us to beg for mercy. Otherwise, we're gonna
try to bring something else to persuade him to have mercy or
to save us. God is sovereign and this is
the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ goes to the father based on the
abundance of his mercy and the truth of his salvation. The second
thing about the Lord's salvation is that it is successful. It's
successful. It's finished. The Lord Jesus
Christ has accomplished everything necessary for the salvation of
his people. So the truth of his salvation is that he is sovereign
over it and that he was successful in putting away our sin and satisfying
God's requirements for justice. Thirdly, it's sufficient. It's sufficient. You can't add
to it. You can't take away from it.
what the Lord Jesus Christ did, the onlyness of the Lord. He
only is my salvation and he only is my desire. The scripture says,
if a man's eye is single, then the whole body is full of light.
But if his eye is evil, then the whole body is full of darkness.
And if it's dark, how great is the darkness thereof. Now you
can look up that passage of scripture. The word evil translated means
full of labors, full of labors. That's the word. So the Lord
says, if you've got a single eye, you're looking to Christ
alone and his accomplished work of redemption for all the hope
of your salvation, you're going to be full of light, but If you're
full of labors, if you've added to the sufficiency of the Lord
Jesus Christ and you're expecting Him to save you based on anything
other than what Christ did, then darkness is going to come. And
fourthly, what is the truth of His salvation? It's to the glory
of His grace. It's all for His glory. It's
not about you, it's not about me, it's about Him. It's about
His glory. Deliver me out of the mire and
let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them
that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flow
overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not
the pit shut her mouth upon me. What is the Lord Jesus Christ
praying for? He's praying for the very first
thing that you and I need to be praying for. Salvation, eternal
life, deliverance from death and hell and judgment. You know,
we spend so much time praying about the temporal things, don't
we? This is the eternal. That's what he's, Lord, don't
let the, he's praying to the Father, don't let the grave,
don't let the grave shut its mouth on me. Don't let me, don't
let me be separated from you. Save me. Save me. Save me from the condemnation
that is to come. Save me from wrath and judgment.
and do it according to the abundance of your mercy and the truth of
your salvation. Our Lord Jesus Christ had perfect
faith and he prayed perfect prayers. And when those disciples said,
Lord, teach us to pray, that's what he's doing, isn't he? Teaching
us, teaching us, showing us how to express our faith in prayer. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly
Father, we confess to you that our faith is weak and often faltering,
and Lord, the evidence of that is seen in the weakness of our
own prayers and our unbelief. But oh, what great hope we have
in knowing that we have a Savior. We have an advocate, a sin bearer.
We have a substitute who seated at the right hand who had perfect
faith and whose prayers were perfect. Or to enable us to set
our affections on him. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith. We ask it in his name. Amen. Alright, let's stand together
number 127. ? Man of sorrows, what a name ?
For the Son of God who came ? Ruined sinners to reclaim ? Hallelujah,
what a Savior Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned
He stood, Sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior! Guilty, vile, and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He, Full atonement can it be, Hallelujah,
what a Savior! Lifted up was he to die, It is
finished was his cry, Now in heaven exalted high, Hallelujah,
what a Savior! When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring, Then anew this song we'll sing,
Hallelujah, what a Savior! th th