Thank you, Joy. So nice having
real piano music. And how long will you be with
us? Very nice. Okay, well good evening everyone.
Let's open tonight's service with number 143 from the hardback
hymnal, 143. Rejoice, the Lord is King. Let's all stand together. Rejoice, the Lord is King, your
Lord and King adore. Rejoice, give thanks and sing,
and triumph nevermore. Lift up your heart. Lift up your voice. Rejoice again, I say rejoice. Jesus, the Savior reigns, the
God of truth and love. When he had purged our stains,
he took his seat above. Lift up your heart. Lift up your voice, rejoice again,
I say rejoice! His kingdom cannot fail. He rules over earth and heaven. The keys of death and hell are
to our Jesus. Give, lift up your heart. Lift up your voice, rejoice again,
I say rejoice. ? Rejoice in glorious hope ?
? Our Lord the Judge shall come ? ? And take his servants up
to their eternal home ? ? Lift up your heart ? ? Lift up your
voice, rejoice again ? Please be seated. Good evening. Joy, it is good
to have you here. And Judy from Pikeville, good
to have you here tonight. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 27. We've been trying to go verse
by verse through these Psalms over the last couple of months. Tonight I wanna do something
a little different. I'm gonna use verse four of Psalm
27 as a jumping off point for bringing a message entitled,
One Thing, One Thing. So we're not gonna go verse by
verse through Psalm 27. So we'll read it as our call
to worship. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When
the wicked, even my enemies and my foes come up against me to
eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fail. You can't read that verse without
thinking about the Lord in the garden of Gethsemane when the
Roman soldiers came and asked, where the Lord, where Jesus was,
and he said, I am. And they all fell backwards,
didn't they? Never a man spake like that before.
Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.
The war should rise against me. In this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the
Lord, and that will I seek after. that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his temple. In the time of trouble
he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall my head be lifted
up above my enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in
his tabernacle sacrifices of joy I will sing, yea, I will
sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When thou saidest, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me.
Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help, leave
me not. Neither forsake me, O God of
my salvation. When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way,
O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of my enemies. Deliver
me not over into the will of my enemies. Read these about
our enemies. Who do you think of? Yeah. This is our sin, isn't it? It's
our sin. Deliver me not over into the
will of my enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait
on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
oh, how we hope that you would be pleased to add your grace
and your blessings, the light of your spirit, and the hope
of salvation to our hearts. Lord, we know that your word
is a two-edged sword, able to cut and to heal, able to divide
asunder the thoughts and intents of the heart. Lord, we ask now
that you would cause us to find all the hope of our salvation
and the one who was successful over our enemies, the one who
conquered sin, death, and the grave. Lord, how we do pray that
you would cause us to long for that day when we will dwell in
thy house forever. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number two from your Gospel Hymn Spiral hymn
book, number two. Lord, we come before thee now. At thy feet we humbly bow. Oh, do not our suit disdain. Shall we seek thee, Lord, in
vain? Lord, on Thee our souls depend. In compassion now descend. Fill our hearts with Thy rich
praise. Tune our lips to sing Thy praise. in thine own appointed way. Now we seek thee, here we stay. Lord, we know not how to go. ? Till a blessing thou bestow
? Send the message from thy word ? That may joy and peace afford
? Let thy spirit now impart ? Christ's salvation to each part Please
be seated. We open your Bibles with me again
to Psalm 27. We're going to be looking at
various texts, but we'll begin here in Psalm 27. I like things that are simple,
don't you? You talk to Tricia, she will
confirm to you that I have a one-track mind. It's impossible for me
to do more than one thing at a time. I just can't do it. And I just like the simplicity
of things being singular. And that's, well, that's true of truth. Truth is simple. Men complicate
things. Man-made religion is very complicated,
very convoluted, lots of different... I was talking to a man today
that was asking me about the Catholic Church and how confusing
it was to him. And I said, well, that's just
the way religion is. But the gospel is simple. It's
simple. Paul said in Romans chapter 12,
verse 8, he that giveth Let him do it with simplicity. Don't be complicated about it. Just be simple. And then in 2
Corinthians 1, verse 12, in simplicity and godly sincerity was our conversation
before you. We weren't complicated. We weren't hard to figure out.
Paul saying to the church at Corinth, we lived a simple, transparent
life before you. And then in 2 Corinthians 11,
verse three, he said, I fear, I fear, lest by any means, as
the serpent beguiled Eve, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. The gospel is very simple,
as is truth. If you seek worldly wisdom for
the answers to life, you're going to find things to be very complicated.
If you get confused about who you are and you go seek therapy
from a worldly counselor, all they'll
delve into your past and they'll try to find out how you're potty
trained and you know it just gets real complicated doesn't
it? It gets real complicated. They'll get you to imagine things
that never happened. Why is it that we do the things
that we do? The answer is very simple. It
goes right back to the garden. What did Satan say to Eve? She
saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eyes, good to the taste,
and able to make one wise. And what did John say? All that
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life. And you look at those three things
and it boils it down to three things, popularity, pleasure,
and power. And everything that everybody
does is motivated by one of those things. People want to figure
out, why did I do the things I do? That's it. That's it. It's not complicated. It's simple. And so the Lord has made the
gospel very simple, hasn't he? I've got eight points to this
message. And the first one you find here
in Psalm 27. The first point is the gospel leaves one with
one desire. One desire. David said, one thing have I
desired of the Lord. One thing. And that will I seek after. I'm
going to pursue this one desire that I have in my heart. And
that is that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Forever. All the days of my life
to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. That's the desire that God puts
into every one of His children's hearts. And ultimately, apart
from whatever temporal needs and desires they have. That's
their goal. That's their goal. To see Him
as He is and to be made like Him. Turn back with me to Psalm
17. Psalm 17. And look at verse 15.
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness." Oh, that's our desire, isn't it? We have
one desire, one desire, to be made like Him, to be shed of
this flesh, to be finished with sin, and to see Him in the fullness
of His glory. Turn with me to Psalm 65. Psalm 65. Look at verse 4. Blessed is the
man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he
may dwell in thy courts We shall be satisfied with the goodness
of thy house, even of thy holy temple. To see Christ in the
beauty of his holiness is to have that one desire fulfilled. The one goal for every child
of God, the one desire is to to behold His beauty and to inquire
of Him in His temple. Now that's the one desire. What
is our one need? What is our one need in achieving
that desire? Well, you remember when the Lord
came to Bethany and Martha and Mary were serving Him in their
home Everybody was sitting around listening to the Lord and Martha's
in the kitchen and she's fretting over what everybody's going to
eat and she comes up to the Lord and she rebukes Mary and says,
Lord, aren't you going to make her help me? And what did the
Lord say? Martha, Martha, you're encumbered
with many things but there's one thing needful, one thing
needful and Mary has chosen the good part. Mary's sitting here
at my feet, inquiring of me, learning of me, and that's the
one thing you need in order to achieve that one goal, that one
purpose, we have one need, and that's to know him as he is. The bottom line is that if you
have Christ, you have everything. And if you don't have Christ,
you have nothing. The one thing that we need is
the Lord Jesus Christ. For Him to speak to our hearts,
for Him to forgive us of our sin, for Him to reveal to us
His glory, for His salvation, and for His person. That is the
one thing needful. The one thing needful. Not only does every believer
have one desire and every believer has one need, there is one thing,
there is one thing that I know for sure. You remember when the Lord healed
the man who was born blind and the Pharisees took him aside
and began to interrogate him and ask him all sorts of theological
questions? And he couldn't answer any of
their questions. He said, I don't know. I don't know. But I know
one thing. I know one thing. Once I was
blind and now I see. Once I was blind to the fact
that I was a sinner. This man I was talking to today
was a Catholic. We had a good conversation about what it meant
to be a sinner and he'd never heard that before. He's my age.
Never heard anything about sin before. He thought sin was just
the bad things that he had done in his life. And we can say,
one thing I know, one thing I know for sure, and that is that everything
about me falls short of the glory of God. Everything about me is
sinful in the sight of a holy God. I'm a sinner. This one thing
I know. My eyes have been opened. There
was a time when I didn't know that. It was a time when I didn't
know who Christ was. Oh, I gave him the right names
and spoke things about him. This man told me today, I even,
I hesitate to repeat this, but he said, and he was very serious. He's very serious. And he thought
he was being, he thought he was being sober and spiritual. He said, Jesus is my hero. He's
my hero. You know, we said all sorts of
blasphemous things about the Lord Jesus Christ, didn't we?
We didn't know who he was. We called him the Christ, but
we used his name in vain. We spoke things about him before
our eyes were opened. We just didn't know. Didn't know
that he was the sovereign God of creation. Didn't know that
he was the accomplished Christ who actually put away all the
sins of all of God's people. We didn't know that he sat ruling
and reigning over all the affairs of men. We didn't know that he
was sovereign in salvation. Why? Because our eyes were closed. We were blind. What does that
blind mean? This one thing I know. Once I
was blind, but now I see. There was a time in our spiritual
blindness that we thought that God saves sinners based on something
they did, either a decision they made or a work they performed.
And then when the Lord opens your eyes, you know, you see,
there's only one thing that God will look to for the forgiveness
of our sin, and that's the blood of his dear son who shed his
precious blood effectually to put away the sins of his people.
Once I was blind. Now I see this one thing I know. I know that we have one desire. We have one need. That one need
is for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have one thing that we know. And Paul said in knowing him,
there's one thing I do. Remember Philippians chapter
three. He said, I've not yet apprehended
that which has apprehended me. I have not yet fully come to
know Him in the fullness of His glory. That's my desire, to know
Him, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering.
But this one thing I do, one thing I do. What is the one thing
we do? We forget those things which
are behind, and we press towards the prize of the high calling
in Christ Jesus. In other words, we forget. We
forget, as God has forgotten, our failures. We don't wallow
in the guilt and shame of our past sins in an attempt to atone
for them. We forget about our successes.
We don't glory in the good things that have happened or the good
things. We don't even live off of yesterday's grace. The blessings
of God we have to forget. We can't live off of them. We
can't eat yesterday's manna. This one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the prize. God
give me my daily bread. Give me a fresh measure of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is the one thing I do. There's one desire that we have,
and that's to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in
His holy temple. There's one need that we have. Mary chose that one thing that
was needful. There is one thing that we know. We know the gospel. We know ourselves. We know who Christ is and what
he's accomplished. There was a time when we were
blind to that, but now we see. And there is one thing we do,
forgetting those things which are behind. And what gives us
assurance of all of these things? Well, turn with me to 2 Peter
3. 2 Peter 3. Verse 8, but beloved, be not
ignorant of this one thing. Be not ignorant of this one thing,
that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand
years is one day. Is that what we're not to be
ignorant of? Is that the one thing he's talking about? No.
No, here's the one thing is the Lord is not slack concerning
his promises as some men count slackness, but as long suffering
to us, we're not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance. The faithfulness of our God to
fulfill all of his promises and to save all of his people. That's the assurance of our salvation. this one thing. Don't be ignorant
of this one thing. Our God is faithful. Our God
fulfills all of his promises and all the promises of God are
yay and amen in Christ Jesus. Don't forget that one thing.
That's the assurance that we have, isn't it? We can't get
any assurance from the fact that, well, I have this, I have one
need. We do have one need. But we can't look at the sincerity
of that need to get assurance, we look at the faithfulness of
our God for our assurance, don't we? Turn with me to Joshua chapter
23. Joshua chapter 23. Look at verse
14. Joshua is preaching his last
message to the children of Israel before the Lord takes him home.
And look what Joshua says, Joshua chapter 23 verse 14, and behold
this day I am going the way of all the earth. These are Joshua's
last words. You remember David's last, these
are Joshua's last words. I'm going the way of the earth
and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not
one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord
your God spake concerning you all are come to pass unto you
and not one thing hath failed thereof." There's our assurance. The faithfulness
of our God to keep all of His promises, not one thing has failed.
He has not failed. He's not frustrated. He's actually
accomplished all of His will and all of His purpose in the
salvation of His people. Not one thing has failed. So we have one desire. We have
one need. We have one thing that we know. We have one thing that we do.
and we have one place that we go for our assurance. Turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter
3. 2 Samuel chapter 3. Abner was the captain of Saul's
army. And it became clear to Abner
that God had removed his hand off of Saul and had made David
to be the future king of Israel. And so Abner goes to David to
pledge his allegiance with the army of Saul to David. And here's David's words in verse
13. And David said, well, I will make a league or a covenant with
thee, but one thing I require of thee, and that is thou shalt
not see my face, except thou first bring Michael, Saul's daughter,
when thou come to see my face. There's one thing required. One
thing required. Can you hear the father? speaking
like David to the Lord Jesus Christ like Abner saying I'm
going to make a covenant with you, but there's one thing that
I require of you and you're not going to see my face unless you
bring your wife with you. And so when the Lord Jesus Christ
entered into glory He took with him the names of those for whom
he lived and died. He took his bride with him. That's
why the scripture says we're seated in the heavenlies in Christ
right now. Before you could see my face,
you got to bring me my wife. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. Turn to me to Ecclesiastes chapter
three. They say there's only two things
that are unavoidable, death and taxes. Well, a lot
of folks have gotten through this world without paying a dime
in taxes. No one, no one has ever escaped
death. There is one thing, there is
one thing that is sure in this world Look at Ecclesiastes chapter
3 verse 19. For that which befalleth the
sons of men befalleth beast, even one thing befalleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the
other. Yea, they have all one breath,
so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast, for all is vanity. We're going to go the same way
the beast go. We're going to die. And we're
going to be put back in the ground. And we're going to return to
the dust. It is appointed unto man once
to die. And after that, the judgment,
there's one thing, one thing that is sure in this world, and
that's death. You remember, I love that passage
over there in John chapter 11 at the resuscitation of Lazarus
when Mary, Martha says, Lord, we know that in the resurrection
we'll see our brother. And the Lord said, oh Martha,
I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me,
though he die, yet shall he live. And he that believeth on me shall
never die. Believeth thou this, Martha?
Believeth thou this? Oh, the one thing that's going
to happen to all men is physical death. We're going to die the
same way the beasts die. What hope we have in knowing
that our Lord has conquered death. Oh, death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The strength, the strength of
sin is the law. Christ has accomplished the law.
He's defeated death. He's conquered, he's conquered
the grave. All the gospels, I think, deal
with this passage of scripture. You remember when the Pharisees
asked the Lord, by what authority, by what authority do you do these
things? And the Lord looked at them and
he said, I'll ask you one question, one question, one thing, one
thing. And if you answer that one thing,
then I'll tell you where I get my authority from. And so he
asked them, he said, the baptism of John, Was it from heaven or
was it from men? And they conferred among themselves
and they said, well, if we say it's from heaven, then he's going
to want to know why we don't believe John. And if we say it's
from men, then the people are going to turn against us because
they all love John. And so he said, they said, we cannot tell. And the Lord said, and neither
will I tell you where my authority comes from. You see, there's
only one question to be answered. There's only one question to
be answered. Is the gospel based on the authority of God or is
it on the authority of men? If it's on the authority of God,
then it's everything. It's to be believed. You see,
if the gospel is true, it requires everything. If it's not true,
doesn't require anything. But one thing you cannot come
to a conclusion to about the gospel and that is that it's
moderately important or that it requires, you know, a little
bit of attention. It's either everything or it's
nothing. And the Lord says, I have one question for you. I have
one question for you. What John preached, Behold the
Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, was John
from God or was he from men? And if he was from God, then
you have to believe everything he said. Everything he said. But left to ourselves, there's
one thing lacking. You remember in Mark chapter
10 when the Lord sets his affections on that rich young ruler and
the scripture says that he loved him? which assures us that that
rich young ruler, though he walked away sorrowful, was one of the
lords and would be saved eventually, whoever he was. But the rich
young ruler, what must I do to be saved? The Lord said, keep
the commandments. Oh, I've kept those from my youth. I've kept
those from my youth. I've always kept the command.
What else? What else? What'd the Lord say? One thing
thou lackest, sell all that you have, give it to the poor. You'll have treasures in heaven
beyond measure. Take up your cross and follow
me." And he went away sad. Why? Because the scripture says,
for he was very wealthy. That was his God, wasn't it?
That was his God. One thing the natural man lacks,
forsaking his false hopes, and following after the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the one thing he lacks.
One thing. Oh, the message of the gospel
is simple. It is singular. It has everything
to do with that one man, the Lord Jesus Christ. May God be
pleased to make him our desire to make him all our hope and
all our salvation. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father, we pray that you would give us
the simplicity of Christ. Lord, we are so easily distracted
We're so easily caught up in the many things of this world,
encumbered like our sister Martha. Lord, cause us to choose that
one thing needful to sit at thy feet. Lord, we pray that you
would speak to our hearts and give us that one true hope of
knowing that We will behold thy face in glory. Be made like you. Make that our desire. We ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 32, let's stand together. Amen. Amen. All children of wrath, in bondage
and sin, we helplessly lay, condemned and unclean. God's law in its
infinite justice and wrath demanded we suffer an eternal death. you But long before time had
ever begun, One stood in our place, God's glorious Son. He offered himself to go live
among men, And give his own life to atone for our sin. The great substitute, behold
he has come. The price has been paid, the
work is all done. Christ took on himself the great
load of our sin. He poured out his blood and he
put away sin. God's justice and law are now
satisfied. And all who believe have been
justified. ? With faith in the blood of
the Lamb we are free ? From sin's condemnation eternally free