Psalm 42, Psalm 42. I want to
thank Brian and Ryan for putting the carpet down a few weeks ago,
and for Jeff and Jennifer and Donnie Wiginton helping to put
the trim up. this past week. And Bert is going
to put some lipstick on this pig behind us, make it look better. Thank you brother for all the
work that you and your family have done. It's going to look
real nice when it's all finished and I appreciate everything that
everybody is doing. Psalm 42. The greatest frustration that
a child of God has is not being able to see Christ in the fullness
of His glory. I mean, that's what our heart
pants for. That's what we desire. We look
through a glass dimly. We can only see Him in a small
part of who He is. And the longing of our soul is
to be with Him. That's our hope. That's our hope. We've tasted of Him and we want
the full meal. And that's what that's what the
psalmist says here in Psalm 42 as the heart panteth after the
water brooks So panteth my soul after thee oh God My soul thirsteth
for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before
God oh? My tears have been my meat, day
and night, while they continually say unto me, where is thy God?
We live in a world that's opposed to our God, and our flesh is
opposed to our God. And we're in such a contradiction
of state. When I remember these things,
I pour out my soul in me. for I had gone with the multitude,
I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy
and praise with the multitude that kept holiday. Why art thou
cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me?" Oh,
how disquieted we can get. Just like that we can get disquieted,
can't we? we can get cast down. Just one
person says the wrong thing or things don't go exactly like
we want them to go and we just get disquieted. Why are we this
way? Hope thou in God. Oh, and what hope we have. What hope we have to know that
one day we'll see Him as He is. For I shall yet praise Him for
the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down
within me. Therefore will I remember thee
from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites from the hill
Mesur. Deep calleth unto deep at the
noise of thy waterspouts. All thy waves and thy billows
are gone over me. Yet, the Lord will command His
grace. Remember that word, loving-kindness,
from Sunday? That's the word for grace. That's
the Old Testament word for grace. The Lord will command, and that's
what we need Him to do. We need Him to command His grace,
His loving-kindness. In the daytime and in the night,
His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my
life. I will say unto God, my rock,
Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of
the oppression of the enemy? Why am I so frail? Why am I the
way I am? As Rebecca said, why are there
two nations within me? Why am I thus? What is this conflict? As with the sword in my bones,
mine enemies reproach me. While they say daily unto me,
where is thy God? That's the doubts and fears of
our own flesh, and that's the message of the world. Where is
your God? And what does David say in another place? Psalm 115,
Our God is in the heavens, and he hath done whatsoever he wills. Why art thou cast down on my
soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God,
for I shall yet praise him, who is the help of my countenance
and my God. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we come before Thy throne of grace in the name of Thy dear
Son, thanking Thee that we have an Advocate, we have a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who ever makes intercession
for us. We pray now that you'd be pleased
to enable us to speak. Pray that you would enable us
to hear. We pray, Lord, that you would open your word and
that you would expose that disquieted flesh within us and cause us
to not be disquieted, but to find rest, comfort, hope in the
Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. This coming Saturday, I know
Phil and Logan are planning to be here, and Bert, I think, is
going to work. I sent out an email today. If
anybody would like to help, they're going to be doing some landscaping
and sprucing up the building and cleaning things up. So you
guys are meeting at 10 o'clock on Saturday. So that would be
very helpful if anybody has time to help out with that. Alright,
would you open your Bibles with me to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. I've been thinking a lot about
hope lately. I don't know why, just something
the Lord's put on my heart. In Colossians chapter 3, at verse
1, The Lord says, if ye then be
risen with Christ, if ye be saved, if when the Lord Jesus Christ
was raised from the dead, you were raised from the dead with
Him. Set your affections, that's your
mind, that's your thoughts, set your thoughts on things above,
not on things at the earth, where Christ is seated at the right
hand of the Father. That's, have you ever heard someone,
I think I've quoted this before, I'm used to hear it in religion
all the time, don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly
good. You ever heard people say that? Don't be so heavenly minded that
you're no, or don't just live in the clouds all the time. That's
not what God says. The only way to be of any earthly
good at all is to be constantly heavenly minded. But not mindful
of just heaven for the sake of streets of gold and a mansion
and seeing mama and all the things that you know that the natural
men think about going to heaven, but setting your affections on
things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. What hope Life without hope is
a horribly depressing, distraught existence. It's dark without
hope. All men have to have some kind
of hope. And so the worldly man, the natural
man, he puts his hope in worldly things. And he lives his life
from one activity or one possession or one event to the next. That's
his hope. That's what keeps him going.
What are you going to do without hope? Or he numbs his mind with some
sort of substance that would cause him not to have to think
about things so much. or he occupies his mind with
incessant activity so that he doesn't have to think about the
fact that he really has no hope. Or he makes a covenant with death
and he establishes his hope in his own righteousness and in
his works and God says, I will disannul that covenant. You've
leaned upon a teetering wall that's daubed with untempered
mortar and that wall's gonna fall. But it's all men's attempt
to have hope in something. Hope in something. He makes lies his refuge. Job
said this, the hope of the hypocrite, that's the unbeliever, shall
be cut off. His hope shall be cut off. It's
a false hope. It's an unfulfilling hope. It's a hope that will disappoint. Job goes on to say, his trust
shall be as a spider's web. Jonathan Edwards, in that message
he preached on sinners in the hands of an angry God, pictures
men hanging on a spider's web over the pit of hell. And that's
exactly what Job is saying. That's their hope. Their hope
is they're holding on to a spider's web thinking that it's going
to somehow deliver them. What is your hope? Look what the Lord tells us in
Colossians chapter 1 verse 5. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven
where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel our hope is not just in a beautiful
place our hope is not in the absence of trials or earthly
troubles our hope is a person Our hope is none other than the
Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter
14 verse 18 says that Christ is the hope of Israel, the Savior
thereof. He himself is the hope of Israel. In Ephesians chapter 2 verse
12, at a time, speaking of our time before we're born again,
At a time, he said, you were without Christ. Aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise
without God and without hope in this world. Before you knew
Christ, you had no hope. Now the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is your hope. Hebrews tells us that the Old
Testament saints saw His day from afar off, rejoiced and were
glad. They placed their hope in an
event that they knew God was going to fulfill sometime in
the future. And just as they were looking
hopeful for the first coming of the Messiah, so the believer
now is hoping, hoping, for the second coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What else is there? What else
is there? Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 17
says, There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy
children shall come again unto their own border. There is hope. There is hope. Titus chapter 2 verse 13 says,
looking for that blessed hope. That blessed hope. The hope that
makes one happy. The hope that gives one purpose. Looking for that blessed hope
and glorious appearing of our great God and of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's our hope. Our hope is
His appearing. Our hope is it doth not yet appear
what we shall be. But we know that when He shall
appear, we'll be made like Him. See Him as He is and be made
like Him. Peter said in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, He has begotten us
again. That's the same thing Paul was
saying in Colossians 3, verse 1. If you then be risen with
Christ, if you've been begotten, He's the firstborn among many
brethren. If His resurrection is your hope of life, then set
your affections on things above. And Peter says, He has begotten
us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
our Lord. It's the resurrection of Christ
that gives us hope of eternal life. What great hope it is. Any hope short of that hope is
a false hope. It's just man salving his conscience,
lying to himself, trying to make himself feel better about things,
when in fact he has no hope. The only hope that you and I
can have And the greatest hope that we can have is the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. He said to Abraham, I am thine
exceeding great reward. What a great reward. What a great
hope. What more could we ask for? than to see him as he is and
be made like him. In Romans chapter 4 verse 18
the scripture says that Abraham hoped against hope. I love that. What that means
is that all the circumstances that Abraham could see with his
natural eye was contrary to the promise of God. Now isn't that your experience? All the circumstances that the
natural eye is able to see is contrary to the promises of God. But Abraham hoped against hope that he might become the father
of many nations. So many discouraging circumstances. What greater, what more discouraging
circumstance could there be than having a 90-year-old wife and
God telling you she's gonna have a child? against hope. Actually that verse
says against hope he believed in hope. In other words against
any natural reason for believing he believed God and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. For the hope Here it is, look
at it again in verse 5 of Colossians chapter 1, for the hope which
is laid up for you in heaven. Oh, we have an advocate with
the Father where Jesus Christ the righteous one is seated at
the right hand of God who makes intercession for us. He's the
one we're hoping for and He is our hope. He's the substance
of our hope, He's the sum of our hope. The hope which is laid up for
you in heaven. In heaven. All the blessings
of God, Paul tells us in Ephesians, are in Christ, in the heavenlies. Now remember, the only way to
be of any earthly good, and the only way to understand the circumstances
of this life, is to be heavenly minded. Set your affections on
things above. Oh, that God would give us eyes
of faith and enable us to look beyond these temporal circumstances
and to believe that we have a Savior who is none other than the glorious
God of creation. In all of His splendor, in all
of His perfection, and that we're going to be made like Him. How
many times do we read this? Encourage one another with these
words. What other word of encouragement
is there? What other hope is there? You
know, a young person hopes to get married. They hope to have
a husband. They hope to have a wife. They hope to have a good
job. You know, fine. Those are good things to hope
for. That's not going to satisfy your
disquieted soul. It's not going to give you comfort
before God. And it's surely not going to
give you any hope of salvation. The hope that we have is laid
up for us in heaven. Look at the rest of verse 5.
Whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. Begat he us with the word of
truth. The truth of the gospel. What
is the truth? What have you heard? What have
you heard in truth relating to the gospel? If you've heard the
gospel, here's what you've heard. You've heard that you are dead
in your trespasses and sins, that you are unable to do anything
to save yourself. You've been humbled by that truth. Martin Luther once said, a man
cannot be thoroughly humbled until he realizes that his salvation
is utterly beyond his own power, his own counsel, his own efforts,
his own will, his own works. He is dependent absolutely on
the will, counsel, pleasure, and work of another. God alone. Well, that's what we've heard
in the gospel, isn't it? Lord, I can't save myself. I
can't bring anything to the table of salvation. I don't have anything. I'm a sinner. It's all I've got. What is that going to merit me
before God? If you've heard The Word of Truth,
which is what gives us hope, that's where it starts, isn't
it? It starts with being unable to save ourselves. And then it continues on to believing
that God is God and that He has the sovereign right to have mercy
upon whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens. and that He has sovereignly chosen
in the covenant of grace a particular people that He's going to have
mercy on. He's hid them in Christ, unconditioned
on anything that He saw in them. He did not look down through
the corridors of time and see who it would, who would believe
on Him and then choose. No. He chose them. He chose them according to His
own good pleasure and will. That's what we've heard. There's
no hope outside of that. You see, what does He say here?
Wherein you heard before the word of the truth of the gospel. There's no hope apart from being
a dead dog sinner. There's no hope apart from God's
sovereign election. There's no gospel apart from
that. If God didn't elect a people, then he's back on me now. There's no hope. Outside of the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and successfully
redeemed every single person that the Father had chosen in
the covenant of grace. Redeemed them. Particularly,
successfully accomplished their salvation. When he hung on Calvary's
cross, he bore all the sins of all of God's people and suffered
the full wrath of God's judgment to put those sins away once and
for all and to make us righteous before God. There's no hope part
from that, is there? It's called limited atonement. A person said, well, I have a
hard time. Well, you don't have any hope. I know something about you. If
you have a problem with election, you have no hope. If you have
a problem with limited atonement or particular redemption, you
have no hope. If you have a problem with being
a dead dog sinner, nothing about you of any worth or value before
God apart from what He does for you, you have no hope. What have you heard? The truth
of the word of the gospel. That's what he says here. My hope is that the Spirit of
God would make me and you willing in the day of His power. That's my hope. and that the
call would be irresistible, that He would fetch me with fetching
grace like David fetched Mephibosheth and drag me to His table, and
that I could not resist it. Because if I can resist it, I
will resist it. Coming to Christ is not a choice.
The only way you'll come to Christ, if it's based on a decision that
you make, then you can undecide that somewhere else down the
road, can't you? But if God irresistibly calls
you and makes you willing, what He does can't be changed. What He opens can't be shut and
what He shuts can't be opened. That's my hope! And a person said, well, you
know, it's up to man's will. It's not really irresistible.
It's kind of, you know, up to man. You've got no hope if you
believe that. That He would keep me from falling
and present me faultless before His throne with much joy? That's my hope. I know how prone
I am to wonder. I know how easy it is for me
to take my eyes off of Christ, to be enthralled and enticed
by the things of this world. If I didn't have the hope of
knowing that He had me on a leash, I'd fall off the precipice. Word of truth. What is our hope? Our hope is that our salvation
is of the Lord from beginning to end. Read that verse again. For the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, where have you heard? You see, the hope,
believers' hope was laid up for them in heaven before they heard
it. When you heard it, you just discovered
what was already done. the eyes of your understanding
were open but that didn't make it that didn't make it so it
was already so it was already established in glory I'm so glad for that so glad for that verse 6 which is come unto you in all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it
doth also in you since the day you heard of it and knew the
grace of God in truth." In truth. The world is still saying what
Pilate said. Truth? Come on now. My daughter Jennifer reminded
me yesterday, she was in college, one of her professors told her
there were no absolutes in life. And I told her to go back the
next day and if she says that again, ask her if she's absolutely
sure of that. And she went back to school the
next day, and sure enough, the professor said it again, there
are no absolutes in life. Jennifer said, are you absolutely
sure of that? And she just kind of mumbled,
and it doesn't make sense, does it? It just doesn't make sense. How can you say with absolute
certainty that there are no absolutes? I mean, you just made an absolute. I'm so glad to know the truth.
The truth will set you free. Oh, we've got a world full of
people just too smart for themselves, aren't they? Increasing in knowledge. When
have we ever had as much knowledge? I mean, if I have a question
about anything, I just ask Siri. She gives me the answer. You
know, just right there, just right in my pocket. I got the
answer to any question that I could ever ask right in my pocket. When have we had so much knowledge
available to us? Is this the day God spoke up
when he said men will increase in knowledge and become fools
in their hearts towards God? Surely it is. Man's priding himself in what
he's... It's just a bunch of trivia, isn't it? That's all
it is. And trivia means that it's trivial. That's what it is. It's all trivial. Christ is our hope. He is the truth. He is the good
news. He is the gospel and everything
else is like Solomon said, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It's empty. It's empty. I'm so thankful to have the substance
of life. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
life. Not the most important thing
in our life. He is our life. Look at verse 7. As you also
learned of Epaphras, In religion, they've got just
opinions everywhere, don't they? It's like I said Sunday, the
word opinion is the same word for heresy, and it's necessary
that heresies be among you, that those which are approved might
be made manifest. Everybody's got an opinion, and
that's all they are, just opinions. But when God's preachers preach
from God's Word, they say the same thing, don't they? Adam
Todd preached the same thing I'm preaching, doesn't he? Paul said, you learned this from
Epaphras, our fellow laborer. We're in this thing together.
We're not competing with one another. We're not telling different
stories. We're all saying the same thing. God's preachers see eye to eye,
don't they? They just tell the same message. who is for you a faithful minister
of Christ. It is required of a steward that
he be found faithful. What is it to be found faithful?
It's to preach Christ. Paul said, I profess to know
nothing among you save Christ and Him crucified. And the Lord
Jesus Christ said, if I, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men
to me. So the faithful preaching of the gospel is to preach Christ.
We're not preaching some sort of, you know, pop psychology
with a little twist of religion to help people feel better and
get along better in the world. We're preaching the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our hope, above and beyond
everything. You're on your deathbed. Your
cancer has racked your body. You've got moments left in this
world. What do you have to hope for?
You can't hope to get better. You can't hope for a better day.
I know somebody, somebody in my life, her favorite saying
is, well, tomorrow's going to be a better day. And it never
is. It never is. Living with hope that somehow
tomorrow is going to be a better day. Come on! Christ is our hope, isn't He?
He is our hope. Outside of Him there is no hope.
Outside of the truth of the gospel, there is no Christ. And outside
of God's faithful ministers preaching this gospel, there is no hearing.
How will they hear? How are they here without a preacher?
And how can they preach unless they'd be sent? Paul starts this
letter out by saying, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the
will of God. It was God that called me. It was God that gave me this
message. I'm not telling you something
I got from men. Who also declared unto us your
love in the spirit. Now there's every believer. Epaphras
came to Paul and told him about the believers
in Colossae and told him about the love that
they had in the Spirit. for Christ and for His Word and
for His people. Look what he goes on to say,
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease
to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with
the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. What do we see in Jeremiah chapter
9, verse 28, Sunday? Jeremiah said, verse 23, let
not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man
glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in
his riches, but let him glory, glorieth in this, that he is
in the process of understanding and knowing that I am the Lord,
who exercise loving kindness and judgment and righteousness.
And Paul says, that's what he's saying here, I'm praying that
your knowledge and your wisdom and your spiritual understanding
will increase. And that you'll have more of
the fullness of the knowledge of God, that you might walk worthy
of the Lord unto all pleasing, being faithful or being fruitful
in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Planted. growing up in him and
then he goes on to tell us in Colossians as you received Christ
Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him. How do we walk? The same
way we came to Christ. How'd you come to Christ? How'd
you come to Christ? If you've come to Christ, you
came to him as a mercy beggar. You came to him as a sinner.
You came to him as a little child. And so he's saying that you be
strengthened in that dependence upon him. Strengthened with all
might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering
and joyfulness. Here's our hope. Oh Lord, give
me patience to wait for that day. Keep me waiting. Keep me expecting. Don't let me give up on this
hope. Cause me to set my affections
on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Lord, don't take your hand off of me. Giving thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet. That means God made Eve meat
for Adam, that means that she was suitable for him after he
had looked at all the animals of the world and nothing was
suitable for him and God made Eve. And here he says, giving
thanks unto God which hath made us suitable to be partakers of
the inheritance of the saints in light. How did He make us
suitable? How did He make us meet? By imputing
to us the righteousness of Christ. By charging our sins to the Lord
Jesus Christ and putting them away through the shed blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how He made us suitable. He said, they that are sanctified
and he that sanctifyeth are all as one. In other words, he's
holy, we're holy. Therefore, he is not ashamed
to call them his brethren. We're meek. We're meek to be
partakers, M-E-E-T. We're suitable. Through the sanctifying
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're ready. We're ready to see
Him. If the Lord chooses to come right
now, take us home, are you ready? Verse 13, who hath, God hath,
delivered us from the power of darkness. You say, well I'm not
sure if I'm ready. I want to believe. I'm not sure
if I can believe. To be ready is to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And unless the Lord moves you
from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His light,
you can't believe. You can't believe. Now this is
the kind of preaching that shuts men up to Christ. That's what
I'm trying to do, shut you up to Christ. Well, I'll just try
a little harder to believe. Oh Lord! Move me! Deliver me! Deliver me! You see that? I need to be delivered! No one has ever cried out to
the Lord Jesus Christ to be delivered from the power of darkness who
wasn't delivered from the power of darkness. I mean the power of darkness.
John chapter 16 the Lord said that when the Comforter comes
he will convict the world of sin. Bad behavior? Everybody's got a conscience.
The worst criminals feel guilty about something. The guy who
seared his conscience and almost ruined it has still got something
that he feels guilty about. The Spirit of God didn't come
to convict the world of that sin. He came to convict the world
of sin because they believed not on Me. The root of all sin. The sin
that men won't confess. Lord, I'm an unbeliever. I'm an unbeliever. I can't believe. I'm held bondage by the power
of darkness. I need delivering. I need you
to come into the very bowels of hell and take me out of this
pit of darkness and translate me into your marvelous light. Translated into the kingdom of
His dear Son. That's why the Lord said, I am
the light of the world. To be brought to Christ. In whom? We have redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sin. When the Lord Jesus Christ
shed His precious blood on Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago, that blood
covered effectually, eternally, all the sins of all of God's
people once and for all. Don't look to an experience.
Don't look to a feeling. Look to Christ. Look back 2,000
years ago. Look back into eternity to the
Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world and know
that your salvation is of God. You look to a feeling. You look
to an experience. You look to your own behavior,
you're going to be filled with doubts. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. He himself is the image of the
invisible God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. And you are complete in Him. In eternity there is no time.
He's the internal one. He's the King, eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God. He doesn't live in this temporal
world that we live in. He's outside of us, isn't He? He's the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him, by Christ, were all
things. You were made by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Physically, and if you're a believer,
spiritually. He did it all. And you had nothing
more to do with your second birth than you have with your first
birth. By Him were all things created
that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible, invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities and powers.
Oh, all the things that men boast in. All the things that men glory
in. All things were created by Him.
Look at that last three words. And for Him. not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name be glory." He is before all things. Before
any of this existed, He was. He said, I am. He's the self-existent
One. He's not created. He's not dependent. We are. Most especially on Him. He is the head of the body. This fellowship and the church
universal and your own spiritual life cannot live without the
head. Decapitate the body, the body
can't live. who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things, that in all things, that in all
things, He might have the preeminence. You have hope. I mean real hope. Not hope like the world has. but hope in seeing the One in
the fullness of His glory who has preeminence over all things,
who created all things, who by Him all things exist, and who
for Him all things were made. There isn't anything else, is
there? Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
You would bless Your Word to our hearts by Your Holy Spirit. Draw us to Thyself. Give us faith,
for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 114 in the Saltback Temple. Let's stand together.