All right, brethren, Psalm 119. David begins in verse 57, and
he says, Thou art my portion, O Lord. I have said that I would
keep Thy words. This is where salvation begins
in our experience of it. God had given David a new heart.
And he had brought David to behold the Lord Jesus and given him
faith to believe the Lord was his portion. He said, thou art
my portion, O Lord. Portion means my part, my inheritance,
my all. Not only in the life to come,
but right now, throughout this life. God the Father chose his
people and gave his people to his son. And the Lord Jesus took
flesh, and from the womb he was holy. He came forth from the
womb, saying of the Father, Thou art my portion, O Lord. He came
forth serving the Father as the only righteous, perfect, faithful
believer God looks to, and the one in whom God accepts all his
people. The Lord said, Thou art my portion,
O Lord. I have said that I will keep
Thy words. He said it from eternity. He
promised the Father in eternity he would keep all God's words,
and that's what he did. He kept all the law, all the
prophets. He fulfilled everything that
God had written. He fulfilled all righteousness
for His people, He brought in everlasting righteousness for
us, and then He went to the cross and bore our sin and put away
our sins forever. Scripture says He loved us. and
He washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us
kings and priests unto God and His Father. That's what the Lord
Jesus Christ alone by Himself did by His obedience to God. He loved us and washed us from
our sins in his own blood, and he hath made us kings and priests
unto God and his Father. When Christ entered into our
hearts and gave us a new heart, a new man created in his image,
he gave us faith to behold what he had done for us. And he made
us to know he is our portion. He is our portion. He meets every need we have. He is Himself every need we have. He has provided all, He is providing
all, and He shall provide all. He is our portion, and in the
end, He will be our everlasting inheritance. He made us kings
and priests under God by His own blood. and he's our portion. God typified this when he delivered
the children of Israel into Canaan, and he made Aaron and his sons
priests unto God. And when he divided the land,
he didn't give Aaron and his sons any part in the land. God said to Aaron and his sons,
he said, the Lord, the Lord spake unto Aaron, thou shalt have no
inheritance in their land. They never owned a piece of ground.
They never, nothing. They didn't own anything. You'll
have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have
any part among them. I am thy part. That's what God
told them. I'm thy part. That's what Christ
tells us. I'm your part. I'm thine inheritance
among the children. That's what God teaches us. And
just like those priests, The Lord is our portion in that he's
given us the best of the oil. That's what the Lord provided
for those priests. He's given us the best of the
oil. He's given you the Holy Spirit to know him. He's given
us the best of the wine. He's given us his precious blood
that's cleansed us from all our sin and it keeps, continues to
cleanse our defiled feet. He gave us the best of the wheat.
He gave us Christ the bread from heaven. That means Christ is
our life. That's what this thing is for
him to be your portion. He is our life. He's my life. I taught of this how the Lord
is my portion. He is our portion because he's
our life. We thought we had wisdom. He
makes us to know. He's our wisdom. We thought we
had worked out some righteousness. He makes us know he's our righteousness.
We thought we had some kind of holiness of ourselves, he makes
you know he's your holiness. We thought we had freed ourselves,
he makes you know he's your redemption. In addition to all this, he's
our portion in that he is our prophet who is teaching us constantly,
he's our priest who's representing us to God constantly, and he's
our king who is ruling everything that's coming to pass in our
life from the least to the greatest. Everything. And he makes us know
when he does this, he's our portion. He's our portion. He said in
Deuteronomy 32, 9, the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob's
the lot of his inheritance. This is what he does for us,
what he did for Jacob, the children of Israel. He found him in a
desert land in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about.
He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of his
eye. You know how you guard the apple
of your eye. This is what we're going to see
David speaking about in this passage, in this psalm. He makes
you to know you are Christ's and Christ is God's and all things
are yours. Everything he's working, death,
life, everything is yours. Get that, brethren. He's your
portion and you're his portion. and everything he created. You
think of this personally for yourself that believe God. You
think everything you see around you that's been made and everything
that's transpiring in this world from great countries to minute
details that happened to you today, it's all yours and God's
working it just for you. just for you. What's he doing?
Why? He's teaching you more and more.
He's your portion. Nothing else. Nobody else. He's
your portion. That's what he's instructing.
That's what he's teaching. David said, I've been young and now
I'm old, and yet I've not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his
seed begging bread, because our Lord is our portion. The Lord
will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because
it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. There was no
cause in us. The cause was God, his grace.
It pleased him. It pleased him. So nothing can
separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Now when
he reveals this, our resolve is what David's resolve was.
When he first gives you grace, this is our resolve. I've said
I would keep thy words. By God's grace, David began like
every believer begins. First of all, I'll keep Christ
the Word. He's the Word. The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. By faith, by God's grace, I'll
keep believing Him. I'll hold on to Him. I'll trust
Him. I'll continue in Him. I'll never
let Him go. That's the heart He gives you.
I've said I keep the words of the Gospel. I'll believe the
gospel. I'll believe the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace. I will believe, I'll continue
to believe that God chose me freely by his grace and trust
me to his son. I believe the gospel of substitution.
I believe God is able to provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering
and that's what he did in Christ my substitute. Put away my sin. I believe the gospel. I will
believe the gospel of His atoning blood. I will continue to believe
the Lord has made propitiation and He is the propitiation of
His people. I believe the gospel of justification
through faith in Christ alone apart from my works. I believe
God will never again impute sin to his people. That God has justified
us and made us righteous in his son and he imputes righteousness
to us because by Christ's obedience he made me righteous. That's what we believe. I'll
keep his words. And then God's child desires
to keep every gospel precept of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
resolve he puts in your heart is you will walk in his way,
you will keep every word. When he shows you himself, you
see there is nothing but good in the way God commands his child
to walk. And you have a resolve in your
heart, I will keep his ways, I will keep his words. Your word
have I here in my heart that I might not sin against you.
But we don't know much of this good news at first. We're delighted,
we see him, we know him, we believe him. He's our portion, and this
is the resolve of our heart. But we don't know much of what
it means that he's our portion. And we don't know much of what
it means that we're the center. And these two go so, they go
together. Because for him to be our portion,
and all our portion, and only him our portion, we're gonna
have to know more and more that our flesh contributes nothing. Contributes nothing. The Lord
is our portion by keeping us and teaching us more and more
that he's our portion. He keeps us knowing he's our
savior, he's our all. And He keeps us seeing our need
of Him. He keeps us seeing our need of
His grace. He keeps us seeing our need of
His mercy. And He's growing us more and more to see this and
know this in every way He's showing us, I'm your portion. He's keeping
us depending entirely upon Him alone for everything, for all. He's growing us more and more
to know He alone is our portion. He's our portion. Now, first
of all, the Lord is our portion by keeping us knowing our need
of him. We read there in verse 58, David
said, I am treated thy favor with my whole heart. You see
that the margin says thy face, your countenance. This is his
favor, this is his presence. I entreated your face with my
whole heart. Be merciful unto me according
to thy word. I thought on my ways and turned
my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste and delayed not
to keep thy commandments. Spurgeon had a good comment on
this. He called this a brief but complete
account of the conversion of a sinner and of the restoration
of the backslidden child of God. You see, that first hour that
the Lord makes you to know He's your portion, and you know He's
your portion, and He puts this resolve in our heart to keep
His word. We do just what David said here. We entreat His favor
with our whole heart. We call on God. We don't make
demands. We entreat God for his face to
shine upon us, for him to have favor to us. We cry out to him
for mercy. We think on our ways, and we
see we are the sinner, and we mourn our sin, and we turn our
feet to his testimonies, and we make haste without delay to
keep his commandments, believing with, trust my son. But he does
that for you in the very first when he converts you. But that's
not the last time. David here is not at the beginning
of his life. Somebody said that this was probably
a diary. Psalm 119 is a diary of David's
life that he wrote all through his life. That could be. It's
certainly a picture of a child of God's life. You see David
on the mountain, you see him in the valley, you see him mourning,
you see him rejoicing, all through this. But many times God makes
us to behold him, that he's our portion. And when he does it,
he makes you think on your ways. Even the best things that you
may have done as a child of God, he makes you look upon the things
you've done. And we find great reason to entreat
God's favor and cry for mercy from God and ask for his grace
and much reason to turn our feet to his testimonies. Spurgeon
said, do you ever think you've done well when you think on your
ways and you look back and you examine your ways and you examine
your life right now? Do you think you've done well?
He said, in that very thinking, you have done ill." And that
very thinking. But the Lord's our portion in
that he keeps us depending entirely upon him the rest of our days. And he's showing us, growing
us more and more why we need him. He left us in these bodies
of death for a reason. He left us in these bodies of
death for a reason, and part of that reason is to keep us
knowing He's our portion, and we need Him. We need Him. He brings you to see your sins
more and more, and you just think, if we cry
for God's favor when we consider our ways, thinking on the best
of our ways, how much more when He brings you to think on the
worst ways, all your sin. Now we're not told what occasion
this was with David, but we know there were many, many occasions.
We find it throughout the Psalms where David is calling on God
for mercy and grace and saying things similar to what he says
right here. In this Psalm, he keeps repeating in verse 67,
he said, before I was afflicted, I went astray. Before I was afflicted,
I went astray. This is as a believer. But now
have I kept thy word. And he says it again and again,
and he ends in verse 176 and said, I've gone astray like a
lost sheep. Seek thy servant, for I do not
forget thy commandments. It seems like David in this psalm
may be speaking of what God did for him after his sin with Bathsheba
and Uriah. And I'll show you in a moment
why I lean that way, but it could be any part of David's life,
but I just feel like from what I see here that that's probably,
it's after that. But here's where God brought
David every time from the very beginning to the very end. He
said, I entreated thy favor. He came to God begging God to
shine his face on him, to make his presence known, to turn his
countenance upon him and be gracious to him. And he said, and I did
it with my whole heart. I did it with my whole heart.
The whole heart, yes, it is, you know, with all my heart,
yes. But it's that whole heart God's created. And we really
only see God with our whole heart when God has just made us see
we need God to be our portion. And he does this many times in
our life. And he made him cry, Be merciful unto me according
to thy word. There's a need for that, isn't
it? A need for mercy. Be merciful to me according to
thy word. Now our Lord Jesus knew no sin. He was perfect. He walked this
world perfectly. But he was made sin for his people.
And when our Lord hung in darkness on the cross, God turned his
face from our substitute and would not make his face shine
upon our Redeemer. We hear the Lord cry in Psalm
13 1. He said, How long wilt thou forget
me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide
thy face from me? That's what David's saying when
he said, I have treated thy favor, your face. How long will you
hide your face from me? He said, how long shall my enemy
be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord
my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death, lest mine enemies say I prevailed against
him. And he ends there and he says, but I've trusted in thy
mercy. I've trusted in thy mercy. My
heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. By that perfect faith in God
our Father, by our Lord Jesus when he hung there in that darkness
and his perfect faithfulness to trust that he would see God's
mercy and he would know God's salvation when he had satisfied
justice. By that perfect obedience, he
bore the wrath of God, that separation, that death. How long will you
forsake me, Lord? Will it be forever? Well, it
was an eternity. It satisfied an eternity of wrath
that Christ's people would have had to bear. And he bore that
and put away the sin of his elect and made us righteous in him
so that he's made you to know when he came to you and taught
you that he's your perfection. Now for the sake of his son,
for the sake of the Lord Jesus, our prophet, priest, and king,
he brings us here time and time again. And God brought this in
David's heart to keep David knowing and to teach him a little more
how the Lord is his portion. And because Christ did that for
David and for all his people, he will keep He will make you
cry, Lord will you show me your face? Because he's hidden it
from you and you don't see his presence and you don't see him
and he brings you to cry and entreat God for his face, for
his favor. He does it because he won't permit
us to become self-sufficient and prideful. If he made it to
where you just had no issues with this body of death anymore
and you could just live above sin, we'd be prideful. We would fall into the opposite
end of the spectrum. And our Lord's not going to let
that happen. He left us in this body of death to keep us beholding
our sin, to keep us in treating his favor with our whole heart
and begging mercy from God. And God worked this in David.
He said in Psalm 27.8, God worked this in David. He said in Psalm
27.8, when thou saidest, seek ye my face, my heart said unto
thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. This is how much he's our portion.
We need him to, that still small voice to speak in our heart and
say, seek my face. We don't even know what it is,
but we just find ourselves needing to call on the Lord. Lord, show
me your favor. Show me your face. 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. Have you ever
cried that as a believer, since you've been a believer? This is him showing us he's our
portion. of bringing us to a place over
and over to where you cry out to God and say, Lord, hide not
your face from me. You've been my help. Leave me
not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. Look at Psalm
51. This is after David had sinned
and the Lord told him that his sin was forgiven. But he He came
to the Lord, and this was his entreaty. He said in verse 1,
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according
unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions. He said in verse 4, "...against
thee, the only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest." He not only
owned his sin, he owned what he is. He said in verse 5, "...behold,
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me." And in verse 9 he said, "...Lord, hide thy face from
my sins." Don't hide your face from me." He's entreating God
for his favor, for his face, but he says, but hide your face
from my sin. And blot out all my iniquities.
Created me a clean heart, oh God, watch this, and renew. Renew, renew a right spirit within
me. Cast me not away from thy presence. There's his face, that's his
favor. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore, restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation. And uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee. David had
experienced this and he, you know, many different times. And
it's good to listen to somebody who's gone through something
like what David's gone through. That would be the wise thing,
is to ask them, what has the Lord taught you? That's what
David said. When you've done this for me,
Lord, then I'll teach. I'll teach, transgressors, thy
ways. We've all seen his acts. He said
in Psalm 119, Lord, teach me your ways. Teach me your ways. And this is what the Lord's teaching
His people. Since our Savior put away the
sin of His people for the sake of His Son, because He is our
portion, God had mercy on David. He had mercy on David. He shined
His face again and He restored him. And it happened again. David was converted again. You
hear the Lord speak to his apostles and say, when you're converted
or accept you be converted. They were converted. They believed
the Lord. But the Lord converts us many
times. Every time he renews you. Every
time he restores you. It's like it just happened for
the first time. That's how fresh and new it is
in your heart. He thought on his ways and all
over again, he said, I turn my feet to your testimonies. I made
haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments. Brethren, the
sins of God's saints of old, they don't make us excuse our
sins. That's not why we look at these
things. But God's continual mercy and his restoration of his saints
sure does give us a good hope. Sin not, sin not. But brethren, when you do, do
not think all hope is lost. Christ is your portion. That
means He's your perfection. That means He's your righteousness.
That means He's your holiness that's going to turn you out
of the wrong way back into the right way. The cure is always
Christ in Him crucified. The cure is always Christ and
him crucified. Most of what you hear of Christian
religion is going down to the Gulf of Mexico and trying to
turn a river down there where it's a mile and a half wide. God's going back up there where
you can stand straddle of it and turn it with your hand. He's
going to the heart. And God's dealing with the heart,
and He has to renew us again to behold Christ in the heart.
The first step to turning us back into the right way is to
turn us to Christ, our substitute, to bring us to cry to Him for
mercy and rely upon Him who is our portion. And for his sake,
he renewed mercy in David. He made David eager, as he did
the first hour, to haste to keep his commandments. This is how
God's growing us in grace. Just like when you're teaching
a little child to walk, and they fall, you pick them up, and you
teach them again. And they fall, and you pick them
up, and you teach them again. That's what God's doing for us
all the way up until we draw our last breath. In fact, I think
if we are in our bed dying, we are still trying to depend on
the arm of this flesh right up to the last breath. So God makes
you see, he's your portion. He's your portion. He hath not
despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath
he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard
him. And that's what, that's so of
our Redeemer, and because it's so of our Redeemer, and because
he's your portion by what he, who he is and what he accomplished,
when you are in affliction and cry to the Lord, the Lord will
hear your, hear your cry. Now secondly, that's not all
the Lord's doing. Being our portion, the Lord gave
David ongoing chastening. He said here in verse 61, the
bands of the wicked have robbed me, but I have not forgotten
thy law. This is why I think David's writing
of what God did after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, after
he committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed Uriah, Now, it could
be at any point, but the reason I say that is because he keeps
speaking about the reproach and the derision of men. And God promised David this was
going to be part of his chastening the rest of his days. God promised
him that. But David knew these men were
sent of God. He knew that. God did it to make
David depend more upon the Lord. This was part of making David
know, I'm your portion, David. I'm your portion. God asked Satan,
have you considered my servant Job? And sometimes the devil
uses men. Sometimes the devil takes your
health. Sometimes he uses other things like he did with Job and
like we see with David. But what the devil's ultimate
end is, is to rob us. David said they've robbed me.
His goal is to rob us of our portion. To rob us of Christ
our portion. Just curse God and die. How can
you be a child of God? to rob us of our portion, to
rob us of faith in Christ, to rob us of our hope in Him alone. That's His desire. But it's God
working it. It's God ruling it. God sending
it to teach His child and make us know He alone is our portion. Through it, God made David remember
and rejoice in the gospel even more. Even more. He said, they've
tried to rob me, but I've not forgotten thy law. I haven't
forgotten your gospel, Lord. That's what God said of Job.
It wasn't because of Job. Job sinned, he defended himself,
he exalted himself, he did everything in the world in the course of
all of this. But God told the devil from the beginning, he
is not going to curse me. He's not going to forget what
I've done for him. How was that? Because God was
his portion and God was keeping him knowing he's his portion.
Our Lord Jesus knew no sin and yet he experienced the same thing
David experienced. The same that you experienced,
child of God. Christ said, the sorrows of death
compassed me and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. That's what our Savior said.
They made me afraid. That's the Lord showing you in
me that we don't have strength in ourselves. He's our portion. It's Him making
us cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, beginning
with our own self. Because you see, I'm afraid. So our Savior comforts and He
keeps us remembering the gospel that He alone is our portion. In Psalm 3.1, this was a Psalm
of David when he fled from Absalom his son. He said, Lord, how are
they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against
me. Many there be would say of my
soul, there is no help for him in God. You see how they were
trying to rob David of his faith, rob him of his hope in Christ,
rob him of his portion. But our Savior suffered that.
He suffered that. A man saying, call on God if
he'll have you. He said he was the elect of God.
But look where the Lord kept him, right here, verse 3. But
thou, O Lord, art a shield for me. You're my portion. My glory,
you're the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with
my voice and he heard me out of his holy hill. I laid me down
and slept. I awaked because the Lord sustained
me. The Lord's your portion. He's
your shield. He's the lifter up of your head.
He will sustain you. That's what it means that He's
your portion. Not only does the Lord not let
us forget Christ as our portion, He uses the affliction to make
us more thankful. that he's our portion. David
said in our psalm in verse 62, he said, at midnight I will rise
to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments. Because
of your righteous judgments. David had said back in verse
7, I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned
thy righteous judgments. He said, Lord, I won't praise
myself. If I'm enabled to be holy, Lord, I'm going to praise
you. And what God did for David is
he sanctified the affliction to his heart. That's how he's
your sanctification. He sanctified this afflicting,
chastening of these men trying to rob him to his heart, and
David thanked God. even for the affliction. He knew
this was God's righteous judgment. This was God's faithfulness to
him because God was his portion. Look down at verse 75. I know,
O Lord, that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness
has afflicted me. See that? When the Lord's dealing
with us and it's the roughest That's when he brings you to
bless God even for the rod. He grows you in the knowledge
that he's your portion. Because you see, his covenant
faithfulness, that's what David said, these judgments are right,
Lord. This is your faithfulness afflicting
me. And that made him see that covenant
the Lord made toward him was an everlasting covenant. And
for Christ's sake, nothing could change it. David, his last word
was, he said, God made with me an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things and sure, and this is all my salvation and all my
desire. What was he saying? The Lord's
my portion. It was all his life learning
that. That was his last words he wrote. If he summed all his
life up, he said, this is what I've learned. The Lord's my portion.
David forgot not God's gospel because God's mercy to David
when he sinned, now listen, he didn't forget God's gospel. Because by God's mercy to him
when he sinned, it made David more merciful when he was sinned
against, even toward those God used to afflict him. It made
David not want to make God's children afraid. He said, they've
made me afraid, Lord. He didn't want to do that. God's
mercy made him more merciful. You take Absalom, his own son.
stole the throne, turned the children of Israel against David,
and pursued David to kill him. And you find David in 2 Samuel
13, 37. David mourned for his son every
day. He commanded his men, and he
said, You deal gently for my sake with the young man, even
with Absalom. You see, when the word came to
David, and he saw his sin, and he entreated God for mercy. God
had mercy on him and dealt gently for Christ's sake with him. And
he said, you deal gently for my sake with a young man, even
with Absalom. And when they told him that Absalom
had been killed, David mourned and wept for his son. He said,
well, that's just his son. Well, shimmy, I curse David. Followed him all the way, a long
way, just cursing him, cursing him, cursing him. Calling him
everything under the sun. But when Shimei came and fell
down asking David not to remember how he had spoken perversely.
David had mercy on him, and David promised he would not die. What
made David do that? Because David saw he deserved
to die, and God had mercy on him for Christ's sake. Promised
him he would not die. His sin was forgiven. And that
made David, and even in this affliction of these men, it made
him not forget that gospel. Ephibosheth, he even was deceived,
and he forsook David for a little while. He came and he asked mercy
from David and David said, this was David's answer when he came
asking mercy. He started trying to tell why
he had forsaken him and he'd been deceived. David said, why
speakest thou any more of thy matters? I don't want to hear
about it. David kept his covenant for Jonathan's
sake. Why? Because he saw God keep
his covenant to David for Christ's sake. That's why. David forgot
not God's law. God has shown David great mercy
for the sake of the Lord Jesus, and so David showed mercy for
the sake of the Lord Jesus. David knew God's judgments were
right. He knew the affliction was God's
fateful rod. It was sent of God to show David
that Christ alone is his portion. And he praised God for it. One
last thing. God is our portion in that he
also provides brethren to remind us of this good news. He said
in verse 63, I'm a companion of all them that fear thee and
of them that keep thy precepts. The Lord provided David with
brethren in whom the Lord had worked this same affliction. These are men who believed the
Lord. and who loved their brethren. These were men who believed the
Lord, and they had been in seasons where they didn't act like they
believed him, and they didn't act like they loved their brethren,
and they had just like David had been in. But the Lord had
done for them what he was doing for David, and they were gracious
to remind him of the Lord's faithfulness and grace during his affliction. And so God increased love in
his heart for his brethren. as well as for the Lord. This
is another way the Lord is your portion. He's going to keep you
provided with brethren to help you and encourage you when you
cast down. The Lord is your portion and
He increases you, not only in the knowledge of that, but He
increases you in a more love for the gospel. He increases
you to love your brethren more, believe Christ more. And this
is all keeping the Lord's word. And it made David behold God's
mercy everywhere he looked. Throughout his life and everything
he suffered, every bit of it David saw was God's mercy to
him. And he desired God to teach him
more. Look at verse 64. The earth,
O Lord, is full of Thy mercy. Teach me Thy statutes. Teach
me more. Brethren, this right here It's
the ongoing cycle of a believer's life. He begins by showing you
he's your portion. And we believe on Christ and
we resolve to keep his words. And then he shows us our ways.
And again, he brings us to cry out for mercy, and he renews
your faith, and he renews your resolve to remember the Lord
alone as your portion and to keep his words. In every affliction,
He keeps increasing faith in Christ. In every affliction,
He keeps making us more faithful for the Lord's righteous affliction.
He keeps making us know the Lord's mercy more and more, and He keeps
making you more loving and more merciful in your heart. And He keeps making you love
your brethren more. And go over to Psalm 73, 23.
By every bit of it, this is what the Lord's doing. Every time,
all the way to the end. And this is what it means that
the Lord is our portion right here. He's making you see this
more and more. Verse 23, I am continually with
thee. We'll read verse 22 because he
makes you say this every time too. So foolish was I and ignorant
I was a beast before thee. But he makes you see. Nevertheless,
I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Who have I in heaven
but thee? And there's none upon earth that
I desire beside thee. You're my portion, Lord, now
and forever. My flesh and my heart faileth. But God's the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. That's what he's teaching you.
That's what he's teaching you. And when you come to the end
of this life, this one who is our prophet, priest, and king,
who is our portion, who's been teaching us this from the first
hour he called you, then shall the king say to you on his right
hand, come. Come, inherit this portion that
was prepared by my Father for you before the foundation of
the world, and then we'll have our portion forever. He's our
portion. There will be nothing, nothing,
nothing that enters into that inheritance, but only what Christ
created. It's all of Him. He's our portion. I pray God will bless that.