We're going to look at the wealth
and riches of the blessed man. Wealth and riches of the blessed
man. We're just going to look at the
first four verses of Psalm 112. Let me read this. Psalm 112,
verse 1. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is
the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his
commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon
earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in
his house, and his righteousness endureth forever. Unto the upright
there riseth light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion
and righteous. Now this psalm begins like the
last psalm. Praise ye the Lord. Hallelujah. He praises the Lord himself and
he exhorts us, commands us to praise ye the Lord. Every word
of this psalm is giving God the glory. It's giving our Lord the
praise for what he does for his people. Psalm 111 is almost identical
to this psalm. And I hope you'll go home and
when you read this psalm, read Psalm 111 and then read Psalm
112. Read one verse in one, one verse in the other. They're almost
identical. Now they're not exactly, but
they're almost identical. Spurgeon said Psalm 112 bears
the same relation to Psalm 111 as the moon does to the sun.
Psalm 111 showed us the works of our Lord. The works of our
Lord and what He does for His people and in His people, how
He gives us a fear of the Lord. And Psalm 112 bears the same
relation to Psalm 111 as the moon does to the sun. For while
the first declares the glory of God, The second speaks of
the reflection of the divine brightness in men that are born
from above. You get that. Christ is the son
of righteousness. He shines, and Psalm 112 gives
us the reflection, what he's done in his people. So since
this Psalm begins with the Lord's command to praise ye the Lord,
since he's given his people a fear of the Lord, Since He's made
us delight greatly in His commandments, we're going to do what the Lord
said. We're going to give Him the glory. We're going to praise
the Lord. The first thing I want you to
see here is Christ is the blessed man who makes the believer a
blessed man. Christ is the blessed man who
makes a believer a blessed man. He says, verse 1, Blessed, happy,
filled with joy is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth
greatly in His commandments. It pleased God that Christ Jesus,
His Son, have all preeminence. And so we're going to praise
Christ Jesus. We're going to praise the Lord.
He, preeminently, is the blessed man. Christ is the perfect man. He is the perfection of manhood. He is the Holy One. That's what the scripture calls
Him. The Holy One. The Holy One of Israel. The Holy
One of His people. He's the last Adam. He's the
one man, the one man that God the Father looked to, to represent
all his people, and in whom God receives us as perfect and complete. That one man, Christ Jesus. He's
the one man that God looks to. Now as the man representing his
people, Christ feared the Lord in perfection. Everything that
he works in his people, He is Himself and He did Himself in
perfection. He feared the Lord in perfection
with a total absence of sin. Isaiah 11, 2 said, The Spirit
of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the Lord, and shall make Him of quick understanding
in the fear of the Lord. That's speaking of Christ. And
as the head of his people, as the representative of his people,
he delighted greatly in the commandments of the Lord. Psalm 40 and verse
6, we are familiar with this. Our Lord is speaking, and he
said, sacrifice an offering thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast
thou opened. burnt offering and sin offering
as thou not required, then said I, lo, I come in the volume of
the book, in the whole Old Testament scriptures, it's written of me,
Christ said. I delight, I delight to do thy
will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. So Paul or
whoever wrote Hebrews comments on that and he said, that by
Christ's will, by him fulfilling the commandments of the Lord,
it said, Hebrews 10.10, by the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. For by
one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. This is what Christ accomplished
for us. He came into this world and as
the perfect man, he feared the Lord with a perfect fear, with
no sin. And he delighted in the law of
God and fulfilled the law and perfection for his people. And
by his will, by his one offering, going to the cross, he perfected
forever them that are sanctified. We're sanctified by him. And
when the Spirit of God makes Christ our wisdom, that's how
he gives us the fear of the Lord. That's how the fear of the Lord's
created in the new man. He said there at the end of Psalm
111 and verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom. When he makes us hear the law
of God, and we hear the law declare that we're guilty, we hear the
law declare we've broken every commandment of the Lord, we sinned
in Adam, we fell, we've broken his holy law, we are the sinner. And then he makes you hear that
Christ is our righteousness. that He is our sanctifier who
sanctified us by His one offering, who perfected His people forever
by His one offering because He fulfilled God's will, because
He did this work in righteousness and redeemed us from the curse
and the condemnation of the law. When you hear that and you behold
Him and He's made unto you wisdom, that's how God gives you the
fear of the Lord. That's when you stand in reverence
of Him, in awe of Him, that God would be gracious to us, that
he would choose us in Christ and send forth his son to do
this work on our behalf to make us accepted of God. That strikes
a new, not that legal fear, but it gives you that reverential
fear. It gives you that fear of the Lord that you're just
in awe that he did this for you. That's what he works in his people.
Blessed means happy. It means filled with joy. It's
Christ's joy. It's joy in Christ. It's called
joy and peace in believing. It's joy and peace in believing
Christ. God's people are blessed people.
They're happy people. They're joyful people. We got
every reason to joy in the Lord. Christ promised, we saw this
in John 16, he promised to send the Holy Spirit and he said he
would Give us wisdom. Give those He redeemed wisdom.
And give us understanding. And give us faith. And give us
communion with the Father. So that we can come to God in
Christ our High Priest. And when He does that, He gives
you joy. And Christ promised, your joy
no man taketh from you. It's Christ. It's peace. It's
joy in believing the Lord Jesus. That's how we are made the blessed
man. And then we delight greatly in
His commandments. We delight greatly in His commandments. Christ is our joy. He's our Redeemer. We want to serve Him. We want
to honor Him. We hate sin now. We hate our
own sin, and we delight in every word He speaks. We delight greatly
in His commandments. Paul said, as a regenerated believer,
he said, I delight in the law of God in the inward man. You
remember why he said that? He said, I had not known sin
but by the law. He said, I had not known lust
except the law had said thou shall not covet. But now, by
God's grace, we see the law through the gospel. We see the law through
the work of Christ and what he's done for us. And when we see
how holy and just and good God's holy law is, we see how holy
and just and good our Redeemer is. And we're reminded over and
over that what we could not do through the law, because the
law was weak because of our flesh, because of our sin, God sent
His only Son. And Christ worked out this righteousness
for His people that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled in
us. And He made you see Him now, and you delight in His commandment
to believe unto righteousness. You delight in that now. You
stop trying to go to any of His commandments to obtain life and
acceptance by it. Now you delight in His commandment
to believe unto righteousness. And you delight in His commandment
to love one another, beholding how Christ laid down His life
for us in love for His people. He makes you delight to lay down
your life for one another. He makes us do it. This is His
glory. That's upon His people, the light
of Christ upon His people. Jeremiah said, Thy words were
found, and I did eat them, and Thy word was unto me the joy
and rejoicing of my heart, for I'm called by Thy name, O Lord
God of hosts. Every word of His we rejoice
in, we delight in it, everything that our Lord has spoken. And
then look at this next thing. Christ is the seed who makes
his seed to be blessed. He said in verse two, his seed
shall be mighty upon earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. Christ Jesus is the Lord's seed. He is the Lord's seed. He is
the mighty. He is the upright. Galatians
3.16 tells us now to Abraham and his seed were the promises
made. He saith not unto seeds as of
many, but as of one, to thy seed, which is Christ. He is the promised
seed. He's called, he says here that
his seed should be mighty upon earth. He's called in Luke 24,
19, Jesus of Nazareth is called a prophet, mighty in deed and
word before God and all the people. By Christ the seed. because God
chose a people in Him. By Christ the seed, His seed,
His elect, shall be mighty upon earth. He's the upright, and
the generation of the upright shall be blessed. We thought
we were mighty, we were glorying in our might, but we were not
upright, not upright in heart. We were sinners full of guile.
We were denying we are the sinner. We were boasting that by our
obedience we were righteous and we were holy. And that was nothing
but guile. We were deceived and deceiving. But by the Spirit of the Lord,
we've been regenerated and we've been made the generation of the
upright. Christ our righteousness and
our holiness has been formed in us, in the new man. And when
that happens, brethren, we're born of incorruptible seed. There's
a new man in his people that's upright. There's a new spirit
and he's upright. There's no sin, there's no guile.
Now we confess in truth all we are in our flesh is sin. Our
righteousness is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our true holiness.
Now we're honest about what we are and we quit trying to deceive
and pretend that we're righteous and holy when now we see we're
sinners. Our righteousness and our holiness
is Christ. This is what religious men can't
confess until God makes a man upright in the heart. So Christ's seed shall be mighty.
The word means strong in faith. It means they will be strong.
They will prevail through faith in Christ who is our mighty conqueror. We're more than conquerors through
him that loved us. and the generation of the upright
shall be blessed. You that have been brought to
believe Christ by the Spirit of God, the Scriptures promises,
he that hath begun a good work in you shall perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. You're going to be strong in
faith, you're going to prevail by faith, and you're going to,
because he's going to continue to bless you all your days. Does
it also mean that our seed, our children, shall be mighty and
blessed to the Lord? Since we're the seed of Christ
the seed, we're His children, does it mean that our seed, our
house, shall be mighty and blessed? Yes, it does. It certainly does. But now, we have to remember
who Christ said His seed are. We have to remember that. Who
are His children? That's how we're going to find
out who our seed are. That's how we're going to find
out who our true children are. Christ pointed to those that
had faith in him, and he said, these are my sons and daughters. This is my family. You see, if
we limit this to our natural seed, to our natural children,
you're going to end up being greatly cast down. And you will
greatly cast down other believers. Because there are a lot of believers.
Many of his saints have seen none of their children saved.
And they've seen their children greatly rebel against the Lord. Christ said, thy foes shall be
they of thine own household. But here he says, but your seed
shall be blessed. Which is it? That's not a contradiction. David said, though it be not
so with my house. not his natural house. He does
often bless our natural seed, but this is what we have to understand.
His true sons and daughters are those begotten again by the word
of the Lord, and those are our true seed. Those are our true
children who he's begotten by the word of truth that he's used
us to preach. They're our fathers and mothers
and sons and daughters, our family. That's our true seed. Those blessed
of the Lord who are made to delight in His commandment to believe
on Him and to go forth and preach His mighty works and wait on
Him to work in the hearts of His people, they're His seed. And the seed that He begets through
this incorruptible seed are our children. They're the house that
we can most certainly, with all assurance, know shall be blessed. Can you show me this in scripture?
I certainly can. Go with me to Genesis 17, 7.
This is what Christ told Abraham. This is what he told him. Genesis
17, 7. He said to him, I will establish,
I will make nations of thee, he said, kings shall come out
of thee, and I will establish my covenant, verse 7, between
me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for
an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed
after thee. If it's an everlasting covenant,
it's the everlasting covenant of grace that can apply to all
Abraham's natural children. Look at Genesis 22. Look at Genesis
22 and look at verse 17. He promised, in blessing I will
bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the
stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore,
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy
seed, that's what Paul's referring to, in Christ the seed, shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast
obeyed my voice. Now go to Galatians 3 and I'll
show you Paul puts that all together for us in Galatians 3. He said in verse 26, after he
said Christ is that promised seed, he said the law didn't
disannul this. It showed us our sin. Christ
came forth and fulfilled the law. And he comes and gives you
faith. And he said in Galatians 3.26,
you're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Look
at verse 29. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, according
to that promise we just read. So yes, God may give you an abundance
of children, natural children, and sometimes he blesses those
natural children and makes them your true sons and daughters,
your spiritual sons and daughters. But this is our assurance. This
is what we bow to and we rejoice in, all those that God love from
eternity, all those Christ redeemed. Through this gospel, he's given
you faith to preach and made you mighty to preach his word
and to stand with Christ and believe Christ. He's going to
beget his children and those he gathers, those of you that
have been called by this gospel, you're the sons and daughters.
This is his house and greatly blessed. That's his promise.
That's his promise. You can apply that to all his
spiritual seed. without a doubt. Now look thirdly,
Christ blesses his house with wealth and riches. Verse three,
wealth and riches shall be in his house and his righteousness
endureth forever. There have been, when I was growing
up in the South, you had preachers on from the time you woke up
in the morning all day on Sunday, you would have TV preachers. And they were always telling
you that if you want to be wealthy, you want to be rich, you believe
on the Lord and you give and you give and you give and he'll
make you wealthy and he'll make you rich. And if you're not wealthy
and rich, it's your fault. You don't have enough faith.
And they use a scripture like this to back that up. Wealth
and riches shall be in Christ's house. Wealth and riches shall
be in the house of the blessed man, in the house of Christ Jesus
the upright. and thereby wealth and riches
shall be in the house of those he makes to be the blessed man."
Again, if we limit this to temporal riches, we will be cast down
because there's a lot of God's children who've not been rich
in temporal possessions. They've been poor. They've been
poor. But Christ's house is blessed
with true wealth and true riches. He blesses his house with true
wealth and true riches, spiritual wealth and spiritual riches.
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich,
yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty
might be made rich. Christ himself is the pearl of
great price. Christ himself and all his spiritual
blessing are the unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul said to
the Philippians my God shall bless you according to his riches
in glory by Christ Jesus Paul said unto me whom less than the
least of the saints is this grace given that I should preach among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ We have unsearchable
riches always read the next phrase Wealth and riches shall be in
his house and his righteousness endureth forever The wealth and
riches that Christ blesses his house with is his righteousness. Christ's righteousness endureth
forever, and therefore, by giving us faith in him and giving us
freely his righteousness, our righteousness shall endure forever.
And by his keeping grace, his people are going to be righteous
in our dealings in this world. And he's going to keep you enduring
in him. Christ blesses us with temporal
blessings that we need in this life. He will provide all the
temporal blessings we need in this life, but in Christ at God's
right hand is where we have treasures in heaven where neither moth
nor rust does corrupt, where thieves do not break through
and steal. Just think about how rich you are, child of God. Think
of the riches your Redeemer possesses. And he says to you, all my righteousness
is yours. I've laden you with all spiritual
blessings. And on top of that, this is the
gravy. He says, whatever you need in
this world, I'll provide it. That's rich. That's wealthy. That's wealthy. He said, but
seek ye first the kingdom of God in his righteousness. These
other things will be added. Don't let that be your distraction.
You seek Him who is the King. You seek Him who is the righteousness
of His people. When He's made us, made wisdom
to us and gives us the fear of the Lord, and we greatly delight
in His commandments to believe on Christ and to continue in
faith and love until the end, this is the treasure Christ gives
His people. This is our stability and our
strength, the strength of our salvation. It is the fear of
the Lord. Listen to Colossians 2 through
in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge now listen
to Isaiah 33 6 wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy
times and Strength of salvation the fear of the Lord is his treasure
He's given you something. He hasn't given The world he's
given you a fear of the Lord so that you know him And you
have this fear now as a child toward his father, and you know
he's providing you all the wealth and riches, spiritual wealth
and riches, and he's providing you all temporal blessings. Christ
provides our temporal needs, but he commands his children,
seek him first. Having Christ, we're rich, though
we don't have any lasting riches in this world. You don't have
one single thing, not a dime in your bank account, and not
any temporal possession you own that's going to last. You're
going to let them all go. You're going to leave just like
you came in. That baby, Isaac, was born yesterday
naked. Naked. And he's going to leave naked. We came into this world naked.
We're going to leave naked. The blessing is when God robes
you in his righteousness through faith and makes you to know he's
blessed you with all spiritual blessings in him, accepted you,
and that that will never last, never end. And so as we preach
this gospel, we preach these unsearchable riches of Christ
as he blesses his word to our spiritual seed and calls out
his people and gives them these riches. You know what we're doing?
We're making others rich. Wealth and riches shall be in
our house. We're making others rich. Listen to what Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 16. He said, we're sorrowful, yet
we're always rejoicing. In the world, you shall have
tribulation. That's all this flesh is, that's all this world
is. But in Christ, we have peace and we have that joy. He said,
as poor, yet making many rich. He said, as having nothing, yet
possessing all things. That's us, brethren. That's a
believer. And then fourthly, Christ is
our light in the darkness. He's our light in the darkness.
Verse four, Psalm 112, four. Unto the upright there riseth
light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion
and righteous. Christ is the upright. He is
preeminently the upright. He is preeminently the blessed
man. Did he suffer darkness? Did he suffer darkness? He went
to the cross and in those three hours of darkness God turned
his back. God forsook God. in justice. But when He satisfied justice
for His people and He fully honored and magnified God's holy law,
light was given Him. He arose. He arose to the right
hand of the Father and He is the light. And He's the light
of those He's blessed and made upright in heart. It's not that
we don't have darkness. It's not that we don't come into
darkness in this world. That's what we just heard Paul
talk about. Sorrowful. Why are we rejoicing
though? Because Christ is your light
and you're not going to abide in darkness. He said, I am come
a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide
in darkness. I read to you from Isaiah Thursday
night. We looked at it where he said,
who are you that obey his servant? Who are you that believe on Christ
and sit in darkness? Trust in the Lord. He will not allow his child to
remain in darkness. Light will arise. He will arise
as the light. Micah 7, 8. Listen to this. This is what you can say, child
of God. Now listen. Rejoice not against me, O mine
enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. You're going to fall. There'll
be times you're gonna fall, you're gonna have some darkness, but
you shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be light unto me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I've sinned against Him. That's where our
darkness usually comes from. We've sinned and God's chasing
us, correcting us, but I'll only I have to bear it till he plead
my cause. We're going to see in the next
hour Christ intercessory prayer, praying to the Father on behalf
of his people. He shall plead the cause of his
people and he shall execute justice, judgment for me. He will bring
me forth to the light and I shall behold his righteousness. This
is what he does over and over again. It's how he makes you
delight greatly in his commandments. It's how he grows you in faith
to delight to believe him. It's how he grows you to delight
in his grace and his compassion and his righteousness. He does
this to those he's blessed because, look there at the next word,
Christ is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. He's
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He's gracious and
he's full of compassion to correct us and forgive our transgressions
and heal our backslidings. Judgment is his strange work.
It's his strange work. He accomplished that for his
people on Calvary's Cross. He delights in mercy. He's righteous. He's gracious
and full of compassion and he's righteous to show us grace and
compassion because he satisfied justice for his people. It is
the only righteous thing for him to do, to show his people
mercy. Aren't you thankful for mercy?
Aren't you thankful he's gracious and full of compassion and righteous
to be merciful and gracious to you? His compassions fail not. He
will not break the bruised reed. He will not quench the smoking
flax. He pities his child. Have you
experienced this child of God? You have, I'm certain. And at
some point, you're going to experience it again and may experience it
more and more. He pities his child when no other
eye pities you. Why? He has been there. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He was afflicted in all thy afflictions. He's been there. And it's by
this, it's by His grace and His compassion and His righteousness
to us in the darkness that He makes His child greatly delight
in His commandments to believe Him and love one another. He
makes us delight to be gracious and compassionate and righteous. He makes you delight in it. You
think about the epistle of James. It's so sad that men run to that
epistle and try to use it in just the way that it tells you
not to. James said, through the spirit
of God, the Lord said, when you come into every sort of trial,
you endure it with patience. We hear the Lord command that
to us. Wait on the Lord. And He makes
you delight to do so. Oh, we might waver at first and
we might kick against the affliction, but He makes you delight in it. Because you know, He's your sovereign
God working everything that's come in the past. And He tells
you, if you need wisdom, ask Him. And He makes you delight
to go to His throne of grace and faith and ask Him for wisdom. And the greatest trial we face
is waiting on the Lord to bless the Word in the hearts of our
brethren and in the hearts of lost sinners because we just
have this terrible tendency to want to speed things up. James knew something about that
because he was a Jew And there was a lot of his Jewish brethren
who were having a great deal of trouble receiving Gentile
brethren. A great deal of trouble receiving
and waiting on the Lord to work through the gospel rather than
trying to use the law to force them into obedience. But the
Lord makes you remember you were begotten again by the word of
the Lord. You were begotten again by the
gospel of Christ. Every good and perfect gift came
down to you from the Father of lights with whom is no variables,
neither shadow of turning. And He makes you delight in that
commandment to be swift to hear that word, to be slow to speak
against it, and to be slow to anger. He makes you delight to
visit the sinner that's cast down, the brother who's fallen
and is as helpless as an orphan and a widow, the most helpless
beings there are in this world. That's what every child of God
is. When you've fallen, when you're sin sick, you're as helpless
as an orphan and a widow, and He makes you visit them with
the word of the gospel, the bread of life. Makes you delight to
do that commandment. And He makes you hear Him say
to you, now don't be a respecter of persons. It's easy to be merciful
to those who are rich in good works. It's a lot more difficult
to be merciful to those who are poor and fallen. And that's what
James is talking about. Because the very next word, God
makes you remember now. Remember, if you've broken one
commandment, you've broken all of them. But you remember Christ
has been merciful to you. He's delighted in mercy rather
than judgment. And that makes you gracious and
compassionate and right in how you deal with your brethren.
You rejoice in mercy rather than judgment. It's not right to judge
our brethren who Christ has made righteous. You're going to lay
something to the charge of one God has justified? And so he makes you hear the
command not to be many masters. To trust you have one master
who's able to make his children stand. You delight in his commandment. He makes you to hear the word
say, don't bless and curse with the same tongue. Don't take God's
word and you speak it and it's a blessing. It's always a blessing.
But in your heart you try to curse God's people with it. That's
blessing and cursing with the same tongue. He makes you to
know that's devilish. Righteousness is sown in peace
of those who make righteousness. You take these pearls, and you
don't sling them at one another. You take these pearls, and you
gently put them up around the neck. And Christ, by His Spirit,
adorns His people with the gospel of His riches. He makes you hear
him say, now the law of faith and love is the law we're under.
This is Christ's law. But when we judge our brethren
and condemn our brethren, we're not being doers of that law of
faith and love. We're not waiting on Christ,
and we're not loving our brethren. There's one judge. He's able
to save and destroy. And he brings us down from that
high and lofty seat. And he makes us stop saying,
I will, I will, I'll go tomorrow, and I will. And he makes you
say, no, Lord, if you will. You might use me to speak. You
don't have to. He makes you resign yourself
to His will. And as you're bearing this affliction,
and it's great affliction because it goes against everything our
flesh desires. He makes you remember the affliction
of the prophets. He makes you remember the suffering
of Job. But He makes you remember the
patience of Job and how God was pitiful and of great compassion
and blessed him in the end. And so when your brother sins
sick, he makes you call for the elders. You delight to do this.
Why? So they can preach the gospel
of these unsearchable riches of Christ to your sin sick brother.
He makes you pray for him. You delight to obey him and go
to him and pray for your brethren. He makes you delight to seek him and use his word
that he might send the Spirit and anoint that sin sick brother
with the oil of the Holy Spirit. And you know, because he's done
this for you over and over and over and over, he's been the
light that arose in your darkness, and he's made you to know that
if your brother has sinned, he'll not only heal him, he'll forgive
him his sins. And in all of this, because you
know He's done it for you, and He's created in you a new man
in whom is no guile, now you confess your faults to one another. You don't act toward your brother
like you've never fallen and never done what he's done. That's
dishonest. You go to him and say, brother,
I know. I'm the sinner. I've been right
there where you are. Why do you do these things? You
only do them when you fear the Lord and know He's the master. He's your righteousness. He's
your sanctification. He's your redemption. He's ruling
everything. And he's able to make his people
stand. And you know this because he's
done it for you. And he keeps doing it for you.
And he keeps using your brethren to do it for you. And you know,
you know, you delight in his commandments to trust him and
love one another by speaking the word of the gospel to one
another. This is what He makes you do,
because you've been laden with this wealth and this riches of
our Redeemer, and you've been blessed by Him, and He makes
you to be a blessing to your brethren. And that's just the opposite
of how most people use the Epistle of James. I pray God, make us the blessed
man, upright in heart, be honest, In my flesh dwells nothing good. You think you've seen some sin
in me? You don't even know. You don't even know. But in Christ
Jesus is all my righteousness. And you keep trusting Him by
His grace, and you keep trying to tell your brethren about Him.
This is how He saved. Is it how He saved you in the
beginning? Did he do it through the gospel or did he do it through
some false message? He only does it through the gospel.
This is how he saved all that multitude on the day of Pentecost.
This is how he added more to them a little bit later. This
is how he saved everybody in the scriptures through the message
that declares his wonderful works. Go back and read Psalm 11. All
of this is due to his works to us. And this is the light. When he's taken the law out of
the way and made you see you're not condemned, you delight to
serve him. You delight to serve him, but
you delight to serve him in the same way that he made you to
serve him. That is by showing you he has
freely given you all things and continues to give you and continues
to bless you. That's how he blesses his people.
It makes us happy and joyful. Amen. Father, we thank you for
this word. We pray you bless it to us. Pray
that you would continually work this in us and continually create
in us this fear and grow it and make us to the light more and
more to be gracious and compassionate and righteous in our dealings
in light of your righteousness, in light of your accomplished
redemption. Help us, Lord, to come to you
continually confessing our sin, continually come to you asking
mercy and grace. And Lord, help us by your spirit
to be upright, to be a blessing to your people, to continue
to speak this good news of Christ and Him crucified. Thank you
for these blessings, Lord. I ask you forgiveness of sin
for Christ's sake. It's in His name we ask it. Amen. sustains me through my sin, my
doubt, my grief. Since Christ has done it all,
though feeble I'll not fall. His wounded hands hold me, the
sinner's chief. Unbounded love, unfailing love,
love raised upon a tree. my savior's sovereignty.