All right, good morning. Well, our text is Mark 14, but
I'm just gonna read it. You be turning over to the Psalms,
Psalm 113. But our text, Joe, for your purposes
is Mark 14, 26, which says, and when they had sung an hymn, when
they sung an hymn, They went out into the Mount of Olives. I had to turn to Psalm 113 because
there were several hymns that were sung at the Passover. at a couple of high holy days,
and these, not the least of which, were sung at the time of Passover. And it was six of them, Psalm
113, 114, 115, all the way up to Psalm 118. So, I saw that
verse there in Mark 14, 26, that they had sung a hymn and the commentators were united
that these were the hymns that they would have sung. So I was
looking at these psalms and I was blessed in seeing the gospel.
And since we'll be taking the Lord's Supper today, you that
believe and trust Christ, that he is your righteousness, that
these are blessed, the sweet gospel that we have here, so
that as you take the bread and take the wine, that you would
think on how Christ has saved you by his mercy and grace, that
he has brought peace to you with God. And so that's a sweet meditation
for us. All right, so our title is They
Sung a Hymn. They Sung a Hymn. And we're just
going to first look at the first two Psalms for now, 113 and 114,
and then we'll make it through, we should make it through all
of them, because we're not going to look at every verse, but we'll
look at a variety of verses there. Alright, now 113 and 114. They
didn't sing these all at once, but they sang these two early,
in an early part of the Feast. And Psalm 113 is called or known
as the commencement or the beginning of the Hallel, the Hallel. And Hallel means praise. And
it hit me as I was looking at that, that the word hallelujah,
hallelujah, hallelujah means praise Jehovah. And so that's
why they call it the beginning of the Hallel, the beginning
of praise. All right. And so this Psalm
113, details the excellency and the mercy of God and the salvation
of His people. It reveals to us how God saves
sinners, unworthy sinners such as ourselves gathered here. God
saves by mercy, by grace. Let's look at verse 1 there,
Psalm 113 verse 1. And it says, Praise ye the Lord. Praise, O
ye servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Now remember, this is sung at
Passover. And here are these people praising
the Lord. They were servants of Pharaoh
before the Lord delivered them out of Egypt. Now they are servants
of the Most High God and they're praising His name. And that's
true of all the Lord's people. He delivers them from bondage. The bondage that we are in naturally. We are slaves of this flesh,
of sin, of Satan. of this world and all its ways
and practices." And John, in 1 John 3, 8, he recorded saying,
for this purpose, because of this bondage, because we cannot
free ourselves and save ourselves, for this purpose the Son of God
was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. The works of the devil. Christ
was sent of God to destroy have with darkness and death and sin. He put that away for his people
and delivered them from that bondage to be servants of righteousness,
servants of the Most High God, because the scriptures teach
us that we all come forth dead in trespasses and sins. And I'll just quote this one
part from Ephesians 2, I believe it's verse 2, which says, ye,
and that's me included, ye or we walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So for that purpose, God sent
his son to destroy that fellowship, to destroy and put away our enemy,
which is and the strength of death being
sin, he destroyed those works. And it says in Hebrews 2 14 that
through death Christ might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And so that's what
we see here in the beginning of this psalm. These are no longer
in bondage to Pharaoh, their slavery and from that bondage
to now serve the living God, to serve the true and living
God. Now those who are outside of
Christ, they're yet in their bondage. They are yet children
of disobedience and they're yet servants of sin and under the
devil's power. But God, God is the one who makes
the difference. He's the one who shows mercy
and grace to his people, delivering them from that bondage that we
were in by nature as sons and daughters of Adam. Alright, now
looking back at Psalm 113, look at verses 4 and 5. Here it says,
the Lord is high above all nations. and His glory above the heavens.
Who was like unto the Lord our God who dwelleth on high?" So
we see here that this God is the God. This God is the God. There's not many gods. There's
not many ways to the true and living God. There is one way
of salvation. It's through the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he reveals the Father. If there were many gods, then
there would be no gods, because You can't get your will and your
way, and God does whatsoever he pleases and whatsoever he
desires and chooses to do. And our God is a God who is perfect
and holy. He's holy and great and mighty. But watch what we see of him
in verse six. It says, who humbleth himself
to behold the things that are on earth and in the heaven. You
ever think about that? When God thinks on you and me,
he's humbling himself. He's humbling himself. to think
on us, because He's perfect and righteous and holy in all His
ways. Yet, He does think on His people. He does think upon them. He humbles
Himself to consider them, and that's a mercy. As He's teaching
us and showing us what we are, we see that's a mercy of God,
who is kind and merciful to think on us and to provide salvation
for His people. who are unworthy of it and unable
to get themselves in a savable state. We don't meet God part
way. God does all the work of salvation. And you that are sinners know
that it must be so, that it is that way. In fact, it says in
Psalm 14, 2 and 3, the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children
of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek
God. They are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. So that's our condition. We call
that total depravity. Total depravity. That is that
we cannot save ourselves. We can't lift ourselves up out
of the corruption and the death to such a point where God can
now be merciful to us. Religion teaches that though,
don't they? That you've got to now do your part, and God helps
those who help themselves, and they say other kinds of nonsense
like that, but man is totally dead in trespasses and sins. But God in mercy, God in mercy,
not because of anything you or I did, God in mercy determined
in himself, according to his good pleasure, whom he would
save. before the foundation of the
world and God and mercy. The good news to you that are
sinners and have done nothing good or right that God should
receive you. The good news is that God chose
sinners, unworthy, guilty, dead, filthy sinners. God did this
for the glory of his name and he gave them to Christ, a perfect
savior, providing perfect salvation, to guilty, unworthy, unperfect
sinners. God did this. And so knowing
our sinful and corrupt heart and mind, because he himself
was a corrupt sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, except for
God doing what he did, knowing our inability to correct ourselves
and work a righteousness by the law or our works of the flesh,
David wrote, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered, Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. That's a blessing. That's a blessing, because that
means God is doing all the work. That man or woman is blessed
of God, to whom God imputes righteousness apart from any works that they've
done in the flesh. It's free, full salvation, and
that's how God receive sinners freely freely those are his terms
we come with nothing in our hand freely he receives his people
in Christ now the children of God are a saved people not of
their works but of grace and this grace is shown to us through
his son Jesus Christ it wasn't free to him He bore the judgment
and the punishment of God that was due to us for our sins and
our wickedness. Christ did that. And that's why
David also wrote in Psalm 38 saying, salvation belongeth unto
the Lord. It's his work, not your work,
not my work. It's his work. Salvation belongeth
unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people. It's a blessing. It's a grace.
It's a mercy. You that believe Christ and trust
Him and rest in Him, apart from your works, and believe that
He is your righteousness, laying hold of that by faith, the faith
which God has revealed in you, looking to Christ, that's your
righteousness. Jesus Christ is your righteousness.
You understand that by faith, by the work of God, all right? Now the testimony of grace reveals
that God and God alone is the Savior of man. We didn't do anything
in any part to earn or get ourselves to that point. And look at verse
7 here. Psalm 113 verse 7. He says, He
raiseth up the poor out of the dust. The dust. This flesh is
dust. This flesh is weak. This flesh
is decaying and going back to the dust from which it came.
We're weak, and sick, and dying, and diseased, all evidences of
sin in us. But he raiseth up the poor out
of the dust. He's the one who, in spite of
us, raises us up by grace, lifting us up out of the grave that we
are in by nature. He's the one who raises us in
grace. And that's what the Lord meant
when he said, ye must be born again. We don't make ourselves
born again. We don't believe by faith and
therefore are born again, but rather we believe by faith. then we believe. So the Lord
raises us up. He's the one who lifts us up
out of the dust whereby we now know him and believe him. And
look at verse 7 again where it says, and lifteth the needy out
of the dunghill. Out of the dunghill. What's dung? Well, we know what dung is. It's
like what you wipe off a baby's bottom and you put it in the
diaper and you throw it in the trash. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants
that stuff around. It's dumb, right? And that's
what our works are in the flesh. Paul said, all my religious works,
everything I did to try and please God and to make myself acceptable
with God, those things I count as dumb. They're dumb. They're refuse. I cast them off.
I don't look to those things at all. God lifts the needy out
of the downhill. He lifts them out from just dead-letter
religion, whereby we're laboring away, trying to earn a favor
with God. He delivers us from that. That's
what repentance is. He turns us from our own religious
works, trying to earn some favor and blessing with God. He turns
us from that. to behold the righteousness that
He provided in His Son, Jesus Christ. That's repentance. Religion
teaches you, well, repentance is you stopping. You better stop
this, and you better stop that, and you better stop this over
here, then you can believe. Now, repentance is It's a grace
of God that turns us from trusting those works to trusting and resting
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in Christ we also see that
we're seated with princes. Look at verse 8 there. It says
that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his
people. We ourselves aren't rich. We
ourselves are bankrupt sinners. We have nothing to glory in.
Nothing, but God in mercy raised us up in glory and seated us
with Christ, who is Lord of Lords, King of Kings. He's the Prince
of Princes. He's the Prince of Righteousness.
And Paul words it this way in Ephesians 2, 5, and 6, saying,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us. He resurrected
us in grace. together with Christ by grace
you're saved and that raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ even now we are seated
with Christ the as though is us living here in the earth why
as though living in the earth are you subject to ordinances
right in the rudiments of this world we're seated with Christ
we are even now in in the beloved seated with Christ and are surrounded
by a great cloud of witnesses, our brothers and sisters who
also died in Christ and were raised with him and are seated
with him in heaven now. All right now, while we're now
safe in the bosom of our Savior, we serve the Lord. We serve,
we finish out our days looking to him, loving our Lord, loving
our brethren, serving our brethren, serving one another, trusting
the Lord in this and it says verse nine, he make it the barren
woman to keep house and to be a joyful mother of children.
Praise ye the Lord. And this is a sweet picture of
the church, right? This is the church whom the Lord
raises up, gives faith and teaches them the gospel to trust Christ
and to look to Christ, he sends them to the church where the
gospel is preached, right? She's serving the children of
her husband. She's preaching that gospel.
She's providing that food, the Lord Jesus Christ, the bread
and the wine of Christ. That is the gospel whereby we
hear by faith. The Lord does this. All right,
now let's move on to Psalm 114. Psalm 114. They would have sung
from this Psalm as well. Look at verses one and two. When
Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people
of strange language, right? They didn't speak of grace. They
didn't know anything of grace. They spoke a strange language,
a language of works, right? Something you have to do. The
Lord delivers people from that. It says, Judah was his sanctuary
and Israel his dominion. Now, who's this his? Who's the
his referring to? That's Jehovah, the Lord God
of heaven and earth. We're his sanctuary. We're his
dominion. And the Lord doesn't, what he's
saying there is the Lord doesn't just save his people and leave
them to themselves. They just spin off and just go
off doing whatever they will and what they want. The Lord
saves his people and he dwells with his people. He continues
to dwell with them. We have the Spirit of Christ
in us. You that believe have the Spirit
of Christ in you. Our Lord said, I will pray the
Father and He shall give you another Comforter that He may
abide with you forever. The Spirit dwells with us. The
Spirit lives in you that are His people, that believe He lives
with you, He dwells with you. As Christ said in Lowe, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. We're His sanctuary. Think about
that. Think about that when you're
going about your day, when you're working out of the house or working
in the house, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, the Lord
dwells with you. He dwells with you and that has
an effect on me. I do think about that. And the
Lord does teach me in that. There's not a desire that I have
that wants to be a sinner, that wants to live in sin, that wants
to do those things. And I'm reminded the Lord dwells
with me. The Lord saved me from these
things. Lord, help me. As I see my weakness, as I see
my sin and he makes it evident to me, I don't want to continue
in that. The Lord is the one who teaches
us that and turns us from that in the sense that we cry out
to Him because He's the one that gives us the grace and the faith
to trust Him and to want to glorify Him, to adorn the doctrine of
grace, to adorn the God that we trust and believe has saved
us and put away our sin. Christ died for that sin. I don't
want to keep committing it and doing those things that that
are shameful. So, He's our Sanctuary, He dwells
with us, and we are His dominion. He rules over us. He's the Sovereign
God, and He takes His people out from under the dominion of
our oppressors. He takes us out from underneath
that dominion. It says in Isaiah 26, we've been
looking at Isaiah on Wednesdays, and we saw a couple weeks back
In verses 13 and 14, it says, O Lord our God, other lords beside
Thee have had dominion over us, but by Thee only will we make
mention of Thy name. That work of His grace, by His
grace and His power in us, delivering us from that dominion of our
oppressors, that's whereby we know who saved us. Not we ourselves,
but His name we speak of. Right? And so he slain and cut
down all our enemies. It says, they are dead, they
shall not live. They are deceased, they shall
not rise. Therefore hast thou visited and
destroyed them and made all their memory to perish. So, we see
how the Lord did this. We're his sanctuary, we're his
dominion. And then in Psalm 114, as you're
going down, you see how it speaks of The sea fleeing from before
his presence. We see the Jordan River being
driven back before him. It talks of the mountains and
the hills skipping away at his presence. And so it says in verse
seven, tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord, at
the presence of the God of Jacob, which turned the rock into a
standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters. You know,
who can stand before our God? Who of us is worthy to stand
before Him? Now, even as our brother was
praying that the Lord help me, the Lord teaches His servants
who's sufficient for these things. Who is able to stand up and declare
the things of God, knowing what we are in ourselves? It's only
by the grace and the mercy of God. that we know these things
and can stand and deliver these things to his people, those whom
he's chosen and called out and assembled together to feed them
in that church, that barren woman who had no children, to bring
them there, that they should be fed with the provision of
her husband. All right, and so this word here,
is a comfort to the believer. Because we're not mighty in ourselves. We're not standing here or gathered
here because we're something. We have something to give to
God. We're here completely and entirely by the grace of God. And the Lord has gathered us
because He smote Christ. He smote Christ. As pictured there at verse 8,
when Moses smote the rock in the wilderness because the people
were thirsty. and the people were dying and
had nothing, the Lord told them, you smite that rock, and out
from that will come gushing water. And that's how it is, because
God smote His Son, His darling Son, in our place, so now that
Spirit, His Spirit, flows through us like a rushing river, giving
us life, and nourishing us, and healing us, and feeding His people. Christ forms in us that new man
by the Spirit, whereby we believe Him, and trust Him, and rest
in Him. Though in ourselves we don't
see anything that we should be confident in ourselves, but we
see Jesus, we see Christ. provided of God for this very
thing to put away the sin of his people. All right, so those
are the hymns that the Jews would have sung there in the beginning
part when they were eating the lamb and drinking from the cup
there. And so that's a picture there
of the believers feeding upon Christ, upon the bread and the
wine that God has provided for them. All right, now let's move
on to the other Psalms that they would have sung. At Psalm 115,
for example, it says, now these would have been sung at the end
of the feast. So as the feast progressed, they would have now
been singing these at the end of the feast. All right, so look
at verse one. Psalm 115, one says, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. All right, the Lord's people
sing that. We declare that, we're not, up
here talking about what we've done for the Lord, but the Lord
teaches us what he's done for us. That's very different than
religion. In religion, it's a lot of talk
about what they've been doing for the Lord lately. But we talk
about what the Lord has done for us, in spite of us. Paul
said, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus. Of God are ye in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. The religion says, well, by my
faith, by my faith, Christ has made unto me wisdom and righteousness. By my faith, he's my sanctification. And by my faith, he's my redemption. No, it's of God that he's our
wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Why? That according
as it's written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. So
we speak of what God has done for us in free grace, in His
salvation. And it's our God who saves His
people. Now verse 3, Psalm 115 verse
3 says, But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever
He hath pleased. You know if God Faith is wonderful, it really
is. As we saw this morning, faith is the gift of God, whereby we
look to Christ, whereby we have done the very righteousness of
God. Not us, ourselves, but looking to Christ so affectionately. that we see Christ, the very
righteousness of God, that He is our righteousness, that we've
done the righteousness by faith, by faith. But the way religion
talks about it, that's the work that man does. That's what he
has to do first, right? That's putting something we've
done, right, like circumcision, something we've done before salvation,
before righteousness and so man looks to what he's done first
and if that was the case then God would be subject to the will
and the whim of man. He wouldn't be doing his will
as he pleases because he can't. He's trying to do what's good
and trying to help people but I can't because you just won't
let me by your will, by your faith. So faith isn't of the
flesh, it can't be of the flesh. It's gotta be a heavenly gift. It's a work of the spirit for
the believer, all right? And so that kind of talk, when
someone speaks of what they've done, and they tell you, no,
no, no, faith is the work of man, that's your contribution,
that's your part, well, that's works. That's just the work of
the flesh. And when they start talking like
that, what does it do? It reveals that their hope is
in idols. in an idol god, and that's what
we see looking at Psalm 115, verses four through seven. It
says, their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Eyes have they, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but
they smell not. They have hands, but they handle
not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they
through their throat. And haven't you heard in religion,
he has no hands but your hands. He has no feet but your feet.
If you don't take this gospel, and if you don't start doing,
then the people aren't going to be saved, because God can't
do it. That's an idol. They just described
the idol God that's described here. They have hands, but they
can't handle anything. They got feet, but they can't
go anywhere, because they're dependent on man. Now God is
pleased to use men. He's pleased to send us to preach
it, but it glorifies God in that we're nothing. We're just earthen
vessels that are easily broken and easily destroyed, that are
weak and flimsy. And God is able to save his people. He can send that word wherever
he will. Just like Jonah, who thought
to go the other way. And God brought him right on
back. to Nineveh at the appointed time, and he preached the Word,
and the people repented. So the Lord is able to have His
man or woman. He's going to have His prey. They're going to be His. He loves
them. And they're going to hear the
Word and be delivered unto the Savior and to His righteousness. All right, now look at verses
8 and 9, Psalm 115. They that make them are like
unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them." What are they? They're dead. They're worthless.
There's no profit in those things. The fruit that they bring forth
is rotten, smelly, corrupt fruit. God isn't pleased with that.
He doesn't receive those things. But, oh Israel, verse nine, trust
thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. We give thanks to God for our
salvation. because he's the one that's not
willing that any of his people should perish, but that all of
his people should come to repentance. It's his will, and that's why
we're here. That's why the gospel's still in the earth and not destroyed,
and this earth isn't destroyed because God has a people he's
still bringing and still calling for his glory and purpose. Romans 9, 16 says, so then it's
not of him that willeth. Forget about your free will.
No such thing. We don't have a free will. It's
bound in nature's darkness. It's bound in corruption. It's
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth. All right,
it's not of our works, but of God that showeth mercy. And in
that same chapter nine, verse 23 says, and that he might make
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy. you
that believe him, and have no confidence in the flesh, it's
because you're a vessel of mercy. God is purposed to be merciful
to you, which he had aforeprepared unto glory." God did this. God chose his people. So let
us not be found stealing his glory, talking about what we've
done for the Lord, but let us be heard speaking of what he's
done for us. Let us praise his name. All right,
turn over to Psalm 116 now. Psalm 116. Go to verse 12. Psalm 116 verse 12 says, what
shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? See that confession? His benefits
towards me. He's done this. He's the one
blessing me. So that we see in the gospel,
we hear and understand that God never looks to the sinner for
any part of salvation. Isn't that a mercy? He doesn't
look to you to do something first before He'll be gracious to you.
He always looks to our covenant head, our shorty, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Anything you need, He looks to
His Son. Anything required of you, He
looks to His Son. Anything necessary, it's all
provided for His people in His Son, Jesus Christ. Those are His benefits. And see,
this is what he brings in us. It says, verse 13, I will take
the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Our God produces that faith in
us, whereby we look to Christ and believe him. I will take
the cup of salvation. I believe. I can't help but believe. We hear what he's done, and we
believe. I'm the sinner, unable to save
myself. He's provided the Savior. in His Son, Jesus Christ, who
worked all my righteousness necessary, required of me. He's provided
it all. And so we call upon the name
of the Lord, trusting, trusting that Christ is the Savior provided
of God. And that's how we know Him, because
by grace are you saved, through faith. And that, that faith,
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast, and listen to this, for we are his workmanship. You that like to work with your
hands and build things, well, we are God's workmanship. He's
built us. He's made us what we are, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. That means the good works follow.
They don't come before. And that's what motivates God.
They follow as a result of His Spirit in us, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them. He's going to bring
them forth from us. You just trust Him and rest in
Him and believe His Son. Then it says, verse 14, I will
pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people. That's a picture of public confession. We willingly now, identify with
the Lord and his people. And that's not always a popular
thing. I mean, it's pretty popular around
this area. I've never heard people speak the way they speak before
and say the things that they say. It's pretty shocking when
you come from the Northeast and you'll hear it. When you're here
long enough, you'll hear, you say, I've never heard anybody
talk like that in California. And they're, they're pretty free
and pretty vocal, but This is identifying with the Lord's people. We're willing to speak of what
God has done for us and to praise and glorify his name. And Henry Mahan used to say,
if Christ is in you, he's going to stick out. He's going to stick
out. You can't keep Christ hidden.
If he's in you, people are going to know it. But we see these
in the ordinances in baptism, you that believe. He says, be
baptized. We preach believer's baptism. So you that believe him, rest
in him, be baptized. And you that believe him, take
of the Lord's supper. Take the bread and take the wine.
That's why he's given it that we remember him and we do this
together as a body here. All right, verse 15. Then it
says, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints. And that's connected with that
public confession. All right, we're dying. to self. When we confess Christ and we
believe Him, the Lord works that death to self. That doesn't mean
that we're perfect in ourselves, this flesh doesn't improve, it
doesn't get any better. But we walk by faith in the Spirit
and the Lord will teach us and the Lord will guide us. We look
to Him, not the law for our rule of life, we look to Christ our
Savior, the Gospel, as our rule of life. And we follow Him and
believe Him and speak of him so that no longer are we looking
to the dead works of religion to try and produce fruit. But
he does produce fruit because he's our husband and we're his
bride. And he's going to bring forth
fruit from his bride. He's going to bring forth those
things that glorify and praise his name. And I'll choose Jeremiah
51.10 which says, the Lord hath brought forth our righteousness. He's brought this forth, it's
his work. Come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord
our God. So everything precious, everything
necessary, everything lasting and everlasting and eternal,
he brings forth through Christ. It's of Christ, it's his work,
he's eternal. And so we learn to sing his praises,
right? And glory in his mighty work
of salvation. Alright, let's move quickly on
to Psalm 117 and then 118. In Psalm 117 verse 1, this is
Christ, the risen Savior, who now leads the congregation in
the praise of their God. It says, O praise the Lord all
ye nations, praise him all ye people, for his merciful kindness
is great toward us and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Praise ye the Lord." And in here we see that it's not just the
Jews, not just the circumcised, but the Gentiles and the uncircumcised
out of every kindred, tongue, and people, and nation. All right,
it says, oh praise the Lord, all ye nations. So the Lord has
a people scattered throughout the earth that he's calling with
this gospel. All right, now move on to Psalm
118, go to verse 22. Psalm 118, look down at verse
22. Here we see the foundation, our
very foundation that God has laid for his people, that our
very standing before the throne of God, where holy and perfect
God is seated, Our foundation is Jesus Christ the righteous,
not our works. He's our righteousness. It says
in Psalm 118 verse 22 through 24, the stone which the builders
refused has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's
doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and
be glad in it. We rejoice in that. We're thankful
that our standing is Christ. But the offense of the cross
is right there. That we bring nothing of our
flesh. We don't contribute anything
to salvation. And that's what people in religion
get offended about. Because you're saying everything
I've done to try and earn the favor of God and work righteousness
counts for nothing? That's right. It's just works
of dumb. But our righteousness is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he'll bring forth that love
and that peace and that kindness toward one another and that willingness
to serve one another. He brings that forth. But it's
in thankfulness, not to earn or improve the favor of God toward
us. Now the case of man is desperate. It is desperate. Man is dead
in trespasses and sins. And he's got the wrath of God
building up against him. And it's coming. God has promised
that. And so the Lord must do the salvation. He's the one that makes the difference.
And verse 25 of Psalm 118 says, Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, send
now prosperity. All right, we in this church
gather together we pray that the Lord would prosper his word.
We preach the gospel as faithfully as he's revealed it to us. We're
declaring that salvation is of the Lord and not our works, but
we pray that the Lord prosper that word, that he raise up dead
sinners, that he cause them to hear his word and to be raised
up from the grave of this dust whereby we don't understand and
know the things of God except he do it. So we preach this gospel
word. Peter saying, this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. We preach the cross,
the bloody cross of Christ, where he hung there for his people,
bearing the wrath of God to put away the sin of his people. We preach it because that's the
power of God. That's what God uses to teach
sinners and reveal faith to them, to reveal that in Christ we are
reconciled to God. Now Psalm 118 verse 26 and 27
says, blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord, that's
Christ the Lamb of God. We have blessed you out of the
house of the Lord, right? By the power of the Spirit of
God, we are blessed to hear his word and believe and confess
him. God is the Lord, which hath showed
us light. God has showed us this light.
He's the one who showed us that there's nothing in us. It's all
of him, right? As our Lord said, but he that
doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God. God works this in his people.
All right, verse 27. Now, it is the last verse we
look at here in these Psalms. It says, bind the sacrifice with
cords, even unto the horns of the altar. And so here, we see
what God has done for us, that he willingly provided his son. He bound his son, and his son
was willingly bound for this purpose. put away the sins of
His people, to make them righteous, that we might know God and have
our eternal inheritance in Him and He in us." And so God reveals
this to us. By faith, He reveals what the
Savior has done, and we believe it, because Christ is a personal
Savior. You that are His are going to
know this and believe what He says to you. And so we declare
to wit that God was in Christ, Reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation." That's why we preach it. So to
them that have ears to hear, hear. To you that are sinners,
come, he says, come. Don't try to pick anything up
in your hand to bring to him as an offering. He's already
provided the offering in His Son, Jesus Christ, for Himself.
God is the Lord which hath showed us the light. So you that see,
you that have sight, see. See what God has done, that Christ
is a sufficient Savior, putting away the sins of His people to
the uttermost. And so, to all that were with
Him, to all that believe that He is the Christ, it says they
sung in Him. They sung a hymn. And so that's
the hymn, that's the song of believers. We confess, it's all
of Him, it's all of His righteousness and none of ours. So, if you
believe that, that that's your hope, that's your confession,
that not you, not your works, then rest in Christ and you're
welcome to the table to eat the bread and the wine with us. But
if you don't trust Him, if He's not your Savior, then don't eat
it. There's no grace imparted in it. There's nothing special,
no special blessing. You're not going to get anything
special out of taking it. It's for those that remember
Christ, that trust Him. So, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank You, Father, for the salvation You've provided
for Your people. Lord, we're so weak in this flesh,
but Lord, you're so perfect, and you've provided a perfect
salvation in your son. Help us to hear his word. Help
us to see our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we would rest
in him, believing him, trusting him for righteousness. We pray
this in Christ's name, our Lord and Savior. Amen. All right. Father, we thank You for gathering
us today, Lord, to hear Your Son preached. We pray that You
would open all of our hearts, Lord, and just trust Your Son.
Look to Christ only, Lord, and turn our hearts to Him once again.
In Your name we pray. Amen. I'll be reading from Mark 14,
if you want to follow along. I'll first look at verse 27 and
28. And it says, And Jesus saith unto them,
All ye shall be offended because of me this night. For it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee."
And I read that because when we take this bread, it's not
because we have done anything before the Lord that we should
trust in our works. The Lord tells us that by nature,
we're all offended in Him. By nature, we don't receive the
things of God. We don't trust Christ. That's
our part. And if you're trusting your righteousness,
your works, then you've no part in Christ. Don't take up the
bread. And if that's still your hope,
then don't do this just for a religious thing. It's not going to communicate
any grace or blessing to you. But if you have no works of righteousness,
if you have no confidence in the flesh, if you see the weakness
of your flesh, and you see that Christ is the righteousness God
has provided, then take of the bread and trust Him and follow
Him, believe Him and walk in Christ our Savior. All right,
now let's look at verse 22. And it says, and as they did
eat, Jesus took bread and blessed and break it and gave to them
and said, take eat, this is my body. And then it says in verse 23,
And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave
it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them,
This is my body of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily
I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine
until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. And then it says, and when they
had sung in him, they went out into the Mount of Olives. So Joe, when you're ready, just
come up. Somewhat related to this last
time, I just have something to share. I have a patient that
I've been seeing. She's probably 93, I think. And
she was born in Ireland. And she met her husband through
World War II. And she was an only child, and
she moved to this country. I think she lived in California,
and then she moved here. And every time I go there, she
Our discussion always turns to the gospel. And most of our therapy
session is talking about the gospel. And then she played for
many years in church, the piano. And she's really good at it.
So we spent 15 or 20 minutes singing hymns. And this one here
that we're going to sing. is one of her favorites. And
she's probably listening because she insisted on having the YouTube
set up on her tablet. So for 93, that's pretty good.
And I think I got her age right. I hope I didn't add to her age
there. So if we could, let's stand and
sing. 291, guide me, O thou great Jehovah. Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more. Feed me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain,
whence the healing stream doth flow. Let the fire and cloudy
pillar lead me all my journey through. Strong deliver, strong
deliver, be thou still my strength and shield. Be thou still my
strength and shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Did my anxious fears subside? Bear me through the swelling
current, Let me safe on Canaan's side. Songs of praises, songs
of praises I will ever give to thee. I will ever give to thee. Thank you. You're dismissed.