Good evening. Alright, we're
going to be in Isaiah 26, verse 7. Now you'll recall from last week
that the Lord encourages His people to trust Him. Trust ye
in the Lord. And the Lord gives us His name,
and we have His name. as He reveals it to us in various
ways throughout the Scriptures. And these names, they reveal
to us the blessings, the spiritual blessings that we have in the
Lord. And just because we know the
names of the Lord, that doesn't do much for us. Because if we
only know these names in the flesh, if we only understand
it in the flesh, then it would just be a carnal, mind-doctrinal,
heady kind of religion. But the Lord gives his people
his name, and by the revelation of his Spirit, he He makes that
known to us. He makes us to understand and
to know Him by experience and seeing His Word and then seeing
the truth of His Word revealed to us, revealed in us by His
Spirit. In that spirit, in that teaching
and instruction of the Lord, we go in that way. It's the way
that He leads His people. It's the way that He instructs
us and keeps us and makes us to know that He's the one keeping
and instructing us and causing us to go in the way that we are
to go before Him. And so our title this night is
The Way of the Just. The Way of the Just. Now very
quickly, by way of review, our Lord tells us in verse 4, Isaiah
26 verse 4, trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah
is everlasting strength. And that's the foundation of
our confidence. It's why we're confident in the
Lord, because He is everlasting strength. And He shows that and
demonstrates that to us, and we know what He's done for us,
and therefore are assured that He shall continue to be our everlasting
strength. We don't look to our righteousness.
We don't look to our works and the things that we've done, good
or bad, because that's a very unstable ground right there.
We continue to look to the Lord because he's a sure and a certain
foundation. He's our everlasting strength
and his strength is most revealed to us in the person of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and seeing what He has done for us. And last week we looked at the
names as we went through the verses, we were looking at the
names that the Lord gives to His people, and we saw three
of these names last week. We saw Jehovah Shalom, which
is the Lord our Peace. And we saw Jehovah Jireh, which
means the Lord will provide. And we saw how the Lord has provided
everything necessary for us, and that He is our peace. And
then Jehovah Nisi, which means the Lord our banner. Under Him,
under the banner of Christ, is how we go forward. It's how we
move and live and have our being in this life, under the banner
of Christ. So, I want to continue that as
we go through these verses here. We'll see more of these names
as we go. Now we'll just be looking at
verse 7. So let's see that here. The way
of the just is uprightness. Thou most upright dost way the
path of the just. Now the Lord, when he calls his
people, he makes them disciples. He makes his people disciples
of Jesus Christ. I was reading an article recently
and it was about Iran and about a great awakening that seems
to be going on in Iran, mostly among women, but it's in Iran. And they were emphasizing in
the article When they were interviewing whoever it was that they were
interviewing, they emphasized, we don't want converts. We're
not converts. We're not looking for converts.
We don't need converts. That's not what we're looking
for. A convert is one who leaves one religion to now call themselves
by another religion. They go by another religion.
That's a convert from one religion to another religion. They said,
we're disciples. We're disciples of Christ. And
that is that they're followers of Christ. And there's a cost
for following Christ. And they were understanding that,
especially in Iran, where the persecution cost is very high
for them. And our Lord told his disciples
in Matthew 16, 24, if any man will come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow me. And so we see
that there is a cost for following Christ. And depending on where
you are in the time or what the Lord has determined and purposed
to be done, that cost can be very high in terms of how the
world would see that cost. But a disciple of Christ doesn't
see it as a high cost. as a high cost by the grace of
God, by the grace of God working in them and sustaining them and
being their strength. So the Lord makes disciples or
followers of Christ despite the cost. And so our text here says
the way of the just is uprightness. The way, the way that we go as
disciples of Christ, as followers of Christ, trusting Him, believing
that this Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ sent of God to
save his people. That he is Jesus Christ, the
Savior and the Lord of his people. So we go in this way. Now religion, they look at that
phrase, the way of the just is uprightness. And religion, they'll
teach works from that. They'll teach you works. They'll
teach you, oh, you've got to be upright. you claim to be a
follower of Jesus, well, you've got some things to do. Now, you've
got to show, you've got to earn this right to call yourself a
Christian. And so they lay out things for you to do, right,
to give you a sense of accomplishment to see how you're progressing
progressively in your sanctification, in your religion, in your faiths.
They give you things to do. And so they would see a verse,
the way of the just is uprightness. Well, you've now got to do upright
things. You've got to do some righteous
things now and make sure that you are a child of God. Now the Lord, He actually warns
us of self-righteousness. He warns us of self-righteousness
because religions make Pharisees. They make good Pharisees. It
doesn't matter what religion you call it or what religion
it is or what name it goes by, they make good Pharisees. And so they turn the energy and
the zeal and the fear of man into doing what they prescribe
for them to do to earn their righteousness, whether it's for
their justification or So they take it down a notch and they
say, well, this is just for your sanctification. You're now putting
yourself in the path of God in such a way that he's more favorable
towards you and that he'll be more kind to you and reveal more
things to you. in this path that we tell you
to go by. And, you know, the natural heart
is easily deceived, and so it's very easy for us to become Pharisees. We're Pharisees by nature. We're
very self-righteous and justify ourselves and condemn others
and, you know, complain about others, but want others to have
mercy and, you know, be patient with us at the same, you know,
at the same time. So religion, they'll teach works
rather than making disciples of Christ. You know, being made
a disciple of Christ, it's a spiritual work that can't be done by us.
It's not a choice of ours. It's not a free will choice.
We're made willing in the Spirit, by the Spirit. We're made willing
to want to know Him more and more and to desire Him more and
more and be found in Him. You know, Proverbs 16, 25, you'll
know the verse when I read it, says, There is a way that seemeth
right unto a man. but the end thereof are the ways
of death. Now each and every man has his
way that seems right to him, but all those ways are just ways
of death. We all have many various ideas
and thoughts about God and how to please him and come to him,
but they're all the ways death. And so religion will teach men
how to convert from one dead religion to another dead religion,
or how to become a disciple of another Jesus, and how to follow
another Jesus. There's many different Gospels
out there and they speak of good works, but Without the Spirit
of God, they're just works of the flesh. That is, just works
of our passion, the ideas that we have, that we think naturally
that this will please God. If I stop lying and doing this,
and I start speaking truth and reading the Bible and quoting
from the Bible, that it'll all be good and everything will work
out for me. But those things are just born
of the flesh. The Lord is going to bring forth
spiritual fruit from his people, lasting fruit that isn't of this
flesh but of the new man, that which is the creation of Christ,
not the creation of Adam, not just our natural selves with
our natural wisdom. you know, the thoughts that we
think when we're judging ourselves compared to others and saying,
well, this seems right and that seems wrong. That's just natural
flesh there. You know, the flesh is just a
desire to find favor with God. something that we do something,
not out of thankfulness, but because we think that God is
pleased with this and therefore he'll pour out spiritual blessings
on me. So that's just the flesh there. But the Lord, he reveals
truth to us. And the first thing that the
Lord teaches us is that our life He's going to make us to know,
well he's going to make us to know what sinners we are and we'll
see that, but when he brings us low, when he brings us to
see that we're nothing in ourselves and that we can't please him
by our works, that's really the first thing he's going to make
us to know is that there's nothing I can do to make myself righteous.
But he's then going to reveal to us, he's going to reveal to
his children, and he's not going to leave this out. He's going
to make them to know that our life begins, the first beginning
is in Christ. And the very end is the same. It's Christ. And everything in
between is Christ. so that the Spirit of God will
make us to know that all my righteousness, all my hope, all my acceptance
with God is found in His Son, Jesus Christ. In John 14, 6,
our Lord said, I am the way. I am the way. There's a way that
seems right to a man, but they're the ways of death. And Christ
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. And so anytime that religion
places the burden on you for righteousness, the burden of
justification or the burden of sanctification, that burden that
you need to be doing more, that burden, when religion does that
to you or you do it to yourself, you know, to make yourself more
accepted to God, when you're looking to works and you're looking
to your religion, That's like standing before somebody, whether
it's in the mirror looking at yourself or before another who's
telling you these things. It's like being there at the
grave site and the crypt door is just open and it's just the
reeking of death, wafting out from that crypt. It's just the
smell of death. It is because you're being turned,
not to Christ, who is our righteousness, but you're being turned back
to the flesh. Turned back to the flesh. So in Christ we learn
that our righteousness is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not us
as men and women. Look over at Romans 7. Romans
7 and go to verse 18. And Paul tells us in Romans 7
verse 18, he says, for I know that in me, that is, in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. And this is why the Lord Jesus
Christ told us, ye must be born again, because naturally we don't
have the faculties or the abilities or the understanding of how to
make ourselves righteous. We don't even, we don't have
the will, we don't have the power, we don't have anything to make
ourselves righteous and accepted with God. And then look down
at verse 24 and 25 of Romans 7. So Paul says, O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That is, the workings of sin. that when we sin against God,
we're worthy of eternal death and we're corrupt and dead in
trespasses and sins. Who's going to deliver me from
the workings of sin, this body which is just given over to that
which is unrighteous and unholy and not acceptable to God? He
said, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with
the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the
law of sin. Yeah, so we're given spiritual
life. This flesh is still, isn't any
more righteous. It isn't holy. It's not doing
things that are pleasing to the Lord. Not this flesh. This isn't
getting better. And we can't progressively sanctify
and progressively make this flesh better. This flesh is what it
is. We're ever looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's never
a time where we've grown up And now we've matured and we don't
need the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we can now just look
at the law and know, oh, I know now that I have to do this and
I have to do that and this. No, the Spirit of Christ is ever
teaching us and ever leading us, ever showing us that we in
ourselves are a body of death. There's nothing good in this
flesh. Not until Christ returns and raises these bodies and gives
us a new body, but in Christ, there's our righteousness, so
we're always looking back to Him, always crying out to Him,
Abba, Father. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,
an unworthy, proud, arrogant sinner. Lord, have mercy on me.
That's where the Lord keeps us and brings us. That's maturity,
so that we're never thinking too highly of ourselves, more
than we ought to, and we're always looking more graciously at our
own brethren and saying, Lord, thank you for my brethren. Thank
you for them. And they're so much better than
I am. And so the Lord's always bringing us to see that and to
see our need of Him. To think that we can look to
religion for a way unto righteousness, it just, it testifies to just
how dark and dead and deadly are the ways of man, especially
revealed in religion. It just shows just how un- wise and unknowledgeable and
without understanding we are to the things of God. Because
He's a spirit and He's not flesh. He's not like us. He doesn't
measure things the way we measure them. And He measures our righteousness
in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And outside of Christ there is
no righteousness. It's zero. There's nothing there
at all. And so we see, in seeing these
things, we begin to get an understanding of just how thick that veil of
darkness is that's over our hearts and our minds when left to ourselves.
We see that, alright? Paul said in Philippians 3, 6
and 7, he said, touching the righteousness which is in the
law, I was blameless. I was blameless. Touching the
righteousness that is in the law, I was blameless. And I was
looking at that and thinking, where do you go from that? If
your hope is in your, if your way is looking to the law for
righteousness and progressively getting better, How do you recover
from a blow like that, where Paul said, these are the things
that were keeping me shut up to the things of God, shut out
from the things of God. I didn't know the true and living
God, looking to the law. I had a perfect righteousness
as far as the law was concerned, as far as the flesh of man was
concerned, and yet I didn't know the true and living God, and
I wasn't righteous before him. So where do you go from that?
If you're blameless, as Paul was, how can you say that we
now look to the law to progressively get better and better and more
holy before God? Because Paul had done it. He
already achieved that. And it shut him out from the
things of God. He was still dead in trespasses and sins, dead
in his own righteousness. And he said, so therefore, his
conclusion was, those things that were gained in me, I counted
loss for Christ. They're nothing to me. I need
the Lord Jesus Christ. I need His righteousness, ever
and only, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's why
believers, as they're grown and shown this, as the Spirit teaches
us and brings us in the way of true rightness and uprightness,
believers have no confidence in the flesh. That's Philippians
3.3. You can have no confidence in the flesh. The Lord doesn't
leave us to have confidence in the flesh, and when we do, He'll
deal with it. He'll chasten us, and He'll bring
us to see, yeah, don't have any confidence in the flesh. So the
Lord gives us a new heart, a circumcised heart, whereby we know Him and
call upon Him, looking to Him in the Spirit. Now Christ is
where we must be found. It's in Him. And so we're put
in the way of Christ. We're put into Christ. He is
our very way. He is the path that we tread. He's where we walk and where
we stay because we know that's where God is pleased. with His
people. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we're told, it says that the way of the just is uprightness. Well, who are the just? They're
made just by Christ. Where Paul said in Romans 5,
9, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from
wrath through Him. So, we're justified by our Savior. He's the Just One, the Son of
God who took upon Him flesh, who did no evil, who committed
no sin, fulfilled all the law of righteousness. That Just One
went to the cross for His people as the Lamb of God, as their
substitute to die in their place that the sinner, the unjust ones,
might go free, that we should be cleansed and healed by His
wounds, by His stripes, by what the Lord did in pouring out His
judgment upon Him so that we would not bear that judgment.
And He paid that price. He paid the price, having done
no sin, having committed no sin, broke no law of God, did no offense,
said nothing wrong, did nothing wrong, not even an evil thought
in his heart or mind at all. He was ever faithful, trusting
his father, that his father would do just what he said, and that
in that work, in that glorious work where he laid down his life,
the Father was well pleased and would raise him from the dead,
and that all the sin of his people was put away. And he obtained
eternal redemption for you, his people, that believe him and
have no confidence in your flesh." Just trusting him alone. And
so in Romans 3, in verse 24 through 26, he goes on with that justification
Paul says, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption,
that purchase with His own blood that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, the
means of forgiveness, propitiation, the means of forgiveness through
faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. And Paul is saying there that,
he's saying, brethren, before Christ came, all those under
the old covenant, they weren't saved by the law. They too were
saved, looking unto the promise of Christ, looking unto the promise
of God that he would put away all their sins by grace, all
by the power and glorious work of himself." That's what he's
saying there. All those past sins, they weren't saved under
the law. Don't think they were saved. Anyone that was saved,
they weren't saved by the law. They were saved too, just like
we are, looking to Christ, looking unto Christ. To declare, I say
at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and justifier
of him which believeth, in Jesus. So we see the way of the just
is uprightness. This is God's way. This is how
God has determined salvation and wrought salvation for his
people. Alright, so this is why we trust
him forever. And this gives us another name,
Jehovah Sidkenu. Jehovah Sidkenu, which is the
Lord our righteousness. The Lord Our Righteousness. And
that's a good confession. That's a good name for us to
go under. The Lord Our Righteousness. He's
the Lord Our Righteousness. He's my righteousness. This was
given to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33 16. I'll read it. those days shall Judah be saved
and Jerusalem shall dwell safely and this is the name wherewith
she shall be called the Lord our righteousness." So he's our
righteousness. Have we committed sin? Have we
done some evil? Thank the Lord, the Lord our
righteousness. He's our righteousness. Good
thing it's not dependent on my righteousness. Have we done something
good? Something glorious and kind or
something that man would say is good? Well, the Lord our righteousness. Not my righteousness, not anything
in me. It's his righteousness. This
is the fruit of the Lord. So he's, thankfully, that's,
you know, he's the Lord our righteousness. Thankfully he's our righteousness
and it's not we in ourselves. So we have nothing to boast in.
except the Lord Jesus Christ who accomplished this salvation
and made us righteousness before God. And before all, it says
in 1 Corinthians 1, 29 through 31, it's that no flesh, God did
this in choosing weak, poor specimens of men and women like ourselves,
and God did this that no flesh should glory in his presence,
but of him, of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,
that according as it's written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. That's our glory. That's our
righteousness. He's our all. Now we're taught
this from the gracious spirit of the Lord. He's the one that's
teaching us. He's the one that makes us to know this. And as he reveals in us that
self-righteous, proud spirit, he'll deal with it. He'll chasten
us, meaning not necessarily a whack, but chastening is a whole growing
up, it's a whole teaching of His people. We're instructed,
ever instructed and taught by the Lord. It's not a one time
event, it's an instruction by the Lord. He does this work for
his people. And so all the glory goes to
Christ in him. So our way is Christ and we are
made just and upright by Christ. Now, look back at our text in
Isaiah 26 verse 7. Let's look at the second half
of that text there. We see the way of the just is
uprightness. Thou most upright dost weigh
the path of the just. Now, I know when I was a teenager,
in my later teenage years, and I was beginning to seek Christ,
if you will, or religious things, I started going back to church
and whatnot, and I would see a verse like that, most upright,
and I would think, oh, that's the super Christian. That's the
special ones, the ones that really try hard, and I want to get to
that level. There's the Christian, then there's
the super-Christians, and I want to get to that level. And that's
what I saw. I didn't see Christ in the scriptures. I saw what
it was telling me I needed to be doing and how I needed to
be better about things so that I could discern the way that
I should go. It was all on me. Everything
was about me back then in dead religion. Really, we know now
that Christ is the Most Upright One. There's no ambiguity anymore
for us. We know, oh, that's Christ. He's
the Most Upright One. We're nothing compared to Him.
And so apart from Him, there's no righteousness. And he knows
our heart, he sees our sin, he knows the iniquity that we try
and harbor in our heart, and he knows the trespasses we've
committed in breaking his law, and the sins we commit, and the
wickedness of this flesh. And yet, this one who is most
upright, what's amazing is what he did, how he undertook for
us to make us righteous. that he who is perfect and holy
and wonderful and doesn't even need us, yet he would undertake
for us to make us holy and righteous and accepted with him. So he,
therefore, that does everything that's necessary for us, it says,
thou most upright dost weigh the path of the just. He's the one doing everything
for us. He's weighing the path of the just. He's determining
the path of his people that they're going to go. That's what it's
saying there. That word weigh can be translated ponder, or
weigh, or to make smooth, or to prepare, or to examine, or
to observe. And again, religion, they will
look at this as an opportunity for you to really dig down deep
and make yourself more self-righteous and be zealous for good works
and to be zealous to put away evil things. good works and to be zealous
and to do kind things for your brethren and thoughtful things
and to remember them in prayer and to come together in fellowship,
that's not a bad thing at all. And we do that. And it's done
out of a heart of thankfulness. It's when we do it because we're
doing it to make up for some evil we've done, or we're doing
it because we think that we find favor with God. That's where
the self-righteousness enters in, but out of a thankful heart,
because you love your brethren and you love the Lord. There's
nothing wrong with being zealous for good works. But the Lord
didn't say this for us to get more active. It's not about us
getting more active and doing more for him. But what he's teaching
us is that he's the one that determines our path. The Lord
is the one that determines how we shall go in the way of Christ. Turn over to Psalm 23. Psalm
23. And we're just going to look
at the first three verses because here I think it's a beautiful
picture where we see that it's the Lord who's leading us. It's
the Lord who brings us in the way that we should go. And you
see a really good picture of how the Lord is the one that
weighs the path of the just. He's the one that lays it down
for us. Psalm 23 verse 1, the Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And so, We're seeing there that
this work of Christ in us, it's not a product of our flesh, and
it's not approved upon or helped by our flesh. But in spite of
our flesh, it's the Lord who leads us. It's the Lord that
is teaching us. It's the Lord that's blessing
us, even when we don't deserve it, especially when we don't
deserve it. It's He who's blessing us, and He does this not in the
old man of flesh, but in the new man created in us of the
Lord Jesus Christ through His regeneration power, making us
alive from the dead, whereby now we know Him through the Spirit,
we know our God and how He saves, and that the righteousness is
His and not our own working. And the Lord teaches us that,
it says in John 6 45, it is written in the prophets, and they shall
be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. And I quote that because again,
that's what we see, that's where the Lord, he's going to bring
his people. You know, some people think about,
you know, all different religions throughout the world and they
want to say it in such a way so that, you know, we can all
just be at peace and get along with one another. But the Lord
teaches us, and I'm not an advocate for Phariseeism and being exactors
at all, but the Lord is very, very clear that there is One
way, there's one name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. It's in that one, Jesus Christ,
who is the very righteousness of God. And he makes that clear,
that it's not by our works and our little achievements. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ that's our righteousness. And so it
says, the spirit of truth which proceeded from the Father, he
shall testify of me. So you know if it's the spirit
of Christ or not. If it's testifying of some other
religion or testifying of something that you do in some way or some
manner, then it's not the spirit of truth. It's not from God.
It's a spirit of error. It's a lying spirit. Because
the Spirit of God testifies of Christ, that He is our righteousness.
That's where we're going to be brought, is to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's got to be Him, alright?
So, it's the Lord who ponders our way, it's the Lord who knows
us, and it's not the other way around. We're not the one pondering
our way and wondering how, you know, determining how we're going
to go through our righteous studies and our good works. It's always
the Lord who's going to determine our way and put us in the path
of righteousness. Alright, so we're brought into
the way of Christ and it's all through His sanctifying power.
It's His work. And that gives us another name,
Jehovah M. Kadesh. Jehovah M. Kadesh, which
is the Lord that doth sanctify you. And I would say, to Moses
that the Jews in Exodus 31, 13, I am the Lord that doth sanctify
you. So even there in the midst of
the law, I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. The Lord sanctifies,
not we looking to the law to make ourselves more righteous
and holy. Christ sanctified us so perfectly
that our salvation is sure. It's a certain thing. He's the
one that delivers us. certainly from self and the sin
in this body and this flesh and with these passions and desires,
the Lord is the one that delivers us. He knows how to deliver us
from our sins and that which he doesn't, his grace is sufficient.
He knows what he's doing. He knows exactly how he's preparing
us to go in the way that he's determined that we should go
and do the work and bear the fruit that he's given us to do.
And he delivers us from deception, from being deceived by a false
gospel and he delivers us from that coming wrath and destruction
in which this whole world is going to perish. He's delivered
us from all that all by himself. He's done that so perfectly because
by one offering he hath perfected forever then that are sanctified. It's all done. Christ did it.
That's Hebrews 10, 14. And so, that's why we preach
grace. That's why we preach Christ.
And not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. That's why we
keep pointing out Him, keep going back to Him, keep declaring Him,
because this flesh, this body is so easily deceived and goes
right on back to loving this world and loving self and loving
the pleasures of this world that are all passing away, but he's
the one that stirs up the heart and brings us back again to behold
Christ. And that's what I need. That's
my inheritance. That's my hope and my necessity. All right? Now very quickly,
this sanctification, it's a three-fold work of God and grace. First,
we see it by God the Father in election. He sanctified us when
He chose us. Before we ever created the earth,
before we ever came forth, or even in the womb, having done
neither good nor evil, God chose us. That was sanctification.
He set us apart for Himself. And then we see it in God the
Son and His redemption. That's when we were sanctified,
when He came and He laid down His life to sanctify us and to
justify us and to make us righteous before God. And then we see the
third part in God the Spirit through regeneration. When He
makes us alive, taking us out from the rest of this world that's
perishing under the wrath of God, and He separates us unto
Himself to behold the Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done, to
behold God the Father who in mercy and grace did all this
in sending His Son for us. Turn over to 1 Peter. 1 Peter,
go to chapter 1. 1 Peter 1, and we see that here. Verse 2 you see all three of
these right here in verse 2 first Peter 1 2 elect according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father. That's his election.
Through sanctification of the Spirit, through that regeneration,
and that regeneration leads us unto the obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ. To behold his obedient good work,
his faithful work in doing what the Father sent him here to do,
and in shedding his blood for our very justification. And then
look at verse 5, Again, it's just played out, who are kept
by the power of God through faith, not through works of the law,
but through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. And verse six shows us just one
aspect of the fruit that we bear. wherein ye greatly rejoice, though
now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. So that even in the midst of
trials and sufferings and afflictions, he bears that fruit in us whereby
we are kept. And we see that we are kept by
his power, even though the cost of discipleship may be high,
but the Lord is the one that is keeping us because he's made
us followers of the Lord Jesus Christ regardless of the cross
that we're called upon to bear. So it's evident to those who
are saved by grace and aren't saved by the works of their flesh
but thou most upright dost weigh the path of the just so that
he's our sanctification and he's our hope. And I like what Jeremiah
said we'll probably see this verse again because I think it's
sweet but Jeremiah 51 10 Listen to the beginning, the Lord hath
brought forth our righteousness. The Lord did that. He brought
forth our righteousness. In other words, all those good
works that are done in us, they were wrought through the ordination
of God. He's ordained these fruits. He's
bringing forth all these fruits of righteousness. Therefore,
let us declare in Zion, right here in the midst of His people,
let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. So let others
boast of their sanctifying works. We're going to boast of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's who we're boasting in.
The way of the just is uprightness. Thou most upright dost weigh
the path of the just. You can be certain of that, that
everlasting strength. He's weighed out your path and
you're going to walk in that way that He's ordained for you
to go. It's all His work. You just keep looking to Him
and trust Him who is everlasting strength. I pray the Lord will
bless that word to your heart. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank You, Father, for Your mercy. We thank You, Lord, for
Your grace that You abundantly pour out upon us in Your Son,
Jesus Christ. Lord, we have nothing to boast
of in ourselves, but Lord, we trust you. We trust you because
of the work you've done in us in your Son, Jesus Christ, and
showed us that in this flesh there's no good thing, that we
can't have confidence in this flesh, we can't keep ourselves,
we couldn't even get ourselves in the right way to begin with.
But Lord, you did the whole work in grace from beginning to end
in your Son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, you tell us that you
weigh the path of the just. Lord, when we look at ourselves,
we don't see anything, anything that gives us hope or confidence.
Well, Lord, when we hear and when we see your Son, Jesus Christ,
then we know all is well. And there's nothing to worry
about because you're the one keeping us. Lord, we confess
that all our works, anything good, anything righteous, anything
that pleases you or is acceptable to you, Lord, it was all wrought
by your Spirit, all done by your Son, Jesus Christ, who makes
us righteous. Lord, we have no hope. We see
how this world hates You, and hates the truth, and loves darkness,
and hates those who follow Christ, and believe Him, and there's
such darkness and confusion abounding. And Lord, we would be deceived
if not for you. And Lord, we continue to trust
that you will keep us from being deceived. And this world is perishing. Lord, deliver us. Save us. Keep
us from the wrath that is coming upon this world. Lord we trust
that you will because you are everlasting strength and you've
shown us that in your son Jesus Christ. We pray that you would
continue to teach us and keep us and turn us from the works
of this flesh, turn us unto your son Jesus Christ by the works
of your spirit that testifies of him. We pray this in Christ's
name and Lord We pray for our brethren here, those that are
going through trials and troubles and sufferings and disappointments.
Lord, have mercy. Forgive us when we sin. Heal
us. Turn us back to You to see and
know that You're working all things out, making all things,
doing all things for our good, that we don't see it or understand
now. And Lord, we thank You for Those that have recently moved
here, we pray that, Lord, if it be your will, you would indeed
knit their hearts with ours, that they, too, would rejoice
in the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in
his name we pray and give thanks. Amen.