Psalm 31. Now we went over last
week, or we began to go into the first part of verse one.
Normally we've been covering one chapter each study session,
each Bible study session, but I decided this last week and
now to slow down, at least in this chapter. So we looked at
verse one last week, and I want to read that to you again to
remind you. It says, in thee, O Lord, Do
I put my trust? Let me never be ashamed, and
deliver me in thy righteousness." So you can see here that this
is a prayer. It's a prayer of a man, and the
man who prays is declaring that he trusts in the Lord. Now this
is in contrast to every other trust. In the Bible, you'll see
that the nation of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament history
were found to often trust in idols. And so this was a constant
condemnation that was charged against them because they trusted
in idols. And this is the inclination of
our natural selves is to trust something other than God. And
also last time we talked about how saving faith, saving faith,
the difference between those who are lost and those who are
saved is not that they trust, but that they trust the Lord.
So all of us by nature do trust. We trust the chair we sit on,
we trust the the postal service, we trust the banks, we trust
our mother and our father and people we meet. Generally, we
naturally trust people. And this is just something that
God has put in us innately, is to trust. We depend on others.
We depend on what they say. But again, saving faith is trusting
in the Lord. And so that's why it's so important
here, the distinction between the true faith of God's elect
and that false faith that is found throughout the world in
false religion. It's in the Lord that we trust.
And so, again, we're kind of going back into last week's lesson,
but to bring you up to speed, we also saw that the Lord is
the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that Jesus Christ is
Jehovah God. How do we know that? Well, the
Old Testament is full of names for Jehovah. You'll read about
Jehovah Nisi, or Jehovah... I'm trying to think of the names
of what these things mean as I go through them, and I don't
want to do that right now, but I'm just going to mention a few
of them. There's Jehovah Who Sees, Who Provides, Jehovah Jireh,
Jehovah Nisi, My Banner, Jehovah Ra'ah, My Shepherd, Jehovah My
Shepherd, and all these names and all of them correspond to
what God is to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's so important
that we understand that. So for example, in Jeremiah 23
and verse five, I wanna turn to that particular reference
to you and show you how this is true of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You'll often bump into people who claim that they believe in
Jesus, but they deny that he is a God. such as Jehovah's Witnesses
and Mormons, and actually many others without realizing it.
But let me read this verse to you in Jeremiah 23, verse 5.
It says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise
unto David a righteous branch. In other words, a descendant,
someone who would come from David. He would be born to David. And
that's why he's called a branch. and a king shall reign and prosper. So whoever this is speaking about,
it's a descendant of David. In other words, a son of David,
because he's going to be a king. And prosper means he'll be successful,
and he will be given blessings. God will bless him. and he shall
execute judgment and justice in the earth. So this is true
of the one spoken of here, it's true of a king. He executes judgment
and justice if he's doing the will of the Lord that God has
given him as a king. But notice here in verse six,
Jeremiah 23, six. In his days Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely. Now, there was a real nation
called Judah and Israel, and in the context of this historical
prophecy, the prophet Jeremiah was sent, he was actually in
the nation of Judah, and he spoke about them, and he spoke about
Israel, the physical nation of Israel. But in prophecies here,
he's speaking about a spiritual people. And so we understand
the Judah and Israel here to be speaking about those who are
considered by God to be the Judah and Israel. In other words, those
who have been circumcised in their heart, as it's put in Romans
2, 28-29. Those who are true descendants
of Abraham because they believe what Abraham believed like he
did, they trust Christ for everything in their salvation. So this is
speaking about God's people here, the church in other words. In
his days, the one who would descend from David, Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name. whereby
he shall be called the Lord our righteousness." Or in the original,
it would say Jehovah Tzidkenu. T-s, I won't try to spell it
now. I'm not good at spelling unless
I write it out. So it's just Tzidkenu. It's kind of hard to
pronounce, but it just means the Lord our righteousness. And
who could, who was the one that descended from David? who was
a notable king. In fact, the final one who would
have the kingdom that David had, only it would last forever. Well,
of course, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, in the scripture,
it's often said that David this or David that, and it's really
just referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, David's son. And this
is seen throughout scripture. So you can find this in lots
of places in the Psalms and in the Book of Acts and other places.
But if you want to study that out, go ahead. Take it to the
bank. I am speaking truly from scripture
when I say, when it speaks of David in scripture, it often
has a reference, a direct reference to, and only to, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and not to David himself, but to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And here in this text, Jeremiah 23, 5 and 6, is talking about
the son of David, who was also the son of God. He was said,
it says in Romans chapter 1, he was made to be the son of David after
the flesh, but he was declared to be the son of God by the spirit
of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. So, what is his
name? That's the point I wanted to
make here. Well, his name is the Lord, or Jehovah, our righteousness. He is our righteousness, and
his name is Jehovah. So back in Psalm 31, it says,
in thee, O Lord, that's Jehovah, is speaking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now last week we also went to the New Testament and
saw this throughout the New Testament. For example, in John 14, 6, Jesus
says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to
the Father but by me. So here we know that God the
Father is God. Jesus, the Son of God, is God. And the Holy Spirit is God. The
three are one God. And that's a mystery to us. We
can't understand how three different persons are all one God, but
that's what the scripture declares because they are all God. They're
equal in power and wisdom and will, and they're all the same
in will and purpose and love and grace. When we talk about
God, we're talking about God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit as one God, but sometimes we're talking about
God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. And in
Jeremiah 23, 5, and 6, it's talking about the Lord, Jehovah, Jesus
Christ. And that's what it's talking
about in Psalm 31 as well. And we see that because in the New
Testament, for example, when Jesus was about to be born, the
angel told Joseph his name shall be called Immanuel, which is
God with us. And so when in John 14, 6, Jesus
said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to
the father but by me. He's showing us that he's the
mediator. He's the one through whom we
have to go to get to God. But when we come to Jesus Christ,
we're coming to Him with the one who is also God. So we trust
Him as God and we trust Him as our surety, our Redeemer, our
Savior as God and man. And He couldn't be our Savior
or our Redeemer unless he was both God and man, because a Redeemer
has to be our near relative, our near kin, and our Savior
has to be able to save us from our sins, and he had to die to
do that, and only a man could die. God can't die. He's eternal
and unchanging. So when we put these together,
we see that God is exhorting us to trust Christ, trusting
him as our mediator, the one who is both God and man, the
one who brings all that God requires. to bear for us to God, and he
does all for us as man because he sympathizes with all of our
troubles and he knows our needs as man, and he also stands for
us. And this is the most important
part, perhaps, that he stands for us as a man in our place,
as our substitute, or as our head, as our husband, and as
our covenant head, and all these things. So, the point here is
that we're to trust the Lord Jesus Christ, and we saw that
last week. In John 14, 1, Jesus said, you
believe in God, believe also in me. In Acts 20, 21, he says
that the apostle Paul testified to the Jews and the Greeks' repentance
toward God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts
26, 18, Jesus said that they would be sanctified by faith
that is in me, talking about himself. And in Romans chapter
10, he says, whoever confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus
and believes in his heart that God has raised him from the dead,
he shall be saved. And whoever calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved, and that's the Lord Jesus. So, just
a minute. Excuse me. So we are to come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. But how do we come? We can't
walk to him. We can't fly to him. How do we
come? Well, it says so here in Psalm
31, verse 1. In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust. Well, how is that coming to him? Well, he has promised
to save sinners, hasn't he? And as a sinner and who has all
of the needs of someone who has offended God and must be separated
from God and be punished by God according to His justice, we
have a great need, don't we? We have a need to be brought
to God. We have a need for our sins to
be washed from us. And we have a need to be clothed
also, not just to be washed clean, but to be clothed to hide our
nakedness. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the one we come to when we trust him. He obligated himself, he
obligated himself for sinners when he said, look unto me and
be ye saved all the ends of the earth. And so we trust him. And
trusting him, we are depending We are relying on Him. We're taking His Word as what
we lean upon. We're rolling the weight of our
eternal soul on Him. We have no other hope, no other
confidence, no other way we can come to God but by Him. But that's
not just the only way, it's the all-sufficient way. Because the
Lord Jesus Christ, as the one we trust, is all-sufficient.
And here's the reason we can have assurance. Because our salvation
is entirely in Him, therefore it has nothing to do with what
we can do. Nothing to do with our own strength
or ability, or our mind, our ability to think things through.
Our spirituality, if you wanted to put some kind of weird word
on it, we can't do any of those things. We can't produce anything
that would profit God or that would save ourselves, either
to wash away our sins or to clothe our nakedness or to make ourselves
acceptable, to earn blessings from God. None of that is in
any way possible for us. So we need someone who can do
that. And Jesus Christ alone is all
sufficient for that. Because he is all-sufficient
and it's him that God looks to for his people, therefore we
have full assurance of faith. And this is the amazing thing
of Scripture. Those who have no basis for any confidence but
only terror before God can be at one with God, can be reconciled
to him at peace with God, because of the Lord Jesus Christ, because
God considers him alone for them. And that's the great and good
news of the gospel. And what a blessing that is.
And so we read these words, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust,
and we rest. Our shoulders relax. We rest
our head, as it were, on the pillow of God's promises and
we rest there. We are entirely at ease and at
peace and joyful because God is looking to Christ for his
people and we look to Christ and trust God that he's going
to look to Christ for his people. We have hung our life, our eternity
on this truth that if God doesn't look to Christ, or if he does,
then I'm saved to the uttermost, and the Lord Jesus Christ is
the one we come to when we rest upon him and trust him and depend
upon him. All right, so that's what I wanted
to recapitulate here tonight when we got started, and I want
to take you to a couple of texts of scripture to underscore what
I've just said there in summary. Look at Colossians chapter two. In Colossians chapter two it
says this, in verse nine, in him, in the Lord Jesus Christ,
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In verse 10,
and you are complete in him. which is the head of all principality
and power. All right. So how are we complete? Well, we are complete in him.
And why are we complete in him? Because the fullness of God,
everything that God is, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing
lacking. And all that God is, he is for
his people. Now, this is a covenant. God
said, I will be their God and they shall be my people. And
all the blessings of the covenant are in this relationship we have
with God. God is our God. And he tells
us right here in this verse that it is in the Lord Jesus Christ
that the fullness of God dwells and all that God is, Christ is,
And all that Christ is, He is for His people, and since it
is Him, that is all of the fullness of God, and that is all for His
people, therefore we are complete in Him. We have nothing lacking
because there's nothing lacking in God. God can find no fault
in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the fullness of the Godhead.
All wisdom is in Him. All righteousness is in Him.
Everything that God requires of us is provided for us in Him. And so this verse underscores
what I've been trying to say, is that not only as a needy sinner
can we trust Him because He's given us a warrant here. Everything
that we need has to be met here in the Lord Jesus Christ bodily
as a man, bodily and as God, the fullness of God dwells in
him. And he is this, this mediator,
the one in whom all of God dwells. There's nothing lacking in Christ
that is in God. Everything that God is, is in
him. And all that God is, he is for his people in the Lord
Jesus Christ. What a blessing that is. And
one more verse to underscore this in Hebrews chapter 10. It talks about this covenant
and what Christ has done in chapter 10. And I want to read this to
you. You're familiar with Hebrews 10, I hope. But listen to this
verse here in Hebrews chapter 10. He says in verse five, just
so you get the context, when he comes into the world, he said,
this is what Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, when
he came into the world, because he became, he took on our nature,
he took the body God prepared for him, he said this, sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not. You didn't want a sacrifice,
an offering, because it wouldn't make a difference. but a body
hast thou prepared me." That's the sacrifice, that's the offering.
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure.
God was never pleased with the animal sacrifices. The only reason
they were required is because they pointed to Christ, the sacrifice. And then he said, lo, I come
to do thy will, O God. Or he says, lo, I come, in the
volume of the book, it is written of me to do thy will, O God,
throughout scripture. Above, when he said, sacrifice
an offering and burnt offerings, an offering for sin thou wouldest
not, neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law,
then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Notice, one
man here, the high priest, is coming He was in heaven before,
now he's coming as the son of man, being born of a woman. He's coming into the world, taking
on to himself the body God has prepared for him in order to
offer himself in sacrifice in that body. Notice, he says, He
said, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away the first,
the old covenant, that first covenant made with Moses and
Israel on Sinai. He takes away the first that
he may establish the second. By the which will, by God's eternal
will, we are sanctified. We're made holy through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Only one time did Christ
have to offer Himself, because when He offered Himself, He offered
all that God is in a man, in a body. He offered everything. He offered himself from his heart.
He offered his mind, his will, his love. Everything was laid. He himself was offered. And all
of heaven was empty. Nothing more could be required
for all eternity. That one offering of himself
made all of his people, every one of them, wherever they are
in time or space, He made them all holy at that one time, on
that one day, when he offered himself to God according to God's
eternal will. Now, going on, verse 11, and
every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices, which can never take away sin. They stand because
they have more work to do, and they do it daily because it's
never done. And they're serving, they're offering these things,
but they never put away sin. But this man, After he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool." He sat down because the work was done. God was satisfied. He himself. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit looked upon the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ and to an infinite degree they said,
very good, this is done, this work is done, this glorifies
God, this is holy. And verse 14, by one offering
he has perfected forever them that are so made holy. By that
offering. Wherefore, or whereof, the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in
their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now, where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. He's underscoring the
fact that Christ's sacrifice was done once, and having been
done once and forever, for all eternity, in perpetuity, made
complete satisfaction to God for the sins, all of the sins
of all of his people. There wasn't one sin or one of
them that was left out. They were all made holy. They
were all perfected. There's no need for another sacrifice.
That's why he sat down. That's why he was enthroned in
glory. Now, he says in verse 19, this
is the this is the conclusion of all this. Having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest. How? Not because
we have something, but by the blood of Jesus. That's the only
way. By the blood of Jesus. Now I
say all this in order to just give you and to remind me also
that when it says in Psalm 31, in Thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust, we have a warrant from God for sinners to trust Christ. Christ has done everything. We
bring nothing. Nothing's required of us. Look
to Him. Trust Him. And in so doing, you
are placing in that trust that God alone can give this to you.
In that trust, you are placing on the Lord Jesus Christ a full
reliance, and He has obligated Himself to fulfill that dependence
upon Him, and to uphold His Word, and to save you from your sins.
And so this is coming to Christ. This is coming to him in trust.
And those who come to the Lord Jesus Christ, how do they come?
How were they? Were they saved because they
took the initiative, because they made a decision and exercised
their will? No, not at all. You see, we are
saved because God took the initiative. It was by his design and his
decree. And because He designed it and
decreed it to be so from eternity, in time the Lord Jesus Christ
came and accomplished our salvation and obtained it for us, took
His place at the right hand of God with all power in order to
give that salvation that He accomplished and obtained to us, And when
he gives it to us, he gives us his spirit to give us life. And in that life, his spirit
dwelling in us, we're given faith. And that faith that God gives
to us rests upon Christ entirely. And that's God's gift. That's
God's saving work in us. Let me show you that in scripture
as well. Look at John chapter six. In John chapter six, there
was a a bunch of people, like 5,000 men plus the women and
children, and they were hungry after Jesus had crossed the Sea
of Galilee. I mean, sorry, he fed them that
he crossed the Sea of Galilee, and these people were hungry.
He fed them with bread, and that set up the text of the sermon
that followed, which Jesus is giving to those people there.
And the Jews came to him after he had fed the 5,000 plus the
women and children. And there were 12 baskets left
over, by the way, 12 baskets of bread picked up after everyone
was done. And so there was an abundance,
more than they could eat. And so anyway, the Jews come
to him afterward and they ask him this in John chapter 6. It says, they found him on the
other side, in verse 25, John 6, 25, when they found him on
the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did
you come here? When camest thou hither? And
Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say to you,
you seek me not because you saw the miracle, but because you
did eat of the loaves and were filled. You're looking for another
meal. You didn't believe on me because you saw the miracle and
knew then that God had to have, that it must be God who sent
me and gave me these words. You didn't believe because of
that. You believe because you wanted the food. You are only
thinking to the next meal. And look at verse 27. He tells
them, labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that
meat which endureth to everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall
give you. Don't work to get meat that's going to get moldy and
old that you're going to eat. You're going to have to eat again.
Don't work for that. But work, he says, labor for this. but
which the Son of Man will give you." You see, it's going to
be a gift. But look at verse 28. Then they
said to him, what shall we do? In other words, what kind of
labor? What labor will we do? Or what work will we do that
we might work the works of God? We want to do whatever it takes
to get this bread. Verse 29, listen to what Jesus said, so
instructive here. Jesus answered and he said to
them, this is the work of God. that you believe on Him whom
He has sent." Now, in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, we're
trusting Him. And in believing on Him, that's
the work, that's the labor, you see. Is it a work that we do
that God looks at and says, okay, I got to reward that work? No.
It's the opposite of what men think of as work. This work ascribes
all work to Christ. It credits Him with the work
necessary to save me. And so we trust Him. And this
is the amazing thing about this. The nature of faith is that faith
ascribes, it credits God, it looks to God, it depends upon
Him. It's persuaded that what Christ
is and has done is all that my soul needs and rests there upon
Him. That's trusting Him. And we trust
Him in salvation, we trust Him for life, we trust Him in everything.
And this is only possible if He Himself gives this to us,
this ability to trust Him. Because like I said before, we
naturally trust the wrong thing. And God has to save us in order
to give us His grace to trust the right and only way of salvation. So in the same chapter, in verse
32, he said, Jesus said to them again, verily, verily, I say
to you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven. In verse 35, or verse
33, he says, for the bread of God is he which cometh down from
heaven and gives life to the world. The bread that God gives
is Christ. In verse 35, he says this, Jesus
said, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth On me shall never thirst. So
coming and believing are used interchangeably as synonyms for
the same thing. They are the same act. It's that
which he calls the work which we are to do, but it's not a
work in the sense of we earn from God by this work. It's a
work that causes us to stop working in our salvation. and credit
Christ with everything and look to him for it and trust God that
he will look to Christ for us. It's coming to him like Ruth
came to Boaz and ask him to spread his skirt over us, receive me. Consider me, and will you have
me? That's really what she was saying
to him. We're coming as a sinner. We
have no reason why we think that we can trust God. Christ gave
us this reason. For sinners to be saved, we have
to come to Him. And He has obligated Himself
to save sinners. He tells us to look to Him. He
tells us to come to Him. And so we are finding this need. We have a complete need to come
to Him, to trust Him. And we're finding His Word to
give us warrant. We find Him all sufficient from God's own
Word. The fullness of God dwells in
Him by His own blood. He entered into the holy place
and made a way for us to enter, therefore by His blood and by
Himself. We have everything we need in
salvation, so we rest upon Him. We trust Him for that. And this
is such a blessing to us that we find peace and joy in believing,
as it says in Romans 15, 13. And so this is the nature of
trusting Christ and trusting God. And the gift that God gives
is given to us to trust Him. I want to look at one more verse
here about this gift of God's grace. Look at Galatians chapter
two. Sometimes we overlook these kind
of verses when we're thinking about how faith is the gift of
God. In Galatians chapter 2 and verse
20, he says, I am crucified, or I'll read verse 19. He says,
I, through the law, am dead to the law, then I might
live to God. I had to die to the law in order
to live to God. That's interesting because in
religion, I live to the law and I go about trying to do the law
to make myself acceptable to God. And by the law, what scripture
means and what I'm trying to say here is anything that I can
do to try to earn a righteousness before God, to try to do what
God requires of me. That's anything that comes from
me is trying to keep the law, is trying to do what only Christ
could do. So he says, no, I had to die
to the law and that I might live to God. And so the next verse
clarifies that. It says, I am crucified. That's
the way I died. I am crucified with Christ. Oh,
if you've been crucified with him, then you're dead. No, nevertheless,
I live because Christ rose, I rose with him. Yet not I, I live but
it's not me that lives, but Christ lives in me. Now this is unbelievably
wonderful beyond words. Christ lives in me. My life is Christ living in me. We talk about the new man, the
new nature, the new creation that we are in Christ. It's because
Christ himself by his spirit lives in the believer. Now look
at the result of this. It's not the reason why Christ
lives in us, but the result of this life in us. Christ liveth
in me, he says, and the life which I now live in the flesh,
because Christ is in me in my body, The life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me." This is amazing. Christ lives
in me, and the way I live is by faith, the faith of the Son
of God. It's his faith. It comes from
him. It's his gift. In fact, it's so much his faith
that I depend upon his believing and trusting God as a man, as
my surety, because it was in believing God that he himself
fulfilled the will of God. So I'm trusting in his complete
fulfillment of all of my salvation, which came and sprang out of
his trust in God. And so it says here, I live by
the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. Can you see this verse is saying everything about me that
is life or faith is Christ. You see, Christ is everything.
So now we've seen it in multiple ways here. Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead dwells in him and I'm complete in him. I have
access into the holiest because I've been made holy and perfected
by the offering of Jesus Christ, which he offered once for all
time, all of his people for all time, and therefore I have access
to God by his precious blood. And here, in this verse, the
life out of which this faith comes, the very nature The spiritual
life in this body that I now have, that resides in this body
in addition to that fallen and corrupt nature, which is my old
man, that new life actually exercises this grace of faith in Christ. It's his work, his power that
produces it, and he gives me this grace of faith by his life
in me. That's the reason I believe.
Every believer believes because Christ lives in them. and he
came to live in them when they were born of God. That's the
seed that as a man and a woman come together and conceive a
child, so God's spirit comes into the believer and they are,
the seed of Christ is in them, the life of Christ is in them
and produces this fruit of faith to God, trusting Christ for everything. And so back to Psalm 31. In thee,
O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver
me in thy righteousness. Can you see it? Don't let me
be ashamed. What's he asking here? Don't
expose me? Don't let me be ashamed of my
trust, of the one I trust? So don't fail me and don't let
me be disappointed because I've trusted you for everything. Not
only that, but don't let me be ashamed that this is everything
that glorifies God before men. I'm happy to claim this, but
don't let me be ashamed of it. Don't let me ever be embarrassed
about it, but be bold about it. But also don't let me be ashamed
in the day of judgment. I don't want to be exposed in
my sin. Let me not be ashamed, he says, but deliver me in thy
righteousness. Now every believer has a righteousness,
but the righteousness he's talking about here is thy righteousness. Do you see that? So what we have
as believers is a righteousness that really is God's righteousness.
It's his working that Christ did as a man, Because God, the
fullness of the Godhead is in him bodily. When Christ was in
the world doing this work that God gave him to do, it was the
work of God in Christ. And Christ fulfilled that work.
Since it was God's work, God fulfilled it. It's righteous
and holy. And everything Christ did was
to redeem his people. So now we are justified before
God through the redemption the work of Christ in our redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. That's the work. And that redeeming
work of God is a work that balanced the scales of God's justice because
a ransom had to be provided in order to release the captive.
The law demanded the debt be paid. We had nothing to pay the
debt. Christ paid it in his own blood.
The balance of scales of God's justice was made. That's called
redemption. And because the scales of justice
were balanced, those who were captives and debtors were set
free, set at liberty. OK? So here we have this prayer. In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust. Let me never be ashamed. I'm
relying on Christ as everything in my salvation. Don't let me
be ashamed or disappointed or put to shame for that. Don't
expose me. for anything of my sins or a
lack of righteousness, but deliver me in thy righteousness, balance
the scales, redeem my soul, redeem my life, and cover me. Not only cleanse me from my sin,
but clothe me in your righteousness. and do it so that in the court
of heaven, before the onlooking universe, in the presence of
God, there will be a resounding, singing, and joyful celebration
for the children who have been brought back as the prodigal
son, because God did it in righteousness. He did it in righteousness. He
didn't spare his own son. He delivered him up for us all
in order to set forth his righteousness in their salvation. Let's pray.