Psalm 102, p2 of 3

All right, Psalm 102. Now, last week, I ended with this conclusion. To summarize all of last week's Bible study, we were asking the question, is this psalm speaking of Christ? Or is it speaking of the Lord's people who suffer? And the answer we came to in looking at this and the rest of scripture, especially based on Hebrews chapter one, verses 10 through 12, is that this psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost. But because he, in this psalm, is suffering, and his sufferings were not for his own sins, according to Isaiah 53, it was for his people, therefore we know that it speaks both of the Lord Jesus Christ and his people.

He came from heaven, not for his own sake. That is, he didn't suffer and die for sins that were his own by committing or by thought, but in order to save his people. It says in scripture that By the love of God, He gave His Son that we might live through Him. So He came for the life of His people. And He is the propitiation for our sins. That's the way that God's justice is compensated. He is the righteousness of God for His people. That's the way God's people are made righteous. They are righteous in Christ. He is the wisdom. He is the holiness. He is the redemption. He is everything.

And so when the psalm speaks of suffering, as it does so evidently, it's speaking about first and foremost the sufferings of Christ. But because the Lord suffered as the representative head of his people, Therefore, it's also speaking about His people whom He represented. It's not that it's merely speaking of Christ's suffering and His people suffering side by side. But the one who is the afflicted sufferer is the representative of God's people, and the New Testament reveals that this is the Lord Jesus. He entered into the afflictions of his people.

He bore their weakness, he bore their reproach, and he is the eternal creator, as it says here in Psalm 102. If I can remind you, it says in verse 25, of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, the heavens are the work of thine hands, They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall act old as like a garment. As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed." That's quoted in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 10 through 12.

So all that is said here is, again this is the conclusion from last time, is said concerning first and foremost the Lord Jesus Christ, But because it speaks of him as a representative head of his people who suffered in obedience to God, therefore his sufferings and his obedience are the sufferings and the obedience of his people.

And this is something that we need to understand, and we're going to ask another question that goes along with this in a minute here. But it's both the prayer of the afflicted saints, but in the primary sense, it's the highest fulfillment, and the highest fulfillment is the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, our suffering Savior. He identifies Himself with His people, and He secures the church, the everlasting salvation of the church, and He is their everlasting hope. And so the certainty of this is because the Holy Spirit, in Hebrews chapter one, has interpreted it that way. All right, so the next question I have in studying this psalm is, how does this psalm comfort God's afflicted people? Because clearly, if it's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, the natural question is, how is this comfort to the Lord's people?

And when you read this psalm, and I wanna do that, I wanna read some more of this psalm, beginning at verse one. Let's go through verse 11. It says, hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee, hide not thy face from me in the day when I'm in trouble, incline thine ear unto me in the day when I call, answer me speedily. So there's an urgency, there's an earnestness, and this prayer is offered by a true suffering child of God. In the ultimate sense, it's Christ, but again, the question is, how does this comfort the Lord's people?

He says in verse three, for my days are consumed like smoke, That means, essentially, he's burnt. He's turned to ashes. Remember, Abraham said that. He said, I am dust and ashes. Here the Lord Jesus Christ himself says, my days are consumed like smoke. Just burnt up, short. My bones are burned as a hearth.

My heart is smitten, withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. He's fasting out of the suffering. It's not like he's fasting to achieve some kind of a measure of godliness. He's just fasting because he's suffering. He says, by reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. There's no flesh between his skin and his bones.

I'm like a pelican of the wilderness, the wrong place for a pelican to be, where there's no water. I'm like an owl to the desert, no place for covering, he's on the sand, he can't swoop down on his prey. I watch, I'm as a sparrow, alone on the housetop, mourning, of course, because a sparrow shouldn't be alone.

My enemies reproach me all the day, they that are mad, crazy, raving, lunatics against me are sworn against me for I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping because of thine indignation and thy wrath for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth and I am withered like grass."

Okay, so So again, the question is, how does this psalm, how do these words comfort one of God's people? Clearly, the sufferings described here go beyond the sufferings of an ordinary individual. And as we looked at it last week in Lamentations 1, verse 12, it talks about the Lord's sufferings as being more than any other man. And he was a man of sorrows, according to Isaiah 53. So how does this psalm then produce confidence in us, or assurance, or comfort, peace, or joy, or thanksgiving as suffering sinners? How does it do that?

Is it possible that it's because Christ's sufferings for our sins by His sufferings for our sins, we're united to Him, who lives forever, and He put away our sin, and that brings, I mean, He put away the sin that brings our sorrow and our sufferings, by that sacrifice of Himself, by that substitutionary, sin-bearing suffering under the wrath of God, is that the way it brings us the comfort? Or are Christ's sufferings and the assurance of His sufferings as we suffer, does it prime us to our thoughts to realize His readiness to run as someone who has suffered to the aid of His people? Because remember, He ran that salvation race for them and He bore their sins and He suffered for them.

Is that it? I mean, Or does Christ, by His sufferings that are foretold here, show how, by experience, He knows every way that His people suffer, and as the one who suffered in their place, and for their sins and their sorrows, for the plague of their heart, because of sin. what's the reason that this psalm gives comfort to the Lord's people? Okay, so that's the question. And I ask it because when I was reading this psalm, I was wondering that.

You know, people will ask me, I'm going through this, I'm going through that, and they're looking for some kind of comfort. And we know from scripture in 2 Corinthians chapter one, for example, it says, The comfort with which we are comforted is what we comfort others, what we comfort one another. So we know that the comfort God gives to us has to be for the benefit of his people.

Well, remember last time when we read Isaiah chapter 40, he says, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, her warfare is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. She's received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

So the comfort of God, as we've already brought out in the first part of this study of Psalm 102, the comfort of God to the Lord's people always comes through Christ and Him crucified. That is the comfort, okay? Because the root problem is what we have to deal with, and the Lord Jesus dealt with that problem. All right, so first of all, I want to make a very important statement here to help guide us, and that is this, that the suffering here and the comfort is more than a suffering and comfort that comes from empathy.

All right, so let me read, for example, in Hebrews chapter four. Hebrews 4, it says, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.

So he's saying here that Christ was tempted in every way that we're tempted. And you think about that, think about that. What he's saying here is that because Jesus bore our sins, then the suffering and his death, all of that were the result of our sins. Isaiah 53 says this.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. So we know he suffered for our sins. Okay, so if he suffered for our sins, therefore he suffered for all of our sins, didn't he? And therefore he suffered everything that sin brings.

And you know that's the worst possible suffering there is. The suffering that we experience in the guilt of our sin is an intolerable suffering. that sense of guilt before God, that sense of alienation from God, that sense that my sin has separated me from my God. That's the height of suffering. That's the cause of it, and it's the height of it.

But he's saying here that the Lord Jesus suffered in every way that we're tempted, in every way that we're tempted. He was tried in every way that we're tried. But in his trial, he was actually making compensation to God. So because he suffered for every sin, therefore he understands the suffering that truly results from sin.

Okay, so in that sense, if anyone could be empathetic to a suffering sinner, it would be the Lord Jesus. And he also suffered, by the way, even though he had done no wrong. They hated me without cause, he said. And when he was reviled, he reviled not again. He committed himself to him that judges righteously. When he didn't reproach again, he just suffered. He was like a lamb led to the slaughter. So he understands reproach and unjust suffering, and he understands what suffering for sin involves.

And so we know he could be empathetic, but Psalm 102 is deeper than just empathy. You see, the key to Psalm 102 is Christ for us, Christ in our place, Christ standing before God, and we standing before God in Him. So if we see that, then we are going to see the true way that God comforts His people here. If Christ merely understood our sufferings by experience, That would certainly be consoling, wouldn't it? But it wouldn't remove the cause of our misery. You know, you can hold someone's hand, you can weep with them, you can mourn with them, but it doesn't remove the cause of their sorrow and their sadness. But the gospel brings comfort because it rests on something greater than just side-by-side empathy. The gospel comfort rests on the fact that the one who was afflicted in Psalm 102 suffered for his people.

He owned their sins. He confessed them as the high priest upon his own head, and he owned them as his. He lifted them from us as our surety, as the surety would say in John 18, 8, if you seek me, then let these go their way. Take me, if you take me, you cannot take them also. So he lifted them from us, he bore them, and he removed the guilt of our sins, and he took the punishment that our sins deserved, and he bore away all of the uncleanness of our sins, and now he lives forever.

So the one who suffers in Psalm 102 is the one who removed the cause of our suffering, the root cause. Now if you look at this psalm, first it shows the suffering one who is overwhelmed. It says he's weak, he's lonely, he's reproached, his days are cut short. And yet suddenly the veil, as it were, is lifted and the same one who suffers is revealed here in verse 25 as the eternal Lord.

That is incredible. I think it's just incredible. It says in Psalm 102 verse 25, Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth. The one who was suffering here is the one who created all things, who doesn't change. He's the sovereign, eternal God, and He cannot fail. Everything in creation grows old and perishes. But it says of Him, Thou art the same, and Thy years have no end, in verse 27.

So then the comfort is not simply that Christ knows suffering, or that the one who suffered or the one who suffered can empathize with us. But the comfort comes because the one who suffered is the everlasting God who cannot fail. He secured our comfort in his own sufferings and the victory of them. You remember Jesus comforted Martha and Mary at the death of their brother Lazarus. How did he comfort them? Remember, Martha and Mary were beside themselves with grief and sorrow.

They were feeling inclined to blame Jesus for not coming sooner. And then Jesus told Martha, He shall rise again. I mean, Martha said, I know He shall rise again at the last day. And Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And that was the comfort. You see, I am the resurrection and the life. So those words had to just hang in the air for a while. I imagine Martha, when she heard those words, was like a deer in the headlights, didn't know what to say. And she did say something. I know he'll rise again at the last day. Now, I am the resurrection and the life. So it's not merely that Jesus told her, well, as Lazarus died, I'm going to die. Or even, I'm going to raise Lazarus and I will rise again. It's not just a comparison here or a peer in suffering and death.

It's because he bore the sins of his people. Because he made compensation to God for them in satisfaction, in righteousness, everlasting righteousness. Therefore, having paid the wages our sins deserved and having put away their sins, he rose without sin unto salvation. He is the resurrection and the life. And that's the comfort. That's the comfort of Psalm 102. Now, What underlies this comfort is our union with Christ, our union with Christ. And our union with Christ is a fundamental doctrine that we have to understand.

God imputes. He credits the obedience of Christ to believers because He joined them to Christ in eternal election. He didn't just choose us and then give us to Christ. He chose us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He chose us in Him as joined to Him. Now the fact that we were joined to Christ in eternal election, it means that he also became our representative head. He was chosen as our head, and he was chosen as the covenant.

So all that God promised his people, he promised them in the Lord Jesus Christ. They were joined to him in union of covenant, in union as the representative head, in union as their wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Of Him, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30 says, of Him, of God, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us.

This is the result of that union, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The basis of imputation is our union with Christ. And so this is fundamental. God imputes Christ's obedience to believers because previously there was already a previous relationship to Christ that he made in electing love.

He joined us to him and Christ chose us. He told his disciples in John 15 that you haven't chosen me, I've chosen you. And he didn't just mean his choice of them to be his apostles. He meant his choice of them to be his people and everything that goes with that. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

We didn't contribute to it. Of course, we didn't add anything to it by anything we've done. Because of that, what Christ did is ours. He didn't act as an independent private person. He acted as our surety. Hebrews chapter 7 verse 22. He's the surety of the New Testament. The surety, the one who makes his people sure to God. He entered into an obligation. He obligated himself to make them sure to God. And the way he did that was he offered himself to God in sacrifice. An offering that was accepted by God in such a way that it was a sweet-smelling savor, as it says in Ephesians 5, verse 2.

All right, so, by that eternal union, that God-made union, the Son of God, as the Lord Jesus Christ, is all that God is to His people. All that God is, He is to His people. And think about that. Everything that God is, is the fullness of the Godhead in the Lord Jesus Christ bodily. All that God is, Christ is, and He is that to His people.

And all that He did, all that He is as man, He is the representative head of His people, like a new race. It is a new race. It's the children of God, the brethren, those predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's dear Son. He's the head of those people, so that all that He did for His people as man, the perfect man, they did in him.

Like Levi said in Hebrews chapter 7, when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, it says that Levi paid tithes in his father Abraham. So when Christ paid the price for our redemption, it was a price he paid in our name, for us. He purchased us and all that was ours, just like Boaz did for Ruth. So the Son of God appeared, He came, He appeared, He lived, He was made under the law, He fulfilled the law in every jot and tittle. He took and bore the sins of his people under the curse of the law on the cross of Calvary. And the body of our sins was put to death when he was put to death. And that was the full payment of God.

The wages of sins were paid. to us in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live under righteousness. 1 Peter 2, verse 24. And that same body of sins that was buried with Christ, because God justified Him by His righteousness and raised Him from the dead, therefore everyone joined to Him, also was counted righteous in Him, and therefore life from the dead was given to them, with Him who is the resurrection and the life. You see, the resurrection means someone was raised from the dead. The one who was raised from the dead died, but death is only the payback for sins.

He didn't commit sins. So he therefore died bearing the sins of his people. And that death by which he was bearing the sins of the people was an obedience to God in sacrifice. And so it was both the cleansing of our sins and our righteousness before God. And so God justified him. He had fulfilled all of the will of God. He had finished the work His Father gave Him to do. Nothing left needed to be done. In Galatians 2, verse 21, it says, if we're justified by the works of the law, then Christ died for nothing. He died in vain.

And since that's the most impossible of all things, that Christ would die for nothing, therefore we are justified by the death of Christ. By the blood of God's Son, we're justified before God. Romans chapter five and verse nine. So our union with Christ means that his death was our death. The body of our sins was put to death. His burial was the burial of the body of our sins. And his resurrection was life to us. With him, he is our life. Colossians chapter three and verse four. Christ is our life.

And everyone that's joined to him was raised with him and raised in him, and God received them as him. Remember in Philemon, verse 12, Paul the Apostle writes to Philemon concerning Onesimus, his runaway slave, and he says, receive him that is mine own bowels, mine own bowels as me. He says in verse 17 and 18 of Philemon, he says, receive him as me, receive him as myself. And if he owes you anything, if he has wronged you, or if he owes you anything, put that on my account. That was the, plea of the surety, Paul pleading for Onesimus, the slave, to the master Philemon.

All that Christ did, we did in him, just as Adam prefigured Christ by his one transgression resulted in our death because we committed that sin in Adam, so God imputed that guilt of that sin to us and we died in him. By Adam we disobeyed. By Adam we came under the guilt of sin, the condemnation of sin, and the death that sin brings. By Christ we obeyed. and we didn't come under condemnation, but we fulfilled righteousness and therefore justified unto life. So these two men are set forth in scripture by God, Adam the first, Christ the last, and in Adam all died, but in Christ all shall be made alive.

All right, so the believer's assurance then comes from union with Christ and the one whose strength was weakened in the way, as it says in verse 23 of Psalm 102. Notice he says, he weakened my strength in the way he shortened my days. But that one in this psalm, the one whose strength was weakened in the way is the same one who in the next verse, in verse 24, he says, In the middle of verse 24, he says, thy years are throughout all generations.

So that's the revelation of the great mystery. God was manifest in the flesh. He was justified in the spirit. Seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. All right. So through His sacrifice, the one whose years never end, the one who remains the same, through His sacrifice He has dealt with sin, the root of all sorrow, the root of all suffering, the root of death, what causes alienation, what brings judgment. Again, in Isaiah 53, surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, you see. So, back to the question. How does this psalm then, if it's speaking of Christ, answer the sorrow and the suffering of a believer?

Because Christ in his suffering has removed the root, the cause of our sins. The chastisement of our peace, for our peace, he was beaten. And since he was beaten with stripes, 1 Peter 2, 24, by his stripes, we were healed. There's that substitution of our surety, the answer of our surety to God with himself for our release.

That's what this psalm is about. Now, the comfort is not merely that he suffered with us, but that he stood before God instead of us, and then suffered for us, and as our surety answered every demand with himself, in the lowest possible humility and submission, even in shame, and by the greatest love in obedience so thoroughly put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and established everlasting righteousness when he obeyed even unto death. This is what the Lord did. And so Hebrews chapter 10 says, for by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. The Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it's also true, it's also true that he entered our condition and he knows our case by experience. Okay, so we ask the question, was his suffering a comfort to us because he put away the root cause of it? The answer is yes. But is his suffering also a comfort to us because he knows our case by experience in his own suffering? And the answer is yes.

Because, you see, in his case, his suffering so far exceeds our own suffering. I'm the man, he said, that has borne affliction at the hand of the Lord, from Lamentation chapter three, verse one. So he entered our condition and he knows our case by experience, but it's by something that far exceeds our own experience. Therefore, he can understand our experience in every part, can't he? Because He put away our sins and fulfilled everlasting righteousness, our comfort is in His sufferings, in His death, and in His resurrection, and in His ascension, and in His intercession.

Yet this is also true. This is also true. Because Christ truly entered our condition, His present ministry toward His people is not abstract. It's not like God knows everything, therefore He knows that we suffer. It's much more than that. Back to Hebrews chapter four, he's the one who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities because he was tempted, has suffered being tried or tempted, as it says in the King James Version, in every way that we are tempted. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 18 says, in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. In other words, run to the aid, come to the relief. That's what succor means. And how does he do that?

Well, it's not simply that he knows our suffering, but first and foremost is because he is the propitiation to God for our sins. You see, the propitiation means that God has received his sacrifice as a full payment in satisfaction to his justice, and therefore mercy abundantly flows to the miserable and the undeserving. That's what propitiation has to do with, God being just in showing mercy to the miserable and undeserving. not bringing upon them the condemnation deserved through their sins, but bringing upon them a relief from that, a release from it, forgiveness. So Hebrews chapter two is a very important one.

He knows suffering not merely as God, but by personal experience in our nature. His sufferings were bearing our sins. And not only bearing our sins, which had to be for him the worst possible suffering, but also bearing what sin made our due from God. What we earned, what was deserved by us because of our sins from God.

The wages of sin. Our debt of crimes. When someone commits a crime against society nowadays, they say, they put it that way, then they have to serve their time. They have a debt to society for the crimes they committed against humanity. But we've committed crimes against God, and how can anyone pay God what is due to Him for our crimes? Not a man, not the criminal, but the one who comes who is without sin, and that's what Christ has done.

His sorrows and His sufferings cover every case that we suffer. And so he covers them completely and finally and fully and personally. He suffered and bled and died for our sins. He rose again for our justification. It's very personal, isn't it? Christ loved me and gave himself for me. The gospel makes these things personal. If it's not personal, then we're not trusting Christ personally. But the Lord makes it personal, doesn't he?

The publican cried out, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. The apostle Paul said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And he said, oh, wretched man that I am. It was very personal, wasn't it? He stood before God and he was exposed before God. And he knew his condition and he needed a savior. That's what a sinner needs.

You see, salvation is, the work of salvation brings us to see our spiritual, the absence of spiritual good and the presence of spiritual debt. so that we're absolutely bankrupt and have nothing to pay off one part of our debt and we need everything. And when God describes his people, you know, the characteristics of his people, we find ourselves absent of those things too. We're spiritually empty, void, darkness as creation before God spoke. And God has to command that light to shine. And so this is very personal, isn't it? An empty, void, dark, so dark that we could feel it in the guilt and shame and condemnation and facing God in judgment without any ability to give an account to God.

And here the Lord Jesus Christ comes and He who is the eternal God, He bears our suffering. And he endures it because he is holy. And he did it in love, and so he loved me and gave himself for me. Thomas said, my Lord and my God, when he saw Christ, hands pierced and his side pierced. Christ's removal of my personal sins, the root cause of all my sorrow and suffering, brings personal comfort on the ground of union with him, a God-made union.

Even the writer to the Hebrews doesn't stop with sympathy, does he? He says in Hebrews chapter 2, I'm going to read this to you, in Hebrews chapter 2, and I'm going to read it as the New King James Version has translated it. It says, in all things he had to be made like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. OK, that's what a priest does. He he deals with things pertaining to God for the people to make propitiation for the sins of the people. OK, so that's what he says here. The reason he can succor us The reason he can do this is because in all things he had to be made like his brethren so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest because he made propitiation for our sins.

The comfort that comes to us from Christ on his throne is the propitiation he made for our sins applied to us personally. And that's through faith, isn't it? Faith is what God gives us, faith in Christ, that looking outside and away from all that we are, even not only in the poverty of our condition, but in the guilt of our sin, the condemnation, looking away from the unavoidable death that we're facing without remedy to Christ lifted up on the pole as the serpent was lifted up by Moses. Whoever looks, lives. And whoever believes, Jesus said, has eternal life. They already have it. If they're believing Christ, they already live because life, faith is the result of that life. Poverty of spirit is a result of God's work. And so we already have eternal life in this recognition that Christ is our all, but faith is going outside of ourselves. and resting entirely upon Christ, what God has given and received from Him for His people.

It's not looking for an improvement in us. It's looking for the perfection that God has received from Christ. There's no mixture of my self-improvement or even improvements by grace. God doesn't justify us because of things we do as a result of grace given to us. That's the heresy of the Catholic doctrine, that God justifies us by giving us grace to do better and better.

And that's not true. That's not true. If that can be done, then why did Christ die? He died for nothing if we're justified by our works. We're not. Not even works done by the ability that God gives. Everything we have is by God's ability. And besides the fact that even if we could, from one moment forward in our lives, perfectly obey, what about all the past sins? It's not going to rectify the problem, the debt we owe. But we certainly can't. There's no believer ever who walked in this life perfectly. None. The apostle Paul said, oh, wretched man that I am. I'm the least of the apostles. I'm not worthy to be called an apostle. I'm the least of all saints. You know, all these things are present, are statements of his present condition.

So he was the chief of sinners when he wrote 1 Timothy 1, verse 15. All right, so I wanted to also say this too, and I heard this on a sermon and I thought it would be worth writing it down here. The compassion that's joined into us in our sorrow, in our suffering, is the compassion of him who made propitiation for our sins. So his compassion to us in our suffering, in our sorrow, is joined to his accomplished redemption.

Which, on the one hand, means that he has removed the entire load of our sin, the burden of our sin that brings sorrow and suffering, and on the other hand, not only does it remove the load of our sin and the curse of our sin, but it releases us into the eternal liberty of the children of God. as heirs of God bought. and brought by the blood of Jesus into the presence of God's glory. Now, the difference between those two things here is mercy and grace. Mercy relieves the misery of the sufferer.

Grace goes beyond that. And so this is where I was going to quote from Eric van Beek in a sermon he recently preached. He says, grace is not simply you will not receive punishment you deserve. Grace is not unmerited forgiveness. Grace is not unmerited mercy. Grace is unmerited favor. God, instead of giving us what we deserve, doesn't just clear our name. He makes us one of his. Grace is receiving blessings we do not deserve.

Mercy removes your debt, but grace deposits blessings into your account. You know, you have a debt, it's really nice to get rid of bills and debts. And when you get rid of it, you just feel so relieved. But what if someone paid your debt and then deposited a bunch of money into your account? You see, removing the debt, it would be mercy, but depositing money, that's grace.

Mercy releases the prisoner, but grace adopts the prisoner into the family. Mercy keeps us from judgment and keeps us from being judged by God, who is holy. But grace brings us into the presence of His holiness safely, comfortably, in peace, in exceeding great joy, God's joy, and ours in His. The Gospel contains both mercy and grace. God doesn't merely spare his people. He loves them. He adopts them. He calls them his children. He says, you are mine. You're not just relieved of guilt. You belong to me. That's what Eric said in his sermon.

All right, so grace makes us the children of God, and we're released from this felt darkness. Remember the Egyptians, they felt that darkness? God releases us from that felt darkness to the glorious light of the gospel of Christ. What a comfort that brings the believing sinner, doesn't it?

Amazing grace. It's like the man who was born lame, begging at the temple, and Peter and John came and Peter said, I don't have silver and gold, but what I have I'll give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And the man immediately stood and walked and was leaping and praising God. You can imagine how happy he was. That's what grace does. It takes away not only the plague of sin, but it restores us to more than what we ever had before we sinned. That is grace. All right, so we're brought back from this eternal separation by the mercy and by the grace of God.

So Psalm 102 gives us this confidence because, first of all, the one who suffers is Christ. And his suffering, secondly, was in our place. And yet, thirdly, we were one with him in that suffering, so that his suffering was sacrificial and redemptive.

Redemptive. It means he paid the ransom, that was himself, offered to God, but he obtained our release, and not just simply our release from debt, as a slave set free to return back to his former freedom, but given an inheritance even as heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, brethren of Christ. the wife, the bride of Christ, and children of God. Amazing.

He delivered us from sin, from its guilt, from its condemnation, and from its dominion, and His sufferings were not the end. He was cut off out of the land of the living, yet He is the resurrection and the life, the eternal, unchanging Lord of glory. That's why His sufferings were successful. Therefore, because His people are united to Him who suffered and finished that suffering and now lives forever, they can never perish. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The sins that ultimately cause our misery have been put away by the sacrifice of the Son of God, the sacrifice of Himself. All the sins were put away then. Then, when he died on the cross, when he offered his blood by the eternal spirit into the holy place, then our sins were put away, then he obtained our eternal redemption.

We didn't contribute anything to it. Nothing. It was done and it was given. by God, before the foundation of the world, obtained by Christ in His death, and the reason the Holy Spirit gives us life under the preaching of the Gospel is that we're united to Christ eternally, and He then baptizes us into Christ by His Spirit so that we have this life and faith in Him who died for us.

All right. Check the time here. We're just about done. So we're going to have to close this one down and finish this next time. So next time I want to look at the great mystery that we've been considering here. But just let me say this in closing tonight.

Christ's comfort to us is more than the comfort of empathy. It's the assurance that the eternal son has entered our affliction, bore our sins, destroyed the claim our sins had upon us, rose beyond death and guarantees our everlasting preservation and inheritance to all who belong to him. That's comfort, isn't it? Faith lays hold on these things.

And even when we ask the question of ourselves, am I the Lord's? How could I be the Lord's if I'm like I am? Because that's the question that ultimately gets us, doesn't it? How can I be the Lord's? If I'm the Lord's, no problem. But if I'm not the Lord's, big problem. What can I do? Well, the Lord says, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

If we're in Him, then we cannot be lost. We cannot be separated from Him. This is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him, should have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. I think I'm quoting that about right, not exactly right, but John 6, verse 40. So this is the way we are assured of our life in Christ, is that we see these things by God's grace. We're persuaded we have nothing and cannot do anything, cannot be what we need to be, but Christ is all, and he's all we have, And having Him, we have all things. That verse that I was trying to quote is, this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this wonderful mercy and grace, all of which is in the Lord Jesus Christ, who obligated himself for his people to pay everything they owed that he might bring us to God, that by his stripes we would be healed, by his righteousness we would live to God. What amazing grace. that everything required for our life and our acceptance before God, even into the presence of his glory in his holiness with delight and peace and joy, all of these things are all provided by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. What grace, what a wonderful salvation, what a wonderful savior. Thank you for this psalm that lays these things out to us through your word. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Psalm 102, p2 of 3

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Psalm 102, p2 of 3

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