All right, let's open our Bibles
now to Psalm 86 we read just a few moments ago. I titled the
message this evening, Do you have a good hope? I've looked at that question
this week and I thought about it. I want to have a good hope
of salvation, don't you? I want all of us to be able to
leave here tonight knowing if we have a good hope of salvation
or not. It's not as complicated as what
a lot of people in religion might make it sound. And David here
gives us six clear evidences of a good hope, and that's what
I want us to look at this evening. He begins in verse 1 with this,
I have a good hope if I'm poor and needy. He says, bow down
thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I'm poor and needy. Now to be
poor, you know he's not talking about being physically. financially
poor. David was one of the richest
men, probably the richest man on earth at this time, and he's
king of Israel. So to be poor is to be spiritually
poor. Now, poor is not having something,
just it's a little bit, but I have something. That's not poor. Spiritually
poor is to have nothing, to have zero. Now, all of us have a sin
debt, but the spiritually poor know They have nothing to pay. They have nothing they can use
to pay for their sin, to appease God's anger. They're bankrupt. So they can't pay for their sin.
Not even for one of them. That's the poor. But just like
our Lord said in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor. Here, blessed
are the poor. Why are the poor blessed? Because
only the poor have a good hope. because God will only bow down
His ear to hear the cry of a poor mercy beggar. God does not hear
the cry of someone who's got some goodness of their own. God
doesn't hear the cry of someone who needs Christ just to pick
up the slack for what I can't do. God won't hear that person. Our Lord said, I didn't come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those that are
whole, those that have a little bit, They don't need a physician.
He's not going to hear the cry of the person who's got something
to pay. But God always hears the cry
of the mercy beggar who needs Christ to pay all of his debt
for him. The poor who need Christ to do
it all for them have a good hope. Because you know what the Savior
said? He said He came to save the poor. He came to preach the
gospel to who? The poor. Christ saves the poor
by doing for them what they can't do for themselves. By paying
their sin debt for them. And the Savior only does that
for the poor. He only does that for the spiritually
bankrupt. And he does it for everyone who's
spiritually bankrupt. So are you poor in spirit? If
you are, you've got a good hope. God hears. God saves the poor
in spirit. David also mentions here the
needy. Now to be needy is to be helpless. It's not somebody
that needs just a helping hand. Jonathan came in to study and
I reached out his hand and shaked my hand. I grabbed it and I pulled
myself up. It was a whole lot easier to
pull myself up on him. He gave me a helping hand. That's
not what this needy is talking about. This needy means someone
who's helpless, somebody who can't do anything for themselves.
The needy need someone to do everything for them, to do it
all. Remember that man who was paralyzed? He couldn't come to Christ. His
friends couldn't get him through the crowd, so they tore a hole
in the ceiling where the Lord was and lowered him down. He
needed somebody to do everything for him, didn't he? He left that
place righteous. That's what the Lord said. The
Lord forgave him of his sins. The Lord does that for the needy.
Now, the needy, they don't need Christ to help save them, to
do the part that they can't do themselves, do they? No. The
needy need Christ to do it all. Are you needy? If you're needy,
And you need Christ to do all the work of salvation for you.
You don't have any hope of doing any of it for yourself if the
only hope you have is that Christ does all the saving. You've got
a good hope because Christ came to save the needy. David says
here that God will bow himself down to save, to hear the poor
and the needy. Now God bowed himself down. He
does humble himself. to hear our prayers, doesn't
he? If he humbles himself to behold the things that are in
heaven, how must he humble himself to hear our prayer? But he does.
He bows himself down to hear the cries of his people. And
God, for lack of a better term, put his money where his mouth
is. He bowed himself down and became a man. The Son of God
bowed himself down to take on him flesh and become a man. Or
a happy age used to say it's the longest journey ever made.
God became a man. And he became a man to be the
representative of his people. He had to come as a man into
flesh. He had to obey the law for his
poor and needy people. So he had to become flesh just
like they are. His people are incapable of pleasing
God. They're poor and they're needy.
They can't please God. So God came in the flesh to please
his father for them. And as if that wasn't enough,
the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, bowed himself again. He
bowed himself when he died for the sin of his people. In order
to save his people from their sin, Christ had to become poor
for them. He had to take their sin. He
had to take their poverty and give them his riches. Calvary,
Christ was made poor. He was made poor of righteousness. He was made sin. He was made,
the father would not look upon him. He was poor of righteousness. When he cried out, I thirst.
He wasn't talking about water. He was talking about what David
talked about when he said, I hunger and thirst after your righteousness. He became poor of righteousness. He became poor of union with
his father. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken him? It's for the sin of his people
laid upon him. He even became poor of life. He bowed his head and gave up
the ghost. He died for the sin of his elect
people laid upon him. You see, his people are incapable
of paying their debt. So God's son came into flesh.
And he died in the flesh to pay their sin debt. And ye through
his poverty are made rich. Now, if you're poor and you're
needy, the only hope of salvation you've got is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Is that you? If it is, that's a good hope.
Christ is a good hope. Not only is he a good hope, he's
the only hope. If you can't contribute anything
and Christ must be all to you, you have a good hope. All right,
number two, I have a good hope if the Lord will preserve me.
Verse two, preserve my soul for I am holy. O thou my God, save
thy servant that trusteth in thee. Now you have a good hope
if the Lord is the one who saves you and the Lord is the one who
keeps you saved, preserves your soul. You don't have a good hope
if the Lord saves you and then you got to keep yourself saved.
You got to keep yourself in his favor. If that's your hope, friend,
you got a bad hope. You need to look away from that.
But you have a good hope if the Lord saves you and he preserves
you and he keeps you from falling. If the Lord saves us by his grace
and keeps us by his grace, we have a good hope through grace. That's why I read that in 2 Thessalonians
2 to open the service. We have a good hope through grace.
By God saving grace and by His preserving, keeping grace. And
you have a good hope if you're saved through faith in Christ.
By trusting Him. David says, I trust in thee. I'm your servant that trusteth
in thee. Do you trust Christ? I mean,
can you trust Him? Can you trust your soul? to Him
without you lifting a finger to help. Can you? If so, you've
got a good hope. If you're trusting Christ alone,
you have a good hope. The person that trusts in Christ
alone is saved. They've already been saved. They
got that faith because God saved them. And believers are preserved
because they are made holy. I got your attention, didn't
I? But that's what David said here. I'm holy. Now, I know that
the center margin there says I'm one whom thou favorest. Well,
I'll tell you why I'm holy, because I'm one that God favors. Believers
are made holy. Now, how can David make such
a statement? I know about David. I read about him in God's Word.
I know about him. How can I make such a statement? I know about
me. I live with me. How can any son of Adam make
this statement? I'm holy. Well, the answer is
through faith in Christ, through union with Christ. Christ took
the sin of his people away from them at Calvary and he paid for
it. He paid it all with his precious
blood. Everyone for whom Christ died
is made the righteousness of God in him. He took their sin
away and gave them his righteousness. What a trade. He took the sin
of his people and traded them his righteousness and made them
holy, made them righteous. And when we're born again, there's
a new man born of God who's holy and he cannot sin. Now, sin is
what causes all the mess we're in. Sin causes sickness and decay
and death. But if there's no sin in us,
we're preserved. We can't decay. We can't die. That's why the new man born of
God can never die. He's holy. There's no sin to
decay him. There's no sin that would kill
him. Now only the Lord Jesus Christ could do that for his
people. He's the only one that's got the power and the goodness
to do it. So you have a good hope. If Christ
is the one that saved you, Christ is the one that preserves you.
If you made yourself holy, you don't have much of a hope. You
don't have any hope. But God made you holy, and you've got
a good hope, don't you? If you see you can't have any
righteousness by anything you do, then it's got to be all Christ. You see that? If so, you've got
a good hope. All right, thirdly, I've got
a good hope. If I can trust in the mercy of
God, verse three, be merciful unto me, O Lord, For I cry unto
thee daily." Every believer understands what David's saying there. We
all cry for mercy. We cry for mercy every day. All through the day. You may
not stop and say it out loud, but in your mind you're praying
for God's mercy. God be merciful to me. We need
God's mercy to save us, don't we? We need God's mercy to keep
us. We need God's mercy to protect
us. We need God's mercy to lead us. We need God's mercy to show
us what to say and how to say it and how to deal with people
that we deal with throughout our life. There's never a moment. We do not need God's mercy. Is that you? I mean, is there
ever a moment you think, oh, I can stand on myself, I can
do this myself. Do you need God's mercy every moment to provide
everything for you? Well, if so, I've got good news
for you. God's merciful to his people. He'll never take it away. God can be merciful to his people
because he already poured out his justice, fully and completely
poured out his wrath upon Christ, our substitute. And the father
said, there's no wrath left in me. Christ's body was broken
just like this bread. His body was broken. His body
was crushed under the wrath of God when he received the punishment
that the sin of his people deserved. And when his body was broken,
it was beaten. It was bruised. It was battered.
It was pierced. When his body was broken, out
flowed life-giving, sin-cleansing blood that blotted out the sin
of his people. Christ, by his sacrifice, by
His blood, by His broken body and His shed blood, took away
the sin that made God angry. Now God can be merciful. The
injustice, there's no reason for Him to give you anything
but mercy if Christ died for you. You see, a good hope is
not that I'm good enough for God to save. That's not a good
hope. If I had to be good enough to
save, what would that be? It'd be earning salvation, wouldn't
it? It'd be me doing something to
make God indebted to me because I did something good enough to
please Him. He had to do something for me. That would make the creator
indebted to the creature. That can't happen. A good hope
is not that I'm good enough for God to save. It's not that I've
been raised in the right home. It's not that I've been taught
the right doctrine. It's not that I had every memory first
memorized from the time I was three years old. What is a good
hope? It's that I'm bad enough to be
saved. That's the question. Are you bad enough to be saved?
Are you so sinful that the only possible way you could be saved
is in God's mercy? Does that describe you? If so, you've got a good hope. God saves people who don't deserve
it because Christ deserved it for them. Now that's mercy. And here's a precious truth for
sinners that need mercy, that cry unto God for mercy daily. God is plenteous in mercy. He's plenteous in mercy. God
is rich in mercy to all that call upon Him. God is rich in
mercy to every sinner who's ever called upon Him. And don't think
you're so special you'll be the first. God's mercy is always enough. It's always enough to satisfy.
We are plenteous in sin, aren't we? We are rich in sin. But God is more plenteous and
he's more rich in mercy. Then we have a good hope in God's
mercy, don't we? If we've got nothing, we have
a good hope in God's mercy. All right, here's the fourth
thing. I have a good hope if God has made my soul to rejoice
in Christ. Verse four, he says, rejoice
the soul of thy servant. For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my soul. Now, you know, there's lots of
things that make us happy. Our family and friends and being
with them makes us happy. Every time we got our family
together, we're happier. kids at home or wherever, happy.
We're happy with our friends and our family. And I mean, a
whole variety of things can make you happy. You could be happy
if you got a good bracket in the NCAA basketball tournament.
I mean, you really could. You'd just be happy. I don't
think anybody does, but if you happen to have one, you'd be
happy. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong
with those things making you happy. I mean, if anybody should
enjoy the things of this world, it should be God's children.
I mean, God owns it all. We should be able to enjoy it.
But that's not what Dave is talking about here. What makes your soul
rejoice? What makes your soul rejoice? Can your soul rejoice when your
family and friends aren't around? Can your soul rejoice when everything
around you and the world seems to be against you? Can your soul
still rejoice? True religion has to do with
the soul. With the soul. The true blessings
of religion are blessings of the soul. They're spiritual blessings. They're not material things.
They're spiritual blessings. True salvation is not an outward
show to try to impress people or worse yet, make it an outward
show trying to impress God. True religion is in the soul.
It's an inward work of grace. It's a soul that bows to God. It's a soul that worships God. It's a heart that cries out to
God for mercy. You know, God's people always
find that it's a special time of worship when we have the Lord's
table. Let me ask you a question. Does being reminded of the Savior's
sacrifice, does that make your soul rejoice? To think, in a
few moments, Wayne's going to come up here, he's going to break
the bread. You're going to hear that bread being broken. And
you're going to be reminded how Christ's body was broken for
the sin of His people. You'll take that little piece
of bread that they hand out and put it in your mouth and you'll
chew it and you'll feel it crunching. You'll feel it grinding in your
teeth. And you cannot help but be reminded
how Christ's body was broken, put through the grinder of God's
justice for the sin of His people. And then they'll distribute the
wine. You'll drink that wine and be reminded of the precious
blood of the Savior that He willingly shed to put away the sin of His
people. And it seems too good to be true.
Somebody like Him would do something like that for somebody like me.
Yet He did. And it just makes you want to
shout. Your soul is thrilled. If that describes you, you have
a good hope. If Christ's sacrifice is the
only hope you have, you have a good hope. Because the Lord
Jesus Christ fully suffered everything the sin of his people deserved.
He made his soul an offering for sin. Not just his body, his
soul was made an offering for sin. So there's nothing left
for his people to do. Now, does that thrill your soul?
Does that make your soul rejoice that He made His soul an offering
for sin? Then you've got a good hope.
We have a good hope if all of our rejoicing is in Christ. Not in all the earthly blessings
that He gives. And certainly, we're thankful
for them. Now, every earthly blessing we
have, God gave it. And I'm thankful, aren't you?
I'm thankful. And they're nice. I mean, they're nice. It's just
nice getting in your car and knowing it'll start, isn't it?
It's nice in the wintertime just knowing your furnace is going
to kick on. I mean, it's just nice. I mean, let's face it,
that's nice. But you know what? All those
things, all of them, I don't care how much of me gives you,
all of them will perish with the music. Every one of them
will change and decay. But Christ never changes. Salvation in Christ never changes. The power of his blood never
changes. The songwriter said, Dear dying
lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power. To all
the ransomed church of God be saved. To sin no more. Now you've
got a good hope. That thrills your soul. That
have Christ as your hope. If that thrills you, you've got
a good hope. All right, fifthly, I've got
a good hope. If my hope is in God who forgives, see, he doesn't
overlook it, he forgives it. Verse five, for thou, Lord, art
good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon thee. Isn't that a statement? God is
ready to forgive. Now, you know why he's ready
to forgive? People take that and say, Oh, God, just forgive
anybody. God, he just loves everybody.
Now, wait a minute. God is ready to forgive because
of the sacrifice of Christ. God is ready to forgive because
the sacrifice of Christ took away the sin that made God angry.
Like I said a minute ago, God is plenteous in mercy because
of the great power of the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ
is greater than all of our sin. Then God's mercy is greater than
all of our sin too, isn't it? Now, David says God is ready
to forgive. Now, can we say that God is more
ready to forgive than we're ready to be forgiven? Can you make
that statement? I believe I can. I tell you why. Because by nature, Now, we want
to be saved, don't we? And by saved, we mean I don't
want to go to hell. I sure don't want to go to hell.
But that's not the question. The question is, are you ready
to be forgiven? Are you ready for Christ to pay
it all? See, by nature, we're ready to
earn salvation, aren't we? But we're not ready by nature
to receive it as a free gift of God. No, by nature, we're
ready to earn a salvation, at least part of it. But by nature,
we're not willing to have Christ earn it all for us. We're certainly
by nature ready for Jesus to do his part, and I'll do my part.
But we're not ready for Christ to do it all, are we? No, we're
not ready for that. Not by nature. If you're ready
for Christ to be all, If you're ready, you're willing to receive
salvation as a free gift of God's grace. If you're ready to have
salvation on God's terms where you contribute nothing to it,
now you got a good hope. Now you got a good hope. If you
need to be forgiven of your sin, not just to what you've done,
but what you are, if you need to be forgiven of that, then
my friend, call upon the Lord and ask Him to forgive you. If you sit here tonight knowing
your sin's not forgiven, I want to tell you what, you haven't
called. That's so. If you'll call upon the Lord,
Almighty God says in His Word, He recorded it so we can't mistake
it. If you call on Him, He'll show mercy. He'll be plenteous
in mercy to all that call upon Him. You know what that tells
me? If I'm not forgiven, It's my
own fault. That's right. Well, I said, no,
wait a minute. I caught nothing. No, you didn't either. No, now you
didn't. I know this. Maybe you bargained
with God. Maybe you put one foot in and
kind of tested the water. See, well, if I do this, will
God do, you know, then, and then I'll do more. I mean, I bargained
with God. You know, God, God do this and
I'll do this. That's not begging. If you call
on God, begging for mercy, God says, I'll be merciful. If our
only hope is in God who forgives sin, who's rich in mercy to sinners,
we have a good hope. All right, lastly, I have a good
hope if God is my comfort in trial. Verse six, David says,
give you here, O Lord, unto my prayer and attend to the voice
of my supplications. In the day of my trouble, I will
call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me. Now, salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sin in His blood, righteousness
through His obedience, life from His death, that is the most glorious
message that has ever been told. And it does rejoice the soul
of God's people, doesn't it? Nobody has a better reason to
rejoice, nobody has a more secure hope than someone trusting in
Christ. But this is also true. Nobody's
going to have more trial and more heartache in this life than
a believer. Now we've seen this in our study,
Hebrews chapter 11. Faith must be tried. It's got to be tried. So it's
proven to me that it's genuine faith in Christ. It's got to
be proven to me. This is not a shelter built in
a time storm. This is genuine faith in Christ. Faith must be tried to make it
more precious. And you know what makes that
faith more precious? It makes it depend more and more
and more upon the Lord Jesus Christ. So when that day of trouble
comes, that day of trial, what's your comfort? Now what are you
looking for that comforts you in that day? I know it comforts
us to have kind words, to have a show of love from our brethren,
I'm thankful for that. But what about when they go home? What truly comforts the hearts
of God's people? Remember, this is a soul thing
now. What comforts the hearts of God's people? It's the gospel
of Christ. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
not some preacher telling you, now it's all going to be OK.
I know this happened, but God's got a plan. That just grates
on my last nerve. I see that people on TV, some
disaster. Well, God has a plan. God has
a purpose. God doesn't have a plan. God
has a purpose. And just saying, well, just because God's got
a plan, it's going to be all right. Now, wait a minute. Maybe it
won't. Maybe it won't. Maybe the pain and the suffering
and the heartache won't ever get any better. maybe to be. I've heard many widows tell me
that they've adjusted since their dear husband died. But this is
what they tell me. It's not okay. It's not okay. They'll tell me sometimes the
pain today is just as bad as the first day. And sister, what's your comfort?
Huh? What's your comfort? It's hearing
one of God's servants preach the gospel of Christ. That's
what comforts my heart. It's not going to change my fleshly
experience, but it's going to comfort my heart. What can be
more comforting than to hear God chose the people? God elected
the people to save. He chose the people, never would
have chosen him, but he chose them anyway. What could be more
comforting than hearing of God's eternal love for his people? He loved me while I was yet a
son. And you want to know the proof
of it? He sent his son to die for me, to be the propitiation
for my sin. Everybody else might not love
me, but God does. What could be more comforting
than that? What can be more comforting than hearing of Christ's obedience
to the one That's comforting to my heart because His obedience
is my obedience. His obedience is my righteousness. That comforts my heart. What
could be more comforting than hearing of Christ's sacrifice
for my sin? For my sin. He gave His body
to be broken under the judgment of His Father for my sin. He
shed His precious blood to pay for my sin. What could be more comforting
than that? What could be more comforting? And I tell you, the
only place you can find this good hope, this comfort, the
only place you can find it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. No
other God, little G, no other idol can ever do that. But the
Lord has, verse 8. Among the gods, the idols, there
is none like unto thee, O Lord. Neither are there any works like
unto thy works. Now, there is no other religion
that declares salvation in both mercy and truth. Not one. Somehow,
in some way, they all ignore sin. They ignore God's holiness
and they ignore God's sin. They ignore what sin really is.
They ignore what it takes to pay for the penalty of sin since
God is holy. No other message declares how
God is both just and justifier through the Lord Jesus Christ
other than the Gospel of Christ. You can't find it anywhere but
in Him. Now, if that Gospel of Christ
will comfort your heart in the worst of times, if that Gospel,
that hope in Christ comforts your heart even when your eyes
are crying, you have a good hope. a good hope through the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what the elements
of this table represent. And that's what we will do in
just a few moments as we remember our Lord's sacrifice. Remember
Him in these elements. So Wayne, you may, if you would,
distribute the bread.