to turn back in your Bibles to
Psalm 67. For those of you who have endured
these four days with our dear friend, Dr. Mulder, it has been
a good time, hasn't it? And you might wonder how important
it is to have a very biblical knowledge of creation and how
relevant creation is to the Message of redemption in Jesus Christ.
It's very important as many of us have learned you also might
wonder Can I grasp the implications of the creation account in such
a way as to? Defend the biblical claims of
a God who created the heavens and the earth in six literal
days well, I think you can I think you can grasp it enough to be
able to to prove that the Bible is clear, it's coherent, it has
integrity, it is a book of verity and unassailable in its claims. I think you can, but you will
have to ask God for assistance to teach you how to labor and
rightly divide the word. And Dr. Mulder has done that
for us for many, several days now. He's been doing it for many
years and the DVDs are available, books in the back are available. And I'm sure he is available
as well to talk to you about any aspect of what he has researched
over these years We are very privileged to have him now the
title of our message today is Lord. I want to be a blessing
I want to be a blessing and the psalmist before us in Psalm 67
verses 1 through 7 has a particular view in mind as he makes that
request now I admit to you I love the book of Psalms. It is so
rich, not only with theology in terms of the nature of God,
the character of God, and the redemptive work of Christ, but
one of the blessings that comes out of the book of Psalms is
that it actually covers the spectrum of the relationship between God
and his people. I mean the broad spectrum. When
you read the Psalms, you see how God's people come to God,
not only reverentially, as a sovereign monarch over the universe, to
whom we bow before in utter majesty, humility, fear, and reverence.
But you see the believers in the Psalms coming to God in praise,
in jubilation, in excitement, but also with needs. They come
to God with their anxieties, with their burdens. So not only
is God our King, He's our High Priest as well. And the people
of God come to Him with all of their concerns. They even sometimes
come to God in their anger and bitterness of soul. And what
that should elicit for us is the recognition that we can come
to God with all of the real and true and authentic burdens of
our soul, because He is a great king, a great high priest, and
He is a great prophet. He knows where we are, He knows
what we need, and He has the remedy. Now in this psalm, it's
just a wonderful psalm, He's requesting of God something. He says in verse 1, God be merciful
unto us, and bless us and cause your face to shine upon us. Now,
he's requesting of God to bless him, to bless them. Obviously,
it's in the first person plural, bless us. But I want you to know
that he's not asking God to bless them with material things. such as houses and cars, and
the everyday needs that we have in life. Certainly we want God
to do that, isn't that true? We need Him, we need Him every
hour, and we need Him to bless us with resources. And there's
a real sense in which that petition must go on before God, and as
we seek His face, He bestows those things upon us. But the
psalmist here, ladies and gentlemen, is not requesting that God meet
their material needs. If you look carefully at the
psalm, this psalm is not a petition to meet our daily needs, but
rather this is a psalm that is evangelical in nature. If you
look at the psalms, the psalmist is saying, be merciful unto us
and bless us and cause your face to shine upon us. Look at verse
two, that your way may be known upon the earth. In other words,
the psalmist is not saying, Lord, bless us so that we can be the
object of your blessing and bless us so that we can rejoice in
your presence and bless us that we might enjoy the benefits of
being your covenant people and enjoying the inheritance which
you have for us. He's not saying that. He's saying,
would you bless us that we might be a blessing to other people?
Would you bless your people so that the blessing that comes
upon us might redound to your glory in the revelation of the
knowledge of Jesus Christ to everyone that sees us. It's evangelical. It's evangelical. It's missional
in nature. This is a missiology of the heart
of the psalmist asking God to do something that God has plainly
said to His people He will do. He will bless the people of the
earth through His people. And he's teaching us something
about the character and nature of the relationship between the
people of God and God himself. And so I want us to work through
these seven points briefly. And as you note in verse one,
he says, God be merciful unto us and what? Bless us. Point
number one in your outline, mercy is always the basis for God's
favor. Mercy is always the basis for
God's favor. Now you and I know what mercy
is. It's God's undeserving response towards us, against us, or for
us with regards to something that we need but we don't deserve.
And the psalmist is smart enough and wise enough and prudent enough
to ask God to bless us on the basis of his mercy. Now, people
might ask God to bless them on the basis of merit, on the basis
of performance, on the grounds of what they have done. There
is certainly in the scriptures the principle of what we call
the law of reciprocity. Isn't that right? Whatsoever
man sows, that shall he what? And the Bible is very clear how
that God calls you and I into relationship with Him on both
conditional promises and unconditional promises. The unconditional promises
of God towards us are those things that God gives you and I, apart
from any kind of negotiating terms or reciprocity of relationship. Those of us who are believers
in Christ, we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. Those blessings are unconditional
blessings. How is it that you earned the
grace of God? You didn't. How is it that you
earned faith, which is a gift of God? You didn't. How is it
that you earned the righteousness of God that's imputed to you
freely through Jesus Christ? You didn't. How is it that you
have come upon the goodness of God and the forgiveness of your
sins, the redemption of your soul? How is it that today you
are still trusting Christ? Was it based on merit or mercy? It was the mercy of God, was
it not? The psalmist is smart then because what he's doing
is he's going through the front door of mercy in order to appeal
to God to do something not merely for him or for them, but through
them. In reality, the psalmist is actually
operating in his request with the mind of Christ. See, the
Psalms, again, as I said, is really a psalm of evangelism. Lord, would you use us, if we
make it personal, would you use me to be a means by which men
and women would come to know your saving grace in Jesus Christ? What a good prayer. What a good
prayer. But you and I must understand
that it's always based on mercy. Always based on mercy. The Bible
is very clear about that. Psalm 119 verse 41 says, Let
thy mercies come unto me, O God. Let your mercies come unto me,
O God, even your salvation. According to your word, that's
David You remember Psalm 119 that that set of Psalms that
by which David exalts the Word of God and the grace of God in
the life of the people of God well, he says in verse 41 that
salvation ultimately results in the totality of our salvation
that mercy ultimately results in the totality of our salvation
which means when you and I think about our salvation the whole
spectrum of it is really an act of mercy on God's part in it
and And see, so when you and I are contemplating praying to
God, what we really want Him to do is continue to be the God
of our salvation in our life every day, so that we can actually
achieve the goal for which God saved us, and that is to be a
blessing to other people. Do you remember what the Bible
said in Ephesians chapter 2? I believe it was around verse
4 or 5 when it says, But God, but God who is rich in mercy,
Wherewith he hath what? Loved us, even while we were
dead in trespasses and sins. He hath quickened us together
with Christ. So the apostle Paul always viewed God's favor, God's
blessing in the life of the people of God as really founded upon
mercy. Be merciful unto us, O God, and
bless us. And then again, you remember
what Titus says in Titus chapter three, verse five as well, not
by works of righteousness, which we have done, We have no grounds
to come to God or appeal to God on anything that we have done.
It's very important that you know that. By works shall a man
never be able to get God to simply give him something. Who has given
unto God that he must render unto Him again? God has never
been nor God will ever be our debtor. God has never been nor
will he ever be our debtor if anything this is kind of You
know mixing categories, but you and I are debtors to grace We
owe God for his grace His grace is the basis for which we still
exist His grace is the basis for which we are still looking
to God here. We are worshiping to God worshiping God today It's
only on his grace Sometimes his grace is restoring grace. Do
you know anything about that? I Have you ever drifted far from
God and God had to bring you back? And that enhanced your
worship because you realize that God is faithful to himself when
we're not faithful to him. That's restoring grace. And then
God has been so gracious to us in so many ways. The psalmist
is simply saying, because of your mercy, O Lord, use me then
so that others might be blessed. And so we move into the next
aspect of the request in verse one. And that is the character
or nature of the blessing. The character and nature of the
blessing. I really do believe that in order to rightly pray
to God, you have to know God. And you have to know who he is
and what he has purpose and what he is doing in order for our
prayers not to be amiss. And I also really do think that
if your prayers are going to be effectual, not only should
you and I know God, but we should also be in agreement with his
will. Don't you think? I mean, James warns us in James
chapter four, that sometimes we pray and sometimes we don't,
but sometimes when we pray, we pray amiss because we are asking
God for things that really does not correspond with his will.
Now, if you've been a Christian any length of time, as I have,
and I've shared it with you before, God is not obligated to answer
your prayers when they don't correspond with your will, or
with his will. God's not obligated to answer
your prayers when they don't correspond to his will. So from
time to time we happen to get it right, where our prayers correspond
to the will of God. Well, the insight that we get
from the psalmist here is he's praying according to the will
of God. And here's what he's asking in
the context of mercy, which is the basis for his request before
God. He says, bless us. And the characteristic of that
blessing is, and cause his face to shine upon us. Do you see what the psalmist
is asking for, saints? The nature of the blessing is
the revelation of His what? His glory. The psalmist is asking
God to bless them with a revelation of His glory. Is that a blessing,
children of God? Is the fact that God would be
pleased to reveal His glory to you, to me, to us, an enormous
blessing worth petitioning Him for? In fact, Wouldn't you say
that if God was pleased to answer the prayer of revealing his glory
to us, every other blessing would naturally flow from that? they
would be subordinate to that, and they would be complimentary
to that, but that the chief thing that you and I would want is
to know God, and to know Him in His glorious grace, and to
be able to sense His presence in our life. When it says, cause
your face to shine upon us, that was one of those common Hebrew
terms that meant, allow your favor, allow your presence, to
go among us in such a sensible way that we know that you are
among us. You remember what Moses said
in Exodus 32 and 33 when he was really, really troubled? I told
you before Exodus 32 and 33 could be entitled a bad day for the
preacher. Because Moses is up in the mount
with the 70 elders and the folks are down at the bottom of the
hill worshiping a golden calf. And then God says to Moses, you
go down and deal with that. And thousands were slain that
day. God separated the Levites and
the Levites destroyed the people. Moses was really struggling with
what had occurred because an aspect of God's nature had been
revealed to him. You know what that is? God is
holy. And God doesn't play with sin. And God punishes sin. That's not spoken much in this
present generation. God is holy. God punishes sin. And what Moses began to see in
the revelation of that aspect of God's character is that even
the covenant people that were making their excursion through
the wilderness were susceptible to God's displeasure if they
did not submit to his will. You know what Moses did before
he even began to do anything else after that he Rendered his
intercessory prayer that didn't work. God said no you can't stand
in the gap for them I have a mediator. I don't need you to stand in
the gap for them Moses says Lord before we move forward I Need
you to show me your glory See what he's saying is The way we
come into an intimate knowledge of God is by him revealing himself
to us. I and that because no man by
seeking can find out God, God has to, in his mercy, unveil
his attributes and characteristics to us in a way whereby we come
to know him. Isn't that what our Master said
in John chapter 17, around verse 3? And this is eternal life,
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom you have sent. So it is incumbent upon the people
of God, in your prayers, which are a privilege for us to do,
is to call upon God in mercy for God to show His favor upon
us. And certainly if He does, it will manifest itself in His
presence in our life, His favor in our life. And you remember
the benediction of Aaron in Numbers chapter 6, verse 24 and 25. Listen to this. The Lord bless
you and keep you. We've been talking about being
kept, haven't we? The Lord bless you and keep you. Here it is.
The Lord make his what? Face shine upon you and therefore
be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and do what give you peace. This is what the psalmist
is saying in Psalm 67 Lord Manifest your presence in our life Show
us your favor Come among us and reveal yourself to us and I would
submit to you child of God that that this is a this is not like
one of those prayers that I would consider light or trite because
when God is Shows his favor towards us and we are sensitive to it.
We know God has been good to us On no grounds of anything
for which we have done We know he has been good to us and and
really his favor and presence in our life is our comfort You
know how we have been learning over the last four days how much
the handiwork of God's creation is used not only to glorify this
great God for they declare his glory and But God is so lavished
upon us as the human race, the enormous benefits of this creation
that daily you and I bask in God's goodness. The sun rises,
doesn't it? And upon the sun rising, as we
would use it as a metaphor, you know, the sun doesn't rise. But
upon the sun rising, you and I are experiencing innumerable
blessings because of the sun rising on us. We don't deserve
it. Some days we wake up with a really
bad attitude. Some days we wake up really,
really messed up in our mind. And aren't you thankful that
that's one of those unconditional blessings? Suppose God only allowed
the sun to rise up if you had a good attitude. Thank you, oh God. Thank you
for being more faithful to yourself than I am to you. See what I'm
saying is, and this is why as our elder Angelo stated, we are
just so thankful for this series of classes because what it did
was it increased our sensitivity to the minute details with which
God has created this universe to bless us. And yet what the
psalmist is saying is as God's covenant people, we want to go
beyond the mere physical blessings of God, and we want to enter
into those deep covenantal blessings whereby we come to know God on
a day-to-day basis. Remember Jacob? Jacob made the
mention of God's presence in his life in Genesis chapter 32.
Remember he was running from his uncle Laban, and he had a
major dream one night. He saw a ladder going all the
way up to heaven. And then he saw the Lord himself standing
at the top of the ladder, angels going up and down. And he said,
surely this must be what? The house of God. He marked that
and entered into a covenant with God. Then he moved forward. And
then one day in his struggles, one night an angel came to him
and the angel picked a wrestling match with Jacob. You remember
that? Jacob and the angel wrestled
all night long. All night long and the angel
wouldn't let him go because of course now if the angel wanted
to he could have pinned Jacob In a nanosecond, right? But sometimes
God wrestles with us in his love to teach us our weakness So that
we can understand that he intends on entering into covenant with
us and he simply wants you to say uncle So that he can bless
you Are you hearing me? He does that. He does that. He
does that. And the net effect of that toiling
all night on Jacob's part was this. He woke up and said, I
have seen the face of God. Penuel. I have seen the face
of God. Now watch this. And I am preserved. That's what I'm talking about.
See, for God's covenant people, the revelation of God is our
salvation. It's our preservation. God had
affirmed to Jacob that night what he had told Jacob several
months earlier that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and he would be his God as well and lead him to the promise.
And I'm simply saying that as the psalmist is beseeching God
for his presence and favor, it's in order for God to bring to
full fruition what God has called you and I to be. He's called
you and I to be a blessing in the life of other people. He's
called you and I to be a blessing in the life of other people.
So the nature of the blessing is the revelation of His glory.
It's His face in a metaphorical way. It's His presence. It's
His favor. It's His blessings on our life. But ultimately,
children of God, what are we asking in this New Testament
age under the new covenant when we ask God to bless us with a
revelation of His glory? Are we not asking God to reveal
to us the person and work of Jesus Christ in our life? Is
not Christ the revelation of the invisible God? Are we not
then, when we're asking God to cause His face to shine upon
us, bring us into the revelation of Jesus Christ? Because Christ
is God's revelation, the revelation of all that He is and all that
He will do for His people. Are we not asking God to reveal
Christ to us? To make Christ known to our soul?
And to make Him known in such a way that we will be a blessing
to other people? The ultimate prayer then that
you and I can ask in terms of blessing is that you and I would
know him better and better and better through his son, Jesus
Christ. To know God is to know Christ. I want to know him by his providence
in my life. I want to know God by his power
in my life. I want to know God by his blessings
in my life. Yes, I need God to take care
of me all the way through. But ultimately, what I need is
to know God in his son, Jesus Christ. I need to know the true
and the living God as he has revealed in the incarnation,
his work of redemption, his salvation for sinners. That's what I need
to know. For as I grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord,
I am sure that then God can use me to bless other people. The
psalmist is asking, for God to reveal Christ to them. Now, if
we were dealing with this in terms of a historical text, who
would these people be? They would be the nation of Israel.
They would be the old covenant people, the Old Testament church,
right? And this kind of request, as I said, is missiological.
It's a mission statement saying to God, would you cause your
blessings to come upon us in such a way that we could be a
blessing to the nations of the world, right? Well, what was
the great promise that God made to national Israel? The coming
of Christ. That was the ultimate blessing
from Adam all the way to the last Jewish person who would
be part of that Old Testament line. We would say namely Mary
and Joseph, right? who had prayed for the Messiah
to come. Essentially, this is what they're praying. Cause your
face to shine upon us and we will be saved and we will be
a blessing to people. So in the Old Testament, they
would have been asking for Christ to come incarnate. In the New
Testament, I may submit to you that what we are asking for Christ
to do is come by revelation of the gospel. Come by revelation
of the gospel in my heart. Reveal yourself through your
word to my soul in the truth of all that you are in Jesus
Christ. Let me say this before I go on to the next point. Your
problems and mine are made minimal to the degree that you walk closer
with God through Christ. Your problems and mine are minimized
to the degree that we walk closer with God. through Christ. The
further away we get from Christ, the more difficult our life becomes.
The real solution to all our problems is a great king, a great
high priest, and a great shepherd who lives to bring us into the
fullness of his saving purposes in our life. I actually thank
I thank God for this psalm because this psalm actually corrects
my thinking about prayer. So often I'm praying about little
petty things that really circumscribe my own life. So often I'm asking
God to simply bless me, bless me, bless me, like a little child.
But if it doesn't have any kind of evangelical ramifications,
then what's the point? What's the real point if God
made me, if He created me for His praise and His glory and
His honor and it doesn't pour out to that end in the life of
other people? What's the purpose for the prayer?
Help me. And whether you believe it or
not, we believe all the scriptures point to Christ. We believe that
the Bible is a crystal-centric revelation, special revelation
of God in Christ. And if we properly interpret
the Scriptures, you can sense the Spirit of the Son requesting
to the Father in this text to make Him a blessing to all the
nations of the world. I can hear Christ in this text,
can you? I can hear Him saying to His Father, Father, make me
a blessing to the world through Your people. Can hear him saying
if I be lifted up, I will draw men unto me. I can hear him saying
father Glorify your name upon the earth. I can hear it. Can
you hear it? It's a beautiful prayer And so Lord grant me the
grace to continue to pray for those things that are most important
to you Which is your glory which cannot be achieved any other
way And then through Christ point number three mark this net then
make us a vessel for your glory. See what the psalmist is saying
in verse one is that we don't want to simply be the point of
termination for the blessing. We want to simply be a vehicle
through which the blessing is poured out on others. I don't
want to simply be the place where the blessings come whereby people
can walk by and see it as if I'm some kind of museum, some
living museum, some warehouse of store for the blessings of
God so people can pass by and see them. I actually want to
be a vessel of mercy by which God takes me and pour me out
into the life of other people. Is that a legitimate thought,
saints? Remember Romans chapter 9? Romans chapter 9, verses 22
through 25, I believe it is. It's in Romans chapter 9 that
speaks to this. Romans 9, 22 through 24. The
apostle Paul is speaking about the character of God and what
are called hypotheticals, but these are really prophetic declaratives. Watch this. What if God, willing
to show His wrath? Well, I can give you the answer
to that particular hypothetical. He is. He is, it's not an if,
God is willing to show his wrath. Watch this, and to make his power
known. He's been doing that since the
beginning of time. We were debunking the flawed
notion of the evolutionary theory on the premise of millions and
millions and hundreds of millions and billions of, as it were,
years as the basis upon which the evolutionary process would
unfold. They deny cataclysm. They deny
crisis. But we know that God brought
a worldwide crisis in the day of the flood. which changed the
whole geological structure, changed everything in the world, and
it became a testimony of God's wrath. He destroyed the whole
world with the exception of eight souls. God was willing to show
his wrath. You know what he called those
people? Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Vessels of wrath
fitted for destruction. They earned it, didn't they?
They lived with their fist in God's face. They lived contrary
to the testimony of the gospel that Noah had brought to them
as a preacher of righteousness for a hundred years. He preached
the foolishness of the cross by that ark which no one could
miss. And the very day that God told
Noah and his eight souls to go into the ark, the rain began
to fall. Is God faithful? Is God true? Now watch this. But Noah and
his eight souls, guess what they were? They were vessels of mercy.
Look at the text. He endured with much long-suffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, but verse 23 says,
and that he might make known saints marquess the riches of
his glory. Stay there for a moment. I think
that this is exactly what the psalm is talking about. Bless
me, but not for my sake. for your glory sake with the
riches of your glory. You know what that is? All of
the resources of God's grace in the covenant of grace, wherein
he has promised to bless his people with every resource necessary
for life and godliness. Bless me with the riches of your
glory. And he says these are reserved. These blessings are reserved
for the vessels of what? Vessels of mercy. See, every
believer is a vessel of mercy. Every one of God's elect children
are vessels of mercy. We who are believers in Christ,
and we understand the gospel of life, we understand that we're
merely what? Vessels of mercy. Now, stay there for a moment.
We're vessels of mercy. But may I haste to emphasize,
you are a vessel. You are a vessel. You're not
a plate. You're not a museum. You're not
a warehouse. You're not a placard. You're
a vessel. You're a vessel. A vessel must
be filled with something so that it can be used. God made you
a vessel of honor, child of God. And he made you a vessel of honor
in order that he might pour the riches of his glory in you. so
that the riches of His glory which is in you might be poured
out into other people's lives. Isn't that what you want? Don't
you want to be a blessing to somebody? Don't you want to be
a blessing to your children? Don't you want to be a blessing
to your husband? Do you want to be a blessing to your spouse,
your brothers or your sisters? Don't you want to be a blessing
to the lost? Don't you want to see the lost saved? Don't you
want to see the backslider returned again to the true and the living
God? You want to therefore not only then be the object of his
blessing, but vessels that the master can use to pour out into
the lives of other people. That's what I want to be. That's
what the prayer is on the part of the psalmist for his own nation.
He wants to be a vessel by which God pours out his blessings into
the lives of others. So we have asked God through
his mercy to give unto us the blessings of his presence, the
blessing of his favor, the blessing of his son. That's the ultimate
and quintessential blessing. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, where? In Christ Jesus. If you've
got Christ, effectively, you have all the blessings. But you
and I still have to appeal to God to make those blessings a
reality in our life. So that's what the psalmist is
doing. He's saying bless us and cause your face to shine upon
us That your way look at verse 2 in our text that your way may
be known upon the earth Do you see that that your way may be
known upon the earth? Now again, what I am stating
is that the psalmist has every Interest in the character and
in the glory and in the purpose of God in view bless me. I that your way may be known
upon the earth. So I back up a little bit and
ask the question, what are the consequences and ramifications
of people not knowing the way of God? Destruction, perishing,
blindness, ignorance, poverty, destruction. If God does not
reveal his way to us, are we all miserable human beings on
a way to a burning hell without God? If God doesn't manifest
his ways in our life, are we not left to ourselves to struggle
futilely to try to get along? If God doesn't manifest his way
to us, we are all doomed, aren't we? And we would be more than
selfish if we didn't pray that God would not only bless us,
but bless us in a fashion that his ways might be known upon
the earth. God's path, God's course, God's
manner, God's method, God's purpose, God's ways. Now when we talk
about the ways of God, we can sum it up very quickly. Are you
ready? Christ is the way of God. I am the way. the truth and the
life and no one comes unto the father but by me. What that means
therefore then is I want to know God in a saving way so that I
can be a means by which others come to know God in the saving
way of Jesus Christ. What profit is it for you to
learn all the theology in the world and not be a beacon of
light by which the way is shown for sinners to come to God through
Christ. What good is it for you to be
the object of all of God's favor and presence and men and women
outside of the scope of your blessing perish because they
can't find the door? Christ is that door. Christ is
that way. Christ is that truth. Crisis
at life. These are simple truths that
we have been learning for years, but these are so germane to our
prayer life You and I are not to want to die without facilitating
being a means of cooperating with joining in the great agenda
of God Almighty to reveal his way to men and women. Dr. Mulder was that for us this weekend,
wasn't he? He helped us grasp certain venues of God's enormity
in the work of creation. It actually gave me all kind
of material to preach on Because you understand creation
points to the new creation That when you comprehend what God
did in the beginning you can comprehend what God does in Christ
if any man be in Christ Jesus he's a what new creature a So
the old things point to the new necessarily for us and for God
as well. And so we're asking God to make
us vessels of mercy so that we can be a blessing to others that
they might know your way upon the earth, that they might know
your way upon the earth. And the psalmist is really concerned
about the salvation of men and women, the way you call sinners,
the way you draw sinners to yourself. The way you deal with sinners
who are lost. The way you deal with your saints
when they are wayward. The way you deal with your people
when they are weak. The way you deal with your people
when they are needy. We are really asking God to make
us an open book to the whole world as God deals with us in
favor. Because when you do that, you actually are helping sinners
to understand how enormously gracious God is. See, when sinners
get to see how God keeps you, watches over you, restores you,
strengthens you, transforms you, renew your mind, you know what
they get? They get a kind of encouragement
to come to that very same God. Because when they look at you,
you know what they say? Man, if God can save you. And then when they watch how
patient God is with you. God is patient with you. We account
that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation those of us
who get older in the faith and we realize how much how far we've
got to go in terms of development character and Sanctification
and all that you know what we thank God for the commodity of
his infinite patience towards us. God is patient God is patient
with sinners like us. He's in and sometimes his patience
will cause us to trip up won't it and Because God's not in a
hurry, but we often are sometimes we're in a hurry to get right
But we're getting right for the wrong reasons. And so God doesn't
let us get right until our head gets right That's true, too See
remember when you and I get this When we get this, when we understand
the real mission of God, and that is He called us to be a
people of His praise and glory so that others might become a
people for His praise and glory, we won't be living to ourselves.
We'll be living unto Him who loved us and gave Himself for
us. When we really get this thing, we'll be praying like the psalmist
here. Lord bless us, cause your face to shine upon us, that your
way may be known upon the earth. And then he, again, he describes
the nature of that way in a beautiful sort of medical terminology.
He says, you're saving health among all the nations. You're
saving health. You know what he's describing
God's salvation as? As medicine that heals the soul. Isn't Christ a great physician? Isn't our Savior a chief physician? And don't you and I, as sinners,
need healing? Aren't we diseased? Aren't we
afflicted? Don't we have problems? Do you
know that Jesus Christ, our great physician, is also our healing
balm? Is he not the balm of Gilead? Doesn't he go down to the bottom
of the soul? Doesn't he cure all of our wounds and all of
our diseases? Isn't that true? Isn't that one
of the reasons we praise him? Because in certain areas of our
life where we need healing, when he comes through, he heals us
and we go, you are the God that healeth me. It's true. It's just true. Not only is He
the great physician, not only is He the balm of Gilead, but
by His stripes are we healed. This is true. See, this is why
the Spirit of God can work through the Word of God to bring about
the healing of our sins, the healing of our mind, the healing
of our emotions. And when God wants to, He can
heal our bodies too. The doctor will quickly tell you that men
don't heal. Have you ever met an honest doctor that will tell
you he healed anyone? Only God heals Now he works through
means just like only God saves but he saves through preaching
and God heals He heals He heals and we thank him for it and there
will be an ultimate healing for our soul one day in that right
one day We will be healed completely and totally of our sin nature.
I This thing will be gone and we will look perfectly like our
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, complete in a state of glory
to be able to worship God with all of our heart. See, one of
my sicknesses is that I don't worship God like I want to. One
of my infirmities is I can't worship Him like my mind desires
to worship Him. Virtually everything that I do
towards God falls short because of my infirmity. my weaknesses,
my diseases, my lack of strength. I can't worship God with my mind
like I want to. In my soul, my mind is limited
in its capacity to grasp what I intuitively believe are the
enormous revelations of God's character, nature, and work.
I can't get there. There's an infirmity. I'm slow. I'm retarded. It's true. And my affections are messed
up too. Because even though my soul pants after God, like the
heart pants after the water brook. Even though my soul pants after
God, like the heart pants after the water brook. Sometimes I'm
so cold, I can't get to the water brook. You too, you too, you
too. And I'm so glad God comes alone
by his grace and moves the water brook close up to me so I can
drink. You know one of the things I'm not gonna be much longer,
but one of the things I was enjoying about dr Mildred He was so concise
in so many of the points That he stated because being a brilliant
person a brilliant mind, you know You can extrapolate and
expand on so many salient points that you could be here forever
as he said But he would give short terse statements like this
God gave us six natural days seven wherein he worked supernaturally
to bring it about. He gave us six natural days,
six 24-hour days, seven 24-hour days, wherein on the seventh
day he what? Rested. On those six days, God labored.
He worked supernaturally in a phenomenal way to bring about the whole
of the heavens and the earth. But he did it within the confines
of natural days. Now, let me ask you a question.
Can God do that? Can God work supernaturally within the confines
of the natural? He does it all the time and might
I say Jesus Christ the God-man is the quintessential example
of that. The incarnation conflates both
natural and supernatural by which we can know that God is who he
said he is. Isn't that so? And one day you
and I will be a model of the supernatural, swallowing up the
natural and bringing us into perfect union with our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, to dwell with Him for all eternity. That's
what we're wanting, isn't it? But I don't want to get there
without everyone else whom God has chosen, whom God has purposed,
and whom God is calling to Himself. See, I already know what the
book says. I cannot be made perfect without you. And you and I cannot
be made perfect without the rest of God's elect. There are many
women all over the world, little babies, little boys and girls
who are yet to be born who must be brought into the kingdom.
And none of us will be brought into a full state of perfection
until the last of God's elect are brought in. So while we are
here, what we want to do is be a blessing to everyone around
us. Let's move on and close this
down. Listen to it. Not only We to be a blessing
so that his way may be known upon the earth But God's blessing
us is the cause for which the nations praise God look at verse
3 through 5 I like this. I won't be here long. I'll just
share with you one insight, which I've talked to you about before
In order that your way may be known upon the earth. Let your
saving health be manifested to the nations Let the people praise
thee. Oh God, let all the people praise
thee. I Oh, let the nations be glad
and do what? Sing for joy. For thou shalt
judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon the
earth. Selah. Verse 5. Let the people
praise Thee, O God. Let all the people praise Thee. Do you understand what the psalmist
is doing? He's picturing in his mind nations,
kindred, tribes, and tongues from the beginning of time to
the end of time. Opening up their mouth and opening
up their hands and utter praise and adoration to the God who
redeemed them from destruction See when you and I think about
praise, you know what we think about we simply think about the
expression of worship of which we're engaging now That's absolutely
true market. Don't ever play down worship
God is to be worshipped Don't play down church God is to be
exalted among His people. If we don't worship Him, who
will? If we don't exalt God, who will? If we don't proclaim
His glories, who will? If we don't extol this great
God, who will? If we don't exhibit from the
heart passion and love for our Savior, who will? My master said,
the rocks will. You know what the psalmist was
saying? If God uses you, in a way by which you are a vessel of
his mercy, other people will enter into your worship. One
by one by one. And in his mind, what he sees
is a vast multitude of people crying out, as Revelation chapter
5 verse 9 puts it, unto you be all glory, all dominion, all
power, all honor, because you have redeemed us out of every
nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, that we should be a people to
your name. Redeemed unto God by your blood out of every kindred,
tongue, people, and nation. This here is the end for which
salvation is now being brought to the whole world. That there
would be peoples and nations, a world calling upon God. But
the word praise also needs to be thought through. It's the
Hebrew word yadah. And we talked about this a while
back. The word yadah is one of those very broadly applied terms
in the scripture. broadly applied. In the context
of the Psalms, it has to do with us praising God. But inherently
the word simply means to express a full knowledge of who God is
with everything you know. It really is the word that can
be translated to confess. Confess I taught you that when
we were dealing with first John chapter 1 verse 9 if we confess
our sins He is just and faithful to have already forgiven us and
to have already cleansed us from unrighteousness Through the blood
and righteousness of Jesus Christ. What is confession? Confession
is when you tell the truth the whole truth about someone else
or yourself when believers confess God what we confess is all that
God has revealed to us about who he is and When we confess,
we open our mouth wide and we say, the Bible says, the Bible
says, the Bible says that He is the God that created the heavens
and the earth. The Bible says that He is the
God that sustains the universe. The Bible says that there is
no God besides Him. The Bible says He is the only
Savior of the world. The Bible says we all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. The Bible says that Christ
rose again from the dead to put away our sins. The Bible says
there is a day coming wherein the heavens will open and the
Lord shall return with the sound of the trump. The Bible says,
the Bible says, it's a confession of all that God reveals to us
and we reveal it back. It can be done in teaching. It
can be done in preaching. It can be done in witnessing.
It can be done in evangelism. This is what is meant by praising.
It can be done in apologetics. We exalted God the other night
when Ray Comfort systematically stripped all of those evolutionists
of their false refuges and shut them up to Jesus Christ. Did
we not rejoice in that? He stripped them. How gifted
is a person who has the apologetic skills of not only defending
the gospel, but stripping sinners and bringing them to the point
where they must bow the knee to Jesus Christ. That's a form
of praise. That's the form of prayer. See,
this is what the psalmist is saying. The psalmist is saying,
may the Lord Jesus Christ so work in our life that he works
in other people's lives to bring them not only into the kingdom
blessings, but to also use them as God uses us. Are you guys
getting the vision? And let me close it right here
so we can enter into our time of worshiping the Lord's table. Listen to what the hymnist goes
on to say, the psalmist rather, not only let the people praise
thee, O God, and let all the people praise thee, but when
they do, then shall the earth yield her increase, and God,
even our God, shall bless us. This is an eschatological perspective
on the part of the psalmist. The psalmist sees that his request
corresponds to the agricultural process of sowing the good seed. See, those of us who are in evangelism
class, aren't we talking about the whole idea of sowing the
seed? If the Word of God isn't sown, can there be a harvest? If the incorruptible seed of
the gospel is not planted into the hearts of men and women through
preaching and teaching and the ministry of the Word, can there
be a harvest? Can God accomplish, and this is His purpose, the
salvation of those He has purpose to accomplish without first there
being the blessing of Christ in the life of His people, and
thus the blessing of Christ in the life of others who see Christ
in you, the hope of glory? Can he can God have the harvest
that he purposes to have Without us being vessels of mercy where
the Spirit of God takes us and pours out the incorruptible seed
We're not the seed Christ is But we might be sores Am I making
some sense? We might be sores and we might
facilitate the sores But we're all part of the great process
of scattering the seeds And what the psalmist says is, there's
a day coming when the harvest will come in. And God will reap
His harvest, and He will bring His wheat into the barn, and
then He will end this world and recreate it over a new heavens
and a new earth wherein dwells only righteousness. In effect,
you can take verse 1 and verse 7 and tie them together, and
you have good bookends. God be merciful unto us. Bless
us and cause your face to shine upon us Salah God shall bless
us and All the ends of the earth shall worship him Do you see
it? God bless us. God shall bless
us and when he blesses us all the ends of the earth Shall hear
my point of application is really just the last verse And I want
you to get it Pray that God would use you to
that end. Bless us to that end, oh God. Bless us to the end that your
name might be praised. Bless us to the end that your
darling son might be made known to everyone around us. Use me,
oh Lord, as a vessel, a weak, flawed, sinful, broken, marred
vessel. Use me. Pour in the excellency
of the knowledge of Jesus Christ into the vessel and pour me out
upon anyone you want to, anywhere you want to, anytime you want
to. Pour me out. Pour us out that
we might be a blessing to other people. Amen. Thank you.