Morning, let's open your Bibles
if you would to Psalms 30. Psalm 30. I want us to look at just one
verse. We're actually going to look
at one half of one verse and kind of zero in our focus just
on that. And Psalm 30, and we'll look
at the second half of verse 5, but we'll read the whole verse
just for context. Psalm 30, verse 5, he says, for
his anger endureth but a moment. And in his favor is life. And
this is our text. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. The title of my message is A
Word of Expectation. What is it that we're given here
but a word of expectation from God the Father? Weeping may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Well, first of all,
whenever we look at a text, I think we have to ask ourselves, to
whom is the prophet speaking? Or to whom is the father speaking
in this case? And if you look up in verse four,
he tells us. He says, sing unto the Lord,
O ye saints of his. So the Lord is speaking to his
saints, his sanctified ones. those who have been set apart
for holy purposes. And these people, these are His
people. That's who His saints are, aren't
they? So He gives them words of expectancy, things to expect. First, He says, sorrow, there
will be sorrow for a time. So don't be surprised that there
will be sorrow. Second, he says, there will also
be joy. This is their hope. So he's speaking
to us now in our sorrow, but also saying in one day that there
will be a hope. Why are these words of expectancy
given? Well, actually, if you look across
the page here at Psalm 31, I want us to consider the words and
who is speaking. And in verse 10 he says, for
my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My
strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. I was a reproach upon all mine
enemies, but especially among my neighbors. and to fear to
mine acquaintance, you consider Christ on the cross. They that
did see me without fled from me, and I am forgotten as a dead
man out of mind. I am like a broken vessel." Elsewhere
in the Psalms, he says, he knoweth our frame. He remembers that
we're but dust. The speaker here is no one less
than the Lord Himself. He knoweth our frame. He was
made flesh. The Lord understood something
about the weakness of our flesh. In fact, He understood more about
it than even we do. He understood the power and strength
required to not fall. We don't even understand that.
We don't understand how weak we are in our flesh. In Lamentations
3.1 he says, I am the man that hath seen the affliction of his
rod, of the rod of his wrath. He is the man that hath seen
it, he experienced it. He is the man of sorrows and
experienced the weaknesses of our flesh. How quickly I fail
when I see no sign of hope. My flesh is so weak, if I don't
feel that I have some hope, some way out, I fail so quickly. It gives me no sense of hope
at all. And that's why he's given us these words of expectancy
here. Sorrow will endure for the night. Sorrow is the same
way as weeping. Weeping and sorrow may endure
for the night. What is the sorrow that the psalmist
speaks of here? Well, there's two things. First,
he's speaking about the tears of the Spirit. And when we consider
what the tears of the Spirit are, the Spirit is something
that only the saints have. Not every man has been given
this new Spirit. Only those whom the God has called
out and given and born again His Holy Spirit to. So there
are certain tears that the Spirit can cry that no one else could
understand. So the Spirit first cries, because
of my sins. Because my sins are what have
estranged me from God. My sins are what He hates. And
when I consider my sins, my tears come less from what I've done.
Because even those who don't have this new spirit, they can
look at what they've done and experience sorrow from it. Even
Pharaoh did. Remember when he chased the children
of Israel out, he said, I've sinned this time. He experienced
sorrow over the circumstances that he was in. So we can't just
say it's because of what I've done. But my sorrow over my sin
is more that I don't experience more shame from it. Only the
new man can see that. Only the new man can have some
understanding of the shame that the burden of our sin has brought
us. And so I'm more ashamed because
I have a lack of it. Those are the tears of my spirit.
I weep spiritually in knowing that all I do is sin against
God. All I do is evil. Everything I think, all my motives,
all the good things that I think I would do, they're evil in the
sight of God because of who did it. because of my flesh that
I still retain with me, even with the spirit indwelling in
this body, all that I can do is sin. And I'm ashamed because
I don't weep more over it. All we see, think and feel and
do is rooted in sin. I hate it, but yet I find I'm
a willing participant in it. Do you find that in yourself?
Do you find the new man in you hating what you are and what
you've done, but yet at the same time, your flesh walks right
along in it? There's no change day to day.
This causes our spirit to weep in this. Well, what's the second
thing? Weeping may endure for a night.
We have the tears of the spirit. We also have tears over our love
to him. Our love to him is so fleeting.
I think I have some understanding of what my love to Him is, but
I find it's here for a moment and lost most of the time. I
don't see it. Frankly, when I look at myself
and what I do and what's in my heart, I see very little of it.
It's so fleeting. I find that it's impure. My love
to Him is impure. It's mingled with the desires
and cares of my flesh. It's mingled with things that
God can't have anything to do with. It's mingled in with these
things, so it's so impure, I don't even like that I see what it
is. Our love to him is so callous, we can't even feel. Callous builds
up when something rubs over time. There's no feeling there. The
callous makes us not feel. You get a callous in your shoe
and you don't rub a blister anymore. You're beyond feeling. Our love
has no more feeling anymore to us at all. It doesn't affect
us. And when we consider the father gave his son as a sacrifice
for sins, I say those words, how little feeling do I really
have? My spirit knows that I should,
but I don't feel it. I was trying to consider this.
If I were to give my son, to give his life for something that
you did, What would my expectation would be of your level of appreciation
for the gift of what I was willing to give? And let alone my son
being willing to do it, saying, I'm glad to take it on. I'm glad
to take on what they did and to die for them. Our expectations
together would be what level of love, appreciation, Undeserved
thanks would come back and yet we find in our love to him is
so cold. I can't give him five minutes
of my thought during the day. Has this been your experience?
Do you find you get to the end of the day and you think, I haven't
even prayed today. I haven't even asked the Lord
to give me strength for the day. I haven't asked for forgiveness
for my sins. The Son willingly endured shame,
the shame that I caused, the shame that was my guilt. He willingly
endured it. The Son bore the burden of the
cross knowing what He would come to bear, knowing that He would
be made flesh, be made weak, have men deny Him and hate Him
for it. He willingly walked into this
and endured it, and the pain out of love for His people When
you consider His love to us and look at our love back to Him,
this causes our spirit to weep. We weep because of all the Son
did for us and this love for Him, and yet I can't be bothered
to come here one time a week, two times, three times is a lot.
You consider we come for an hour at a time, and yet he gave his
life for us, but yet we can't be bothered to come here one
time, two times. It's too much. This tells you
how sinful we are as men and women, that we can't have more
love to him, and that we see this in ourselves. What does
this say of our love? The tears of the Spirit also
weep because of our unbelief. If you will turn with me over
to Luke chapter 12 and verse 26. If you then be not
able to do the thing which is least, why take you thought for
the rest? Consider the lilies, how they
grow. They toil not. They spin not,
yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like unto one of these. If then God so clothed the grass,
which today is in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven,
how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? Our unbelief pervades everything
that we do. The Lord takes care of things
that we don't even consider. He causes the rain to fall so
that the grass grows. He, you know, later talks about
feeding the sparrows and the birds. We don't even consider
them. You don't consider really all that the Lord takes care
of for us and in us until something goes wrong. Something goes wrong
with your health and you think, Lord, take care of me. I'm sick.
I need your help. We don't even consider these
things. Our unbelief pervades everything that we do. So we
find ourselves looking to the Lord and trusting Him to say,
Lord, I trust you to do what is required for the salvation
of my soul. I know no question about your
son and the effectiveness of the work that he did. and that
your purpose in the lives of your people is to ensure that
they be saved. I don't doubt that, and I trust
him in that, but yet I find in myself worrying about how am
I going to pay my mortgage next month? Is he going to put food
on my table? Does he know what I need? We
can trust him for the salvation of our souls, but yet we find
in the creature comforts and the things of this world, how
am I gonna clothe my children? How am I gonna pay for college? What am I gonna do to pay my
health insurance? Things that, the Lord takes care
of the things that matter, but yet these things that we consider
for our daily things, he must not hear, must not know, so we
doubt. We find our unbelief in these
things. Does what I give, reflect my trust in him to provide for
my needs? Our unbelief is in everything.
Do I really trust that whatever he does is right, even when it
comes at the expense of pain or sickness or heartache, loss
of a loved one? Is whatever he does right then,
our unbelief starts questioning, Lord, don't you see what's going
on here? Take care of me, why would you let these things happen?
These things start creeping into our minds. So unbelief is something
that our spirit weeps over, because we look and we say, Lord, I trust
you with the salvation of my soul, but not these basic things. But yet we see the Lord's faithful
in taking care of, I don't think about whether he feeds the birds
in my yard. I don't think about whether he gives the squirrels
that live in the tree behind me a home. But yet, He considers
even things that are inconsiderate to us. So, our unbelief is everything
in what our experience is in this life. So, these are what
we call the tears of the Spirit. But there's also the tears of
the flesh. And these often come because we're holding on just
a little bit too tightly to things that are here on this earth.
If you will turn with me over to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew 6 verse 19, he says,
lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust
do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth
nor rust do corrupt and where thieves do not break in or steal.
For where your treasure is, the things that you hold most valuable,
there will your heart be also. So you see, there are many things
that we enjoy in this life. We enjoy our families. I enjoy
having a home to go to. I enjoy experiences in this life. And there's nothing wrong with
these things, but they have to be given their proper order and
place for what they are. And we find our flesh cries when
the Lord takes these things away from us. We think, I have to
have these things in order to be secure and happy and safe.
But yet the Lord takes these things away from us to show us
that we're not to put our trust in temporal things in this life.
He tells us not to, in verse 21, where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. If my treasure, the things that
I hold most valuable, are laid up in things that are gonna rust,
that are gonna decay, that can be taken away from me, My heart's
gonna only know sorrow. But yet, if my trust is built
up in things that can't be taken away, that can't be stolen from
me, those things are where I'll find my joy. And I can keep those
in my heart and no man can take them from me. So he says, weeping
may endure for the night, and we're in the night right now.
When we consider the tears of the flesh, the other would be,
what about the Lord's providence? How many things do we think that
we need? When in reality, these things
we think we need are more things that we just want. I feel strongly
about a lot of things that I think I need. And then the Lord takes
it away from me and I see really that's just something I wanted.
It's not necessarily something I needed. Because I think most
of us consider, can look at things in life and say, I can understand
why the Lord wouldn't give me a winning Powerball ticket. Because
I know where that would land me. I know what I would be if
he did. And so I'm thankful that he doesn't. I want it, but that doesn't mean
that I need it. He knows what's best for me and
he knows what we need. And it's different to each one
as to what you need, as opposed to the person sitting next to
you. And so he gives us each something differently. Lord didn't
bless me with health. It seems like every year I get
older, something else is going wrong, but yet somebody else
has health. Evidently, I don't need it, and
somebody else does. So the Lord gives us what we
need when we need it. But what about things that we
really do believe that we need, and the Lord doesn't seem to
give us those things? For instance, what about deliverance
from a great trial that you're in? Nobody likes to go through
trials. And it is certain that we will
go through trials, and when we're in the midst of that trial, what's
the one thing that you're focused on in praying and asking the
Lord for? It'd be deliverance from that
trial. The Lord delivered me from this trial, and yet you
find the trial endures. And in fact, the heat of the
trial increases, and we think, does the Lord not hear me? Does
the Lord not see what I'm going through? How much more can I
take? But yet, what would you know
of patience apart from the Lord causing that trial to endure?
What would you know of waiting upon the Lord to deliver you,
apart from Him putting you in that trial? You know nothing
of that, apart from Him giving us this blessing. But yet, in
our experience, these are the tears of our flesh, because we're
weak. What about when we're sick? We
say, Lord, heal me. Him whom thou lovest is sick.
We see that you've healed others. Why not me? Lord, heal me. And
yet we find health problems increase. They may even get worse. And
we think, I can't endure more of this. But yet, even in that
trial, what would you know of asking the Lord to increase your
faith? What would you know of faith in Him to provide in what
you're hoping for if you already had it? You know nothing of it. But yet he puts us through these
things to increase our faith. And what about this one? We pray,
Lord, restore your spirit unto me. Restore unto me a spirit.
I can't hear the word preached. I don't rejoice when the gospel
is being preached. I know it's being preached. Others
hear. Others are rejoicing. Why not
me? And yet we're met with silence,
it would appear. And we wonder, why isn't the
Lord opening my ears? This is something I'm asking
for that I believe He should grant. But yet in our experience,
we find this is how true faith is revealed. It's not when things
are going good, because when things are going good, how much
do we need the Lord in your experience? And be honest, we don't think
about him often when things are going well. But yet when he stops
up your ears and you can't hear, and a child of God, his spirit's
not fed, he cries out. He says, Lord, save me. But yet,
it's through the bad times in our experience, that's how the
Lord increases our faith. That's how the Lord causes us
to look to him in a way we wouldn't have looked otherwise, and lets
us to appreciate the preaching of the gospel for the sweetness
for what it is when he does reopen our ears. We hear it very differently,
don't we? When we're not in need of it
in the moment, we don't appreciate it for what it is. But when he
does open our ears, we hear it and we say, we rejoice in the
word that's preached. So weeping may endure for a night.
And when we're in the night, all we can see is our sorrow.
And we're given this word of expectancy. It's for a night. That means it's for a set time.
That means, how long is the night? Some nights I lay my head down
and I wake up the next morning to the sun. Other nights, maybe
you don't feel well or you're worried and seem like the night
endures for a long time. But it's over soon enough. And
so he's giving this word to let us know it's for a finite time. It's not forever, that we faint
not. And then joy comes in the morning. The morning our joy comes. So
what is this? So the night is our time here
in this world. That's what night is. And he's
saying, while you're here in this world, you will have sorrow.
He was the man of sorrows when he was here in this world. Should
we receive any less, him being the man of sorrows? But yet he
says, joy comes in the morning. And I think that's a twofold
meaning. First, it certainly speaks of Christ's return. Our
joy is having Him come back. But I find in my experience of
these tears of the Spirit and tears of the flesh here, my joy
will also become being rid of this body, being rid of this
flesh and sin and what it is. I won't have, and he says this
to all his saints, we won't have any sin anymore. that will be
gone, and that's joyful to me. If you have some understanding
of experience of what your sin is, it's joyous to you to know
it's going to be gone one day in terms of your experience.
He's already put it away in terms of eternity, but I sure don't
feel that right now, and I will be so glad to be rid of this
body and the sin that's in it. He says, I have forgotten your
sins. They've been removed as far as the east is from the west.
How far is the East from the West? Well, they can't be further
from each other from where I'm at right now. The East is always
gonna be infinitely that way and the West is infinitely this
way. So they're gonna be removed from me as far as they can be.
And where God is, when he comes back and we're in his presence,
there can be no more sin because we'll be rid of these bodies.
And if we're rid of these bodies, there's no more reason for sin.
The body is destroyed, the things that you and I think that we
know we ought not think, we won't think those anymore. The things
that you say that you know I shouldn't have said that. You won't say
that anymore. The things that you do, the places
that you go, that you ought not say those things and do those
things and be in those places, you won't have that to deal with
any longer. You won't have to worry about
that. That's all going to be gone. You'll feel no more shame, no
more guilt, no more embarrassment of being estranged from God.
We'll be made close because our love to Him will be pure. It
won't be intermingled with what our experience is now. It'll
be lasting. It won't be a temporary thing
that we enjoy. And we will be able to behold
His glory. What is His glory? Well, I'm
looking at some of it right now. You see, His glory is going to
be the millions of those for whom He created a universe for. He created time and sent His
Son to redeem. We, the saints, are His glory,
and we'll be able to behold it. We'll see the millions that are
redeemed clean and without sin and standing before Him and praising
Him. We will be able to see His glory.
And our faith, our faith will be revealed because right now
our faith is hope. We hope for salvation. We hope to be rid of our sins,
but then our faith becomes experience. We won't have to hope anymore.
We'll have a pure faith. We'll have a pure view of Christ.
In all the things that we once held dear, we'll see them for
what they were all along, that we can't see for today, vanity
and distractions. Yet we're in the middle of it
now and it seems important, but yet we'll see it differently
then. And we'll find God's providence was for our good. And the things
that we once held on to that really don't mean anything, they're
going to grow old, they're going to burn up, they're going to
become lost. And one day these things will
lose their luster to us. And we'll find A blessing that
the Lord told us, blesses are those that mourn. We'll find
that mourning, sorrow, being in the night was a blessing because
it caused us to see those things for what they were. As Clare
already said in what he read to us in Psalm 23, we'll want
for nothing because we have everything already. There's nothing to want
for. I have everything in Christ Jesus. And the kingdom of heaven
is like unto the merchant of pearls. You remember the merchant
of pearls? It said when he found the one
pearl of great price, something more valuable than anything else,
you remember what he did? He said he sold all that he had,
and he went and bought it. He saw a glimpse of that morning
light. And it's my hope that there's
many in here that see a glimpse of that morning light, and they
say one day, my hope will become experience, and I'll be able
to be with my Redeemer. But now a word to the unconverted. I know that your present joy
is in this world, and that there are things that you cannot imagine
letting go of. And I thought particularly of
the young folks at this point, because it wasn't that long ago
that I was one, sitting right where you are. And in my own
experience, I had a life. There were things that were important
to me. There were things that I didn't think about. I was healthy.
I wanted to experience things in this world. I didn't have
any huge trials. I wanted to enjoy life. And there's
nothing wrong with those things. And you should enjoy life, and
you should experience things. But keep it in perspective for
what it is. That's not our life. Christ is
our life. This is a dying world. These
things are gonna be gone and I know it's hard to see things
from that vantage point being young and thinking about all
the experiences and things that you want to do, but yet these
things are gonna go away. Youth, it won't be long and you'll
be having some gray hair coming in here like me. I keep it short
so you can't see it, but it's here. Health is temporary. These bodies are not made to
last. I used to think that I was invincible. Like, I don't really
get sick. Yet I find I'm sick all the time
now. So these things, we can't hold on to them. The friends
and the social circles that you keep, it seems so important.
10 years from now, you may not remember their names. Friendships
fall out. The things and things that you
want to do and experience, it seemed so important at the time.
Once you do it, it kind of loses its luster. So there are things
that are totally, totally different that you'll experience. And I
find that those friends in social circles, I don't talk to them
anymore. It just naturally has worked out that I don't. And
what I found, I found more true friends in those who love Christ
and those who are part of his gospel, part of his church. And
you know what I found? I am totally different than every
one of you. And there are many people in
this world that are maybe more like me in terms of my interests.
I experienced this and I remember this as a young man growing up.
But yet I find those experiences and interests are quickly lost
when I see things in light of who Christ is. who we are together,
united together in his body. And when I see those things compared
to that, I find I have much more in common with all the people
in here who are part of Christ's body than I ever did with people
that maybe like to go watch the sports that I like to watch or
work out or whatever it is I like to do. I've been given perspective
to see things for what they are, and that's what the message is
to the young people in here, is to understand not all these
things are that important, even though it seems like it right
now. Then what do we have later in life? Because eventually we're
going to grow old and die, and that's really what this is about,
is we're not teaching men how to live, but it's how to die.
and life will pass you by. So if you will, let's look at
this scripture here in Acts 24. I think this will hit home a
little bit with some of you. All right, Acts 24, I'm going
to read two verses here in 24 and 25. And after certain days, When Felix came with his wife,
Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and he heard
him concerning the faith in Christ, so Paul preached the gospel to
Felix. And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and
judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, go thy way for
this time, and when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. This is you right here, isn't
it? Felix, when I have a convenient season, then I'll call for thee. How do I know that somebody's
thinking he's saying that's me? Because that was me. That was
me right there. I had a lot going on. I had important
things that I wanted to do with my life. Just like Felix here,
he said, I'm gonna pick this up later, this gospel thing and
understanding who Christ is and having a relationship with him,
I'm gonna pick that up later when I have more time, when I'm
older. Right now, I wanna experience life. And this is what Felix
told Paul. When I've got time, I'll call
for you, Paul. And he meant it. Felix never
called. Days turned into weeks. Weeks
turned into months. Months turned into years. But
Felix was moved. This shook him up when he heard
the gospel, that he was a sinner in the hands of an angry God.
Felix trembled. This made him understand who
he was before God, but yet Felix never called. What was the one
thing that the rich man in hell asked Lazarus to go back and
do for him once he was there? He asked him to go back and to
warn his brother not to come to this place. Do you reckon
Felix would say the same thing right now? Would Felix say, the
one thing I want you to do is to warn those whom I love not
to come to this place? And you warn them through the
preaching of the gospel. Would he see what he had to do
at that time when he sent Paul away and said, come back and
when I have a more convenient time to deal with this, I'll
hear you. Would he see those things as
that important now? Felix never called. The scripture
tells us to seek the Lord while he may be found. and to call
upon him while he's near, because there will come a day when he
may not be found, and when you may call and he's not near. May the Lord make us willing
to lose our lives for Christ's sake. Weeping may endure for
a night, and we're all in the night right now, but a far greater
joy awaits his people in the morning. And here's a little
secret. He is our joy. The joy is not
getting to heaven. Our joy is being able to be with
our Redeemer. Him who loved us, who bought
us from our sins, who humbled Himself as a man even while we
were His enemies. He died for His people. And so
He is our joy. He is our expectation. He's what
we're looking for. Our joy is seeing our Redeemer
who ordered all things, and He created all this, and everything
that happens, and every experience you have around the salvation
of His people. And I like that. I'm glad John
read that passage about Abraham in Genesis 15, when the Lord
said, you wonder why He created the stars? He said, Abraham,
look up. You see the stars? Can you never
know? No, so shall I see be. So I like to think the Lord may
have just created, we're looking for life on all these planets,
we haven't found one. I like to think maybe the Lord
created all this just to show Abraham that. So our joy is being
with our Redeemer and having him receive all the honor and
all the glory that's due unto his name. So our weeping, our
sorrow may endure for the night over sin, our unbelief, or how
cold our love is to Christ. Our weeping and sorrow will endure
for now because these things aren't going to go away while
we're in the night. But they're to be looked at in
this light. If you look at this last scripture, and we'll close,
in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, 2 Corinthians 7 in verse 10 it
says, for godly sorrow, remember sorrow endures for a night, godly
sorrow, worketh repentance, change of mind unto salvation that's
not to be repented of. So once the Lord reveals himself
unto you in the sorrow of this night, calls us to look to him
and see our need of him, we're not gonna repent of that salvation
because that's the only way that we can be saved. is if He saves
us and He does it all. And it's not to be repented of,
and we see this world as a dung, like Paul said. It's trash, it's
garbage, it's worthless. It's a worthless thing, and that's
not going to change. And go on reading, but the sorrow
of the world worketh death. What is the sorrow of the world?
The sorrow of the world will be revealed as what the world
looked at and said, I don't want to have to give that up for Christ.
I'm not willing to give that up for Christ. I've got my interests,
I've got my beliefs, I've got all these things, whatever that
is, that's what the sorrow of the world will be revealed as.
All the things that they were not able to give up for Christ
because they hold on to them, that was their treasure. That's
what they held dear and not Christ. The sorrow of the world work
at death. What I'll have to give up. Felix never called. May the Lord break our proud
hearts and cause us to be willing to lose all for Christ's sake. And we are called upon, everyone
in here, to seek the Lord while he may be found and to call upon
him while he's near.