Good morning. Let's open our
Bibles, if you would, to Psalm 123. The title of my message this morning
is, What Are You Waiting For? And I hope by the end of what
we look at today, we'll have some understanding of what it
is we are waiting for. And I'd like to answer three
questions during our time together. First is, when is mercy sought? When do we seek mercy? The second
is, who needs mercy? And thirdly, how do I know that
God will show mercy unto me? So if you will, let's read this
chapter, Psalm 123, it's fairly short. Unto thee lift up mine eyes,
O that that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God until he have had mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord. Have mercy upon us, for we are
exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. So you can see the cry here from
the psalmist. He's pouring out his heart unto
the Lord. He's got a problem that he can't
deal with. And several times in this short psalm, he cries
out for mercy. Now, I think it's important before
we look at the passage of scripture to have some understanding, what
is mercy? What does that mean? Because
I think we can say that not everybody may look at it the same way.
So we must make sure that our expectations are all on the same
page with this. What is mercy? Mercy, if we just
look at the word, is to be favorably inclined to someone. So you have
some favorable inclination to someone. Mercy has an object.
It's to commiserate, to commiserate with the situation that I'm in,
having some understanding that I'm being favorable to someone
and the situation that they're in. Just on a simple way of looking
at it, this is what it means. Mercy most often, when we look
at the word, you know, in the King James and many other versions,
they translate it as mercy. It's most often seen as the word
kindness, showing kindness to someone. So that's a mercy. So
it lets us know that the one in whom we deal with, the one
in whom we appeal to for mercy, must have two things. First,
he must have the ability to extend mercy to me. If he has no ability
to extend mercy to me, I'm not interested. It's not going to
do me any good. And the second thing that the
one to whom we appeal for mercy must have is that he has to have
the ability to show pity unto my state. He has to look upon
me in pity for what I am, for what I've done, but he also has
to have the power to do it. Now, in looking at this, what
good would a God be that you appealed to for mercy who had
no ability to show you that mercy? What good would he be? He'd be
no good to you. Maybe he has the ability to show
mercy unto you, but he says, you know what? I'm unwilling
to do it. What hope does that leave you?
What comfort is there for you in gaining that mercy from the
one place you seek it for only to find out he's unwilling? Secondly, what good is a God
who's done all that he can do He's got compassion towards your
situation. He wants to help you. He's done
everything he can do for you, but if you don't do something
for yourself, you won't be saved. Is that mercy? No, it's not mercy. Mercy is something that actually
saves me. Mercy is something that operates
on me that I don't have any control over. That's what mercy is. So
we have to have some understanding before we look at asking the
Lord for mercy, what it is that we're even asking for. So my
first question, when is mercy sought? Mercy is only sought
when all options are exhausted. Because if you have the ability
to look to or to do anything else, you will not appeal for
mercy. You will only appeal for mercy
to a sovereign, one to whom you can't control. And you're in
a situation you can't control. Otherwise, you will not plead
for mercy. All doors are shut. You're pinned
up against the wall, you're backed into the corner, and there's
nothing you can do to manipulate that situation. All you can do
is roll over on your back like a dog that's been beat and say,
I give up. I'm asking for mercy. I'm in
my most weakened state. You can take me down if you want
to, but you can also show mercy to me. This is all I'm asking
for. There's absolutely nothing we can do to help ourselves.
It's only in this time that we will seek mercy." Here we find
our psalmist here in verse 1. This is a cry that he puts out. He says, Lift up mine eyes, O
thou that dwellest in the heavens." It's an appeal for help. And
I want you to notice something here when we look at this passage
in whole. These aren't words that are audible.
These aren't words that are audible that he's just said in this first
verse. He said, I'm just looking. I'm not crying out. I'm not saying
anything. I'm just looking. Have you ever
been brought here where you're in a position where you don't
even have the words? You're so torn down, you're so
overwhelmed, something so great weighing upon you, you don't
even have the words. You just look, you're shocked,
your nerves on all ends are fried in a way, and all you can do
is look. You can look and hope that the
Lord hears the cry from your heart. It's too great, too painful. It's too powerful beyond me.
I don't even know what to ask for. I can just look. All we can do is feel. We feel
our own sighs. You can hear the breathing. That's
all you can hear is your own breaths. Everything is shut out. All feeling is shut out. Everything's
overwhelmed. All you can hear is your breaths,
your sigh, just a sigh of pain and hoping that the Lord sees
you. Psalm 79 11 says, let the sighing of the prisoner come
before thee. This is my hope. This is my prayer
that the Lord would hear my sighs, my sigh of pain. And when I look
up to him, it's all I can do. I don't even know what to ask
for. Oh, thou that dwellest in the heavens, he says, I just
look to God. That's all I can do. Now there's
only one thing in this life that's so powerful. to crush a person
like this, and that's having some understanding of who God
is and then seeing your own sin before Him. Any other situation,
you can have some means for manipulating it, some means, even minuscule. You've always got something to
say. I certainly do, and if I'm looking at myself, I certainly
can come out on top and justify most of my actions, and I'm pretty
sure that's true for everybody else in here. So when we look
at this, sin is the only thing that can bring us to this state,
to where we're crushed. When God sees you, you're exposed. You feel exposed in His eyes
upon you for what you've done, for what you are. And the most
shameful part of this, I feel at least in my own experience,
is It's been that way all along, and I didn't even know it. It's
been that way all along, and I'm just seeing it now. How many
years, how many moments, how many things have gone by? He's
seen it, but I didn't even know it at the time. I'm ashamed.
With us, sin is at every turn. It's at every thought. It's so
wrong, and I know it's wrong, and yet I do it anyway. I do
it anyway. I can't stop. I can't stop myself. I want to. I tell myself I won't. I can't stop. There's no greater
offense to God than me and what I am, my sin and what I've done. but there's also no clear depiction
of who we are as men and women, sinners. It's all we can do,
and that's all we can see in and of ourselves. So this helps
us understand some idea of who's seeking mercy. The only person
who's gonna seek mercy is a sinner. A sinner can do nothing about
his sin because it pervades everything about you. Every thought, every
motive, every deed you've done, it pervades and we breathe the
air in. It's sin. So that's the person
who's going to seek mercy, somebody who can do nothing about their
sin. Secondly, who needs it? Who needs this mercy? Well, first
of all, the guilty are the ones who need this mercy. Now, if
you're not guilty, you don't need mercy. You need something
else. You need a lawyer. You need a
good excuse. You need something to help justify
you. A sinner today is a hard thing
to find because how many people are honest with themselves and
say, really, all I do is sin. It's all I've ever done. any
good thing that I can even look to and point to that had, I thought,
a good motive, it's sinful because I touched it, because my thought
was upon it, because my action was upon it. It's sinful. We
have lots of excuses. We have lots of caveats. We have
lots of ways to depict our sinful things that we do in a different
light. But I wasn't thinking that. I
didn't feel that way when I did it. Oh, how deceiving our feelings
are. When we start looking to our
feelings and saying that's the reason why it's not sinful because
I didn't feel that way, I'm sure someone who murdered somebody
felt very justified in the moment. But when you look back on it,
what did I just do? But in the moment, I didn't feel that. So
we can't look to our feelings. Our feelings, where do our feelings
come from? Feelings come from the heart,
don't they? If you will, let's look at a couple of scriptures
over in Jeremiah chapter 17. In verse 9, this is a familiar verse,
but I want to show you these from the scriptures. It's not
just something we say. Jeremiah 17, 9 says, the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Your heart will justify your
ways. Deceitful. It knows it's wrong,
but it's going to look at it in a positive light so that you
can get up and look at yourself in the mirror every day. Desperately
wicked. That means that's all it can
do. That's all it is capable of producing is wickedness. So
any way that I justify myself or look at it, it's got to be
seen in light of this because the motives, the affections,
everything come from the heart. Turn back a few chapters to Jeremiah
13. And in verse 23, it says, can
the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then
may you also do good. that are accustomed to do evil.
So we see here, these are things that can't change. The Ethiopian,
can he change his skin? No matter what he does, it's
gonna be the way it is. Can the leopard change his thoughts
by will, by thought, by action? No. He's always gonna have spots. It's coded into him genetically.
It's part of who he is. Then also, when those things
can happen, when the Ethiopian can change his skin and when
the leopard can change his genetic makeup and get rid of those spots,
only then are you capable of doing good, who the scripture
says are accustomed to doing evil. This lets us know how depraved
we are. To summarize this verse, all
we've ever done is sin. All we've ever done before God
is to be an offense. There's nothing that you or I
can do to turn it around. It is what it is, and that's
the way it is. We can't change it. So we have
to have some understanding that that's who we are. And this all
points back to who needs mercy. When you find you're in this
condition, you're in a condition you cannot help yourself. So
first, the guilty need mercy. The second person who needs mercy
are going to be those who can do nothing to save themselves. That's the only way you're going
to appeal for mercy. You're going to look to another.
That's what the psalmist is doing back in our text here. Psalm
123 says, lift up my eyes. O thou that
dwells in the heavens, his eyes look up to God who's dwelling
in the heavens because he can't do anything for himself. He's
got to look to somebody who can help him. And so he sees the
only person, all roads, there is no more road. They're gone. All the options are gone. All
the doors are shut. All I can do is look to God and
hope that he sees me the way I am and will be merciful unto
me. He knows. He's seen. He saw what I did. He knew what was in my heart
when I was doing it. Lord, hear the cry of my heart. Don't leave me here. Don't leave
me in my pain. You can see me. You know what's
going on within me right now. And I'll key in on this real
close. The psalmist here, he's struggling in angst over what
he's done. He's looking to the Lord. Now,
he's looking to the hand that delivered the blow to also show
him mercy. Everything that happens in this
life, in our perception of good or bad, is all ordained to the
Lord. The sin that I do, I willfully
did it. The Lord allowed me to do it.
The Lord brought the consequences of the sin that I committed upon
me. Everything that I did, it's my fault, I did it, but He ordained
it. He allowed it to happen, and
there are consequences for the sin. And so we find the psalmist
looking to God who allowed all this to happen, the one who dealt
the blow to me that I'm in pain, I'm struggling, I'm hurting.
He's also looking to him the same hand to show him mercy.
He's saying, I don't have anybody. I don't have a way around this.
You dealt the blow, but will you also be the one who shows
me mercy? This is a mark of sonship. If you're looking for a mark
of sonship, am I a child of God? The child of God looks to the
Lord for mercy, but he also knows the Lord's the one who dealt
the situation he's in. What were Job's words? He said,
though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Job knew the Lord was the
one who brought him down. Job knew that the Lord was the
one who ordained what he was in. He was in pain. Look at everything
that happened to Job. He lost his entire family dead. His wife forsook him. Everything
in his house got burned down, all his goods, everything lost.
His health was taken. Everything was taken from Job.
Who allowed that to happen? The Lord allowed that to happen.
But yet he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. This is looking to the same hand
that dealt the blow to also extend me a hand of mercy. Lord, look
upon me in kindness. This is the mark of a son. The
fool looks to the hand who dealt the blow in anger. He finds fault
with God. This is not how I thought life
would work out for me. I don't like where I'm at. We
can not like where we're at, but not blame God for it. I don't
like being sick. I don't like going through trials,
but I know it's for my good. I know if it came from God's
hand, it's for my good and for his glory, and I don't find fault
with him for doing so, and neither did Job. The fool says, why did God do
that? Why did God allow this to happen
to me? How can God let something like
this happen? You see all these, I mean, you
turn on the news, any given week, you can say, how is this happening?
Can you believe this happened? All these people in Las Vegas
got shunned. Each week, it's something else.
And the world points to that and says, how can God allow this
to happen? This tells us how blind we are,
how blind we still are from what actually happened in the garden.
When we fell in the garden, we became blind to who God is. And
what was the first thing that we did in our blindness with
relation to God? Evan talked about it this morning.
We made a fiddly apron. Got to cover ourselves. And the
second thing, we hid from God. We have wrong views of who he
is. We have wrong views of his character.
And so the first thing we've got to do is we've got to cover
it up. We've got to stand out of the
way where he can't see. Maybe he won't see what I'm doing
because I'm doing something else over here. Maybe he'll look over
there. How far we fell in the garden
and how far we are separated from God because of our sins
dictates this is our wicked and evil nature. It personifies what
we are, the Adam hiding from God. So in verse 2, we find the psalmist making an
observation. He's saying, Behold, as the eyes
of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and the eyes
of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait
upon the Lord our God, until that He have mercy upon us. The eyes of servants, same word
as slave. Slave looks to his master. Servant
looks to his master. It's the person to whom I am
subservient to. I'm nobody. I'm a tool in their
arsenal to use me however they want me to use me. You want me
to go get something? I'll go get it. You want me to
do something? I'll go do it. reference and the reason why
they were saying this is they pointed to, all the commentaries
pointed to this, so I guess there may be some truth in it, but
the illustration they gave was masters in that day, I guess
of Eastern, Middle East, Asiac, you know, part of the community,
it said that they didn't speak to their servants. They didn't
speak to their slaves. But what they would do is they
would have hand gestures or eye movements to let that slave know
when they gave them a signal, it's time to do something. And
so what it pictured was all their eyes were fixed on the master
the whole time. Their eyes weren't taken off
of the master because at any time he could give them a signal,
you need to do something. And you had to do it right then.
So the whole time their eyes are fixed on the master. That's
the picture they're wanting you to see here. And what are we
looking for? What does it say? It says, our
eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have had mercy upon
us. We are waiting, expecting His
promises come to pass. We are waiting for a word, a
token, a command. All eyes are upon Him, and we're
looking upon Him. If you will, let's turn over
to Luke chapter 4 to see an example of this from the Scriptures. Luke 4 verse 17, it says, And
there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was
written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
the recovery of the sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book, and he gave it again unto the minister,
and he sat down. And the eyes of all them that
were in the synagogue were fastened upon him. And he began to say
to them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." So this
idea of the servants being fixed on their masters, this is what's
being happened here. The Lord has revealed something
about his person, about who he is. All eyes were fastened upon
him. knowing what he said was true.
They felt it, they knew it, and they saw it. All eyes are fastened
upon him, so our eyes wait until he have mercy upon us, waiting,
expecting his promises to come to pass, because it's all that
we can do in humble reverence for who he is, for his power,
for his authority. We just look unto him. We're
waiting, we're hoping for deliverance in time. waiting for His mercy. Now, this is the only way that
mercy can come. You cannot petition mercy and
demand it and get it. We're not in a position to do
that. Think about how mercy had to come, and I think we have
to look at this in light of the way mercy is delivered. How did
mercy have to come? Well, you and I are sinners. Somebody had to do something
about that sin to make us to where we could even come in God's
presence. What had to be done? God had to exile his son to this
world. What would you do? Those of you
who have children, what would it take for you to exile your
children? Give them up, send them away
forever. That's what God had to do with
his son in sending him to this world. He had communion with
his father. He was with them together. But
God said, I'm exiling you to this world. All for what? for men to hate Him, for men
to deny His person, to scourge Him as they did, to spit in His
face, to punch Him, to nail Him to the cross, to bleed out and
die. This is what God had to do to His Son in order that He
might be able to show mercy to you and I. This is what it took
to show mercy. What was it that we were demanding
again of God? After he had to exile his son?
No. We're waiting for mercy. We look
to him in the hopes that he might show it to us. Is this the type
of mercy you desire, the one that he can show to you? Where
it's not me demanding it, it's, Lord, show mercy unto me or else
I die. This is the type of mercy that
I require, God's willingness to spare me despite what I am
and despite what I've done. So we've looked at who needs
mercy, and the last question we'll answer here is, well actually we're not there yet,
so I want to read verse three and verse four. This is the psalmist
actually crying out. The psalmist is crying out here.
Have mercy upon us. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly
filled with the scorning of those that are eased and the contempt
of the proud. Here, the soul can stay quiet no longer. He's
looked to God before I didn't have the words, but his heart's
moved at this point. He's got to cry out for mercy.
Show mercy to me. It takes the new man to see the
corruption of the old. Before I'd had gospel revealed
to me, I had a lot of knowledge up here, I thought. but I didn't
really see what I was. I didn't see what I was before
God, at least, because he hadn't revealed his face to me. Oh,
I knew some facts, but I had never seen his face. Quite a
different thing. So the new man here sees who
he is before God, and in verse three, his description of himself,
he's asking for mercy because we are exceedingly filled with
contempt. What a better description of
me that there is. I don't know what there is. Filled
with contempt. I hate everything. There's hatred
toward God. There's hatred toward everything.
All these things speak to my old man and what he is. He knew
nothing. This is a picture of the soul
of the righteous man languishing, suffering in angst within the
body of the old man. He's got this old body chained
to him. He hates it. He doesn't want to be in it,
but it's all he can see. It's all he can feel. It's all
he can know is this old man, and he can see it now. somewhat
with what we have revealed to us for what it is. The new man
sees that he's filled with hatred, with rebellion against God. Have
you seen that you're a rebel? We are rebels before God. We
are not friends. We are enemies before God outside
of Christ. The new man sees the old man's
a rebel. He's an enemy of God. He's full
of contempt and full of sin. The new man hates the old man.
He feels that he's chained to this filth and he's crying out
for mercy. He needs deliverance from it.
If you will turn with me to Micah chapter 7. Micah is after Amos, before Nahum,
before Habakkuk. Micah chapter 7 and verse 18, who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity, that passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever
because this God who we just described, it says, he delighteth
in mercy. He delighteth in mercy. So what
does it tell us about him? First, it says he pardons iniquity.
Why does he pardon iniquity? Because Christ took my sin from
me. He took everything that I did, all my sin, all that I'm guilty
for, he took it from me. I can be pardoned now. He can
be just and pardon me because Christ took my sin. Second thing
it tells us, he's passing by our transgressions. How does
he pass them by? Well, how did the angel of death
pass over the houses he passed over? There had to be the blood,
the blood over the door. The blood of Christ covers my
sin. It's been covered. It can't be seen. It atones for
me. So all he sees when he looks
is he sees the blood, evidence of the atonement that I can be,
I'm okay with God because Christ's blood was shed for me. And he
also tells us that his anger won't be forever. What's the
one thing that makes God angry? Sin. If my sin's taken away,
there's no more reason for anger. He doesn't have to be angry with
me. And it says that he also delighteth in mercy. He delighteth
because, and when we say delight, I think we know what our experience
is in this world for what we are, and I think somehow when
we look at God, at least I do, I think, He's begrudgingly being
nice to me because he has to for what Christ did, because
I know what I did. No, it's that he delights to
do this. This is the language of Scripture. It's not just that
he's merciful because he has to be, because that's who he
is. He delights in showing mercy. because we are seen just like
Christ. If you are in Christ and he's
taken your sin and he shed his blood for you, you are just like
Christ. So he can't be anything but delighted. He can't be anything but pleased.
So God delights because he is a God who delights in mercy.
He can pardon your iniquity. He can pass by your transgression.
And there's no more reason for anger. Is it mercy that we seek? Mercy has been found. He's a
God that delights in mercy. There's a plenty of supply. There's
an inexhaustible supply, an overflowing supply found in the blood of
Christ. The wounds in his hands, the
wounds in his feet, the wounds that he bears in his side, those
are evidence of the law. It has no place here. You've
got no claim here, not anymore. My sins have been paid for. His
wounds are evidence. It's the receipt of payment made.
Whenever I buy something, you better bet, I save a receipt,
especially if it's something I've paid on, because I don't
want somebody coming back to me saying, well, you still owe
one more payment. I don't want that. I save the receipt. He's
got the receipt of payment in Him forever before God the Father,
so God can never look at me and not know that sins weren't paid
for, because He has to see me in Christ. It's found in his
wounds. His wounds tell the law, sin's
punished, and the payment's been made. They say, I've found a
ransom. Deliver him up from being delivered
into the pit, from going down. The ransom has been paid from
the foundation of the world. Those wounds always have stood
evidence that he's paid that ransom for me. Now, in time,
he had to come do it. And it's been done, but those
wounds have always stood forward as ransom that payment had been
made. Justice is satisfied. Now, how can I know that the
Lord will be merciful to me? Because that's really, I mean,
understanding what mercy is, understanding where mercy is
found, I need to know it can be found to where God will be
merciful to me. That's what I'm interested in
knowing. And you can know that based on what we've looked at
here in this passage of Scripture. First, you've got to be found
in Christ. Outside of Christ, there is no mercy for any man. But I don't know whether I'm
in Christ. I won't know that until I wake
up in heaven. I can look to some assurances
in the scripture that I believe, but outside of that, I have no
confidence in me looking to assurance. So I've got to look to some evidences
to what I can say that God will show mercy to me. Do you hate yourself and see
only evil within? If you hate yourself and see
only evil within, you have some understanding of who the old
man is. And the only way you have some understanding of seeing
who the old man is, is if God has created in you a living man,
a new man who is not dead. You can't see the old man apart
from the eyes of the new. If you have the eyes of the new
man, God shows mercy upon you by even giving you that. Secondly,
do you look to the Lord as your only hope for mercy? Only hope
for mercy is going to be found in looking to Him. I can do nothing
to help myself. I've got no excuse. I've got
no help. I can just look to Him and say, if you don't show mercy
upon me, I've got no way of having This lets you know who God is,
and it also lets us have some idea and understanding of what
sin is. Looking to God for mercy gives
us some understanding of those two things. And lastly, are you
waiting? Are you hoping? Are you expecting
the Lord to show you mercy that you so desperately desire because
you know He delights in showing mercy? I don't know when he's
going to show it, but I'm waiting." Just like those servants that
were looking to their masters, they were waiting. They were
looking. They were hoping the whole time, Lord, show me mercy.
And the whole time, my eyes are fixed upon him, waiting for that
mercy. Your heart cries out, God, have
mercy upon me. If it be so that you see those
things, you hate yourself. you have some understanding of
who God is and where mercy's found, and you're waiting and
hoping for it, then you will find mercy. God will show mercy
unto you. No one has ever been turned away
that came unto him for mercy. There's no evidence whatsoever
of anyone who came to him for mercy in that capacity, to where
you got nothing, that he didn't give it to them. In Deuteronomy
4.31 it says, For the LORD thy God is a merciful God, and because
He is a merciful God, He will not forsake thee. He's never
gonna cast you off. He's never gonna look at you
and say that you've done it one too many times, I'm done with
you. He's never gonna forsake you
because he's a merciful God. It also says he's never gonna
destroy you because he's a merciful God. You're not gonna be like
those sons of Korah that he got fed up with and said, all right,
you're gonna criticize my servant Moses, open up the ground and
swallow him up alive. He destroyed those servants.
He destroyed them. But because He's a merciful God,
He can look upon me in mercy and not destroy me. He says,
and neither forget the covenant of thy fathers which you swear
unto them. My God has a covenant with me, and His new covenant
is with His Son. If I'm in His Son, I have every
reason to be confident that I won't be cast away, I won't be destroyed,
because I know His Son's accepted, and I know His Son died. And
He died because of my sin. He died because of my sin. He
made it His own. And so therefore, He can't find
no reason for anger with me. For those reasons, I know that
we have a merciful God. And He tells us He won't do those
things because He is that. Even though in our experience
in this life, I can look to nothing and find no confidence in myself. I can't look to anything that
has anything to do with me, my belief, my faith, anything I've
done to say that I'm gonna have confidence whether God will have
mercy on me. My confidence is found in his
son. My confidence is found in who
he said he is. He said, I'm a merciful God.
He said, I delight in showing mercy. He said in his word, He
is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing
that He ever liveth to make intercession for them." If you come unto God
by the blood of His Son, that's the one grounds by which you
know that you'll be accepted. It doesn't matter how bad you
are. It said, to the uttermost. It doesn't matter how bad you
are. If you come that way, you will come accepted. and know
that at all times Christ will stand as your intercessor between
you and the Father. There's no way the Father will
talk to you without going through Christ, and I know He accepts
His Son, and if His Son accepts me, I'm all right. That's a good
place to be. This gives us this confidence
to see that God is merciful. Now, I plead for His mercy upon
me. Are you seeking mercy? Then like the psalmist said in
the passage we looked at, lift up your eyes unto him that dwells
in the heavens and wait until the Lord will show mercy to you,
because this is the only way we're going to have it is if
we wait for it.