It's going to be in the Book
of Proverbs if you would like to follow along. The Book of Proverbs. I hope this evening is for us
to leave here knowing who we are looking to, what we
are trusting in, as the assurance of our salvation, what we're
hoping in. I titled the message, Who Are
You Looking To? Who Are You Looking To? And my
hope is, by the time we're done, that we examine ourself not to
find goodness, not to find if we have any evidence of salvation,
not to find if we're living like we're supposed to be living,
but examine ourselves to see if, just like it's in our text,
if there be any evil within us. Well, we know that we're sinners.
So what is the evil he's talking about? He's talking about self-righteousness. Is there any self-righteousness
in me pertaining to your gospel, pertaining to my salvation? Am
I self-righteous? Am I hanging on to something?
Or have I really sold out by your grace? Have you really given
me faith to believe? By the time we leave, I hope
the Lord will allow us all to answer that in the heart. And we'll
be able to rejoice in knowing if we hadn't, maybe tonight will
be the night. If I hadn't, maybe tonight will be the night. We don't wanna just be trusting
in doctrine. We don't wanna be trusting in knowledge, do we? That's not
gonna do any good. Now there's, doctrine's good.
Paul talks about good doctrine. But a man can preach doctrine
and not preach Christ. It's true, isn't it? I wanna hear about
Him. I wanna hear about the finished work. I wanna hear that sins
have been put away, that the Lord successfully redeemed His
people. I wanna trust in that. There's peace in that. There's
not peace in anything else. There's only two possible options. Either we're trusting in self,
in some way, shape, or form, or we're trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the only two possible options. It's either
black or it's white. The Lord's Scripture's very clear. There's good and there's evil,
and the Lord's the only one that's good. There's sinners and the
righteous, and the Lord's the only one righteous. And so I've
got to be found in Him if I want to be found righteous. Simple,
isn't it? This isn't a hard gospel to Understand it's a hard gospel
to believe. It's impossible to believe. Men
can understand that the Lord only died for his people and
he successfully redeemed them. A man can have that knowledge,
that understanding, but yet not have a need to have him as their
savior, to have him put away their sin. Only, what did the
Lord tell the Pharisees? They that are whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick. Lord, make me sick. I need to be sick, because if
I'm not sick, I'll not need the physician. That sounds like something
silly to pray for, doesn't it? Lord, make me sick. But only
sick people need the physician. Only blind people need sight. Isn't that true? Only the dead
need to be made alive. And that's the prayer of the
believer, Lord. I believe help them on unbelief. I want to believe
more. I want to rest more. I remember
your word and in the moment of trouble in the moment of chaos
in the moment I see my sin and I see myself falling and faltering.
I need to be reminded again that it's finished because I started
examining myself and all these thoughts creep in about what
it will real believer wouldn't do that. Well, someone that the
Lord love really wouldn't do that. Would he? Yes. I remind
you, David was a murderer and an adulterer. There's no justification
for sin before God, so I'm not making any justification, but
he was still called a man after God's own heart. How can that
be? He had a substitute. He had a substitute. He was looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's my hope tonight. When
I say, who are you looking to, by the end of this, I hope we're
able to say with David, him, and him alone. Let's read our
text, Proverbs 4, verse 25 through 27. And this'll, unless the Lord
gives me another something in these three verses, this'll be
the last of our time in Proverbs 4. Next week we'll go into, or
not next week, there's no service next week. The week after that,
be New Year's Day. New Year's Day, we're gonna go
into chapter five, we're willing, so. Proverbs chapter four, verse
25. Let thine eyes look right on,
and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path
of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. That word
let right there, my margin says that rather than say let all
thy ways be established, it says all thy ways shall be ordered
aright. They shall be established. It's
a little different, isn't it? We don't let, the Lord does.
Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot
from evil. Look. unto the Lord, look unto
the Lord, look straight ahead, straight ahead. He says, let
thine eyes look right on. I was working for a man one time.
He liked to use the term laser focused. That's what he would
use about every day. Everybody around here needs to
be laser focused. We got a job to do. It's like, are you laser
focused today? I got sick of hearing it. But I think that's
a really good analogy to use right now. We have to be laser
focused. We have to be singularly focused. Laser's a very small
dot, so it's not a very big point where it's looking. It's the
Lord that we're looking at, and we're not looking around. We're
not looking to the left or looking to the right. When Peter took his
eyes off of Christ, he began to sink, and oh, we sink, don't
we? Well, I haven't sank in about three months, really? Really,
because I sink every day, don't you? How many times a day? I don't know. I don't know, and
it's unbelief to say I don't. You know, I sink sometimes, don't
even know I sank. I mean, that's just the truth
of it, isn't it? Lord, I didn't even know what happened. Here
I am drowning again, save me. And in mercy, and in love, he
says, I will be thou made whole. I will be thou made whole. I'm
not looking to your works. I'm not looking to your failures.
You're not frustrating me. The Lord's not frustrated with
his people. Think about that. The Lord doesn't get frustrated
with you. I love that. Because if I could frustrate
him, if I could anger him, oh, there's no mercy in wrath. There's no mercy, it's just wrath.
And that's why we need Christ to put away that sin, take away
that wrath, so the Lord doesn't become angry at us. He looks
at his son, his darling son, and he's satisfied. The first thing he did, he said,
look, right on, and with the eyelids, look straight before
thee, straight before thee. This is a singular direction.
We've talked about this a little bit. The direction is Christ.
That's the way we're looking. And it's a metaphor, but it's
also literal. It's to try to, I guess, understand
that we have to have, the focal point has to be the Lord. He's
straight ahead. We don't veer this way to get to him, and we
don't veer this way to get to him. And that may be religion, false
religion. That may be false worship. There's
a lot of ways to veer from the truth. It could be the lie, where
you start believing, so we have part in our soul and salvation.
Somehow we have a righteousness, because we've done A, B, or C,
because we don't do this, we don't do A, B, or C anymore,
those kind of things. That's veering away from looking at
Him. Our hope has to be completely and utterly in His finished work
alone. It has to be in what He has done, what He accomplished.
Because if it's not, what am I doing? I'm veering to the left,
or I'm veering to the right. I'm getting off the path. And
so He says, look straight on. Look straight on, with thine
eyelids, with that eyelid straight, look straight before. Then he
says after that, ponder the path of thy feet. Now he doesn't say
look straight ahead and look at your feet, does he? I love
this. He doesn't say, okay, I want you to look straight ahead to
the Lord and now look at your feet and make sure you're going
the right direction. That's not what he says. The word ponder
there, the word ponder there is to, uh, is to examine. It's the same thing Paul said
when he said examine yourself and see if you be in the faith.
Paul wasn't saying examine yourself and see if you have evidence
of salvation. Paul was saying examine yourself and see if there
be anything in you that's self-righteous. See if there's anything in there
but faith. Because if you have anything but the Lord Jesus Christ
as your focal point, you don't have Christ. You're not a believer. The believer believes Christ
alone all the time with the new man, the new heart. And so he's
saying, ponder your feet. Don't let them deviate. And somebody
said, well, if my feet deviate, the Lord purposed that. Listen,
the Lord, he gets all the glory in all things. We don't, we don't,
what's the scripture tells us over in James, I believe it is,
when any man is tempted, let him not say that it's of the
Lord. The Lord tempts no man. No, we're tempted when we're
driven away by our own lust. We're the ones that's guilty
for doing it. The Lord just left us to ourself for just a moment.
So Lord, don't leave me to myself. That's the prayer, isn't it?
That's why he's saying ponder your feet. Ponder your feet. Think about it. Think about am
I heading towards him or am I deviating to the left or to the right?
Am I going after something else? Am I too distracted with other
things? Well, we're going to be distracted. We're going to
be distracted with many things, but is Christ still your focal
point when it comes to salvation? Is he still a successful redeemer
and your only hope of salvation? Or during the time where you're
pondering, and during the time that you're deviating, are you
thinking, okay, well, I need to do this better, and I need
to do this better. Maybe the Lord will accept me better there.
Maybe this problem will go away if I start living a little better.
Now, I'm not talking about there's certain things you can do to
your body. If you go down the road speeding and get a ticket,
I mean, that's your own fault, right? And if I wreck or in that
time, I could be seriously injured. So there's things we can do and
have consequences for. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about whenever the Lord sends a trial our way and
we become so grieved with it, so overwhelmed with it that we
start beginning to think, okay, maybe I did something. Maybe
I've done something to deserve this. I know I deserve this,
but maybe what can I do to fix it? What can I do that would
please God enough for this to be removed? Perish the thought.
Perish the thought. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He's the one. He's the one. I'm not saying don't try to fix
your problem. I'm saying don't try to fix it by obligating God
by what we do. We can't do that. We can't do
that. No matter what we do, we can't
obligate God. Christ is the only one that obligated the father
by his word, by his word that he would resurrect him and the
Lord honored his word. You and I can't obligate God
to do anything, not one thing. So what he's telling us here
is to look to Christ, no matter the troubles, no matter the trials,
no matter the sin that you see. You can't make the sin go away.
You can't make the trial go away. What can you do? Look to Christ.
The trial will go away when the Lord has purpose for it to go
away. That's why trials are given. They're given for a time, for
a season to make us run and flee to Christ. Otherwise, did you
know we would never look to Christ? If he just left us, never had
a problem. Can you imagine waking up every
day, never happened. Boy, you remember in false religion,
people have problems, even in false religion, even the irreligious
have problems, but what's happened now is we're aware to the sin
that we are. We're aware that the sin that
we do, we carry that guilt around, when in all reality, it's gone,
the Lord took it away. So we should look to Christ in
that, shouldn't we? Absolutely. So we struggle with the trials
and the frustrations and our eyes just keep getting pulled
away. But the good news is, the Lord said, I'm gonna keep you
by my power. I'm not gonna lose you. You think you're gone, you're
not gone. And I love, somebody asked me
this week, they said, it's the same thing as the sheep being
lost. They said, can you lose your salvation? And I said, if
you found it, you could lose it. That's the truth, isn't it?
And if I found the Lord, I could lose the Lord. That's the truth,
isn't it? I didn't find him. He found me. He found me. I didn't find salvation. Salvation found me. It came to
where I was. And this is what's being said
here. Look to that. Look to him. He's seated. He's successful.
We didn't do any part in salvation, and we're not gonna be able to
do any part now. He's the Alpha and Omega. Look
to him. Now every man made religion without
exception is entirely based upon the flesh, the flesh is ability
to do something. And you can just fill in the
blank, it doesn't matter, I'm not going to pick on any certain
denomination, I'm just going to say, any false religion, without
exception, depends upon the flesh to do something. And they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. Now the Lord's people have
been made to see that they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. That in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Therefore we don't look to the flesh for the purpose of salvation. And who gets the glory in that?
The Lord does. The Lord does. Men will try to live by different laws
in order to please God, in order to do things. And you know what
doing does? I'm talking about for the purpose
of salvation or trying to attain salvation, trying to get, if
I can say get, salvation. Probably a poor word of choice,
but you understand what I'm saying. If that's what a man's doing,
working, he's trying to get salvation. That's what he's trying to do.
It's already been got by the Lord himself, hasn't it? But
do you know what the, It's all that it is is it draws
attention to the flesh. It gives man pride. Look at me. Look at me. What does the gospel
declare? Look to him. Look to him. It's finished. Look, don't look
at yourself. He says, ponder your feet. Sure. See if there
be anything in you that that be separating you from your Lord.
See if there be any self-righteousness in you and perish the thought
of it. Look to Christ and live. He's
the only one that can give life, because He is life. When we look
to ourself, there's no life in that. There's no peace in that.
Have you ever gotten peace whenever you've examined yourself? Whenever
you look at yourself and think, okay, in religion we did, didn't
we? Some of us, we really thought
we were something else. All right, the Lord's really proud of me
today. I've done this and this and this. Oh. Oh, see how blasphemous
that is? That's so self-righteous. That's
so prideful. He's not pleased with me, he's
pleased with his son. I've got to have him. That's
why he says, put your eyes upon him. Don't look to the left or
right. I like that we have two hands,
the right one and the left one. Don't look to the left or the
right. Look to your, what your hands are doing. Scripture says,
whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do
it all to the glory of God. First Corinthians 10 31. He's
saying if your hands touch something, Do with all your might unto the
Lord. Unto the Lord, but don't do it as self-righteousness at
all. Don't do it. All false religion give man glory,
but you know what the true religion is that God made? God made religion
out of works of grace. God made religion. Scripture
talks about that. It looks to, believes in, trusts in, rests
its entire hope of salvation on the blood of Christ. We heard
about that Sunday, didn't we? Rests in the blood of Christ
alone. That's it. That's it. And to
the learned man, that's foolishness. That's foolishness. And to the
religious, that's just too simple. It has to be more than that.
There has to be more that we have to do. And Christ is the stumbling block,
isn't he, to both, the irreligious, or the educated irreligious and
the religious. No, we look to nothing but the finished work
of the cross, nothing to salvation by grace alone. Grace is not
a complicated word. It means you don't do anything.
It's that simple. It's given to you freely by the
Lord, freely by his merits, his choice, his power, his efforts,
his purpose. Not ours in any way. Otherwise
it wouldn't be of grace. If we are to lift one finger
to it, it becomes a work and it's no longer grace. It can't
be. Can't touch it. Can't touch it.
So I ask you again, who are you looking to? Looking to self in
any way? You're looking to him. Looking
to him is the only way we have rest. Looking to him is the only
way we have peace, isn't it? Let's read this again, verse
25. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look
straight ahead before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet,
and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor
to the left hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. This is an instruction to look
to Christ. Look to the word of truth. Look
to the path of righteousness. That's the Lord. There's a way
that seemeth right unto men, but the end thereof is the ways
of death. No, look to the one that's righteous. Look to his
path, the straight and narrow path. Few there be that find
it. Look to Christ. Look to true
holiness. Don't look to your left or to
your right. He even said, Right hand too,
didn't he? Don't look what your hands do.
Don't look to what others do. Don't look around you for the
comfort that only he can bring. Look to him. He's the comfort
to his people. He's the comfort to his people.
Look to Christ. Somebody said, If I'm meant to
look to him, he will make me. He will make me. That's true.
I mean, yeah, he'll make you. That's true. But most statements
like that, they're not spoken as a mercy beggar. Did you know
that? They're spoken in presumption. They're spoken in assumption. It's a way to excuse oneself.
And we never say look to Christ as a work because it's done by
faith bestowed. Everything God requires, He provided.
So looking is a gift. We just repeat it because that's
how the Lord declares it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what's declared. But
most of the time, people hear our gospel, and they'll have
a attitude of, well, if I believe what you're believing, then whatever
I do doesn't matter. It does, because our Lord has
made it clear, if we don't beg, we'll never receive mercy. He
hasn't put the need there. Somebody said, okay, so all I
have to do is beg. No, all you have to have is Christ, and he's
the only one that can give you himself. So beg for him. not
as part of salvation. Do you understand what I mean
by that? We're not doing it to obligate God. We do it because
we need him because he's put the need there. Only a beggar
begs. Only the ones that are hungry,
only the ones that are thirsty, only the ones that are in need
beg. And that's what the Lord does
for his people. He makes us beg. And we don't excuse ourself.
He says here, let thine eyes look right on. Lord, the prayer
shouldn't be, Lord, all right, if you want me to look, I'll
look. You don't have to make me. No, the prayer of the believer
is this, Lord, teach me thy ways, cause me, help me, make me look. I want to look, don't you want
to look? I want to see his face. Oh, I don't. Oh, I loathe myself,
my sin, what I am. Like Paul, the things which I
would do that I do not, the things which I would not do, I find
myself doing the exact thing I don't even want to do. Oh,
wretched man that I am. Lord, I want to look. I want
to see you. There's only peace when I can
see you. There's only rest when I can see you. There can't find
peace in this world. Can't find peace in my flesh. Can't find
peace in what my hands do. I can find peace to him. I can
find peace in him. What he's done. There's peace
in him. They that come to the Lord. Understand,
God only saves mercy beggars. They that come to the Lord for
mercy, they were never, ever cast out, not one of them. There's
not one account in the scripture where a man or a woman came to
Christ begging for mercy, begging for, because they had a need,
and the Lord said, no, you won't find it. Blind Bartimaeus heard
that the Lord was walking by, and he didn't think to himself,
well, if the Lord, because he's God, if he's gonna heal me, I'm
just gonna sit here and he'll heal me if it's purposed. Is
that what happened? And somebody said, well, that
sounds kind of silly. Well, a lot of people have that
mentality. I know a lot of people have that mentality. Now he cried. He said, Jesus, thou son of David,
have mercy on me. And everybody's like, be quiet.
You're bothering the master. He's like, you don't understand.
If I don't get to him, I'm going to die. I've got to have him. He couldn't even see where he
was. He was just crying out. That's us, isn't it? We're not
bragging that we're crying. We're not bragging that we're
begging. We're begging, Lord, save me. Lord, my sight, I can't
see you, I can't see. The Lord said, fetch him, bring
him to me. I love that. Couldn't get to
him, so he was brought to him. That's us. Couldn't get to God,
so the Lord sent his spirit and power and rested our heart, rested
our soul, and brought us, brought us to him. He said, receive thy
sight, receive thy sight. And now he tells us here, look
straight on. You've received your sight. Look straight on.
Don't look to self anymore. Don't look to self anymore. That
woman with the issue of blood had it for 12 years. I mentioned
this, I think three services in a row now. But it keeps coming
up, so maybe we just need to keep hearing it over and over.
Woman with the issue of blood, she had issue of blood 12 years,
she couldn't get rid of it, spent all that she had. That's a picture
of false religion, spending all your money to try to gain something
or doing something in order to try to accomplish something,
to heal yourself in a spiritual sense, that's what men do, women
do that, that's false religion. They get done with it and they
think they've done a good job, they say, look at me, I did this. Not this
woman, she wasn't able to be healed. She heard of Jesus walking
by, and she said, if I could just but touch the hem of his
garment, I know I'll be made whole. I know it. I know it. She didn't sit at her house when
she heard he was walking by and say, well, if he's going to heal
me, I know he's just going to come in through the door, because
it'll be his will, and I'm just going to sit right here. Nope. That's not
what happened, was it? No. She crawled. I mean, she
did whatever she had to do to get to Him, and she touched the
hem of His garment. Now, did she do that and say,
look what I did. I touched the hem of His garment. I healed myself. No, there's no pride in begging. We get no pride out of this.
We get no glory. He gets all the glory. Even in
us begging, He gets the glory, because He's the one that's got
to give us the ability to do it. And she was made whole, wasn't
she? She was made whole. See, God
only saves mercy beggars. Mercy begging sinners. If you
see your inability, that's not an excuse not to cry out. If
you see your inability, that's not an excuse to say, well, I'm
just not gonna cry out. If the Lord's gonna save me,
he's gonna save me. No, if you see your inability, cry out. If you see
you're unable, if you see your sin, say, Jesus, thou son of
David, have mercy on me. Lord, I'm full of unbelief, I'm
full of fear, I'm full of doubt. Cause me to look straight on
to you in your finished work alone. Beg for mercy and grace. Not to obligate God, but because
you've given a genuine desire to look to him. The Lord's people
have a genuine desire to look to Christ. That's why you're
here tonight, isn't it? That's why you're here tonight. Could've
stayed home and streamed. Why did we come? Gotta hear.
Gotta see him. I gotta hear about the finished
work. I gotta know that the sins been paid for. I gotta be reminded
because I'm out there in this world and I see my sin ever before
me and loathe myself and I can't hardly feels like every time
I turn around, I'm messing up on something. I can't fix the
things I want to fix. I need a savior. I need a substitute.
And the Lord says, it is I, be not afraid. It is I, be not afraid. He is the storm. No matter what
the storm is, he is. He brought it for his glory,
for his purpose. Be not afraid. I'll never leave
you. I'll never forsake you. Seek
my face. One thing to say about crying
out to the Lord, looking to the Lord, if you and I don't cry
out, if we don't look to him, it's all our fault. It's all
our fault. We chose not to. Christ said,
you will not come to me that you have eternal life. If we
don't, it's all our fault. All our fault. But if we do,
he gets all the glory. It's all his fault. It's not
fault, but you understand what I'm saying there. It's all his
purpose. Otherwise, we wouldn't look. We wouldn't come to him. We cry out, we cry out and look
to Him as all our righteousness, wisdom, all our salvation, all
our redemption. And if we do, it's because God
chose to cause us to do that in mercy and in grace, not because
of anything about us. not because of the way we look,
not because of the way we talk, not because of our bloodline,
not because of what we know or don't know, not about our strength,
not about anything about us whatsoever. It's all by grace you are saved
through faith, not of yourself. So who are we looking to? Ourself
or Him or Him or Him? I'm gonna read this again. Let
thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight
before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy
ways be established, or all thy ways shall be ordered aright.
Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot
from evil. If you are in the faith, if you
are in the faith, you are going to examine yourself just like
David did. You're going to examine yourself
and you're going to desire of the Lord to reveal inside of
you if there be something there, if there be something that you're
clinging to and you're hoping in more than him. Because the
Lord's people have a genuine desire to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, not believe in themselves, not to look to self.
They have a genuine desire just to believe and look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. David said it this way. Search me, O God, and know
my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and
see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way
everlasting. Is that your prayer? Search me,
Lord, and know me. Try my heart. And if there be
any wicked in me, any evil in me, get it out. Cause me to look
to Christ alone. That's the, that's the wickedness
he's talking about. That's the evil that he's talking about.
He's, we know we're sinners. I don't have to explain this.
We know that to be true, but the wickedness, the evil is a
man believing they're self-righteous. They've done something to please
God, to obtain a righteousness before him. That's wicked. That's
evil, can't do it, it's impossible. Christ is the righteous one,
the only righteous one. And to say I'm righteous, I'm
saying I'm just as Christ is in myself. That's blasphemy,
isn't it? It certainly is. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. That's the same as the path right
here, isn't it? path that he's on, where we're looking at, pondering
the path. What it means is we're not looking
to ourself, our merits, our doing anymore. We're looking to his
merits, his work. We're not looking to what our
bodies do, we're looking to his body that was broken. We're not
looking to the works that we do, we're looking to his finished
work alone. We're not trusting in our hands, we're trusting
in what his hands accomplished, his precious blood accomplished.
We're not looking to put away our sin, we're pleading the blood
alone now. Not pleading for the Lord to see what I've done in
order to put away my sin, like Cain. Cain come to the Lord and
said, I've done this and it should be good enough to please you.
That was, you understand, that was worship. He was attempting
to worship God by the works of his hands. That's why it was
so blasphemous, because the Lord only accepts one, and it's the
Lord Jesus Christ. So he was literally substituting
the Lord Jesus Christ for a bucket of fruit. That's why it was such
an insult. And it might have been nice fruit, vegetables.
Of course it would have been his best. There's no substitution
for the blood. That's the point. That's why
we have to look straight ahead. That's why we keep our eye fixed.
Paul said, press towards the mark of the high calling of God. Keep going forward towards him,
pressing each day. How do you go forward? Look to
Christ. Just look to Him. Wake up every day, look to Him.
And Lord, you cry out to Him. Lord, cause me to look to you.
I want to start my day looking to you. I want to spend all day
looking to you, and I want to end the day looking to you. And
you and I both know how much that's an impossibility in the
flesh. There is sometimes he lets us have moments where we
see him, especially when we're able to get together. Whenever
believers come together, we're able to have a, just a brief
moment of fellowship. What do we do? We're both like,
we're pointing the same direction, aren't we? We're pointing the
same place that we're both looking. And we're like, yes. And we're
encouraging one another. We're loving. That's love. That's
what love is. That's how you know you've passed
from death unto life. You love the brethren. And what do we
do? We point to the Lord. What is the evil mentioned here?
He says at the very end, remove not thy foot from, remove thy
foot from evil. What is that evil? Well, that's
looking for self, looking at self for salvation. That's placing
oneself on the throne of God. That's believing the lie. The
lie is you're God, you can choose. You can choose salvation or reject
it. That's the lie. That was in the beginning of
the garden. He said you can be like God if you want. That's
God's place. God did the electing. Jesus Christ
did the saving and the Spirit does the regenerating. The work
that me and you do is nothing. Nothing. Christ did it all. The
Lord did it all. That's the evil that we remove
our foot from, of ever thinking that we're doing anything to
add to the finished work of Christ. To do that is to actually, the
scripture says, to bring God down from above. We're saying
that we're God, we're equal to him. That's what it's saying,
that's why it's so offensive. But men can't see it, women can't
see it unless the Lord reveals it. I spent years believing that,
to my shame. And then the Lord showed me who
he was, and I said, I had no idea. You're God and I'm not. My eyes have seen the king, the
sovereign creator of the universe. There's none to compare to him,
his glory, his magnificence. And we become just like Isaiah,
I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean
lips. We become like Job, woe is me, I'm undone. That's what
the Lord causes us to become when we see him high and lifted
up. When we see Him, when we look to Him, we look straight on to the truth.
Straight on to the truth. We look to the finished work
of Christ. We look to the electing work of the Father, the saving
work of the Son, the regenerating work of the Spirit. We look to
the God that saved His people from their sin. We look to Him
alone. And that's where we rest. That's where we rest. We believe
in Him. You know, I said before, there's no peace outside of looking
at him. That's true, isn't it? That's
very true. But did you know why is that? Because he's the only
one that made peace with God on his people's behalf. Outside
of him, there's no peace with God. If we don't have him, we
don't have peace with God. We're still under wrath. We've
got to have Christ to have peace. That's why we need him. Who are you looking at? Who are
you looking at? I said it wrong. I had the title
as who are you looking at. And that's different than looking
to. Did you know that? If you're
looking to Him, you're looking to Him for something. I can look
at you. I hear the expression, the little boy looks up to his
father. He looks up to. That's what we do. We look to
Him. We look up to Him. We look in reverence to Him.
We look in adoration to Him. We look in reverence to Him.
We look to Him to have finished the work. We look to His promises.
We look to Him. That's who we look to. God's
people no longer look to what they know, do we? You go around,
well, I know this, and I know this, and I know this, so I know
that I'm saved. Is that what we say? Nope. I know whom I have
believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I have committed to him against that day. That's what the scripture
says. What did you commit? Well, I wasn't there, but the
Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. We committed everything
to him and didn't even mean to do it. And now is it not true
that we cast all our care upon him for he cared for us? Is it
not true that we trust him with everything now because he's made
us to do so by faith? We look to Christ who has been
made our wisdom. God's sheep no longer listen
to their own voices either. We used to believe what we knew to be right,
and we would listen to our own voice, and we would think, and
we would process, and we would learn more, and very confident
in what we believe. We no longer look to what we
know. We look to Christ, who is our
wisdom, and we no longer look, or no longer listen to our own
voice. We listen to the voice, God's sheep listen to the shepherd,
the voice of the shepherd. That's who we listen to, the
good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me. We no longer look to ourself
as having righteousness by our own works. We look to him who
accomplished salvation, who is righteousness by his own works.
We look to his works, not ours. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. Those that come to Christ, those
that come to Christ always come to him only when they hit rock
bottom. Did you know that? They'll come
desperate, mercy-begging sinners, not, I've got a cold, maybe I
should go to the doctor. No, I'm a leper from the top
of my head to the bottom of my feet, and if I don't get help,
I'm going to die. Cancer is one of the most difficult diseases
we have to deal with right now. You can use that as an example.
If your body was eat up with it, you'd be trying to do everything
you could to slow down the process. We have a brother here that's,
by God's grace, been in remission for some time now. And he'll
tell you how hard it was, how difficult the trial was. But
talking about getting rid of sin, it's impossible, isn't it? I can't get rid of sin. What
treatment am I gonna take for that? No, I've got to have a
great physician. I can't look to myself to get
rid of what I am. He's made me sick. He's caused
me to see, he didn't make me sick, I was sick. He let me see
that I was sick. That was the problem, I didn't even know I
was sick. That was the grace. He let me see it. He showed it
to me. He turned a mirror on me and said, you're not near
as pretty as you think you are in religion. In all your self-righteous
glory that you think you have, it's just filthy rags. We see
ourself as undone, don't we? We see our filthy rags. We see
our putrefying sores. We see our hideousness. And we
say, Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.
Take the mirror back. Let me see Christ instead. Point
me to him. I don't want to see myself anymore.
I don't want to see what my hands can do. My hands can't fix this.
My hands can't help this. But I believe the Lord Jesus
Christ. He fixed it once and for all
on the cross of Calvary. And listen to the comfort of
the believer to the elect, the ones the Lord loved. Listen to
this. If there comes a time where we
turn to the right hand, we turn to the left hand for a moment,
find ourself in unbelief, find ourself in trouble, find ourself
sinking like Peter. The Lord says this, Isaiah 30.
Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee. Think about this. Now we just turned away from
the path. Thine ears shall hear a word
from behind thee saying this, is the way. Walk ye in it when
you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. No,
this is the way. What does that mean? Lord's saying,
get back over here. Get back over here. You're wandering
off the path. I can't let you do that. I'm God and you're mine.
I bought you. I'm not going to let you wander
away. I'm going to keep you by my own power. And then he puts
us right back on the path, looking to Christ. Isn't that There's
rest in that. There's rest in that, because
if I could wander off, I'm prone to wander. We sing that strong,
prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave
the God I love. Lord, here's my heart, take and
seal it for thy courts above. We're prone to wander. The Lord gives the need to seek
his face to his people, and then he causes them to look. Even
when we stray, he is faithful. He cannot deny himself, and if
you're his, you're in Christ. He cannot deny you. Lord Jesus
Christ paid for you. He won't deny you before the
Father. You're his. He bought you, all of the elect. Isn't
that glorious? Philippians 2.13 says, for it is God which worketh
in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure. It's God
in you that worketh, both to do, both the will and to do of
his good pleasure. For those who fear the Lord leaving
you to yourself. For those who fear the Lord leaving
you to yourself. For those who know and believe
that you deserve hell in and of yourself. For those who believe
and know you deserve hell. The Lord's not looking at your
faithfulness. The Lord's not looking at your unbelief. The
Lord's looking to the faithfulness of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's looking to the finished
work of the cross. The Lord's looking to the blood
of the lamb and it will never expire or lose its power. And
the Lord is still satisfied with his son and still satisfied with
his people. Look to him. Look to him, every
chance that you can think about, just diligently seek his face.
Diligently seek his face. How do I do that? Well, you can
call upon his name in prayer. We don't pray out loud in public,
drawing attention to ourself like the Pharisees do. But you
can pray in the heart, can't you? You ever been in the middle
of working on something, fiddling on something, you just start
praying? And before you know it, The Lord's
really allowed you to pray. You know, it's hard to pray.
You can correct me after service if you want, and it takes time
and effort to pray. You start praying and all of
a sudden your mind just drifts away. That's just the same thing
as trying to focus on Christ. I mean, we just float away, don't
we? I wish I could pray more. I wish, you know, that's prayer
of the believer. It never changes. Never changes. Lord, teach us to pray. Give
us, show us our opportunities to do so. When we're walking
or, it's hard to pray in places, business is loud, but maybe there's
these opportunities that come up, we don't even think. Lord,
start teaching me to think about that. Start causing me to cry
out to you. Teach me your ways. Focus my face, focus your face. Focus my eyes on your face. Press
toward the mark. Paul said this, to whom coming. That's continual. So did you
come to Christ when you first heard? Well, yes, first when
we actually heard we came to Christ. Well, did you come to
Christ anymore after that? We come to Christ every moment,
every hour, every day, and we hope that it's that way until
the day we die. And then we come to him the last
time when we meet him face to face. That's what we hope. That's
what we hope. We never stop. We live our life
looking and hoping at nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
I'm coming to a close. I wanna read our text one more
time. Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eyelids look
straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and
let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor
to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. May the Lord be pleased to give
us a need to seek him. May the Lord be pleased to give
us a need to seek him. May the Lord be pleased to cause
us to believe him and to forsake ourself. Did you know it's impossible
to forsake yourself unless he gives faith to do so? It's impossible.
It's impossible. The question we started with,
the question we'll end with, who are you looking to? Who are
you looking to? May the Lord enable us to look
to him alone and to see him as all alone. Let's pray. Father, we, we desire to look
to thee. We desire to hear from you. We
desire to believe on you. We desire to know you. You have
all the power to choose whether to do that or not. We ask you
in mercy, according to your will. Take these words, apply them
to our heart, allow us to understand them for your glory. In Christ's
name, amen.