You are listening to Key Life Fellowship's Pulpit Ministry
podcast. We thank you for tuning in as we
learn from God's Word together. For more information about Key
Life Fellowship, visit us on the web at keylifefellow-ship.com.
Hey man, how many of you are thankful for the hope that we
have in Christ that we just sing of a moment ago?
I'm definitely thankful for all three of you and I pray by the
end of this message today as we look at hope and comfort from
God's Word, that others would join in and praising Him for the
hope and the comfort that we do receive from His Word.
This morning we will be continuing our journey in the
119th Psalm as we continue to look at living a life in the
light of God's word. And I pray that's what you're
doing. I pray that's what you will
continue to do is that you will heed the words in the
encouragement of the psalmist and you will become more
devoted, more dedicated to walking in the light of God's
Word in your life. So here we are in this golden
alphabet, this acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet, we come to this
next letter, which is the letter Zion.
And in these 8 verses we're going to see the psalmist
receiving hope and comfort from God's Word during a difficult
and dark time in his life. And in doing that and how he
handles it, He's going to teach us how we can rejoice and we can
be glad this morning as he is, for the same comfort, in the
same hope that he received from the Word of God during this
difficult time in his life. So the 119th Psalm, verse 49,
there's no need to hesitate. Let's jump right in because we
have a lot to cover this morning. 8 entire verses that as
you will see, contain much truth that we need in our lives.
In verse 49 it says, Remember your word to your servant, for
You have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is
this. Your promise preserves my life.
The arrogant mocked me without restraint, but I do not turn
from Your law. I remember your ancient laws, O
Lord, and I find comfort in them.
Indignation grips me because of the wicked who have forsaken
your law. Your decrees are the theme of my
song. Wherever I lodge in the night, I
remember your name, O Lord, and I will keep your law.
This has been my practice. I obey your precepts.
Let's pray together, Father, in the name of Jesus.
We come to You now thanking You for the Word, Your Word that You
have given to us, that You have preserved throughout the ages,
so that we can today join together, open up the Scriptures
in the language that we can understand, and we can receive
truth from Your mouth. Lord, we know that the psalmist
is declaring this morning to us as inspired by Your Holy Spirit
that we can find hope and we can find comfort in Your Word.
When I pray for those who need hope and who need comfort this
morning, that they would not look to the means of this world,
the resources of this world, the philosophies and the ideology of
this world. They would look to Your Word to
find the hope and the comfort that they need.
God, I pray that we would, as we learn Your words, store the
truths away for those moments that we do need hope and comfort
in the days to come. God, I pray for the lost soul
who's here today, who has no eternal hope or no eternal
comfort. They only have the fearful
expectation of Your fiery judgement and the wrath that
will come upon all unbelievers. God, I pray today that You make
that ever so clear to them, that they would cry out according to
Your word, to the only One who brings hope to the Sinner, and
that is to Christ. That they would cry out to Him
to save them, to wash them, to cleanse them of all their sin,
that they would surrender their life to You, Lord, as Master and
King of their lives. God, I pray as your word goes
forth that you would accomplish your set will this morning.
We pray all these things in Christ's name, Amen.
As we've seen the psalmist declare today, there is great
hope and there is great comfort for those who are in Christ that
we receive from the Word of God. We're going to look at the
specifics of that this morning. And I pray that it would
encourage you as believers to study the Word of God because it
is in the Word of God where we find out and we learn about the
hope and the comfort that we have.
The psalmist here starting in verse 49 speaks of this, the the
promised hope. And that's what I want to look
at first this morning. He says this, Remember your word
to your servant, for you have given me hope.
My comfort in my suffering is this.
Your promise preserves my life, the psalmist here declaring.
That he has found comfort and he has found hope and he has found
this comfort and hope from the Lord in the Word of God.
I want you to see that at first we, we have to take note of
this. The comfort and the hope that he
has and that he is sharing in is promised in God's Word.
You're not going to find this type of hope and comfort
anywhere else. Unfortunately, many people look
for hope and they look for comfort in all sorts of things.
And you may find something that is labeled hope, you may find
something that is labeled comfort, but all of those things
are deceitful. All of those things are false
for the child of God. We will not find comfort in
anything that can be found in this world other than that which
the Lord has left us with it, which is not of this world.
It is His. Very word the psalmist finding
comfort there. The psalmist recounting the
promises that God has given regarding this hope and this
comfort in His word. In fact, Psalm 25, verse 3, it
says this, No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to
shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous
without excuse. The psalmist here understanding
that that there is no one who will find hope anywhere else but
in the Lord, and those who find hope in the Lord will never be
put to shame, but those who cease to find hope in the.
Lord and in his word He says they will be put to shame, and
that in and of itself makes them treacherous without excuse.
Because the Lord has spoken his word, that we may find hope and
comfort in his word, Psalm 3318, the psalmist says.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those
whose hope is in His unfailing love.
And how can our hope be in His unfailing love if we don't know
about His unveiling love? And where we find out about His
unfailing love is in and through the Scriptures.
We read the Scriptures, we study the Scriptures, and we find that
He is a God who has unfailing love for His people.
And we learn to rest in that. And in resting in that we have
hope and we have comfort through the promised Word of God.
Psalm 146, verse 5. It's as blessed as he whose help
is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.
And how do we know who this Lord is?
How do we know who the one true God is?
We find this through the study of the Word and in studying the
Word and learning who God is, learning all of His
characteristics and all of His attributes as they have been
revealed unto us through the Scriptures.
Then we rest in the hope and the comfort that we have had
revealed to us through God's Word.
The psalmist here saying, Remember your word to your
servant, for you have given me hope.
Now let me make this very clear. The psalmist is not reminding
God of something as if he has forgotten.
God hasn't forgotten what he said.
In fact, he's faithful to everything that he has spoken
and he does not forget anything. He knows everything, the
beginning from the end. So the psalmist is not acting
here as if God somehow has amnesia or dementia and has
forgotten what he's promised. What's actually happening here
is the psalmist is recounting what he knew the word of God has
said, and he's actually getting on the same page as God.
He's saying, remember when you said this, how many of you, you
know, you have those memories in your family, right, that
everybody remembers that event. But when you get together, no
one's ever going to forget that event.
But we say, hey, do you remember when this happened?
Of course, it's a given. Everybody remembers when that
happened. So the psalmist, you're
approaching God in the same manner.
Lord, I know that you're faithful to know everything that
you have promised. I know that you will remember
your word to your servant. I know that that that hope that
I. Have is real because you're
faithful to everything that your word says.
So he simply begins by saying, remember your word to your
servant, for you have given me hope.
Remember the hope that you've given me, Lord, Richard Sibb
says when we hear any promise in the word of God.
Let us turn it into prayer. That's what the psalmist is
doing here. He has heard the promises of
God, and he's turning it into prayer.
You see a beautiful communion between the psalmist and the
Lord here. Lord, remember what you said.
Not as if the Lord has forgotten, but they're enjoying
his promise together. Because what you said has given
me. Hope Richard Sibs again, he goes
on to say. God's promises are his bonds.
Sue him. On his bonds he says, take him
to court. See if he doesn't remember every
single one of them. See if he's not faithful to
everything that he said, call him to task.
That's what the psalmist is doing here.
Lord, you're faithful to everything you say, and I
remember that, and I know you remember that because you forget
nothing. You're a sovereign God who knows
all things. And I have hope because of your
word. So we see the promise that the
psalmist speaks of here, of that hope promised in God's Word,
found nowhere else. But not only is this promised
hope promised in God's Word, it's provided by God's grace.
I want everyone to understand biblically how this is accessed.
Now. This is not for those who are
not recipients of God's grace. Pay attention to what the
psalmist says. He says, remember your word to
your servant, for you have given me hope.
Where does this hope come from? It doesn't come from his quest
to find hope. It doesn't come from his efforts
to gain hope on his own or to perhaps purchase hope somehow
from his own pocket. He sees the hope that he has
been given that has been confirmed in the Word of God as
a grace from God because everything that we receive from
God, please know this church is provided by God's grace.
And he's seeing that this is the grace of God's mercy that gives
any Sinner hope. We're not the grace of God's
mercy. None of you would have any hope
today. You don't have hope because you
came to church. You don't have hope because you
walked an aisle, you prayed a prayer.
You don't have hope for any other reason other than that God
has graciously given you hope in Christ Jesus, and that is
according to His Word. The psalmist recounting that for
you have given me hope. He knows where true hope comes
from, and it comes from the grace of God.
And I believe this. The people of God will begin to
sing Amazing Grace with a new passion when they really see
grace for what it is. It is a gift from God-given to
people who were at one time hopeless and helpless.
And in that gift of grace through Jesus Christ, we now
have the hope. That the psalmist is Speaking of
here, and we have it by God's grace alone.
So our hope is based biblically on what God has graciously done,
not anything that we could do or ever have done.
In fact, Titus chapter 3, Paul says this there to Titus.
He says, talking of Christ, He saved us not because of
righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the
Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus
Christ our Savior. Oh, Paul speaks here in Titus of
God's gracious mercy that he gives to his people, bringing
hope in our lives through Jesus Christ.
Now watch this in accordance with what God has promised in
Scripture. Did God not promise through the
prophets that there would be a Messiah who would come and who
would mercifully save God's people from their sin?
Of course he did, The psalmist understanding the hope of the
Messiah who was to come from the other.
Side of the cross We have the advantage of looking back and
seeing through the cross all the way to where the psalmist is
writing these things. And we see that all of it is
because of God's grace. In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2,
verse 4, Paul says, but because of his great love for us, God,
who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we
were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been
saved. Now I know that's very familiar
to the people of Key Life Fellowship.
In fact, one would ask probably why do you constantly remind us
that it's by grace and grace alone?
Because we constantly have a tendency to forget this.
That's man's nature. We we, for whatever reason in
our sinful nature, want to take credit for something.
We want to get involved in this. Process that has brought us
hope. And we have done nothing to gain
the hope that we have. It is all God and it is all
God's grace. And it's high time every day
that we remind ourselves of that, that it is nothing, that
we have done nothing. In my hand I bring simply to the
cross. I cling.
That is my hope, my hope in this life and my hope in the life to
come. The psalmist understanding.
This, he says. For you have given me hope.
He knows where that hope stems from.
It's provided by God's grace, promised in His Word, provided
by God's grace. He's clinging to it.
What does it do? It is what God is using as He is
producing comfort for God's people.
That's what the Word of God does for us.
It reminds us of what God has promised, what God has done by
His grace, and it is His Word that is producing comfort for
His people. Psalm 62, verse 5, the psalmist
says this. Find rest, O my soul in God
alone. My hope comes from Him.
All what rest and what comfort comes from God when we open the
pages of Scripture, when we see that He is a God who loved us
and who sent His only Son to this earth to die for us.
He is a God that as we trust in Him, we don't have to be anxious
and worry about the things of this world.
We can set our minds on what he has said in Scripture and we can
know this, that we from him have received a peace that surpasses
all understanding. And it'll guard our hearts and
our minds in Christ Jesus, just as Paul said that it would.
And so it is the word of God that the psalmist is clinging to
here that is producing comfort for himself and for us today as
God's people. He says my comfort and my
suffering is this verse 50. Your promise preserves my life.
All the comfort that we can receive as believers in this
world and true comfort for that matter, we have been given from
God through Jesus Christ who produces that comfort that God
desires for us to have. Romans chapter 15 verse 13.
It says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace
as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Oh, it's God who desires that we
have hope and that we have comfort when we trust in Him,
when we trust in Him according to His Word, and He has placed
His Spirit into us as promised in the Scriptures.
That confirms that we do have that hope.
Aren't you thankful for the confirmation of the Holy Spirit?
Confidently you read something in the Word of God.
It's a promise the Holy Spirit is there inside of you to verify
and to testify that is true. Yes and Amen.
God has spoken and you can cling to that promise.
And in clinging to that promise you have great comfort and you
have great hope in this life. This comfort comes to all who
trust in Christ and in clinging to the Word of God.
Second Corinthians chapter 1 verse 3.
We saw it in our scripture reading, but I want to look at
it a little closer. It says praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the
God of all comfort. Please underline that in your
Bible. Maybe you're that person who
doesn't want to write in your Bible.
This time make an exception. Highlight He is the God of all
comfort. He says who?
Comforts us? Here's another thing for you to
highlight in all our troubles. What a promise from the Word of
God. Oh, what comfort we received
from that. He comforts us in all of our
troubles. Not in some of them, not in the
easy ones, All of them. That's what all the people would
say. Man, I need comfort.
From God. But you don't understand what
I'm going through. No, but He does.
He's already walked that road ahead of you and He has already
and made sure that in the midst of whatever that you're going to
face, he is going to be your ultimate supply of comfort as
you cling to his word. He is the God of all comfort who
comforts us in all our troubles. Why does he do this?
So that when we so so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort. We ourselves have received from
God. What is He saying now?
Because you have utilized the word of God and it has brought
you comfort in your in peace in your life.
Now, when there are others who are going through similar
things, this is what the body of Christ is supposed to do.
When there are others who are going through similar things
now, the same truth from Scripture that carried you and
comforted you and gave you hope in the midst of whatever it is
that you were facing. You take those same scriptures
and you offer it to your brothers and to your sisters in
Christ. Here's what the word of God
says. Remember what the Lord has
spoken and promised on this and what comfort we receive as a
whole. He says.
For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives,
so also through Christ, our comfort overflows.
We all in Christ are going to suffer.
We're going to see in a moment the psalmist suffering
persecution from those who would ridicule and mock him.
We're all going to face some type of suffering because the
sufferings of Christ overflows into our lives.
But. Also, through the Word of God,
the comfort from Christ overflows into our lives.
I don't know how unbelievers go through any difficult time in
this world. I really don't.
Without the comfort and the hope that comes from the word of God,
the psalmist making that very clear that he's resting in the
promises of God and he says they preserve my life.
The comfort that he is holding on to is the eternal life that
he has been promised in Christ and he's clinging to that.
Spurgeon said this. He said the world then clutches
his money bag and says this is my comfort.
The spinthrift points to his gaiety, and he shouts, This is
my comfort, the drunkard. He lifts his glass and he sings,
This is my comfort. But the man whose hope comes
from God fills the life giving power of the word of the Lord,
and he testifies this. Is my comfort.
This is my comfort, no matter what I go through.
Just as the psalmist said, it is the Lord according to his
prominence, his word. It is the Lord who.
Preserves my life in any and in every situation that I may face.
And so may we find great comfort in the hope that God has
promised to all of us who have trusted in him.
This is the promised hope that the psalmist begins with.
He moves then to the second thing that we'll look at today,
the persecution from the hopeless.
The next verse, it says this in 51.
The arrogant mocked me without restraint, but I do not turn
from your law. I remember your ancient laws, O
Lord, and I find comfort in them.
What is happening here? What's actually transpiring?
It's something that if we'll pay attention to, we know it's very
common. The unbelieving who have no hope
in this situation are mocking and they are ridiculing the
psalmist who has hope because he does trust in God and he does
trust in God's Word, and they are arrogantly mocking him in
their pride. They are saying this is stupid
man who clings to these ancient promises, who clings to this
outdated religion, who clings to that silly book.
That's what they're doing. They're literally making fun of
the psalmist they are despising, and this is what they do.
Those who have hope, isn't that what the hopeless does all the
time? They despise anyone who has
hope. Now, just so you don't get your
feelings hurt this morning, they don't hate you because of you.
They hate you because of the hope that you have in Christ.
They actually hate Christ in John 15.
The Lord gives us some. Some insight in dealing with
this, he says in verse 18 of chapter 15, If the world hates
you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own as it
is. You do not belong to the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you. Did you catch that?
The world hates you because God has actually, by His mercy and
His grace rescued you from the world.
He has chosen you out of the world.
He has reached down into the mud and the mire, as the psalmist
said, and he's lifted you out of the hopelessness of the world,
and he's set your feet on the solid rock of Jesus Christ,
giving you hope. And the world sees your hope,
and they hate you because they hate the hope that you have, and
that hope stems from God. Jesus says, remember, they hated
me first. Remember the words I spoke to
you. No servant is greater than his
master. They persecuted me.
They will persecute you also. If they obey my teaching, they
will obey yours also. They will treat you this way
because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.
What is Jesus saying? He's simply saying this.
If the world hates you, it's because they hate me and they
hate my word, and you're standing on my promises, so
they're going to hate you as well.
Don't take it to heart. It's just part of it.
Church, let me just say it so that you understand it.
It's just the way it is. Stop trying to be friends with
the world. Watch what Jesus said.
He said if the world likes you, it's because you're one of them.
The reason that they don't like you is because you're completely
and distinctly different from them.
What is the difference? You have hope in Christ, hope of
forgiveness and of all your sin, hope of eternal life.
You have communion with your Creator.
They have none of this. They are miserable.
And they see your hope, and they hate you because you have that
hope. They're despising those who have
been given hope in Christ through His word.
Not only are they despising those who have hope, they're
demeaning to those who have hope, mocking God's people for
the hope that they have. Did you know it still goes on
today? It was going on in the life of
the psalmist. The arrogant mock me without
restraint. That's for all the people who
think it's cute, right? The unbelievers who think it's
cute to make fun of the believers.
Oh, those holy roller Bible thumpers.
Those religious people who think they're better than everyone
else. No true Christian thinks that
he's better than anyone else. If you're lost here this morning
and you tell that lie, stop telling it.
It's a lie. We know that we are wretched and
we are pitiful and we are poor and we are blind and we are
naked. But we have been rescued through
the hope of Jesus Christ. We have been rescued through His
sacrifice. That's the only difference
between myself and an unbeliever.
He has blessed me by His grace with the faith to believe and to
trust in Christ. And because I have believed and
trusted in Christ, I have hope. No reason to demean someone for
that. To ridicule them.
But it goes on. The arrogant mocked me, he says.
That's like that little kid in the playground making fun of the
the kid who doesn't have the cool shoes or the cool clothes
on. He's nothing.
He didn't have what I have. You know what I'm talking about.
You all spent time on the playground when the kid had a
cooler bike than everyone else. And what did he do?
He ragged on the lesser bikes in the crowd.
So we see that. Same childish attitude in the
unbeliever, demeaning those who have hope in Christ.
And you know what those who have hope in Christ really want for
you unbeliever more than anything, for you to experience
the hope that they have in Christ.
There's nothing greater than that.
I know what it's like to be hopeless.
I know what it's like to lay my pillow on the bed at night and
not know that if I died before I woke, what eternity had in store
for me. But I also know what it is to
lay my head on a pillow at night and and just straight peace,
knowing the promises of the word of God and knowing that if I
pass from this life in the middle of the night, I will see
my Savior face to face. And that's where my inmost being
desires to be anyways. The lost are demeaning to those
who have hope. Oh, it's nothing new.
And Peter's day and second Peter in his second letter.
He wrote this in chapter 3. He says first of all, in verse
three, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will
come scoffing and following their own evil desires and they
will say, where is this coming? He promised, See what they're
doing there? Because we as believers cling to
the promise and the hope that Jesus will one day return.
He says there will be those scoffers who come and they say,
where is this coming? He promised, Ever since our
fathers died, everything goes on as it as it has since the
beginning of creation. But they deliberately forget.
Watch this, They deliberately forget, not that they don't
know. They deliberately forget that
long ago, by God's Word, the heavens existed and the earth
was formed. He created it.
They forget it. And he goes on, he says out of
water and by water. And then he says in verse 6,
they forget about God and creation, but they also forget
this by these waters also the world of that time was deluged
and destroyed. They forget about God's wrath
during the flood that came upon the entire earth.
He says by the same word, the present heavens and earth are
reserved for fire being kept for the day of judgment and
destruction of ungodly men. What is Peter saying here?
He says, yes, those people are mocking you and they're making
fun of you. Oh, they're still waiting for
Jesus to come back. All they still think that that
promise is good. Now, I know some of you right
now you're freaking out because it's been a long time since
you've been in the church. You actually believe Jesus is
coming back. He is, how do I know that he is?
Because his word declares that he is.
It's, it's a promise and it's true.
And my hope is in that my confidence is in that my comfort
is in that my comfort is not in this world.
But yet those people mock you and they ridicule you.
They demean the people of God because they trust in the word
of God. And it's not because they
haven't heard the word of God, the lost of heart God created.
They've also heard that God flooded the earth because of his
wrath. But.
I choose to ignore it when it comes to the future judgment.
Can I just insert this for free to all the unbelievers who may
have crept in under the radar? There will be a judgment day and
you will stand on that day clothed in Christ and in His
righteousness, or you will be clothed in your sin.
And if you remain clothed in your sin, you will spend an
eternity in the pits of hell under the wrath and the judgment
of God for all eternity. And I know what you're going to
say. I don't like that old school
Hellfire brimstone teaching. You don't like the promises of
Scripture because Scripture promises that is exactly what's
going to happen to the unredeemed and the unregenerate.
They will spend an eternity enduring what is called in the
Bible the second death. You will die over and over and
over again. For.
All eternity in hell. But yet they set back and they
demean those who have hope beyond this life, persecuting
God's people with their very words.
Isn't that what Jesus said that they were going to do?
But oh, what hope we have from Christ.
What comfort we have from Christ when he says things like this.
Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and
insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of
Man, He said. Blessed are you when the world
doesn't want to party with you anymore.
Did you catch that church? Blessed are you when they know
that you're different. We're not trying to pull you
into all of their games and all of their misery, he said.
You're blessed for that. They reject you and they call
you evil because of. Christ, he says, rejoice in that
day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.
For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
He's saying they're treating you just like they treated the men
of God of old. They hate you and they're
demeaning to you because they have no hope and they don't like
the fact that you do, Psalmist, you're standing on that hope.
So the arrogant mocked me without restraint, but I do not
turn from your law. He says even though they hate
me, even though they mocked me, even though they ridicule me,
they call me names, they say false things against me.
He says it's not going to sway me from trusting in the word of
God. He said I don't turn from your
law. He says what I do instead as
they're accusing me of being outdated in old fashioned, He
said, I remember your ancient laws.
I love that he used that word. People say you're just kind of
old fashioned. I'm kind of ancient.
My savior died 2000 years ago. That's ancient.
His word has been preserved for us over 4000 years.
That's ancient. I'm an ancient kind of guy.
Old fashioned is new to me. I go back and I trust, as the
Psalmist did, the the ancient laws of God.
He said, Lord, I find comfort in them.
I find comfort in those things that others want to ridicule and
that others want to ostracize and others want to gripe and
complain, fuss about. Jesus said you're blessed for
that. You're blessed.
So they're demeaning to those who have hope.
They're they're despising those who have hope here in this
account of the Psalms, but also in what they're doing.
They don't really realize this. They're directing those who have
hope. They're helping us.
I want you to see what the psalmist says.
I remember your ancient laws, oh Lord, and I find comfort in
them. What triggered that?
The arrogant mocking him. The arrogant mocking him.
You know what? When all your friends in the
world turn away, away from you, if you're in Christ, Christ is
never going to turn away from you.
He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you.
It's going to force you to go to His Word, and you're going to go
to His Word and you are going to discover helm afresh and anew,
and you're going to receive comfort for that.
This persecution is intended to direct you to a greater focus on
God and on His word. It should propel you toward God.
Now, what it does for a person who just claims to be a
Christian, who's not a Christian at all, when when the world
begins to hate them, what do they do?
They slide back into the world. They're no Christian at all.
They slide back into the world because they don't lose their
friends. They don't want to be the life
of their party, so they slide back into the world, proving
that they were never of Christ. But to the true believer, what
happens is when the world despises them and the world
demeans them, the world persecutes them.
It draws them to focus on God and His Word and His promises
all the more. It guides us into a greater
faith and a greater comfort and trust in the Word of God.
Psalm 23, verse four, he said. Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, he's in the valley of the shadow
of death, he says. And even though I'm walking.
Here in this dark. Hour I will, I will fear no
evil, for you are with me. How did he know that?
He knew the promises of God. He'll never leave you.
He'll never forsake you, He says, for you're with me if he's
with you. His rod and his staff, the
psalmist said, they comfort me. What did he understand?
When I have no one, when I'm walking through the valley of
the shadow of death, I have all that I need and then some
because God is with me. And his rod and his staff, they
comfort me. Oh, the persecution from the
hopeless actually directs the true believer to trust the Lord
even in the valley of the shadow of death.
And guiding us to trust His promises all the more guiding us
to dive off into His word and to know Him.
All the more directing us to not be discouraged by what we see,
but the trust by faith and the promises of God.
So as others mock us and as others ridicule us as they did
the psalmist, because they will. Because Paul said if you seek to
live a godly life, you will face persecution in this world.
It's going to happen. So when others mock you and
others ridicule you, as they did the psalmist and as they did to
Christ, and as they did all followers of Christ, find peace,
find solace, find hope in the Scriptures.
Don't look to the world. Don't look to their acceptance.
Realize that in Christ, according to the Word of God,
you have been accepted into God's family and rest there.
Thirdly, we see the psalmist continue on in verse 53.
He says indignation grips me because of the wicked who have
forsaken your law. What is he even saying here?
It's a little difficult to understand because we have so
many definitions of indignation that pop into our mind.
What is going on here is there is the perplexity over the
hopeless and I want. You to see this, the psalmist is
not saying when he uses the term indignation and that indignation
gripping him, he's not saying I hate the wicked, I want the
wicked to die. I despise them.
He has no right to hate them. He has no right to despise them.
God would not have him do that or to love others as we've been
loved in Christ. So what is he talking about when
he says indignation? He grips me because of the
wicked Psalmist is gripped by indignation because of the
wickedness that he sees coming out of their lives.
They've heard the Word of God, they've been exposed to the Word
of God. They see him being faithful to
the Word of God, and they are steadily, steadily blaspheming
the word of God, mocking the very truth of Scripture.
So this indignation that he speaks of is not just human
anger. It's not He's not just saying
I'm mad at the wicked. He's not some old man sitting
there watching Fox News mad because the world's going to pot
hating everything. No, I want you to see what's
really happening here. You get back to the meaning of
this. What's going on?
It's horror. It's anguish.
He is in horror and he is in anguish for these unbelievers
who would defile the Word of God in the way that they are
defiling the Word of God. He is literally perplexed by the
fact that these sinners blatantly disobey God and refuse
to believe His Word. That's what he says.
Indignation grips me because of the wicked who have forsaken
your law. He is in horror.
He is in anguish. You say anguish, Yes, anguish
over the souls of the wicked. Oh, I went to God.
That the church would get back to a place where they were in
anguish over the souls of the wicked.
That when said person would watch Fox News and they would
see a person who's voting to abort babies who were unborn and
murder innocent little children. I pray that we would not hate
that person who is just lost and without Christ.
I pray that it would drive us to our knees and we would be in
anguish over the fact that that person's soul is lost, that we
would grieve over their hopeless state.
Well, it's high time that Christians who have all the hope
that we have, it's time that we grieve for the hopeless, not
just say, oh, I have hope. I have forgiveness of sin, I
have eternal life, but who cares if everyone else goes to hell?
No, it's time that we get on our face and we say, Lord, I grieve
for the souls of the lost and for the wicked, for the
unrepentant, the sinners. Why?
Because I see that in your heart.
Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 23. You know what the Lord says
there? He says, do I take any pleasure
in the death of the wicked, declares the sovereign Lord?
No, he doesn't. That's for anyone who wants to
make God some sadist who would take pleasure in the fact that
he does in order to remain just half to sentence the
unbelieving, unrepentant centers to hell.
He's not there saying ha ha ha, finally got you.
He says, Do I take pleasure in the death of the wicked?
He says, no, rather I am not pleased, or rather am I not
pleased. He says, when they turn from
their ways and live. He says it pleases me that they
would repent and that they would turn from their ways.
He gives more clarity to that down in verse 32 of that same
chapter in Ezekiel and 18. He says, for I take no pleasure
in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord.
He says repent. And live.
It's that simple, he says. I don't take pleasure in the
fact that you die in your sin and you die forever.
Here's the answer for you. Repent and live.
Isn't that great hope? Repent and live.
Or if you refuse. His promises in Scripture to
save those who repent and believe perish forever, but I
don't delight and you perishing forever.
In fact, he grieves for them. We see Matthew 23, the Lord
himself grieving over Israel. Verse 37, He says, O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those who
sent you. How often I have longed to
gather your children together as the hen gathers her chicks under
her wings. But you were not willing.
Look, your house is left to you desolate.
He says I grieve for you because your Messiah has come.
And you have rejected the only hope that there is for sinners,
and you are now desolate. And we know that just a short
time after this, the Romans came into the city just as Jesus had
promised that there would be no stone left unturned in
Jerusalem. And in that surrounding area,
just as Jesus said, they devastated the area.
It was His justice, and he grieved that he was going to
have to exercise that on his people because they remained in
their unbelief. Or may we see that anguish over
the souls of the wicked ought to be our heart.
We ought to be horrified when we see people reject Christ.
We ought to be horrified when we see people forsake the Word of
God, to ignore it, to ignore its truths, to act as if it doesn't
matter. In fact, Ambrose, the 4th
century Bishop and theologian, said this.
He said David grieved not because he himself was attacked.
This is his commentary on this verse.
He said he wasn't grieving because mean people were
attacking him, he says, but because the law of God was
forsaken and he bewailed the condemnation of those who so did
because they are lost to God. He said David here is grieving
for these enemies of God who are ridiculing him, not because they
were mean to him and persecuting him, but because they were lost
to God. What was David doing?
What was the psalmist doing here?
Grieving in anguish over the souls of the wicked, But not
only that, he was in anguish over the sins of the wicked,
Grieving over their individual sin.
Hurting for them when he saw their wickedness.
The lives of certain individuals.
Though we could learn a lot from that, couldn't we?
When we see the drug addict on the street, not raising our
self-righteous noses up at him or.
Her thinking that we're somehow better than them, but seeing
them with compassion as the Lord does, and grieving for their
soul and praying for them as we pass by.
Lord, may you save them. Lord, may you show them the
truth. And even more than that, maybe
you jerk your car to the side of the road and listen.
Don't walk up and give. Give them food, though.
There's nothing wrong with giving them food.
If they're hungry, walk up and give them Christ.
Walk up and tell them about the hope that you have.
Why? Because they're hopeless.
And they're hopeless not in this life only, but in the life to
come. Their soul is hopeless without
Christ. You know what the problem is?
You know why we drive past those people without compassion,
without conviction? Because there is no anguish over
their soul. There is no anguish over the
fact that they are lost in their wickedness and need Christ.
You're not horrified for them, you're OK.
Your family's OK. You're all believers, you're all
going to heaven. Who cares about that person?
Unfortunately, that's the attitude that so many of us have
so many times and it's dead wrong and it's anti Christian
and it's anti Bible. We have to be in anguish over
their sins and know this, that were it not for the grace of
God, we would be right there drinking the same bottle,
sharing the same needle, participating in the same
immorality. May we have horror for their
sins and pray that God would free them through Christ,
relieving them from the shame, the certain judgement that comes
upon all sinners. Well, how about grieving over
national or corporate sin, as we saw Jesus do there in Matthew
23? I mean, instead of just griping
about the fact that our whole country is going to hell in a
handbasket, when's the last time you grieved for those who are
taking them to hell in a handbasket?
No, because we're satisfied as long as whoever we vote for is
political parties in office, in the stock market's OK.
Why are we not grieving for the nation as a whole?
Why are we not grieving corporately?
Why is the church not shedding any tears over those who are
lost in their sin? I can't quite figure it out.
Why? Because it's so contrary to what
we see here, the psalmist says. I'm horrified for the lost.
I'm horrified because of the hell that awaits them.
I'm horrified for because of the sin that controls them.
Oh God, may you bring them peace.
May you bring them to salvation. May you use me in whatever way
fit to be a tool in your hand to do that?
But may we have anguish in our heart over the center?
How about anguish over the status of the wicked?
Oh, he has anguish over the souls of the wicked and over the
sin of the wicked. But what about the status?
He's grieving over their present hopeless state where they are.
He's taking note compassionately where they are.
They are just sinners. They don't know any better.
It's what sinners do. And he's grieving for them,
longing that they would be redeemed, grieving over the
future judgement and damnation that awaits them.
Can I ask this question that nobody's willing to ask anymore?
I wasn't really waiting for your permission.
I just pause for effect. How does a true believer who's
on their way to eternal life in heaven not grieve and mourn in
horror for those who are about for hell?
How? How does a believer who is on
his way, having the hope of heaven, not constantly grieve
for those who are bound for hell?
Well, I'm thankful that there were those who prayed for me and
grieved for me and were in horror for me when I was lost.
Where's our grief and anguish over the status?
Because they have an eternal status that if Christ does not
intervene with his mercy, they will spend an eternity in
condemnation. And rightfully so.
They're sinners. They deserve it, just like I do.
How does a true believer just ignore that this anguish ought
to drive us to share the gospel and to pray for those who are
lost constantly. God would have mercy on them
just as he had mercy on us. That's where Paul finds himself
in Romans. He's in anguish over his
unbelieving Jewish brothers. He even says this statement.
I would. Give up my own salvation so that
they could be saved. What anguish would drive a man
to pray for someone like that? Lord I I am in anguish and
horror it to such an extent for the lost.
Then I would be willing to spend an eternity in hell so that they
wouldn't have to that we know that's impossible for those who
are in Christ. But what anguish in Paul's heart
over those who he desired would be saved.
He was grieving over the future judgement that they would face
and anguish because of it. Jonathan Edwards and his famous
sermon, The Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, said this.
He said, how dreadful is the state of those who are daily and
hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery,
Speaking of hell and judgment. But this is the case of every
soul in this congregation that has not yet been born again.
Well, every soul under the sound of my voice in this
congregation. If you've not yet been born
again, that is the condition of your soul.
You were bound for hell and you were bound for judgement, and I
know this gets misunderstood all the time.
I tell you this not to judge you, not to condemn you.
You are condemned already, and you are worthy of the judgement
that you will face. You are a Sinner, just as I was
a Sinner before Christ. I say this because I grieve for
your soul. He must may be born again or you
will not see the Kingdom of God. Just as Jesus said today.
I pray that you would heed the words of Christ and that you
would repent so that you do not perish for all eternity.
I pray today that you would surrender to Christ.
Diagonize for your soul. You say you don't even know me.
I don't have to know you. I know me and I know what I was
before Christ. I know that others should have
agonized for me. Because I can tell you this, if
I would have passed from this life without Christ, I deserved
to spend eternity in the depths of the darkest places in hell.
But I'm thankful that Christ rescued me.
And how did He rescue me? Because someone who was
horrified about my soul and horrified about my sin warned me
of the judgment and the wrath that was to come according to
the promises of the Word of God. But they also spoke another
promise that if I would believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and
Savior, and I would cry out to Him, that He would save me from
my sin. And how would He save me from my
sin? He who knew no sin became sin
for me that I might become the righteousness of God.
He stood in my place at the cross, and He bore the wrath of
God that I deserve. He took His judgment upon my
judgment upon His back, and he exchanged to me his
righteousness so that I can stand before the Father, whole
and complete and perfect and forgiven.
I grieve for your soul. So I I tell you the truth.
The person who hates your soul withholds the truth from you.
I mean anguish over your soul. I agonize for your soul.
I would do whatever I could do today so that you would hear
this truth and believe and have the hope that those who are in
Christ have. But all I can simply do is tell
you the truth. All I have is what the psalmist
had the word of God, and I give to you that truth.
I implore you today to turn to Christ and repent of your sin.
Trust him as Lord and Savior. O Christian, may we have
perplexity in our heart over the hopeless.
May we be in anguish that they're lost.
May we do what we're commanded by Christ to do.
Give to them the gospel, for it is the power of God unto
salvation. May we share with them the hope
that we have in Christ, that they may find hope in Christ as
well. You see the perplexity over the
hopeless. The psalmist here.
Indignation grips me. I'm in horror.
I'm terrified for them because of their wicked state.
Are you terrified for the lost? Well, if you're lost here today,
are you terrified? Oh, this is where many people
get all crazy. Well, you're just trying to
scare people. Be scared.
Be very scared. I've read about the wrath and
the indignation of God in hell. Be very scared.
Know this, that God has at least been merciful enough to you
today to allow you to sit in the service where you will hear the
truth of the Word of God. If you perish at this point, it
is on you and without excuse. You've heard the truth.
If you don't repent and you don't turn to Christ, you will
suffer in judgment for all eternity.
Why? Because God is holy and He is
just, and sin will not go unpunished.
If you have not trusted Christ to bear the punishment of your
sin, you will bear the punishment of your sin.
I encourage you today to trust in Christ.
Then the psalmist ends with this in the fourth point this
morning, the last two verses, he, he says, Your decrees are
the theme of my song. Wherever I lodge in the night, I
remember your name, O Lord, and I will keep your law.
This has been my practice. I obey your precepts.
What is this? This is the practice of the
hopeful, because if someone is truly a person who has hope,
they will be a person of hope in practice, not just in words.
Those who have godly hope will have godly habits.
You write it down, You quote me. It's the truth.
Those who truly have godly hope will have godly habits.
If your habits are worldly, you don't really rest in the hope of
God. You're not trusting in His
promises. You're doing what you want to
do, and that's what you've always done.
Please be careful. Don't be deceived thinking
you're in Christ when you're not.
Because the hopeful are going to practice the things of the
hopeful, you're going to have those godly habits.
The psalmist makes this very clear in the last two verses.
It says your decrees are the theme of my song.
Wherever I lodge practice one of the hopeful.
What is this singing? Biblical praise.
Well, hasn't he put in a put a new song in her heart?
A song of praise, and you think he's going to give us a song
that's not a biblical song. That's why it's so important to
Austere Key Life Fellowship that when we sing songs, whether
they're hymns or whether they're more modern songs, that they
are. Biblical songs, That's what I
care about. People ask me, do you like the
new stuff or do you like the hymns?
I like biblical songs. Why?
Why would you like biblical songs?
Because His decrees are the theme of my song.
If I have any other theme other than His word, I'm just singing
noise. It's his decrees that are the
theme of my song. You know, it's not the theme of
my song, the themes of this world, the actions of this
world, the reactions of this world, the system of this world.
That's not the theme of a believer's song, the theme of a.
Believer's song is the word of God itself.
And he says, I'm singing these songs wherever I lodge.
The psalmist praise the Lord, declaring His word over and over
and over again the entire span of his life.
That's what all these psalms are all about, Songs of praise to
the Lord in agreeance with the word of God.
As you read them, you'll read through a Psalm and he'll praise
the Lord, and he'll be using scripture that he pulled from
Deuteronomy. Why?
Because God's decrees are the themes of his Psalm.
Oh, a practice of the hopeful is this.
They will be singing biblical songs.
They don't want to sing just meaningless words.
They don't want to just sing repetitious things for the sake
of singing repetitious things. They want to sing meat from the
Word of God. What does the Word of God say?
Oh, you know it's true. Every believer here.
When you sing a song that has Scripture in that song or has
the principle and Scripture in that song, the Spirit within you
rises up and declares, I agree with that truth.
Why? It is the Spirit who inspired
that truth. He is the One.
Of course He agrees. Pleased with that?
You know there's nothing greater than when the Saints joined
together singing praise that is biblical.
We saw just a moment ago where we sang biblical praise to the
Lord. You could hear our voices roar,
letting them be the theme in the anthem of our entire lives.
Practice of the Hopeful will be singing biblical praise, just as
Ephesians 5 says, where Paul tells the believers there in
Ephesus to speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual
songs. Sing and make music in your
heart to the Lord. You think Paul would accept
unbiblical music? You think he would accept
unbiblical singing as the anthem for the church?
Absolutely not. It's interesting to me that in
the liberal modern church culture that we have, their idea
is to bring the world's music in and to make the church worldly.
No, our music ought to be distinctly different from the
world. Our music ought not to be
worldly at all. Our music ought to be biblical,
and that's it. It ought to be the very Word of
God that ought to be the anthem and the theme of our hearts when
we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another.
Oh, the hopeful will practice singing biblical praise, but
they'll also practice seeking the Lord in the darkness.
Look at the next verse, verse 55.
He said in the night, I remember your name, O Lord, and I will
keep your law. He says in the night.
Now let me just help you. He's not necessarily talking
about the fact that it's nighttime versus daytime.
He's actually speaking about the darkness that he's facing in the
context. And what was that darkness?
Persecution from those mockers who were mocking him because he
was standing on the Word of God. Psalmist was always running into
some type of difficulty in darkness and trial, just as we
are. And in the midst of the
darkness, in the night, he says, I remember your name, O Lord,
Now keep your law. He's seeking the Lord in the
midst of his dark hour. Watch how he says this.
He says in the night I remember your name.
Now what's in a name a lot isn't there, especially if your name
is Yahweh. And if your name is Yahweh, we
we know him as Yahweh or Jehovah biblically, if that is your name
and that is God's covenant name for himself.
That's the name he gave himself when he spoke to Moses.
Moses said, who do I say sent me?
He says you tell him Yahweh I am, that I am sent you.
What does that mean? His name means He is the eternal
self, existing sovereign Lord of all.
And so when we remember his name, what we're saying, we are
trusting in God to be all that He says that He is.
And what is he? Who is he?
Everything, he's everything, he's all powerful.
He is almighty, he is faithful, he is holy, holy, holy.
He is just, he is merciful, he is mighty.
He's all of everything that we see him in Scripture and then
some. The psalmist says I remember his
name because in his name it contains so much knowing just
who he is. And I know with a name like that
he's. Going to keep his promise
because he's faithful. He's going to keep every promise
that He's made, even in the most difficult and darkest times in
my life. I can have hope in Yahweh.
I can have hope in His name, seeking Him in the darkness and
in the troubles of life. Isaiah 50 verse 10 says, Who
among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant?
Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the
name of the Lord and rely on His God when he says that in the
name of Yahweh, and rely on His God when things are dark in your
life. We who have hope will practice
the fact that we know the name of the Lord.
And how do we know the name of the Lord from the scriptures?
He's revealed himself to us. I know many people at this
juncture, they say. But wait a second, Kirk, I
thought the name of the Lord is Jesus.
It is and you. Know what his name means?
Jehovah saves. Jehovah saves.
You know that He said in his word that he will be called
Emmanuel God with us. Jesus was not just some
substitute who came and is not the one true God.
He's the one true God in flesh. He is Yahweh come to this earth.
He said what Jesus didn't say that yes he did and every single
one of his I am statements He mixed this term and go I me,
which means Yahweh and he was saying Yahweh is with you.
I the God of the Old Testament with you.
I am the I am Incarnate. That's who Jesus Christ is.
And so when we trust in His name, it's not like we're not
trusting in the name of Yahweh. We are trusting in the name of
Yahweh who came to redeem sinners like me and like you who
have been redeemed. And aren't you thankful that He
came? Aren't you thankful that
thankful that He has been revealed?
And aren't you thankful that He promises salvation to all who
trust in Him, in His word? We can trust Him in our darkest
hour. We can trust in His.
Name. Even in the difficult times, we
can have hope in His name. Psalm 9 pretend says this, those
who know your name will trust in you, for you Lord Yahweh have
never forsaken those who seek You.
Psalm 20 verse 7 some trust in Chariots and some in horses, but
we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Do you trust in His name? The Psalmist here practicing
that trusting in His name, seeking the Lord in darkness by
trusting in His name when you go through a difficult time are
trusting in the name of the Lord and all the promises that he has
made under the heading of his name, because everything that he
has said under his name, you can take that to the bank.
It is guaranteed he cannot lie, Paul says to Titus.
So we see the Psalmist here singing biblical praise, seeking
the Lord in the darkness, and thirdly, submitting to the
Lord's Word consistently. He says, your decrees are the
theme of my song. Wherever I lodge in the night, I
remember your name, O Lord, and I will keep your law.
And he says in verse 56, This has been my practice.
I obey your precepts. He says this is the practice of
my life. I obey you.
His life was marked with the practice of obedience.
Now you know what, His life wasn't marked with perfect
obedience, because in this life you're not ever going to attain
perfect obedience. Because if you could attain
perfect obedience in this life, you know what you would do with
it. The same thing I would do with
it. I'd take credit for it.
It will be God when we are glorified, who perfects us.
Finally, when we have changed in the moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, when, when this immortal or this mortal puts on
immortality, then and only then will we we be perfected for all
eternity in a state of glorification.
The psalmist here is not talking about glorification.
He's talking about practical righteousness.
He's talking about practical obedience in his life, living
out his faith, living out the word of God, living in obedience
to the word of God. He's talking about that God
wrought desire that is in all of us who have the hope of Christ
to obey the word of God. I said all of us, If you claim
to know Christ and you have no God wrought internal desire to
obey the word of God, you didn't really trust in Christ.
I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings, but there are a lot of
people who won't be so bold as to tell you that, but I'm not
one of them. There will be a God wrought
desire to be obedient. In fact, you will hate any
disobedience in your life. And when you see it, what you
will do is you will confess it and you will repent of it, and
it will break your heart that you have grieved the Holy Spirit
who desires obedience in your life to the Word of God.
What the psalmist is saying here, he said, this has been my
practice. I obey your precepts.
This is my deepest desire to obey your word.
Hasn't he made that very clear in 119th Psalm thus far?
Man, this guy wants to obey the word of God.
Why? Because someone who really has
hope in Christ will have that marking on their.
Life, they will practice that. Will they always get it right?
Nope. Because that old nasty flesh
still exists. I long for the day where that's
gone when it dies and it goes back to the dirt where it came
from. And I live forever because of
Christ and the promises that He made and His sacrifice that He
made on my behalf. But our lives as believers will
be marked with consistent obedience.
Now, just as John says in his first epistle, John chapter 2,
please pay attention to this verse three.
He says we know that we have come to know him.
Chapter 2, verse three, if we obey His commands.
The man who says I know him but does not do what he commands.
Watch, this is a liar. I didn't say that God's word
said that he's a liar and the truth is not in him.
But if anybody obeys his Word, God's love is truly made
complete in Him, and this is how we know we are in him.
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
Are you walking as Jesus did? He said we're not perfectly yet.
No, but are you becoming more like Him?
Because it is His will that you be conformed to the image of
Christ. There ought to be this constant
conforming in your life. You ought to be growing more
toward Christ and likeness. Is that happening in your life?
Is that consistently seen in your life that will be
consistently seen in the life of someone who really does have
hope in Christ? You won't be who you used to be.
You can't settle for being that person.
I'm not talking about just one area of your life.
I'm talking about the entirety of your life.
You won't accept any filth any longer.
You'll be quick to repent. You'll be quick to confess.
You'll be quick to agree with God.
That same epistle. John says this in chapter 3.
No one verse 6 who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has either either seen him or known
him. What is he saying?
You are not going to be able to live in an unbroken, habitual
lifestyle of sin. You're not going to be able to
continue sinning. You're not going to be defined
by that any longer. Believers, listen to me.
If your life is still defined by carousing and parting and doing
the things of the world, you're not in Christ.
I'm not going to lie to you and I do not apologize for that.
This is what the Word of God says.
He says no one who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
That's meaning continues to sin without any conviction, without
any confession, without any brokenness, and without any
repentance. He says, Dear children, do not
let anyone. Lead you astray.
Why did he say that? Because he knows.
He knew there were going to be people who try to lead you
astray. They say, oh, you can live
anywhere, any way you want to live.
You have grace. You're still going to heaven.
No, you're not. That's the biggest lie that the
devil has ever told. So, dear children, do you not,
do not let anyone lead you astray.
He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is
righteous talking about Christ. He who does what is sinful is of
the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the. Son of God appeared was to
destroy the devil work. Devil's devil's work.
Now, if Christ appeared to destroy the devil's work in you,
why would he still be free to work in you?
He asked another question or poses another thought.
He said no one who is born of God will continue to sin because
God's seed remains in him. He cannot go on sinning because
he has been born of God. What is he saying?
Those who are born of God, they're alive, will have the
markings of a person who desires to be consistent in their
obedience. Again, I'm not calling anyone
here to perfect obedience. Jesus Christ is going to take
care of that for you. He promises that, but the Word
of God is calling all of you who who claim to be in Christ to
greater obedience. And you're not obeying so that
you can be saved. You're obeying because you truly
are saved. It is a response.
It is an act of worship. That's what Paul calls it,
offering yourselves as a spiritual.
Sacrifice unto the Lord. You are laying your life down
and you are living it in obedience to Christ
consistently. What the psalmist is doing here,
he said, this has been my practice.
I obey your precepts. He's not saying that in
arrogance. He knows that it's from the
Lord's strength that he does this.
He's simply saying, I know that I truly have hope and I know
that I truly have hope because I have examined my life and though
I am not perfect in my obedience, my heart's desire,
Wasn't that the heart of the psalmist?
My heart's desires to be obedient in every single area of
my life and to despise any remaining and abiding sin that
still exists. O believer, may the decrees of
the Lord be the theme of your song, the anthem of your life.
May you trust in the Lord, in His name and every situation
that you face, and may you constantly obey the instructions
that we see in the precepts that we see in His Word.
Why? Because He, He demands that of
us even greater than that. He deserves that from us.
So the conclusion is this believer, are you finding hope
and comfort in God's word? Let me help you.
If you're not opening and opening it, you are not finding
comfort and hope in God's word. He said, well, I get a little
comfort when I come on Sunday morning.
You give me God's word. Stop being that baby who's spoon
thin and open the Word of God, and feast from His table
directly and find delight in His Word.
Find hope, find comfort in His Word daily.
I pray that you would as a believer, find that hope and
that comfort from His Word, just as the psalmist has to the
unbeliever say this to you. You came in this morning,
whether you knew it or not, without hope and without
comfort. I'm talking about not comfort in
the sense of the world and what it offers.
Nice house and a nice car and a good bed to sleep in, an air
conditioner in Texas in the summertime.
I'm talking about eternal hope and comfort.
You came in this morning without any.
But today you can find comfort and you can find hope through
the Word of God that has been preached to you today.
Let me just say this. Yes, the Word of God does say
that you are condemned already. Fact John 3 makes that very
clear that all here without Christ are condemned already,
and rightfully so. You're born into this world a
Sinner. You were a Sinner by nature and
you deserve the wrath and the judgement of God.
And yes, the Word of God does say that you are cut off from
God and you are an enemy of God because of your sin.
Now I know that shakes the world where we're just all children of
God. No, you're not.
There are the children of God, and there are the enemies of
God. And those who are truly in
Christ are the children of God. They have been redeemed by the
precious blood, God's only begotten Son, their brother and
their King. But those who have not, you're
not children of God. You're children of Satan.
You're children of sin. You belong to this world, you're
cut off from a holy God, and you're an enemy because of your
sin. Yes, the word does say that.
And yes, the Word does say that if you don't repent and you
don't trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, you will spend an
eternity under God's judgement and under God's wrath in hell
forever. Again, I know this not popular
in today's church culture, but I'm not trying to win a
popularity contest. I'm trying to tell people what
the Word of God really says. It does say that, but that wrath
will come upon you, and it will be eternal.
Let me give you this part of it. Though the Word of God says all
those things, it also does say this, that God is merciful and
He's compassionate to those who repent and those who turn to Him
and believe by faith. And His Son, who He sent to this
world to die on the cross for all who would believe and trust
in Him. And yes, you can this very day
turn from your life of sin, your life of certain judgment, your
enmity toward God, and you can turn to Jesus Christ, calling on
him to save you from the coming wrath, the judgment that will
come upon all unredeemed sinners.
Oh, that's the good news of the gospel this day.
To this day, you can call upon the name of the Lord, and
according to Scripture, you shall be saved.
Perhaps you walked in today without hope.
I implore you today, I beg of you, don't leave here hopeless.
Don't leave here hopeless. Turn to Christ.
Repent of your sin. Be saved today as the Father
draws you out of the darkness of your sin.
By His word, may you receive the eternal life that Jesus Christ
died for you to have today. Let's pray together.
Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you grieving over those
who have already shut me off this morning, who have thought
of a million other things that they would rather be doing.
That I pray that your mercy would fall upon them, that you
would not hold that to their charge, but you would open their
eyes to their need for Christ. And that you, Christ, would meet
the great need that they didn't even know that they had, that
they have heard that they have now.
That you would rescue a Sinner from hell, That you would turn
their hearts toward you, That you would birth in them faith to
believe and to trust in You. And that you would save the
wretched soul today. God, I pray for every believer
here today. I pray that they would fall
deeper in love with you as they study Your word, as they learn
your word. That they would rest in the hope
and the comfort that your word gives to your children.
But I pray that your spirit be free to move in the lives of
your people today. That you do as only you can do.
Your word has gone forth. I rest and I trust in the power
of your spirit and I pray all these things in Christ's name,
Amen. You have been listening to Key
Life Fellowships Pulpit Ministry podcast.
Join us each week for more teaching from God's Word.
If you would like to speak with one of our pastors, please visit
us on the web at keylifefellow-ship.com.
Thank you again for joining us today.