Which Are We?

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Well, good morning again everyone. Good morning. Good morning to you all at home with us.
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This is the Lord's day. This is His day. He has promised.
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He has promised. So, if you will, I'm just going to go ahead and take your
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Bibles and please turn them with me to Psalm 1. Psalm 1.
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And I want to first thank my pastor. Previously, I was going through a series, we were going through a series together called
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The Healthy Church. And that was some, you know when you're jumping off a diving board, you're not really prepared to swim into some deep waters.
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That's deep waters is understanding as an elder trying to tell someone.
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So, I appreciate my pastor willingly protecting me, protecting our body.
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And I just want to thank him personally for protecting my soul, my pride, for just being able to come.
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And I'm so thankful for that. That's a text reserved truly,
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I believe, for an elder. So, I want to first say that. So, without further ado, this is
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God's inspired, infallible, and all -sufficient Word. This is not my words.
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This is the words of the Creator of the heaven and earth. So, hear now the word of the living
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God. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.
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He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruits in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
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The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff, which the wind drives away.
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Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
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For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
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Amen. Let us pray and ask the Spirit of God to help us. Father God, Lord, we enter upon holy grounds every time we open
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Your Word. I just ask,
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Spirit of God, our teacher be, show us the things of Christ to each one of us. Please show it unto me.
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Lord, help the speaker. Lord, I'm just a stammering mouth. But Lord, I also pray
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You bless and help the hearers to hear Your Word, Lord.
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In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So, I'm excited.
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Anytime that I can speak of this wonderful Word, it's the joy of my heart. And I hope it's the joy of your heart as well this morning.
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So this morning, I'm going to use a combination of Matthew Henry's outline and a mixture of John Stott.
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Put them two in a blender. And I thought, this is a simple text. This text confronts you.
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It confronts you straight on. It confronts you. So I thought, it must have an outline that's not more complex than what the text is.
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The outline goes as this. Verses 1 through 3, the righteous will prosper.
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Verses 4 and 5, the wicked will perish. And verse 6, the reason of them both.
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I want to give you a brief introduction to the book of Psalms real quick before we dive in. The book of Psalms is the longest and the largest and perhaps most widely used book in the
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Bible. There's 150 of them, broken into five sections. It contains from the creation to post -exile periods.
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The topics include such a wide variety. It goes from jubilation, war, peace, worship, judgment, praise, a lament.
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These are just to name a few. We can almost find rest any time in the book of Psalms at any occasion of our lives.
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And what I love about this book, God in His providence made this Hebrew poetry for every tongue, tribe, and nation.
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It does not have to be interpreted. It's for every tongue, tribe, and nation. Personally, the book of Psalms reminds me somewhat of a movie my wife and I watched recently called
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Inside Out. Inside Out. And it's a young girl named
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Riley. She's from Minnesota. And she has five personifications that live within her mind. They are joy, sadness, disgust, and anger.
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And these come to influence her life from a control panel. But doesn't that remind you somewhat?
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That movie's interesting and it's funny. But it explores, like Psalms, the full range of human experiences that we have.
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It's so personal. It's so personal and it's very practical.
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Very practical. And you know, this psalm ties in well with what we've been going through in the book of James.
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In the book of James. James is so practical, which is so sharp. It's almost like words are so tightly woven that it's so deep.
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You can never hit the bottom of it. So, almost every psalm, though, contains an element of worship.
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It wouldn't be a psalm without worship. That's why we were created to worship the Creator. Psalm 1, as I mentioned already, is a practical psalm.
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But it tells us the way we find fulfillment and purpose in life. We find happiness.
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And it also lasts. It wouldn't be love unless it warned you. And the one that warns you loves you the most.
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But don't everyone deserve to be happy? Don't everyone desire to be happy? Doesn't everyone desire to be happy?
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We're admirable creatures. We worship. I mean, some worship. But we admire sports figures.
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We admire actors. We admire streams and rivers.
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There's nothing wrong with that to have admiration. But let that not be the end. Go to the
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Creator that created that. And that's the way God has made us is to admire Him. But this psalm is number one for a reason.
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This psalm, as Stephen Lawson has informed me, and I went online and did some search of the history of psalms, psalm 90 was the first psalm written.
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And psalm 137 was when the Hebrews were captive in Babylon. That psalm 137 is the oldest.
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This psalm lands right in the middle between the two, around 400, 500 years, between the oldest and the newest psalms.
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This lands right in the middle. But God put this in the front. And my question would be, do you think
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God would fail? This book is about one person. Do you think
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God is going to fail the one person? No. He wants us to see who this book is all about.
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That your heart will sing about one man, and one man alone. And it's right here. And it's right here.
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He's in this psalm. The whole trinity is in this psalm, and that's what I'm going to tell you. But Hebrew poetry, just how it's structured.
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Our poetry is structured on rhyme and rhythm. Rhyme and rhythm.
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However, Hebrew poetry is based upon parallelism. It builds upon.
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So in the next line, remember these three C's. It builds upon the line.
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So the second line would bring clarity, completion, and a contrast.
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So that's the parallelism that we're going to see throughout Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms. As Charles Adams Spurgeon said, this is the preface psalm.
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Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 form a unit. They're one unit. And they have no author. It's not mentioned.
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David's name is not mentioned. But as you all know, a prophet gave a blessing or a curse.
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He gave a blessing or a curse. It may have been Ezra. Who knows? Who knows? But we know who the true author is.
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That's the Lord God. So, as we move into this, go ahead and look at verse 1.
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Let us look into this wonderful psalm and let the Spirit of God encourage you, correct you, and let us be a holy bride sanctified unto
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Him. Psalm 1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
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Beloved, listen to this word. Blessed. Blessed. Take that word and look across the page and look at Psalm 2, verse 12 and see how
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Psalm 2 ends. Do you see this? Psalm 2, verse 12
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Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. This is a unit.
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This psalm starts with a commendation. It's a benediction.
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It's evangelistic. It's a cry. Blessed. Blessed. And of all you, as Marines, I know that you desire and you are.
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That word always takes you to one place, to one man, and to one sermon.
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It was the greatest sermon ever preached and ever will be preached. That takes you to the Sermon on the
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Mount. And it was the words of the Master. I, from my understanding and study of this, by the
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Spirit's help, Jesus took this psalm and expounded it. It was like a firecracker went off.
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And He walked it and He talked it and He laid His life on it. This is what Jesus did.
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That blessed is one person. That blessed is one person. And it's the
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Lord Jesus Christ who was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, born to obscure parents in an obscure town.
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Blessed is such a positive state. It's such a positive state. As I studied this, this word alone, blessed, sometimes
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I thought happy. But happy is based upon what happens in circumstances. This is a deep -seated joy.
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Remember in John 14 or 15, He said that my joy may be full in you.
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This is what it's saying. Blessed is the man. Notice it's just a man.
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It is just a man. It's not a noble man. It's not a rich man. It's not a poor man.
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It's not a Republican. It's not a Democrat. It's not a black, white,
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Asian, Caucasian. It's just a man born of a woman. The entry level is just born of a woman, a man.
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Just a man. As Phil Johnson, which is an elder at Grace Community Church, said, this is the
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Old Testament of the attitude. I thought, wow, that's good. So when you hear this word, as I already mentioned, it brings you to the sermon on the mouth.
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This is a man. Look at that. It says THE man, not a man. THE man. That's exclusivity.
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That's exclusivity. It belongs to this man and that man alone. That's it.
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It belongs to that man and that man alone. This man has no prominent position in society. He's just a man.
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And man here speaks of mankind. It's a woman or a man. But I want to look into this and show this first verse is parallelism at its fullest.
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And as you look into this, you're going to see the downward spiral of sin. It goes from bad to worse.
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Sin is never satisfying until it has you captive, it's subductive, and it beats you and beats you and beats you and it mocks you until you torment and perish.
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That's its root goal is to kill you. It's death. And it's a horrible taskmaster, meaning we have scars from it.
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We're going to learn, the author, this psalm is going to teach us by three negatives, two positives, and one picture of the godly.
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This is how this psalm teaches us. Three negatives, two positives, and one picture.
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It says, light, hate. That's the picture. Okay, ready? Looking at this.
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Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. This is absolutely loaded.
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This is like a shotgun bullet. So this man, this man is known by what he avoids.
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Please hear me again. He's known by what he avoids. That's key. That is paramount to understand.
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And I want you to remember these as, look at this, one who walks, that's at the very beginning of a journey.
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You just start out walking. Just start out walking. Then you stand. There's an obstinacy going, hmm, just an obstinacy, just an inward motive.
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It's like, you see me doing it, but inwardly, it's like I'm seated down mom, but inwardly
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I'm standing up. It's already your top student's role. And then there's a deep seated.
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When he sits in a seat, when he sits in a seat, it's a sense of authority. It's a seat of authority.
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Like when they say a chair of a university, that's an authority. And what's so seductive about sin is that when you sit in a seat that doesn't belong to you, no matter how lofty you think you are,
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God sees you as worthless. So, 2
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Corinthians 6 -17 tells us, Therefore, come out from the mist and be ye separate, says the
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Lord. And don't touch any unclean things. Because there are a lot of outer worship in the corner.
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That's what he's saying. These things that you once worshipped, that you set up as idols, turn from that.
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Don't touch it anymore. Don't touch these unclean things. And he says, I welcome you.
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I welcome you. And I've already mentioned, notice the downward spiral.
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The godly walks now according to the counsel of God's Word, not the world. So you see this, the one who walks, this is the conviction.
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The one who stands, this is your conduct. And the one who's seated, that becomes your character.
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I'll say it again, the one who stands, this is a conviction that you have.
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As you move on, I mean walks, that's your conviction. The one who stands, that's your conduct.
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It becomes a habit. And then we get into your deep seated, is your character. This godly man at the end, he does not find rest in scoffers.
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He detests those that bring dishonor and shame to the one he loves the most.
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Because that's the one who loves him the most. He doesn't find peace in their company.
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I want to make this clear. I think there's a lot of confusion though in society today, in the church today.
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And this is simple. And this is the summary of this. The godly and the ungodly differ in every aspect of life.
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In every aspect of life. And we've been influenced too much through pragmatism.
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We've compromised. Where the world has affected the church instead of the church affecting the world.
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But God will not be mocked. And He is with His people. He said,
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Lo, I'm with you to the end of the world, end of time. So I want to continue now.
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As you see, this man uses better discernment. This is the whole thing is discernment.
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Discernment comes from the fear of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's who gives discernment. When you fear
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God, He makes things black and white. Satan convolutes things in grays. It's the gray area.
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That's where he works at. He works in the gray, which is so subtle. And the analogy that I like to give is like where the frog is in the cold water, it jumps out.
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When it's in the hot water, it jumps out. But if you put it in that gray area between the two, the warm, it'll stay in there and get comfortable.
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And that's the way he works through the ILOC principalities and systems within this world to make you comfortable.
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As soon as you get comfortable, if we could see it as the mouse trap, he sticks his tongue on there to taste the flavor.
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As soon as he wants a big bite out of it, he pushes his face down. He didn't know his neck was about to be broken. Pow! Pow!
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If we could see this. I want to be able to see this in my own life. So let's move on to verse 2.
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But His delight... This is what the godly man's delight is. This is a transition.
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But His delight is in the law of the Lord. And in His law, He meditates day and night. It's not once in a while He meditates.
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I believe this is the true secret of the Christian law.
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I believe most right now, I'm going to say it, within the Reformed circles, become spiritual believers.
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You eat so much, listen to so many sermons, and all you do is vomit it up and hang out. No nutrition out of it, and it's all hidden knowledge.
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He said, delight in the Lord. Later on, He says, Proverbs 23...
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Proverbs 23. Let me get this correct. Proverbs 23, verse 7 says, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
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The pastor mentioned it last night in the text. So beautiful. Not as he thinks in his head, his heart.
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This is the storehouse where you treasure your greatest delights. This is the storehouse.
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But His delight is in the law of the Lord. Notice, it's in. No longer under.
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He's in the law of the Lord. Because justice, when you're under it, is hard to delight when you know there's justice coming.
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And that justice is death. That justice is just and is impartial. He is in the law.
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He's no longer under the condemnation of the curse. He's in the law because of the Blessed One, the Lord Jesus.
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That's who's the Blessed One. So His delight is in the law of the
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Lord. This is so powerful. This word, delight, is like a piece of dynamite.
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You know, God has commanded every man. He's overlooked the times of ignorance,
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He said in Acts 17 30. And He's commanded all men everywhere to repent.
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To repent. Jonathan Edwards gives a quote on this that helps me understand delighting.
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Delighting in God means savoring the diverse excellencies of God, especially as they are manifested in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I'll say this, a heart that delights in the
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Lord is a well -watered soul. That's a well -watered... In this law of the
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Lord, that's the whole entire counsel of God. That's from Genesis to Revelation.
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That's the whole counsel. John Stott adds that one delights in the law is one simple indication.
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You've been born again. You've been born again. Nicodemus didn't understand this delighting, but we may see later that it may come to faith in Christ.
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But that can be an indication of the new birth when one delights.
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As 1 John tells us, we test ourselves. Because the sinful mind is hostile to God.
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It's that enmity with God. When I was going through this, you see this man, but his delight is in the law of the
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Lord. But don't you want to ask the question, but what is God's delight? That's the question, isn't it?
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That's the question, but what is His delight? It's not about me. What is His delight?
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I want to please the One who sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood.
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When I had no hope, what is He delighting?
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Well, turn with me to Psalm 149 verse 4. We're going to hear what
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His delight is. This is
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God's delight. This is second to the last
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Psalm. Psalm 149 verse 4. This is
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God's delight. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people, and He will beautify the humble with salvation.
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His people is His delight. So we can only delight in Him because He first delighted in us.
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Doesn't that sound like something? We love Him because He first loved us. We, as this godly man, delight and godly woman delights because there's one that's already delighted in Him.
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It's not my love that I look at. I look at the One holding me. If you can, turn back with me to Psalm 1.
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We'll continue this journey through this beautiful Psalm. This is no significant word in.
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As I mentioned, He's no longer under the curse. And this is key. There's now no condemnation to this man.
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None. Who can bring a charge against God's elect? No one.
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No one. Romans 7 tells us without the law, we wouldn't have known sin.
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It's the law that revealed my wickedness. It was the law that revealed my soul was in great danger and should have been stopped that very moment and burnt in eternal hell.
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That's what the law does. It shows me I'm in big, big trouble. And the one that spares me and shows me that I was in trouble,
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I love. So if we continue on,
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He meditates day and night. He meditates day and night. Let's set this straight.
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Meditation is not emptying your mind. It is not emptying your mind. It is filling it.
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Filling it. Filling your mind with the Word of God. Filling your mind. But the world tells you the opposite.
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Ah, namaste, get to your... What? Don't look at the tree. No, no, no.
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Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Many of us admire the
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Puritans. Wow. Why do we admire them? Have we ever sought out, diligently, why they were so deeply rooted in love of God so much that when you read one page of it, it's so full of the
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Word of God, it's almost as if you're reading the Bible. Scripture interprets
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Scripture and Scripture interprets Scripture. It is straight meat. No additives.
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Hardly. Very little. And it inspires me. When I speak, thus says the Lord. But here's the thing though.
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They worked in this. It was of discipline. This doesn't come by nature. And I want to share with you this.
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Joel Beekin, he's the author of the Reformation Study Bible. He did a study on this.
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And he said there's eight steps. They did something. They did two things. They did deliberate meditation and they did occasional meditation.
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He said this deliberate meditation was an eight -step process. And listen to this. This is going to sound so foreign.
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Number one, they read the Scriptures. Does that sound foreign?
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Haven't you read? Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed.
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But I love Him. I give Him my heart to Him. He never asks for your heart.
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He asks for your whole body to be a living holy sacrifice. He doesn't need your filthy heart.
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He doesn't need our filthy hearts. He doesn't need His period, but He delights in us. Number one, they read
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Scripture. Number two, they memorized. Number three, they meditated upon everything they knew about it.
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They chewed like a cow to cud. Sucked the nutrients out all day.
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You ever seen a cow? All day, going back and forth, round and round, round and round.
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Boy, they chewed. They chewed. They chewed up. They never stopped.
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So, they read Scripture. They memorize. They meditate. They pray about it. They pray about it.
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Then they make resolutions of what must change in their life. Doesn't this inspire you?
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They record in their diary these changes. These changes. Then they sing a solemn hymn.
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And then lastly, they give thanks. That's eight things they deliberately did. They set aside a time and redeemed a time just for this.
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And we wonder why their books so rich will bless us. It's right there.
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But here's another thing too. Think about this. He says that this man meditates day and night.
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What it is is bookends. Not just once in the morning, once at night, but all throughout.
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This is like as the ejaculatory prayers go up. This is beautiful.
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This is really beautiful because then I believe God has such a beautiful imagination. He's such a beautiful...
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He's the grand artist. This happens throughout the day. This happens at work and your vocation.
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When you're looking at a door, you just look at a door and you start pondering what is the door about?
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It keeps some out and lets some in. And we think about what does that door represent?
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Christ is the door. Enter in through the narrow gate. He is the door. Judas kissed the door of heaven and went straight to hell.
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You've got to go through the door, not just to the door. So this was occasional meditation they did.
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So deliberate and occasional. This is what meditation is at its seat. It's pouring over it.
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Pouring over it. Because that's your soul's greatest delight. And now, that was the two things.
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We went to delight meditation and you saw the sea stand... I'm sorry, wall stand sea.
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Those are the three negatives. Two positives, meditate and delight.
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And then the last would be a pitcher. Pitcher. This is a pitcher. He shall be like a tree, verse 3, planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
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This is so loaded. Like a tree. Does it remind you of the garden?
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Four rivers. And when you read Ezekiel 28, it says four rivers flow down from it. Mount Eden it was called.
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Mount Eden. This is a fruitful and living tree.
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This is a fruitful and living tree that flourishes. It's an evergreen. All God's children are evergreens.
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I want you to look at this word right here.
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Planted. This is the work of God the Father.
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We just saw the blessing of Jesus Christ in the first verse. Now we see the
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Father, redemption appointed. In the first we saw redemption accomplished, the blessing.
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And we're going to see that after that, the Spirit of God who brings forth the fruit of our lives.
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Planted. This is election. This is chosen by the Father. He takes and plants.
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He chooses to plant it right there. It's not a wild tree anymore. You're grafted.
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We were grafted into the family of God. None of us were born children of God. That wild tree though is so self -sufficient.
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But I want you to realize this was so beautiful. Sometimes when you study this, it just makes you pause and want to worship it.
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It can't go any further. This tree is planted, but this tree needs help to survive.
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It's planted by the river because it depends upon that river for life. It roots go to that river.
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Streams of mercy. That's what this river's all about. And that's where our hearts cry is that we may find mercy outside the courtroom.
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Mercy and grace flow to that river. And I'll say this, look at the plural of the river.
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It's not a river. It's rivers. One gets stopped up and down, there's another one flowing.
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God's providence He provides and He protects. This water's not stagnant.
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It's not a lake. It's not a lake. It is a river. It's living and active.
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It's flowing. It is flowing. This is the source of all life, life, strength, and vigor right here from this stream of mercy.
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The more we read God's Word, the more we allow our roots to get deeply seeded by this tree.
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A tree weathers a storm. A tree is deeply rooted. And it brings forth fruit in its season whose leaf also shall not wither.
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Don't you see something here? This has struck me. This was kind of interesting. It mentions the fruit before the leaf.
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I thought, whoa! I never really saw this. It is so beautiful.
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Don't you usually see the leaf before the fruit? Think about the fig tree. Think about the fig tree.
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It was barren, but it showed leaves. I share with you this. Look at this.
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It's fruit in its season. Fruit is expected from this tree. It's expected.
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Fate without what is dead. There it is. We're going through the book right now,
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James. And it's all about this. This is the fruit. This is the evidence of the outward profession, which is the leaves.
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The leaves are your outward profession. And He says, even your leaves will wither.
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Every word will prosper in you. So this is the work of the
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Spirit that brings forth this fruit. And notice, in its season. Because God has ordained times for us to grow in grace, and these fruits come evident, evident, always after His university of suffering.
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The reflection. Our pupil is not greater than His teacher. So notice,
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He says, finishing the last line of verse 3 of the Godly before we move on to the ungodly.
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And whatsoever ye shall do shall prosper. This has to be made clear today.
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This is not the prosperity gospel. God said I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
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If you love anyone more than Me, you're not worthy of Me. I will separate you. This is soul prosperity.
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This is where the blessing, the eternal bliss of this deep -seated root and joy in the
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Lord Jesus Christ rises above all circumstances.
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Rises above all circumstances. And His lays hold of Christ, our eternal reward.
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Let us continue on. Now, this is a sobering part.
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The ungodly are not so, whether like the chaff. Notice the contrast. Which the wind drives away.
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He just spoke about a tree, and then He turns around and speaks about a chaff. A chaff only holds the wheat.
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The wheat falls from it. And it has an appearance as if it's doing something. And it's worthless. And it's dead.
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One's living, one's dead. That's it. It's plain. It's black and white.
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It's hallowed. It's hollowed. It's light, vain.
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And all of its thoughts and its actions, everything it does. And you know this.
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And you're in the presence of those that speak of the world all day long.
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It's just, when the Lord blesses you with the appearance of a believer, your soul is so encouraged.
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This is what we are. A community to encourage one another. This is
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God's gift. We're God's love gift to the son. Oh, those that are running away from God could see this.
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They would listen. You'd think they would listen. But they would not. And this is the sad part.
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They would not listen. Many of us have family members we've pleaded with. I've had many family members in my life.
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And my own family has told me never open my mouth again to them. They don't want to hear it. And I'm sure you have too.
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They believe the lie. They've been seduced. They've been put in chains.
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And they kiss those chains. Romans 1 tells us they exchange the truth for a lie.
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Genesis 3, this is where it all started. You'll be like God.
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And your eyes will be opened. And their eyes are closed.
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Closed, closed, closed. You will not be like God.
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They become like Satan. They became like Satan. Their eyes were closed. Do not believe
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Satan's lies. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in judgment over sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
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There's a mixture right here. On this side of eternity, there's always a mixture in the body.
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There's always a mixture of the godly and ungodly. God knows. God knows.
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There's always draws with the gold. It says here the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.
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What does this mean? It says the wicked flee when no one pursues them. The evidence will be so greatly against them as they said the rocks, they would cry out the rocks and the mountains would fall upon them.
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There will be no acquittal, just judgment. 1
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Corinthians 6 says the saints will judge them. The saints will judge the world.
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What does the world represent? Oh, God so loved the world. It represents those that only...
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It's self. Self is at the center of every decision. They will not stand.
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Fear will come over them with a great torment and they will flee. However, in the
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New Jerusalem, in the New Jerusalem, there will be no unclean or unsanctified shall enter.
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Malachi 3 -16 -18 tells us this is the final division. There will be separation between the sheep and the goats.
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This is the week of terror. This is one of the worst things man could ever hear.
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Luke 13 -27 I do not know you, where you're from.
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I don't even know you. I don't know where you even come from. I do not even know you.
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Depart from Me, you worker of iniquity. Depart. May you never hear that.
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James Montgomery Boyce said this in his commentary on the book of Psalms. There's one devil in every church.
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There's one devil in every church. But God's precious diamond is still laying in the field with the pebbles still to this day.
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Still to this day. In summary, what this concludes in v. 5, sinners will not be at peace in heaven, nor will they even have to enter into that.
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They would be miserable. They would be miserable. They would be out of their element. If you can't get along with those that you see here, how can you get along with those that you don't see?
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I mean, it's such a deception. Such a deception.
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V. 6, For this is the ground and reason for both the godly and the ungodly.
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For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. The Lord knows.
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The Lord knows. That means His omniscience. This is the sovereignty where God's people and His children...
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This is where we rest our heads because God knows. But don't you have peace when you pray that too?
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Lord, You know. You know. You know.
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You will vindicate me. I don't have to do a thing but just trust and obey.
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But all this self -deception, all this foolishness, playing with God, putting on a mask, using profanity, all this unbelief, all the pleasure, eat, drink and be merry, that's going to come to an end.
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That's going to come to an end. If you look at these two sections, you see it ends.
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V. 3, The godly man will be prospering. He will prosper.
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He who believes has everlasting life. Right now, he's prospering. He's growing.
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I have a question to you though. Getting back to meditation,
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I believe this is a deep, deep subject. And this comes from John Beacon.
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When is the last time you sat down in your seat and pondered your future home for just three minutes?
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That's an eight minute ouch. That's an eight minute ouch. I'm just going to be honest. When's the last time you just sat down in your chair and pondered your future home?
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So in closing, the title of this is Which Are We? Which Are We?
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Because this psalm confronts us. This psalm confronts us. And the question is which are you?
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Which are you this very day, this very moment, this very hour? Today is the day of salvation.
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I want to read something to you from C .T. Studd. Hear this poetry.
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Now this is not Hebrew poetry. This is Western poetry. Two little lines
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I heard one day traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart.
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Only one life will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.
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Only one life. Yes, only one. Soon will its fleeting hours be.
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Then in that day my Lord to me and stand before this judgment seat. Only one life will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will last. Yes, only one life.
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That still small voice gently pleads for a better choice, inviting me selfish aims to leave and to God's holy will to cleave.
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Only one life will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, a brief years, which is with its burdens, hopes, and fears, each with its claims
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I must fulfill, leaving for self or in His will. Only one life will soon be past and only what's done for Christ will last.
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When this bright world would tend me sore, when Satan would a victory score, when self would seek to have its way, then help me,
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Lord, with joy to say, only one life will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.
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Give me, Father, a purpose deep in joy or sorrow that I were to keep. Faithful and true wither the strife pleasing
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Thee in my daily life. Only one life will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will last. Oh, let my love with fervor burn, and from the world now let me turn, living for Thee and Thee alone, bringing
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Thee pleasure on Thy throne. Only one life will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one.
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Now let me say, Thy will be done, and when it's at the last, I'll hear the call.
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I'll know, I'll say, it was worth it all. Only one life will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will last. This is the last stanza. Only one life will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I'll be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.
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In closing, I want to share with you this. God's will is not a mystery for our lives.
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It's not hidden. It is not hidden. And I'll never forget this. I want to share this with you.
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In closing, remember these five S's. Remember these five
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S's. God's will for your life is to be saved, to be Spirit -filled, to be sanctified, submitting, and willing to suffer.
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Remember this. When your eyes are upon His will and His desire, all of these things will fall into place.
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Amen? Praise God. Amen. Let's pray. Lord God, You are worthy of all praise.
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Lord, I thank You, Father, that while we were yet still sinners, You died for us.
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That's not in my heart. But Lord, I desire it.
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Lord, I desire for that every person who hears this message, every person who hears Your Word, would delight and meditate upon You.
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Lord God, You are the Blessed One. There's no one but You, Lord Jesus, who has not ever, not ever once walked or stood or sat in the seat of these wicked or godly, ungodly.
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You're the only one. It wasn't Abraham. It wasn't Noah. It wasn't
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Jacob. It wasn't Paul. It was You, Lord Jesus. So Lord, we thank
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You. That's all our life. We want it to be a thank offering unto You. Lord, have
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Your way with us. Lord God, we cannot wait to look into Your face if we can still stand.
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Lord, as C .T. Studd said, You'll be worth it all. Not it's worth it all.
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You're worth it all. You will be worth it all. Lord, help us to have an eternal perspective in all that we do.