WWUTT 1114 My Plea for Grace?

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The word grace is seldom seen in the Old Testament, but in the

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New Testament it appears over a hundred times. That's because in the Old Testament it's something anticipated.

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In the New, it is our reality when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

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Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And don't forget our website, www .wtt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. Well, in our Thursday broadcast, which is, this is being posted a little bit late, but it would otherwise be our

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Thursday broadcast. We do an Old Testament study, and lately we've been in the

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Psalms. So this is Psalm 86, picking up where we left off last week. Psalm 86, a prayer of David.

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Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

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Preserve my life, for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you.

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You are my God. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do

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I cry all the day. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you,

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O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

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Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace.

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In the day of my trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me.

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There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.

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All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.

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For you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are

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God. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name.

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I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

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For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

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O God, insolent men have risen up against me. A band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.

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But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

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Turn to me and be gracious to me. Give your strength to your servant and save the son of your maidservant.

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Show me a sign of your favor that those who hate me may see and be put to shame, because you,

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Lord, have helped me and comforted me. We see grace spoken about here in this psalm more than we see it talked about in any other portion of the

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Old Testament. Grace is actually not something talked about very often in the Old Testament. You have something like only ten occurrences of the word.

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Then you get to the New Testament and there's over a hundred occasions in which this word comes up. Grace or gracious or something to that effect.

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So grace is something that is being anticipated in the Old Testament that becomes a reality in the

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New Testament. The grace of God that is demonstrated through the giving of his son, Jesus.

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How much do we really understand that concept of grace? We use the word a lot. It's one of our favorite

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Christian words. You'll have a lot of churches called Grace. We've got a Baptist church not far from us,

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Grace Baptist Church. Of course, you know the church that John MacArthur pastors, Grace Community Church.

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He's got his program, Grace to You. It's even a popular girl's name to name your daughter

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Grace. We use this word a lot. Goodness gracious me. Even like a swear.

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But do we really stop and think about what this means? What is grace?

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Well, as we're talking about it in a Christian context, the definition that I hear the most often, the one that even

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I've used the most often, is grace is unmerited favor.

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You cannot do anything to earn the favor of God. None of your works would ever merit

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God's favor. So for God to show us favor, it is unmerited.

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He just gives it to us because he is gracious. Therefore, grace is unmerited favor.

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But I like the definition that Jerry Bridges makes. It's true that we can call grace unmerited favor.

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There's nothing wrong with limiting our understanding of grace to that definition. It would certainly be true.

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But as it pertains to God's grace, you give grace to somebody else.

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Unmerited favor is probably the best definition. But how about the way that God gives us grace?

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A better definition than unmerited favor would be demerited favor, because the reality is the things that we have done before God, the works are not good enough.

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As a matter of fact, our works are worthy of our destruction. God would be right to destroy us.

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He would totally be just in exercising judgment against us in such a way, pouring out his wrath upon us and having us cast from his presence forever.

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God would not have done anything wrong or anything evil with killing anybody, destroying anyone because of the rebellion that we've done against God.

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We've taken those things that he has given to us for his glory, and we've blasphemed him and we've glorified ourselves instead.

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If God just wanted to take his hands off of this whole creation thing and let us be destroyed, he would be totally right in that, because what we have earned is exactly that, our own destruction.

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Instead, God gives us love and mercy, and he pays our sins by giving his own son.

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He doesn't just expunge our sins. The things that we have done are paid for. They have been atoned for through the precious blood of Christ, his death on the cross for our sins.

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He left his throne in heaven, became a man, God in human flesh, God incarnate, and he lived the life we could not live perfectly.

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And he died the death we were supposed to die by taking the wrath of God upon himself.

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He was buried in a tomb, rose again on the third day, showing that he had the power over death itself.

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He has ascended into heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God and is interceding for us before the father.

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Such wonderful heavenly blessings we have received from God when what we deserve is death, and yet he has given us life through his son, the forgiveness of sins, the promise of his eternal kingdom.

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I don't even think demerit in favor is enough to really qualify all of the blessings of God that we get through faith in Jesus Christ.

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And we receive all of this by faith. See, there's nothing that we do. God just gives it to us.

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And the very fact that we believe at all is in and of itself an act of grace.

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We come to faith because God was gracious with us. Lorraine Bettner has said, the cause of any person believing is the will of God.

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The outward sound of the gospel strikes the ear, but in vain until God is pleased to touch the heart within.

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Your ability to even believe the gospel when you hear it is by the grace of God that the gospel even came to you is by God's grace that you then believe it when it comes to you is by God's grace, demerit in favor.

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We what we have earned is death. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, Romans 623. That's the definition of grace, demerit in favor.

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So we have grace talked about here in Psalm 86. And once again, more concentrated in this

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Psalm than we find it anywhere else talked about, at least in these terms, anywhere else in scripture, you have

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David even understanding what he deserves is death. And yet he is asking that God would be good to him, would be gracious to him.

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Let's go back to verse one. Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

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A wonderful, humble approach right at the very beginning of this

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Psalm. David coming as poor and needy. David, the king coming to God as poor and needy.

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David recognizing I've got nothing apart from God. I have nothing. I have no kingdom. I have no palace.

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I have none of these riches, no power, no prestige, no authority over my enemies.

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They're not given over into my hands. Not without God. There were pagan kings who were very successful.

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Sure. But they have nothing because eventually even the things that they've possessed here on this earth are going to be taken from them.

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They won't be taking them with them into the afterlife. They stay here on earth. Apart from God, we have nothing.

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David knows that. He says, I'm poor and needy. Incline your ear to me and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

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I have nothing if God does not show favor to me. Preserve my life, for I am godly.

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Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. I had somebody bring exactly this verse to me one time.

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Psalm 86 2. And they sat down and opened the Bible. It's the only question they had. Sat down in my office, opened their

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Bible, and he said to me, it says, preserve my life for I am godly. And then he looked up at me and he said, is that OK?

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Can we pray that? Can I say to God, I am godly? And I said, yes, you can, if according to what scripture says, you measure yourself against what the

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Bible says about a godly man. And you can say, I am that man. Recognize that when

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David says this, I was telling this to the person across from me. I said, when

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David says this, he's coming in humble submission. So this isn't a boasting pride.

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I'm a godly man. So God, you're obligated to show me something. Look what he says in the first verse. Don't just read

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Psalm 86 2 and miss verse 1. I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly.

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It is a godly thing to look to God for any and everything that we need.

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That's what David is doing here. Therefore, he is recognizing, according to what God has said about the godly man, that David is godly.

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Not because David is declaring himself as godly, but because the scriptures would say of David that he is godly.

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Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. What does it mean to be godly?

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It means to want to be like God in his character and his attributes and things like that.

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I'm not talking about like the promise of Satan, you know, the lie of Satan in the Garden of Eden. You will be like God if you eat this fruit.

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That's not what I mean. But you desire godliness, God likeness, Christ likeness, to be like Christ, to imitate him, to follow his example, to obey him, to seek after him in all your ways, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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This is to be godly, to be changed by God. Be gracious to me,

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O Lord. For to you do I cry all the day, glad in the soul of your servant.

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For to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

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Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble,

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I call upon you, for you answer me. This is a very penitent psalm.

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At the same time, it's a very praising psalm. There's also David asking to be delivered from his enemies in a certain way, which we see in verse 17.

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But altogether, the approach of the psalmist, of David here, is in humility, asking for nothing but God.

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He just wants God. He doesn't want the wretched, sinful man that he is. He wants all of that to be replaced by the goodness and graciousness of God.

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Verse 8, there is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.

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I tend to think that what David is talking about here in verse 8 is he's saying that even when you look among the pagan gods, of course, they're idols.

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Of course, they're made up. They're manmade. Of course, we know that. But even among what man is able to come up with, what he's able to make for himself, he can't design a gracious God.

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These false idols that are made by man always seem to demand something of man, do they not?

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So just take like the Greeks and the Romans, for example, the multitude of gods that they worshiped.

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A Greek guy who wanted to trade some goods across the Aegean Sea, he would go to the temple of Poseidon, and he would offer something to Poseidon, so Poseidon would have favor on him.

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And therefore, whatever he was trading on ships across the Aegean Sea would not get swallowed up by Poseidon in a storm.

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So this guy has to appease his false god somehow in order to have good luck.

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You know, what an oppressive God that cares nothing for people, does not give good things to people unless a person does a certain thing for him first and does it in the right way.

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So these false gods are not gracious. Man cannot even come up with, devise, invent a gracious good

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God. Whatever version of God that we come up with in our head that is apart from who

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God really is and has revealed himself to be according to his scripture, whatever God we come up with is always going to be deficient.

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It's always going to be terrible. It is never going to be the glory of God who has shown himself through his son and revealed himself through his word, the

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Bible. There is none like you among the gods. Man can't come up with anything like God, nor are there any works like yours.

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Nothing that man does is as good as what God does. We come up with charity and love and mercy and things like that.

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Those things that we label, those things are always bad. They're always self -seeking.

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They're never actually blessing of anyone like the blessing of God is.

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When we understand love and affection and grace and mercy that we are to show to one another according to the way that God has shown it to us, that work is always going to be greater because it comes from God.

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Whatever man tries to do and calls that love never works. You just look at our culture and you see that.

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What does our culture say love is? Not what God says it is. It is not selfless.

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The culture's version of love is very selfish. It's very, let a person do whatever they want.

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That's generally the culture's version of love. You tell anybody they're wrong, that's unloving according to the culture.

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But the Lord loves us and will tell us when we're doing something wrong. You are behaving in a way that is contrary to the creator who has made you and you will fall into judgment because God is a righteous judge who feels indignation every day.

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As we read in the Psalms, all his ways are justice. So if you do something unrighteous and God has to pour out his justice upon you because he is a just and holy

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God, he will warn you of the fire that you're playing with.

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Because he loves you, tells you that you're doing something wrong and tells you to repent and return to righteousness.

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God does that because he loves you. The culture will say, you tell somebody they're doing something wrong. That's unloving. That's oppressive.

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That's bigoted. On and on it goes. The culture has no idea what love is. Love comes from God because God is love, as it says in 1

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John 4, 7 and 8. Verse 8. There is none like you among the gods,

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O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you,

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O Lord, and shall glorify your name. And how has that occurred? Through the worship of Christ and the spread of his gospel.

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For you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are

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God. You are not God. You listening to this program, you're not God. The universe does not revolve around you.

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It is God who has made the universe and set everything in its place. Verse 11.

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Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name.

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This is the request, the desire of a godly man that he may know the way of the

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Lord and walk in his truth. How do we know what God's truth is? We read it here in the Bible.

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Verse 12. I give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

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How is David able to do that? Because the Lord sustains him and puts him in his heavenly kingdom.

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For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

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O God, insolent men have risen up against me. A band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.

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But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

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Exactly how God describes himself when he passed before Moses in the book of Exodus.

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Verse 16. Turn to me and be gracious to me. Give your strength to your servant and save the son of your maidservant.

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Show me a sign of your favor that those who hate me, those that were mentioned back in verse 14, may see and be put to shame because you,

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Lord, have helped me and comforted me. You know, the deliverance that we get from God, the deliverance from our enemies may not happen in this lifetime, but a day is coming when

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God will deliver us up and our enemies will see that it is

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God who showed us favor in a time of trouble and delivered us from the hands of our enemies, enacting vengeance upon them and pouring out his wrath on those who would afflict the children of God.

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So trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

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He will deliver you up from those who want to persecute you and deliver you into his heavenly kingdom.

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We have the promise of heaven forevermore in Christ Jesus our Lord, though what we deserve is to be cast into hell, but he makes us a fellow heir of his kingdom.

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That's demerit in favor. You don't deserve it. God gives it to you because he's gracious.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our