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Well, welcome to our afternoon worship service. A little bit delayed here, we had a long prayer meeting today. A good one, though. But now we are turning to the Lord to worship him. And the first thing we're going to do is take three song requests, if you have a song request.
It's hard to refuse that first hand that comes up, the first and only one. Naomi? 91A. I notice how she changes it up all the time. It's not repetitive, so I feel very safe in picking that hand. Are there two other song requests?
Hope? 137. And Mary? 100C. So 91A, 137, and 100C. Those will be our song requests for this afternoon, songs we will sing in worship. Just a reminder, the men's forum is going to be at the Shorhouses at 7 .30 on Wednesday.
So if you're able to attend there, go for that. Then also, the Big Knee Barbecue is this coming Saturday. So I think they were looking for a confirmation of attendance, like today or something. So let them know.
That's about it. So I'd ask you to stand for a moment of silent prayer, and then we'll proceed with the call to worship. Hear the Lord Calls to Worship. Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song and His praise in the assembly of the saints.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise His name with a dance. Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and the harp. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people.
He will beautify the humble with salvation. That's great. Father, thank you so much for the gracious love that you have shown us. We pray that as we approach you today in worship, that our hearts truly would be full of love for you.
We thank you that as we gather together, particularly on the Lord's Day, that we are celebrating the victory of King Jesus over sin and death. Father, and that victory ought to cause us to sing a new song.
And that is a new song of victory that Christ has produced through His mercy and through His obedience to the Father. Father, we thank you for Christ's strength and power that He exhibited in even His suffering and His ability to withstand the curse of God, that He received your cup of wrath and that He was judged for our sake.
And we thank you for the love that caused Him to look ahead and to be able to see us and rejoice. And so we pray for that today. We pray that, Father, that we would be rejoicing in you as our maker, as our creator, as our redeemer, that we would be joyful in the King that we have.
Father, we thank you that we have a King that's above all the kings and rulers of this age. And that's a great comfort to us. Father, when we think of much of the leadership that's in the whole world, Father, there's so much corruption and wickedness and vileness there that it would cause us to despair greatly if we didn't know you and if we weren't under your authority and your care.
But thank you so much that we have a true and honorable and a noble King in Christ. And we pray that our hearts would be able to settle and that we would be able to endure even suffering in this world because of the King that we do have.
Father, we pray that in all the areas of our lives, Father, that we would be able to rejoice, that we would be able to celebrate the victory that Christ has given us through his death and through his resurrection.
And we pray that our faith would be resting in Christ, that we would be trusting in the works of Jesus Christ to save us. We cannot save ourselves, but Christ is the only one that can save us. He is our only hope.
And Father, we do thank you that you even take pleasure in us, that you rejoice in us, and that you rejoice over us, and that you are even pleased when we produce the slightest bit of fruit and growth in our lives.
And we thank you and acknowledge that all of that even is from you. We pray that you would forgive us for our sins, that you would help us to turn away from sin, and that we would turn to Christ for forgiveness and purification and for holiness.
So bless us now as we worship you. We pray again that you would receive all of our worship as we offer it up in Christ's name. Our opening psalm today is taken from 21D in the Book of Psalms, we're saying.
So Psalm 21D, you may be seated.
Our Old Testament scripture reading this afternoon is taken from Psalm 27. So we'll be beginning in verse 1, reading through to verse 14. So again, Psalm 27, beginning in verse 1. Psalm of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.
Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me. He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. Therefore, I will offer sacrifices of the joy of his tabernacle.
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When you have said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, Lord, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.
Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me. And such as breathe out violence as I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. So that's from Psalm 27. We're now going to continue our worship of God with the singing of Psalm 91a in the Book of Psalms.
We're singing Psalm 91a. Psalm 91a. Section is Psalm 137. Last section is Psalm 100c. 100c. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. O Lord, our gracious God, we sang a lot of Psalms this afternoon that talked about joy.
And Father, truly, we are a people that have reason to be filled with joy. We thank You and praise You, O Lord, for all that You have done and all that You have promised to do. We praise You, Lord, for You created the heaven and the earth and everything that is in them.
You spoke and they came into being. And Lord, how You designed things so very well. We see how that we are wonderfully and intricately made. We marvel at the wisdom that was involved in our creation and all the complexities of our bodies and the things that You made.
We praise You, Lord, that You also filled the earth with things for our enjoyment and delight. Truly, Lord, You make us glad. You give us joy. We see, Lord, that many of these things have been altered by the fall.
But we recognize the original plan and design and we know that that is to be restored when the curse is removed from the earth. And we thank You, Lord, for the great blessing and hope that we have and the joy that we have even in that hope and that expectation.
But we thank You for the many joys that we have and the things that we still have here and the things that we're able to enjoy and do and produce. We thank You, Lord, for all of them. We thank You too for the things that are not part of the material creation, but the things that You have made us a relational people, that You gave us other people in the world.
And we have the joy of knowing others, of having children, of having husbands or wives, of having all sorts of societies and groups. You've put us in churches. Father, You've given us so many blessings and we pray that we would rejoice in the work that You've given us to do with our hands, with our minds, in all sorts of different ways, that we would bring honor and glory to You through our work, doing our work as a sacrifice to You, Lord.
Every day we get to be a priest who offers joyful sacrifices to You in the labors that You have given us to do and in our calling to minister to other people and to care for them. We pray, Lord, that we really would be filled with joy in all of those things.
We thank You too, Lord, for the blessing that You have given to us of salvation. Truly, this is something that makes our hearts glad. Father, we are glad in You because You are the gracious One who has bestowed salvation on us when we did not deserve it.
We would be ruined, utterly ruined, apart from Your salvation. But we thank You that You have brought it about through many great things that You have done in sending Your Son and our Savior, bringing Him into the world for our sake.
We thank You, Lord, for the Holy Spirit that You have poured out on Your church. We pray that we would receive these with great gladness, that we would rejoice in what we have in Your kingdom and in our King Jesus who is righteous and who represents us as our priest and also speaks to us as our prophet.
May we indeed have delight in this and in the fellowship of the saints in the church. We praise You and thank You for the means of grace, for they also make us glad. We have Your Word that brings joy and gladness to our hearts.
We have also Your law that is in Your Word, Lord, that teaches us Your way. And when we live in that way, it brings also great joy to us. We thank You that You have spoken to us and told us how we should live so that we don't have to be aimless in this world.
Even told us how to live in the fallen world. And Lord, we praise You for all of the blessings we have in the communion of the saints and coming to the Lord's table and hearing Your Word and hearing preaching and all the things that You've given us, Lord.
We thank You for our daily prayers and devotions that we can have before You, that You receive them, that as Your children we can come before You. O Lord, You have given us so much to make us glad. We pray then that we would share the gladness that we have not only within the body to our brothers and sisters, but also that we would share of the joy and the hope that we have to those who are outside and who do not yet know You.
We pray, Father, that we would testify to them of the hope that we have and that we would live in a way that they would see our joy. Not that we would be putting on a front, but that we would be truly finding joy in our salvation and in You, O God.
And then that we would be able to testify to them of the reason for that joy when they see it. We pray that You would give us boldness in doing so. We pray that we would not be afraid of repercussions or persecutions that might come.
For we know that like us, Lord, that the world is by nature hostile to the things of the Lord. It is only by Your grace that You have changed us. That also makes us glad, Lord, that now we can love the things that we used to hate.
We pray, Lord, that You would help us so to be tender and compassionate toward those who have not yet had any change like that. That we might be able to testify to them and to tell them that they can have that change.
And that You would open their hearts that they might desire it. For we would have great joy in their salvation. We think about the Apostle Paul who said to the Thessalonians, what is our joy or crown of rejoicing?
Is it not even You in the presence of the Lord Jesus on that day? Father, we long to see those that we minister to, those that we love, those that we know before You on the last day, the day of judgment, rejoicing in Your kingdom rather than in the place of those who are condemned and cast out.
Oh Lord, have mercy, we pray. Give us, again, courage and boldness that we may be able to speak as we ought to speak and live as we ought to live before those who are adversaries against Your kingdom.
Oh Father, thank You also for Your mercy to our nation as we consider today. There's so much mercy that You extend to us. Oh Lord, we pray that You would continue to do so and that You would be patient with us, oh Lord.
We pray that You would forgive us for our many transgressions and that You would help us to acknowledge You and raise up leaders that will lead us to acknowledge and give thanks to You and depend upon You.
For Lord, how can we expect to do anything apart from You? Oh Lord, grant to us a consciousness of Your grace and Your mercies and our dependence on You as a nation. Father, thank You for the laws that You have given in our land that uphold something of order and righteousness and give us a measure of peace.
But we pray, Lord, that there would be a greater measure of that, that there would be a greater allegiance to Your way. For we see, Lord, that Your ways are at the foundation of our society, but gradually they are being chiseled away and chipped away.
We don't even realize all the blessing that we have from those ways that have been long established that are just part of us and we don't even see it. But Lord, the time is happening that many of these are being rejected and replaced with things that will lead to chaos, confusion, and destruction.
Have mercy again, we pray, Lord. We desire to rejoice in all of Your good kingdom and Your good ways as a nation. We ask all of these things, Lord, for we are Your people and we pray that we would have a rejoicing in You even in our trials as well.
We know that those are used in this fallen world and in our lives that have remaining corruption in order to bring us to a greater measure of sanctification and a greater love to You. It's kind of a wonder to us, Lord, how that when we go through trials and sufferings that we come forth with a greater love to You and more fruit in our lives if indeed we are Your people.
And we pray, Lord, that You would help us, Lord, to realize that when we're in the midst of those trials or when we see them coming upon us that we would not be afraid but we would entrust everything to You and we would rest quietly in the hope that we have.
We know that in Your eyes that a meek and quiet spirit is very precious. That You don't want us being fretful and anxious but You want us to be trusting and giving glory to You as a God that we can trust in.
Our Father, our Husband, the One who cares for us and who will only do good for us. Even as we look at that subject today in our study, we pray, Father, in the sermon that You would bless our hearing and cause us to receive the blessing that is ours as sons of God.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Well, continue the Westminster Shorter Catechism. And we are in an encouraging section and it is especially encouraging and an encouraging part of the encouraging section, I should say.
We're looking at the benefits that we have and this is one of the benefits that especially would bring us joy if we understand it. And it is that we're adopted by God. There are three primary benefits and then there are a number of other benefits that we're going to look at as we study this section.
And now let's review question 32. It talks about those three benefits as well as the others, mentions them just in summary. So, people of God, let's confess together question 32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, and sanctification and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them. Last week we looked at the first of the three primary benefits which is justification.
We saw that justification involves God declaring that we are acceptable to be His people forever and to spend eternity with Him. And that's a marvelous declaration because we know that we're not so in ourselves.
I mean, how can God say such a thing when we with the rest of the human race are sinners who are guilty of rejecting God and breaking His law and so worthy only to be cast from His presence forever and condemned in the very like of fire.
But we are justified by depending on another. We are justified by faith. That's what justification by faith means as we saw last week. We're depending on someone else's righteousness, someone else's sacrifice for our sins.
Not something that we have done, but something that another has done. And we receive and rest in Him alone for our salvation as He is offered in the gospel. We rest in Him alone for our righteousness, our right standing with God as sinners.
We saw in Romans 3 that our acceptance is not based on our own righteousness, but on our faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ who obtained that salvation for us. Jesus did what God required of Him to make all of us His people, the elect people, acceptable and righteous in His sight.
He, as our representative, lived the life that we ought to have lived and He paid the full penalty of our sin and His suffering on the cross. Now let's confess in unison then what the catechism says about justification in question 33, which I just summarized.
Question 33, what is justification? Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.
It's a wonderful thing, is it not, to know that as sinners that we have been fully accepted through the work of Jesus Christ, His righteousness given to us. He's ordained for us that we could obtain for ourselves what we could not obtain by our own efforts, full acceptance and full salvation.
But our Lord is so very gracious that that wasn't enough for Him. I mean, that is so much that being utterly condemned and then being accepted in right standing with Him, that is an amazing thing. Justification is outrageously marvelous.
To think that He should do such a thing for people that deserve the opposite. But when we see the true state of sinners and we're like the prodigal son who comes to God and says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants. Like that's plenty, isn't it? I mean, to be a servant in God's house who's so kind and gracious, that's surely a marvelously incredible thing. But our gracious God says, that's not enough for me.
I'm going to be more gracious than that to my people that I save. And I'm very happy to tell you that everyone that He justifies, He also adopts. He takes them as His very own children. This is beyond understanding, beyond comprehension.
He calls us sons. And when we say sons, then we're talking about sons and daughters. The reason we use sons particularly is because it's talking about those who are heirs. And so we're all sons of God.
I've mentioned this to you before. Just as when we talk about the bride of Christ, we're all the bride. We're all want together as one. We're the bride of Christ. And when it comes to adoption, then Jesus, of course, is the son of God and we're all sons of God through Him.
So it's a marvelous, marvelous thing. Adoption is the subject of the question that we're looking at this week. It's question 34. So let's confess this in unison. Question 34. What is adoption? Adoption is an act of God's free grace whereby we are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.
In other words, we truly do become God's children. We're received into the number. Like how many children does God have? You can count them, right? All the people that are justified are also adopted. Our scripture reading related to this is very short, but it's packed with wonderful content that we won't ever exhaust for all eternity.
These words will be more marvelous to us in a million years from now, if we could say it that way, than they are now. And it's 1 John 3, verses 1 through 3. So give careful attention and I'll read to you these marvelous words from God's holy and sure word to the people that He loves and has made His sons.
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
In other words, we can't see the extent of it, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
So when you have that hope, it has a radical transformation even just to your whole attitude in your life. Everyone that has this hope purifies. You're eager to be more what it is to be a son of God, to behave like a son of God, because you've been taken as His sons.
It has an effect on our lives. And so that is our reading from the word. First of all, let's look at 1 John 3, what it exhorts us to do. To behold what manner of love God has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God.
Now there's two ways that we could do this. I could talk about what it means to behold what it is, but let's just do that. Let's look at what it means. Let's behold what it means to be called the children of God.
So first of all, this is a gracious, loving thing. It is a gracious, loving thing for a couple to adopt a child. Here's a child that for some reason is without parents to care for him. And here is a loving couple who wants to take that child even though it is not their own child and to love that child as their own son or daughter to make it their own.
Often they have to go to great expense to do that. The adoption process itself. And then they have the expenses of providing for that child and nurturing that child and the effort and the years of that.
It's a wonderful thing for the child. Without adoption, here would be a child that no one claimed as their own. A child that no one was really committed to through the years of the child's growing up.
And, you know, we know many people that have had to grow up in that way. And it is a difficult thing. We want to encourage and support those who have gone through that. There might be fine institutions to provide for the child's needs.
There might be workers in those institutions who would love to love the children under their care. But there would be no one committed to that child in the full personal way that a parent is. There's no substitute for that.
It's just not ever the same. I tell you that every child yearns to have that kind of love. Love of a father. Love of a father and mother. Sadly, there are many children whose fathers do not love them.
They may provide for them like orphanages do. Often they do not even that. But they do not love the child with that loving commitment that we all yearn for. Someone who really cares. Who really looks out for you.
And who truly is out for your best interests. We must not let the failure of earthly fathers color the way we look at fatherhood. That's very, very important. Many have had struggles with their fathers.
But we must not let that color the way we look at what fatherhood ought to be. Because we all know what a good father ought to be. Someone who is stronger and wiser and more loving than you are. And one who has, because that one has matured and you're just starting out.
And one who uses his strength and his wisdom and his love for you. And who is committed to you. Fully committed to you. He may not always do what you think is best at the time. But he is someone who knows what is best.
And who is committed to doing what is best. And will do what is best. We yearn for someone like that in our lives. And we're very blessed when we have someone like that. And I tell you, that God is like that.
God is a father like that. More than anyone could even possibly be. Because he is our divine heavenly father. He's so near to us. He's so involved with us. He's so wise. He's so strong. He's perfect in his love.
God the father is all that a father ought to be. He is the original father. He is the eternal father. He's always been a father before we were even created. He was father to his eternal son. And it is interesting that in the New Testament, especially in John's Gospel, Jesus presents God the father as a father who is always giving.
Have you ever noticed that? That's the way Jesus talks about the father so often. He loves his son and he gives all things to him, Jesus said in John 13. He delights in his son and gives him praise. Matthew 17 5.
And he is the father who gives his son to us. John 3 16. He so loved the world that God did what he gave. Jesus, his son, speaks of the sheer delight that he has had for all eternity being a son of this father.
And he speaks of how he can't wait to return to him in John 17. He wants to go back where he was before from the foundation of the world. He is a son longing to go home to his father. John 14 28. So whatever perversions there are in earthly fathers, God the father is the original father and in him there are no perversions whatsoever.
He dearly loves his son and his son dearly loves him. And if anyone was ever strong and wise in their loving of their son, and so that one would be God. The one that the son can entirely and always count on that will never, ever, ever fail.
God the father is that one. The marvelous love that John tells us to behold here. Behold, that's what we're doing. Behold what manner of love. Look at it. Look at this love that we should be called the sons of God.
It is one thing for Jesus to be called the son of God because he is that by nature. He has always been God's son. And in that sense, the one that God can be the I'm sorry. And in the sense that one can can be God's son who is also God.
In other words, that's he's the only one that can be an eternal son. He's the only one that can have the intimacy is God and to God. It's different than man to God. But you see, God does not have a material substance like we have.
He is he's on a whole different plane of existence, but there is between him and his son, a relationship that is like the human relationship between a father and son and is part of God's very being. Then is one God to have within himself God, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons and two of them being father and son.
This is the way that he is from all eternity. He doesn't have his son come from him later in time as someone that was born later on that kind of thing like it is with early fathers. But you see, he has in a divine way what we have here in a human way is a reflection of it is a picture of it.
But for this loving father, the same father that Jesus had for all eternity to take us as his sons, that that is unfathomable love. We are mere creatures and not natural sons as creatures were vastly inferior to him.
And yet he takes us as his sons. And of course, when he calls us his sons, it means that we really are his sons, that he has adopted us for him to take those as children who are so inferior to him, especially when he was completely or was complete with his own son.
He didn't need a son. We already had his son. But this is an act of amazing love. I think you would say perfectly. I'm good. I've got all all that that I need. He does. But in his great love, he took others as sons.
That's not all, though. He has also taken us as sons, even though we rejected him. It is not just that we are creatures and inferior, but even more that we are ungrateful, sinful, rebellious creatures.
We were created as servants in a right standing with him. But we rejected him as our God and our master and Lord. I don't think we should say that we were created as sons. We were at that time created as servants.
And if we had fulfilled righteousness and loyalty to him and under testing, we would have been adopted as sons. But we would have been actually justified. We were we were righteous when we were made. There was no no sin in us.
But if we had continued in under testing, then we would have been justified as those who were loyal to him and also received then permanently as his sons forever. But during the servant stage, when we were tested and tried in our loyalty, we utterly failed.
It was the height of ingratitude and perversion for this. He justly kicked us out of the garden. He came to rebuke us. He cursed the earth, which he had made for us, and he sentenced us to death and hell.
It is enough that he justify us, as I have already said, it's unbelievable that he would do that, that he should so love us that he would give his son to die on the cross for us and to be our righteousness that he might restore us as servants to him.
But that he has gone far beyond that and made us his sons. What can we say to this? Behold, what manner of love the father has bestowed on us, on us, that we should be called the sons of God. He is totally, he is now totally committed to us as our father.
He has taken us as full members of his household. You have a place at his table forever. This is your home. This is marvelous beyond all understanding. The wise, strong, loving father of Jesus Christ is now our father.
If we are in Jesus Christ, it can be very intimidating to be a son who is so cut off and so ostracized from him to be brought into his house. And you're I don't even know if I want to go. How can I bear that?
You see, but but his grace is so great that he welcomes us into his house. He comforts us. He assures us of our acceptance. And we're going to see next week that he also sanctifies us. You now have then what every child wants.
A place where you belong. A strong, wise, loving father who is totally committed to you forever and will do everything that needs to be done to bring you to be all that you are called to be as his son.
He will not err. He will do it. He knows how to do it, and he will do it. How marvelous it is then to have God this strong, wise, loving father is your father. Let me show you some of the benefits of having him as your father.
It gives you complete security. If God is your father, he's looking after you. You have no need to worry. No need to be afraid. No need to be anxious about anything. I said in my prayer that God delights in a meek and quiet spirit.
What is that talking about? Talking about one that is meek toward God, that's yielded toward him and just trusts him like a little child. God's going to take care of it. I don't have to worry. I trust my father.
That brings pleasure to God. He wants his children to be like that. This father is one who is so committed to you, so strong and wise, and he will not allow anything to harm you. Do you think anything can get by him?
Nothing. I would like to show you how closely committed he is to us as his people. Look at Psalm 139 for a moment. Do you know this Psalm? Do you remember this Psalm? Psalm 139. This is a Psalm that speaks about how God knows everything and everything about us.
In the first four verses, it says that he searches us and knows us and that he even knows all of our inmost thoughts. What you're thinking inside is that intimate. And he also knows even what you're about to say.
He knows everything. So listen to verses one through four. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought of far off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue, something you're getting ready to say, but behold, oh Lord, you know it all together. And then in verses seven through 12, it goes on to say that we can never get out from under God's sight.
It doesn't matter if we go into the highest heaven or if we go into the deepest sea or if we go into the darkest blackness, God still knows all about us. We can't go away from him. Jonah learned that, didn't he?
And then in verses 13 through 16, it says that God even knew all about us and about our future when we were being formed in the womb. He had all of our days already before his eyes. This is our God. Now there are three ways that we can look at this intimate knowledge.
I mentioned before, it can be very intimidating. We can look at it, though, and marvel at the way we would marvel, first of all, in a very mechanical way. We can look at it like God is a supercomputer, you know?
We can say, wow, God has all that data. You know, he knows everything. Isn't that remarkable that someone could know so much? It is. But to do that is to forget that God is a holy God and a personal God, that he hates sin and he loves righteousness and that he has relationship with his people.
So when we have that sense of him as a holy personal God, then we can become terrified and even resentful of the fact that he knows all of our thoughts, that he's looking at us all the time and he sees all the bad stuff, everything he sees.
You don't even want anybody else to do that and he's God who is holy. That is not a comfortable thing and it's very intimidating and we can be bothered that he pays so much attention to us. The French philosopher Sartre found God's gaze embarrassing and terrifying.
He described God as a cosmic voyeur that was peeking through a keyhole at us all the time and he sees everything that we do and that made him very uncomfortable and it should make him uncomfortable. We're sinners, aren't we?
But you see, that's not the way that Psalm 139 looks at this knowledge as it's presented to us. How does it look at it? If you see God as a loving father who is committed to you, no matter what you are, then this intimate knowledge that he has of us is a very precious thing.
As it says in verse 17, how precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How great is the sum of them. That's a very different perspective, isn't it? God is watching me all the time and it's precious.
Why? Because he's committed to me. It is precious because it represents his tender care and his dedication to us as a father. He knows all about us because he cares. He's constantly caring for us, protecting us, providing for our every need, planning everything.
We find that when we're awake, as verse 18 says, having been oblivious to God, we were fast asleep. He was there the whole time watching. He's there. We find it still with him in the day that he has not left us.
He will never leave or forsake us. Look at the things that it means for him to be so intimate with us in all of our ways. It means, according to this psalm, that he is protecting us. Verse 5, you have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me.
This is a hedge of protection. He protects us constantly from what is in front of us and from what is behind us. He sees it all. He has laid his gracious hand upon us to uphold us. Nothing can by any means hurt us or get by his watchful eye.
We need to remember that. You remember that Satan complained to God that you've put a hedge around Job and I can't mess with him the way I want to. Satan would do all kinds of stuff to us. Now, you remember that God let Satan loose on Job with restraints that God arranged.
And in the end, in God's wisdom, Job came out knowing God more than he ever had before. It was all designed by God. Satan was actually a tool that God used to accomplish that. It secondly means that he is leading us and upholding us.
It's in verse 10. Even there, talking about the place of darkness where he sees us, your hand shall lead me. God can lead us in the darkness as well as in the light. Your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.
Now, wherever we are, he is always there to lead us. His right hand refers to his strength, which it means that he has planned.
Everything written in his book. All planned out for us.
And that. His story unplugged here. It means that he's planned out all that concerns us in advance. Verse 16 says that our days were written in his book. All planned out for us with loving, intimate care.
Not even a sparrow falls without him. How thankful we should be for his careful attention of us. And now I want you to look at how the psalmist calls upon God as the one who has his loving eyes upon us all day long.
In verse 19, he prays that God will deal with his enemies. He knows that God loves him and is looking out for him. And so he says, Oh, that you would slay the wicked. Oh, God, depart from me. Therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
In other words, he's saying you better not mess with me because my daddy's looking out for me and you're going to be in big trouble if you do anything to me. He says, depart from me. Get away, you bloodthirsty men.
God will deal with the devil. God will deal with the world. God will deal with an abusive parents. God will, with abusive parents. God will deal with bloodthirsty dictators. You can fully trust him to do what is best for you because you are his child.
You say, why doesn't he do it right away? God has his purposes. We have to, in this world, go through much tribulation in order to prepare us to live in God's house. He knows what he's doing and it's all going to be brought together.
And then in the end of the psalm, verses 23 through 24, he asked God to search his heart for two things. Look at what they are. Very instructive. God, look at, look at me. You're looking at me. You know everything about me.
Look at this, Lord, to know his anxieties. You need to ask your heavenly father to search out all that insecurity in you. All that you, the insecurity that you have so that he can help you to have that strong trust and that quiet rest that I talked about.
Because we don't have it so well, do we? Remember in Psalm 131 how it talks about that I've quieted my soul. I had to learn to do that. It's not something that we just automatically do. We have to grow in our relationship with God and our confidence of him.
We say, Lord, look at me. I'm insecure. I'm not trusting you. I'm worried. I'm fretting. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what's going to happen. And we present ourselves to God. Say, Lord, look, you know about this.
Lord, look, help me. And he will freely come and help us. The second thing the psalmist asked him to do is search out any wickedness that is in him. God loves you as a father. And it is good to ask him to show you the wrong that is in you.
Say, I don't want to do that. No, you do want to do that. You ought to want to do it. It's a good thing for you to see the things that are not right because you're going to be much better if there's no sin in you.
You say, but I like some of my... That's one of the problems. That's one of the sins that needs to be brought out. As a loving father, he wisely and gently corrects us and he leads us from glory to glory.
We have to do that with our children, don't we? If they like something that is sinful and it's not good, we have to work with them to help them to see that that's not good and to overcome that. Sometimes we might have a hard time doing that because we kind of think it looks appealing too.
We need God's help. We come to our father and we say, Lord, help me. This is not good. If you know him as father, you will be glad that he knows all about you because that means that he can lead you and guide you to a better place.
And that brings us to the next wonderful thing that is true when you have God as your father. You have in your father unlimited resources. Having God as your father means that you can come to him for help.
That is one of the great benefits of having a father who loves you, is it not? A place you can go. You say, I don't know where to go. I don't know where to turn. People say that. Here's a place to turn.
You can come to him whenever you need help and you can be sure that he will receive you and that he will help you. Now, he may not always help you in the way that you want because like I was just saying, there's a lot of stuff we've got to learn.
We have to do that with our kids sometimes. Say, go figure it out. When they get older, we want them to go and figure out what to do and how to handle a situation. They say, come back and let's talk about it after you see how it went today.
And I love that when kids get a certain age and they start wanting to figure things out. You know, I've been wasting too much time. I say, what are you going to do about it? And they say, well, I think I'll try.
Yeah, go try that. And they come back and they talk about it and you see them starting to take those steps. This passage is telling us how God's spirit works in us. Romans 8, it says, let's take a look at Romans 8, I should say, and you can see that this is definitely true about God, that he's ready to help us.
This passage is telling us how God's spirit works in us to help us to die to sin and to live to God. That's a difficult and painful process. Having your sin purged out of you is never easy. It's something that we naturally try to avoid.
But in the middle of all the talk about this, we're told that one of the things that the spirit does as he works in us is cause us to see that God is our daddy. In Romans 8, 14 to 15, it says, for as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. It's not the thing that God is doing here by giving you the spirit to put you in bondage and fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba or daddy, father.
It is not as if the father is standing over you like a taskmaster. It is rather that he is there as your daddy to guide you and help you and lead you. And the spirit gives us this sense of sonship, is what this passage is talking about, so that we know that he is our father in this intimate way.
Not a harsh father, but a father that is there to pick us up and to guide us and to lead us and to help us in every way. This is marvelous. God is there as your loving father, completely accessible for you that you might call upon him.
No father loves like God the father. No father has resources like God the father to help you. No father has strength and power like God the father. And no father has wisdom like God the father. And you go on, as you go on as a Christian, the spirit helps you to see more and more that your father in heaven is there as your daddy that you can always go to and that is always out to help you, who is always out to help you.
My dear brothers and sisters, if only we could see this more clearly, how much it would help us. Too often we live our lives as if we have no father in heaven who loves us as his children. We do not call on him in our time of need.
Everything's going wrong, and we say, I don't know where to turn. And when we do call on him, we do not trust him. And that hinders our prayers. And when he answers, we do not trust him in what he chooses to do.
We don't like the way he answered it. As James says, we ask for wisdom, and then we're double-minded. What is James talking about there? He said, oh Lord, do what is needed to give me wisdom. And then God sends some trials to give us wisdom.
We say, what are you doing? Right, we're double-minded. Did you want the wisdom or not? You ask for it. And I don't mean that he does that in a harsh way, but that's the way that he has to guide us into understanding that.
So what do we do, though? We stop calling upon him. I'm not going to call upon him if he's going to do that. I don't want that. This is so very sad because we have such resources in him, such care, such help, and we act like orphans that don't have anyone to help us.
What power and help is available for us to grow in godliness, and what power and help is available to help us to reach our loved ones? Your prayer life needs to change. So stop acting like an orphan who has no place to go when you have a father in heaven.
Start praying to him as a father who loves you dearly and who knows what to do and who has the power to do what needs to be done and the commitment. And this leads us to the next great privilege of having God as our father.
If you have such a father that you can come to in your time of need, it gives you beautiful hope. Part of being a son involves having an inheritance, right? As the father of the prodigal son said to his older son, you have an inheritance.
Everything I have is yours. That's what he said to the older son. And you see still in Romans there, in Romans 8, 17, it says, and if we're children, then heirs. You know, there's those that inherit. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. As heirs with Christ, and it means that all that the father has is ours. God would say, what is mine is yours. This is yours as my child.
But why does it tack on that bit that we're heirs? You don't like that bit it's tacked on. If indeed we suffer with him that we also may be glorified together. We kind of rather, let's take that part off.
I'm happy to have everything, but don't leave that part on. That's because of what I told you before. We must die to sin, and that's a hard business. And in order to die to sin, we got to have hard things.
It's got to be the way that is rooted out of us. The Bible never pretends that the path from here to our inheritance is an easy one. In fact, Paul, as I mentioned to you not long ago, he went out of his way over and over to go back to the churches that he had been to and to tell them that you enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation.
You're going to have a lot of things that you'll have to bear and a lot of things that you'll have to suffer if you're going to enter the kingdom of God. It's part of what he is doing here now. You don't have to understand it all, but you need to grow in your trust of him that he knows exactly what he's doing.
You don't want a coach that, when you go to do some kind of, maybe you're doing soccer or something like that, you don't want a coach that tells you, okay, just go over here, take it easy, sit down. Here's a lounge chair.
That's what you do at practice. You want him to get you up, get you running, get you doing exercises, strengthening your muscles, doing all the things that you need to do. And that's the kind of thing that we're talking about.
The Bible then makes no pretense about that it would be easy. It tells us that if we're going to be heirs of Christ, then we will suffer in order that we may be glorified with him. So now think of this, an heir of Christ, glorified with him.
That's a totally amazing and incredible hope. Heirs with Christ, glorified with Christ. We really are sons. We're full heirs with Jesus Christ, joint heirs with him. This hope is guaranteed to us. It is certain.
Because we're sons of God through Jesus Christ, he will see to it that we obtain this inheritance. I love what Jesus says in John 17 and verses 22 through 23. He says,. And the glory which you gave me, I have given them, talking about us as sons, that they may be one just as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one and the world may know that you sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
Do you see that? As sons, he loves you even as he loves his own divine son, Jesus Christ. You are part of the family of God. And do you know what is true of sons as compared to servants? Jesus tells us about that in John 8.
Remember years ago when I was studying about adoption and this really clicked at that time. In John 8 .35 Jesus says,. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. He's a permanent part of God's house.
We are truly part of the family and will never be cast out. We are loved as Jesus is loved. That's why earlier I said I think it's important not to think that we were sons when we were first created. Servants of God, but not yet sons.
Now as sons, you can't be cast out. That's why it's different. You could be cast out in the first covenant, but now in the new covenant when we're brought in by justification to Christ, we have perfect righteousness.
We're made sons because it's permanent. You can't be kicked out now. Jesus says that he yearns for us to see this great love that's in this house. He's waiting for us to come into the house so he can see what it's like because it's a great place.
You can picture this with a, say if there was a child at school and maybe he had another kid there that his parents were going to adopt and he had a really great family. He saw this kid had all this mess in his life.
He said, Oh, I can't wait for you to come to my house. I can't wait for you to come and live there because he's going to see people loving each other and things like that that he's never seen before. And this is what Jesus says.
Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me for you loved me before the foundation of the world. You're going to see the love between the father and his son when we get to that house more than we've ever seen it here even.
He also wants to bring us to his house so that we can start loving with that love so that you can start loving the way you ought to love. And this is such a great thing too. We come very short of this now, but when we enter the father's house in glory, we will not only see and delight in the beautiful love that's there in that house, but we'll actually exercise that love.
I mean that it will be something we'll be loving with that same love. This is really marvelous. Verses 25 and 26. O righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me, and I have declared to them your name and will declare that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them.
Jesus came so that we could come and live in his family as his sons, the sons of God. This is your hope as God's child. You will truly, you truly belong there and you will be there. You will fit there.
John sums this up in our text. First John 3, 2 when he says, behold, now we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him and we shall see him as he is.
Do you see here the two things that Jesus spoke about in John 17? As children of God, we're going to see him as he is. We're going to see that love that he has. There is between the father and the son that he had with the father before the world was formed.
And when we see him, we will be like him. The love that is in the father and the son will be in us as God's son. This is the glorious hope that we all have as God's children. Paul tells us in Romans 8 that the sufferings we have to go through, the stuff that I said was a part like, why does that have to be tacked on?
Paul says that that part, those sufferings that we go through now as we die to sin in this world, do not compare with the glory. That price of the hard things that you're enduring right now, whatever they are, however hard they are.
Paul says that's going to be a very small price when you get the return that is promised to you of being in that house forever. Tells us right here in Romans 8. He says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be conquered with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
If anyone says Paul doesn't know what it is to suffer, you better read the New Testament. He had so much suffering. And he says, it's going to be more than worth it because God is preparing me to live in his house this way.
He's bringing me out of sin. So how should you respond to this wonderful news? Well, how should it affect you to know that this heavenly father of yours who has all these resources and all this love and this commitment is bringing you to live in his house forever?
It ought to fill you with longing that stirs up prayer and thanksgiving in you. Kind of talked about that this morning, didn't we? That when we see the mercy, God being so merciful, it stirs us up to ask for mercy when we see this hope and what we're going to.
He's going to bring us in his house. You should stir us up to seek that that you might become all that the father promises to make you. Right, that you might be one of trusting in him who sees his love and one who is loving without love.
This is also summed up beautifully in our text is in 1 John 3, three where John says and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. So plead with him that that love will start developing that it will grow up in you stronger and stronger that it will show up more and more in you.
Instead of being that that bucket of selfish desires that you are, that you'll be that bucket of full love for God and for others that is so much more lovely. Beautiful love that gives the way your daddy gives to you.
Trust your God to do this work in you and for you. Call upon him rejoicing in his love and trust in him that he knows what to do. You are his child and he loves you. All his resources are at your disposal.
Nothing can go wrong when God is your father. Nothing. Please stand and let's pray. Oh, Lord, our God, we come to you with gratitude. We come to you with joy and delight for you have made us your own children.
You have called us, oh, Lord, to be part of your family forever and ever. And I pray, Lord, that we would find great hope and delight from that. And Lord, we know that as a father, that you are forever committed to us, that you will never forsake your children, that though our parents may not love us and they may cast us off, that you will never cast us off.
We thank you and praise you, Lord, that even when we sin against you, that you will come to us and you will deal with us. You will chasten us and you will restore us like a good father. We thank you, Lord, even as we mentioned today, the Psalm 105 and 106, that 106 talks about how you just kept coming back to your people and coming back to them again and again and again and doing all the things that are described also in Psalm 105.
But 106 shows what we were doing and what we were doing was continually departing and questioning and doubting and going away from you and turning to sin and all the rest of it. And what you are doing is going on, just carrying out your plans concerning us and bringing us to the place that you have appointed for us to be, which is right in your house, a son in your house with your son forever and ever.
I pray that you would give us a trust and confidence, that you would give us a greater desire for what you have held out to us, that we would have this hope in us and that having that hope that we would purify ourselves even as you are pure as Christ is pure, that truly, oh Lord, you would help us to grow and that we would count the sufferings that are in this world as a very little thing compared to the glory that is to come.
Lord, we thank you and we praise you and we look to you in joyous hope. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's sing Psalm 26b. 26b. The habitation of your house to me is a delight. Daddy's house is a delight to me.
I don't want to be in the house of the wicked because that's not a delightful place at all and therefore we look to him for his blessing. Receive the blessing of our God. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and our God and Father who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work and I add establish you as his children.
Amen.