Sermons

Introduction

Well, that seemed like a very appropriate hymn. I'm glad to be with you this morning. I am glad that you are here with us. It has been – it's probably an understatement – it's been a difficult week for all of us. It has been an emotional week. It has been sobering, to say the least. There have been a lot of questions, and there's probably going to be a lot more questions. And speaking as an elder to you right now, the only questions that are important at this point concern us as a church, as a local body, and how we will move together forward from this. 

Marilyn and I had the privilege on Thursday evening to meet with the young adults. It was meet the elder night. It was the same day that all the information became public. And I'm going to repeat my comments that I said that evening to the young adults. 

When this church was founded in January of 2018, in order to be a New Testament church, we were charged with doing three things. Number one, we needed to faithfully preach the word. We've done that from the very beginning, verse by verse. We've done that to the best of our ability. Different men have filled the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, including the elders. The Holy Spirit has always knit these sermons together, and we have all been blessed. We will continue to do this as we move forward. 

The reason that this is of most importance is because God's word with the ministry of the Holy Spirit is what transforms lives. It's the only thing that transforms lives. The power is in God's word. God's word is living and active, and every believer knows this. Not only are we blessed in this congregation to have the word preached well from the pulpit every Sunday, I can tell you that this church is blessed from the nursery to the adult class with all the Sunday school teachers that faithfully preach the word every Sunday. 

The second thing that we are charged to do is to observe the ordinances: baptism, the public proclamation of what God has done in the life of the believer. The Lord's Supper, we're going to observe it at the end of today, at the end of this service. We are to observe the Lord's Supper often because we are fickle. We forget. We can never forget the price that the Lord Jesus Christ paid for the salvation of His people, and we are charged to proclaim that until He comes again. 

The third thing we are to do as a New Testament church is we are to practice church discipline. God is a God of order, He is holy. And if we are to be His people, we are called to be holy. 

Matt and I have been going through the first pastoral epistle, Paul's letter to 1 Timothy, and the key verse in that entire first epistle is what Paul writes in chapter 3, verse 15, where he says, "But in case I, Paul, am delayed, I write so to you, Timothy, that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar in support of the truth." Just like parents who love a child, the Lord disciplines His children. He disciplines His children because He loves them. He wants the best for them. He disciplines His children because He's preparing us for heaven. 

And so, remembering all that, I'm here to tell you this morning that the Lord is still on His throne. If you came to see a man this morning, I hope that's the God-man. I hope that's the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of His church. The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of this church. And so with that, I would love for you to turn with me to Psalm 19, and we're going to continue to do what we always do. This is a Psalm of David. It's a beautiful Psalm. It's instructive. It's so theological. It's so rich. I want you to follow along as I read this aloud. 

"For the choir director. A Psalm of David. The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them; and there is nothing hidden from its heat. 

Verse 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." Let's pray. 

[Prayer] Dear Heavenly Father, what a joy it is to gather with Your people on a Sunday morning to sit at the feet of Your word. I pray, Lord, that Your word would go forth with power. And I pray, Lord, that the ministry of the Holy Spirit would apply it to each and every one of our hearts. Lord, we know what we are. We know our shortcomings. We know our sin. We know our frame. And, Lord, we look to You to again work upon us, transform us. We desire to be more like Your Son the Lord Jesus Christ. And, Lord, for those who do not believe, who do not know You, we pray that Your word would go forth and work on the heart, that it would drop the scales from the eyes, and that You would cause repentance and faith. Lord, we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. [End] 

If you have been here at Trinity Bible for any length of time, you've probably heard portions of this psalm, Psalm 19. Specifically, I know Matt and I have taught portions of it in the Adult Sunday School when discussing the revelation of God. This morning I want to step back and pull back a little bit further from that and I want us to try to consider this psalm holistically. What does the entire psalm say? What does it mean to you and me if we are believers today? C. S. Lewis called Psalm 19 the greatest psalm in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world. 

The Revelation of God In The World

This psalm breaks naturally into three parts. The first six verses is "the revelation of God in the world." Verses 7 through 11, "the revelation of God in the word." And then verses 12 through 14 is "the responsibility of man" or, you could say, "the response of man." 

We are told that David is the author of the psalm. We do not know the occasion for the psalm of why David specifically wrote this psalm. It's obviously inspired. It has been suggested that it was one of those days and nights that David had spent in the open, under the open sky, possibly tending his father's sheep as a shepherd, exposed to all the elements, laying in an open field. Whatever the occasion, David is gazing at the heavens that are above and he's in awe of the One who had the ability to create all that he could see. David is beholding God's creation, but not just for what the creation is, its beauty and its wonder, but what it proclaims about the Creator. He's going beyond just what he sees. 

I want you to notice, as we look at these verses, how David describes God's creation. The creation, David says, shouts of who God is, of His power, of His divine design. It declares His sovereignty, but there are no words that come forth from the creation. And this declaration of who God is, it's not audible. You can't hear it, there's not a sound. This declaration is not for the ear, it's for the eye. It's to be beholded. And thus, the creation speaks both to the wise and the simple, to the literate and the illiterate. The creation is the revelation of God to all, regardless of the circumstances of their life. 

Verse 1, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse" – their sky – "is declaring the work of His hands." The vastness of the skies, both day and night, reveal the glory of God. They stretch further than the mind can grasp. In the day, we see the sun, we see the clouds, and we see the endless blue that accompanies the day. And yet the starry skies and the moons and the celestial bodies even reveal more at night if you're ever able to get away from the city and all the light pollution in the city. And it's even better if you can get to a higher elevation. 

The stars multiply in the heavens. They are so bright that they almost seem like they're coming out and jumping out at you out of the sky. There are billions of them. Man invents tools to look deeper into the skies, deeper into the heavens, deeper to find the edge of the universe; and the further that man looks, the bigger the universe gets. Man can't get to the end of the universe because the universe declares that there is no end to the Creator, God. 

I need to pause here for a second and I need to tell you that as David is telling us about creation, it is only the eyes of the redeemed, it is only the eyes of the regenerated, it's only the eyes of the believer who can see God in creation and marvel at what He has done. Only the believer marvels at the Creator in the creation. The believer has been given a God-given spiritual lens, if you will, a supernatural filter that comes with a new birth that allows him to view the world around him in the context of the One who made it. 

It's the mark of being in Christ, a new creature in Christ. It's an awe when you are born again of what God has done. The believer sees in the world God's handiwork. The believer knows that God spoke the world into existence. You don't have to flip there, but you know how the Bible starts, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 3, only God can do this by divine fiat, speaking the world into existence: "Let there be light," and there is light. The one without God, the unbeliever, can wonder at the creation, he can behold it, but he will never understand it. The unbeliever views creation; he worships creation because he cannot fathom the One who actually created it. 

Flip with me to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. Hold your finger in Psalm 19. This is the unbeliever. This is what the unbeliever sees when he sees the creation. Romans 1, starting in verse 20. 

Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." Man is without excuse because the creation screams to everyone. 

Verse 21, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools," – and here it is, verse 23 – "and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of a corruptible man or of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." This is the man without Christ. This is the man that has no understanding. 

Flip back to Psalm 19:2, "Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.: Just as Paul said, the day and the night reveal God's invisible attributes. The fact that the day is the same length every day, the sun rises in the same place, it shows that God has eternal power. It tells everything about a God who has kept everything in order. 

Verse 3, "There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard." Again, the creation is a declaration of what has happened. It is what God has done. It is what the eyes can see, but it's not for the ear to hear. It is for everyone. 

About two weeks ago, I took a selfie, and I can hear my daughter saying right now, "You're too old to take a selfie." And I took a selfie on a mountaintop in Switzerland, and behind me the view was stunning. It was so stunning that it almost looked fake. Some of you have probably seen the picture. When I shared the picture, these are the responses that I got: "Wow, that's amazing! Unreal! Incredible! Literally, insane!" There were no words in the picture, it was God's creation, and it was the testimony that the picture gave of who God is and what He has done. 

Verse 4, "Their line" – the ESV says, "Their voices" – "have gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world." The testimony of creation that God gives is inescapable. It's undeniable. Wherever man is, there he can see. Wherever man can exist, there he can see what God has done in creation. 

In this sense, the testimony of creation that it gives about God, it's omnipresent, it's everywhere. You cannot escape it. And because you cannot escape it, all men are accountable that they have seen what the One has created. And so, man, because he has seen creation, cannot deny the One who has created it. It's responsibility. 

At the end of verse 4, "In them He placed a tent for the sun," – verse 5 – "which as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices as a strong man to run his course." You can picture David out in the open. Whether it's a military campaign, whether it's tending his father's sheep, you can picture him watching in the field the night disappear into the day and the sun appearing on the horizon as it begins to march across the sky. 

In that Judean desert, there are no trees. You can imagine the brilliance of the sun as it rises into the sky. It casts its light on everything, giving everything warmth and light. It is bold. It is strong. David uses the imagery of a groom, a bridegroom who's made himself ready in his chamber to go get his bride. He leaves his chamber with enthusiasm, with anticipation, with eagerness. The sun is pictured as a strong man, a mighty man, a brave man that runs his course, that's ready to run his course in his strength. 

Verse 6, "Its rising as from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them; and there is nothing hidden from its heat." The sun runs – as we are very familiar, specifically in the summer here – the sun runs across the entire sky. It starts on one end of the heavens and it goes to the other. Its heat bears down upon everything. 

Again, when you think of the sun, when you think of what God has done, when you think of the days and how God has ordered the seasons, nothing can escape its presence and nothing cannot see what God has done. The picture of the sun marching across the sky day after day, its timing, gives testimony to the fact that God is sovereign, that He has all power, and He does it because He is good. We can't have the life we have without how God has prepared this world. 

This is God's creation. It's called His general revelation. As a result of His general revelation, all men are accountable to worship the Creator. Man is left without excuse. However, the creation is insufficient in the fact that it does not give the knowledge of God, specifically the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are to believe in Him, which is necessary for salvation. Creation holds all men accountable, but it does not tell us who the Lord Jesus Christ is, what is needed for salvation. 

The Revelation Of God In The Word

The second point, verses 7 through 11: "The revelation of God in the word." David turns, at this point in the psalm, from the work of creation to God's word, which reveals the only way of salvation through Christ. Charles Spurgeon said this: "He is wisest who reads both the world book creation and the word book, the Holy Scriptures, as two volumes of the same work, and feels concerning them, 'My Father wrote both of them.'" 

David was a student of both these books. David joins both these books together in this psalm. In verses 7 through 9, David uses a pattern. He gives nouns, he gives synonyms – a few words, six of them – to describe God's word. He says God's written word is His law, His testimony, His precepts, His commandment, His fear, His judgments. Then he uses six adjectives to describe God's word in these verses: perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true. And then David uses verbs to tell what God's word does, what it accomplishes, what it accomplishes in the life of the believer: it restores the soul, it makes wise the simple, it rejoices the heart, it enlightens the eyes, it endures forever, it is righteous altogether. 

So, let's put this together. Verse 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." The word here for "law" is Torah in the Hebrew. It represents all of God's word. I want to stop you. There's something so critical in the psalm that has taken place between verses 1 through 6 and 7 through 11, and it's the name that David uses for God. 

Go back to verse 1: "The heavens are telling of the glory of God." The word for "God" there is El, the Creator, El. But now in verse 7 and for the rest of the psalm, the word that David uses for God is "the Lord." Specifically, it's "YHWH." It's the tetragrammaton. It's Y-H-W-H. It's how God revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14, "I AM WHO I AM," both self-existent and eternal. This is the name of the covenant-keeping God. The Lord Jesus Christ in John's gospel referred to Himself as "I am": "I am the good shepherd." The believer, if you are a believer, that's how you know the Lord. You know Him as Lord; and it's so important. David goes from almost, if you will, a general name of God to the personal name of God that all believers know Him as. 

Verse 7, "The law of the Lord" – YHWH – "is perfect, restoring" – the ESV says, "reviving" – "the soul." God's word is perfect, meaning it's whole, it's complete, it lacks nothing. 

I want to go to another verse to show you what God's word accomplishes. Go to 2 Timothy 3, you know the verse, 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 16. God's word, the law of the Lord, is perfect, and this is the effect that it has: "It restores the soul. It revives the soul." Paul writes to Timothy this way in 2 Timothy 3, 16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness," – here it is, verse 17 – "so that the man of God may be adequate," – and the meaning of that word "adequate" is "complete" and "perfect," just as the law the of the Lord is – "equipped for every good work." 

Go back to Psalm 19, it restores: "The law of the Lord restores" – or revives – "the soul." The picture of the Hebrew word there means "to turn back to." God's word turns us back to God. It restores the soul. For the believer, God's word recalibrates us back to God. It brings us out of the temporal and it tunes our heart to God and the eternal. 

You're living your life. You're doing all the things you have to do in this mundane life: you're working, you're going to the grocery store, you're taking care of your kids; and the mind wanders. And you read God's word and it's like a tuning fork, and it just recalibrates you to the Lord – who you are in the Lord, what the Lord has called you to do. That's what David is saying. 

The second half of verse 7, "The testimony of the Lord is sure," – it is faithful, it is confirmed, it is a pillar – "making wise the simple." The word of the Lord imparts spiritual wisdom even to the foolish, the simple, and the naive. If you want true wisdom, study God's word; it far exceeds what this world calls as wisdom. What the world labels as wisdom is foolishness. God's word is what is eternal. It is what stands. 

Verse 8, "The precepts of the Lord are right," – meaning they're straight, they're correct, they're upright – "rejoicing the heart." It makes what David is saying is that the precepts, the statutes of the Lord, what they cause in the believer is they give a joy. And the heart here represents the inner man. It represents the thought, the mind, the heart, the will. The believer has a joy, a God-given joy, regardless of the circumstances that you are going through in this life that transcends all of that. 

Let me say it this way. If you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the peace of God that reigns in your life, and as a result of that, you have a joy that the world cannot comprehend. It doesn't matter what they do to you; if you know that you're going to spend eternity with God in heaven, you have a joy. 

David continues, "The commandment of the Lord is pure," – it's clean, it doesn't have impurity – "enlightening the eyes." It illumines spiritually. It gives understanding. It shines a light upon the path that you and I are to walk as believers, this path that we walk with the Lord. The eyes are our mental faculty. They represent our understanding. 

You don't have to turn there, you can write this down, you know the verse: Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." You want to know how you should live your life? You want to know what's best for your life? Read your Bible. Continue to read your Bible. Look to the Lord. Pray to the Lord. Trust in the Lord. He'll make it obvious to you. 

Verse 9, "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever." This is an awe, a reverence, a holy fear, a respect for the Lord. It's clean. It's pure. It endures forever just like the One whose word it is: the eternality of God. Proverbs 9:10 says this: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." 

I hope when you approach the Lord in His word, in your prayers, in your thoughts, that there is a reverence for the One who made you and the One who is not like you. This is not a casual relationship. We are going to bow down before Him forever and sing His praises for what He has done. This is the Almighty. 

"The judgments of the Lord are true," they're faithful, they're sure, they're stable, they're reliable. "The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether." When I read these verses, the result of the description of God's word, what God's word causes in the life of the believer, I always think of what this world desires. It wants joy. It wants peace. But they're seeking it in a way that they'll never be able to find it. 

You could say it this way, and I know you've heard it this way: man has a hole or an incomplete part of him as he comes from his mother's womb that only the Lord can satisfy, that only the Lord can fulfill because the Lord made man to be in fellowship with man. And if man is not in fellowship with God, he's going to do everything else – many of us have tried – everything else to fill that void. But the only thing that can fill that void is the Lord God Himself. He's the maker. He has made us for His purpose. And if we try to do anything else, it's not going to be successful. It doesn't work. 

Verse 10, God's word, "They are more desirable than gold, than much fine gold. They are sweeter than honey and the drippings of a honeycomb." The natural man seeks security in money, "If I just had enough money." He seeks security in gold. The natural man seeks the experiences of life. 

Have you ever met somebody that all they want to do is experience the next thing? That's represented in this passage by the honey. The honey appeals to the senses. It's sweet. It's pleasurable. It's, in that sense, desirable. If I had a hot piece of toast right now with some butter and honey at lunch, if you gave me some Asiago cheese and you drizzled it with honey, that's desirable. 

That's what the world wants. And David is saying – David the psalmist looks at the gold, he looks at the honey, and he says, "God's word is more desirable than anything that this world can offer." In David's mind, it's not even close. And for the believer, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that for both you and I, that God's word holds this same position in our lives. 

Verse 11, "Moreover, by them" – by God's word – "Your servant is warned." I love how David puts this. He looks at the Lord, he's talking to the Lord, and he calls himself a servant. That is our rightful place with the Lord. We're a slave. We're an unprofitable servant at best. There's a humility. We're a worshipper. God's word warns us, it admonishes us, it restrains us, it teaches us. 

He continues, in keeping God's word, "in keeping them, there is great reward." The rewards that he's talking about here are eternal. At the end of the age when we all stand before the Lord, it should be the desire of our heart. We should run the race, redeem the time that we have, so that when we stand before the Lord it would be the greatest thing that could ever be said to us if the Lord said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

The Responsibility And The Response Of Man

The last section, verses 12 through 14, "The responsibility and the response of man." God's revelation, both in His creation and His word, demand a response from all men. It demands a response. Are you going to believe it or not believe it? And when David, as a believer, as the one writing this, as one who has his heart after the Lord's heart, when he reads all this, he goes inward. When he considers all that the Lord has done and all that the Lord has said, it causes him to look at his own life and to examine his own life. 

I don't know if you realize this. If you ever meet a sports hero – as a young boy I had sports heroes – and you ever got the opportunity to stand in their presence and shake their hand, and they're taller, and they're more muscular, and they're more athletic, and what goes on in the mind is you look at that person and you go, "Wow," you may not even be aware you're doing this, "that person is so different from me." You know that comparison I'm talking about? 

Well, the believer, when he sees the Lord revealed on the pages of Scripture, when we see the Lord, there should be an immediate comparison: "He is altogether righteous and holy, the Almighty, the Eternal, and that is not me." And David looks inward and he looks at his own deficiencies to examine his own life and to see his own sin. 

Verse 12, "Who can discern his errors? Acquit me." Declare me innocent, Lord. Clear me. Free me. Empty me. "Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults." David turns to the Lord and asks of the Lord, the only person who can do this, that He would pardon him from his sin. Only the Lord can do that in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. And David is asking the Lord here for him to forgive David for sins that he is not even aware that he's committed. 

All of us have an awareness of ourselves, and all of us trample on other people's feet unaware. All of us do things that we're not even conscious of to other people. And David is saying, "Lord, forgive me for the sins that I don't even know about." 

Go one book back to Job, the beginning of Job. You see the same concept with Job. Job is a righteous man. Job has seven sons, three daughters. They were blessed. And in Job 1:4, the Scriptures say, "His sons" – all seven of them – "used to go and hold a feast in the house of each other on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, 'Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' Thus Job did continually." Job didn't even know if they had sinned. But we need to pray that the Lord would forgive us of things that we are not even conscious of. 

And then it gets to willful sins, verse 13, presumptuous sins: "And keep back," – David is asking the Lord to restrain him, to hold him back – "keep back your servant from presumptuous sins," – meaning arrogant, prideful, brazen, as if when somebody is flaunting their sin. Every once in a while we'll be in a situation where somebody will do something so out of bounds, so wrong, out in the open, it shocks you, and when you see it, it almost takes your breath away. David is saying, "Lord, hold me back from doing anything arrogant. Hold me back from doing anything out of pride." 

Flip forward to Hebrews chapter 4. When we think of sin and all that it encompasses, when we think of our own frame, it is sobering to realize who the Lord is and what He sees. Hebrews 4:12 all ties into this: "The word of the Lord is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of the soul and the spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight," – just like the sun – "all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." 

Earlier this week, Tim Posey reminded me of the story that if we were to play on this screen everything that has gone through my mind in the last 12 hours, I would be mortified. The Lord sees them. If everything was played up, you would leave the room. If we saw yours, we would ask you not to come into the room. But that's who we are. We're sinners. And David is saying, "Hold me back." David is saying, "Don't let them rule over me. Don't let them have dominion." Go back to verse 13, "Don't let them – I don't want to be a slave to them." 

Paul states the case real well in Romans. We are all slaves. We are all slaves. We're either slaves to sin and it is our cruel master; or we've been purchased, and we're slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ and we're spending our lives seeking to be righteous as He is righteous, asking Him to help us that we be righteous. 

David says, "then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted" – innocent – "of great transgression." David, you and I have only one that we can look to for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord Jesus Christ on the cross paid for all the sins of all His people for all times. Through imputation, He took our sin upon Him in exchange, part of the great exchange, He gave us His righteousness. That's the beauty of the gospel. That is salvation in a picture. We have a substitute: the Lord Jesus Christ. 

David concludes the psalm in verse 14: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight." We pray it often from this spot. The believer should have, as a desire in his heart, to live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. If not, there is an issue. If not, you need to ask yourself the question, "Who am I living for? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Who am I trying to please?" David is saying, "Let my mouth, let my heart, let my mind be acceptable to You." 

And then he ends with, "O Lord, my rock" – the One that is reliable, my stronghold, and then he says – "my Redeemer." Only the Lord can redeem. Only the Lord can purchase and save the souls of men. The word "my Redeemer" here has the idea of kinsmen redeemer in Israel. It's buying somebody out of the slave market of sin with a price. The Lord Jesus Christ is the kinsman redeemer, and the price that He has paid is His blood. This psalm doesn't specifically mention Him by name, but this psalm is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. The heavens, the earth, everything that was created was created by the second Person of the Trinity. 

Go to Colossians chapter 1, Colossians chapter 1. It's verse 16. This psalm points to everyone to the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:16. This whole section Paul is writing is about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, "For by Him" – Christ – "all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him."

Go to John 1:1, the prologue. It ties it all together for us, John 1:1. Actually, start in verse 3. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator. The second Person of the Trinity created all things. John 1:3, "All things came into being through Him," – Christ – "and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." That's creation. That's God's general revelation. 

Now, for God's special revelation, God's word, go back to verse 1. Look at how the written word describes the Lord Jesus Christ. It describes Him as the living Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Go to verse 14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." This is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 18, "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God" – the Lord Jesus Christ – "who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." This psalm points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. It points us to life. It points us to the One that we all owe worship to. 

‍Conclusion

And I guess the question at the end of the psalm as we finish this section, "Do you know Him? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He preeminent in your life? Are you a product of grace? When you wake up in the morning is one of the thoughts you have, 'Lord, I desire through the power of Your Spirit to be continued, to be transformed into the image of Your Son, and I desire to live in a way that's pleasing to You'?" That's what the believer does. And if that's not you, I pray that the scales would fall from your eyes and that you would look to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Having said that, we're going to go to the Lord's Supper. This is only for believers. This doesn't save. This will not do anything for you if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. As believers, as I stated earlier, it's one of the ordinances that the Lord has given us. And if you have the bread and the grape juice, I'm in 1 Corinthians 11. We do this often to remember what the Lord Jesus Christ did for His people. We do this to remember that the Eternal Son, the second Person of the Trinity, took on flesh – we just read it, John 1:14, "became flesh and dwelt among us." He took on flesh. He took on our frame. He took on everything to know our experience, save sin. He was perfectly righteous. He had to become like us so that He could die in our place. And that's what the bread represents, His body. 

The grape juice represents His blood. It's the blood of the new covenant. There is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. From the very beginning in Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God slew an animal to cover them. It was a blood sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ, as John said, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

So, Paul writes to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 11:23, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night that He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'" So let us take, as we proclaim believers, this bread which represents the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

[Prayer] Dear heavenly Father, we thank You that You sent Your Son to do something that we could not do. You sent Your Son to die for sinners like us. You sent Your Son to take on flesh that He might be the perfect sacrifice for Your people. [End] 

Verse 25, Paul writes, "In the same way, He" – Christ – "took the cup also after the supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.'" Let's take this together. 

[Prayer] Lord, we again thank You that the blood of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, covers our sin, and that when You look at Your people, You see us through Your Son, and we are acceptable in His righteousness. We thank You for that. [End] 

Well, in closing, I want to tell you, and I want to encourage you, once again, what I said at the beginning. This is the Lord's church. I could name the elders, I could name men who've taught here before. This isn't any of their church, this is the Lord's church. We are here to worship the Lord. The Lord is faithful. He will provide. We are to do what He has called us to do. We will continue to do that, and we will continue to trust that the Lord will lead us forward. With that, I tell you that you are dismissed, and it was wonderful being with you this morning.