The Lord God Will Give Grace and Glory

[0:00] Well now before we turn back to the scriptures let's just bow our heads and pray.

[0:10] ! O Lord our God, we are encouraged by you to remember those who are in authority in the! in the world whom you have raised up.

[0:21] And we know that they are responsible to you for what they do and what use they make of their abilities.

[0:33] And we pray today O Lord for those who are leaders in the earth, whether they are political leaders or engaged in judging and implementing judgments and laws.

[0:47] O we pray Lord that the day may come when people will see the wisdom and the right standards in your word, the Bible.

[1:02] We pray that in our own land too there may be a return to your word as the rule not only for faith but for life too.

[1:15] We pray O Lord for our Queen and her royal household and we remember them today and ask that you will give them wisdom and grace to walk in your ways for those who are yours to guide them, to make them an influence for good and for others to awaken them to their need of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

[1:45] We pray too Lord for those who are in government for the Prime Minister and the coalition government and those in opposition too.

[1:57] We ask Lord that they may have right standards, that there may be an awakening to the standards that used to guide our leaders.

[2:11] We see so much going on that we can see the logic of. And we can see that in years if not generations to come that our land and our people will be in a moral mess, a total bog of corruption.

[2:34] And therefore we pray O Lord that you will awaken those who legislate too, to do things wisely and well, and do them with an eye to right standards as we have been saying.

[2:50] And that your kingdom may come among us again. Like the psalm writer of old we pray Lord that the day may not be far away when all the peoples will praise you, when they will see in Jesus their salvation and the living hope that is set before them in the good news.

[3:12] Remember us O Lord in all our troubles and difficulties in these frail mortal frames. And grant O Lord to give us strength equal to our days and patience to bear what comes with advancing years or the inroads of disease.

[3:35] Where it is your will, give restoring mercies. And where it is otherwise, give us the grace to cast all our burdens upon you, knowing that you will be faithful to us even unto death itself.

[3:54] We remember those whose lives are committed to the care of the sick and the suffering and the dying too. And we pray that you would give them not only a sense of achievement in their work, but a sense of the privilege of having such a calling and of being gifted in that way.

[4:19] We thank you again Lord for Lachey's safe return to us. And we pray that there will be blessing attending what he has done. And now as we turn to your holy word, we would say like one of old, speak Lord for your servant is listening.

[4:40] We ask you to forgive our sins and shortcomings, not for our asking, but for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. For we know that the death he died, he died in order that we might have the certainty of sins forgiven, and the joy accompanying the knowledge of that.

[5:05] Be with us now and bless us in him. Amen. Well now we are going to turn to Psalm 84 and we hope today to conclude our study in it.

[5:22] And you will find Psalm 84 on page 526. And we may read at verse 8 through to the end of the psalm.

[5:36] Psalm 84. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob, Selah. O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed, or your Messiah.

[5:52] For a day in your courts is better than a thousand of my own choosing understood. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

[6:08] For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

[6:20] O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you. Our text is found in verse 11.

[6:33] And we are going to entitle it simply, The Lord God will give grace and glory. For the Lord God is a sun and shield.

[6:45] The Lord will give grace and glory. No good will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

[6:57] And I think it can be summed up in these words of our title, The Lord God will give grace and glory. Now, before we get into the matter proper, Let's just remind ourselves of where we've come.

[7:12] We've been looking at how true believers in the Lord, In the days of the psalm writer, But for our purpose, in our day too, in these last times, True believers in the Lord who follow Jesus, Are in the happy position, That they no longer dwell in the tents of wickedness.

[7:37] But, to use New Testament language, They are living stones in the spiritual house that God is building. And we've been looking at that.

[7:50] But we have noticed further back in our studies, That we are brought into that position. It's not something that we inherit because of our parents, Our grandparents.

[8:03] It's something we are brought into by God. And we saw that that was very much the focus of the psalm writer. We haven't achieved it for ourselves, But God, the God of covenant, mercy and grace, In his Messiah, Whom we've been referring to there in the psalm, verse 9.

[8:24] Through the promised Messiah, The Old Testament people were blessed, Who received the promises. And we are blessed too by faith, Receiving the promises in the Messiah, in Jesus.

[8:41] And we've been emphasizing in our study, How that the psalms are simply full of Christ. Christ is everywhere in them.

[8:55] Christ is Lord. That is the wonderful affirmation of the New Testament. That he was exalted to God's right hand.

[9:07] And that the day is coming when every knee shall bow, And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. The emphasis is on his Lordship.

[9:18] That he is sovereign to the glory of God the Father. And we are brought to him again and again in the psalms. I'm not saying of course only in the psalms.

[9:31] I'm reminding you that it's easy, And I've heard people argue that the psalms don't speak about Christ. And just because he is not named as Jesus, It doesn't mean they don't speak clearly about Christ.

[9:50] They speak about him because he is Lord. And he is everywhere in them. Some places he is very much more apparent in them.

[10:01] And we have been noticing that how, By studying the psalms, We meet with him again and again. And we have been suggesting that the more we study Christ in the psalms, The more we discover his ability and his willingness to help us, In the life of faith in a practical way.

[10:23] That's what makes the psalms real soul songs for the Lord's people. I sometimes think, This is not to be taken to its logical conclusion by the way, But I sometimes think that our psalm tunes are not really like the soul music of even secular songs.

[10:48] Perhaps the Gaelic psalm tunes are a bit more soul music. But the important thing is the psalms are definitely the songs of the soul of the Lord's people.

[11:00] And they help us to see just how willing the Lord is, And how able he is to help us through our difficulties.

[11:11] And my dear friends, As we begin our study for a wee while, It's so easy to say that. It's so difficult to live by it, to apply it, To make it happen, to make it make the difference, When we are up against it.

[11:33] And the whole point of studying the Lord, And studying him in the psalms at this time, Is to recognize his willingness to help us, With what is too much for us, In the life of faith.

[11:51] And I want to think for a few moments, First of all about what the Lord is, As he is described here. And we are told quite simply, The Lord God is a sun and shield.

[12:02] It has been well noted, By Hebrew scholars, That this is the only place in the Old Testament, That we have the word, The regular word for sun, Shemesh, That is used of the Lord.

[12:23] And there is a certain deliberateness, About not using the word for sun, The sun in the sky, For the Lord. Because, In ancient times, The sun was worshipped.

[12:38] That is the S-U-N. It was worshipped. And it is still worshipped in many parts of the world, And I am afraid it is worshipped by, Pagans and others in the UK today.

[12:51] But, What's here is a poetic figure, It's an illustration. When it is said, The Lord God is a sun. It's a description, That helps us to understand, Something about him.

[13:08] He is not the sun. He is a sun. It's an illustration. And, What we are looking at is, We are looking at the positive benefits of the sun in nature, In the natural world.

[13:24] And we are then looking at the positive benefits of God, Who is described here to his people as a sun. What the sun is in the natural world, And its beneficial effects then, So the Lord is in spiritual blessing to his own, To those who embrace his promises in the Messiah.

[13:46] And it's most interesting that, When Jesus was being carried in the womb of the Virgin, You have, Zachariah, The father of John the Baptist, Singing about his coming, The coming of Jesus.

[14:10] And in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 1, Verses 76-79, You have Jesus described, Prior to his appearance, Prior to his birth, As the day spring from on high, Literally the rising sun.

[14:27] The Anatole is the Greek word for it, The rising sun. That's how he is described. And you will maybe now recall, Why we read in Malachi chapter 4.

[14:43] Because, The prophet is looking forward, And he knows, As a prophet of the Lord, That there was going to be a length of time, Before the Messiah would come.

[14:58] But Malachi knew, Malachi knew, That his coming would be like the rising of the sun. And we read there in Malachi, That upon those who fear my name, The sun of righteousness shall arise, With healing in his wings, Or in his beams.

[15:23] That's the description. That's the figure. And it's interesting in that same connection, That the apostle John, When he was writing his Gospel account, Described Jesus as the true light, Who was shining, The true light, Has come into the world.

[15:45] And he dispels the moral and spiritual darkness, In all who receive him by faith. He said himself, I am the light of the world.

[15:58] Verse 12 of John's Gospel chapter 8. I am the light of the world. Whosoever believes in me, Will no longer walk in darkness, But have the light that gives life.

[16:12] He is to us in that sense, A son. And we can dig this a wee bit further, And what I'm doing here by the way, If you don't know it, Is I'm just giving you some, Very useful references to, To look at and to think over and to pray over.

[16:34] When the writer to the Hebrews describes him, He describes him, As the one who is the outshining, Of the glory of the Father.

[16:47] The character, The express image of his being. And he talks about him as the outshining. Like the effulgence on a bulb, An electric bulb, That you can't really look at with your eyes.

[17:04] And he is described like that, As the outshining. And Jesus therefore brings to us, Moral and spiritual benefits, As well as his saving power.

[17:18] When we receive it. There too, In 2nd Corinthians 4. At verse 6.

[17:29] We read that same thing. The God who commanded light, To shine out of darkness, Originally, In the formation of the universe, Has shone in our heart.

[17:40] To give us the light, Of the knowledge, Of the glory of God, In the person, Of Jesus Christ. And, That's an important thing, To remember about him.

[17:55] The Lord God. And that, We can attribute that title to Jesus. The Lord God, Is a sin. He brings, Spiritual light, And life to us.

[18:08] He shows us, What it is, To, To live, The life of faith, And to walk, In the ways of God. His own life, Was lived like that, Perfectly.

[18:20] We have a model, Okay, I know, We can never, Attain to his perfection. That, Almost goes without saying. But, But he is our model, He is our example.

[18:32] And all that, That's going on, Within the church today, The broad church. And, What people are trying to say, About, Morals today.

[18:46] And, Ditching the bible's teaching. If they would stop and think. If they would stop and think, About the consistency, Of the old testament, And the new.

[18:57] There is no difference, In terms of the moral, Statutes, Standards. Jesus, Shows us, How the law of God, Is lived, From the heart.

[19:12] Not with the, With the, The minutiae, Of the Pharisees. You can only walk so far, On the Sabbath and so on. But the real, Moral, Fiber, Of living for God.

[19:28] Light. And it is Jesus, Who has given, His believing people, Light. In order that they may shine, For him. Lights in the dark world.

[19:41] We are told, Paul tells us in, In, 1st Thessalonians. Be children of light. Shine, As lights, In a dark place.

[19:54] Holding forth the word of life. And so on. And in him being, To us a sin. He is a sin to us, In that he, He gives us light, To distinguish, Between good and evil.

[20:12] And to see, The prince of darkness, For what he is. And that brings us, To the second point in this, The Lord is a shield.

[20:25] What he is, He is a sin to us, He is a shield to us. Now we have referred to this before, When we looked at verse 9, Behold O God, Our shield.

[20:37] So we just want to touch on this briefly, And to remind ourselves, That this reference is to his kingly authority, To his protective power over his people.

[20:51] Remember how in the, In the catechism, Those of you who are brought up on it, In answer to the question, How does Christ exercise his office as king?

[21:03] He is our prophet, priest and king in himself. How does he exercise that? And the catechism talks, Based on the bible, Talks about him, Ruling and defending us.

[21:17] Conquering his, And our enemies. Enabling us to overcome. Derek Kidner in his, Little IVF commentary, Says, And, I quote him here, That he simply says, With reference, To, The Lord as our shield.

[21:44] He says, The Lord as our shield. He is the answer, To all our fears, Of defeat. And, He is the answer.

[21:59] He is the one who enables us, To overcome. He, He shields us from utter despair. The Christian fears, And his fears are legion.

[22:13] We seem to have an almost, Obsessive inclination to fearing this or that. We brood on things, That may happen.

[22:25] That they may never happen, Doesn't seem to occur to us enough. We fear. And we multiply, The fears.

[22:37] And we become agitated. And we lose our way, And our thinking. And he is there, As our shield, To shield us, Succumbing to these fears.

[22:51] To deliver us. To deliver us. Often, We have a, A sense, Of defeat, In the life of faith. Often, We feel overpowered, By all that's going on.

[23:06] We seem to, Feel the feeling of being engulfed, By what's happening. We never anticipated, Having to cope with this or that problem.

[23:17] That's life. But we didn't expect, And we're not ready. And we seem to be almost overwhelmed, By what's happening. Well, The news is, God's people have been there.

[23:31] We sing it in the Psalms, Your waves and your billows, Have gone over my head.

[23:45] But you see, We heard the word, Your waves, And your billows. And that's a sense of reality there. This is happening to me, Lord, I seem to be overwhelmed by problems, But they're problems you've sent.

[24:02] They're yours. Therefore, They're controlled by you. Therefore, You're my shield, So that I won't be swamped by them. And we need to remember that.

[24:18] There are all sorts of things that come our way. I think that, And it's something to be prayed about too, I may say. I think that ministers of the gospel today, Are under huge pressure, To give out.

[24:34] To pack it in. I hear it all the time. And it's because, They never expected to see what they're seeing, To cope with what they're trying to cope with, In our land today.

[24:50] And you who are under the gospel ministry, You ought to have a special place in your heart for them. For them. Because they're in the same, The same situation as the Lord's people, In every place, Except that they're in the front line.

[25:06] They are special targets of the enemy's attention. And they know what it is, To be pressed down, To be, To be, Under the pressure of, Of giving it up.

[25:24] So little has been achieved. Christian life is like that. If you're a realist, If you're honest, Christian life is like that. We seem to make so little progress.

[25:37] We go forward a bit, And we go back. And we wonder, Did we make any progress at all? That's the reality. And what the psalmist is reminding us of, Is the Lord is, Not only a sin to us, But a shield to us.

[25:56] And if we need, If we need any, Angle on this, That gives us peace of mind, It's, It's the cross of Calvary. For there he was a shield for us, From the wrath of God.

[26:10] He is set forth as a propitiation, As a wrath exhausting saviour. He dealt with that. What am I saying? Take the bigger picture, And the smaller things, Are in their place.

[26:23] He has dealt with the wrath of God. The worst that can happen, Our abandonment to hell forever, Has been dealt with, If we by faith believe in Jesus.

[26:34] So we take the bigger thing, And we say, Get a perspective on this. Get real. Understand, He is my shield. And then the spiritual battle, Of life, Or in life, Doesn't look as, As overwhelming, As we feel it is.

[26:59] He said, Through the prophet, No weapon formed against you, Shall destroy you. We need to remember that. He doesn't leave us to sink.

[27:14] He shields us from what would cause us, To fall into utter despair. And when we do fall down, We don't utterly fall down, Because he is there as our shield, To protect us from that.

[27:34] We need to consider him like this, As one who is able to keep us, In all our ways, As our shield, And our defender.

[27:46] And our defender. That then briefly is, What the Lord is, As the psalmist has it here, A sun and shield. But lastly, What the Lord gives, And we have the two points, Sub points here.

[28:02] He gives grace, And glory. What the Lord gives, He gives grace. And it seems to me, That we ought not, To limit this, To some special favour.

[28:20] You know the definition, That's often given of grace. What is grace? It's unmerited favour. And sometimes people just take it as, When they say, The Lord gives grace.

[28:32] That means he'll give us, He'll give us, A position. He'll give us blessing. But, The focus here, Is on something, Far more deeper, And meaningful.

[28:45] He gives grace. He gives us, Enabling. He gives us power. After and all, We learn it from scripture.

[28:57] When we talk about, His sovereign grace. We talk about, His power that brings us, To see our need of Jesus. And into the faith, That is in Jesus.

[29:08] It's His power, That draws us, His sovereign power, His sovereign grace, Enabling us, To come to Him by faith, And to live for Him by faith.

[29:22] The Lord bestows that grace, Freely. It's true that, The Spirit works in us, And it gives us, That grace. But we need to think about, Its relevance all the time.

[29:37] Not just to bring us, To Jesus. But to live for Him. And to live for Him, Day by day.

[29:48] Do we really feel our need, Of the grace, Of the Lord Jesus Christ, Every day.

[30:00] If we don't, There's something wrong. If we don't feel our need, Of His grace, Is enabling power, To live for Him, Something's wrong. Something's wrong. And we need to, Seek Him about that.

[30:12] That it's put right. You see, If you think about it, The great characters of the Bible, What recovered them from their, Their wanderings?

[30:29] What recovered them from going astray? The grace of God. What recovered Abram, The father of believers, As he's called. When he made his blunders, In Egypt and in Gerar.

[30:44] In the land of Canaan. The grace of God. The enabling power, To see what he has done, Was wrong. And to come back. To come to repentance.

[30:57] And to go on, In a more consistent way. It was the grace of God. The same with, With Jacob. And many another. They wandered into sin.

[31:09] And the grace of God, The enabling power of God, Brought them to see, They were going wrong. And brought them back, From sinful ways.

[31:21] It was grace, That brought all the heroes of the faith, Recorded in the Bible, Through their many trials, Toils and snares.

[31:36] It was grace, The enabling power of God, That made Rahab the harlot, A chaste woman. That made Zacchaeus the tax collector, An honest man.

[31:49] That made the sexually aberrant people of Corinth, Pure in their thinking, Pure in their thinking, And their behaviour. It was, It was the grace of God, That made cowards brave, Again and again.

[32:05] And you know, And you know, And I've often thought about this, I've never preached on it yet. But in the book of Revelation, Towards the end, I think it's chapter 19, There's a list, Of ways of life, Lived, That ensure that people will go to eternity lost.

[32:32] And we tend to think about murderers, And adulterers, The sexually immoral, The thieves, And in the middle of that list, There's cowards, Yes cowards, Who put the opinion of people, Before the opinion of God.

[33:03] And the grace of God, Makes cowards brave. It makes them stand out for him. Was Nicodemus a coward?

[33:14] Yes he was. See me about it, If you don't agree. Was Joseph of Arimathea a coward? To an extent he was.

[33:26] These were both senior men in the community, They were top rabbis, And they were afraid to declare themselves To be followers of Jesus, Until God by his grace, Made the cowards brave.

[33:42] We need to get a grip of the, The wonderful provision the Lord has made. The fullness of grace, Of enabling power, Of strengthening power, That we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[34:01] Whatever we're going through, Whatever we may yet go through, He gives us more grace, To manage this or that.

[34:16] And don't think I'm preaching this at you. This is coming to me as well. This is as relevant to the preacher, As the person in the pew.

[34:30] Believe it. Believe it. And a sermon can't be preached properly, In the power of grace, That's not being preached to the preacher first.

[34:44] Believe it. Believe it. There's a fullness of grace, In the Lord Jesus for us.

[34:56] For whatever we have to live with, For whatever we have to go through. My grace is efficient for you, He said to the apostle.

[35:07] For my strength is made perfect, In your weakness. Somebody said to me recently, About something that I had to address, By way of reading.

[35:22] Don't read it if you're feeling low. That's true. Don't read it if you're feeling low.

[35:35] So that meant, Bad news, Be prepared. And my reply to that was this. It's true by the way.

[35:49] I actually had a very low week last week. And a very difficult week, Spiritually. And I said, I know the best time, To do something difficult, Is when I'm low, And weak.

[36:13] Do you know why? Do you know why? Because the Lord says this, My strength, Is made perfect, In your weakness.

[36:28] Most gladly therefore, Will I glory in my weakness, That the power of Christ, May rest upon me.

[36:42] For when I am weak, Friend, May he be speaking to you, Then, I am strong. May he prove that to you.

[36:53] Even today. Our time is whizzed away. The Lord gives glory. Now glory, The word kavod, It means quite a number of things, In the original.

[37:08] It can sometimes mean honour. God exalts a person, To a place of privilege, And opportunity. But the clear emphasis here, Is that there is a benefit, For those whose lives, Are seen to be godly lives.

[37:30] They live according to God's law. According to his way. According to upright ways. They seek, By his grace, To live for him. And those are guaranteed, By his grace, Glory.

[37:46] Not simply honour here, That's true, No doubt. But more particularly, They will be brought into the experience, Of the glory of Christ, In their lives.

[37:59] I have just these two angles on it, As we leave it. Jesus said in his high priestly prayer, In John 17, And verse 22, Note this well, Father, The glory you have given to me, I have given to them.

[38:20] Now there's a glory of Christ, That we can never have. But there's glory that was Christ's, As the man from heaven. That we not only can have, But we do have by faith.

[38:36] Father, The glory you have given me, I have given to them. The ministry of the Holy Spirit, Is a glorious gift.

[38:47] Christ's own ministry, As the Messiah was a ministry, In the Spirit. That's something we gain from him, From being united to him.

[39:00] Our approach to God, Our straight in there, To the Father's presence, Is glorious. And we have it from Jesus.

[39:12] Our access to the Father, Is his access to the Father. Our right to be heard, Is given, From him to us who believe.

[39:29] Father, The glory you gave to me, As the mediator, As the man from heaven, I have given to them. There's more, But time doesn't permit.

[39:41] The point I'm making is, There is glory here, If we will but see it. And there is glory hereafter. Peter tells us, One last thing on the glory here.

[39:54] Peter tells us, That it's a glorious thing, To suffer for the sake of Christ. We're participating in his sufferings, As the one who was opposed.

[40:09] But the glory, That surpasses all, Is surely, The glory that awaits his people, When they see him face to face.

[40:24] And even if it's true, Here in this world at times, Our flesh and our heart, May faint and faint. The Lord, Is the strength of our heart.

[40:36] And our portion forever. He is a sun and shield. And he will give grace, And glory. Amen.