Part 2

[0:00] For those that I do not know, last week began a hiatus from our series in the book of John, which we do hope to return to at some point. Right now the Lord has us in Psalm 34. So if you have your Bibles, please open them up to Psalm chapter 34.

[0:18] Psalm 34 will also be down this spring. If you're new here this Sunday, just know that our church is in the middle of a storm right now. Our church looks different today than it did two weeks ago.

[0:33] But the shepherd and overseer of our church and of our souls remains unchanged. His promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church still stands.

[0:49] His wisdom is infinite. His power is unmatched. His grace is boundless. And we are entrusting ourselves wholly unto Him.

[1:02] And we've seen the Lord work in incredible ways over the last two weeks. We have tasted and seen His goodness to us, even in the middle of a storm.

[1:14] And we feel as though the Lord wants us right here in Psalm 34 right now. So for those that are able, please stand with me.

[1:26] Simply out of respect for God's Word as I read this Psalm. I will bless the Lord at all times.

[1:41] His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.

[1:54] I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed.

[2:07] This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord camps around those who fear Him and delivers them.

[2:19] O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack.

[2:33] The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

[2:45] What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

[2:56] Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears toward their cry.

[3:08] The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears.

[3:19] And He delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all.

[3:38] He keeps all His bones. Not one of them is broken. Affliction will slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

[3:48] The Lord redeems the life of His servants. None of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned. Lord God, this is Your Word.

[4:02] This is Your perfect, enduring, sufficient Word for us today. God, I have nothing good to say apart from You.

[4:15] Spirit, we want to hear from You. We want to hear the voice of God today because that's what we need. That's what our hearts need. Lord, as Rob already prayed, would You speak to us.

[4:27] And would You transform us into Your likeness. And would You fill the earth with Your glory. Pray in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated.

[4:38] So last week, Andrew focused mainly on answering two questions that David, the author of this psalm, answers for us.

[4:54] And the first question was, can we really worship God in all circumstances? And we saw the resounding answer from David in Psalm 34 is, yes, we really can.

[5:05] In any and every circumstance of life, God is worthy of our worship and praise. So David beckons the saints. So we just sang this. Oh, magnify the Lord with me.

[5:17] Let us exalt His name together. The second question was, what does it look like for God to deliver us? In the hard things of life, we want immediate relief, but seldom does God provide that.

[5:33] What He does surely provide, when we ask Him in humility, is both refuge and His presence. That's His sheer provision in the moment of affliction.

[5:45] And what's more, we know that ultimate deliverance will surely come. If not in this life, then in the next. That's what we focused on last week. This week, our focus is going to be on a central theme in this psalm that you might have noticed as we read through, and that is this, the fear of the Lord.

[6:06] The fear of the Lord. We're going to answer three questions. What is the fear of the Lord? What does the fear of the Lord look like in practice, in the life of a believer?

[6:18] And how do we cultivate the fear of the Lord? So what is it? What does it look like? How do we get it? That's what we're going to look at today. So the word fear, or fears, is mentioned five different times in this psalm.

[6:32] So look at your Bible. I want us to just re-look at each instance quickly. Verse 4, David says, I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.

[6:43] Verse 7, He says, The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Verse 9, Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack.

[6:56] Verse 11, Come, O children, and listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Now maybe you notice that the first instance of that word being used, it seems to be different than the rest.

[7:10] In the first instance, in verse 4, it's clear that when David says fears, he's talking about things that he's afraid of. He delivered me from my fears.

[7:20] He delivered me from the things that I'm afraid of in this life. And this is one definition of the word fear. When I asked my kids yesterday, I wanted to know what they think fear means. My daughter, who turns five today actually, my daughter, Evelyn, says that it means to be scared, like being scared of monsters.

[7:37] And we should definitely be afraid of monsters. What are some of the other things that we fear? What are some of the things that you are afraid of? I fear being met by a bear in the White Mountain, whenever I go hike.

[7:52] I fear when I'm swimming in the Long Island Sound, I fear one being eaten by a shark. I fear losing, of anything. I don't like losing. We fear pain.

[8:05] We fear death. We fear financial instability. We fear our reputation being tarnished. And on and on as we go about things that we are afraid of in this life.

[8:18] But my question to you is this. Is the fear of the Lord the same, or is it different? Think about that. Is the fear of the Lord like being scared of a monster, except magnified, you know, a thousand times or something?

[8:34] Think about that question as I read these words from Scripture. Isaiah chapter 40, verses 21 to 26. God is speaking here.

[8:46] Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

[9:02] He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and he spreads them like a tent to dwell in. Who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness?

[9:15] Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown. Scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

[9:26] To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see. Who created these? Who brings out their hosts by number, calling them by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one of them is missing?

[9:45] Are you scared of God? Are you afraid of the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of hosts? We looked at the book of Micah not too long ago, and the book opens with this, For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

[10:11] The mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will be split open like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. Jesus says in Matthew 10, 28, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

[10:29] Rather, fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. To fear the Lord absolutely means to be afraid of him.

[10:40] The power of life and death is in his hands. He makes kings and nations rise and fall. He is, in 1 Timothy, the only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.

[11:00] He sits enthroned above the cosmos, crowned in glory and majesty, blazing in holiness, righteousness, and justice. If there has never been a point in your life where you have been afraid of God, be warned, the day is coming when there will be a reckoning.

[11:22] And you will have to give an account of your life before the judge of this universe. And in that day, you will be terrified. David says in verse 21, Affliction will slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

[11:42] And in that day, friends, the condemnation is final. It is eternal. So let me make it clear. The fear of the Lord means absolute dread and terror before God the Almighty.

[11:57] But, we've been waiting for the but, that's not the only kind of fear that David is talking about. That's what the fear of the Lord means for the wicked.

[12:10] For those who have not submitted their lives to Him. For those who do not trust or obey Him. But, for those who do, the fear of the Lord means something so much more.

[12:25] See, God is, He is all the things that we just mentioned. He is holy. He is just. He is righteous. He is full of wrath towards sin. But, Psalm 34 shows us a lot more about the Lord, does it not?

[12:38] For those who trust in God, the Psalm shows us that God is also one who saves and delivers. God is also one who is near. God is also one who is good.

[12:51] God is one who is Himself a place of refuge and safety and comfort. God is one who provides for all of our needs. He is one who is attentive to the cry of His children.

[13:06] Does that sound like someone that we should be afraid of, like we're afraid of monsters? No. That sounds more like a father who loves his children.

[13:18] That sounds like someone that we are in awe of. Someone that we reverence and deeply respect. Someone we honor and obey.

[13:28] Someone we devote our lives to. Someone we love and worship. And that is the fear of the Lord. That's the fear of the Lord. In our men's Friday morning study, we went through the book When People Are Big and God Is Small.

[13:46] And some of you men might remember that chart which is some of the terms I was just using. It's written by Ed Welch. And Welch, he actually devotes two full chapters to talking about the fear of the Lord. So speaking of the kind of fear of the Lord that Christians have, he says, like terror, it includes a knowledge of our sinfulness and God's moral purity.

[14:07] And it includes a clear-eyed knowledge of God's justice and His anger against sin. But this worship fear also knows God's great forgiveness, mercy, and love.

[14:21] It knows that because God's eternal plan, Jesus humbled Himself by dying on a cross to redeem His enemies from slavery and death. It knows that in our relationship with God, He always says, I love you first.

[14:36] This knowledge draws us closer to God rather than causing us to flee. It causes us to submit gladly to His Lordship and delight in obedience.

[14:48] This kind of robust fear is the pinnacle of our response to God. Friends, that's the fear of the Lord. That is it. So, if that's the fear of the Lord, then what does it look like in practice?

[15:03] What does it look like? David shows us this in Psalm 34. Right in the middle of this psalm, we find what we refer to as a wisdom portion, similar to the book of Proverbs.

[15:15] It might have sounded like Proverbs as we read it. So, let's reread. This is verse 11 through 14. David says, Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

[15:26] What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good.

[15:38] seek peace and pursue it. The fear of the Lord in practice looks like obedience to God, which looks like God.

[15:54] Yes, the fear of God looks like God. It looks like you and I embodying the heart and character of God in this world. This is what God has always desired.

[16:05] Right? This is what he desired from his people Israel. He made us to look like him all the way back to Genesis 1. He made us to be his image bearers on this earth.

[16:16] And he said to Israel and he said to the church, Be holy, for I am holy. Paul says in Ephesians 1, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Right?

[16:26] And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. The fear of the Lord in our lives looks like forsaking sin and evil and then pursuing what is good and brings peace.

[16:42] Now, specifically, David first said that it looks like, verse 13 there, speaking words of righteousness and truth. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

[16:54] Speaking words of righteousness and truth. Now, this makes sense, right? Because that's what our God does. God speaks forth righteousness. God speaks forth truth.

[17:04] God cannot lie, right? He always makes good on his word so that his desire is for his people to speak like he does. Jesus says in Matthew 12, 34, that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

[17:21] See, our words reveal what's in our hearts. This principle is captured in James 3, verse 2. James says, For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

[17:39] See, he's showing that when you speak, that's what's in your heart. Paul urges the Ephesians, Ephesians 4, 29, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, right, as fits the occasion, that it might give grace to those who hear.

[18:02] Have you let corrupting talk come out of your mouth recently? Have you spoken in a way that tears down rather than builds up?

[18:15] I know I have. Have you spoken in a way that's inappropriate for the occasion, in a way that has created dissonance rather than communicating grace?

[18:25] Have you spoken dishonestly, deceitfully with a brother or sister? But it's not just what you say, it's also what you don't say. And what does that reveal about the state of your heart?

[18:37] Think about those things. The fear of the Lord looks like speaking words of righteousness and truth.

[18:49] It also looks like turning from evil, doing good, and seeking peace, right? Verse 14, turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.

[19:02] Turning away from evil, that is repentance. That's the definition of repentance. It's a turning, it's a shifting. I was going this way, now I'm going this way. David says, turn away from evil. He says to do good.

[19:15] God is the definition of good, right? Doing good means spreading God's goodness to the world around us. He says to seek peace and pursue it. And that word there, it's that beautiful Hebrew word shalom, connoting not simply peace as we think of it, but a wholeness and a completeness.

[19:33] It refers back to that glorious state that Adam and Eve were in in the garden where everything was whole before sin entered the world. And David says, pursue that. And this cycle, turning from sin, doing good, seeking peace, that must be an ongoing cycle in the believer's life.

[19:55] And how critical is that first step, right? The first step. If you never take the first step, you're never going to get to steps two and three. If you don't repent of your sin regularly, confess sin, then you're not going to then turn to good and then seek peace and pursue it.

[20:09] And we all know, brothers and sisters, how crafty the devil is, how insatiable sin is, how weak the flesh is. The battle that we fight is not against flesh and blood.

[20:28] It's against the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, that's what Paul said in Ephesians 6. It's against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, that is the battle that we're fighting.

[20:41] It's not flesh and blood. Our hearts are constantly lured away to sin. So we must keep confessing our sin to the Lord, turning away from it, and then doing good instead and seeking peace.

[20:58] If you weren't here over the summer, Jordan preached an excellent sermon from Psalm 32 about confession. I would highly recommend listening to that sermon. We don't just confess our sin to the Lord, but also to one another.

[21:14] So we need to be holding one another accountable to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, Ephesians 4.1. And I've been convicted, we've been convicted the past couple weeks that we as elders have not done that well.

[21:30] We need to be holding one another accountable. And why? Why should we be doing that? Three reasons. I'm sure you can think of other reasons, but three reasons why we should do that.

[21:42] One, because sin is so persistent and destructive to our lives and others. God told Cain, Genesis 4, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

[21:57] Sin does not sleep. The devil does not sleep. It always wants more. It always tries to take more ground. We have to fight against it. That's why we should hold one another accountable. Secondly, for our growth and holiness, which is God's will for our lives.

[22:12] Paul says in Romans 8.29, for those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. God's intention is that we be more like Christ and we grow in godliness throughout the course of our lives.

[22:32] Christ showed us what a life of perfect obedience to the Father looks like in us. Our brother Ian Pollock, bouncing in statement back, several weeks ago, he preached from John 6, in which Jesus said we must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

[22:51] And Ian helped show us that one of the things that means is assimilating into ourselves the virtues of Christ. We're after Christ's likeness. So we hold one another accountable in our profession of faith so that we would become more like Jesus.

[23:07] And God is preparing his church, the bride, for that day when we will meet Christ. And we're helping one another in that journey to become prepared to meet Jesus.

[23:19] that when we do assimilate the virtues of Christ, the world will take notice. And that's the third thing. So the first is because sin's persistent.

[23:30] The second is for our growth in holiness. And the third reason we hold one another accountable is for our gospel witness to the world. The world is constantly watching the sea. How will the followers of Jesus live?

[23:41] Paul says in Philippians 2, 14 and 15, That's God's heart for us as a church.

[24:00] That we would shine the light of Christ into this world. Right? And draw people into his family. So we hold one another accountable. A few years ago we put together a resource on accountability.

[24:15] We gave it to community of leaders to discuss within their groups. But we have not led well in executing those principles. So that was resent to community of leaders last week.

[24:26] It was buried in a long document so you might not have seen it yet. We'll also be sending them out to the whole church and hopefully have hard copies next week on the back table. Our desire is that this church be a place where honesty, vulnerability, transparency are the norm.

[24:44] Right? Where believers are not afraid to ask each other the hard questions and where true accountability is taking place. And a great place for that to happen is in your community groups. The fear of the Lord looks like obedience to God, which looks like God himself.

[25:01] It looks like us reflecting his hatred for sin and reflecting the righteousness and truth and goodness and peace of God to one another and to the world.

[25:13] And so this requires ongoing repentance before the Lord, regular rhythms of accountability with our fellow saints so that we can push one another towards holiness. So that's what it is.

[25:28] That's what it looks like. Thirdly, how do we cultivate this fear of the Lord? How do we get it? I want to answer this question by drawing your attention to the verbs that are used all throughout Psalm 34.

[25:46] What are the righteous actually doing in this psalm? So I categorize them into, I think, three buckets. The first are verbs of what I'm calling neediness.

[25:59] Verbs of neediness. Seeking, crying, looking. All throughout that psalm, we see those kinds of verbs. Those verbs of neediness, they fix our gaze on God, right?

[26:10] They cause us to see Him and to hear His voice. And those verbs lead us then to verbs of fellowship. Tasting, seeing, taking refuge in, right?

[26:23] With our attention fixed on God, we are now in a place to actually fellowship and commune with Him to experience who He is. And when we have fellowship with Him, that leads us to the third category, verbs of worship.

[26:38] Bless, crave, boast, magnify, exalt, fear. After we have seen God and experienced Him, the only proper response is worship.

[26:51] Right? Or as Ed Welch put it, worship fear. Worship fear. That's the only proper response. Communing with the Lord. So similarly to the last point, how important is step one of this process?

[27:05] If you don't get step one, you're not going to get to step two, you're not going to get to step three. If we never see God, if we never recognize our needness and cry out to Him, then we're not going to experience fellowship with Him.

[27:21] Right? We're not going to be moved to fear and to worship. Okay, so what do you mean? What do you mean by see God?

[27:31] What does that look like? See, I grew up singing the song, Open your eyes in my heart, I want to see you. I never knew what I was singing. Right? What does that even mean? I don't know. I have good news for you.

[27:43] The answer to that question is probably in your hands right now. Right, Ellen? Probably in your hands, or below that. Where is the one place where God has explicitly revealed Himself to mankind?

[27:59] Where is it, church? Bible. The Bible, God's Word, right? The one place that you can go surely to gaze upon the heart and the character of God. Yes, of course, it is God's Word.

[28:12] We are gazing on Him this morning, are we not? God's Word. And it cannot be overstated that your commitment to reading, studying, and meditating upon God's Word is critical to your spiritual health.

[28:29] That is the place we see God most clearly. So go to His Word continually. Make it the normal practice of your lives.

[28:41] Nothing else is more important. Like, get rid of Netflix, get rid of whatever is distracting you. If it's keeping you from the Word of God, you need it so much more than you need anything else.

[28:53] If you're distracted by food, then fast and read God's Word instead. Food is for your body, but God's Word is for your soul. How much more do you need God's Word?

[29:04] Go to God's Word, church, and let's put another counsel in that. That's something we should be asking ourselves. Hey, what have you been reading God's Word? What is He teaching you through His Word? And prayer.

[29:18] Right? It's through prayer I've found in my own life that most often God takes His Word and He gets traction in my heart. It happens through prayer.

[29:30] Because I'm wrestling with Him in prayer and praying back to Him His own Word. That's when God has done the work in my heart to change me and make me more like Himself.

[29:41] It's through prayer that we can lay bare our souls before the Lord, right? And then receive His ministry through the Spirit as He communicates His truths in actual ways to us.

[29:55] We know these things. Right? I'm not telling you anything new. These are the ways that we cultivate the fear of the Lord. There's no secret here. God's Word, prayer, where else? Corporate worship.

[30:06] David says, So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. We see God here. Right?

[30:16] I've seen God this morning as we sing songs that are speaking forth His truth and as we pray and hear from our fellow believers, which is the second thing, or I guess the fourth thing, fellowship with believers, right?

[30:30] Paul says that everyone who has heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him has what? Been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

[30:41] Right? If you are in Christ, you are sealed with the Spirit. You image God. We already talked about that. You image God to the world, right?

[30:52] So if I fellowship with you, I'm fellowshipping with Christ to the extent that you're walking in the Spirit. That's another way that we see God. Paul also says in Ephesians 1, the church is the fullness.

[31:04] This always blows my mind. I don't think I'll ever understand this on this side of heaven. The church is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. That's His intention, right?

[31:15] That we, as the church, are the fullness of God. So when we engage in fellowship, we are seeing God. Creation, that's another one.

[31:28] The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. That's Psalm 19.

[31:40] In Romans 1, which our brother Matt is going to be preaching on next week, I won't steal your thunder, I don't think. But, Paul says, for His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

[32:00] These are just all ways that we see God, right? God's Word, prayer, corporate worship, fellowship with the saints, creation, right? And when we are seeking and seeing God, when we are gazing upon Him, then we will be moved to fellowship with the Lord, right?

[32:16] And then, when we fellowship with the Lord, we're actually experiencing His glory, His holiness, His power. We're experiencing His love, His compassion, His grace, right?

[32:26] And that moves us to fear, the proper fear that Christians have. That moves us to worship and devotion of our lives to Him. So that's how we cultivate the fear of the Lord.

[32:40] You already knew that. But it's so good for us to remember these things, is it not? Because I forget or I just think other things are more important and they're not.

[32:52] But I have to be reminded of that so often. So that's what fear is. That's what it looks like. That's how we get it. But, I don't want to leave things there.

[33:06] That's not where the psalm leaves us. It doesn't leave us there. The psalm, David, through Psalm 34, he leaves us in a place of supreme confidence, right?

[33:16] Of unshakable hope. You can't miss that as you read through this psalm. And so that's where I want to leave us as well. So the last point that we're going to look at is the hope of those who fear the Lord. And this should sound pretty familiar to anyone who heard Andrew's sermon from last week.

[33:33] I want us to reread verse 9 and 10. David says, Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints. For those who fear him have no lack.

[33:47] The young lions suffer want and hunger. But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. David had learned from experience.

[34:02] And this was even earlier in his life. I mean, David experiences a lot more later in life. in here, he's actually on the run from Saul. And he acted like a wild man before King and Philistines.

[34:16] And the Lord used that to shield David. Pretty fun story. Didn't it play for Samuel 1? David goes through a lot harder things.

[34:26] And we need to look at that this summer because a lot of the psalms are obviously written by David. But David, he's learned from experience, right? That those who fear the Lord have no lack. He's experienced it time and time and time again.

[34:39] And that they lack no good thing. Right? What is Psalm 23, verse 1? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want everything that you need.

[34:54] Everything that is truly good, if you fear the Lord, it's yours. It's yours. Brothers, sisters, if you fear the Lord, everything that is actually good is yours in Christ Jesus.

[35:07] And that's because God himself is yours in Christ Jesus. And you are his. Right? And he gives you the in-the-moment provision, and we talked about last week, of his very presence.

[35:22] No matter what you're walking through, he gives you himself, his presence. And for the New Testament believer, right, this is all the more guaranteed. because Christ, through the shedding of his blood on the cross, reconciled us to God forevermore.

[35:40] What's this thing about lions? I was always confused and just kind of on the move down. But, as I thought about it, it became clear, I think, pretty quick. Lions are at the top of the food chain.

[35:53] Right? Like, nothing, nothing fears a lion. I mean, lions don't fear anything. Sorry. I was in Chicago over Thanksgiving. We went to the zoo and I hadn't actually seen a lion in a long time.

[36:04] And, like, there was the lion just chilling on the rock, like, staring at all his people. And he just looks like the supreme overlord of the zoo. Right? Like, nothing's going to touch him. And he was way bigger than I remember lions being.

[36:16] Like, he's in charge. And yet, even lions, top of the food chain, they struggle to care and provide for their young.

[36:27] Right? For their children. But God, who is to be feared above all things, he perfectly cares for his children. He does not struggle.

[36:45] Paul says in Romans 8, for those who fear God, right, for those who believe in Jesus, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, the kind of fear that controls the life of people and sin.

[36:59] But you will receive the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

[37:12] He confirms for us, yes, you are a child of God. Right? So if you fear the Lord, that you in faith and repentance have trusted in Jesus as your and the only Lord and Savior, then you know in your spirit and your heart of hearts you know you're a child of God.

[37:32] And as such, you have everything you need at all times because you have God himself. The Lord is at hand.

[37:45] That's what we're for. We walk through the church. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

[38:02] And the peace of God in which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And he goes on to say later on, and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

[38:20] Finally, I want to jump to the last stanza of this psalm. Look at verse 19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

[38:33] Whoa, that does not sound like confidence and hope. Doesn't. Verse 21, though, says, Affliction will slay the wicked.

[38:47] Okay, so, both the righteous and the wicked experience affliction. How does that help anything? Yes, they both do, but the affliction is entirely different.

[39:00] See, the fear of the Lord looks entirely different for the righteous as it does for the wicked. So, too, does their affliction. Let me explain. Verse 21 says that affliction will slay the wicked. In other words, the affliction that the wicked experience is fatal.

[39:14] Right? The verse ends, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. That means that God will declare the verdict guilty over them. Right? A verdict that will never be undone.

[39:27] But look back at verse 19. How does verse 19 end? Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Right? And David ends the psalm saying, the Lord redeems the life of his servants.

[39:41] None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. In other words, whereas the affliction of the wicked is their end. It's their demise. Right? The affliction of the righteous is not the end.

[39:54] It gives way to something better. It gives way to deliverance and redemption. Right? For those who fear the Lord, he will surely experience afflictions in this life, but it is not the final word over us because there is resurrection.

[40:08] There is resurrection and glory. Ultimate deliverance from every affliction will surely come for the righteous. Right? And Andrew said this last week, God's final word over you is that Christ died and was raised and is now interceding for you.

[40:25] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

[40:53] Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. So, we do not lose heart.

[41:07] Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all compare.

[41:27] That is the hope of those who feel the Lord. our afflictions don't feel light momentary. Right?

[41:39] But the true blood-bought reality is that the eternal glory that awaits us in heaven in the presence of Christ and all the saints will be unimaginably great.

[41:52] It's not even worth comparing to the afflictions that we experience on this earth as big as they are. So church, seek the Lord.

[42:03] Seek Him with fervor, with devotion. And as you do, you will see Him. You'll see Him as He is. You'll experience the reality of His power and His love.

[42:16] And this will surely motivate you to walk the hard but wonderful path of righteousness. And you do that alongside, we do that alongside one another.

[42:27] and that leads us to true and biblical fear of God and to worship and the path of righteousness. A life lived in the fear of God, a life lived in devotion to Him, it will surely give way to eternal glory.

[42:44] And there, with all God's saints, before Christ in His presence, we're going to be saying forever, oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.

[42:59] Please pray with me. Father, would you speak into our hearts even more?

[43:14] Let this word sink in. God, let it go deep and let me reflect on this song. That you are worthy of worship at all times.

[43:29] Would you give us the fervor and devotion to you? Lord, would we hear you properly? And would you receive glory as we do?

[43:44] And Lord, let the world see, let the world speak, Lord, that more hearts might submit themselves to you, that more people might be saved, and that more people might give you the glory that you do.

[43:59] I pray this in Christ's name. Amen.