Take your Bibles and turn with me to. Psalm 16. This is the 10th message in a series of. Messages that we're. Giving on learning to sing the song of God. Our minds are not merely the risk made to receive truth. Our wills are not merely made to. Exhort. In order to obey the truth or submit to the truth. Our mind, our will, our hearts, all our relationships are made for God. The soul is made to take God into the soul. And when we take God into our souls, we make returns on everything that we take in. God is the great giver. He's given himself to us through the personal work of his own dear son. And everything that we receive of God, God Himself, what He is and what He's like and what He's done, and all the blessings of salvation, we receive also by virtue of our union, that faith union with Christ. God gives and we receive, and then we make returns on what we receive. And it's evident that we're in communion with God, that we're receiving all that God is when there's a song in the soul. Not just repeat the words of Scripture, not just obey the words of Scripture, but sing of the God of the Scriptures in the whole of the soul, and then learn to sing the song of God to one another. That's the series that we're taking up, and we find ourselves in Psalm 16 this morning. I want to pray, and then I'll give a brief introduction from a series of books that I recommend all families to read whose kids are over eight, The Wingfeather Saga. I've profited from it and encourage you to read it also. So let's pray. Lord, we believe that we were created in the image of God and underwent a fall in Adam and Eve. And the most important thing that was lost was our communion with God. The most important thing that was lost to us and defaced was the image of the triune God upon our souls. we started treating God differently. We started treating God like an object to be used instead of a God with whom we were created for communion. And then, in the eternal plan of God, in the wisdom of God, in the eternal counsels of God, in the eternal plan of God, Christ came to make God, the glories of the triune God, fully known and fully received for who you are. And still it is, Lord, our great tendency to separate the acts and processes of salvation from communion with God. And we want to learn to sing the song of God so as not to separate the acts and processes of God from God Himself and depersonalize grace and make it into a thing. and make salvation into a mere group of things that we receive instead of receiving God through those means. So help us, Lord. Help us to see that the life of God in the soul is given to us by the Spirit in regeneration to begin to live upon God as the fountain of life, as a source of life, only source of spiritual life. And we are credited with the righteousness of Christ, not simply to have a right standing before God, but to teach us, to learn to sing the song of the soul, that the only righteousness that is good and equitable for all the nations is found in God. The source of a righteousness that's good for everyone is in God Himself. The same with reconciliation. The enmity between us and God is not simply removed. We're reconciled to God to teach us to sing the song that He, all the source of reconciling love is in God and none outside. So, Lord, I pray that today we would learn to sing the song of God and all the component parts for us, all the parts and portions of the covenant of grace would for us fall in pleasant places and we would live upon God as our part and our portion, our allotted portion, our inherited portion, our chosen portion. Help us to see, Lord, that we only come to live upon you as our chosen person when we understand who we are as a chosen people, as a covenant people, as a people set apart for your own possession, zealous for good deeds. So Lord, help us now. Help us to sing the song of the soul by which we sing of our own faithful service because we sing first of God's faithful love towards us. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Andrew Peterson tells an adventurous, riveting tale in The Winged Feather Saga. The three Igbe children, Janor and Tink and Lelie, their mother Nia, and the grandfather, Podo Helmer. I love the grandfather. They all set out on an extraordinary journey from Glipwood's Dragon Day Festival. Pursued by fangs from Glipwood, they enter a place called Ankle Jelly Manor. And pursued by the fangs, they're met with toothy cows and horned hounds. And that's sort of where we're left in the pursuit of fleeing fangs, fleeing fangs, always fleeing fangs. Book 2 begins with the Igbe children believing that they're normal kids with normal lives and a normal past. Then they discover who they really are, and for the rest of their normal lives, they're pursued to be destroyed. by the fangs and all that represents darkness. All the forces of darkness suddenly want to take them out. The gist of the story is that the Igbys fight for survival against one of the darkest villains you'll ever meet. And purposely, very creatively, Peterson calls him nag the nameless. I'm not sure exactly what nag means yet, but I know what nameless is. I know what it's like to live without any sense of identity. I know what it's like to live without any sense of belonging. And I also know what it's like to live with a sense of identity and belonging. The first theme of the series is, the most important theme, the overarching theme of the whole series is knowing your identity and living out of who you are. When you know who you are, you can live out of who you are. When you know to whom you belong, you can live as if you have a belonging. But until you discover your identity, you can't live that way. You'll live as if your identity last. You'll live as if you didn't belong. The second theme is redemption, but you don't really ever participate in redemption unless you first know who you are and to whom you belong. There's no way to spread the glories of redemption, the glories of the redemption at least that's pictured in the Book, unless you know what's your name? What is… If you fall under the control of Nag the Nameless, you become a slave of fear, a slave of despair, a slave of darkness. Nag steals children from good families, and then he takes them away in his black carriage, and he enslaves them to work in his factories, primarily making weapons for the destruction of the world. Or worse, if you're not satisfied, whatever satisfaction you can get in working as a slave in a factory making weapons of destruction, if you're not satisfied working as a slave in his factory, in misery and despair you might be willing to give up your identity in exchange for the promise of a power over others by nagging the nameless. But when you give up your identity, you become a fang, a nameless fang, a willing servant of darkness, for Nag, the nameless. Our identity means everything to us, to whom we belong. A sense of belonging means everything to us. Without a sense of belonging, life is utterly meaningless. It's important to instill a sense of identity in your family. I didn't catch what your last name is, Nathan. We're the Bratt family. It's important to instill a sense of belonging, a sense of family identity. We call ourselves, and when our kids were your kids' age or younger, we called ourselves the Bratt Brigade. Hey, you belong to the Brigade. You're not like everybody else. We have an identity. We're a family identity. We belong to one another. That's who we are. We have a sense of purpose in the world because we know who we belong to. We know who we are. But you know, as important as family belonging and family identity is, there's something that's far greater even than belonging to an earthly family. A sense of your identity in Christ. A sense of belonging to God by virtue of being purchased out of the slavery of sin. A sense of your identity and belonging because you've been purchased for God, from slavery, from darkness. A sense of identity and belonging to God and even a church family is even more important than belonging, a sense of belonging to an earthly family. God has purposed it that way. Your own family can't really come to have true meaning apart from your identity, the identity of belonging to God and his covenant people. That's the expression that I find I want to preach on most here in Psalm 16, primarily in verses one through three. Belonging to the local church gives meaning to the whole of life. It's a local body. It's a local church. It's a local expression of a covenant relationship with God. We're covenant together. We develop relationships of love and trust and care over a lifetime. And you see, that's precisely what the world needs. And it's alienation, all the world's alienation, all its identitylessness, all its namelessness, all its purposelessness, what the world needs in all its name, all its loss of identity, all of its alienation and dysfunction. It's a sea of people living out its own identity as a people loved by God. with an infinite, eternal, uncreated love, the free love of God in Christ. So I want to invite you to turn with me now to Psalm 16, 1 through 11 as we seek to unpack our message, learning to sing the song of our chosen identity. Believer, do you know who you are? And if you're here this morning and you don't know your identity in Christ, you don't know to whom you belong, you don't live with a sense of belonging to God, or belonging to the people of God. This is a song you must learn to sing also. I'll read it now in the New King James, my preferred version. Preserve me, Elohim, the plural of majesty. God is fraught with majesty. He's filled up and overflowing with majesty, with glory. That's what the word Elohim means. O my soul, you said to the Lord, Yahweh, the covenant name of God, God's eternal name. When Moses asked, who shall I tell them sent me? when I go down there to Egypt. He says, tell them I am sent to me. Tell them the God who's existed eternally, and a God who's called you into relationship with this eternal God. Tell them I am sent to you. Tell them Yahweh, the covenant God sent you. You're my Lord. O my soul, you have said to the Lord, you are my Lord. meaning master, sovereign one, all different names of God identifying who God is in this passage. I won't stop to explain them anymore. You are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from you. As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on my lips, the names of their gods. O Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my allotted portion. The thing that God called Abraham and Moses and the children of Israel to be in the land of Canaan, a land that represents our promised future, God intended for Israel to be a land representing living upon God, as our allotted portion or inherited portion. And that's what, this thought, this theme is used over and over again throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. You maintain, oh Lord, you are my portion. You are the portion of my inheritance and my company. You maintain my lot. The lines, all the lines of the covenant, all the lines of my covenant God have fallen for me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel. My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved, moved away from him. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices, my flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in Sheol." I think Danny read the word hell, but the word literally means Sheol, it's just simply the place of the dead. That's where everyone goes after they die, and then it's sorted out after that. But this is just a general reference to the word for death, the place of the dead, sheol. You will not leave me in the place of the dead, sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life, and Your presence is fullness of joy, and Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16 is divided into two portions, 1 through 6 and 7 through 11. And verses 1 through 6, you can see in your outline, we summarized as singing the song of the faithful servant. That's us. We ask the Lord to sing the song of a faithful service. Otherwise, our service will be, it will chafe us. Unless there's a song in your soul, your service will feel more like bondage. You'll feel more like slavery. You'll have to force yourself to serve another person. So we must learn to sing the song of a faithful servant. It's not just cranking service out as if obedience is something you just gotta do. I just, do I have to? We don't want to live that way as Christians, and we don't have to. In verses seven through 11, we summarized as singing the song of our faithful Lord. Both songs flow out of knowing who we are, knowing our identity, knowing who we are more particularly as God's covenant people, His covenant children. We may serve others by forcing our will, and we may force ourselves to describe God as faithful. Perhaps you have, at some point in time, cranked out service just by the strength of your will. Perhaps you have, as I have sometime, have called God a faithful God, but you did so without any song in your soul when you did it. We may serve others and we may force ourselves to describe God as faithful, but our soul will never sing the song of service or God's faithfulness until we discover ourselves as to be chosen by God. Our chosen identity is important to us. We receive a new name, the book of Revelation says. Every believer has a new name. Every Christian has a new name. It's the one that God gives. It's now, instead of graceless ones, it's the gracious ones. And we learn to live out of that identity. We used to be graceless and we lived that way, didn't we? And now by virtue of being chosen and set apart by the grace of God, we don't live graceless lives any longer as long as we live out our identity, as long as we live out of who we are. So we learn to sing the song of service and God's faithfulness when we discover ourselves to be chosen by God and loved by God as the children of an everlasting covenant. We've preached this passage before, Jeremiah 31.3, you've loved me with an everlasting covenant love. That's a song that the soul learns to sing. You love me with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness you have drawn me to yourself. When the soul begins to press grace back as far as it can be traced, What is its beginning? It has none. God never started loving you. He's always loved you. That's the tilt for the soul, and it causes the soul to sing the song of God. Love is in God, and it's an outbreaking love. It's a It's a love that always is outgoing. It's the nature of God Himself to be a covenant, to make a covenant with His people, a covenant of grace, covenant love with His people because God Himself is a covenant God. It's because of His nature. God draws us to Himself with the cords of boundless, bottomless, fathomless, endless, free, eternal love. And we then begin to sing His song. So we must learn to sing Jeremiah's song and we must learn to sing David's song, a song in Psalm 16. Now, I'll draw from the passage as a whole. But I want to concentrate for this message, I want to concentrate on verses one and two and verse three. We'll start with verses one and two and take up this thought in our outline. Trust in God in the face of great evil and danger. The soul needs to learn to sing the song of God in the face of danger, in the face of evil. Unless you learn to sing the song of God in the face of evil and danger, You'll be restless. You'll be overtaken by the evil that you're being tempted with or by. You'll be overtaken with darkness. You'll be overtaken with despair unless you learn to sing the song of God. When we finally discover, we said this last week. Last Thursday when we preached singing the new song of grace from Psalm 96, we said that behind the song of grace of God in Christ is the old song. the song of works, the song of relating God, relating to other people on the basis of works. And when we finally discover ourselves to be weak and heavy laden because of our works orientation of life, we begin to sing the song of promised rest in Christ, don't we? Something wells up inside of us spontaneously because we finally experience the rest we've been longing for all our lives. We've been working, working, working to find rest. We've been working, working, working to find peace, and we never found it until we rested, our soul rested in Christ. We learned to sing the song of God because of an all-works orientation of life. When we taste mercy for sins paid in full, it's sweet to us, isn't it? Why? Because of the taste of mercy is, is sweet against the backdrop of, uh, Forgiveness paid in full as opposed to what? Oh my, I'm a restless soul. My sins aren't forgiven. They're not paid for. I must work. I must be on a treadmill. I must do, do, do for God. I can't do enough to please God. I can't do enough to satisfy. That's what the soul feels like. We're on an endless treadmill of works until we taste the sweetness of mercy. We have burdensome payments to make when we live unforgiven lives. And we also burden everybody else with miserable payments we make them make because we refuse to forgive them. And then when we taste mercy and we sing the song of rest in God against the backdrops of works, They also sing, don't they? Boy, I'm glad he's finally resting. Boy, I'm glad mom's finally resting in Christ. She put me on the same treadmill that she was on. Don't we do that? I couldn't satisfy all those demands that they were making. My parents couldn't. Because they didn't know the promised rest either. We sing the song when when we rest, and we also cause others to have reason to sing when we let them rest, too. The same is true of Psalm 16. To sing the song of confident trust, we must first consider what's behind David's prayer in verses 1 and 2. What lies behind it? Ah, there's reason for my soul to be disquieted, upset. At the outset, David prays that God might preserve him and deliver him from some great evil or some great danger. When we face some great danger or some great evil, the covenant love and covenant faithfulness of God is a jewel to us to compose our soul more precious than the jewels of a nearer. as precious as the jewels, as Andrew Peterson's jewels of Onera are. The jewels of being loved by God with an everlasting, unbreakable, unchangeable, free love is a greater jewel. It's a greater, more precious treasure. When we learn to sing the precious treasure of God's everlasting faithfulness and everlasting love to us, it will certainly compose our soul in the face of danger. Can you compose your soul? It's a question to ask when you read a psalm like this. Can I compose my soul the way David does? Can I compose my soul in the face of danger, in the face of evil, in the face of darkness? to sing the soul's best song, the song of confident trust in the covenant love and faithfulness of God. Is the covenant a jewel more precious to you than anything you can see, than anything you can taste, than anything you can touch, than anything you can feel? Is God's eternal love, unchangeable, unbreakable covenant love, a jewel to you of infinite worth? Then your song will sing His infinite worth and your identity in Him. Do you see it? In Pilgrim's Progress, Little Faith falls among three thieves. at Dead Man's Lane. Their names are Faintheart, Mistrust, and Guilt. You see, Bunyan is depicting the condition of the soul subject to attack by our own mistrust, by our own faintheartedness, by our own guilt. when we trust Christ, just a little bit, when we have small faith. We're subject to be attacked by the villains that live on dead men's land. They'll make dead men of us if we're not careful. These three villains, these three ruffians, these thieves, beat little faith with a club, and they steal all the money in his pockets. For the rest of his pilgrimage, poor little faith tells everyone he sees, everyone he meets about his stolen pocket money, but he didn't talk about what no one can steal. He didn't talk about the jewels that no one can take away. He didn't talk about his birthright. He didn't talk about his being born again by the Spirit of God, something that no one can take away. He didn't talk about his standing with God based on Christ justifying grace. He just talked about the things that people can steal. No one can steal your jewels. No one can steal what really matters. Later, Christian Hopeful discussed Little Faith's response to being robbed. Hopeful, surprisingly, but maybe not so, Hopeful wonders why Little Faith didn't sell some of his jewels to replace his traveling money and provide for himself a little better along his journey to the celestial city. Well, Christian Scholl's hopeful for such a terrible idea, and he asked him, what do you suppose Little Faith would have done if he got to the gate of Celestial City without his jewels? What if he'd given them up? What if he'd given up his identity, his birthright? What if he'd given up who he is in Christ? What if he'd given up belonging to God by virtue of God's purchased treasury of Christ? Hopeful response. Why are you so tart with me, brother? Why are you so tart? You shouldn't have put me in the ribs when I first came in the door, brother. Why are you so tart with me, brother? Why are you so tart with me, brother? He says, Esau sold his birthright for a mess of stew, for a bowl of stew. And that birthright was his greatest jewel. Now, yes and no. Yes, by virtue of the offer of free grace. That jewel can belong to anyone based on the offer of free grace. That's how free the offer of the gospel is. God will save anyone who will come to him. Right? So Esau did, in a sense, sell his birthright for a pot of stew. So he says, why might the little faith not do so also? Why might he not sell his birthright? And Christian replies, you must see the difference between Esau and little faith. Esau is a typical unbeliever, though offered free grace and identity in Christ. Esau sold it as every unbeliever does because their identity in the covenant of grace, their offer of mercy means nothing to them. Their identity in God, their belonging to God means nothing to an unbeliever. They can buy and sell any jewel that belongs to God at will. It means nothing to them. Although little faith did not prize His covenant or His birthright or His identity as He should, He did not believe them to be worthless or despise His birthright or despise His identity as Esau did. And this is a lesson for each of us, you see. Christian says, my concern for you, brother, is that you had been, if you'd been passing by Dead Man Lane, been attacked by those ruffians, you might have given up your identity too quickly. You might have sold your birthright, or sold your birthright short. And in a sense, that's what little faith does, doesn't it? Little faith sells what belongs to him by virtue of being in Christ, he sold it short. What matters most to him is, oh, my pocket money is gone. I don't have any good way to provide myself. But he didn't tell anybody about the free grace of God in Christ. Tells everybody about being robbed. But nobody does he tell about receiving the free grace of God in Christ. We live like that, don't we? And that's what Christian is cautioning hopeful with. Be careful, brother. You might wind up in the same condition as Little Faith. You might make too little of your identity. You might make too little of your birthright. You might not live out of your identity any more than Little Faith did. When you're overtaken by ruffians like, oh, Faintheart, we like that sometimes, aren't we? Mistrust. guilt, we weigh down with a load of sin sometimes. When we're overtaken by ruffians, do you give up your identity so quickly? Or knowing who you are and to whom you belong, do you compose your soul in the face of danger at dead man's line? the face of evil. What's the evil? The evil isn't outside us. That's not the greatest evil, nor is it the greatest danger. Being beaten up and even killed is not our greatest danger. Our greatest danger is in here, misrepresenting who we are, misrepresenting God to our own soul so that we see singing the song of God. so that we see singing the song of belonging to Him by free grace. That's our greatest danger. Do you know how to compose your soul in the face of great danger? It's important to be able to compose the soul with a song, the song of God. Can you compose your soul? We all need help, don't we? That's why we preach composing the soul, you see? We all need help, even me. David grew up as a shepherd boy. So, as a shepherd protects his flock from all danger, David prays that God might protect him from all the danger and all the evil. The song of the soul for protection and the faith that God will protect flows out of what? What does it flow out of? our identity, our identity as God's chosen people. Now, we've been narrowing our focus just a little bit. Do you want me to show you how other… even in the New Testament, how it's applied by Paul and Peter, same way. In Philippians 1.1, Paul first forms in us our identity. He calls us saints, meaning Not that we're all together like Christ as we should be, but He means saints, not together as holy as we should be, but He means by virtue of calling us saints, those set apart by grace. Those set apart from the world by grace in Christ for God, for His glory, and for the church's good, and for the good of the world. We're saints set apart by grace in Christ. And because we're set apart in Christ, Paul asserts in verse 6, and having begun the good work of grace in us, God will most certainly bring it to completion. That's as much as our identity as the beginning is, you see. Our end, the middle, and the beginning is all in God, and it's all by grace. We need to learn to live that way. We need to learn to sing that song. All belongs to God. The way in which Jonah is at 2-9, salvation is all of the Lord. Jonah never learned to sing that for the sake of another person, did he? Never did. We do need to learn to sing. Similarly, in 1 Peter 1, 3 to 5, Peter says he's a jewel. He's another jewel, you see. He's more specific. Having been born again to a living hope for an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, preserved in heaven by God and kept through faith by the power of God. So what is our part? It's the same part as David's. It's the same part as Paul's. It's to believe. Jesus says it in John, doesn't he? This is the work of God that you believe. That's the most important work that we can do. To learn to sing the song of confident trust in God. It's the most important work we can do. No longer sing the old song of confident trust in self. a miserable song to sing. It will never be useful in the face of danger, nor the temptation of evil. We could not pray that God would complete His work of grace in us like Paul does, were it not for God marking us out by grace and setting us apart by grace. You see that? That's our identity. I'm a saint. I'm one who's been set apart by God. That's me. That's me. Why not continue by grace, the same way I begun? Same way with Peter. We cannot be kept by faith were it not for being born again by God and being heirs of heaven as His covenant people. Those are all precious jewels to us. We need to learn to sing the song of our prized, our most prized possession, and it's God, I tell you. It's God Himself. He's the great giver. God is the great giver. We need to learn to sing the song of who God is and who we are by virtue of who God is. Oh, believer, do you know who you are? In the depths of your soul, can you sing this song? I belong to him. I know I do. I don't belong to myself. I don't belong to the world. I don't belong to any other. I belong to him. I'm God, you see. I've been bought with a price. I want to glorify God because of it. Do you know who you are, and does your soul sing the song of God, God's covenant love, God's faithful love, God's covenant faithfulness? Do your soul sing the song of God, your covenant God? Some Christians do not know their identity as a covenant child, nor God's identity as a covenant God. But our God, our covenant God is a triune God of eternal love and faithfulness by definition. That's the definition. That's what makes the covenant the covenant, you see. There's no covenant apart from God. The covenant is God Himself. The covenant to us is not impersonal, and it's not for us to treat grace like a thing. The covenant of grace comes to us personalized and in communion. The covenant reestablishes communion with the triune God, this God in whom love has existed eternally. The love of begetting, the begetting love of God the Father that exists eternally in God, and the love begotten in God the Son, the reason why He lives, contend. Do you sing the song of contentment or discontentment? All of it has to do with how well you know God. How well you know the Trinity. Do you sing the song of shared love? Do you sing the song of the Holy Spirit? I was surprised several months ago, one of the pastors within my pastor's forum group on the internet, he wrote, what will be the role of the Holy Spirit in heaven? Well, it'll be the same role he's had eternally. He's the agent. He's the instrumental agent of sharing the eternal, infinite free love, the beginning love of God the Father, and the love begotten, that thing, that kind of love that gets happiness, satisfaction, peace. Oh, rest. I can finally rest. I'm loved by God with an infinite eternal free, free. He is a precious jewel of greatest worth. The most precious jewel defines God and His covenant people. God will never and can never forsake His people because He will never and can never forsake Himself. You see, the nature of His relationship with us flows out of the internal relationship of God Himself. We must come to see that. We must come to appreciate what Jesus says to us in John 17. John 17, 24, Father, He prays, Father, I pray that they would be called My glory, the glory that I had before the world began, for You loved Me. There it is. Jesus came to make the glories of God's free love known to us. He didn't come to earn anything for us. He came to put love on display. We must begin to see that. That's what will cause the soul to sing. Are you learning to sing the song of covenant love and faithfulness of God? Do you trust God because it's your identity? Believer, you are a covenant child of God and nothing can alter it. Nothing will ever alter who you are or to whom you belong. Nothing. God's nature itself would have to be altered as a God who has love for the other in His being. He'd have to stop being a God in whom love for the other is rooted in its very nature. and he's not going to stop being God, and will never stop being his covenant people, will never stop being loved by God with an infinite, uncreated, free love. Job says, though God slay me, yet will I trust him. And that faces value that seems like a good statement. But you have to be careful and discern, ah, is that made because Job is singing a song of God, or is he forcing his will? Do you sing that song? Though God slay me, I'll trust him. Can you sing that song or do you just force your will? In the face of death, I'll trust God. Or does your soul sing the song? In the face of death, my soul will sing God. There's a difference. There's an incredible difference, a stark difference. You must be careful not to imagine you can simply will yourself to trust God. That's not going to happen. No one wills themselves just to trust God. Singing the song of your covenant identity is the only possible way you will trust God in the face of tragedy like Job, or in the face of a hard providence, the hardest providence of life like Job. Job composed his soul upon God, but do you know what chapters they are? Do you know? There are only three out of 42 chapters. Job only composes his soul to sing God, only three chapters, the first two and the last. Those hard providences disrupt Job's song. chapter 3 begins to curse God's providence, even the providence by which he was created. He curses the night sky and the day sky and the stars in the sky and the clouds in the sky. He curses everything he possibly can. And at the end of chapter 3, he refuses comfort. And that refusal to live by grace in the midst of hard providences is what sets up him coming to the place where he feels at the end, chapter 30 and 31, he begins to call God out of heaven to vindicate who? Not God, Job. It's why God must come to reveal more of what He's really like in those two whirlwinds. Do you read them carefully? Chapters 37 through 40, and then 40 through 42, do you read them carefully? Do you know what God is like as a result of the questions? He asked Job to reveal what he's really like to Job. They're Trinitarian Christians. They reveal what God's infinite authority, infinite wisdom is like. They reveal what God the Son's infinite goodness is like. And they reveal what God the Spirit's infinite power is like. Why wouldn't they be Trinitarian? At first, Job lays his hand across his mouth in chapter 40, verse 4, and he says, behold, I'm vile. But then God has to ask him, do you really know how vile you are? Oh, no, you don't. Chapter 40, verse 8, God says, Job, if you know really how vile you are, why do you continue to counsel me? Chapter 40, verse 8, that's the first question. Is my wisdom not good enough for you? Job, are you going to tell me how to run my world? Is that what it comes to, Job? The distrust? Job's struggling still. And then the second question is, Job, are you going to continue to justify yourself and condemn me? second whirlwind judgment comes, God does reveal himself and Job sees what God is like. In chapter 42 verses 5 and 6, Job says something like, I didn't really know God as well as I thought. No wonder he stopped singing the song of God. He didn't really know God, nor did he know himself well enough to be in God by virtue of free grace. He's still contending for some righteousness in himself. God wouldn't say it if he did. He's still contending for some wisdom that he has apart from God. God wouldn't say it if he didn't, you see. And then Job says, behold. my eyes see him." He comes to know God firsthand. He comes to know God as He really is. And then, with all the sin in Job, he sees grace in God, and then he repents in dust and ashes. You don't repent until you know God. You don't repent in order to know God. You don't repent in order to receive grace. You don't repent in order to believe. You receive the God of free grace as He is. That's it, isn't it? It's the free grace of God in Christ that leads us to repent. And then you know what happens afterwards? God restores Job to a place of similar or greater honor than he had before. And how does He use his honor? And how does He use his wealth? He does good all the rest of his life, and Job enjoys such communion, such restored communion with God, that God sends Job's three sons, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad. He sends them to Job to correct them. He sends them to Job for counsel. He sends them to Job for help. Do you not think if we live and commune with God and we sing the song of God, we'll have more ministry than you can stick a stick at? God will send people here when we live and commune with God and we learn to sing the song of God well enough that we can teach others to sing the song of free grace too. I believe that. I have believed that for a long time. It's why I seek to teach you to sing the song, not just teach you information about God and exhort your will. I don't want you to teach others information, good doctrine, and exhort their wills either. Teach them to sing the song of God. That's what it's all about, you see. We'll be singing. You read the book of Revelation. We'll be singing forever. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. King of kings, Lord of lords. And when we learn to sing that song here and now, our service will be faithful service. Sing the song of God's covenant faithfulness. David first prays for preservation from danger and deliverance from evil in verses one and two. Then, in communion with God, he returns faithful service to God's people in verse three. Please notice first that David lives with the highest esteem he can possibly have. Who? For whom? Himself? No. He has the highest esteem for His covenant friends, His covenant members, His covenant family, His church. Verse 3, as for the saints who are on the earth, these are the excellent ones. When David prays for God to preserve him from danger, he does not pray for the wrong end or the wrong purpose. He prays for the right end. He doesn't pray, God preserve me so that I can spend the rest of my life in the service of myself. That's not what he prays. That's not what you see in his passage, is it? If it were in David's heart to be self-serving, he would in no way express what he does in verse 3. Now he's singing a different song, you see? Same song, but a little different flavor, another verse. Now his chief delight, now his greatest excellency is found in those whom God has redeemed. Ah, look, there's a shining one. Ah, she's wearing the same cloak of righteousness that I'm wearing. He's been forgiven by the same grace that I've been forgiven by. Oh my goodness, there are others too. God redeemed others for his glory too. And look, look, here's a church full of them. Let's go tell the nations. That's the song, you see. We learn to sing the song of highest esteem for the work of grace, for each other's identity. You're chosen. You're set apart by God. You have received free grace just as I have. Oh my goodness. How did it happen? You were a worm just like me. Oh my goodness. You were that caterpillar in the ring of fire that Luther described. Just like me. There was no way of escape for you either. Look at your life. The only believer in your family that I could tell, How many are like that in this room? How many of us are first-generation believers in a family that took us to church all our lives? Dead moralistic churches. Did you know your identity there in that dead moralistic church? Oh, no, it was never preached. Did you know God's sovereign choice of grace in those churches? No, it was never preached. It was despised. Free grace and the free love of God was despised, and it still is among the churches from which we've come. despised. They hate free grace. They hate free love. They love free will and hate sovereign grace. David prays to be preserved so he can spend the rest of his days serving God's people, because God has served him. Isn't that what Jesus says in Mark 10, 45? Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give. And once we live in communion with this Jesus, who serves and gives, we become servants, glad-hearted servants, and fellow givers also. all because of grace. Self-love and self-service is not at the bottom of his heart, not at the bottom of his prayers. He loves and esteems fellow believers. He knows other believers were set apart for the glory of God, just as He was. He knows that they were purchased by the treasure of grace out of sin and self-love and self-esteem, just as He was. He knows they are a chosen identity, just as He knows His home. I know you. I know you. You're chosen by God freely. Sometimes we have to learn to sing that song into the life of another person who's struggling with their identity. Do you know who you are? It's easy to forget, isn't it? My wife says I might give away the wing feather saga if I say too much. I say to you that learning to sing the song of God and your identity in Christ is more important than the thrill of the entertainment of the wing feather saga. I'll leave it general. One brother rescues another. by reminding him who he is all the rest of his days after he slips up and allows himself to be turned into a fang. Got any half fangs in here? I'll raise my hand. I live like I'm nameless sometimes. I live like I have no identity sometimes. Don't you? Don't you live that way? I live as if I have no one to whom I really belong. No people to whom I belong. And I need a poke in the ribs when I enter. He didn't really poke me in the ribs. He asked me a very gracious question, Danny did. He asked me a question, a thoughtful question, the first, I didn't even get in the door good. And he wants to know, brother, have you lost your identity? Are you living by works? You're going to pay back? Brother, I'm concerned for you that you're going to get vengeance. I don't pay back for nobody. God didn't pay me according to my sins. That's my identity. That's who I am. I know. I know of the boundless free grace by which I've been pardoned for my sins. And I know to whom I belong. I belong to God and I belong to you. You're the chosen ones with whom God has placed me to develop lifelong relationships that show the world that we're not alienated from one another. We belong to one another. We're not dysfunctional people. We forgive each other all the time for sins that we commit. And we commit bunches of them, don't we? We do. Way too much. We're way too sinful. But that's not my identity. My identity is I've been set apart for God. I'm not a slave of my sin. That's not my identity. I'm not a condemned sinner. That's not my identity. I'm not a guilty, faint-hearted, mistrusting believer. That's not my identity. That's what the three ruffians at Dead Man's Lane would like to have me believe. I don't sing their song. They assault me all the time. Do they assault you? But I don't sing their song. I don't sing the song of my stolen pocket money. I really don't care. Just give me enough, Lord, to let me get by for the rest of life and build a church for generation to generation. I am concerned for that. Lord, give me enough money to help build a church for that will last. That does require money. Sorry. It does. It just does. You've got to pay a pastor's salary. You have to pay for a place to meet. You have to pay for a place to eat on it. Covered dish luncheon. Yes. I wish I didn't have to pay. That's not my identity. I'm happy. I'm a happy payer. Newton. John Newton. John Newton's song, The Happy Debtor. I'm a happy debtor. I'm not unhappy. I'm forgiven. I used to be an unhappy debtor to my sin, God freed me from that. So now a happy debtor to what? To grace? That's a song we're learning to sing, you see it. For David and for us also. We must look upon one another as born-again believers by the Spirit of God. We must look upon one another as justified believers, clothed in the spotless white robes of the righteousness of Christ, as reconciled to God by His love, infinite love, infinite free, boundless love, as kept by the power of God. That's our identity. And when we look upon one another like David does, oh, they're the excellent ones. I'm so glad that I go to church with the excellent ones, those who've been saved and persevered, preserved by grace. In the riches that we have, the honor that we have in serving one another is greater than all the kings and queens and all the princes and princesses of the world put together. The honor of service because it's identity. Christ came to serve, not be served. That's my identity, serving just like my Jesus served. Why? Same motive, God's free love, God's free grace. David's fellow believers and ours are described in Hebrews 11.35. Have you read it lately? You should go and read it. I encourage you, as they are the ones who are tortured, tent-tried, mocked, scourged, shamed, imprisoned, stoned, tempted, slain, thrown into some wandering homeless, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world is not to see what great worth the least saint has in the eyes of God. We should also give one another that value, that worth. We live and commune together and sing the song of God, and we teach it to as many people as we possibly can. That will be what we do as a church. Who do you esteem as excellent? Who? Unbelievers who put themselves in the place of God? Do you know that's what David says he won't do in verse 4? I will not. Unbelievers who put themselves in the place of God and torment and torture believers? That's what unbelievers are doing. More of that is happening in America than ever before. Why? Because more believers are learning their identity and singing a song of free grace, not moralistic man-made religion. The forces of darkness was happy to let the churches sing moralism. That's what's happening. There's a reformation that's taking place. More believers are learning to sing the song of sovereign grace. And for that, you will be persecuted. Why? Because of our nature, we want to earn everything we get. We're worth it, you see. I don't know about you, Nathan, but you know. I'm worth a lot. And don't you tell me I need to be loved by God with free love. It ain't so. I'm a good man. Do you see how it works? That, beloved, that, brothers and sisters, is happening more and more. the reaction of the world, an unbelieving world, against free love, because free love and free grace is being made known better, more clearly. The church is learning to sing the song of God. Who are the excellent ones today, to you? Are God's people truly the excellent ones, and does your soul delight in them, as Psalm 16 3 says? As for the saints who are on the earth, these are the excellent ones. As for all those set apart by grace in the earth, all the earth, they alone bear the renewed image of God. They alone partake of the life of God in their souls. God shares His very nature with them and designs that they alone. Talk to they. We, we, we alone share and bear the glory of free love, free, boundless, bottomless, fathomless, endless love of God with one another. That's it, isn't it? We're happy for others to sing the song. It's we who need to learn to sing together, you see. We, we need to learn to sing the song of grace and love together. Like David in Psalm 16, do you know God is your God, your covenant God? And do you know those who are set apart by grace as His covenant people to whom you also belong? They're my people. They're my lifetime people. I can never forsake them. God has put me here. I can never forsake them. They will never forsake me." That's the song they sing, because they're singing God's song. Like the Igbechi children, have you discovered who you are? And have you also discovered that all the forces of darkness are out to destroy you because of who you are, because of the way you live? You're living out your identity. I'm bought with free grace. I know what I was like. May we never become a slave of fear or despair or darkness. May we never give up our identity in exchange for the promise of the power to rule over other people, and that, beloved, is happening all the time now. Wokeness and cultural Marxism has ushered in that identity, even in the churches. It's happened. It's happened even among us, and you know it to be true. Some want to rule over us for the power they're given. And what is their identity now? I'll ask you that. What is their identity? They do not want to be identified with God. They do not want to be identified with the people of God. That's their identity. Knowing that we're children of the covenant of grace, let us sing the sweet song of faithful service all the days of our lives, not of having power over anybody else, me over you, you over me, me over you, me over you, you over me. Let us not sing that song. Let us not give up our names, our identity to sing the song so that you will serve me. Let it not be so. Let it never be so. Let us sing the song of faithful, sweet service to one another all the days of our lives. Then our faithful service will surely be the instrument by which we become, shall I say it, the way Paul says of Timothy, you'll be salvation of others. Well, yes, the instrumental means. That's what we need to be. Timothy didn't save anybody, Christ saved. But in his faithfulness, Timothy was instrumental in the salvation of others, wasn't he? That's what we're saying here. When we learn to sing the song of God, we become instrumental in the salvation of others from the nameless, slavish lives they live in order to have power over another. Let us live out of our identity. Singing the song? Are you singing the song of who you are in Christ? Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks for this, our time together, and we pray that it would be profitable for all of us. We pray, Lord, that we would learn to sing the song of our identity, our chosen identity in Christ. And out of being set apart by grace, the grace of God in Christ, the free grace of God in Christ, we will sing together forever and evermore in the communities in which we live, in which we've been placed. Even if it does mean others torturing us to rule over us. my hate and darkness. God help us. In Jesus' name, amen.