Our text this evening will be Psalm 112. If you'll turn there in your Bibles, let's read this together. Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches will be in his house. and his righteousness endures forever. Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. A good man deals graciously and lends. He will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he will never be shaken. The righteous will be an everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established. He will not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies. He has dispersed abroad. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted with honor. The wicked will see it and be grieved. He will gnash his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked shall perish. Thus ends this reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you to hear what you have to say to us. May you guide my mouth to say your words only. May you open the minds of these people here, including me, to hear your word. And may your Holy Spirit take away any chaff that may occur over the next few minutes. We ask this humbly and gratefully through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Well, this morning, I thank the session tonight. I must thank all of you for putting up with me for the last three weeks. We're going to this is Closing out a series of six messages, some of which are intertwined, I think you'll see me pulling a lot of things together this evening as we go through Psalm 112, as we talk about the vision of the godly. Let's look at that psalm itself first. Praise the Lord. Now, there's that command again. This is not something for us to get emotional about. It's a command. We are under orders, if you will, to do those things that cause God to be praised. Well, then we see this nice word, blessed. If somebody's blessed, he's happy. He's in a good situation. He's in a place where God is smiling upon him. Well, who is this blessed person? Blessed is the person who fears the Lord. Now, if you may remember from last week, the fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom from Psalm 111. Wisdom proceeds from fear. If I have enough fear, that is a real respect for this incalculable being with whom I have to do, then I should be listening to him, I should be following his advice, and that's where the wisdom is. Well, who is this person? This is someone who delights greatly in his commandments. Somebody who takes pleasure, takes pleasure in following the law of God. Now, I hope that doesn't sound strange to anybody, but there are a lot of people who reject this. They think there are better delights in life. Fulfilling the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the lust of the eye, fulfilling the pride of life. There are people who think that only in providing all sorts of experiences for the senses, that that's going to bring them a greater delight than in God's law. Well, no matter what one does sensually, it becomes an addiction, and therefore it takes more and more. For us, we desire more of God, but we can never get too much. God is not an addiction. God loves us. You know, he loves us enough to want to be, want to have us interact with him. The lust of the eye. I've often said that the half-life of pleasure that you get from any new thing is about three and a half weeks. So once you've got some new possession, for about four or five months, it's lost all of its luster. I don't think Our delight in God should wear out in four or five months. The pride of life. Symbolized by what in many, if you go to the offices of many men, they have what I would call the I love me wall. It's the awards. It's the pictures with some big wig. It's all sorts of stuff. That's all gonna burn up. If we're delighting in God's commandments, that's not gonna burn up. That's going to give us fruit forever. His descendants will be mighty. Whenever I read that, I think of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan, if you trace out Jonathan Edwards' family, doctors, lawyers, a vice president of the United States, a chief justice of the Supreme Court, a godly man bringing forth a godly seed, his generations will be blessed. This is the advantage of godly example and nurture. I can't minimize that. I can't tell you that it can be replicated. As a guy who did not grow up in a godly home, Lord knows I've tried. I admit, I've tried to read more, I've tried to learn more, and I have not been able ever to replicate what generations of godly nurture will do. I'm thankful that God has allowed me to do some things, but if you have generations of godly nurture, you ought to be thankful for that every day. See, as we continue here, you can't learn enough to become godly out of books. You learn it from his interaction in your life as he uses the word to build you internally. Wealth and riches are in his house. Now, for us, that's not necessarily on a physical basis, okay? You're not hearing prosperity gospel here. I am not going to tell you that Godly nurture and a godly household will immediately give you riches and fame. I'm going to tell you that the wealth and the riches are being stored up for you in heaven. You have, and that's the safest place in the world. You can't be scammed out of it. It, there is no, there is no market that's going to fail. There is nothing that is going to interfere with your investment in godliness in eternity. Light in darkness. You know, the godly man is light in darkness. Now, being of my age, I still remember Bush 41's inaugural and he was talking about a thousand points of light. He may not have been talking about what we are, but Think of the darkness out there in the world and think of all the godly men who are points of light, helping those bruised reeds and those smoking flaxes to come to their God. Righteousness endures forever. See, the righteousness that's built into your life and mine, as God is conforming us to his own image doesn't go away. It's our best legacy because that's becoming part of our eternal beings. And again, you may recall a couple weeks ago I was talking about how Jane Eyre is discussed as a spiritual autobiography where Jane comes to the realization that she's an eternal being and it changes the way she thinks. So it should be with us. Now we look at some character qualities. This man is gracious. He's compassionate. He's righteous. The godly man reflects and is a channel for God's own character. If you're godly, you should look like God, if you will. The good man deals graciously and lends. At this point, I'm calling out, take that, Charles Dickens. Christians are not Scrooge like you made us to be. and a Christmas carol. I call out William Shakespeare and I say, no, godly men are not like Shylock or that pseudo Puritan that you put in Twelfth Night. Godly, the good man is gracious. They're lending, they're not hanging onto it. He guides his affairs with discretion. In other words, the good man avoids foolishness in every single way that foolishness could be. The good man, the godly man, is not foolish with his money, with his time, with his attention, with his affection. All of that is put in the direction that's being led by the Word of God. He will never be shaken. Okay, he's not a James Bond martini. He's often stirred, but never shaken. He's an everlasting remembrance. Wow. God doesn't forget these people. I don't know, this is happening more and more to me. I run into people on the street, or in the store, and it's particularly embarrassing. Hi, Dr. J. Who are you? Oh, you took care of, don't you remember me? I'm so-and-so, you took care of me 35 years ago. Ah, and that's where I find that my memory's not as good as God's. God doesn't forget me. Okay, not afraid of evil tidings, enemies, plots, persecution. These are things that cause fear. There's only one thing greater than fear, faith. If you and I believe God enough, it doesn't matter what comes into our lives. His heart is steadfast. See, that means his inner man doesn't change. He's got integrity. I like that word integrity because it makes me think of math. See, in math, there are such things as called integers. Integers are whole numbers. Integrity says that you're whole. You're all one piece. It's there. There's, there's no intermingling. It's no matter how we slice you, we find the same thing. That's trusting in the Lord because we know where our ultimate victory and blessedness resides and conversely doesn't reside. We got that clear. His heart's established. Okay. By the way, he didn't do it. It was done for him. If he did it, it would say he establishes his heart. No, his heart is established. It's put down there. He will not be afraid. He's not afraid of his enemies, but he is afraid of the one who defeats them. He disperses abroad. He gives and gives. See, that's back to being gracious and lending. He's given to the poor. By the way, the poor are always going to be there. Jesus himself said that. The poor you're going to have with you all, poor are going to be with you always. There will always be poor people in the world. Another problem with socialism. Socialism and communism think they can solve that problem. No. No matter what we do, there are always going to be poor people. So there's always a place where we can give. His righteousness endures forever. Again, in the godly man, it's not his own. His horn will be exalted with honor. That's a better reward than anything on an I love me wall. By the way, the wicked don't want this. And their torments in this life and in the next are only gonna be increased because of it. There's somebody who is an ungodly person. For every godly man, there's at least one ungodly person that's watching him and getting all riled up at what he perceives as the godly man's success. There is a human being that's your enemy out there. There's always the devil as well. But there are going to be people in your life watching you, and you may never know who they are, watching you and being frustrated with the blessings that God does in your life. So what does this all mean? What do we talk about in the psalm? The word I want to use is character. This is character, and despite what the political pundits may say, character makes a difference. By the way, there's nothing here, we haven't hit anything that's talking about the relative intelligence or cleverness or physical prowess of the godly man. I can't do enough push-ups. I can't read enough books. I can't play enough games to become a godly man. Why? These are norms of behavior. They're not intellectual achievement. This is becoming an integer. This is becoming something simple. This is getting rid of the complexities of our beings and just being simply righteous. and holy, like our God is simple and righteous and holy. Now, okay, fine. Does that mean that I'm gonna have no problems living as a godly man? Of course not. The godly man doesn't live a problem-free life, but he makes right decisions and does right things. See, we talked about humans, now we're gonna talk Talk in the spiritual realm. Every godly man is a battleground where the Lord and the devil are fighting. Started with Job and it hasn't stopped. Every moment of the godly man's life is another decision. These decisions are critical times. And every one of these decisions, large or small, is either going to be for or against the word of God. Thankfully, the Spirit of God, when we make a right decision, is rewarding us for our successes. When we don't make that right decision and we have to repent of it, the Spirit of God is there to comfort us and to teach us to not make that same decision again. So godliness is not manufactured. Now, I don't like saying that. After years of trying to manufacture it, I have to admit that I failed at that. Because the godly man's godliness is not manufactured, but it's created in God's crucible, where heat is applied and the impurities are taken out. Fear and obedience are what this is all about. Fearing God and obeying what he says. Fearing God enough that you don't, you really don't want to go through the perils of disobedience. See, and then, okay, we're going to have trials. As we seek to live godly in Christ Jesus, yes, that's what Paul was talking about in Thessalonians. Everyone who seeks to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. There will be trials. But in these trials, There come times when you have epiphanies. The godly man will have an epiphany of the eternal choices. Choosing an eternity of blessing, which may be the harder choice with God, or choosing an eternity of pain, suffering, and the eternal wrath of God. So. How do we, what do we take home from here first? Godliness is not an achievement. It's not a merit badge. It's a process that's under the control of the spirit. Is there anyone here who remembers hearing the story of the Velveteen Rabbit when you were growing up? Okay, some of you know about the Velveteen Rabbit. The Velveteen Rabbit, He's rubbed raw. He loses an eye. He's kind of ragged and all that. And then one day the rabbit, you know, the kid wants to take the rabbit with him. And the mom goes, why would you want that old thing? That's not a thing. He's real. As we are buffeted about, we become more real. We become more really gods. As long as we're in this life, okay, we're not gonna be godly enough. Sorry, it's gonna be continual lessons. And we fumble along with a D minus in godliness. However, at our death, as you will see in the catechism, we're changed from that D minus to an A in holiness. We are perfected in holiness at our death. When we leave behind this relic of the fall, we're spiritually perfected in Christ, and we are in holy rest, waiting to be reunited with an eternal, completely righteous body. The godly man's life is lived for and toward God. If I have success, it's his. If I have failure, it drives me to him to run away from it. The question is not whether one's life is easy, but whether it shows righteousness. We can't do that. Only as Christ is graciously applying his obedience to the law to us and causing us to become more and more conformed to the law that we love. Do we become more like him and become more used to his presence and more desiring of it? May we continue to walk in that path. Amen. Lord,