Let's come before our Lord in prayer. Lord God, we thank you for your presence with us this morning. We thank you for your loving kindness towards us. We thank you for your word. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for our Savior, Jesus Christ, who was willing to lay down his life for us. O Lord God, that we might come to know you more and more day by day. We ask you to bless our reading today from your word as we study it, as we examine it, that we might be changed in a way that draws us near to you. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So my first sentence in this sermon struck me as I wrote it. In the Billy Graham crusades of the last century, and I went, oh man. But in the Billy Graham crusades of the last century, as he made his altar call, he'd have his choir sing a very familiar song to many of us, which is Just As I Am. So here's the first stanza. Just as I am, I was going to sing it and Lynn said, no, don't do that. Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. You know, Christ summons us. He calls to us. He asks us to come into his presence. And we are to come to him. And this applies not only to our conversion, but to our daily walk with Christ. He is our daily bread. He bids us to come to him and to sup with him so that he may sup with us. That's an old word, means have a hamburger and fries. Have dinner together, have a time of fellowship and a familiarity with one another. And as you do probably at your dinner table, my dinner table when I was growing up was never silent. It was always noisy. There was always conversations going on. You know, and when Christ invites us to His table, it's the same way. He wants to have a conversation and wants to have a talk with us and to listen to us. Now, it says that we want to sup with Him, and it's a promise. Actually, it's made to us from the book of Revelation. It's in the third chapter, 20th verse, and it's spoken, in case you didn't realize it, because it's mentioned twice in the New Testament, but in Revelation, it is spoken to believers, not to unbelievers. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me. He calls us to dine with him at his table. To dine with him. No longer his enemy, remember that song we sing sometimes, no longer his enemy, but now his beloved friend. That's humbling, isn't it? And that applies not only to the Lord's Supper as a sacrament, but to our need for that daily bread that I talked about and for that daily fellowship with Him. And the question is, why? Why is that important? It's so that we might receive fresh helpings. Again, have the image of a Thanksgiving table, for example, in which there are many helpings, so that we might receive fresh helpings of grace and of joy and of comfort and of instruction and of correction and of forgiveness and of assurance and of love, as Jason prayed. Now the question I hope you've asked yourself at some point in your Christian walk is one that too often gets ignored in reform circles. Goes something like this, whether we can tangibly experience Christ. Can we tangibly experience Christ? Now maybe that sounds too mystical, too Pentecostal, like it's a fiction or it's a delusion. or it's a psychological ploy that we just talk to ourselves. We've heard that before. Now that's how my Presbyterian pastors reacted when I told them I'd come to their church as a non-Christian because God told me to. Freaked them out. So they asked, you know, so are you a charismatic? You know, and I said, I don't know, what's that? I'm an unbeliever. I'm just coming to the faith. I'm just being summoned by Christ. And I have no idea what this lingo is. But so often we do. We have these terms. We have these labels. We have these stereotypes that we have of how things are supposed to be. And anything outside that expectation is somehow or other wrong. It needs to be corrected. And it's just not always that way. And so be careful when you're talking to folks that the language they're using isn't something that you're reading into what it is that they're saying. Don't read into what I'm saying this morning, okay? So, anyway. They spent years, this is my frustration that I wanted to share with you, they spent years having me substitute doctrine for that familiar voice until it was hard for me to hear it at all. But God was faithful. God is always faithful. He never stopped calling me to come to Him. Never stopped calling me to listen to Him and to know Him in Christ. He bids all His people to do that. He's bidding you to do that each day as you get up. Come to me. Come today. So let me ask you, you think David knew Christ? Now that's an interesting question. Wait a minute, he wasn't even born yet. Okay, but do you think David knew Christ? Did he experience Him? I'm not asking if he expected the Messiah, that's not what I'm talking about. But did he personally experience Christ? So, where do we find out? You go to the Bible. Okay, so in the New Testament, Jesus asked the Pharisees a question very much like the one I just asked. I'll put this up on the board for you. Jesus asked of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees, of all those people that had their terms and their stereotypes and their rules and regs. And he asked them, so what do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? And they said to him, well he is the son of David. And he said to them, so how is it, explain this to me. How is it that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord? Saying, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, How can he be his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, and here comes the humor of scripture, nor that day did anybody dare to ask him any more questions. They were gobsmacked. They wandered off muttering to themselves and scratching their heads. We often look at religion as just the externals. Religion is serving, and it's singing, and it's praying, and it's tithing. And to the Pharisees, having this concept of an imminent experience of God, like the prophets of old experience, must have seemed to them blasphemous. How dare he say that he talks to God and God talks to him? Huh, he doesn't talk to us. Not recognizing, yeah, he is, but that's for another day. Even today we're told you don't need to experience Christ. You don't need that. You only need to know Christ to know who He is and what He did. And all of that's contained in the Bible. There's nothing to experience outside of its pages. In other words, it's foolish to think that you can actually converse with Christ and hear from Him beyond reading ink on a page in your Bible. Don't mishear me. Easy enough to do. Don't mishear me. Doctrine is good, but it's not all. And believers, you know, we have to watch the way that we deal with one another in the church. And when it comes to the church, structure in the church is good, but it's not all. Believers must be relational. We here this morning must be relational. We must know one another, talk to one another, listen to one another. and seek Christ in one another. We must be relational. And when it comes to our relationship with God, it must be, here's a new one for you, conversational. And when it comes to our relationship with God, it must be conversational. David conversed with God. He heard God's voice. When did David hear it? Well, he tells us in Psalm 63. He says, when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night, Until I was old, I didn't understand what that meant. But I'm up like every two to three hours. Those are in the watches of the night. It's hard for me to do eight hours straight, you know, anymore. And those are in the watches of the night. And the question is, what do I do when I get up? So I'd go into the bathroom. This is a good time to talk with God. It's a good time to talk with God. With my whole heart, I cry. This is David. With my whole heart I cry, I cry out, I plead, answer me, O Lord. I rise before dawn and I cry for help. I hope in your words my eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise." I guess he knew what to do in those hours in the night. Now, David didn't cry out, answer me, O Lord, expecting silence, did he? I don't think so. He cried out expecting God to hear him and expecting to hear back from God. And what he heard back from God, he wrote down for us. And those are the Psalms, among other things. And to be in God's presence. David expected to be in God's presence. And he expected to commune with God. You know, we talk about the communion table. What do we mean by communion? You know, do you commune with your family at the dinner table? Do you commune with your family by email and on social media? How do you commune with other people? How do you communicate? How do you share one's lives with each other? How do you learn from them? How do they know what's going on in your life if you don't converse with them, commune with them? And so we commune with God, we converse with God. Today we're looking at another of David's Psalms, Psalm 27. Short, whew, short one. And David will lay out for us what this conversation, what this communion with God is like And I want you to keep in mind, this is not just for David, but for any who would draw near to God so that God might draw near to them. Now I'm going to be reading from Psalm 27 from the NLT. Don't gasp. It's the pre-2011 version. I didn't know this until I was talking to Matt, you know. They made changes in 2011 and to the NIV. Don't get them. But before 2011, it was a great translation. Disclaimer. Anyway, so this is the pre-2011 version. So I'm going to read to you from the NLT. I want you to listen just for now, to listen to David's heart, to consider his situation. Put yourself in his shoes and come before God. Make David's words your words. So you know the word Lord as used throughout this psalm is Yahweh. What is Yahweh? Yahweh is the one who is the great I am. So as you listen to this, as you read it for yourself, think of Moses at the burning bush. Here is God giving light in the midst of the wilderness, calling him, summoning him, come see, come know, come learn from me. Verse one, Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation. So why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress protecting me from danger, or why should I tremble? When evil people come to devour me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they stumble and they fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident. The one thing I ask of the Lord, the one thing I seek most, and this is David's prayer to God. He's saying the one thing I ask of you, my Lord, the thing that I seek most from you, my Lord, is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life delighting in the Lord's perfections, meditating in His temple, in His temple. For He will conceal me there when troubles come. He'll hide me in a sanctuary. He'll place me out of reach on a high rock, who is Christ, isn't it? On a high rock. And then I will hold my head high above my enemies who surround me. At His sanctuary, at His sanctuary, His place of refuge, at His sanctuary, I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy, singing and praising the Lord with music. Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me. My heart has heard you say, come and talk with me. Come and talk with me. And my heart responds, Lord, I'm coming. Now, that is the NLT translation of it. Yours will be a little different. I'm going to take a little moment here. That was verse eight in this psalm. I'm going to take just a moment. We're going to go through this. This particular translation is on your handout for this morning. In other translations, this verse reads something like this. You say, seek my face. And my heart says, your face, Lord, I seek. Or grammatically speaking, as we like to do that every now and then, just have fun. But grammatically speaking, he's saying, be seeking my face. Luckily, we don't talk like this. Be seeking my face. My heart says, your face or presence, Lord, I will be seeking. Now, that sounds like it's in the future tense, doesn't it? Like it's not a present experience of God. It sounds like it's some time to come. Yeah, when I find time, I'll seek your face. David is saying, you invited me into your presence, and my heart responds, I will be seeking you, Lord, nonstop. But in context, David says, I am seeking you. I am coming into your presence right now with all my heart. I'm relying on the promise you made to us long ago when you said, and I'm gonna put this on the board for you, Deuteronomy 4. If you corrupt yourselves and make a graven image or the likeness of anything and do evil on the side of the Lord to provoke him to anger, the Lord will scatter you among the nations. But even, even then, even if you screw up that bad, even then, if from there you seek the Lord your God, You will find Him. You will find Him. How? If you seek Him with all your heart, this is the promise. If you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul, that's a promise. Now, it's conditional. There's an if in there, right? God says, I'll hear if you seek me with all your heart. But it's a promise. It reflects the same grace that God extended to Adam in the beginning. What did Adam do? He hid from God. He was not seeking out God. And he was hoping God did not find him. And so God called out to him and drew him near. And the question is why? Why did He call out to Adam and draw him near? It was to dress Adam. It was to clothe him with the promise of Christ who would come in the fullness of time, wasn't it? Doesn't He do that for us? Doesn't He clothe us? Are we not clothed with Christ? David understood that promise, I think, I'm sure. He was a man after God's own heart, isn't that what we hear? That's 1 Samuel 13, 14, he was desperate for God's presence. He wanted intimacy in that presence. Intimacy with God. David too has been called by God in the midst of his afflictions, while he's having trouble. In the midst of it, not afterwards, not beforehand, in the midst of it. And so David turns around in a sense, right? God calls and David goes, yes, sir. He turns around seeking God in turn. He wants nothing to come between them at this point. He wants to know God up close and personal. He comes naked into God's presence, not with fig leaves, not with excuses, not with distractions. He comes wholeheartedly into God's presence. Though his heart, though his heart is broken. Though it's broken, he comes to God and into his presence. He comes expectantly into God's presence, yet humbly. He has no right to demand anything of God. And so he comes as a child, comes as a child, running into his father's arms, and so he comes trustingly. Isn't that how your children run to you? Leap into your arms? Complete trust. leap into the air, leap off the staircase, right? Daddy will catch me. Mommy will catch me. Most of the time we do. And so he comes trustingly, wholly surrendered to the one who loves him. And then David pleads with God. Verse 9, Psalm 27. It's a strange thing to add after all this. He says, don't turn your back on me. Don't reject your servant in anger. You've always been my helper. Don't leave me now. Don't abandon me. Oh God of my salvation. Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. Oh my. What a prayer. You can see why the NLT translated verse eight is it did. My heart has heard you say, come, come my child and talk with me. And my heart, my heart responds. Lord, I'm coming. I'm not responding with my intellect, not responding with doctrine. I'm responding with my deepest desires. The old days used to call them bowels. In the bowels, in the depths of my emotions and my passion and my needs, I'm consumed by them. My heart responds, Lord, I'm coming. Okay, verse 11. Teach me how to live, O Lord. Lead me along the right path. So he's in God's presence, and now the question is, what's he asking for? Interesting. Teach me how to live, O Lord. He comes to God's presence to learn how to live here in this world, because David finds it kind of tough. So do many of us. Not an easy place to live in, is it? Lead me along the right path, for my enemies are waiting for me. Don't let me fall into their hands, for they accuse me of things I've never done. With every breath they threaten me with violence, and yet And yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here, while I am here now in the land of the living. I'm not waiting for it in heaven. I want to know God now here in this world while I'm here. I want to have that experience of God here in the land of the living. Now you don't have this for verse 14, but I put in, I tell myself, Because otherwise it sounds like whoever wrote this, David, turns around and begins to talk to everybody else and is not talking to himself. I don't think so. I tell myself, wait patiently for the Lord. Oh, my heart. Oh, my soul. Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave. Be courageous in the midst of your afflictions and all that stuff that's going on in your life. Be brave. Why? Because you're coming before the God of all the universe, your creator. the one who loves you. Be brave and courageous, yet, yes, wait patiently for the Lord, and there it ends. That's it, yeah. Yeah, there it ends, waiting patiently for the Lord for Yahweh, for what? To speak. David has approached God, he has called upon God, he has asked for things from God, and now he keeps his mouth shut and listens and waits. So, how did David enter into God's presence? Well, he lists four things. Four things, I think. Four things. These are on your handout, and they are verses 1, 4, 7, and 11. Sounds like I'm rolling the dice. Come on, 7, come 11. Verse 1. Verse 1. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? That's an attitude, isn't it? Number one, it's knowing who God is, but number two, it is how do I respond to that? He's my God. He's my light. He's my salvation. What have I got to fear? What do I have to be anxious about? Of course, you know the answer is nothing. We don't always respond that way though, do we? Verse four, the one thing I ask of the Lord that I may dwell in his house, abide in his house always. Wow. Verse 7, hear me as I pray. I don't want to talk to the wall. I don't want to have the sense that you aren't listening. I beg you Lord God. Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Have mercy. In what? In your circumstances? No! Have mercy just listening to me. Have mercy upon my soul by listening to me. Just let me lay out my heart for you. All my needs, all my aspirations, all my frustrations, all my anger, all my joys, all my... Have mercy on me. Just listen. May I please express myself however I may in your presence and have no sense of Well, I couldn't say that. Well, I don't know if God's going to listen to that one. If you read the Psalms, David doesn't hold anything back. He goes all over the board. And he's praying for that. Here, have mercy on me. Answer me. Listen to me. Answer me. And verse 11, teach me how to live, O Lord. Teach me and lead me on a level path. Right now, my road is kind of bumpy. Right now, I got a lot of ruts in this road and I'm tripping all over my feet. Lord lead me on a level path. Show me the way. So David reveals by these four things how to be disciplined. This is how to be disciplined in his mind and heart and adjusted his attitude. He adjusted his attitude as he enters into God's presence. Don't respond to God. Don't treat God as you would anybody else or as you normally behave out in the world, you have now come into your chamber, into your quiet space, into your quiet time, and you are now in the presence of God, and your attitude had better change. Verse 1, the Lord is my light, my salvation, whom shall I fear? David acknowledged that the Lord is his only light in the darkness, the only source of wisdom, and the only means of his salvation. And therefore, and therefore, he has no need to fear. It comes in the knowledge of who He's talking to that He can do away with that fear and just push that to one side. It's irrelevant in this moment. It has no place here before the living God. He knows God and God knows Him and He knows that God knows Him. How comforting is that? How comforting is that? God sees you in all of your failings, in all of your shortcomings, and in all of your graces, and in all of your capacities. In all of your love, in all of your anger, He knows you backwards and forwards. He reads you like a book. And in a sense, He asks us to read Him like a book. In fact, He gave us the book. Here, David can rest in that. He has come to God for rest. He is in turmoil, but in front of God, he can at last rest because he can be open and honest. No walls, no barriers. No trying to fake things. Verse four, the one thing I ask of the Lord that I may dwell in his house always. David didn't come to God with a grocery list of things that he wants. He came seeking only one thing. Does he have a lot of needs? Oh yeah, okay. But he's only looking for one particular thing from God in this. And that was to abide with God where God dwells and to dwell with Him always and thereby come to know Him. What happened when Andrew and his partner discovered the Messiah? Can we see where you live? Sure, come on down, see where I live. What he meant was the rock I put my head on every night. But come, be with me, I will show you where I abide, where I live, where I am." And David wants this badly. To be where God is and to dwell with Him always. Verse 7, Hear me as I pray, O Lord, have mercy and answer me. David understood that apart from the mercy of God, he was lost. He had no right to mercy. He only had the need for mercy. And he knew where he might receive it. Where? In the presence of God. In the presence of God. Now these two imperatives, that God would have mercy on him, that God would answer him, are grounded in David's faith in God. It's grounded in our faith in God. In his trust of God. In his love of God. Don't remain silent, Lord. Speak to me. I feel so alone. Don't we often feel that way? I feel so alone. I'm married, but I feel so alone. I have kids, but I feel so alone. I have friends, but I feel so alone. I'm so apart from you. That's where the loneliness sets in, is that separation, that parting from God. And the only thing that comes out of us is this sense of loneliness, of being somehow or other abandoned. David is forever pleading, God, don't leave me. God promised, I will never leave or forsake you. Christ promised, I will never leave or forsake you. But come to me. Don't run from me. Come to me. David says, I'm coming to you. I am. I'm coming to you. And I am shutting my ears to every other sound. We live in a world of cacophony, don't we? Noise, nonstop, morning to night, even in our dreams, noise. It's enough to drive somebody crazy. And it's nice to come before God and just to click, turn all that off, and just to rest there with God in that moment and to hear nothing else, to listen for nothing else than the voice of God speaking to us. Verse 11, teach me how to live, O Lord, and lead me on the level path. And David says, you know, I can't know how to live unless you teach me how to live. I mean, I went down to the library, I found some books, you know, I went on Amazon, I got some more books, you know, but no, what I'm finding is that I can't know how to live unless you teach me how to live. There's a worthwhile confession. Know how to books with God, it's a who to book. You are my teacher. He says to God, you're my teacher. I'm your student. I'm your student. I'm your child, yes, but I'm also your student. I wanna learn from you. I need to learn from you. Instruct me. Instruct me that I might know you and follow you on a straight and level path. There's no other way. There's no other way to come to you except by Christ. There is no other way. Christ who said no one knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Lord, David is praying, Lord, if it is your will, reveal yourself to me here and now in this moment. I want to see you. I want to know you. Here with you is my safety, my escape from all my enemies and their accusations, my refuge in the storm. I keep silence and wait on What do you think? Psalm 27 is a pretty powerful and instructive prayer, isn't it? You know, so often we can read these things and just, yeah, I read it. Check that off in my notes of all the stuff I'm reading on my reading list for this year. But we don't really come to His Word to learn and to meet with God, to find Him there and to allow Him to find us there in those pages. So how will God speak to David in such a way that he may hear the voice of God? What makes God's voice distinct from all others? It's a good question. Like I say, cacophony. A lot of people speaking in our ear. What makes it different? Jesus said, The sheep follow their shepherd, for they know his voice. They won't follow a stranger, but will flee from him." And why does that? Because they don't know the voice of strangers. It's from John 10, 4, 5, and 27. I kind of stuck them together with chewing gum. Anyway. So what makes his voice distinctive? Psalm 29. I thought we were on Psalm 27. Yes, but how do we understand one passage in Scripture if we don't go to other passages and bring those to bear on what's in front of us? As long as they're on the same topic, we can do that. That's what we're going to do. Psalm 29, David tells us what God's voice sounds like. This is kind of fun. The voice of God echoes above the sea. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea. The voice of God is powerful. The voice of God is majestic. The voice of God splits the mighty cedars. The voice of God strikes in bolts of lightning. The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake. The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the forest bare. I don't think people, when they went through Hurricane Helene, said, oh, look, the voice of God. except perhaps in judgment, except perhaps in correction, except perhaps in a way to draw near to them, so they would draw near to Him by putting them into a dangerous, frightening situation, so they would draw near to Him. A lot of reasons why God brings disaster to us, but mostly it's so we'll turn to Him. So apparently God's voice is loud and clear. And yet at times God whispers, take Elijah. So the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke it in pieces. The rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. Huh. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper, the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, grabbed his cloak, wrapped his face in it, and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and asked, what are you doing here, Elijah? What are you hiding from? You can't hide from me. What are you hiding here for? What are you afraid of? What has put you into this moment of despair that you are hiding in the back of the cave? Every one of us has our own cave we like to go into when stuff gets bad, right? Draw back there, hide in the back, turn the lights out. When God whispers, as he whispered here to Elijah, he asks, Questions. Awkward questions. Uncomfortable questions. But he whispers them. Psst. Come, let us reason together. Just want to ask you a couple of questions. You'd be willing to answer those, wouldn't you? He calls us to obedience. When he asks questions, he also calls us to obedience. Why are you not obeying me, Elijah? He calls us to follow. Elijah, come out of the cave. Follow. Not to wander. Not to wander. Elijah, you've been wandering. Look at that. You ran all across the desert there, you know, and fled for your life. You wandered. Stop that. And then he calls us to press on and not to look back. To press on and not to look back. But it's not how loud or how soft the voice is, apparently. It's what the voice is actually saying. From Genesis to Revelation, God thunders His commandments and His judgments. He always says them loud and clear, doesn't He? And there's no ambiguity in the commandments of God. The Ten Commandments are perfectly clear. Simple, straightforward, very clear. And so when God spoke to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, giving them His laws, His voice thundered from the mountaintop. The lightning flashed, the mountains shook, so that the people pleaded with Moses out of fear of God, in this moment a good thing, that he speak to them and not this ear-shattering, stomach-dissolving, knee-quaking voice of God. In fact, they said to him, Moses, Moses, you speak to us, you speak to us, we'll listen to you, but don't let God speak to us directly or we'll die. But when God calls us into His presence to comfort us and to express His love for us and to remind us that we belong to Him, He speaks softly and gently to us. To remind us that we belong to Him. He speaks softly and gently as His children. He doesn't yell at us. Even when He corrects us by reminding us of the truth and the right path to take, He doesn't yell at us. He whispers gently, coaxing us back onto the highway of holiness. However, but, if we refuse to listen, then he raises his voice. Every parent knows this. Johnny, take out the trash. Johnny, do you hear me? Johnny! And God does the same thing. Then he raises his voice to warn us of the danger. Why does he raise his voice in anger? No, no, to warn us of the danger. Not to punish us, but to protect us. To protect us. His voice trains our conscience to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil. Satan never shouts. Why not? Then you'd recognize the voice. He never shouts, he always whispers. The world shouts. Our flesh shouts. Satan always whispers. And when he whispers, he accuses. You are a sinner. You're not saved. You're not worthy. He never says to walk on the path of righteousness, but instead he coaxes us to depart, to depart from it. His voice never aligns with our conscience, never does. but opposes it. He tempts us to ignore our conscience and to minimize our sin and to justify our sin. He says, hey, this is the way, but don't walk in that. No, no, find an easier way, a less restrictive way. Look, here's a nice wide causeway. Why don't you walk on that? Never mentioning that it leads to death. There ought to be truth in advertising, don't you think, when we deal with Satan? But no, he's a trickster. Again, how do we distinguish the voice of God from the voice of Satan? The voice of God never contradicts what he has written in his word. The voice of Satan will always twist God's words, take them out of context, and use them to convince us that we can satisfy our fleshly desires without offending God. Ah, God won't mind. God's got other things to worry about. He won't notice this. Harkening to Satan's voice is like taking a hot iron to our conscience, scarring it, searing it, and we're unable to distinguish right from wrong after a while. Pretty soon we're just hard like a rock, just not responding to good or evil, we just continue in our course. How does our conscience recover? How does it relearn right from wrong? David has God to teach him. God trains and sanctifies our conscience with His Holy Word. Sanctify them, right? Jesus' prayer in John 17. Sanctify them by the truth. Your Word is truth. God sanctifies our conscience with His Holy Word. He speaks to us there, but we can't hear His voice in the pages of Scripture while our heart remains hard, while our mind is closed, while we're dead in our trespasses and sins. We need to be reborn before we can hear God's voice. And so God has graciously and unilaterally removed our heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh in its place. Ezekiel 36, 26. He's given us a new spirit and a new mind renewed in the image of His Son. Why? So we may live with Him forever. So we may live with our Lord forever. Now once this transformation has begun, the Word of God seeps into our hearts and into our minds. And after a while, we can remember God's Word without always needing, not always needing, the text in front of us. Never hurts to go back and check what it is you remember. Okay, but if it seeps into your heart and into your mind, you will remember it without necessarily having the text in front of you. Words, verses, commands, promises, threatenings, come to mind, depending on what we're up to. It becomes part of us, stored in us, to refute Satan's lies and half-truths. That's what it's for. To help us refute Satan's lies and half-truths. Remember when Jesus was tempted? And every accusation, every temptation from Satan, what did Jesus respond with? Scripture! Ha! How about that? Maybe He was setting an example. We should probably follow that. David writes in Psalm 119 and 11, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. So this indicates it was stored there for a purpose, doesn't it? might not sin against God. That's why it's stored there. It's God saying through His Word, this is the way, walk in it. When God reminds us of His Word, He speaks softly. He speaks gently, letting us choose. Here's the hard one, letting us choose to walk in His way. Now wait a minute, Scripture says it will cause us to walk in His way. Yes, but He uses His Word to do that. And in that moment, knowing what is right and knowing what is wrong, we choose whether we'll walk in that path or not. Otherwise, there'd never be a need for God's correction, right? The choice is made in our conscience and it finds its way to our will, and then we act with it or against it. Now, even though we have a new heart, mind, and spirit, how can we train our conscience if we don't feed on the Word of God? This is where you respond with the Greek word, duh. The one thing is logically going to follow the other. And so God's word says, this is the Apostle John. The words, this is Jesus speaking, the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink." We come to the table each Sunday morning to be reminded of that. It has nothing to do with the cracker, it has nothing to do with the juice, it has to do with the promise of Christ, the command of Christ. We feast on Christ when we enter into the presence of God to hear from Him. Think about that. We feast on Christ when we enter into the presence of God to hear from Him. And when we wholly submit ourselves to Him and obey His commandments, each time we obey what God has written, our conscience becomes stronger. It becomes purer. It becomes clearer. But each time we disobey, our conscience becomes weaker, less pure, less clear. This is the way. Walk in it. I will strengthen you. I will train you. I will make your conscience strong so you can recognize right from wrong, and all those subtleties of Satan will be blatantly obvious to you. Even as we open the pages of Scripture, if we are to hear from God, we must first enter into His presence. Real easy to open up God's Word and just begin to read, and not come before God in prayer. First, saying, O Lord God, I'm not gonna get this if you don't teach me. I call it the I'm a dummy prayer. Lord, I'm a dummy. I ain't gonna get this if you don't teach me, if you don't show me, if you don't talk to me, if I don't hear you. Otherwise, it's just ink on a page. We have to submit to him there and only then will he speak and only then will we listen. Let me repeat what I said earlier, David, expected God to hear him and he expected to hear from God to be in his presence and to commune with him. But is that reformed? Well, we're not God's frozen chosen. Just wanted to share that with you. We are not God's frozen chosen. We're meant to be warm and reformed. Kurt a couple of years ago reserved that. It's a domain name on the web. Warm and reformed. Anyway. In the 18th and 19th centuries, men like Asiel Middleton, who brought 30,000 sinners, 30,000 people he led to Christ. Men like him were labeled New Light Calvinists. It was an epithet, a put down. During the Great Awakening, first and second, a religious revival swept through the American colonies and then the American states. It emphasized sin, and salvation, and a personal approach to faith, not just church membership like they'd known in England. These knew, like Calvinists, emphasized a passionate, a passionate conversion instead of cold intellectualism. Here are the five points, you believe those? Yep, okay, you're saved. No. No, there should be something passionate in that. I didn't realize I was a sinner. You should be like, you know, the public and beating his breast saying, oh, to me, sinner. Have mercy upon me. A passionate conversion instead of cold intellectualism. They emphasize spreading the gospel. Ah. Calvinist theology. Ah. Practical piety. Oh. They were what we call visible saints. Visible saints. So they emphasize the importance of living a holy life. Demonstrating their faith, just like James says. Demonstrating their faith through good works and devotion and cultivating a deep sense of God's ever presence. Cultivating that. We could do that. Cultivate God's presence with us. But the existing church establishment, mostly Presbyterians and Anglicans, mocked anyone who spoke that way. That's what I encountered when I went to church. My two Presbyterian pastors, what? What? Anyway. And yet, Nettleton was not a radical. Assel Middleton was not a radical, he was a fan of Jonathan Edwards. No one could accuse Edwards of being overly emotional when it comes to experiencing Christ. He'd written several books against emotionalism. And yet in those same books, Edwards documented the tangible experience of Christ by a number of individuals. They're called extraordinary conversions. If you want to, onthewing.org, you can find that in modern English. My website, I modernized that for you. Try to bring it into the modern world. A couple of hundred years later, you know, we need some updating of the lingo. So anyway. And yet in those same books, he documented those experiences. And what made it different was their experiences were firmly grounded in the truth of Scripture, not mere emotionalism, grounded in the truth of Scripture. And they got gobsmacked. They were shocked, amazed at the mercy and the grace of God. and they let it be known. They were dancing jigs in the streets. We call this experimental or experiential religion, which has become passe in our Reformed churches. Now, don't get nervous. Puritan John Owen, who was perhaps the greatest theologian of his times, or any time since, in my opinion, wrote extensively about what it means to have communion with God. He even wrote a book. It was titled, Communion with God. And he wrote a thousand-page book just on the Holy Spirit. It was a collection of his writings about his own experience of the presence of the Spirit, of the presence of Christ, and of the presence of God the Father, who loved him. Owen knew God and God knew him. Religion wasn't just factual. It was also experiential, tangible. But returning to my question about David, whether he knew Christ, I think the answer is yes. He most certainly looked forward to his coming. I think the Spirit revealed Christ to David in much the same way that he revealed him to Joseph and Mary, and to Zacharias and Elizabeth, and to many others in scripture. A well-known hymn titled In the Garden describes David's experience, and I think the experience of God that all Christians long for. It goes like this, I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and I know them. I don't think that's a metaphor. I think we were intended to hear Jesus, not just read about Him, but to hear Him. I believe Jesus, when He said, I will never leave you or forsake you, and so He sent His Spirit. Why? That we might know Him, not just know about Him. Whoever does not have the Spirit of God, it says, does not belong to Him. Romans 8, 9. And the Spirit, and the Spirit as our teacher. He's the promise. When you come to Christ, the baptism we had this morning was that visible sign of something that had happened, which was they had received the promise of the Spirit. He's now theirs forever. Ours as well. The Spirit of God is our teacher. He's our helper. He's our comforter. He is not and cannot be silent. He spoke to the prophets. What He said to them was sealed for eternity in God's Word. The canon is closed. Why? Because nothing more needs to be said about God's plan of salvation. That's why. And yet the Spirit still speaks. He still helps. He still comforts. He's the Spirit of Christ who leads us beside still waters and restores our soul. He leads us in paths of righteousness for His namesake, that is, for the sake of Christ. William Bridge, a Puritan who lived in the 1600s, says that if we don't hear from God, it may be that we're impatient, we don't wait for Him. We're so much in a rush that we look like a post writer, what we call a Pony Express writer. Galloping full speed down the highway, they barely take time to change horses and grab a sandwich as they continue their headlong race for the next station. That's us. Today, that's us in today's world. Rushing headlong, nonstop. And God says, Psalm 4610, be still. Be still and know that I am God. Come, experience me. Literally, doing a word study of this little verse, literally it means be unoccupied. Wow. Stop occupying your mind with everything under the sun except me. Be unoccupied. Be still, devote yourself to learning Me, intimately. Now these are no super-Christians, there are none. No super-Christians, no privileged Christians who somehow get to experience God, while the rest of us don't. Yes, God reveals Himself to whom He will, when He will, and how He will. But if you don't expect or desire God to reveal Himself to you, then He won't. He'll chase you down, bring all kinds of circumstances to say, hello, anyone home, McFly? Is that too old? That's the 1980s. Nevermind. Only three disciples were at the Transfiguration, you know, and they were invited by Christ. They followed Him there. Huh. That's a metaphor. That's how it works. We're summoned and then we follow Christ into the presence of God the Father. God reveals Himself at a time and a place of His choosing and for His purposes, but even so, like the two on the road to Emmaus, we must be willing to converse with Him when He appears, and to sup with Him when He knocks at the door. Peter was sitting on the rooftop meditating, seeking God, when he had a vision of a sheet filled with foods. He was told to go with the visitors at his door. You hearing things? Are you a charismatic? He was told to go with the visitors at his door to see Cornelius the centurion. Doubting nothing for I have sent them says Christ. Acts 10 20. That was a divinely appointed meeting at a divinely appointed time. But Peter was in prayer and meditation. He was open to hear from the Lord when and if his Lord chose to speak to him. He had entered into God's presence there on the rooftop and simply listened. Just as David wrote in Psalm 4, Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress. Have mercy on me. Hear my prayer. Wait a minute, that sounds like 27. Yeah, it does. David repeats it over and over again. Hear my prayer. I know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call to him. Meditate in your heart, on your bed, and be still." Then comes this cute little word, silah. It means, take a moment, chew on that. Although we do have a young lady in our congregation by that name, but we try not to chew on her. Learn to wait upon the Lord. He always hears, but He may not respond immediately. Stay. Wait. Watch. It's enough just to be in His presence. He's not at your beck and call. You're at His beck and call. Christ revealed Himself to Ananias, an ordinary but devout believer living in Damascus. He sent him to minister to some guy named Saul of Tarsus, who had been struck blind on the road to Damascus. Like Jonah, Ananias was reluctant to go. Don't you know who he is? He's persecuting the church. I don't want to be in his presence. He could kill me. But unlike Jonah, Ananias immediately obeyed. He put his hands on Paul as he was instructed. Where did he get the instruction? He heard from God. He heard from his master, Jesus. Christ then healed Saul's sight. Ananias didn't do that. Christ then healed, he restored Saul's sight and filled him with the Holy Spirit. Why Ananias? A nobody. Why Ananias? First, because he was available to serve. Oh. And secondly, because he was willing to serve. Ah. Ananias responded to the voice he knew saying, here I am Lord. A phrase that's repeated time and again throughout Scripture. Here I am, Lord, I am yours to do with as you see fit. Here I am. When we come into prayer, here I am. I am yours. I am yours. Do with me as you see fit. It was that simple. And yet, it was extraordinary for this quite ordinary but devoted believer. Take restaurant waiters. When they're not serving food, they have a station where they wait. Anybody here done waiting? So, you have your station, and you stand there and you wait. When they're done serving food, that station is where they go, and then they watch the table, or tables. One night I had 10 tables. Man, trying to keep an eye on all of those? Easy. A waiter is available. He is not intrusive. Likewise, you don't say, Hear, O Lord, for thy servant speaketh. Don't do that. No, you stay, you wait, you watch in prayer, looking for the raised hand of God summoning you, and then you approach quickly, but not rashly. Listen for Him. Don't be afraid to speak out or pour your heart out to Him, but in the moment, speak what God has already spoken. Remind yourself of His promises, of His everlasting love for you, and of who He is, and when you are spoken to, be sure that what you hear is what God has written. There's your caution. When you listen, make sure it's what is written. God will never say anything that he hasn't written down. As it applies to you in that moment. As it applies to you in that moment. Oh hubby, come here, God has a word for you. No. Child, come here, God has a word for you. No. What God has to say to you in that moment. It takes time to learn to do this. It must be practiced if you want to get better at attentively listening to the voice of God, to become adept at coming into His presence with gladness and singing, Psalm 100, to come to Him with thanksgiving on your lips and shouts of joy, Psalm 95, to train your conscience to recognize the ways of God and to walk in them. This isn't a matter of technique, not a matter of practicing the Christian disciplines. I have those two books on my shelf, worthless. It's a matter of the heart, and of your longing for God's presence. If the worship team had come up, look at your two handouts for what this might look like as you come to God this week. It isn't easy to balance the proper fear and awe and wonder of a servant with the innocence and the trust and the openness of a child who climbs into the Father's lap to be comforted, instructed, blessed and yes, even corrected, in love. And so we sing, I need thee. Oh, I need thee every hour. I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior. I come to thee. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this reading from your Holy Word. We thank you for the instructions that you have laid down for us. We pray that this week we might apply them, that we might seek you out, that we might listen for your voice, that we might be nurtured in your word, fed, that we might drink deeply of that covenant wine, that Lord God, we might know you and your love for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.