The Lord is my portion. I have promised to keep your words. I sought your favor with all my heart. Be gracious to me according to your word. I considered my ways. turned my feet to your testimonies. I hastened and did not delay to keep your commandments. The cords of the wicked have encircled me, but I have not forgotten your law. At midnight, I shall rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous ordinances. I'm a companion of all those who fear you and of those who keep your precepts. Oh Lord, teach me your statutes. That's why God's Holy Word is the secret. Sometimes you and I are able to pursue a difficult task because we look at the reward at the end. Perhaps you can remember wanting to lose those 10 pounds for your wedding. on was the reward that was at the end of the journey. Or even this week, as many of you are fighting to finish papers and wrap up classes and do your other regular responsibilities, and you've set before you, perhaps it's simply the end of the term, perhaps it's by something better though, it's the privilege of a call to serve completed in the process. Difficult tasks are made easier when we focus on the reward. I think about a young person whose grandfather left him a very large estate, but there were conditions attached to it in terms of personal discipline and responsibility. And even though the young man had discipline himself, train himself to press on and meet those conditions, the thought of what was ahead was a great motivation. Really this is, for us as Christians, also a great motivation, not an earthly inheritance, but the heavenly inheritance that is ours in Christ Jesus becomes then the great incentive, the magnet, the motive, All in our lives, as we press on in the Christian life, recognizing the truth of the Bible, without endurance, there is no heaven. Without endurance, there is no heaven. And you get tired, though. You get tired in the struggles with your own sinful nature. You get tired in the struggles of the disciplines of Christian living. One of the things that God would have you to focus on as you run your race, another figure for endurance, is the reward at the end. And that's what the psalmist is reminding you of in Psalm 119. This page stands up. We've got a great inheritance. And because of that great inheritance we live a certain way, but it also is that which motivates us. encourages us to live in that way. We look at this psalm with its sub-themes of the Word of God and God and commuting with God through His Word. We've also noted the motif that we're pilgrims and the psalmist addresses us in the various aspects of our pilgrimage. We focused last time on the fact that God's given us many promises that will sustain us in our pilgrimage. as we seek to live lives that not only are for his glory, but contagious lives that are attractive to those around us and would direct their attention to something greater in life, the Lord Jesus Christ. But now in this stanza, the psalmist focuses on the greatest promise, and that is that God is our inheritance. God is your proportion. I want to show you that because God is your portion, or because God is the pilgrim's portion, he seeks to live his life consistently by God's grace, according to God's word. Because God is his portion, the pilgrim seeks to live his life consistently according to the word of God, by grace. We're gonna consider three things, and I'm gonna show you in the first place the pilgrim's portion, Second, the pilgrim's purpose, and third, the pilgrim's prayer. Well, Tobin's portion is stated in this wonderful confession, the very first half of verse 57, where he says, the Lord, Jehovah, is my portion. You're familiar, more than likely, with the imagery behind this language, that the children of Israel entered the land, Each tribe was given a portion. And each family within that tribe, each clan, was given a sub-portion. And that was where the minds of the surveyed fell out. That portion was their earthly inheritance as part of the covenant people of God. But it also has a great spiritual significance. And kind of the link in that significance was what God said about the priests and the Levites. For example, in Numbers 18-20 or Deuteronomy 10-9, he says to the priests and the Levites that they don't have a land portion. Why? Jehovah is their portion. And they became to us then the types of child of God, every son, every daughter. So that each of us is able to confess with David in Psalm 16. I said to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good besides you. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup. You support my lot. The lines, the surveying lines of the land have fallen to me in pleasant places. Indeed, my heritage is beautiful. That's what the psalmist is confessing. That's what he's teaching you and me to confess. That our great portion, our lot, not just in heaven, but now is this inheritance that Jehovah is ours. The culmination of the great covenant statement, I am your God and you are my people. You belong to him, but he belongs to you. And that inheritance has been purchased for you by the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul reminds us in Galatians chapter 4, that because of the redeeming work of Christ, we who have become the bastard children of Satan are again the sons and daughters of God and joy to heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ. By his perfect obedience, by his just a satisfying death on the cross. His death, burial, and resurrection, His ascension and session, He has purchased for us and guarantees to us this inheritance. In fact, He went so far as to give us His Spirit then as the pledge and the down payment and the guarantor that this is your inheritance and it cannot be lost. and it can't be taken away from you, and you cannot be disinherited. All that's wrapped up in a very simple confession, Jehovah is my portion. What a portion. My wife and I in our married life have received a couple of small inheritances, including my mother, and later her mother died. And it's fun to receive an inheritance, even when it's a small inheritance. do some things that you really hadn't thought you would be able to do. And again, a big inheritance. Well, the synagogue's been blessed a couple of times with big inheritance. But can you imagine this inheritance? Why, it's bigger than everything else in all of creation. It's God. And it's living with God now and living with God forever. Having Him as your own and enjoying Him. How we should revel in this reality and then how we should be content. That was the confession of Habakkuk as God is tutoring him and he's come to realize that yes, the covenant people are going to be punished by God and there's going to be awful difficulties, but then he confesses though the fig tree should not blossom. and there'd be no fruit on the vines, and the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, the flocks should be cut off from the fold, and there'd be no cattle in the stalls. Yet, I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he's made my feet my kind feet, and makes me walk on high places. If you have God, do you lack anything? Can you imagine living in this great house up here in the mountains? A million dollar house, lake, golf course, all these things. And then you are discontent because you don't have a little shack in Berea. Oh, if I only could have that little shack in Berea, I'd be happy. You see the folly of that? That's how we are when we are discontent. If God is your portion, to become discontent with your lot in life is living in a mansion and being unhappy because you don't own a shack in the slums. Let it sink in what you have. Remember what Paul says, that Godless with contentment is indeed great gain. The Lord is yours. You need nothing else. Increasingly, many of us are convinced that we're being called to God's providence to go through difficult times. And we could lose many of the comforts that we enjoy today. But God is your portion, regardless of the road that you walk. Now, if God is our portion, that leads us then to purpose-driven things. It means that there's certain distinguishing characteristics in our lives, certain things that really are constantly set before us. And the psalmist lists five things, five distinguishing characteristics that should be the purpose of our lives, working out of the reality that God is your portion. Obedience, correction, endurance, praise, and fellowship. First is obedience, right here in his confession, the Lord is my portion, I have promised to keep your word. Uses here the general expression for words to talk about the revelation of God, but obviously he's focusing now on the commandments of God. And he says, because God is my portion, I've promised. It is a holy resolve. I have said, as it is literally in the Hebrew, that I'm going to keep your words. I'm going to order my life by your words. Again, if your grandmother gave you this great inheritance, and that you even now begin to enjoy it, how you gonna love her? And her slightest wish would be for you something that you would delight in doing. But what does the Savior say? If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. You see, the relationship of having God as your inheritance, your portion, your all in all, and obedience. Why would you want to do anything but obey God? You understand the riches he's bestowed upon you, the cost to him of giving you those riches, and the little bit that he asks in response. But we also purpose to correct because God is our portion and we see that in verses 59 and 60. I considered my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies. I hastened and did not delay to keep your commandments. Here's the psalmist talks about considering his ways. He's saying I have examined my life. I am examining my life. by your word." So his ways, that's the ways of his life, the testimonies, the covenant word of God by which we respond to him and by which we live, he says, I am regularly examining my life by your word. In order to correct it, we constantly get off course every day. Often during the day we veer off to the right, we veer off to the left in our thoughts, in our words, in our affections, in our actions. And so we look at our lives under the word of God and we turn our feet back into that path of covenant obedience. And we do so with alacrity, with quickness. Notice how he says it, I hasten and did not delay. Not when it is convenient. Not when I have finished enjoying this particular sinful thought or getting the rest of the spleen out of my system and what I want to say. Or this sin or that sin that is pleasurable. I hasten and not delay to keep your commandments. God's moral precepts laid out before us. There's the standard. And we examine ourselves and we quickly and immediately repent. We don't delay repentance. We have simple, lustful thoughts. We immediately repent, ask forgiveness, ask grace of Christ to discipline our minds. A simple word comes out of our mouth and we know that we need to go to a brother or a sister or a husband or a wife, a parent or a child, and ask forgiveness. We don't say, well, in a little bit. When we're convicted, we hasten and we do not delay. Now, it's very important that we consider our lives, in other words, that we do practice self-examination. You remember the figure that James uses in James chapter one, trying to enforce that we must be doers, not simply heroes. When he talks about looking intensely into the law of God, stooping to look into this law Royal law of liberty. It's written on our hearts. We've got the grace of God to keep it. We should love it and delight in it. And the proper here is the one that looks and makes the corrections. Self-examination is very important. It's not to boil over into a morbid introspection. I would commend to you Dabney's Systematic Theology where he has a very useful defense of but also some helpful remarks on self-examination in the chapter on assurance of salvation. But a very good balanced place to begin with a larger catechism. How are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it? They that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper are before they come to prepare themselves by examining themselves. But what does that entail? Of their being in Christ, of their sins and wants, of the truth and measure of their knowledge, faith, repentance, love to God, the brethren, charity to all men, forgiving those that have done them wrong, of their desires after Christ, and their new obedience, and by renewing the exercise of these graces by serious meditation and fervent prayer. 171. There we see how it, search ourselves to come to the Lord's table, but why not be a regular exercise? I would encourage you to use the catechisms in this way. You take the shorter catechism or the larger catechism, just go through it regularly, one exposition at a time. Examine your life, pray over it, confess your sins, determined by God's grace to hasten and not delay, to walk according to So, we obey, we correct, we endure. We've already said that this is not an easy road that we're on. It would be difficult enough just because of our natures. That is the great battle isn't it? But we got those outside us, we got the enemies. And he says then in verse 61, the cords of the wicked have encircled me but I've not forgotten your law. Now the older version translates this, the bands, talk about But really, the better way to translate this is not a band of a people or a congregation, but cords of snares or traps. Now, at the end of the day, it's not very different, because the bands of people are going to place snares and traps. But we're reminded here that the way of the pilgrim is a way of constant persecution, pressure, and temptation. The cords of the wicked haven't circled me. Satan himself is seeking to trip me up. He puts traps in my path. I determine to come back and walk in the path. And there's another trap right there in the path laid by Satan. He uses the world system with his temptations. He uses my own besetting sins and lust. And then we've got the cords of those that hate us, mourning as well as Satan to ensnare us. cause us difficulty, to persecute us, to cause us to turn aside from the path. We must endure. So the psalmist says, I've not forgotten you all. The Torah of God is instruction. I keep that before me. In the midst of all the snares and traps and pitfalls, I look at God's instruction. I look through it at Christ, who there is for me both the captain and the pioneer of my salvation. I endure. So God is your portion. You obey, you correct, you endure, and then you praise. Verse 62, at midnight I shall rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous ordinances. Now, I take this in the first place metaphorically. I don't think the psalmist is saying that he gets up every night at midnight to give thanks to God. What he is saying is that he doesn't just praise God periodically. He doesn't just praise God when it's convenient. It's a regular habit and practice of his life to give thanks to God, to praise him. of the judgments of God in scripture as that revelation intersects with the righteous judgments of God in our lives in his providence. And every time we reflect on the righteous ways of God, whether they be a providence that was pleasant or unpleasant, it's God's righteous way explained to us by God's word and it should provoke thanksgiving and praise all the time. Yes, when the banners of the wicked encircle me, I give praise to God because it is the one who keeps me, will not allow me to fall. But I could expand this just a bit as the psalmist says that at midnight, I will rise and give thanks to you because of your righteous Sometimes we're simply awake at midnight or two o'clock in the morning. I wasn't bothered by a thing. I finally realized I had had too much caffeine the day before. So I was perfectly rested. And I was able to fulfill this part of the exhortation and give thanks and praise God and also pray. But many times, why are you awake at midnight? night, but it's not, you're not praising him for them. They're pounding in on you. Everything looks worse at night. It's amazing. Sun comes up and suddenly all those problems almost dissipate with darkness. But you've all been there. You know how bad it is. And what the psalmist is showing you here is that when you start worrying about these things at midnight that keep you awake, praise God. Praise him for them as we are instructed In the hymn, when sleep her balm denies, my silent spirit sighs, may Jesus Christ be praised. When evil thoughts molest, with this I shew my breast, may Jesus Christ be praised. You see, praise will turn away those fears more quickly than anything in the world. Yes, you pray about your problems, but you praise Jesus Christ. You praise your God. And so we praise. We obey, we correct, we endure, we praise. And the fifth distinguishing characteristic that we purpose to do is Christian fellowship. Verse 53, I'm a companion of all those who fear you, of those who keep your promises. The psalmist often describes the fear of God for us in this way, it's very useful. The fear of God means you keep his commandments. We see it time and again in the psalm. And it's a very wonderful way to understand the fear of God. Well, we circle right back up to verse 57, I promise to keep your words. Now, there's more to the fear of God than the motivation. You don't want to displease Him. You are aware of the dangers of God's displeasure, as well as the love you have for God. But at the end of the day, the fear of God promotes and provokes obedience. And so, Psalmist describes the true Christian here as the one who fears God. But his point is that for him, they are his companions. They are his companions. And again, this is what David expressed in Psalm 16. He said, I said to the Lord, you are my Lord and I have no good beside you. As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my love. Is that true? Does your heart just light up when you meet another Christian? They might come from a very weak background. They might not know a lot of good theology. But they love the Lord Jesus Christ. The other night I went to the yogurt shop that we go to near the house and a teenager in there, and I hadn't seen him before, but he had a huge cross around Beautiful, simple testimony. Just a few weeks ago, God saved him. And that's his way of honoring the Lord. He saved him. He's in an evangelical church down here in town. How is he so happy? Are you happy when you meet Christians? Even when they don't agree with us. Michael Spangler had a very good sermon a few weeks ago that very emphasis on our brothers and sisters and just in our our families we don't get to pick which we should pick sometimes but we don't how much more in God's family who has sovereignly loved and elected those he's going to save and he made his brothers and sisters. Because of our union with Christ, again, we go back to our standard, the doctrine of communion of the saints. All saints are united to Jesus Christ their head by his spirit and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory, and because you're in Christ, being united to one another in love, they have communion. each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce their mutual good both in the inward and outward man." That's Christian fellowship. That should be in our hearts. Malachi, God tells us there that if some people are trash-talking God, those who fear God are speaking to one another. And twice it says, God is listening and praying. He loves it! And those who all have Him as their portion are together. Do you love Christians? With whom would you rather spend time? Non-Christians hanging out and doing things are Christians. We want to have a relationship with non-Christians that will love our neighbor. And we are, even as we read in the larger catechism, we are to be charity to all men. Where is your heart? Where is your delight? Are you ever comfortable? Are you ever comfortable with a group of non-Christians? You want to be there, You want to love them, you want to do them well, but don't you always kind of just feel a bit out of sorts? Even when you have very many things that are common, and you know, I find myself in meetings, it might be a neighborhood meeting or something, I'm always wanting to, why don't we pray now, you know, or something like that. You realize you walk by a different drummer. That's okay, but it's a great delight for people to watch. Even those that don't know the things that you know theologically, but they know you will. And you take pleasure in that, in talking about those things on which you can agree. That's one of the great advantages of living in South Carolina in the Bible Belt, because you can hardly go anywhere and not come across people who really do know him. Now they might be weak Christians, but they know him and they love him and they're glad to talk about him. Of course, if you and they are talking about it, then other people are hearing you talk about it too. Maybe you don't know. Maybe you never know. Anyway, those are the distinguishing characteristics of the one whose portion is God. It's to be the purpose, to obey, to correct, to endure, to praise, and to fellowship. But as we've seen so many times in the Psalms, things aren't easy to think. And Psalmist then brings us back to God's grace. As he sets Pilgrim's purpose out of the Pilgrim's portion, he then gives us the Pilgrim's prayer and he tells us to pray for two things, grace and gracious instruction. Grace, verse 58, I sought your favor with all my heart, be gracious to me according to you. We don't seek grace intermittently, occasionally, What he's showing us here is that this is to be an intense dependence that we're constantly expressing, that we know we can't draw breath without God's grace. And so we plead, be gracious to us according to your word, according to your promise. We're going to be very bold to pray with all of our Psalms teach us, us to live and depend upon the grace of God in this world. So when we think of these distinguishing characteristics, we think how far short we fall, we're driven back in the need of grace, but the fact that that is part of the inheritance, this is what's so grand. Because God is our portion, then grace and all that grace provides is ours. You have a blank check, signed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you should be cashing it in often during the day. Everything you need is yours in Christ. I want you to ask for it. You need to ask regularly for it. When you children, maybe you want to go to the swimming pool this summer. And he says, yeah, if I get this done, we'll do that. Now, if you're like my children or my grandchildren, you're back Well, when I get this done, we'll go to the pool. 10 minutes later, is it time yet? Now, that tells me is you really wanna go to the pool. It's hot. But now, if you ask once and you come back a week later, are we gonna go to the pool yet? That tells me that you don't really care about going to the pool a great deal. And that's how it is with God. If we periodically come and ask him for help and grace in the time of need, you see, we don't go long. takes great pleasure in that and it's promised us grace. Now the grace he promises us out of grace out of his promise also then is a grace to give us what we need in terms of understanding the word and communing with him in the word and so it includes the earth is full of your loving kindness oh lord teach me your statutes. So psalmist is thinking about God's grace and the grace promised he looks around him Yes, the creation itself, the beauty of it, the birds singing, bright colored birds, flowers blooming, the general feel of the breeze, the squirrels playing. All these things are a manifestation of the Creator's love for His creation. And of course, the Savior says to us, if he loves the creation that much, how much more does he take care of you than he has saved for the sake of his Son? And so, you're all encouraged then to pray for grace and to pray for this great need, and that is to understand the Word of God. As I've said to you before, it's quite remarkable. The psalmist is an inspired penman of Scripture, and yet he constantly throughout this psalm is praying that God would be his instructor. that God would come to him in the Word. And God would teach him, not just the facts, but that God would train his heart and God would come and commune with him in the Word. And that's what you and I must do. We live by the Word, we must depend upon God to be the one who speaks to us in the Word. And so, in this stanza, we see that because God is his portion, the pilgrim lives his life, according to God's Word, by God's grace. purposing to obey, to correct, to endure, to praise, to fellowship. It's a great inheritance, but it's a difficult journey. And we do get tired. I remember sitting not too much beyond where you are now, chronologically, I was at a place in college where I was kind of an in-between point between so many years of college and so many years of seminary I never even dreamed about. anything beyond seminary. And it was a very bad time in my life. I was depressed, I was working my way through school, and I'm thinking, I still have four and a half years, whatever it was, three and a half years ahead of me of this. What a pleasant thought. I was tired. But you see, I had my eye from the fact I was convinced that God called me to the ministry. And so I was looking at the problems. But you probably have had a very similar experience that I have often had, and that is, sometimes as a Christian life worker, do you not get tired? Tired of struggling against sin, tired of struggling against people, tired of constantly having to bring yourself back in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, Because that's how God has designed this. No heaven without endurance. But what we have here is two wonderful things to help us. The possession is set before us. So that we can say with a Rutherford poem that when we get there, it was well worth the journey even though seven deaths lay before us. But then is the promise of grace. He's not calling us to a thing that he will not walk with us in it and give us everything that we need. Because watch, Christ has purchased it for us. Not just the inheritance, but the grace and the endurance. So he says, work out your salvation of fear and trembling for God is at work in you. So here's Pilgrim. press on, endure, look at the prize set before you, and rest in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father, we thank you for this great encouragement you give us at the end of the term, even when we are, many of us, in much pressure. And work lies before us in the summer, our ministry and our whole future life now changing. We thank you that you are our portion our inheritance, the lines that deep fall into us in pleasant places. We want to respond to you, Lord, in obedience and correction, in endurance and praise. We want brothers and sisters in the fellowship that is ours in death. So give us grace to look at the inheritance, to press on, to endure, to love you and to love each other. For Christ's sake. Amen.