So if you turn with me this morning to the book of Psalms, chapter 45, Psalm 45. In just a moment we'll be reading the whole psalm, but we'll go to our God in prayer beforehand, and then we'll get to the reading of the text. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you've given us your word. We thank you for how you use it by your spirit. We thank you that it is a counselor to us in all of our doubts and all of our fears. And Father, we thank you that it's a living and an active word, a word that it both exposes sin and gives to us the balm of Gilead, the only thing that can truly remedy us. and set us aright. Father, we ask that as we now sit under the preaching of the word, that we would sit under it conscionably, that our hearts would be humble before you, that our minds would be removed from all of her distractions, and that the soul would be inflamed with love to the one who has saved us and offers salvation freely in Jesus Christ. Father, we ask that you'd be merciful to us now. Bless us, Heavenly Father, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 45, and this is the word of God. For the choir master, according to the Shoshanim, a mashkil of the sons of Korah, a song of love. My heart overflows with a good theme. I addressed my verses to the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, oh mighty one. In your splendor and your majesty. And in your majesty ride on victoriously. For the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your hand, your right hand, teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp. The peoples fall under you. Your arrows are in the heart of the king's enemies. Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows. All your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. Out of ivory palaces, stringed instruments have made you glad. King's daughters are among your noble ladies. At your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. Listen, O daughter. Give attention and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house. Then the king will desire your beauty. Because he is your lord, bow down to him. The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift. The rich among the people will seek your favor. The king's daughter is all glorious within, her clothing is underwoven with gold. She will be led to the king in embroidered work. The virgins, her companions who follow her, will be brought to you. They will be led forth with gladness and rejoicing. They will enter into the king's palace. In place of your fathers will be your sons. You shall make them princes in all the earth. I'll cause your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, the peoples will give you thanks forever and ever. Well, may the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word this evening, this morning. This morning, we're only taking up the first verse of the Psalm. And I've almost thought that I should lead off with an apology as to why we're taking it so slowly. But I've decided not to apologize. Psalm 45 is a rich psalm. All of scripture is rich because of the divine author who lies behind the text. But Psalm 45, I think more than perhaps any other psalm in the Psalter is one that we as a people require minds that are engaged to really understand what's going on. And I think that so often when we come to a psalm like this, well, we think about the occasions that we usually sing it. RPs typically, if they're having a wedding ceremony, will have Psalm 45 in it, and that's fine. But it's not just about the wedding ceremony. In fact, it's actually not even primarily about the wedding ceremony. And so we need to take some time and actually think carefully and critically about what the psalmist is saying. This morning, As we read over it, you probably noticed that's a really well-organized psalm. There are clear divisions to it. You have in the first verse, we'll be taking up this morning and this evening, God willing, the introduction that includes the psalmist himself. And then the psalmist fades into the background from verses two to nine. And suddenly all that you have is this King, the great King, that's the subject of the psalm. And then in verse 10, down to verse 15, you have the third section, which is addressed to the bride and about the bride. And then finally, the end, the final two verses of the psalm, you have the narrator coming back and concluding the entirety of the psalm. It's a well-structured psalm. It's one that's, the structure itself actually helps us to understand what's going on. It helps us to understand what the psalmist is aiming at. There's a king. There's a king who is supposed to be understood as being the greatest and the most glorious of kings. And there's a bride who's to be understood as to being the most beautiful of all of the brides, all of the daughters of men. At the whole point, the central focus is their wedding, the marriage that obtains between them. The narrator fades into the background because this theme, this good theme that he's taking up is central, not just to the psalm, but the psalmist sees it as central to his own life. He is subservient to it. And this morning, I trust we'll see that we also ought to be so inclined. But what is the Psalm about? We understand it's about a king, it's about his marriage to a daughter, and we understand, of course, that this is a glorious thing, otherwise it wouldn't be put into poem. But why or what is going on in this text? There are three schools of interpretation, and I'm not gonna labor much in this, but it's important for us to understand there are three different kinds of interpretations that are put on this text. The first group, they believe that this psalm is referring to Solomon alone. So this is an occasion in which Solomon is marrying, they think, probably Pharaoh's daughter. And so the psalmist is commemorating this great and this glorious wedding. And the proper interpretation of this psalm then, it is a historical event. And that's all that it is. And you and I can bask in the glory of times past and bask in the glory of the historical person, Solomon. There are others who believe that this is a picture of Solomon, but a picture of Solomon that leads us to Christ. In other words, Solomon as a type or a shadow of Christ. And I trust you understand what a type is. You think about a road sign. And a road sign isn't the destination. It's kind of a funny destination if it is. A road sign's indicating something else. It's pointing to something else. And so these people are seeing Solomon as the road sign, as it were, indicating the destination, indicating the end, the purpose, namely Jesus Christ. The third and the final school is the one who says that this is only about Christ, only about Christ and the church. And this morning, that's the position that I take. And I'm willing to die on that hill. When you think about this psalm, and we can spend a lot of time thinking about it, when we think about this psalm, it doesn't make sense that Solomon is the man in view. There's a lot of things that don't make sense if you think that Solomon is the person who's being addressed or the one who's being commemorated here. Gird on your sword, on your thigh, almighty one. Well, Solomon was a peaceful king. He was prophesied to be a man who was not going to see war like his father, David. This is not a king in peace time. This is a king who is subduing his enemies with the sword. So that's a problem. The other problem is, is that in verse six, this king, your throne, the king that's in view, well, right after it's told us that this king is God. That's a problem if you're thinking solomonically. But the real clinch pin for Christians is how the Holy Spirit himself interprets this Psalm in the New Testament. In the book of Hebrews, this Psalm is taken up without any question as being a reference to Jesus Christ. In fact, these verses, verses six and seven are taken as being referring to Jesus Christ and him alone. And that's really the end of the matter. Whenever we get through verses 6 and 7, at some point, perhaps in the future, we'll look at more why this is necessary. But I'm taking it to be Christ and the Church primarily. The psalmist is looking and using the language of a wedding ceremony. He's using imagery that you and I would be conscious of and that of course his immediate audience will be conscious of, but he's using it for a spiritual purpose. The purpose is to show us Christ. Fascinatingly, the Jews prior to Christ and even in the middle ages understood that this was not referring to Solomon. They understood that this was referring to the Messiah. The Christian interpretation for the past 1,500 years, roughly, has been this is about Christ. The psalmist has taken up these images to show us Christ and Christ only. What the Jews saw as referring to the Messiah, we see as referring to Jesus, being the fulfillment of everything that the prophets hoped for. So it's Christ and the church that we're seeing in this text. And I have to tell you this morning, I'm coming to this text with two assumptions. The first assumption that I'm making is that this psalm is a psalm made by somebody who has a good judgment. In verse one, we're told that his heart overflows with a good theme. I'm assuming that he actually knows what good is. I'm assuming that he knows a good theme whenever he finds one. And whenever he tells us it's a good theme, it's a good theme. This is an exaggeration. The second assumption that I'm making is that this whole text, but especially this verse, is without any exaggeration. Everything that's in this psalm is solemnly suited to its object. And so whenever we're talking about there being a good theme, it's not good with some mixture of evil, but it's a genuine good. And then whenever he goes on later on in the psalm and he talks about the glory of this king, there's no exaggeration. He's genuinely convinced that the words that he's using are an accurate depiction of the one whom he's describing. Those are my two assumptions this morning, and I trust that we who believe in the inspired word of God will take those as well. So what is verse one giving to us? Well, let's look at it together just briefly. My heart overflows with a good theme. I address my verses to the king. The psalmist says that his heart, his heart, not his head, not his hands, but his heart, his heart is doing something. And you understand that the heart, he's not speaking about the organ, he's speaking about the whole man. He's using the imagery of the heart to talk about his inmost being. If you wanna use the word, his existential identity, he's saying, this is what's rising up. This is what's overflowing. His inmost person is overflowing. And that's what we're told, it's overflowing. The word in the Hebrew could mean boiling. In fact, it's actually the word that's used in the book of Leviticus to talk about the sacrifices that were to be boiled. My heart is like one of those sacrifices boiled. And the oil or the water that's around it is overflowing the pan. This is my sacrifice in one sense. That's how Mr. Ainsworth takes it. And it's with a good theme. Not just a kind of good theme. Not just a mostly good theme. But a genuinely good theme. A good thing. The psalmist, under inspiration of the Spirit of God, is saying this is good. And we'll come back to why that's significant later. Then he says, I address my verses. My verses. Not another's. My verses to the King. It's the psalmist's verses. This is the psalmist's expression, not somebody else's. And we'll see the significance of that, God willing, in a few minutes. And it's to the king. To the king. Well, we find out that it's not just to the king, it's about the king as well. He's addressing all of these glorious statements to the one whom he's describing. So what's the psalm about? If it's referring to Christ in the church, and if these things we've just said are a proper interpretation of the text, what's he getting at? Well, this first part of verse 1, I believe is telling us that the Christian's heart is going to be stirred with the loveliness of Christ. You think about the psalm. If Christ is the great King in view, what do you find? Well, you find over and over again, the King is described in terms that are supposed to grip us. They're supposed to take hold of us. He's not giving a cold and a calculated overview of who this King is. He's giving you in the greatest possible terms, the greatest terms that are available to him in language, the glory and the excellency of this King. But you don't even just have to stay in Psalm 45 to see that the Christian is supposed to be stirred by the subject. You think just negatively about 1 Corinthians, the end of 1 Corinthians. Paul says, let those who do not love the Lord Jesus, what? Be anathema maranatha. That's forever a curse. In other words, the apostle Paul says, those who don't love Jesus Christ, in other words, those who don't have their hearts stirred in the way that the psalmist is, let them be reprobate. There's no higher curse that was available to the apostle. You think about the same Apostle in the Epistle of the Philippians. What does he say whenever he talks about his previous life? Well, he says, I count it all loss. Why? But for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The excellency of the knowledge. Just the knowledge of Jesus Christ surpassed in the Apostle's judgment everything that he had before. Everything that he thought he had attained before. Just compared to the knowledge of Christ. It was enough. And how does he know Christ? Well, he knows Christ as one who is excellent, one who is glorious. We know that the apostle knows him this way because of what we read in Colossians chapter one. The first born of all creation, the image of the invisible God. I mean, how much more glorious could he have put the terms? The very image of God himself. Just the excellency of the knowledge was enough for the apostle to count everything else loss. But the real clinch pin is whenever Peter looks to the congregation in 1st Peter, he looks to the congregation, they're persecuted, they're hunted and they're harried all across the diaspora. And he looks at them and he says, what about their love? He says, your love was filled with glory. I know, Peter looks at the congregation and he says, I know that your love to Christ is glorious. It's not just glorious in terms of the degree of their love for Him, but it's fixed on the glory of Christ. They love Him. They find His loveliness. And it's full of life. That's the idea in 1 Peter 1.8. Their heart is stirred by it. They see Christ. And there's no way for them to be cold in the sight of Him by faith. It's of necessity full of glory. And so we see here, We see here that the psalmist is very much like every other Christian in the New Testament. Of course his heart is overflowing. Of course his heart is stirred. If he's talking about Christ, of course it is. But why? Why is his heart stirred? How, actually, is a better question. How is his heart stirred? Have you asked yourself that question? If it's really a good theme, If it's really, really a godly thing, how did the psalmist come to the point where he could love it? Because according to scripture, there's none that does good, not one. According to scripture, there's none that search after God, not one. According to scripture, the Ethiopian and his leopard can change their exterior easier than for a man to do good and so to love good than the sinner. So the question is how? How does a man, fallen in Adam, come to the point where he can say what the psalmist does here? My heart's overflowing with a good theme. Friend, this morning, you and I have to understand there's only one way that that happens. The way that it happened in the Old Testament is the same way that it happens in the New. The Spirit has to take you from a place of death and of blindness and bring you into a place of life and of light. We call that regeneration. We call that the new birth. And without that new birth, without regeneration, no one sees God this way. Without regeneration, you could set Jesus Christ in all of His natural glory before the wicked. Without regeneration, they'll hate Him. The damned in hell hate Christ, even though they know something more of His splendor than they did on earth. And in the last great day, when all of the knees shall bow, and the name of Jesus Christ exalted, what happens? The unregenerate will still hate Him. So what needs to happen? Well, what needs to happen is what happened to this psalmist apparently. His whole nature, was radically affected. He went from hating good and loving evil to loving good, even this good theme, and hating those things which were opposed to it. The older theologians talked about regeneration as the supreme manifestation of the power of God. I happen to agree with them. I think we often think about creation as the supreme manifestation of God's divine power. The reason why I would think we think that is because we understand everything was created out of nothing. That's an awesome task. It's peculiar to God alone, of course. But what happens in regeneration? What happens in the new birth? God doesn't take something, create something good out of nothing. He takes the stony, the callous, the hard heart, that is desperately wicked, so that who can know it?" cries the prophet. And he turns it, and makes it love the things it once hated. Takes an evil thing, and inclines it to the good. We have to understand that's what happened to the psalmist here. And that's what's required of every person who would see Christ or write. The only way you'll see it this morning, friend, the only way you'll see it this morning is if the Spirit of God does this work in you. You can set a good theme before a blind person. You can set the Grand Canyon before somebody who was born blind. You can talk about its glory, you can talk about its excellency, and you can even give them the theory behind it all, and they can regurgitate that to you, but the fact of the matter is they don't know it. And until the Lord God opens the eyes of souls, A man can preach Christ over and over and over again and he will be preaching only to stones. The psalmist has been changed so that he can recognize the good theme. The spirit of regeneration He exhibits Christ's loveliness. John 15 tells us that that's why the spirit is sent. It's sent so that it will testify. He will testify to those who are converted of Jesus Christ. Not just his work, but his person. The excellency and the glory of his person. So that with the apostle Paul, you can say with Colossians 1, all of those glorious things that were said. And also the spirit of regeneration produces love. And obviously love to Christ. So for the remainder of our time, we want to take up the subject, the subject meaning the Christian, the one who loves. And we want to look at his object, the object of his love, namely Christ. We want to see the relationship between those two. How do they interact in the psalm? Well, first of all, let's take up the subject and let's look at the nature, the nature of this love. We're told, first of all, that this is a love from the heart. Not from the head. His head's not boiling over. His hands aren't described here. It's his heart. And as we said just a few minutes ago, that's not expressive of the organ, that's expressive of the whole man. The whole man is engaged in this. And so it's a vital love. It's a living kind of love. Which means it's not just a historical knowledge. There are some people who think that to believe in Jesus Christ is to believe that Jesus Christ walked on the earth 2,000 years ago, suffered on a Roman cross, was resurrected, and is currently ascended. And that's what it means to have saving faith. Again, our older theologians describe that as a historical faith. Because all that you're assenting to is the historical veracity, the historical truthfulness of the principles or the teachings of the gospel. But those same historical theologians remind us of James 2, 19. The demons know. Not only do they know they tremble. In the Acts of the Apostles, the demons know the name of Jesus. They know him. Well, actually they know about him. They know he was a historical person. They know he's currently ascended. They know that he suffered on a Roman cross, and more than that, they know the purpose behind it. They know that he suffered under the wrath of God. They know the gospel in a historical sense. The natural man, the man who's unconverted, can know and even agree with the truthfulness of the historical points of the gospel. But that's not the kind of faith that we find in this psalm. It's not just a head knowledge of these things, it's one that has influenced his heart. In other words, he's not just knowing the historical aspects of the gospel and believing in their truthfulness. But the person here that's in view, Jesus Christ, is seen as one who is lovely. One who deserves to have his heart, his whole heart, his whole being. And that's something that the demons don't have. That's something that a natural man can't have without the work of regeneration. Next, it's a genuine love. It's not a hypocritical love. When you think about the prophets, who is the quote-unquote whipping boy for most of the prophets? The person that they often single out as being really the bane of Israel's existence, the cause of all of Israel's problems. But you go through the Psalter, you go through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and you find the person they single out more than any other, is the one who approaches the Lord with his lips, and not with his heart. He approaches the Lord professing love, professing obedience, but the Lord who searches the hearts says, and yet they've left their heart, basically at home. And because of that in Isaiah 1, the prophet tells us their new moons, their fasts, all of their religious worship, they're coming in on the Lord's day, they're singing the psalms, they're sitting under the preaching of the Word, all of it is vanity. And I hate it. That's not the psalmist. His heart goes before his lips. His heart is the source of all of His devotion. There's nothing as it were that proceeds from His lips that hasn't first originated in His heart. And so the Christian with Christ. The Christian isn't just one who gives lip service to Christ, and then by their works deny Him. The true Christian is the one whose love originates in the core of their being. And then as a result, it comes from the lips, and it influences the hands, and their lives are changed accordingly. They're not hypocrites. Next is an effectual love, and that goes hand in hand with what we just said. What does Christ say in John 14? He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Now that's a command. But then just a few verses later, He explains that it's not just a command, it's a matter of fact. If you love Christ, says Christ, you will obey me. You'll keep my words. That's haunting in one sense. But you see here the psalmist is going to go on. His tongue is going to be employed. He's not just going to think that he holds these things in private. he's going to respond accordingly. His life is altered by this thing because his whole person is preoccupied with it. And finally, when we're thinking about the nature of this love, it's a personal love. I address my verses to the king. Friend, you may have sat under a sermon before, many times before. Decades, you might have sat under the preaching of the word. But the preacher's faith can't be yours. And the preacher's devotion to Christ can never be yours. Your parents' devotion to Christ is not of yours, of necessity. The psalmist is saying, these are things that I myself know. And that's the exact same thing that Christ requires of those who profess faith in Him. Do you know these things, friend? Do you actually know these things? We see also, it's not just a description of the man's, the love that he has, but it's also a description of, gives us a description of the way in which this love is manifest. It's a zealous love. It's a, when you think about something that's boiling. An element of heat is underneath and the liquid, whatever kind it is, physicians can tell you better than I can. But the change that happens, the boiling that takes place, it's violent in one sense. The Christian's love to Christ is to be violent. It's to be zealous. You know, in Matthew, in Matthew's gospel, that's exactly what Christ calls them to recognize. The violent, that's the word in the authorized version, the violent take heaven by force. And in Galatians, the apostle Paul tells the Galatians, listen, it's good to be zealous in a good thing. Stir up the zeal. If it's really a good theme, if it's really a good theme, then your heart's going to be engaged, and if your heart's engaged, then there's going to be some zeal. And that zeal, it will go from one extreme to another, it seems. But it's present. Whatever it is, it's present. And the psalmist here is describing his heart in this point as being zealous. It's overflowing, it's boiling. It's expanding the limits of the soul, and really the limits of language itself, because of his zeal. It's a growing love. As it is a zealous love, it's a growing love. When you think about something boiling and boiling over, it seems almost like there's an endless supply. It just continues to produce. It continues to produce the mess if it's boiling over, but it continues to produce as long as it's near the element. The Christian as he abides in Christ, as every Christian will always abide in Christ, the Christian as he abides in Christ will be growing in love. And that's exactly what the apostles tell us, isn't it? When you think about Paul's epistle to the Ephesians or to the Thessalonians, he's calling them to increase in love and he's expecting them to increase in love. That's the nature of this love. The psalmist is saying, I'm looking at Christ. My heart's overflowing, not just my head, my heart's overflowing. And it's overflowing because my zeal for Him is only growing, and my love for Him is only growing. It's a genuine love. And it's one that's unmistakable to the psalmist. And it's compelling Him. But what about the object? What about Christ himself? All of what we've just said is just a description of the Christian's love for Christ. What does he say of Christ? He says it's a good theme. Christ is the good theme that emerges out of this song. You can think about good in two different ways. Good, to use the older language, good could be the bonum, Formosum or the Bonum Utili. The Bonum Formosum is just the intrinsic good, the good in itself. Not good in the sense that, well, it gives me something good, but good in itself, of itself. Intrinsic good. And then there's what we call the instrumental good. Not only is Christ good in and of Himself, but He also supplies good. And that's how the Christian knows Him. I want to tell you something this morning. If you want to be run out on a rail in most evangelical churches, preach about the loveliness of Christ, rightly. Preach about the loveliness of Jesus Christ, preach about His beauty rightly, and they'll never call you back. And why is that? Because for most people, there's only one kind of good that Christ is. Christ is only good insofar as He gives me good gifts. And if you present Christ as being good in Himself, regardless of what He gives you, or what He doesn't give you, they'll run you out on a rail. They'll run you out on a rail. So, the psalmist you understand is not just talking about Christ in terms of the goodness that comes to the psalmist from Christ, but you see what happens in verses 2-9, he's talking about the king himself. He's saying the king himself is good, regardless of his benefits. He's good in himself. And when you think about the Christian and how he recognizes Christ, you think about Christ himself being the pattern of all loveliness, the pattern of all beauty. There's few men who probably wrote like Rutherford did on the subject. Let me just read to you something that he said on this point. Rutherford said, when all the created things and beautiful flowers of being, heavens, sun, moon, stars, seas, birds, fishes, trees, flowers, herbs, that are in the natural world are issued out of Christ, There are yet infinite possibilities of more lovely creatures in Him, since out of Christ do stream such rivers of full grace to angels and men and to all other creatures. Oh, what more and infinite more of whole Christ remaineth in Him never seen, nay, not comprehensible by created capacities. Rutherford understood, and this is a scriptural principle, that out of Christ and only through the lens of Jesus Christ is anything beautiful. The Christian has that renewed vision. He finds that everything is tied back to Christ, but more than that. He finds that because everything beautiful and everything good comes out of Christ, he reasons that then Christ must be more infinitely good than anything he's ever known. I used the double superlative there because I hardly know what language to use at this point. The Christian recognizes, genuinely recognizes, that in Jesus Christ Himself there is an infinite goodness. And even if all of mankind were damned, and even if all of salvation and all of salvation history were brought to nothing, Christ would still be worthy to be praised, because of the goodness that's in Himself. The angels in heaven would still praise Him. The Father would still be pleased in Him. And we as creatures would still be condemned for not recognizing Him, as He is the infinitely good, the infinitely lovely Christ. That's what Rutherford is saying, and that's what all of Christ is saying. There's a danger of self-love, religious self-love, and I just hinted at that. There are some who believe that, well, if I love Christ because I think He loves me, that's genuine love to Christ. And that's what the psalmist is getting at. If I love Christ just because I think He loves me, and I make that the ground and the basis of my love to Him, then that's the kind of love to Christ that the regenerate have. When Christ talks about that kind of love in just human relationships, Christ says, you know, sinners do that. The natural man's capable of loving those whom he thinks loves them. The Christian is different. If I could take the words of Job. The Christian says, though he slay me, though he slay me, yet will I love him. Though he slay me. Though all of the benefits that I thought that I could have from Him were brought to nothing, though all of those things were taken away, I would still love Him. I would still love Him. Finally, as we close, Christ is, and I failed to find an appropriate word, but He's instrumentally good to the Christian. meaning he's the one who produces all of their good. All of good is love for Christ's sake by the Christian. You know, Rutherford was often in the habit in his letters, talking about how he saw every good thing that happened in his life tied back to Christ. There's one letter to a woman who had just lost two children. And in that letter, he tells this particular woman, he says, Whenever a friend smiles at you, it's really Christ borrowing their face. Christ, in other words, for Rutherford, and you see this in the Apostle Paul, and we'll get to that text in just a minute, but you see that every good thing that happens to the Christian, the Christian traces back to Christ. Not to merit, and not to self-love, but he traces it back to Jesus. Is He prosperous right now? Well, He looks at it as a special gift from the Lord. Does He have friends? Well, He looks at those as evidences of the Lord's love to Him. And He does these things. He does these things because He knows that only all good, all good must come through Christ. He can expect no good outside of Him. And that means then that Christ is the producer of good only. He's the producer of good only, such that the Apostle Paul could say, whether I'm in adversity, whether I'm in loss or in want, whether I'm beaten, whether I'm persecuted, I take pleasure in all of these things for Christ's sake. This morning as we've just very briefly meditated on just these first two pieces of the first verse. There are a few things that we have to ask ourselves. The first thing we have to ask ourselves is, is there any love to Christ like this in us? The heart is deceitful and the devil is wicked. And when you think about Christ and the loveliness that He has in Himself, it's so easy. It's so easy to forget why you love Him. Do you love Him for who He is? Not just for what He is to you. Not just for what He's done. But do you love Him as He is the good theme? The best theme. The theme without parallel. Do you love Him for Himself? And if you love Him for Himself, there will be fruits attending that. For instance, when the Lord seems to hide His face, and He seems more distant, you'll still love Him. When it seems as though the Lord is engaged against you, you'll still continue. You'll continue in obedience. Do you love Him? For those of you who do love Him, you might think, well, I think I love Him for Himself. I think that I love Him genuinely, not just because of what He gives me, but I don't always feel that my love is where it ought to be. And the fact of the matter is, it never will be where it ought to be, in one sense. How can you love rightly in infinite loveliness? being creatures, and always being creatures into eternity. But this morning, you have to understand that the one who began the good work in you will bring it to completion. And that good work included the love that we see the psalmist having for his Christ. If you long to love Christ more, and I trust that you do, those of you who are in Christ, he will continue the work. And you'll love Him more. The Lord will call you back to Himself again and again. He'll call you away from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. He'll seek you as the one sheep that's gone from the fold. And He'll do so by increasing your love to Him. He'll do it. And one day you'll love Him without spot. Without mixture. Right now there's so much mixture in our love to Christ. We hardly want to offer it to Him. We see so much of self in us. But one day, those who are in Christ, one day, they'll be able to look at Christ and they'll be able to say, I love Him truly from the core, from my heart, without any mixture of sin. In the words of Robert Murray McShane, then we'll see how much we owe to free grace and to free love. So friend, put away sin. If you love Christ this morning, set yourself against everything that would diminish your love for Him. Sin deceives and it deludes. Put it away for His sake. Allow your heart to genuinely overflow by putting sin away more and more fervently. And if you're not in Christ this morning, understand you don't know a good thing. You don't know a good thing. If you don't love Christ, all of the angels in heaven, they're contrary to you. All of creation as it speaks, and it's in the book of nature, all of it is engaged against your judgment. You don't know a good thing. And so you need to plead with Almighty God. that He would show you Christ in all of His loveliness, in all of His splendor, and not just because of His works, but because of Himself. I plead that the Lord would give you that spirit of love that would actually cause you to know the good thing. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for Christ. and a stammering tongue, a cold heart, and a mind so slow as this surely cannot rightly preach his own loveliness and his own glory. Oh God, let us see Christ. Let us see him really as he is more and more by faith. Let us see Him as the King of renown, the One who is the Great and Holy High King, who is worthy of all love and adoration. And O God, bring forth fruits in our lives that testify to that love. Lord, if you won't give us more of that Spirit of love, which sees Christ as He truly is, We will continue to cling to the dust. We'll continue to be preoccupied with worldly things. We'll continue to worship more formally than spiritually. And oh God, help us, we pray, not to do so. Show us Christ and cause our hearts to run after him by faith, we pray in Jesus' name. And done.