Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Psalm 18. The 18th Psalm this morning, we'll be looking at verses 20 through 27. Psalm 18, verses 20 to 27 this morning. On the first Lord's Day of the month, last month when we did partake of the supper then, we picked back up our exposition through the book of Psalms and we picked back up with Psalm 18 in the first 19 verses and the theme of Christ delivered and delightful. And in the exposition of those verses, we saw that David was delivered from all of his enemies, we were told, because the Lord delighted in him. And in David's deliverance, we did see the greater deliverance of David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, his deliverance from all of his enemies and even from death. And then we saw as well that our Lord Jesus Christ is most delightful, indeed infinitely delightful, and thus He ought be most delightful to us. And we ended by seeing that in Jesus Christ, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and because of His work, we indeed who are in Him by faith alone, we too have been delivered even now in Him and are delightful even now to our Father in Him and thus you were exhorted to continue to strive to trust more and more in the Lord Jesus Christ for deliverances from all things and to delight in Him more than you do any things. And now this morning we'll pick back up in the second section of Psalm 18, verses 20-27, the theme of Christ righteous and rewarded. So with that in mind, hear now the Word of God from Psalm 18, verses 20-27. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands, He has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statues from me. I was also blameless before Him. And I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore, the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. With the merciful, you will show yourself merciful. With the blameless man, you will show yourself blameless. With the pure, you will show yourself pure. And with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd. For you will save the humble people, but we'll bring down haughty looks. Sends the reading of God's word. And may he be pleased to bless it to us this morning. So as we unpack this morning, the theme of the morning, Christ righteous. and delivered. First, in the exposition of the passage, we'll see David proclaiming that the Lord has rewarded him and that he has done so because of his sincere righteousness. And then second, we'll see that David says that the reason, the essential reason why the Lord has rewarded David's sincere righteousness is because that's who the Lord is. It's of his very nature to do so. And then third, in David and in his sincere righteousness, once again, we'll see the Lord Jesus Christ, the man who was not merely sincerely righteous, but the only one who was indeed perfectly and sinlessly righteous and who offered his sinless righteousness and obedience to God as a substitute for sinners. And so in verse 20 then, we'll see that David essentially, the continuity with what we looked at last time, is that David essentially expands upon his final statement in verse 19, that the Lord delivered him and that the Lord delighted in him. And essentially in verses 20 and following, David answers the question Why did the Lord deliver David? Why did he delight in him? And David's answer is essentially that the Lord has rewarded him, which is to say, again, as we saw last time, the Lord has delivered him. He has brought him into a broad place. He has delivered David and exalted him above his enemies because of his righteousness and the cleanness of his hands." Now we need to say or have to acknowledge that that's a pretty bold statement for a fallen man to make. that the Lord has rewarded him because of his righteousness in the cleanness of his hands. And we may wonder, and we probably should wonder when we see such bold statements. Whereas we saw last time, this Psalm is likely written at the end of David's life, and so we may be tempted to wonder, has David in his old age, has he forgotten about all of the sins that he has committed in his life? Has he forgotten about his adultery with Bathsheba? Has he forgotten about his murder of Uriah, her husband? Has David in his old age forgot about all of the sins that he's committed and about his blood-stained hands? You see, we may be wondering, is David in this passage? Is he claiming sinlessness? Is he claiming that the Lord rewarded him because he was a sinless man? But as we'll see the rest of the psalm, if we give attention to the things that David actually says in the rest of the psalm, we'll see that the answer to the question is David claiming sinlessness or has David forgotten about his sin? The answer is, in no way, in no way he is not claiming, as you'll see, and as you'll see these terms distinguished in your sermon insert, David is in no way claiming sinless, perfect righteousness. But he is simply claiming sincere righteousness and cleanness, you see. So David is not proclaiming in verse 20 that the Lord has rewarded him because of his righteousness in the terms that he is rewarding him for his good works. as meritorious works worthy of the gift of heaven. Know what David is saying. You see, David was a man who even in his day by faith was already united to Jesus Christ. And so David seeing himself as such, a man who was already united to Christ by faith, who had the Holy Spirit, who was in him producing good works, David saying, as such a man, the Lord is rewarding even his imperfect yet sincere righteousness. And so David's theology in verse 20 just is what our theology is in our confession of good works and of the reward of them in believers in Westminster Confession 16, paragraph six. We read this, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Him. Not as though they were in this life, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in God's sight. but that He, looking upon them in His Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections." So again, that this is David's theology, that this is the theology underlying David's statement in verse 20, and that he is in no way claiming sinless perfection is vindicated by the following verses. In verse 21, David states, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. And that this keeping of the ways of the Lord is not just merely David's opinion of himself, but was in fact God's opinion of David as seen in 1 Kings 14 verse 8. Of David the Lord says, My servant David who kept my commandments and who followed me with all his heart to do only what was right, in my eyes." So again, David not claiming sinless perfection, but sincere righteousness. So when David says that he has kept the ways of his Lord, what he actually means by that, in essence, he clarifies by what he says next, that he is never wickedly departed from his God. which is to say, in essence, that he has never departed from his God as the wicked do. David has never apostatized, you see, is what he is saying. Even when David was committing, even when he had committed the grievous sins of outward adultery and of murder of the woman's husband, David had not apostatized. Even in his darkest days, David had never totally nor finally fallen away from his God. And this is seen by the fact that even in David's darkest days, even when his heart was as hardened as it had probably ever been after he had committed these sins, when he needed nothing less than that powerful and personal confrontation from Nathan, that man of God, with the word of God. That was the only thing that could soften David's heart. We see from the very fact that David did sincerely repent when he was confronted by the man of God. We see that the seed of God that had been implanted in David had in fact never left him. David never, even in his sin, he never wickedly departed from his God. He never apostatized from the Lord his God. And in verse 22, David reveals one of the means by which his God kept him from such apostasy. One of the ways by which God kept him from ever wickedly, totally, and finally departing from him. And we see that his whole life His whole life, David diligently kept the Word of God before him. He diligently kept the Word of God before him, and he never let it depart from him. David, his whole life. made the regular, routine, prayerful study of the Word of God an indispensable and necessary part of his life. And that needs to be a lesson for all of us, for all of us. You and I need to commit, need to commit to making the daily prayerful study of the Word of God, an indispensable and necessary part of our lives. You see, as you think about how we are in our sin, we often get, if you was, you know how you grumble after food, your body is hungry and it urges for food. And we often, so tied up in the world, we all get these urges to check the news, to check our phone. It's like a physical feeling and draw we get to wanting to check social media or whatever it is. But ask yourself, I'm ashamed to say it, It doesn't happen to me hardly ever. Do you ever get like that urging? Like I just, I gotta go get my Bible. So I have to see again what God says. I have to read again of Jesus Christ and forgiveness of sins. And yet we have such urgings with almost everything else in life. And we don't with the word of God. And that's a lot of the reason why we struggle in the commitment to actually read it every single day. We don't see it for what it really is. We don't see it as this thing that in a sense is more important than even food itself. We don't see that the word is to our soul as food is to our body, that we need it. lest we die, lest we get sick, lest we wickedly depart from our God. And so we cannot make the excuse. We cannot make the excuse that we don't have time, that we don't have time, that we don't have five minutes in a day to open up and immerse ourselves in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the whole counsel of God. And don't ever lie to yourself. Don't tell anybody else. Don't tell me, don't tell your friend, don't tell yourself that you don't have time. Because you make time. You make time for the most important things. You make time to eat, you make time to sleep, you make time to work, you make time to get on your phone and to check the news and all of those things. You make time to do everything that you desire most to do, that is most important. Unless you must make the time. You must make the time. And you may think, well, I don't read the Word every day. I read it sometimes and I seem to be doing just fine. I'm okay. But no, you're not. No, you're not. You're like the person. You're like the person. Spiritually speaking, you're like the person. who eats nothing but junk food and just occasionally has a pack of carrots or whatever, and you think you feel just fine. But no, you don't. No, you don't. You've become so adapted and so used to feeling like junk. that you think that's fine, you think that's okay. And it wouldn't be until you would start eating healthy consistently and exercising consistently that you would realize that all along you felt like junk. And thus we have forgotten in our sin and our laziness and contempt for the Word of God of which we should be most ashamed, we have forgotten what spiritual vitality and warmth of communion with God actually feels like. What it feels like for our soul to be warmed by the Word every day. What spiritual health is actually like we've forgotten. We're not okay. We're not okay. And so we need to see the word for what it is. As food to our bodies, so is the word to our souls, again. And without it, we will die. We will die. We will wither up and be sick at best. At best, if we don't apostatize. At best, we will live spiritually withered lives. At best. At best is what we'll do. And so, beloved, you must strive in the Word, keeping it before you. But in addition to keeping the Word of God before him, in verse 23, we see another means by which David was preserved and by which he persevered in the faith. Verse 23, David says, I was also blameless before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity." Again, David's not claiming perfect blamelessness. Again, he kind of clarifies and interprets what he means by being blameless. He says that I kept myself from iniquity, which is to say that David stayed on guard. He kept watch over himself. In essence, David's saying he exercised self-control. He knew, he was well aware of the ways in which his natural corruption most ordinarily manifested itself according to his natural constitution. He was aware of the kinds of sins that he was most often tempted to commit, and so he kept himself from his iniquity, his sinful nature, his sins that he struggled with. He stayed on guard. Again, we know this is not what happened perfectly. But as a general rule in David's life, and we should assume, especially so after his grievous sin, that David made much improvement in this area. He stayed on guard against his sin, the sins that he struggled with. And I've been reading, just finished reading John Owen's mortification of sin recently, and I was just struck in reading it and made note in the margins as I was going of how much overlap there was between what Owen was saying when it comes to putting sin to death and putting on righteousness How much overlap there was between what Owen says and things I've presented to you that Jay Adams says in the 20th century. And why is that? Because 400 years doesn't change what the essence of fighting sin and putting sin to death looks like. Sin is sin. God is God. Man is man. The world is the world. Fighting sin, putting sin to death, and putting on righteousness hasn't changed according to the Word of God. And thus we can safely assume of David. How did he keep himself from iniquity? Well, as we've seen, certainly we know that he was keeping Christ central, that he was daily looking to Jesus Christ by faith, that he was expectantly looking to Christ for deliverance, crying out for the Lord to deliver him. As Owen said, as a servant looks to the hand of their master for their good. He was aware. Again, he was aware of his sins. Those sins that he struggled with, he knew those places. He was tempted to commit such sins. May well be that David never went on his rooftop again after he fell into that sin, looking down on Bathsheba and seeing her and being tempted. He kept himself from his sins, he was aware. David knew the biblical alternatives. Not only the sins that he struggled with and the sins that he needed to be put to death, but the righteousness he needed to put on. David likely structured his life to make the sins more difficult, to make the holy habits easier to practice. David was likely a man committed and striving to restrain and resist sin at the very first signs and workings of temptation. He may well have had men who helped keep him accountable for his sins, even as the king himself. He was a man who was committed, committed to the fight of exercising himself unto godliness. Beloved David kept himself from his iniquity. And again, that's the other lesson for you and I to learn. We don't only daily need to be feeding our souls and receiving that spiritual nourishment and nutrition from the Word every day, just like we feed our bodies every day. We need to be striving to keep ourselves from our iniquity. from the outworkings of our sinful corruption and in particular, those sins that in your natural constitution you struggle with. There are some guys that struggle much with lust, some ladies that struggle much with lust. It's often wrapped up, can be in your natural constitution. Others may struggle with pride or humility or you name it. There are sins that you in particularly struggle with, and God calls you to particularly keep yourself from those sins. As Owen put it, you need to be daily, daily killing sin. Lest sin be daily killing you. Daily prayerful study of the word and diligence and self-control. These are the ordinary means by which God preserves his saints and by which the saints persevere in the faith. In verse 24, David essentially just repeats what he said in verse 20, essentially emphasizing the fact that it is because of his sincere righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ, worked in him by the Holy Spirit. It is because of this that the Lord was pleased to reward him. And in verses 25 through 27, David essentially just expands on the inherent principle in verse 24. You see, verses 25 through 27, you can see that inherent in verse 24 is the principle that to the righteous, God shows Himself to be a righteous person. To the righteous, God shows Himself the rewarder of righteousness, you see. And David expands upon that in verses 25 through 27. Essentially, he answers the question, just why? Why does God reward the righteous? We could even ask, why does God, even in Jesus Christ, reward the imperfect, sin-stained weakness of His people? And as we read in the Confession, there are many reasons the Scriptures teach. preeminently of which is because Christ purchased those rewards by His blood that were clothed in His righteousness, that God looks upon you in His Son. He's given you the Spirit. But David, in a sense, digs even deeper into the very nature of God. Why does God show Himself the rewarder of the righteous? Essentially, David says, in more words than this, but it's essentially because that's who God is. That's just who He is. It is of His very nature. His nature compels Him to reward such. He says, with the merciful, you show yourself merciful. With the blameless, blameless. With the pure, pure. With the devious or the deceitful, God shows Himself shrewd or sharp or severe. You see, that's just who God is. He rewards goodness. And as the spirit works that goodness in the people of God, he's compelled of his very nature because he's merciful, gracious, equitable and just to reward even the imperfect, yet sincere righteousness of his people. And he ends by saying, he ends by saying he will destroy, in essence, the pride or the proud people, and he will save the humble. He will save the humble, He will raise them up, and He will bring low those who exalt themselves in this age. So we've seen that the Lord has rewarded David. He rewarded David because of his sincere righteousness. And yet as we've seen that underneath these statements are the theological presuppositions of the person and work of Jesus Christ. It all presupposes. Everything that David says in Psalm 18, verses 20-24 especially, presupposes the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It presupposes David's faith. It presupposes David's union with Jesus Christ. It presupposes that the Holy Spirit dwelt within David and was working such righteousness in David. And apart from those theological presuppositions, apart from reading the Bible systematically, you can make no sense. You can make no sense of Psalm 18, 20 to 24. You'd have to say that David is lying. He's not speaking what is true if these things aren't presupposed. And so we see in Psalm 18, 20 to 27, Not only Christ underneath, if you will, and behind every word that David speaks. This person in work is the theological presupposition of such. But once again, we also see David in David. And in David's very words, the Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment. For His only Christ, only Jesus Christ could take up these words and speak them sincerely in perfection. His only Christ, who was never merely sincerely righteous and clean, It's sinlessly, sinlessly righteous. And again, those two distinctions between sincere and sinless righteousness are on your insert. It's only Jesus Christ who perfectly, alone, kept the ways of God. who perfectly kept the word of God before him. And Psalm 1 tells us, meditated on that word day and night, never struggled with laziness and worldly mindedness that kept him from the word of his father. It's only Christ who is perfectly blameless before God and who never kept himself from his own iniquity, not having any to keep himself from, but did keep himself from every temptation there unto. It's Christ, beloved. In short, it's His obedience, you see, that we see ultimately in David's words, his perfect obedience. But you may ask, and we need to ask ourselves this question often for reminders. Why? Why? So we see the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ shining through David's words in our psalm, but why? Why did Jesus Christ need to obey perfectly? Why is that relevant? Why does it matter? You see, we could ask why is this and should this be good news that Jesus Christ offered perfect obedience to the Father. Why does that matter to anybody? And the first reason it matters is found in history. It's found in real world and human history. I love the summarization of world history. I heard one time somebody said, world and human history is in essence, the tale of two Adams. It's the tale of two Adams. So if we'd understand why it matters that Jesus Christ offered perfect obedience to God the Father, we need to ask ourself, if he's the second Adam, what happened with the first one? What happened with the first Adam? So we need to remember who the first Adam was. He was the first man. created in the image of God, in the estate of innocence, no guilt at all, an upright man, no corruption of heart inclined to all good. And this image of God, this first Adam created in the image of God, immediately after his creation was brought into covenant relationship with God. And the covenant relationship that Adam was brought into immediately after his creation is often referred to as the covenant of works. And the reason it's referred to as the covenant of works is because it was Adam's works that were the condition upon which the promise of everlasting life would be bestowed to him. Adam obeyed everlasting life. But another thing we need to remember is that in the covenant of works, Adam was made the representative of Eve and of every one of mankind who would descend from Adam and Eve by ordinary generation. That is by the ordinary means by which men and women produce offspring. Adam was made the representative of all. And so Adam, in the covenant of works, by personal and perfect obedience, would have covenantally merited everlasting life. And I say covenantally merited just to help us understand Adam even better. Adam's obedience was not the kind of obedience that could strictly merit in a strict equality sense. There was utter disproportion between what Adam was called to do and the reward that was promised to Adam. So it was only by way of covenant word of God that Adam's act of obedience could merit such a reward. and children to help you understand and help all of us understand what I mean by that utter disproportion. Children, you could think of if your parents were like Elon Musk, right? We'll use him as an example. One of the richest and most famous men in the world. And imagine if Elon Musk took one of his children, and he set a piece of candy on the kitchen table, and he said, just for the next 24 hours, do not eat of that candy. And if you do not eat of that candy, I will give you $10 billion. And Elon Musk could do that. And you see, in the act of obedience, in the promised reward, the utter disproportion And we get a little bit of an idea of the greater disproportion that existed between the simple command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the promise of everlasting life in communion with God in glory. Utter disproportion between the act of obedience that Adam was called to and the reward that God had promised to him. So Adam set up in this paradise garden, innocence, righteousness of soul, a simple command, a disproportionate reward. That's the first Adam. But we know that Adam did not offer the obedience that God required. He ate of the tree that God had commanded him not to eat. And by so doing, Adam brought death into the world. He plunged mankind, every one of us, into an estate of sin and misery and brought the curse of the law and the covenant that is everlasting death upon every one of his and Eve's descendants who would descend again by those ordinary means of generation. And so one was needed. The first Adam failed. And in failing, he brought an infinite penalty upon mankind. And thus, another one, another Adam was needed, you see. Another Adam needed to come. and to obey the law of God perfectly. But now not only obey the law of God perfectly, but to also pay the infinite penalty that the breaking of the law had accrued upon and brought upon mankind. And the glory of the gospel is that the needed one has come. He came, like literally in history. Just like Adam fell in history, so the needed one came in history 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ, the promised Christ, the promised Messiah came. And the good news of Jesus Christ begins with the virgin birth. The fact that Christ was generated from the Father by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And why is the virgin birth such good and necessary news, you may ask? Why does that matter? Why is that an essential element of the gospel? Well, remember, all of those who were descended from Adam and Eve by ordinary generation were imputed with Adam's guilt and inherited Adam's corrupt, sinful nature. And so one needed to be born of a virgin. One needed to be generated in an extraordinary manner so that he would not have upon himself the guilt of the first Adam. So he would not have the corrupt nature that the first Adam had. So the good news starts with the fact that Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. But then the good news continues. That this one who was born of the Virgin Mary was not a mere man. It was not a mere man. God's plan wasn't merely to send another man to give humanity another shot at this thing. Another shot to gain the promise. And praise be to God. Praise be to God. Because if He had merely sent a mere man after the fall, The infinite penalty could never have been paid, could it? How could a finite man ever pay an infinite penalty? Impossible. But praise be to God, the good news continues that this one who was born of the Virgin Mary was and is fully God and fully man. One divine person, the Son of God. One person, two natures, the Godhead and the manhood forever. And why is that good news? Because He's fully God. His obedience to the law and especially His death and sufferings on our behalf had an infinite worth. An infinite person alone can bear the infinite penalty that mankind had accrued. So it is good news, beloved. It's good news that the Savior is God. But it's good news also that He's fully man. It's fully man. For God, mere God, how could He be the substitute or pay the fine for men? And thus it was that He had to be fully God and fully man. And thus it's good news that He was fully man because now He could pay the penalty for sinful man. He could step in the place of sinful man. He could be the substitute that sinners needed. And so you see, as fully God, fully man, Jesus Christ alone was fully equipped to reconcile God and man. And that He did. That He did. First, by offering that perfect active obedience, and you'll see active and passive obedience on your sheet, distinguished. He came to offer that perfect active obedience and active obedience simply refers to his perfect obedience to every jot and tittle of the law and covenant of God. But he came and he not only offered perfect active obedience that sinners needed, he came and he offered perfect passive obedience. What is passive obedience? Passive obedience refers to Christ voluntarily paying the penalty for the sin, debt of sinners by His perfect, infinitely worthy sufferings and death on their behalf. And the scriptures tell us, Philippians 2, that because Christ was obedient even unto the death, the death of the cross, that he was rewarded. He was rewarded for his righteousness. The father lifted him up, not only taking his body up from the grave, but 40 days later, taking it into heaven and sitting in his right hand and giving him all authority in heaven and on earth, giving him heaven itself, giving him the name above every name, most importantly for us, giving Him the Holy Spirit, which He in turn poured out upon His church, you see. So again, why is all this such good news? Why is it all such good news? Again, because He was God. He alone could and did pay the infinite penalty that was needed for mankind's salvation. And because He was fully man, He could pay it for you. He could pay it for men, women, and children. And concerning His active obedience, think about it. If He had only offered passive obedience, if Jesus Christ had only died for sinners, then the most that would have happened is that our debt would have been wiped clean, but all that would have been the case is that we would have all of a sudden found ourselves in the same state that Adam was in. We would have all merely been given the opportunities to be little Adams and to earn our everlasting life. And that's horrible news. That is no good news at all. Because we already saw that even without sin and even with a soul that was inclined to righteousness, Satan and temptation were too strong for Adam and Eve. And thus praise be to God that Jesus Christ obeyed the law perfectly in our place that that burden does not fall on us, that He could advance our nature even in Him now to the estate of grace unto eventually the estate of glory. So praise be to God that He did not merely die for sinners, but also praise be to God that He didn't merely obey for sinners. Because think about it, if He would have merely offered active obedience and not passive obedience, then it's like heaven would have sat right before us. right, this wonderful estate, which we could have never came into possession of because we still bear that infinite debt. So praise be to God that Jesus Christ and his good news, that Jesus Christ offered both active and passive obedience that By faith alone, we can receive His perfect righteousness and have our sins forgiven and washed. That He who knew no sin became sin for sinners, that we might in Him become the righteousness of God. And because He did this, because He did this forgiveness of sin, release from the curse of the law and that perfect legal righteousness that every single sinner needs to enter heaven and to be with Christ forever. It's available. It is available to sinners. And the good news, the good news about the good news, the best news about the best news is that it's not merely offered to some. OK, it's not only genuinely and sincerely offered to the elect as if kind of secretly, you know, if you're the elect, then I really offer you salvation. But the best news about the good news. said it's genuinely and sincerely offered to every sinner who hears about it, to every single person in this room this morning is genuinely and sincerely offered forgiveness of sins, forgiveness of every sin that you've ever committed and ever will commit. Sincerely and genuinely offered to you is that perfect legal righteousness that every sinner needs. Sincerely and genuinely offered to you is peace with God in Jesus Christ. Sincerely and genuinely offered to you is everlasting life through Jesus Christ. And the only condition, the only requirement Upon this is faith. And that's it. And that's it. Receiving and resting upon Jesus Christ and Him alone. But the kicker is, the kicker is that the faith that man so needs to be saved is itself the gift of God. It is itself the gift of God, which is to say you have not the strength in yourself to claim, to receive this gift. To believe, you must be born again. To embrace Jesus Christ, you must first be raised with Jesus Christ. To believe from the heart, you first need a new heart, you see. And so you must believe, but you cannot. You cannot believe of your own strength. You must first, you must first, and even as we teach the children in the children's catechism, can any man believe and repent of his own power? No. What must he do then? He must pray that the Holy Spirit would give him that new heart. And so you must first pray. And if you will not, if you will not pray, God, if you will not humble yourself to the call of Jesus Christ and cry out, forsake yourself and your own strength and cry out to God to give you the gift of saving faith, then as he says right here in his word, he will bring down the haughty looks of your prideful heart. If you will not repent and believe the gospel, and humble yourself under the hand of God, then you will face the same condemnation and everlasting destruction as the devil himself. You will face a life sentence in a place of utter darkness, no light, none whatsoever, a place of absolute wickedness, a place of unimaginable and constant pain and torment and body and soul. A place where the wrath of God will be unleashed upon you forever. And a place where there is no getting out. No get out of jail free cards. That is the sentence that you face. And thus you must come. You must turn while the offer is still on the table. Because there's going to be a day when it's removed. When it's removed, and the offer will no longer be there for that empty hand of faith to receive. So again, while it's still today, those words in the Scriptures, while it's still today, turn to God and Jesus Christ. And to you, beloved, who do profess faith, in Jesus Christ, you need to ask yourself this morning, is your faith, is your faith, is it of yourself or is it the gift of God? Do you profess faith in your Christ, in Christ from your own strength or from his strength? Do you have the faith of demons or do you have the faith of a child of God? And we need to remember that one of the preeminent evidences of having justifying faith is walking in the ways of the Lord. We need to remember that true justification is evidenced by progressive sanctification, that justifying faith in those who are justified by faith alone is never alone. But faith works by love, you see. But the mere fact, the mere fact that even unbelievers, you see this in the Pharisees, even unbelievers can reform their lives externally, even unbelievers can externally conform themselves and can keep the ways of God to some degree, I challenge you to ask yourself this morning a couple why questions. Ask yourself first, why? Why do you keep the ways of the Lord? Why do you strive to conform your life to the ways that He has put forth in His Word? Why do you come to church? Why do you read the Bible ever? Why do you profess faith in Jesus Christ? Why? Is it because it's your family tradition to do so? Or your own tradition that's simply what you have always done? Is it because your parents, children, is it because your parents make you walk in the ways of the Lord? Is it because all your friends do? It's just those are the people you like and that's what they do and so you play along with the game so you can fit in with your friends. Is it because your spouse does? You love your spouse so you come with them to church. You go along with this Christianity to make your spouse happy to keep from a divorce. Is it because you think the ways of God are just better ways than the other options I see in the world? They're more conservative. Make me feel more like a good Republican. Or is it because it gets people in the church off your back? You just want your friends or the elders to shut up and leave you alone in your sin. And so you You go along, you externally reform your life to get people off your back. Why? Why do you keep the ways of the Lord? Second question, to distinguish a mere external reformer from an internal conformer, to ask yourself is why do you keep yourself from your sin? Why do you keep yourself from your sin? Is it because you don't like the bad things that happen to you when you get caught? You just don't like those things, they're not good for you, doesn't work good for you, and so you keep yourself. Like the person who at work merely restrains themselves from stealing from the cash register because they don't want to lose their job, when really they'd like to take a 20 every night. Why do you keep yourself from your sin? Is it because you'd be embarrassed if you got caught? Maybe you're not even so much concerned about the bad thing, or maybe a particular bad thing you're concerned about is you'd be really embarrassed. You'd lose your job. People would hear about it. You keep yourself from your sin because you don't want the embarrassment of being found out in your sin. You keep yourself from pornography on your phone because you're scared somebody's going to come around the corner and catch you on your phone? Or is it because you like the feeling of taking extreme ownership of your life? A popular phrase in the world today. You just like being a super disciplined person. So you like the life of exercising control. over your sin. Why do you keep yourself from your sin? And if it's for any of those reasons that you keep the ways of the Lord, or that you keep yourself from your sin, if it's for any of those reasons, then it's more likely than not that you're dead in your sin. Or, at minimum, that you're on your way toward wickedly departing from your God. You see, because true faith, true faith, however weakly in the center, in the saint, true faith responds to those two why questions. Why? Why in true faith do I keep the ways of God? Full stop, because it pleases Him. Why do I keep myself from my sin? Full stop, Because sin displeases Him. That's it. That's it. Not that other reasons are wrong. Those are the ultimate reasons. Full stop. Done. Nothing beyond that. You're thankful and it pleases God. That's why. Sin displeases Him. That's why. That's it. That's the only reason. That's the response of faith. You see. And so if You are keeping the ways of God, keeping yourself from sin because of any other ways than those two. Pleases Him and displeases Him. You and I need to repent. We need to repent of that sin today. You need to repent. Maybe you don't know Jesus Christ at all. You need to repent and turn to Him. And then as we come to the table in just a minute, You need to ask yourself, could you take these words that we've read today, especially verses 20 to 24? And David, remember, was not a sinless man, but he yet took these words sincerely upon his lips in Jesus Christ by the Spirit. Could you? Could you take these words and take them in the present tense and apply them to yourself today? Could you say before God with a clean conscience, or before anybody in this room, I am keeping the ways of God. I'm keeping the ways of God. I will not, am not wickedly departing from my God, nor am I on the way to it. Could you say in sincerity that you are keeping the word of the Lord before you? Could you say in sincerity that you're blameless? That doesn't mean perfect. But in essence, are you keeping a clear conscience? Are you repenting of known sin? Confessing known sin to God? Or are you harboring sin? That's what being blameless before God is. Keeping a clear conscience. Keeping yourself from sin, and then when you fall into it, confessing that sin and not holding on to it. Are you keeping a clear conscience before God and men? And again, if not, before you come to this holy table and partake of this holy meal, the Lord calls you to repent now. Repent now and apprehend anew. That's how merciful your God is. He says repent right now. Repent and come. Repent and come. Apprehend anew the mercy of God in Jesus Christ for sinners. the body broken and the blood shed to cleanse sin and endeavor, endeavor right now before the Lord. Endeavor after the kind of Christ likeness in Jesus Christ that we see David confessing in this word. Renew your covenant with God. now and in this meal. Remembering that's one of the aspects. Not only visible, I'll remind you in a minute, not only visible proclamation of the death of Christ, communion with one another, but renewal of our covenant with God. And so let us be about that business now and for the rest of this morning. Let's pray together. Our God in heaven, how we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for him. Lord, without him, apart from him, we still remain under the curse. We still remain under the demand for perfect obedience in thought, word and deed. We still would require, would still need to offer to you an infinite sacrifice and there's none to be found outside of Christ. And so we thank you for giving us that one to free us from the curse of the law, to take that sword, that fiery flaming sword through his heart, that we could come through the entrance to paradise again in him. Lord, he is the door. He is the way. He is everything. And so we thank you for giving us such a needed one as Jesus Christ. And Lord, we pray, though, that we would not be those who use our justification in an ungodly, unbiblical manner to justify our sins, but that we would strive diligently after holiness and godliness, that we would be diligent in working out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is the Spirit who works in us to will and to work for your good pleasure, Lord. And so stir us up. Stir us up. We confess we're weak. And so we come to you as a servant to a master, praying, stir us up, Holy Spirit. Stir us up to keep your word before us. Stir us up. Give us that gift of self-control that we may exercise it to Your glory and keep ourselves from our sin. Oh God, we pray that You would be with us now the rest of this worship service, and that You would continue to convict and convert sinners, and that You'd come for the saints this day. We do pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.