Episode Transcript
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Please turn with me to our sermon
text. It's found in the Book of
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Psalms, Psalm One hundred nineteen.
I'm going to going to be reading verses
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fifty seven through sixty four. However, Verse Fifty Seven is is what I'm
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going to be focusing on in the
sermon. So here now, God's word
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from the book of Psalm some one
hundred nineteen, beginning with verse fifty seven.
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The Lord is my portion. I
promise to keep your words. I
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entreat your favor with all my heart. Be Gracious to me according to Your
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promise. When I think on my
ways, I turn my feet to your
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testimonies. I hasten and do not
delay to keep your commandments. The cords
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of the wicked ensnare me. I
do not forget your law. At midnight,
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I rise to praise you because of
your righteous rules. I'm a companion
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of all who fear you, of
those who keep your precepts. The Earth,
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O Lord, is full of your
steadfast love. Teach me your statutes.
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This is the word of the Lord. Amen, you may be seated.
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Well, let's say that the Lord
were to appear to you and here
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were to ask you, what is
it that you want. I mean that
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that gets everybody here of any age
right. What is it? What is
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it that you really want? I
mean what is the one thing that you
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desire above all else? Whatever it
is, I will grant it to you.
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I wouldn't that be an exciting appearance
of the Lord. So what is
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it that that immediately comes to your
mind? And perhaps for some of you
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the first thought might be you mean
only one thing, but, Lord,
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I have so many needs. And
here's kind of what we're getting at here.
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Assuming that the Lord did grant you
your desire, would it, whatever
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it is that you dream of and
which occupies so much of your thoughts,
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if it were really giving to you, and let's be really, really honest
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about this, if it was given
to you, would it really really give
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you fullness and enduring, lasting satisfaction? We all know the answer. It
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wouldn't. It would not truly,
whatever it is, be able to really
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fill our hearts and our souls.
It might be nice for a while,
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it might be fun, might be
enjoyable for a while, but it won't
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last. And that's part of the
reality of life in this world. And
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in fact it's this very reality which
the book of Ecclesiastes drives home so very
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well. In ecclesiast these, chapter
two, we read this. I'm picking
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up at Verse Four. I made
great works. I built houses and planted
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vineyards for myself. I Made Myself
Gardens and parks and planted all kinds of
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fruit trees. I made myself pools. I bought male and female slaves.
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I also had great possessions of herds
and and flocks. I also gathered for
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myself silver and gold and the treasure
of kings and provinces. I got singers,
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both men and women, and many
concubines, and whatever my eyes desired,
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I did not keep from them.
I kept my heart from no pleasure.
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Then I considered all that my hands
had done and the toil I had
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expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after
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the wind. Now, with that
in mind the fact that nothing in all
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the earth that that you can dream
of can truly fill your soul, can
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truly give you lasting, in enduring
satisfaction, let's go back to where we
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began. Let's again say the Lord
appears to you and he asks you,
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okay, what is it you want? Whatever it is, I will grant
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it. Who among US would ever
think to reply, Lord, I want
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you, I want you to be
my portion. That's what we have here.
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Psalm one nineteen, verse fifty seven, that first part of the verse,
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the Lord is my portion. And
you know what, regarding the Lord
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being our portion in Christ, this
is exactly what takes place for all who've
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put their faith in, their trust
in Christ, saving work on the Cross,
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by His grace, Christ gives us
himself. Do you realize that he
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gives us himself? He gives himself
to us as are everlasting, soul satisfying
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portion, such that we truly can
begin to say, and I say begin
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because it's in heaven where this will
truly be realized in all of its glory,
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or we truly can begin to say, alongside the Psalmness, the Lord,
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he is my portion. Now,
if we're really going to grasp the
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the sheer wonder and an utter desirability
of this the Lord is my portion,
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we have to understand that this concept, that this is a concept which possesses
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a deep meaning and importance in in
the Old Testament. See, what we
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have here in verse for Fifty Seven
doesn't just come out of nowhere. It
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comes out of a bigger context of
the Old Testament itself and in fact we
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find its origins back in the book
of Joshua and the dividing up of the
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Promised Land amongst the various tribes of
Israel. Regarding the Promised Land, it's
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not like we might think of our
own country and maybe the settling of the
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Midwest or the West, where some
settlers perhaps might decide to go off in
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a more northerly direction. You know, I'm going to go to Oregon or
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or or Washington, I'm going to
go to California and and so forth.
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In the book of Joshua, very
differently, we find the dividing up of
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the land, that it was determined
by God, and thus there was there
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was an order to it, a
plan, there was a design to it.
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God divided up the land into geographical
regions, with each tribe inheriting a
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particular geographic region. In other words, each tribe had their own territory or
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inheritance or portion, there's that word
from Verse Fifty Seven. Each tribe had
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their own portion of the promised land, which really the Promised Land itself is
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a shadow of heaven it itself.
That land wasn't the ultimate. So,
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for example, to understand this more, let's consider the inheritance or portion of
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land that the tribe of Judah received, as recorded in Joshua. Fifteen versus
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one to two. There we read
the allotment for the tribe of the people
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of Judah, according to their clans, reached southward to the boundary of Edom,
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to the Wilderness of Zin at the
furthest south, and their South Band
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boundary ran from the end of the
salt sea, from the bay that faces
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southward. And then, having described
the geographical boundaries, in verse twenty,
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there it says so importantly, this
is the inheritance. It could be translated
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portion. This is the portion of
the tribe of Judah according to their clans.
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The account here in scripture of assigning
specific portions of the land to each
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of the various tribes continues on through
a number of chapters in the book of
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Joshua, with each tribe receiving their
own portion, their own inheritance of the
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promised land in which they could settle
old and call their own. But okay,
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and this is extremely significant, so
bear with me as I'm kind of
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developing this background to this idea of
portion very significantly for the tribe of Levi.
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Do you know what they inherited the
tribe of Levi, rather than being
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given a territory, instead, they
were given cities, forty eight cities total,
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priestly cities distributed throughout the promised land. And this, of course,
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the distribution of those cities around the
Promised Land, was done so they could
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be better available to the Israelites throughout
the land. But this raises a huge
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question. All those tribes got got
land, but the Levites only got cities.
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So so the question is, were
they short changed, not getting any
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real land? You know, I
wonder if this had taken place today,
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the Levites merely getting cities, not
land. I almost wonder if we might,
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if this happened today, if we
might end up turning on the evening
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news to scenes of the Levites picketing
Moses. You know, the tent of
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meeting with signs Yahweh is unfair.
We deserve land also in our day and
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age. That probably the least of
what would happen. So were they short
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changed? To find the answer,
consider Joshua Thirteen, verse thirty three.
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But to the tribe of Levi,
Moses gave no inheritance. The Lord,
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God of Israel, is their inheritance
or portion. Do you get that?
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He gave no land, but the
Lord is their portion, he is their
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inheritance. So that's it, you
see, that's the point. They didn't
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get mere land, they got God, they got Christ, they got the
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Lord as their portion. And that
then takes us to numbers, Chapter Eighteen,
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verse twenty, where we read and
the Lord said to Aaron, you
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shall have no inheritance in their land. Neither show you have a portion among
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them. I am your portion and
your inheritance. That's actually awesome. Now
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this brings us to the to really
the heart issue for understanding the significance of
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Psalm one hundred nineteen, verse fifty
seven, where the psalmists declared the Lord,
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the Lord is my portion. Again, who got the better deal in
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the distribution of the land? Was
it the the eleven tribes who received actual
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land, real dirt that they could
pick down a bend down and pick up
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and and and declare this this is
mine, this is given to me by
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the Lord. They got real land
in which they could they could build a
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home and farm, raise sheep pass
on down to their descendants from generation to
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generation. You see what the psalmness
is doing here in verse fifty seven,
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is reaching back to the inheritances,
back to the portions which were distributed back
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in the days of Joshua. And
what he's saying is that what he really
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desires is not some piece of real
estate which he knows will never ultimately satisfy
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the soul. As wonderful as land
is. It's a wonderful thing to own
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land, but but he knows the
things of this world. There's a limit
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to how much they can fill your
heart and soul. So rather what he
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desires, he's very insightful. What
he desires is that which truly can fill
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the heart and soul. The Lord
is my portion. You See, only
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the Lord himself can truly bring lasting, true fullness of heart and soul.
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Everything else in this created world,
God declared it good. Okay, I'm
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not. I'm not saying that at
all. But everything else in this finite
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world is limited in what it can
give, in what it can provide.
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Everything and anything else will only disappoint
and let you down in the end.
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If that's what you place your ultimate
hope and satisfaction in, and we all
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know this from our own personal experience
in life. This is why we spend
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a lifetime grasping after more and more. This is why we have the credit
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card debt that we have. This
is why so many Christians, to borrow
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a phrase, I think it's from
Dave Ramsey, this is why so many
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Christians are driving their ties. You
see, we try, as James Voice
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observes, to possess God is to
have everything. Do you believe that to
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possess God is truly to have everything? That is a faith challenging, faith
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expanding statement. Now Dr Ligoan Duncan, one of my former professors, makes
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a very interesting and spot on observation
regarding verse fifty seven. In this idea
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of the Lord being our portion,
he points out that the greatest gift that
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the Lord gives really and truly is
himself. In other words, if you're
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trusting in the shed blood of Jesus
Christ, then as a result, and
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this is the part we're all familiar
with, if you're trusting in Christ,
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as a result you've received the full
forgiveness of every single one of your sins
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and you've also been justified. There's
a good Lutheran doctrine for you and and
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reform. You've been justified. What
justified means is you've been made right with
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God. God is no longer scowling
down upon you because of your sin.
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He's now smiling on you. We've
received the forgiveness for every one of our
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sins. We've been justified by the
imputed righteousness of Christ, and that's where
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we tend to leave it, isn't
it? The benefits of Christ, but
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hold on to your seats, because
this can be startling. Please realize having
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all of your sins forgiven through Christ
and having the perfect obedience of Christ credited
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to you, neither one of these
absolutely necessary benefits of Christ's work constitutes the
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highest gift that God gives us.
Rather, the highest and the greatest gift
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that God gives to us in Christ
is himself. It's himself. Think about
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it. We receive forgiveness so that
we might not be condemned and so that
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God's wrath against us might be turned
away. And we receive justification by grace
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alone, through faith alone, in
Christ alone, so that we might be
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pardoned of all of our sins,
so we might be declared righteous in God's
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sight. But even our forgiveness,
even justification is not the ultimate blessing of
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of the work of Christ. The
whole goal of Christ's work is so that
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we might be reconciled to God,
and yet more than mere reconciliation. Listen
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Up, because this is this is
truly glorious. We are saved by the
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work of Christ, so God again, to repeat it, so God can
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give us the greatest gift of all, which is himself. Verse Fifty Seven.
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The Lord is my portion now in
this discussion. There's a chance that
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perhaps I've left some of you behind. Perhaps you're still thinking, yeah,
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but but those other tribes, they
got land, don't you understand? They
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got something concrete, terra firma,
something solid, something real, something they
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can use, something that can benefit
them every day of life. Isn't it
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better to have good things now?
In fact, isn't it better to have,
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to use the phrase, our best
life now? Wouldn't it be be
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better to hold in our hands that
winning laud'll ticket were several hundred million?
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Would that be better? When you
like that ticket? In answer to these
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very real questions, these very real
struggles, please realize there's nothing new in
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in these sorts of questions. In
Psalm seventy three. The psalmness struggled over
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the prosperity the wicked, and maybe
you have. He struggled over the fact
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that the wicked were prospering. He
writes Psalm Seventy three, verses three and
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four. I was envious of the
arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the
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wicked, for they have no pangs
until death. Their bodies are fat and
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sleek, they're not in trouble as
others are. They're not stricken like the
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rest of mankind. But then the
psalmnists after confessing to God. I envy
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the wicked. Look at what they've
got. Then he continues a little later,
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versus sixteen, seventeen eighteen. But
when I thought how to understand this,
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it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary
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of God. Then I discerned their
end. Truly, you set them in
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slippery places, you make them fall
to ruin. How they are destroyed in
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a moment, swept the way utterly
by terrors. Now the words what might
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look to us at first glance even
a longer observation. They're the ones prospering,
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they're the ones happy in life.
They're the ones that have it all.
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In the end, in the end, in a moment, they will
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be destroyed. What good? Think
about this for a moment. What good
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are riches and prosperity and even health
if your fate is to be swept away
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in the end to the eternal fires
of God's judgment? For what does it
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Prophet Jesus asked, what does it
profit a man to gain the whole world
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and forfeit his soul? In fact, this is part of what makes hell
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hell. Hell is comprised of a
deep, deep, empty, empty ache,
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ache, anguish, never ever even
for an instant peace fullness, only
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and everlasting thirst and and ae that
never can be quenched. So, with
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this in mind, consider again the
statement the Lord is my portion. Thomas
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Boston suggests that we imagine taking all
the good things that we value in life.
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And if you're like me, there's
a lot of good things that I
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value in life. I'm grateful to
God for them. They are gifts from
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him. Okay, I'm not saying
let's go out sell everything, start a
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monastery where you know, clothes,
like John the Baptist and so forth.
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No, but but like Thomas Boston, suggests. We need to get these
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things into perspective. So let's imagine
that we take all the good things which
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we value in life and we place
them on one side of a scale or
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a balance, and then place all
the Excellencies of Christ on the other side.
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Do you know what would happen?
Christ would outweigh all of those things
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which you value, what you're pursuing
in life. He would. He would
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outweigh them his excellencies, by magnitudes. Another illustration he suggests imagining all of
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those things that you value as being
like stars up in the night sky.
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Beautiful Stars, beautiful night sky in
many places, here in Arizona at least,
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as you look up at those stars
in a night sky, you behold
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their beauty, bright and sparkling there
in the dark sky. But when the
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sun rises in the morning, every
single star totally completely disappears because the sun
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is magnitudes brighter than every single one
of those night stars. So also when
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we compare the brilliance and the glory
and the fullness of Christ to everything that
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we can grasp after in life,
absolutely everything else pails in comparison. The
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Lord is my portion consider Moses to
try and illustrate this little more. Consider
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Moses, when he asked the preincarnate
Christ, show me Your glory. That
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was a fabulous request on the part
of Moses, wasn't it? Show me
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Your glory. And the Lord responded
by placing Moses in the the safety of
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that gap, amongst those rocks,
those boulders, and and he placed them
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there to shield him from the sheer, resplendent glory. And the Lord then
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passed before Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the Lord a God, Merciful and
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Gracious, slow to anger, abounding
in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast
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love for thousands, forgiving iniquity,
transgression and sin. You See, the
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glory of the Lord is the glory
impart in large part, the glory of
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Christ, inward being bursting forth in
blinding magnificence. The Glory of Christ is
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the glory of His love, His
mercy, His grace, his goodness.
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It's the glory of his Justice,
his wrath, His Holiness, his wisdom,
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his truth, his tenderness, his
compassion, His Majesty. Can you
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maybe at least get a hint then, that everything else that we value,
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that we seek our happiness in,
it's not that we throw it away.
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But to gain perspective, it pales
in comparison to the glory, that Resplendent
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Glory of Jesus Christ. And thus
there there is nothing more wonderful in life
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than to be able to really say, to stand alongside the somnist here and
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say the Lord, Yahweh is my
portion. Yeah, way is my portion,
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consider also the Lord being our portion. In light of Psalm one hundred
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eighteen, verse one, there to
Psalmnas calls us, Oh, give thanks
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to the Lord, for he is
good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
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His steadfast love endures forever. This
verse then begins with a call for
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us to do something very special.
Were called to give thanks to the Lord.
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But why? Why give thanks to
the Lord? Why should our hearts
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be filled with gratitude? Well,
the answer is at least twofold. At
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least twofold. First, were to
give thanks, as a psalm that says
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here, because the Lord, the
Lord, really is good. And second,
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were to give thanks because his goodness
experienced by his people, is experienced
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by his people in the fact that
his steadfast love last a few weeks,
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okay, years, okay. Well, we'll stretch it a little bit.
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The Lord Steadfast love lasts a few
years. Right now. That's that's our
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problem, isn't it? The steadfast
love of the Lord endures forever. It
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endures forever. We live in a
world where people fall in love and they
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fall out of love, people fail
in enduring in their commitment, enduring in
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their love, where we're a culture
of divorce, where a culture where we
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expect divorce as an illustration and in
our fallen state we are unreliable, we
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let each other down. But note
carefully that we're told in Psalm one hundred
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eighteen and else where in scripture,
we're told that Christ's love for us is
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a very special kind of love.
It's a love which is steadfast, it's
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a love which endures forever, and
I absolutely love the way that Dr Duncan
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describes this special divine love. He
calls it the love which will never let
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us go, the love which will
never let us go. He writes the
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Psalmness is celebrating the fact that God
remains steadfast and immovable in his love for
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us, despite our undeserving despite our
wanderings and despite our failings and are stumbling.
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This is the steadfast love of God
to Israel, that despite Israel's failings,
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God kept his promises to her.
Think about that. The whole story
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of the Old Testament repeated failure,
repeated apostasy, repeated idolatry, and yet
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God kept his steadfast love for Israel, continuing to build the case that we
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should desire the Lord to be our
portion. Consider we're created in the very
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image of God and thus we are
made to know God intimately. That is
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how we were made at in our
deepest being. We're made to love him,
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to know him, to enjoy him
and consider further, all good things
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come from God and are found in
God. So let's think about our situation
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here in this world. Due to
our sin, due to our sin,
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due to our rebellion, due to
our lack of trust, we're alienated from
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God. That's the human condition.
We're alienated from God. In fact,
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we're under his wrath and judgment.
But when we embrace Jesus Christ as our
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Lord and Savior, as I've said
earlier, all of our sins are forgiven.
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We're restored back to God such that
he becomes our God and we become
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his people. And you have to
understand something very, very important about God
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and our lives. Set Augustine,
or Ustin, if you prefer, Saint
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Augustine so famously said. Lord,
you have made us for yourself, and
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our hearts are restless until they find
the rest in you. Were made for
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God, and we will be restless, always wandering, always striving, until
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we find our rest in God,
in Christ. Then we regain the deepest
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need of our hearts, of our
souls, of our being and intimate personal
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covenant relationship with God himself. For
in Christ, were told by the Apostle
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Paul, for in Christ all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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Have you considered that before? In
Christ the fullness of God dwells. After
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all, he is God, right, that's an embracing Christ by faith,
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knowing him deeply, should be our
greatest treasure, our greatest portion, and
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this is because Christ, through Christ, God gives us himself, and thus
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our restless hearts and souls and minds
finally find their rest, their portion,
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their fullness in him. Think about
it. No matter what you attain on
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Earth, matter what you attain on
Earth, and and all of you young
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people here this morning, you have
your you've heard this before. You have
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your life ahead of you and you
probably have goals and aspirations, and that's
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awesome. God wants us to aspire, to achieve for his glory, to
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live for his glory. But you
also have to understand something. No matter
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what you may attain on Earth,
it will never truly fill, it will
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never fully satisfy your heart and your
soul. It was never meant to fully
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fill, fully satisfy. You can
you can marry the most wonderful, beautiful
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person imaginable, and yet your heart
won't find its fullness in them. During
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the honeymoon stage you may think you
found it. You know. You can
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attain riches and have all that.
Riches can buy multiple homes, fabulous home
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spread throughout the world, possessions that
the the finest foods. You can attain
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fame, power, sex. You
can have the greatest body muscles, sexy,
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beautiful. It's a trap. You
won't find your rest, whatever you
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can think of in this world.
It's not God and it won't be able
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to to really give you your rest. It will never truly be able to
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satisfy. Why? Because everything in
this world is finite, it's it's limited.
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It can only give so much and
then there's nothing more it can give.
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There's an end, there's a limit. But then the Lord. Consider
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this. The Lord is our portion. He's infinite. He's without limit,
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whether it be is love or goodness, or joy or grace or provision,
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even his very person. He truly
is without limit in all of his qualities
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and being in person. Please understand
only the infinite Lord can fill your restless
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heart and soul. This then brings
us to the rest of of our verse.
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Here I've only done the first half
of Verse Fifty Seven. The Lord
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is my portion. The second part
is, I promise to keep your words.
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I promise to keep your words.
How, when I read that,
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my question is, how can the
psalmnist dare to make such a promise?
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I'm going to keep your word,
I'm going to keep your commandments. How
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can you dare to make that kind
of promise to God? It's because really
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realizing, coming to grips with the
fact that the Lord, he's our portion,
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goes a long way in enabling us
to resist temptation to sin. Because
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what is temptation to sin? What
is it but seeking to find our happiness,
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our joy, our pleasure, a
high in something apart from God.
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And if we begin to realize the
God is our true portion, we can
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begin to say no when temptation strikes. And so what I'm going to do
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now is clothes with a quote from
Thomas Brooks, which I believe shows us
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the way to endure temptation and just
keeps and thus keep God's word, through
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realizing the Lord is our portion.
The Very Wise Puritan Pastor Thomas Brooks writes
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this little bit lengthy. Hang in
there. I would counsel every Christian to
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answer all temptations with this short saying. The Lord is my portion. It's
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awesome temptation hits Internet, whatever,
porn whatever. The Lord is my portion
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is how you answer that temptation.
He goes, he says, Oh Christian,
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when Satan or the world shall tempt
you with honors, answer the Lord
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is my portion. When they shall
tempt you with riches. Answer the Lord
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is my portion. When they shall
tempt you with a promotion. Answer the
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Lord is my portion when they shall
tempt you with the favors of great ones.
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Answer the Lord is my portion.
Yea. And when this persecuting world
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shall threaten you with the loss of
all you have, answer the Lord is
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my portion, and when they shall
threaten you with the loss of your freedom,
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answer the Lord is my portion,
and when they shall threaten you with
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the loss of friends, answer the
Lord is my portion, and when they
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shall threaten you with the loss of
life, answer the Lord is my portion.
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Oh, sir, if Satan shall
come to you with an apple,
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as once he did to eve,
tell him the Lord is my portion,
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or with a grape, as he
once did to Noah. Tell him that
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the Lord is your portion, or
with expensive clothing, as once he did
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to Gohazi. Tell him that the
Lord is your portion, or with a
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wedge of gold, as once he
did to Aken. Tell him that the
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Lord is your portion, or a
bag of money, as he once did
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the Judas. Tell him what the
Lord is your portion, or with a
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princely crown, as he once did
to Moses. Tell him the Lord is
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your portion. Let's pray.
