God's Glory Revealed

Do you know how to praise God without thanking Him? One way is by singing to Him, which we've been doing. How about when you pray? How often do you simply praise God? Our brother Chris just gave us a good model for how to do this. And look, Thanksgiving is obviously appropriate. God has done lots of things for us, and we should thank Him for those things. In fact, the creation is for us. So there's plenty of things to be grateful for. But I think sometimes when we pray we betray this kind of odd self-centeredness. God is worth praising even if he had never done anything for us. For example, it seems kind of odd to thank God for being powerful, for instance. God's power is not for us exactly. He obviously benefits us that way, but God is worth praising for his power whether he uses it for you or not. Maybe you're better at this than I am, but I find when I pray, sometimes I'll start something like, thank you, Lord, for being powerful or for being wise. Well, okay, but God is powerful and God is wise and he's worth praising for that reason alone. The Psalms are actually a very useful guide to us for the variety of affections that we should have toward God. And so today when we consider Psalm 19, we will see instruction in how to praise him for his glory. What you're gonna see today from Psalm 19 is that God has revealed his glory and therefore we must please him. God has revealed his glory and therefore we must please him. Psalm 19 actually divides into three sections quite naturally. The first section is God reveals his glory in creation. And then second, God reveals his glory in law. And in the third, God expects us to please him. The three sections, God reveals his glory in creation, God reveals his glory in law, and God expects us to please him. Before we continue, let's pray briefly and ask for his help. Lord, we come to learn from you now. And so we ask you to help us to listen to your word, Help me as I present it to teach it accurately and compellingly. And may the minds of these hearers here understand and be inspired and motivated to praise you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Section one is God's glory revealed in creation. Cheryl just read this for us. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. So, the two things that we'll see about the creation that this psalm emphasizes is, first, that the creation speaks without words. It's nonverbal. And then we're also gonna see that it's persistent. One of the things I hope you see this morning is how incredibly beautiful this psalm is. And here's a first place to see it. The creation doesn't literally speak, but it communicates knowledge to us. When we consider what God has revealed to us, we often prioritize God's words, his communication in language, the Bible. And in one sense, this is surely right. It's true that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. No one is ever going to learn enough from creation in order to be converted. But there is enough in creation to display God's glory. And so this has, I think, two implications we should consider. First, throughout the scripture, there's examples of how we can know about God by our other senses. We often will talk about seeing God's goodness or his glory. In particular, we talk about seeing it in his works. We don't literally see God's goodness. In fact, the one time when someone has literally been able to see God's glory, God told him it would kill him if he actually looked. So we don't literally see God's glory. We see the evidence of God's glory. But our other senses also reveal his works to us. So the psalmist elsewhere says, taste and see that the Lord is good. God made us with all of our abilities and he gives us gifts appropriate to each one. Just because we can't be saved without hearing the word doesn't mean that we can't appreciate God's glory and goodness by our other faculties. The second thing that we should understand here is that this nonverbal communication is sufficient to preempt any excuse for unbelief. Romans 1 says that the creation is intelligible enough to make God's power and Godhead known, and so to block any excuse for not worshiping God. So you might ask, how does the creation communicate without words? Well, we're actually really used to this. We're very good at nonverbal communication. We manage it pretty well most of the time. Typically, nonverbal communication works by resemblance. So I show you a picture of something, or I act it out, and in so doing, I make you think about what I want you to think about. And that's a way of communicating, and it doesn't use words. So you might ask, how does this work with the creation? It isn't that God resembles his creation. In fact, there's only one aspect of creation that is like God, and that's us. We are made in his image and likeness. In Acts, with apologies to Keith for getting a little bit ahead of his series right now, Paul develops this point in an argument about God to the philosophers in Athens. He tells them that they shouldn't be worshiping idols because the idols are crafted by men. Instead, they should look to the one who crafts the craftsmen. So the similarity that helps us, that makes us think about God's glory, the similarity we see in creation is one that compares our abilities with God's. We have a little bit of creative power. We can make things by our own ingenuity. We are enough like God that we know what it takes to make stuff. And so we have at least a little bit of an ability to understand how incredible God's creativity and power really are. Chris mentioned several of these things in his prayer. God makes amazing stuff. And we can make some pretty cool stuff too. But we got nothing on what God can do. Our ability to make things is just enough so that we can understand how great God really is. Part of the reason this works is the second section here. Notice that creation speaks constantly and everywhere. So we start up again in verse four. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. And then he set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and his circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. We all live in the world, and every part of it displays God's glory. So this particular example adds further layers to the poetry. Notice how this is actually written. The argument seems to be God's glory is like the sun, which is like a bridegroom and like a runner. So God's glory is like the sun, and the sun is like a bridegroom and runner. So now we have just layers of metaphor that are going in here. I mean, as I said, it's amazing poetry. We should consider why these two images. So, the first one is the image of the bridegroom. Well, you might say the first one is the image of the tent. The image of the tent seems to be something like a king in the middle of his army would have a tent in the center of the army, and he's coming out as the one in charge. The bridegroom one is the one we're going to look at for just a moment here. So there's a bit of a translation question right here, and it's what does coming out of his chamber mean? So some translations have this as coming out of his home. I think this is supposed to be an image of a young man who's newly married, who's full of joy. In our society, we might think of this as a groom getting ready for his wedding. So it talks about the bridegroom. I think the actual idea is something like the groom after the wedding. He's gotten married, and now he's just bursting with happiness. He's confident, he's full of energy, he's seemingly immune to frustrations, and completely uncaring about who in the world knows that he's so happy. His joy is infectious. Here's an example from my life of something that's kind of like this. I talk to my dad about once a week and have since we moved to Virginia about six, seven years ago. It's more than that now. So one night about six years ago we were talking on the phone and Mel and I were going to tell him that we were expecting Lydia. After we told him, he told me, I could tell that something was up because I could hear it in your voice. This seems to be the kind of thing the psalmist is talking about. It's something that, you're so happy, you're so full of joy that you can't keep it inside. It just has to get, you have to tell somebody. You've probably all had experiences like this. Something great has happened, I've gotta tell someone. That's the image here, the image of the bridegroom coming out of his chamber. Once we understand that this is what's going on at the bridegroom, it helps make sense of the athlete or the runner. So it says, like a strong man runs its course with joy. So an athlete who knows his skill knows that he can win. He's full of confidence. He knows what it takes to perform well. Those of you who follow sports or play them, there's this kind of feeling that we sometimes call being loose or being in the zone. This is where it feels like everything you do in the game works perfectly. It's just, it's great, it's so easy. Now, this is an athlete who's so sure of his own ability that he can be excited, he can enjoy it, even before he begins to run the race. Now, someone who's less certain or less skilled, they're going to work hard, they're going to run really well, and maybe they'll win. But someone who's so much better, who knows that he's that much better, he's like, yeah, yeah, let's do this. We're ready to go. This kind of ability that comes from confidence, the confidence that comes from actual skill, seems to be what's in view in calling this the strong man who's going to run his race. A good example of this that came up both when I was thinking about this and as I was sharing the basic notes here with the other elders earlier this week, one of the other ones mentioned that this was the first thing that came to mind too. Last year when we had the Olympics, there was this great race. It was an early heat of the men's 100 meters. And one of the guys running was Usain Bolt, who's the fastest man in the world. Fastest times ever in the 100 meters. So this is like the preliminary heat. This isn't a very serious race. He needs to win or get second place or something like this in order to go on. No one thought he was in any danger. Well, it turned out that he was seated with one of his friends. And they were running right next to each other. And it turned out that they ended up in this initial heat together. Well, these guys trained together, so they know each other well. Usain Bolt starts off in this race, they start running down the track, and you could see his training partner is like, I'm going to beat him this time. I'm going to do it. I'm going to win this one race against the fastest guy in the world. Well, it's about. 10 meters to the end of the race. And here comes the guy. He's coming up beside Usain Bolt. And Bolt looks over and sees him coming. And he picks up his speed and puts his finger out and grins at the guy and waves his finger like this. I mean, this is amazing. Here in three steps, this guy passed another one who's faster than anyone in this room. Three steps, that's all it took, and Bolt won the race. That's what we mean by confidence. He's so much faster than everyone else that he can just enjoy it. He's laughing. He's laughing in the middle of the race and making fun of his friend who can't catch up to him in the middle of the race, a race that lasts nine seconds. This is how the sun is. The psalm likens God's glory to the sun because the sun spreads its light and heat over everything it shines on. Nothing stands in its way. Its heat reaches every part of the earth without effort. Its energy infects and overpowers every other source of energy. And likewise, God's glory will ultimately outshine any other glory. Nothing can escape the influence of the sun, and no one can fail to be confronted with God's glory. It will go everywhere and without any effort. God is not having to force his glory on us. He's just displaying it and we can't miss it. It's there. What applications might we be able to draw from this? First, God's glory is everywhere and we need to learn to see it. It's available to us. We also might consider that studying the natural world rightly will never threaten your confidence in God. Sometimes people have thought that science and religion are at odds with one another. But I think if we study each one carefully, we'll see that this is just false. Sometimes Christians talk as if they're afraid that too much learning will threaten their faith. Here we are in a university town, maybe you've seen people for whom that seems to be a danger. The psalm seems to show that it isn't really a danger. Studying the natural world means learning more of God's glory. Now, granted, it is possible, as Paul says in the New Testament, to be ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. But I think that any sincere, careful examination of creation will only serve to further display the glory of God. And that's something you can't study too much. One of the things that's really beautiful about learning a lot is that you can become especially aware of aspects of God's glory that are hard for other people to see. So let's think about the sun again for a minute. Everyone takes advantage of the sun's light. So it's coming in through the windows right now. We all can see the way the sun shines. But people like painters and photographers, they learn to see the light in a different way. They don't lose their ability to navigate the world by sunlight. They interact with it in much the way that we would. But they also have a deeper appreciation for how the light makes things beautiful. And this is because of extra learning they've done. I think a similar honest inquiry into the natural world can give people this extra ability to see aspects of God's glory that are obscure to those of us who haven't studied it so carefully. Think about someone who studies science. We have several scientists in our church. I dare say they all know certain things that God does that are just mind-blowingly amazing that none of the rest of us can appreciate at all. Because we don't know. We haven't learned that yet. I think we should not fear a deep investigation into some part of creation. If you find yourself tempted away from God as you are studying, the solution is probably not to stop investigating, but to study it even harder. God will not disappoint. This is him revealing his glory to us. Now look, I'm not saying necessarily that you should pursue more schooling, although if you know me, I've done more than my fair share. Perhaps also if you're still in school, you should take this as an exhortation to take your studies seriously. But instead, I think I would want to exhort you to be curious and unsatisfied with your current understanding and knowledge of the world that God has made. Learn about what God does, because it's a way to learn how you can give him glory, what you can praise him for. The second section of the psalm changes speeds a little bit. This is God's glory revealed in the law. It's often been noted that there are two books of God's revelation. There's general revelation, that's the creation we've just been talking about. The other is the scriptures. We call this special revelation sometimes. Here David reminds us that special revelation includes a law. And as we consider this, note that David shifts poetic styles along with shifting topics. And again, this is a truly beautiful set of lines describing the law of God. Good poetry often will take something very familiar and present it in a way that's unfamiliar so that we regain some ability to appreciate it. And this section is just a brilliant example of how that's done. Let's read it again, starting at verse seven. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Again, this section, this middle section of the psalm will break into a couple of additional parts, and I'll illustrate them as we work through this. Hebrew poetry trades on parallelism, so when you've read the psalms or maybe other parts, especially of the Old Testament, you may have noticed that the writers seem to repeat themselves a lot. They keep saying the same thing over and over again, and they do. You're not missing anything there. The typical form is two lines with some connection between them. In particularly significant passages, the number of lines increases. And here, we have six. So six parallel statements, each one not quite the same as the others, but all having the same basic structure. So let's look at it. So in each one we have a noun for God's verbal revelation. So this is law, testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, and rules. There's an adjective describing the law, perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true. There's an I-N-G word. If you're a grammarian, this is a participle. It says something that the law does. Here it's revives, makes wise, rejoices, which we should understand as gives joy to, enlightens, ensures, and then there's an extra one that it's righteous. And then there's an object of that action, of the thing that the Word of God does. So the soul, the simple, the heart, the eyes, and then two that don't quite fit forever and altogether. These two that don't quite fit, the last two are not exactly like the others. And in fact, if we look carefully, we see that there are three sets of two here. The first two in verse seven are the action concerns some change that the law brings about. So here that revives and it makes wise. The middle two in verse eight, the action concerns our affections. The affections are the feelings that we have that make us act. And here it rejoices and it enlightens. And the last two don't give us an action, but instead they sum up the scope of the law. The law is eternal, and it is completely righteous. So these are parallel. They're all sort of saying roughly the same thing. The variation in the wording might be a bit confusing. We might wonder what these adjectives mean. So we can get a clue about the adjectives in particular, the perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true. We can get a sense of what they're talking about by seeing what effect they're supposed to have. And notice, too, as we work through this, that these adjectives describe a kind of law that we should find appealing. We would love to live under a law like this. So let's consider these. First, the law of the Lord is perfect. That is, it's free from error. There are no flaws or mistakes in it. The testimony of the Lord is sure. The laws are just, the idea is that the law is trustworthy. And that's what gives us confidence. And you can see that this makes simple people wise. It makes us, it gives us knowledge. The precepts of the Lord are right. The laws are just. It's possible to have genuine laws that are not just. An unjust government issues real laws, and they are still bad laws. This case, they're not bad. These are perfectly just laws. The commandment of the Lord is pure. The pure here seems to be a matter of clarity. See how the effect is that we are enlightened? God's law helps us see things as they really are, as if we were looking through a clear glass, one free of impurity. The fear of the Lord is clean. This one is maybe not so obviously about the law. It speaks instead of the fear of the Lord. So let's think for a moment about why this might be here and how it fits with the rest. Look, it's natural to fear the government. Think about how you drive when you see a police officer. Now, this is a very small kind of fear, but my guess is you drive a little more carefully when you see the police officer there, because you have at least some amount of fear of the government. How much more would we fear a really powerful authority? I mean, a police officer, he gives you a ticket. Maybe if you're lucky, he gives you a warning. What if it was someone who was threatening to kill you? That would be very different. Fear of the government can actually be demoralizing and kind of pathetic when the government is bad. Not pathetic in the sense that it's badly motivated, but it's just sad that people live in places like that. It can feel dirty to follow a bad leader, even when you're compelled to, because it feels like you're being forced to do something you wouldn't have chosen otherwise. The suspicion is that when you follow his laws, you're acting for his benefit and against your own. The law of God is not like this. Fearing God is a kind of freedom, a freedom from the enslavement of our own passions and lusts. We'll see this come up again in a few minutes. But this is a wonderful aspect of living under God's rule. In the last phrase, the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Which sense of true is this? There are a couple of different ways of understanding true. There's the sense of not false or the way things really are. There's also a sense of being reliable, of being proved reliable by testing. So we have the phrase tried and true. So which one is this? Well, remember, this is poetry, so it might be both. God's law is not just a set of clever ideas. It actually tells us how things are and has reliably shown itself to be good. I think once we see what these six lines are saying, it seems natural to conclude what David does. Read verse 10. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. We see that God's law shows us the truth and frees us from slavery. It's good for us without errors. It's understandable. It's as perfect as it can be. It revives our souls. It makes us wise. It gives us joy. It makes us aware and alert. It will never fail us. It will never be wrong. This reads like a wish list for a perfect government. And so it is. but governments also restrain us. And in verse 11, we finally get to what we usually think of when we think about law. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. Laws forbid actions. That's what they're for. But even here, David seems to barely acknowledge that the law restricts us. It's like he's saying, oh yeah, by the way, the law warns us. I suspect, if you're like me, this is what we're inclined to think about first when we consider the law of God. But David immediately points out that when we obey, we receive great rewards. Look, it's really easy for us when we think about God's rules to emphasize their strictness and the limitations they place on us. And it's true, God's law forbids things that we really want to do. And sometimes the appeal of the forbidden things seems greater than the rewards. At the very least, the pleasures of sin are right now, whereas the rewards typically come later. God's law warns us to not give in to the fleeting pleasures of sin. As with so many things, God does not wish to deny us good things. So very often we want things that are themselves good, we just want them at the wrong time or in the wrong way. God's law warns us against this error and promises that we will not be deprived of what we want so long as we pursue it according to God's law. So I think David, under the inspiration of God himself, wants us to reconsider God's rule. Such a perfect law, so ideally calibrated for our good, further displays God's glory. No human has ever come close to establishing a law as good as this one. Just as God reveals his glorious power in creation, so he too reveals his glorious righteousness in the law. The first two sections of the psalm speak of God's creation and his law, and these topics are linked in a particularly interesting way. Both are the result of God speaking. Back in Genesis 1, it says, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. In Hebrews, we read that the worlds were framed by the word of God. And the law is clearly speech too. So in Exodus, God writes his law on stone tablets, but before he does that, he tells his people what the law is in ways that they can hear it. He speaks the rules to his people. That's interesting. We can do similar things by speaking. We can both make things and we can establish rules. But God does these things better. So let's just take a moment here and marvel at the incredible power that God displays. We are made in the image of God. If you prefer the King James translation, it's even better. It says we're made in the likeness of God. And one of the ways we're like God is that we can make things happen with our words. It's not much, to be sure, but real things. So here's an example. About 11 years ago, I stood in front of a church, and I made some promises to Melanie, and she made some promises to me. And then my dad, who was presiding at this event, said, I now pronounce you man and wife. And in that sentence, something new came into existence, a marriage. Now this is a very small act of making. Our ability to do these kinds of things is real, but it's very limited. When the right person speaks in the right circumstances, a marriage comes into existence. When God speaks, worlds come into existence. Our creative abilities are at best a faint echo of God's power, but enough of an echo that we can appreciate how glorious he must be, whose skills so far exceeds our own. So then how should we respond to such a glorious display of power and wisdom? We see the answer in the third section of the song. If we see that God's rule is good and that His power is limitless, we should be inclined to please Him. When we recognize an authority, we automatically try to please them. Think of children toward their parents. If you have younger kids like me, it might feel like your kids don't care much about pleasing you at all. But if you look, you'll see it. As kids get older, it's even more dramatic. Even kids who profess to dislike their parents, intend to rebel, nonetheless crave their parents' approval. Perhaps even more than they'd like to admit. To a lesser extent, we look for approval from our boss, our coworkers, our friends, society at large. We like to hear a good job, especially when it comes from somebody who actually knows how well we did. Think about the difference between hearing, hey, you did a great job from a fan and hearing it from your coach. You care about your coach's approval in a way that you don't care about the casual fan. When we see someone as an authority over us, we want to please them. So my point is that this desire to live with God's approval that we're going to talk about in just a moment is just a natural consequence of seeing him as glorious. A God who creates the world and establishes laws is the authority. Our desire to please such an authority is part of how we're made. We want people like God to accept us. Unfortunately, living this way toward God turns out to be hard. The greatest threat to our displeasing God is our own disobedience. And here the psalmist is going to discuss two particular kinds of disobedience that'll be worth our sustained attention for a few moments. Look at verse 12. Who can discern his errors, declare me innocent from hidden faults? So the first kind of disobedience is the hidden sins. Notice too as we talk about this that we're gonna start recapping some of the images that went earlier in the psalm. There's little verbal links between the first part and what we're gonna talk about now. So the word hidden here is particularly notable. There's nothing hidden from the sun's heat. But sometimes errors are hidden from us. This phrase, who can discern his errors, we need to make sure we're clear about whose errors we're talking about. It seems like the best translation here is who can discern his own errors. We're not looking for errors in God, we're looking for errors in ourselves. And this fits with the second phrase, the declare me innocent from hidden faults. And so there's apparently some kinds of sins that we have, some flaws that we have that we cannot see. So just as before, nothing was hidden from the sun's heat, God's glory permeates everything. Though our faults may be hidden from us, they are not hidden from God. They also often aren't hidden from other people. Think of someone who says, well, you know, I don't see any hidden sins in me. I think the correct response is, yeah, duh. Of course you don't, because they're hidden. But once we recognize that there are sins we commit without knowing it, I think we can draw a couple useful conclusions. First, these sins are beyond our ability to actually confess because we don't know about them. So somehow, from the second half of this verse, God must be able to declare us innocent without our full confession. More about that in a minute. Second, realizing that we have hidden faults should prompt humility and charity. Think about it. Each of us has sins that we can't see. Typically, however, other people see them perfectly well. Anyone we know well, we can almost think of, almost certainly think of some faults they have. We get so used to them that we sometimes barely notice anymore. That's okay. Look, it's not our job to point out every fault we see in someone else. In fact, if we know that we have our own sins that we can't see, we should be more patient with others as they sin in ignorance. Now look, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to help. In fact, part of the value of the community of faith, this church that we have, is that we have people here who are willing to lovingly point out our flaws, but do so in humility and with great charity. Look, if we're inclined to dwell on how patient we're being with somebody, we might consider how patiently they may be treating us. Paul tells us we should be kind toward one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. Notice that one of the ways that God forgives us is by not holding us to this strict standard of confession. God forgives even our hidden faults, those sins we don't even know to confess. This kind of forgiveness I think is essential to patience with one another because it frees us to maintain a relationship in spite of respective flaws. And lest we fear these sins will go unconfronted, let us not forget that God knows about them and he will not let sin go unpunished. The second type of sin that we see here are the presumptuous sins, and we also need to investigate what David means by this term. He says, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. The word presumptuous shows up a few times in the Old Testament law, and it appears to mean something a little different from what we would usually mean. In modern English, presumptuous means something like failing to respect the limits of what's appropriate, or we might think of a synonym as impertinent or arrogant. In the Old Testament, sins that are called presumptuous appear to be ones that require careful planning, as, for instance, in cases where someone lies in wait to harm another. The key here is premeditation. These aren't the kinds of sins that we fall into ignorantly or out of weakness. They are particularly calculated rebellions against God's law. The danger is that these sins would dominate us. Remember that the fear of God, we talked about a few minutes ago, frees us from the domination of sin. Here the psalmist sees that he is prone to wander back to slavery. And it is slavery. Sin corrupts and binds. When we indulge our sinful desires and break God's law, we tighten sin's grip on us. And it's even worse when we meditate on how we will sin. It's just stupidity to imagine that one can play with sin and not be caught by it. And we are all stupid in just this way. God offers to rule us perfectly in place of our own desires, and so often we just refuse. I mean, look, I could offer examples here, but you don't need any. You already know this is true. Now, if you're thinking along with me, you might notice that David seems to have missed some types of sins. Not all of our sins are hidden, and not all of them are premeditated. In fact, the ones we think about most of the time are when we fall to particular, perhaps unexpected temptations. To use the language from James, we are successfully enticed. We know it's wrong, but we haven't exactly made plans or provision for the flesh either. And I think that David isn't trying to give us a comprehensive list of all the different types of sins. We can't necessarily divide all sins into the hidden ones and the presumptuous ones. Instead, remember this is poetry. It seems more likely that David is showing us the opposite ends of a range. On the one hand, we have sins that are so far from our mind that we're not even aware of them. And on the other end, we have sins that proceed from very careful thoughts and planning. The point seems to be that every kind of sin displeases God, however intentional it may be. Let's conclude by considering this well-known final prayer. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. This is the height of virtue and success, to live so that even our words and thoughts please God. In fact, you should want to please God. Here's the thing, if you haven't repented of your sins and put your faith in your son Jesus, then I have some bad news for you. Your words and thoughts don't please him. God simply rejects your worship. He says in Romans 8, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Being in the flesh means that you're still trying to live in your own strength, trying to earn God's favor by your effort alone. You just can't do it. So what can you do? Well, God has made a way. He offers to be your redeemer. He's made his son our substitute. This is how he can declare us innocent of those hidden faults. Jesus lived perfectly with no sins, hidden or not. God offers to treat you as if you had lived Jesus's life and to treat Jesus as if he had committed all your sins, even the hidden ones. He tells you to repent of your sins, to turn away from them, and to believe this good news. If you haven't done this before, please talk to somebody about it before you leave today. Christians, this good news works for us too. We can be, I think, tempted to overstate our inability. It's true that we can't do anything to earn God's favor. But once we're joined to his son, we can act in ways that genuinely please him. Yes, we're still tainted by sin, but God accepts us on the merits of Jesus, and he empowers us by his spirit to live a life pleasing to him. Growth in holiness is possible, and we can actually do the right thing. In short, we who are in Christ can actually please God. Indeed, God expects us to. Now the ability to do so begins in God himself. It is God who is at work in us. But this should give us great confidence. Our ability to please God comes from the fact that he is the source of our strength. He's our rock and he has redeemed us. So Paul can say in Philippians, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This comes up several other times in the New Testament. Let's consider some other passages. Romans 12, verse one. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Paul writes to the Colossians and tells them that he's praying that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. In First Thessalonians, Paul again writes, finally then brothers, we ask you, ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you're doing, that you do so more and more, for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. And again in Hebrews, now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. This magnificent truth is the best display of God's glory. The one who spoke the world into existence and delivered the perfect law gets the greatest glory by transforming rebels into saints. He takes vile, corrupted, impotent traitors and makes them sons who will actually please him. And so God shows us his glory in creation, and he shows us his glory in law. But most of all, he shows us his glory by forgiving our sins and making us able to please him. For this, he deserves our thanksgiving and our praise. And so let us continue to offer God acceptable worship with reverence and godly fear. Would you pray with me, please? Almighty God, creator of worlds, Bright son of righteousness and sovereign king. We praise you for pressing your glory into every part of creation. You've made us to praise you in your creation. And should we ever cease to praise you, the very rocks would cry out. You've given us bodies to perceive your works and minds to understand your laws. We ask you to enlighten us to your glory and to make us submissive to your rules. Grant us the ability to please you as you deserve. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.