Well, if you would turn with me back to our last scripture reading, 40th Psalm. That is our text for this evening, and it would be helpful if you did have that before you. But before we begin this evening, I think it's worthwhile just to remark at the onset that folks, what you and I, we see in this Psalm is that when the Christian makes use of Christ, it's no small, no superficial thing. In other words, whenever the Christian goes to God and begins to plead from the basis of Christ's work, it's something that has existential meaning to the Christian. It's not just a mantra, not a formula that they simply repeat mindlessly. The use of Christ is a substantial thing. the very ground, the foundation of their petitions and their dealings with God. I want us to see that this evening, friend. I want us to see that the psalm does model for us how we are to make use of Christ as we approach the living God. But as we look at this psalm, friend, you'll notice, of course, that the psalm itself is complex in a sense. There are to each part of the psalm that you could say are distinct one from the other. You could even say that there are movements, several movements within the psalm. In the first five verses, you have a movement that's characterized principally by praise. Here you have the psalmist in thanksgiving for the former mercies that he has received from the hand of God. Then in verses six to 10, in the first person, The psalmist gives us the words of a servant whose obedience is absolutely preferred to the sacrificial system. And thirdly, you find that the psalmist again, he pleads for pardon and he pleads for new mercies. So three movements, thanksgiving, and then secondly, the words of the faithful servant, and then the words of the petitioning, pleading servant. As you look at the text, you may say, well, those sections seem to have something of a tension, something that seems to rub one against the other within them. I mean, in verses six to 10, you have the faithful servant, don't you? His faithfulness is impeccable. His service to God is described as spotless. And then as you come to that third and that final section, you notice that you have the words of a servant who describes his sins as being innumerable. A friend, obviously there's a tension between those two sections, isn't there? In the second section, you have the leading idea of the servant's grand obedience. In the third section, you have the confession of sin by a servant. A friend, there's tension there and such tension that unless we use hyperbole, you and I are supposed to see that there are two different servants speaking in this text. I trust later on this evening, we'll see that that's certainly the case. But how is that tension resolves? A friend, the 40th Psalm is a complete composition. All three sections work wondrously and harmoniously together. First of all, you have the reality that this is a petition. The whole Psalm is a petition for new mercy, but David begins, he leads with his interest and his experience of former grace. In verses one to five, his thanksgiving is his statement that he has in fact gained an interest in the saving help of God. And he's experienced it himself. But then in that second section, He moves from thanksgiving to look to the work of God's faithful servant. And from there, he concludes the composition with renewed petitions, both for pardon and for deliverance. Obviously friend, the question is, well, who is the second servant? Who is the faithful servant that we find in verses six to 10? And beloved, we don't have to guess. We read it already from the epistle to the Hebrews. It is and it is only, only the Lord Jesus Christ. And the psalmist here, he looks to him and he makes this reality, the faithful service of Christ, the foundation of the entirety of the psalm. You see it. When he thinks of all the former mercies he's received, he immediately then moves to think about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then as he thinks about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, he then moves on to petition, a confession of his own sin and a plea then for new mercy. Central to this psalm friend is the Lord Jesus Christ. Central to this psalm is his finished work. What we learn from this text is how you and I are to make use of Christ. For our thanksgiving, for our petitions for new mercy, here the psalmist exemplifies the use of Christ in the life of the believer. And we learn from this text, if you would like to distill it to a single sentence, that Christ's work is the basis of Christian thanksgiving and petitions. Christ's work is the basis of Christian thanksgiving and petitions. First of all, I want you to notice the psalmist's confession in verses one to five. The psalmist speaking of the Lord toward him, he says, the Lord inclined to him. There is his thanksgiving. He has particular experience of the Lord's gracious dealings. And friend, as you look at this text, you recognize that those providential deliverances, he attributes directly to the Lord God. But more than that friend, he looks even beyond those particular providences to something more general. He says, thy thoughts to us words, speaking of the church of God in Toto, thy thoughts to us words, more than can be numbered, more than can be published. You could translate that last word. What you have here is the psalmist looking at God's gracious intentions. These are so great, surpassing the ability of the written word. And friend, what you see in this text is a psalmist as he returns thanks to God, he traces all of this to God's eternal purpose. what he designates his thoughts toward his people. Now, as you look at this text, friend, you see that this is the psalmist turning to the covenant of grace in so many ways. I mean, first of all, as you look at the first two verses, you see how he meditates, you see how he sees his own condition. He was one who was in the miry clay. He was one that was in a horrible pit, but then see the hand of God. He inclined. He brought me out. He set my feet. He established my goings. So friend, as you look at this, you notice a man who recognized his misery, but you also see that he's not a deist. He's not an atheist. When the psalmist looks back on providence, friend, he sees the hand of God. I think that's worth noting, friend, first of all. The Christian is not thoughtless when he reflects on his own life. When he encounters deliverance, he traces it immediately back to the hand of God. And this requires us to be a meditating people, doesn't it? It requires us to be a people who are careful to see God's dealings with us in our life and to make such statements ourselves. It's not happenstance, the psalmist says, that delivered him. It was the personal hand of the living God. But then as you go further, I want you to notice that not only does he meditate upon God's dealings with him as they are, in fact, the dealings of God, but you also see that the psalmist recognizes his own interest in God. When he says that he will praise our God there, he cites God as his peculiarly by covenant. That's the idea. When he says the praises of God are in his mouth, he says, it's the praise of our God that he sings. And what you see here is a man who sees himself bound to the living God such that he can call him my God. He has an interest in him particularly. And what you see friend from this as well is that the psalmist acknowledges that this deliverance that he has received in the past It does not flow from God's common grace, his general benevolence toward mankind, but it comes to him from his God, the one in whom he has a personal interest. These are the special graces of God that have been poured out upon him. He has an interest in God's saving help. But I also want you to notice in this text, you even have a reference to the instrument. whereby he lays hold of God. He says that the beatitude, the blessing, belongs to those who make the Lord his trust. The beatitude, that is the blessing that he has described up to this point, that would include the deliverance described in verses one and two. He says it belongs to those who trust in the Lord. Only those who are believers, who possess real and vital faith, they alone have the beatitude. They alone know God's saving help. The instrument whereby one lays hold of this saving help is then that trust, saving faith. And then you see this faith further described, don't you? The one who trusts in the Lord is one who does not respect the proud. That is, he does not put trust in men, nor to such as turn aside to lies. That's a euphemism throughout the Old Testament to speak of idolaters, those who turn to and who trust in vanities or lies. No friend, his faith, that faith that is the instrument that lays hold of God. Friend, that faith is a faith that lays hold only of God. He only holds and only rests in the Lord. He does not turn to men or to idols. But fourthly, as you look at this text, you notice that his thanksgiving ultimately concludes with a wonderful reference to what is the fount of all. It's the decree of God. And it comes to us in our text as the thoughts of God. By thoughts to usward, to the people of God, says the psalmist, they are innumerable. Friend, the idea is that the psalmist traces all of this back to God's eternal purpose. His intentions toward his people that were not fabricated in time, but were there from before the foundation of the earth. That says the psalmist, the fount, the headwaters, if you like, of these streams of grace. What you learn from this text from these first five verses is that thanksgiving, true thanksgiving, is only from those who can trace back their mercies to free grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. True thanksgiving, friend, a heart truly thankful will take these five verses as their pattern. They will recognize that what has occurred to them is not happenstance, it is the hand of God. And friend, as they are those who are looking to Christ, they attribute it to his special and his saving help. That they see themselves as resting upon the Lord and upon him only by faith. And that they recognize that all that they receive flows from the eternal and gracious purposes of God. His purpose is a free grace. Friend, if you want to have a heart of thanksgiving, beloved, those are the pillars of your meditation. Those are the themes upon which you and I are called to ruminate. And not only are we called to ruminate upon them, as we reflect upon our lives, we're to follow the psalmist pattern and to see that those things really do obtain in reality. But secondly, we find not only the psalmist confession of faith as it were, but we also see his Christ. And friend, this again is the central point of the psalm. And it's so important that we understand what is in the text. So allow me just for a moment to sit before you what we have. Again, in the sixth verse, we have sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. Now there are seven texts in the Old Testament in which God says that he prefers obedience to sacrifice. There are seven texts where that's principally set forth before us. This is not one of them. This stands utterly unique from all of the other seven. First of all, you notice in this text, the Lord God, he expresses this not in a relative sense. In those other texts where the Lord God says so, like as what you have in Psalm 50 verse eight, or in Isaiah one and verse 11, There, the Lord God is saying he does not desire the sacrifice of hypocrites. And then if you turn to the other texts, like what you find in Jeremiah 7, or Psalm 51.16, or Hosea 6.6, you see that immediately after God says that he prefers sacrifices, he says he prefers it over a formal or an empty obedience. Sorry, the other way around. He prefers spiritual obedience. over formal or empty sacrifices. But friend, in our text, it's absolute. The text simply reads, thou didst not desire. It was not God's will, says the psalmist, that this should be. Instead, what do we have? Instead, in place of these sacrifices and offerings, what does the psalm convey? Well, in place of these sacrificial institutions, this servant approaches. It's quite surprising. In fact, one of our forebears made the note. Here, you have the psalmist describing a servant who comes. If you notice, friend, in the preceding verse, The ears were the idea, the leading idea of verse six. You would expect then in verse seven to say, well, I hear now. No, he comes. He arrives, as it were. He comes into the world. And the point friend is that his approach, his coming, it supplants the sacrificial system. And he goes on another line to say this, in the volume of the book, it is written of me. but literally it is as written of me in the published scroll." You could translate it. A friend who is the servant, one of our forebears put it this way. He said, David is not intended at all in these words of the psalmist. They are the words of Christ, which David was inspired by the Holy Ghost to declare and utter. Neither would David speak these words concerning himself. because he that speaks doth absolutely prefer his own obedience as unto worth and efficacy before all God's holy institutions. He presents it to God as that which is more useful under the church than all the sacrifices which God had ordained." This David could not do justly. It is the Lord Jesus Christ in this text who's speaking. And friend, the spirit of God, of course, in Hebrews 10 confirms that. When he came into the world, says the apostle, he spoke these very words. Now friend, what you learn in this text is that Christ's active and his passive obedience, his performing the law and also receiving the punishment that was due for sin, It is the ground of mercy to which the psalmist looks. Here, friend, as you look at verses six and seven, you have something of a picture of the covenant of redemption. Those eternal purposes, they're contracted between father and son from eternity. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. They would not do the turn. So answers the son. Lo, I come. That's the idea. And what you'll see in this text, friends, is that he comes and he advances himself as the sacrifice, the antitype to all of the other sacrifices. He sets himself and his obedience over the sacrificial institutions. And beloved, as you look at verses nine and 10, you see too that this same servant speaks. He is a preacher. This again, friend, you don't see of David. He's a preacher who has not concealed the Lord's loving kindness or truth from the church. Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ has set forth in his life, in his ministry, and as he has ascended and sends his spirit upon the church today, You see that, in fact, he has fulfilled this. He has secured his people's salvation and publishes it to them in so many ways. So friend, in all of this, the psalmist now turns to the counsels of redemption, those thoughts that were innumerable, that surpassed the published word that you find in verse five. They are given expression, verses six and following, as the words of the Son of God. And beloved, what that teaches us is then that the Christian, the Christian is to make a similar move in his praying, in his thinking. The psalmist was returning thanks to God for his free mercy. But now doesn't the psalmist meditate something of the cost, something of the price that had to be paid for him to receive it? The obedience of one. in place of all of the sacrifices of the world. So friend, you see here, the Christian, as he returns thanks, he too is to be mindful of what was the cost of his free mercy. What is the source and the ground of all that he enjoys? Thirdly, and finally, as we close, you find in this text, after a confession of faith, a steadfast gaze to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have also an expression of contrition. So in verse 12, the psalmist prays, withhold not tender mercies. He prays for mercy yet again, but then note this, innumerable evils, he says, have come upon him. And then he describes his iniquities, iniquities more than the hairs that are upon his head. It's interesting what you have in this text. When you find the word innumerable in our texts, it's the same word that you actually have previously. When the psalmist speaks about the thoughts of God being more than could be numbered, it's the same Hebrew word. And then when Christ says that in the volume of the book, it was written of him, the same root word is there, that of being published. What do you learn? You find here, friend, that the psalmist is meditating much upon the thought that God's thoughts, his gracious thoughts toward his people are innumerable. But his published revelation of that will is found in Christ. And all of that set against a record of sins that to us is also innumerable. It's a shocking confession, friend. Because in this text, the psalmist begins by saying, God's thoughts toward us are innumerable. And he closes by saying, my sins against him are innumerable. What you see in this final section, friend, as he leaves thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ, is he comes seeking mercy, but with penitence. And so he comes seeking it only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, friend, you have the reality that before asking for mercy, the psalmist was careful to have Christ set before him, his work. But it cost him that he, the psalmist, might know God's free grace. In summary, friend, Christians, they base their thanksgiving and petitions in Christ's work. They confess that the ground of all their grace is from God's eternal purpose in Christ, who accomplished their redemption. And this friend leads them to mark each petition with true contrition and faith. So friend, allow me to ask you, do you make use of Christ in this way? You see the centrality of Christ's work to this psalm. Theologically and literarily, it is central. It's not, friend, a mantra to him to say for Christ's sake. No, friend, when he thinks of the mercy that he has received or the mercy that he is praying to receive in time to come, it is the Lord Jesus Christ that he set before him. he whose perfect obedience has secured the redemption of God's people. Friend, do you make use of Christ that way? I don't know if we often think of it as an analogy of prayer, but I've come to later laterally. Do you remember that scene in 1 Samuel 7, where the people of God are gathered at Mizpah and they are there to repent. Samuel is judging them and leading them in corporate repentance. But as he does so, the Philistines gather on the horizon, and this gathering at Mishpah, these people, they didn't have weapons to fight the Philistines. These were gatherings of men and women and children, and they had nothing. And here on the horizon were what were once of old, the old symbol of God's judgment against his people. who only two decades before had ruined Israel's forces on that very field of battle. Was the justice of God going to fall afresh upon this people? Do you remember what they did? Friend, in the midst of that particular affliction, they thronged an altar. They pleaded for God's prophet to pray for them and he sacrificed a lamb while they were thronging an altar. Beloved, I think more and more in my life, I see that as an image of prayer. That's how the Christian prays. He flees to Christ and only laying hold of that altar Does he make thanksgiving and petition? It's not a trite, not a small thing. His life depends upon that altar being efficacious. So do you make use of Christ, friend, in that way? But I also want you to notice as we close, there's something in the text that shows us that the free grace of God here is both innumerable in its scope, as well as sweet. A sweetness surpassing measurement. In verse eight, friend, oh, I wish I could just preach on these verses, these words. I delight to do thy will, says Christ. Here you have a Christ who loved and who gave himself, yes, for the glory of God, but again and again in the New Testament, we're told that friend, he gave himself willingly for the glory of God and for his bride. Those words, I delight to do thy will. Friend, we could say them so tritely, couldn't we? Until you remember what that will was. that it was Golgotha, the pains of the second death, wherein he would cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He had our broad shoulders. Our great Christ says, I delight to do thy will. Friend, he needed no one to twist his arm to go to the rescue of his people. He had a will and a heart for the work. And then verse 13, the psalmist as he concludes and makes petition, he says, be pleased to deliver mates. Wonderful turn of phrase, especially in the Hebrew, because it's exactly what you have in verse eight. The psalmist is simply saying, take delight in rescuing me. Oh, it's a bold thing, isn't it? Don't just rescue me, but take delight and take pleasure in so doing. Friend, how could the psalmist make so bold a request of God? Not just deliver me, but be pleased that you are delivering me, oh friend, as he not just left meditation in verse eight upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And what greater confirmation do you need friend of a God who delights in mercy and what you see in the face of the Lord Jesus. Psalmist could pray so boldly, not only deliver me but be pleased to do so. So Christian we close and we close with a simple statement and friend, We could have began and ended on the same note, I suppose. The calling is to make this your pattern. This is your pattern. And this is the leading application of this text. Make use of Christ. Not as a trite thing, not as a formula. But friend, as though your lives depend upon it. as though all of your thanksgiving and all of your petitions must be founded upon it. Because indeed it is. Each of them are. Amen.