Good evening. It's good to see you all. Not a lot of announcements this evening. The coming Sunday will be the fourth Sunday. So we're looking forward to hearing Brother Knopp as he continues to teach for the Adult Sunday School. And of course, then we encourage you to be in prayer for our service at 11 o'clock and continue to pray for the children's ministry as well. Of course, the following week will be the first, I think, the first Sunday of the month, and we will have the Lord's Table. Well, we're at the middle of the week, but we'll sing about our life's work being ended. So please get out your hymnals and turn to hymn number 231, When My Life Work Is Ended And I Cross The Swallowing Tide. We go on to sing, We Shall Know Him By The Print Of The Nails In His Hands. ♪ When the life-work is ended and I cross the swell of death ♪ ♪ With the bright and glorious morning I shall say ♪ ♪ I shall go a mighty deeper when I reach the other side ♪ ♪ And His heart will be the first to welcome me in ♪ ♪ I shall go, yeah, I shall go ♪ In Him you find all things of value. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, I'm the feet of the new Jesus. Whom the soul will recapture in my dearly-blessed grace, The buster of his time may be nigh. God, you are the grace of truth, mercy, love, and grace, and repair for me, avenging me this time. I shall know, and I shall know, in me, by his side, I shall stand. Vaishnavami, Vaishnavami, Anandam, Anandam, Sarasvati. My dear, once upon a night I dreamed to roam In a garden where the river let me go To have sweet dreams or anything will seem like all alone I have nothing to fear, nothing to fear, I shall go I shall go, I shall go ♪ By His side you shall stay ♪ ♪ I shall follow you, He shall hold you ♪ ♪ I am bound by the nails of His hands ♪ ♪ Through the gates to the city and around the skies ♪ ♪ He shall lead me through the ocean and the sea ♪ When the day is over and the sun is going to break the night, I am going to be the famous one. I shall be the famous one. I will be the famous one. Good singing. This is a very special song by Fanny Crosby. As you know, Fanny Crosby was blinded when she was very young. And she was asked, you know, you've been blind for so long. How will you recognize Jesus? And she instantly replied, I will know him by the print of the nails on his hand. I'm recalling to mind the scripture where the Lord Jesus Christ invited the doubting Thomas to indeed examine those hands to see his side, to see his feet. and Thomas was at long last convinced, crying, my Lord and my God. Well, that is the cry of every Christian, my Lord and my God. Like those who came to see Jesus so long ago, we desire to see Jesus. That was the cry of the Greeks, that's the cry of every earnest seeker after God. I want to see Jesus. And certainly that's a cry of the psalmist as we turn to Psalm 27 this evening. I think just to get us all here in Psalm 27, I'd like to kind of do as we've done in other venues, and we will have kind of a responsive reading. I will read the verse, you read the second. We'll continue on through verse 14. which is the entire Psalm. And so I'm giving you a time there to get to Psalm 27, the Psalm of David, this great testimony as to David's knowledge of his God and his seeking after God and his experience with God. All right, we're in Psalm 27. I'll read the first verse. You guys can read the even verses and we'll continue on. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I Be confident. When I think of my desire to the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in this tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When I was set to see my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I see. Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not. Neither forsake me. O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of my enemies. Deliver me not over the will of my enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breed not for belief. I have fainted, unless I had believed, to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Let's now go to the Lord. Father, this evening, we would see a bit of your glory. We would see your work with your man. We would seek that your Holy Spirit open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of your word. Lord, open our eyes. Lord, use your word this evening to strengthen our faith, to encourage our hearts, to give us the confidence that we shall not be abandoned. We shall be with our Lord. Our God is on our side. With him there, how can we be afraid? Teach us, Lord, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. You know, when we have faith in the Lord, our souls fill with courage. When we have faith, our arms are strengthened, our hands are equipped for battle, our eyes brighten with hope. Faith in God, your light, and your salvation leaves you fearless in the midst of life's battles, because there are many battles in life. God is your guide. You don't have to simply drift aimlessly along. He's your heroic rescuer. He is your salvation. So, no sin can damn you. No foe can ultimately defeat you. This faith in God fills your heart, should fill our hearts, with love for our hero, for our savior, for our God. This growing, knowing love, as it sees more of its object, God himself, as reflected in His creation, as seen in His Word, as witnessed even in His own people, the children of God. As we see God, our love for Him must and should and does become more ardent, does it not? We have a greater, more intense longing to fellowship with our Lord and with our God, Because He is adored, He is our beloved as well as our Lord. In the verses for tonight, Psalm 27, verses 7 through 10, I want to see three things. The title of tonight's message is actually Hear, Hearing, Heard. But to put that in more propositional form, first of all, in verse seven, we see David's prayer. Lord, hear me. He longs to be heard. Lord, hear me. In verse 8 and 9, we see, Lord, I hear you. And then as we look at verse 10, we see, Lord, you have heard me. And so there is a new of faith and assurance that David leaves with in verse 10. So we'll see this in Verse seven, Lord, hear me, the prayer. Lord, I hear you, the psalmist's own approach to God, listening to God and his word. And then in verses, verse 10, Lord, you heard me. Now look at verse seven. It says there, hear, oh Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. Hear me, answer me. That is the prayer of David. He is looking for mercy. He is looking for aid. And so we see here this prayer, Lord, I want to be heard. This is a love that longs and cries out. Hear, hear me, listen to me, pay attention. Right? Now look back at verse four. There is an assurance here that this cry is going to be heard, and actually, as we come to the following verses, that cry is really reciprocated by the Lord when He says, seek my face. God has commanded you and I, God has commanded us to come to Him with every single concern that we have. He numbers the hairs on our head. He sees the sparrow that falls. There is no trouble, no concern that is too small for God to pay attention to. By the same token, neither is there any trouble or any disaster that is too big for Him to solve. From the smallest to the greatest, all these burdens, all these troubles, all these thoughts, just roll them on Christ. He is able to deliver you. And so David here is seeking the Lord's ear. Lord, I want to be heard. Lord, I want to be answered. Lord, I'm not claiming any merit of my own. Look, he's looking for mercy. He knows that there's, you know, it's not because of me. It's all on you, God. Right? Your character, your goodness, your righteousness. I'm just a sinner here. I need help. I'm not coming claiming any goodness of mine. It's all your goodness. It's all your mercy. I need your grace. Lord, hear me. Incline your ear. And so if our dangers are ever so big, from concerns for our country, from concerns to our family, to our loved ones with all their health needs. There's no matter that is beyond his control. He is God. Notice that he is addressed here all in caps. This is the Hebrew Yahweh, the eternal covenant-keeping God, the one who revealed himself at the burning bush, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the one that we are crying to, this transcendent, beyond us, and yet imminent, close at hand God who listens. So don't think your concerns are too small for God. Lord, where did I put my wallet this morning? I've prayed that more than once. to hearing of a loved one's impending surgery. Whatever the concern, God knows. Whatever the concern, God cares. Whatever the concern, God listens and is able to act. So Lord, hear me, verse 7. Secondly, in verses 8 to 9, We say, we see, Lord, I'm hearing you. Notice that verse eight begins, when thou saidst, seek my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek? Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake me. We saw in verse four that the psalmist longed, this one thing have I desired, right? That I may dwell in the house of the Lord. Why? To behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. The psalmist longed to behold with his own eyes the beauty of the Lord. This is his superlative wish, his greatest wish, is to see God. I want to see his beauty. I want to see him as he is. I want to see him in his majesty. With Moses, I want to say, Lord, show me your glory. With the Grecians coming to the disciples, I want to say, show me Jesus. Let me see Jesus. And so this is the psalmist's cry to be with God, to see God, to fellowship with him. So he longed to be there in God's temple. I long to dwell in the temple, he says there in verse four, to be with God's people, because guess what? God's people go to God's temple to worship God. So he's in God's temple with God's people worshiping God. How awesome is that? And that's something we can all do. Now we have the temple of our bodies, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We also have the temple, which is the church of God, where God's people are. And where two or three people are gathered together in my name, Jesus proclaims, there am I. So we see here that David, the psalmist, longed to see God. And here in verse eight, he discerns God's voice from the scripture, from his own heart crying out, from the Holy Spirit speaking within him. He says, you said seek my face. God has spoken. Look for me. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Look for me. Love me most. If you seek me, you will find me. Seek my face. And David says, all right, I'll do it. When you said seek my face, my heart from the very heart, not, this is not hypocrisy, this is not putting on a show, this is not impressing my neighbor. My heart said to thee, thy face I will seek. Right? So here, he hears, he discerns God's invitation. Seek my face. I'm not gonna play hide and tag from you. Hide and seek. You're not gonna have to go searching If you look for me, you will find me. It's not like our Bible club kids where they get hid and no one finds them, right? When you seek the Lord with your heart, you will find him. That's the promise of God. And so here we have David saying, you want me to look for you? I'm going to, I'm going to search. And you know, I will search until I find you. I am not giving up. I will search the scriptures. I will search anywhere. I know you are there. You're not going to escape." And of course, this is not something God wants to escape. The Lord is seeking you. He said, come to me. And you're saying, oh yeah, I want to come. So he heard this invitation. That invitation was His very heart's desire to see my face. My heart said to Him, Thy face, Lord, I want to see. I want to see. I want to know You as You are. I want to know You better. I want to understand more of You from the Scripture as the Holy Spirit teaches me the fullness of your glory, the majesty of your person, the humility and the humbleness of my God, who lowered himself to become a man, put on human flesh that he might be God with us. No longer God way out there, but God with us, God in us, God abiding in us, as we are memorizing in John 15. Abide in me and I. Seek my face. Seek ye my face, notice our King James says. So this is a command. This is an invitation to all of God's people, is it not? The ye is the plural you. That means David heard this in the midst of, perhaps there in the temple, in the tabernacle, with others of God's people, this summons to come and seek God's face. And David personally says, thy face I will seek. He applies that universal to me. I've got to find God myself. I want to see him with my own eyes. Now, if there are others with David, they're inquiring in his temple, dwelling in the house of the Lord, verse four. Doubtless some there in the house of the Lord responded as people do in the house of the Lord today. What's next on the calendar? How much longer until supper? David didn't respond to this invitation with distractions. He responded to the invitation as it was. You want me to seek you? I'll seek you. You want me to come to you? I'll come to you. I want to know you. I want to fellowship with you. I want to be with you, my Lord and my God. And so David is eagerly seeking to do what God had commanded all of us to do, all of his people. He says, my heart said to you, your face, thy face, Lord, will I seek. This is a promise, but it's more. This is a vow to God, I will seek you. I'm going to make time to do this. I will earnestly do this. This is not some lackadaisical two minutes out of your day QT type thing. This is a quest to find his God to be with. It is consuming. It is something that takes time and diligence. This is seeking, not just kind of bird-gazing, right? Bird-gazing, you kind of look around, you see a bird. Oh, that's nice, move up. You're on a search mission. You're seeking earnestly. And so David earnestly desired to behold, to meet, to fellowship with God. He's not interested in playing games. He didn't expect God to be elusive or hard to find. He didn't want, verse 9 says, God to hide from him. Hide not thy face from me. David didn't want distance between himself and his God. So he prayed, hide not thy face far from me. When we stray, when we sin, It dampens our relationship with our friends. And certainly David knew the dampening of relationship with God. He knew the pain, the mental anguish that came from straying from God. He knew the guilt. Read Psalm 32, Psalm 51, as his conscience was roaring. His physical anguish, the shame, the distance from God, all this sin was to him misery. It's a miserable thing for a Christian to be away from his or her God. It's just not fun. There's nobody more miserable on God's green earth than a Christian who sinned. Because you know the joy of being right with God And you're away from God trying to pursue something good, and it's not good. It's gross. It's shameful. It's painful. As in David's penitential psalms, David prays, put not thy servant away in thine anger. That's there in verse nine, the second part there. He knows that he's no sinless saint. He's had stumbles along the way. There's no question about that. But he's still a man after God's own heart. He still desires that fellowship. He wants a restoration of relationship. He wants things to be made right. To be distanced from God by sin, to be put on some shelf somewhere, laid aside as useless, To lose status, as Paul talks about in Timothy, saying, a vessel of meat for the master's use, put to honorable use. To lose all that was not only disgrace and shame, it was heartbreak. And so David there, in verse nine, Reminds God of the past. Now has been my help. Remember what you've done for me in the past? Remember that margaret clay that you lifted me up out of? Remember how you put my feet on that rock? Lord, I want to be back on the rock to stay. Lord, you've been my help in the past. I've messed up. Now put me back where I should be, in your presence. Lead me not, neither forsake me, O God, of my salvation." By grace, Bear and Lion had gone down by David's sling as a boy. Goliath had followed. David had killed his ten thousands was the song of the choir because God had enabled, God had strengthened him. God had been his helper. God had been his deliverer. God had been his captain, his victory giver, his wisdom. All of this was in his past. He could look back and say, oh, yes, Lord, you are the God of my salvation. You've saved me in the past. Keep on delivering me. Keep me out of the trouble of my own making. And how often has he had to do that for us as well? far too often. But the fact that God had successfully rescued David in the past, that David could remember, you have been my hope, you are the God of my salvation, that gives him confidence to cry out, leave me not, neither forsake me. There's a past that gives me hope for the present. Because you have delivered me, you have redeemed me, you have saved me, God, you're stuck with me. Right? So Lord, leave me now. Don't forsake me. Even when I mess up. So success in the past led David more independently, more desperately to cry out, leave me not, neither forsake me. With God, David could run through a troop, Psalm 18. With God, victory was sure. God alone receives the credit. God alone receives the glory. God alone receives the praise. And so David now turns to extolling exalting in his God with renewed hope, greater faith, rising love, he exclaims, oh God of my salvation, this is who you are. You are my savior. Forsake me never. God, you are the agent of my salvation. And that brings us to verse 10. He said, Lord, hear me. Verse seven. God said, seek me. He says, Lord, I'm hearing it. Here's, I'm answering your, see my face with a prayer. Lord, help me to seek you. Come, draw me. All right, now in verse 10, Lord, I'm heard. What does he say? When my father and my mother forsake me, even then the Lord will take me out. You know, most of the time we can count on mom and dad. These are some of the closest relationships that we have. The little tyke who skins his knee does not go running to a stranger. He runs to his mama. The little boy trying to handle bullies does not immediately dial 119, but most times he'll go to his dad, right? But here, David Possett, you know, my father, my mother, these ones who have brought me up, who've been, sustained me, strengthened me, counseled me, the ones that I thought I could rely on forever, when they forsake me, God is there. And our Heavenly Father is not like our earthly Father. Our earthly fathers, even the best of them, are folks. We make mistakes. We're less than perfect, as good as we try to be, as closely as we try to align with Scripture. We die. But our Heavenly Father will never die. He is eternal. And there is nothing on heaven, in heaven or on earth, that can separate you and I from the love of our Heavenly Father. And so David here says he has moved from mourning over sin, seeking his God, to a newfound confidence that when everything, you know, when blood When the blood bond is broken, the God bond remains. Right? He says there, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me home. The Lord takes everyone and everything else from us, yet he remains. He is faithful. He will never abandon his own. So in verse 7, David had longed for God to hear him. In verse 4, he wanted to see God in his beauty. God, of course, verse 8a, wanted to be sought by David, and so David seeks God in prayer, verses 8 and 9. Seeking the Lord's face, his forgiveness for sin, his continued favor, his continued presence. And now here in verse 10, with faith and foresight, David anticipates the Lord would continue to be faithful to the end and beyond. The Lord would take him up. Parents might forget. Parents might prove false. God never will. God remembers you and I, you and me. Our names are engraven upon the palms of his hands. He forgets us never. So friends and family, should they abandon us? God is always, will always be ever faithful. He's a good shepherd who leaves 99 of his secure sheep to seek that one airy sheep. However far that sheep may stray, he's going to bring that sheep back to himself. David concludes his section by saying, the Lord will take me up. He takes up my cause. He lifts us up from the mire of despair. From the muck of sin, he raises and rinses us by his own precious blood. He cleanses us. He makes us whole. He takes up our cause. He takes our case when slanderers rail against us. He fights our battles as a father rising to defend his beloved child from sneaky, sly snakes. Yes, good point with the alliteration. So, you and I, let us never fear. Let us seek our Savior's face. We'll find there comfort warm, strength to secure our souls, our minds. We'll find healing and rest for our very souls. Here is joy. Here is peace. Here is love. Here is your God and mine. Let us worship him and seek his face. Father, we want to seek you. we want to find you. Lord, reveal yourself to us, even as we seek your face tonight. In Jesus' name.