We're turning to God's Word this morning a little bit differently than you'll see in your bulletin. We're turning to Romans chapter 11, the end of the chapter. For our New Testament reading, we'll read Romans 11, 33 on into chapter 12, and then to Psalm 92 for our Old Testament reading. Will you stand with me for the reading of God's Word? First to Romans chapter 11, beginning with verse 33, and then on back to Psalm 92. Romans 11, 33 is the Apostle Paul reviews the glory of God's redemption. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who is first given to him and it shall be repaid to him for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now to Psalm 92. A song, a song for the Sabbath day. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your lovingkindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night, on an instrument of ten strings, on the lute and on the harp with harmonious sound. For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands. O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever. But you, Lord, are on high forevermore. For behold, your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn you have exalted like a wild ox. I have been anointed with fresh oil. My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies. My ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age. They shall be fresh and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. This is the word of the living God. We're turning this morning in the preaching of God's Holy Word to Psalm 92. Psalm 92, this psalm and song for the Sabbath day. I would like to, in the Lord's will, both this morning and next Lord's Day morning, preach on Psalms that refocus our attention on this vital matter of worship, that call us again to reflect on exactly what we are doing as we gather together Lord's Day by Lord's Day in the worship of God's holy name. This is what you and I are made to do. We are made to worship. to call upon the name of the Lord, to offer ourselves, even as we read from Romans chapter 12, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. This is really, as we understand the grandeur and the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is what you and I are designed to do, what God made us to do. And so we do well to reflect on this vital matter of worship. how you and I think about worship is the most important question, the most important matter that we can truly consider. One writer has said this, and I've talked with a couple of you regarding these matters, that there's a strong impulse, and rightly so, for missions and for evangelism, to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Well, why do we do that? Why is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, why are you and I commissioned to preach the gospel? We are commissioned to preach the gospel so that there would be a body of worshippers gathered from every tribe and tongue and people and nation around the throne of God and of the Lamb in the ages to come. This is what you and I were designed to do. And in a very real sense, what you and I are doing together this morning, singing God's praise, hearing from His Word, sitting under its preaching, We are doing the worship by God's grace that we were designed to do. That which was wrecked in our first father Adam's sin, yet now renewed in our Lord Jesus Christ. And particularly, we need to recover, and by we, I'm certainly speaking of our church, but even more broadly in the times in which we find ourselves, we must recover a biblical view of worship, understanding what it is that God has called us to do. understanding, particularly here in Psalm 92, the goodness of public worship. If there's one aim that we could accomplish this morning through the preaching of the Word, by the grace and the help of the Holy Spirit, it is to renew our affections for and our commitment to public worship, and even to see, again, to taste and see that the Lord is good, to get a hold of this grand truth of the goodness of what God has given us in public worship. This is the essence of what this psalm is about. Psalm 92 recalibrates our hearts, recalibrates your heart, Christian, and your affections for worship, for God's day and his worship. May God help us to recover a right view of the goodness of worship in His house with His saints. This psalm very simply is titled a psalm, a song for the Sabbath day. The Jews sang this psalm frequently in their public worship under the Old Covenant, and we do well to reflect upon it even on this Lord's Day, this Sabbath Day, in which you and I are gathered together once again under the preaching of the Word, rejoicing in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a psalm ultimately about our Lord Jesus Christ. The Sabbath was not merely an old covenant invention, not something that appeared for a while in God's program and then vanishes away. No, in fact, our privileges are simply clearer. and brighter and fuller than anything that the Jews experienced under the Old Covenant. We have this day of resurrection, and in this psalm, as it fits into the grand sweep of the psalter, we have a song of the victory of our Savior Jesus Christ. A psalm that exalts Jesus. So as you read Psalm 92, ultimately when you read in verse 4, For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands. Or you read verse 10, But my horn you have exalted like a wild ox. I have been anointed with fresh oil. My eye also has seen my desire of my enemies. My ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise against me." When you read these words, you ought to think of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the triumph of the Lord of the Sabbath, the One who has conquered sin and death, who rose again the third day, who has given us Himself, His victory, who even now as we gather and worship rules and reigns over us as our good King, as our risen Lord. the one who has triumphed over all of his enemies. There are notes here that you'll find in the Psalter in Psalm 2, the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the king set on God's holy hill of Zion, the one who sits at the right hand of Jehovah on high, Psalm 110. And it's said at my right hand, Jehovah declares to Christ, until I make your enemies your footstool, a rule in the midst of your enemies. There are notes here of the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is in his victory, in his goodness to us, that we consider this privilege that we have of worship. Let's learn a few things, seek to learn a few things together in this psalm. I first want us to consider the delightful duty. the delightful duty of public worship as the psalm opens. And then secondly, I want us to consider a sober warning against the neglect of this duty. And then lastly, as we conclude the psalm, we'll see the sweetness and the blessed end of the righteous, those who give themselves to the public worship of God, the duty itself a sober warning against its neglect, and then the blessed end of the righteous at the end of the psalm. Again, this is a song for the Sabbath day. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High. And you have here, very simply, the psalm in a nutshell, a summary of the whole. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. And think with me about that. Don't let your eyes just scan over those words without grasping their meaning. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. This goes back to the early chapters of Genesis, when God pronounced all things good. The end of each day, the evening in the morning, the first day and the second day and all the rest. What was the proclamation over that creation that God had made? It was very good. All things good, declaring the glory. of their Creator. All creation reflecting the majestic splendor of God as Creator. And then is the apex of His creation, man, Adam and then Eve, created in His image. Very good to bring Him worship and praise. So as we think on worship, you need to get a hold of the goodness, the goodness of worship, not only that it's right for us, and it is, but also this is what you and I were made to do, to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to take particularly the Sabbath day, as this is a song for the Sabbath, to use the Lord's day as this day of worship. And it is a day of worship. We do not fall prey to the idea, and you ought not to fall prey to the idea of thinking that the Lord's Day is merely a day of rest. It is, it's rest in God. This is what we read in the law in Deuteronomy 5. It's also in Exodus chapter 20, a day of rest. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The Sabbath is a day of holy rest indeed, but it's a day of active worship of God. And here, very clearly in Psalm 92, we have that obligation, that joyful and good obligation laid upon our consciences, that it is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing your praise, O Most High, to be busy in this work, of worship, this high duty, this day in which we set aside our worldly callings, all the busyness and the stuff of life that so often entangles us, and to lay those cares aside and to spend the whole day in the worship of God and holy rest and delight in the fellowship of God's saints. And I want you to see this, that it is good. There's a connection here between the day set aside for worship and the goodness of it. Can't help but ask you if you view worship that way. particularly you young children. I was speaking with our high school fellowship on Friday evening, and we were talking about this duty of being devoted to God, reading together, and thinking. And I was encouraging them to see the goodness of the Lord's Day, to not wish it away or spend the time on lesser things, but to delight in the goodness and the praise God. This is a psalm that our Lord Jesus would have sung, would have used in in his worship, and we follow him, delighting in his goodness, singing his praise, made glad in him. There's a cycle of regarding the time that we devote to worship on the Lord's Day, on the Sabbath, and verse 2, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. Really there's a the totality of all that we are and all that we have God calls to sing praise to Him, to delight in His goodness, to give Him the worship of which He is due. And you see the pattern that appears not only here in Psalm 92, but throughout the Scriptures of morning and evening worship. Certainly here is a obligation laid upon our time that we set apart this day for God, this good and glad-hearted duty to declare his loving kindness and his faithfulness. Beyond the idea of morning and evening is certainly the idea that the whole day is devoted to the worship of God. John Calvin said it well, that we begin to praise God from the earliest on, and that we should continue, thus having begun, we should continue his praise to the latest hour of the night. Such is the goodness and the majesty, the beauty of God, that we spend every moment delighting in Him, seeking His glory, and particularly on His day, particularly for both the Old Covenant saints and for you and me here on this day of resurrection to give ourselves to the Lord, to devote the whole day to Him. And there's an application here to the evening worship and the practice of meeting both in the morning and in the evening on the Lord's day. You hear often that this joyful duty brought before you and emphasize that you that you ought to as as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ as those gathered under his name and having tasted and seen that he is good and to come morning and evening to delight in the Lord. And I believe that Psalm 92 is one of the texts that helps us here, that helps us think even about the goodness of evening worship. Could I ask it this way? Why miss another opportunity to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to His name, the Most High God? if He, verse 4, the underlying reason for all of this worship and this glad duty of praise, if He has indeed made us glad through His work. then why miss a second opportunity on the Lord's Day to gather, to make His name glorious among the nations, to declare that the Lord reigns, that He has been good and that He has been faithful to us, that He has made us glad through His works, that He has brought us through Christ to triumph in the work of His hands, forgiving our sins, granting us union with His Son. His worship calls for all that we are and all that we have. And is this not what we read in that text in Romans chapter 12? That having reviewed the abundance of God's grace toward us in His Son Jesus Christ, the whole scope of redemption from the gospel from beginning in eternity past through its accomplishment in history in our Lord Jesus Christ all the way to its end. The Apostle Paul steps back and reflects on that goodness and on the glory of God, and then calls upon the believers in Rome to present themselves by the mercies of God, present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. It's as if he's saying, how can you do anything else? having tasted and seen that the Lord is good, having experienced the goodness of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of all of your sins, the gift of communion with God in his son Christ, how can you do anything less than offer yourselves as living sacrifices? This, brothers and sisters, is the glad duty that we have of worship, of singing heedless arrogance of the wicked. So there's a warning, a strong warning, that we do well to take heed of in this psalm. Verse 5, O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this. The Lord has admirably demonstrated his goodness, his work in creation and all that he's made as we reflected on a few moments ago. He rules over all things in his providence. His works are great. He has redeemed us in his son. His thoughts are very deep and it is our good work of of worship to think on these works, to reflect on both creation and the fact that God has fashioned us in his likeness, that we are made in his image, made for worship as I said earlier, and that he's also redeemed us and brought us to himself. This is the work to which we're called, but the wicked do not understand. They're senseless. Not saying here that they're intellectually inferior, not saying that they're stupid as it were, but they're senseless. They're dull. They are hard of hearing spiritually. Spiritually blind and deaf and unable to perceive the abundant manifestation by which God has made Himself known in creation and in His work of redemption. God has said His glory in the heavens. All creation bears witness to that majesty and that glory. He sent His Son with power to save. He has given us His Word. But to the fool, to the wicked, these things simply bounce off their mind, out of their senses, without a thought. This is the way of the wicked. And it is a severe warning for all of us as we think about this glad duty of worship, that we ought not to come and simply go through the motions of worship without engaging in true love for God, adoration of our Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance of our sin, and taking hold of His promises. Don't be as the senseless man who does not know, the fool who does not understand, who does not grasp this grand duty of worship. These are sobering words. And it's true of so many in our own day. May it not be true of any of us that we're senseless and dull regarding the things of God. This is our natural condition apart from lest we be proud. lest we be proud. This is our natural condition. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. Romans chapter 1, Paul addresses this blindness, this senselessness, this complete heedless arrogance to the work and the ways of God. Romans 1, 21, speaking of our first parents, but also all of us, And because, verse 21 of Romans 1, the senselessness, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful. Note that word thankful. In Romans 1.21, our call is that it is good to give thanks to the Lord. Our first parent's failure was to glorify God and to give Him the thanks of which He was so worthy. But they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. This is our natural condition. Because of the sin of our first parents, this neglect of worship, we're all born in sin. 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know them. He cannot perceive them because they are spiritually discerned. were born unable to know, unable to grasp the things of God, to contemplate the greatness of God's works, and having seen the abundant revelation, the abundant witness of all of these things, were senseless and dull and in need of the Spirit of God. There's a severe warning here. against the neglect of this glad duty of worship. That when the wicked, what's the end of the wicked? How does this end for those who simply continue down this path of senselessness, of foolishness? How does it end for the wicked? Verse seven, the wicked spring up like grass when all the workers of iniquity flourish. It is that they may be destroyed forever. The end of verse 9, all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. And you see here, brothers and sisters, a clear contrast in the psalm between the senseless one, the wicked, who does not perceive, who does not understand. They're cut off, they're destroyed, they're scattered. Unlike the righteous that we'll consider in a few moments, the righteous who are gathered together in the courts of God, who are bound together in holy love and the worship of God. The wicked are those who are scattered, who don't last. There's no roots. There's no lasting life. There's only death, destruction, and scattering for the wicked. Yes, hard words, but a warning that we do well to take to heart. May none of you be as the wicked, the wicked who spring up for a little time, who are simply all about their own agenda, who forget to glorify God, who forget to give thanks to Him, who wander from Him, whose hearts are hard, their understanding darkens, and do not give to God the worship of which He is due. So I challenge you today, if you're outside of Christ, any of you who are gathered with us today, who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, and who have not triumphed through His work with the application of His blood to your sins, And knowing life with God and communion with him, I urge you to wake up by the grace of the Holy Spirit, to run to Jesus Christ, to repent of your sin, to recognize that the gladness of giving thanks to God, that you indeed would be awakened from your spiritual slumber. run to Jesus Christ. Be warned, be warned that to fail to take hold of this glad duty of worship, to not understand it, to not grasp this high privilege, to simply seek to your own name, your own kingdom, your own agenda, is to end up destroyed, apart from God, scattered, You children likely see the dandelions that rise each spring in the grass. And they last for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks with their bright yellow colors, but then they soon turn white and they simply blow away. This is the way of the wicked, rising up for a while, but then scattered, blown aside. We ought to hear the sober warning of the neglect of this glad duty of worship. And praise God, there's a different way for the righteous. And this is how the psalm ends. Yes, a warning against the neglect of this delightful duty of worship, but there's the blessed end for all the righteous who indeed give thanks to the Lord, who sing praise to the name of the Most High God. Look at the end of the psalm. How does it end for the righteous as the wicked are scattered and destroyed? Yet the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. And I hope you understand again, the goodness. of this duty of worship, that this is the blessed and glad result of giving yourself to the Lord, of offering yourself, again, in the words of Romans 12, is glad and living sacrifice is holy and acceptable to God. The righteous are established, whereas the wicked are blown aside, scattered, and destroyed. Yes, indeed, sobering, a sobering warning. The result for the righteous is that we're built up. We're rooted and grounded, to use the words of Paul in Colossians 2. We bear the fruit of the Spirit. That fruit that we've been studying from Galatians 5 in recent weeks. Flourish in the courts of God. There's an intricate connection here between the flourishing of the righteous, the fruitfulness of the righteous, and the house of the Lord. Verse 13, those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. Do you understand the goodness of what we're about? Of singing praise to God and giving thanks to Him. This is, can I use this phrase? This is when we are at our best. by the grace of Christ, offering ourselves on the basis of His sacrifice and His mercy, bought by His blood, and our worship brought to the Father in His name by the Spirit. This is true flourishing. There's a lot of talk today about the matter of human flourishing. What is it that we need in terms of education? or culture, or money, or otherwise, to truly flourish. Well, this is human flourishing, gathering in the public worship of God, delighting in Him, singing praise to His name, having been made glad through our Lord Jesus Christ. The righteous indeed shall flourish like a palm tree. a beautiful picture of the grace and the beauty of those palms that grow high and present the grandeur and the beauty of the natural creation, grace and beauty, but also the picture of the cedar and lebanon, that tree that's mature, that's been there for centuries, if not millennia, that presents to us this picture of strength. So you have both pictures in the text of grace, beauty, and also strength. Maturity, reminding us of the redwood forest in California, trees that have been established for years and years, trees that even endure the passing of empires. Empires come and go, and these trees yet remain. And that's just a picture that the psalmist uses to demonstrate the rootedness, the fruitfulness, the maturity of the righteous. A promise for the righteous that begins now in this life, and continues in the ages to come, that the righteous will be those who flourish, who grow up in the courts of the Lord, ever bearing fruit, always fresh and flourishing in the courts of our God. This is, brothers and sisters, this is the goodness of what we're about, of what God has called us to do. It is here that we come into communion with God, delight in His promises, enjoy the forgiveness of our sins, made glad through Christ, our King and worship leader. It is here that we're fresh and flourishing, still bearing fruit in old age. And isn't there an application here to older saints among us? Those older saints who, though nature decays, their bodies grow old, things don't work the way that they used to and there's physical affliction, yet here's the blessed promise for those saints among us who age. That spiritually, though the outward man decays and wastes away, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. That as you grow older, there's abundant grace and fruitfulness. experiencing the sad afflictions that so often come upon us. The way it goes with the wicked is that they're scattered, destroyed, their physical suffering ends up in spiritual separation from God for all of eternity. But with the righteous, there's flourishing, there's abundance, and there's peace. That indeed, as Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 4.16, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. And this is the Lord's promise for those who are older, who are increasing in age, that you would be planted in the courts of the Lord. flourishing under the preaching of the word, the worship of God's holy name, gathered, built up, rooted, and established in the faith. Indeed, John Owen, an old writer, said of these elderly saints that this is what those who after a long profession of the gospel entering into the confines of eternity do long for and desire, that they may have fresh springs of spiritual life and vigorous actings of all divine graces and spiritual mindedness, holiness and fruitfulness under the praise of God, the honor of the gospel and their own peace and joy. This is gospel fruitfulness for elderly saints among us. There's a lesson here as well for those who are younger. We discussed the matter of family worship together in Sunday school this morning. Parents, would you have your children flourish in the courts of the Lord growing up as palm trees, cedars in Lebanon, those who are established in the worship of God. Bring them, morning and evening, to the public worship of God. Tell them of the goodness of Jesus Christ, who died for their sins and rose again. Teach them both by the way that you worship corporately, together with the saints, singing praise to God and giving thanks to Him. And then, day by day, weekly, in your homes, teach them what it is to be a worshiper of God. Pray for them. Pray for your children, that they indeed, as they grow older and one generation passes away and another generation grows in their place, that they would be fresh and flourishing spiritually, that they would love the Lord Jesus Christ, that they would grow in grace, that they would not forsake the assembly of the righteous, but that they would love God and love all of His ways. Pray, pray for the generation to come. There's great encouragement here for the righteous. Do you see, again, the goodness of God's calling upon our lives? It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High. This is the godly and holy confession of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one whose horn has been exalted, the one who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, triumphing over his enemies. We follow him in his triumph and in his name and in his presence as we're brought into the presence of God triune, we flourish, we grow, And there's a great promise here that even as our physical bodies decay, yet the inward man flourishes. Would you flourish? Would you grow in grace, the inward man renewed day by day, even as your earthly body decays and passes away? Set your hope in God. Give yourself to the worship of his name. Rejoice in the goodness of God towards you. And may your worship, your giving of thanks to God, your singing of his praise, may it reflect that same goodness to you. Let us all pray. Our Lord, our God, we give You thanks and praise for the Lord's Day, this day of all the week, the best. We praise You that You have revealed Yourself to us abundantly in creation and in the work of Christ in redemption, that You indeed have made us glad through Your work, that You've called us to Yourself, that You've forgiven our sins, that You've given us communion with You. And Lord, we pray that we would be established in the courts of Your name. that we would, even in the midst of physical affliction and distress, that we would be those whose inward man is renewed day by day, that we would grow in the fruit of the Spirit, that we would be a fruitful and faithful people built up in Christ, rooted and grounded in the truth, that we would not be as those wicked who are scattered and destroyed. O Lord, help us to take hold of these warnings, to tremble at Your Word. but also to rejoice in the goodness of the worship of your triune name. We ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Look up and receive the blessing of our triune and holy God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.