If you would turn with me to our last scripture reading, the 26th Psalm. Psalm 26. The scriptures so often communicate to us that we in the Lord Jesus Christ have boldness to come even to the holy place. As I quoted now a month or so ago, the epistle to the Ephesians includes another like statement. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we have boldness with access and confidence before God. The question though friend for you and for me this evening has to be, what does that look like? What does that look like? in its exercise, as a man draws near unto the Lord. You see friend, we don't really understand those phrases unless we can answer this question. We don't really understand the boldness that the scriptures hold forth if we can't explain what that looks like in the life of the godly. So what does it look like? Our text this evening really gives us an example, a specimen for observation that answers that question rather decisively. What does this holy boldness, this holy confidence look like as the man approaches God in prayer? And friend, what you and I see in this 26th Psalm then is a man who indeed is endowed with that confidence. He's sensible that he is one who may approach God in such a way. And so in fact, he does. Now, as you look at the text, you notice that these lines, in fact, this whole composition is really an extended petition for mercy. The psalmist is, of course, engaged once again in pleading that God would turn back his persecutors, turn back the affliction that is upon him. But I want you to notice, friend, that even as this psalm is a psalm of petition, His cries for mercy emanate from a man who knows that he is numbered among the godly. And so while it is a psalm of petition, it is also a psalm of confidence. A psalm of a man who is carefully engaged in that work of introspection and has so concluded that he is numbered among the Lord's people indeed. His faith is not a feigned faith. And so he pleads for mercy He pleads to be spared, but as one who indeed is the Lord's. And we can't miss that this evening. And that certainly should be centered to our thoughts as we continue our meditation tonight. I think it's important though, that we recognize how the psalmist prosecutes his case. As you look at the first three verses, you'll notice a simple theme. And that is that the man acknowledges before God that he walks Now I want you to look at the last several verses, verses 11 and 12. And once again, we find the theme of walking in integrity. And this time it comes in the form of a vowel. He will walk in time to come in integrity. And so the Psalm begins and it concludes with this idea that the man lives a godly life. But then I want you to notice this, as you come down to verses four and five, and then verses nine and 10, you have a similar combination of themes. But this time, you see the psalmist in the first case saying, verses four to five, that he is separate from sinners in life. And then verses nine and 10, he longs to be separate from sinners in their death. Then verses six and eight, you have another couplet. And here what you find is the psalmist averring his heart in the act of worship. The most solemn approaches to God that he makes, he says in both of those verses is with a pure heart, not as a hypocrite. And what leaves us then central, the one thing that does not have a parallel is what you find in verse seven. There the psalmist speaks of publishing with thanksgiving. of telling or of recording all of the Lord's wondrous works. And he sets this friend in the context immediately in the preceding verse, in the context of corporate worship. Meaning, in that case, that he is one who has kept himself in integrity. He has walked, friend, in a godly way so as to render praise and appraise a right to God. And I also want you to notice, friend, that the idea of thanksgiving that is found in this seventh verse is also intimately tied to these pleadings for mercy. Friend, he longs for the Lord's deliverance, that he may then record God's grace, witness to divine grace in the congregations. And in fact, that's exactly how the 12th verse ends, isn't it? As the Lord answers these petitions, His vow is that in the congregations, he will bless the Lord. And what do we learn from that? And what do we learn from the structure that we've just outlined? Friend, we see here a man who pleads for mercy and who lives a godly life so as to be a faithful witness bearer to God. That's the point. Here you see the man's motives pristinely. He longs for God's deliverance. And he keeps himself by God's grace to walk in the ways of righteousness for God's sake. And beloved, that really is our theme this evening as we meditate on these verses together. And that is that the godly seek holiness and mercy to be faithful witnesses. The godly seek holiness and mercy to be faithful witnesses. And the first point that I want us to notice, friend, is what you find in the very first verse, and that is the confidence with which the psalmist approaches God. In verse one, he begins with a very bold request. He says, judge me, O Lord. Why? For I have walked in mine integrity. Friend, we ought not read over those words lightly. The man comes wittingly before the searcher of hearts. And he says, make a narrow inspection. Search into the recesses of my soul. You as the one who searches the hearts and tries the reins know me. Search me. Friend, it's not a small degree. of confidence one must make. One must have to wittingly make such a request. This is not a small degree of assurance in the life of the psalmist. But I also want you to notice for not only in his approaches to God, does he manifest this confidence. I want you to notice that even in his expectations, you see that. Look at the end of verse one. He says, I shall not slide. He has every confidence before God that he will know God's sustaining grace. The Lord indeed will not cast him off, that he shall stand. Beloved, we ought not leave these opening lines, but with the impression that this man has an incredible degree of assurance. This is a man who indeed walks before God boldly. Now, I want you to notice, friend, first of all, that this confidence that he possesses is first of all manifested in the fact that he knows that there is a distinction. He is confident that there is a distinction in how God deals with his enemies and how God deals with the godly. That certainly, friend, is something that we need to recognize as well. When he says, judge me, and then later on, gather not my soul with the wicked, The sense is he's praying that the Lord now, now in this life, would deal with him as God deals with the godly and not with his enemies. And this is so very crucial. I want you to notice that the psalmist is completely convinced that God's dealings with the righteous are really distinct. In this life now, from his dealings with the wicked. Beloved, I'm concerned very much that in our age, we have lost this and have effectively become deists. The psalmist holds fastidiously to this distinction all throughout the psalm. Remember how the psalmist states the same truth in Psalm 37, he says, I have been old, young, and now I'm old. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Righteousness, says the Proverbs, tendeth to life, but he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. Now friend, we recognize that those texts do not mean that the righteous can never be put to beggary. But we know also friend that the scriptures hold forth that God really in this life turns all things to the good of his people. And that really is the sense of the text. The idea friend is that even in this life God's providential dealings with his own is in fact distinct. It is distinct in how he deals with his enemies. Because beloved, for the people of God, every providence is to redound only to their safety really, only to their true wellbeing. A friend, as we've said over and over again to the ungodly, beloved, every providence is really a token of God's indignation. Every affliction is a foretaste, as Robert Bruce reminds us often in his works, a foretaste of eternal perdition. The psalmist holds to the fact that there is a distinction. But he's not only confident of the distinction, he's confident of his own interest. I want you to notice, friend, how this confidence is placed. It is not placed, friend, in his own merit. Note the end of verse one there, rather the second line of verse one, I have trusted also in the Lord. Now, this is so very important. Friend, what we find here is that the confidence that he has is not from any kind of merit that he has procured through his walking in integrity. What we learn from this first verse is that the confidence that he has is the confidence of a faith that is fruit yielding. Beloved, the confidence we see in the 26th Psalm is a man who possesses faith and a vital faith, a vital faith that evidences itself in godliness. It's so very important to see, friend, how his confidence is wedded to faith at the very beginning of the psalm. And we can't miss that. But then as you come to verses two and three, you notice the confidence continues. He says to the very one who searches the hearts and tries the reins to prove him, to examine him. And he says, with certainty, I have walked. I have walked in thy truth. Friend, I want you to notice that what you have in the Psalm is a man who is certain. He is certain of his state. He is sure that he is of God. He's not a hypocrite. And the works which he sees here, friend, emanate from a life of vital and so saving faith. I think this is so corrective friend, because it reminds us that this kind of assurance is in fact attainable by God's grace. It was William Guthrie who put it this way. He says, one of the great mistakes about assurances is that folks don't realize that there is more certainty possible than people imagine. And that is more easily attained than many imagine. This assurance, this gracious assurance that we see in the 26th Psalm, as Guthrie would remind us. Friend, it is more certain knowledge than many, many think. And in a sense, it is even more easily attainable than many believe. What that means then beloved is that this 26th Psalm then shows us a pattern of that assurance to which you and I are called to strive. that we are called to pray for. And beloved, as you look at this text, what you find here is a man, a man here who does approach God with boldness, confidence, and access. Friend, it begs the question, first of all, are we confident? Are we confident when we approach the throne of grace? that even in this life, God deals differently with those who are like the psalmist than he does with his enemies. Do you really believe, beloved, as you go to the throne of grace, as you stand in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you are indeed more than conquerors over every affliction? that every providence is calculated for your true wellbeing. The psalmist believes in such a distinction and so should we. The second question, of course, too, from this text is, friend, are you one who solemnly and quite, quite conscionably approach the throne of grace as does the psalmist in this case? Can you so confidently go to God yourself and say, search me, judge me, examine me, prove me and find indeed that I have walked in my integrity? Well, those are crucial, crucial questions. The question is how? How does one attain that degree of assurance? And I want you to notice that this is not mysterious. The psalmist himself in this text lays out directly why he is so confident before the Lord. He says here that you would plead for the Lord to try his reins. And then he says this in verse six, that he will wash his hands in innocency and so compass the altar of the Lord. What you see here is a man who is inclined to a holiness, friend, that is of the heart. It's a holiness that is truly, friend, emanating from the heart, but also manifesting itself in genuine godliness, even to those about him. We'll notice later on, friend, why the public assembly is so important to the psalmist. But what you see here is a man, friend, who presents his whole person before the Lord. his heart and his walk, that which is internal and that which is external. You see a man who has walked conscientiously before the Lord, a man whose godliness, in other words, is holistic. In the words of the apostle, he is striven in his life to be void of offense toward God and toward men. His is a holistic and internal and an external godliness. And beloved, what you notice is the psalmist never, never in this text makes such bold claims without also referencing this fact, that he is one who has walked in integrity, that he is one who from the inside and from the out has walked in the ways of reward. What this teaches us, beloved, is that this confidence that we see in this text can never be, is never really divorced from a godly life. The assurance that we see in this psalm is never divorced from fruit bearing. The psalmist would have us know that. This kind of confidence does not come, but by living a godly life. And friend, this godly life must, of course, be internal. It must certainly include faith, as we saw already from the first verse. And we notice, friend, that this faith, it acknowledges that all the mercy that he receives is in fact mercy, it's not wages. In other words, the holiness friend that the psalmist has is one of humility and acknowledgement that what mercies he receives, he has not earned and so he calls it mercy. He knows himself dependent upon God and so he lays low before him. That's the kind of holiness you see here. You also see a man who sets the loving kindness of God before him. It is the love of God that he craves, not that of the world. Note that you see in there in verse three, and how distinct that is from verses four and five. He loves, friend, the love of God, just as he hates the congregation of sinners. That's the internal character, the internal character of this godly life. It is a life of faith. It is a life of dependence upon God. It's a life that loves friend God, and so delights in the love of God over the love of the world. And so it hates sin. These are the internal marks, friend of a man, of a woman who may approach God with such confidence as does ourselves. But friend, I also want you to notice here that it's not only internal. It's external as well. You notice here, the psalmist himself says in verse four, that he has not sat with vain persons. He's not one who's been unequally yoked with unbelievers. Yes, he lives in the world. But friend, he does not. He does not take close fellowship with the enemies of God. He may have to associate with the ungodly of necessity. But friend, you note here, it is a grief to him to be around those who are God's enemies. And he himself pulls as much as he can away from their company. Friend, what you see here then is a man who has practiced biblical separation. A man who can say he's washed his hands, in other words, He has kept his life in innocency. He's a man who regards first and second table duties with conscience and makes conscience, friend, both to stay away from sins of commission and omission. This is the character of a man who is so confident before the throne of grace. Fred, I wanna say this to you this evening and very briefly. The psalmist is not an antinomian. The antinomian would say, look, you and I, we should have assurance. We should have this kind of confidence independent of our fruit bearing. And in fact, they would go on a step and say, and they did this right throughout the 17th century, the antinomians would say something like this, well, if fruit bearing at all is in question when we think about assurance, then you're saying that ultimately your good deeds are meriting assurance. Friend to that, you and I should simply respond that, well, that man who plows his field He doesn't merit the blessing of the crops that come any more than the Christian who yields fruit merits his increased confidence before the Lord. The psalmist has not merited assurance by his good works by walking so circumspectly. But rather these are the very means that God uses to demonstrate to the psalmist and to the onlooking world that this is indeed the child of God. Friend, I also want you to notice here that this assurance that you see in this text, it is not enraptured experience. Friend, here you have a man who by God's grace has been able to evaluate his life through a careful and biblical introspection has with the light of God's word so determined his case. Friend, we need to remember that this Psalm teaches us what the scriptures teach in one voice, and that is that assurance is tied to fruitfulness. In fact, friend, ordinarily, there is a real proportion between the two. But as we close, friend, I want you to notice what is his confession. He says here again, as you look at the sixth verse, that he will wash his hands in innocency, and then he does so that he may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all the Lord's wondrous works toward him. I want you to notice the rationale of verse seven. The seventh verse there is to explain why the psalmist does what he does in the preceding verse. He washes his hands in innocency and he says, this is a prevailing end. that he may publish, that is, declare or witness with thanksgiving what the Lord has done. Friend, why does he walk so circumspectly? And even more broadly, why does he pray for mercy here? It is for God's sake, for the exaltation of the Lord and his name alone. What you see then in this text is a man who craves both mercy and a godly life for God's sake. You see this throughout this altar. Just allow me to give you two examples that we know well. Remember in Psalm 51, as the psalmist goes before God and pleads for pardon and for purging, why does he do so? He says this at the end, then will I teach transgressors. Thy ways." Beloved, he knows, the psalmist knows that only in purging and pardoning grace is he enabled to be a faithful witness to the onlooking world. And is that not the same idea behind the apostle's language in 1 Corinthians 9? When he says he brings his body under subjection, lest you be a castaway. Remember the context beloved, is that he is preaching to others. And so the apostle knows, just as the psalmist does, that faithful witness-bearing must include a life of increasing fruitfulness, of godliness. But I want you to notice the rationale. Beloved, they don't crave increased piety for a name for themselves or to get glory from their own consciences. but that they might be made more and more serviceable to God and for his sake. And that's exactly what the psalmist prays for this evening. For not only does he pray for greater usefulness for God's sake in this case, but you also recognize that the whole psalm is a prayer for mercy. And so friend, when he's speaking of thanksgiving, he's praying that the Lord God would so deliver him, so demonstrate the distinction between God's dealings with the ungodly and with the godly, that he would set before the onlooking world a fresh testimony of God's grace and for the sake of God's name. This is a Psalm once again that illustrates he craves mercy for God's sake. Friend, we could go to all number of texts throughout this altar, but just take one that parallels our own. The psalmist prays in Psalm 109, do thou for me, O God, the Lord, for thy namesake. He prays for the Lord to undertake for him, for not so much to relieve him of the temporal affliction, but to magnify the Lord his own name. You see this in the history of the church. And as you look at the godly of the past, there's one thing that I found recurring, it recurs in different forms, but in essence, it's this, that so many of the godly feared outliving their usefulness. It's striking. They would pray often, Lord, do not let me outlive my usefulness. That means, friend, that they prayed for mercy for God's sake. That means, friend, that principally, they saw their whole lives as being truly serviceable to God and was born out of that great earnest desire to be so. A friend that begs a question as we close this evening, and that question is a searching one. It's a basic question about motives. Do you long for greater assurance and greater confidence more than you long for greater fruitfulness and serviceableness to God? Do you long for an experience of assurance more than for fruitfulness? Friend, the psalmist corrects us if the answer to that is in the affirmative, because he shows us that first of all, the motives are wrong in such a case. Friend, the psalmist craves mercy, and the psalmist possesses this confidence before God, but only for God's sake, not for his own. Secondly, friend, you notice here that the psalmist so intimately ties this confidence with his own fruitfulness, that he says, unless this fruitfulness is there, friend, you should not expect the confidence that he exhibits. It's a wrong order. It's a wrong order to long for the experience of assurance, friend, without longing, first of all, that we would be made fruitful by grace. But the second question too, friend, is also a pressing one. Do you long for mercy more than you long for fruitfulness? Such was not our psalmist. Friend, he longs just that he might set before the onlooking world a greater, a fresher testimony to God. He may pray for deliverance and so he must, but it is for God's sake in the end For our comfort, friend, I want you to notice that this assurance is in the scriptures, not to give us an idea of what one man possessed, but was purely excluded for all others. As we said at the onset, this is a pattern for the godly to strive toward. And of necessity, then this means that this is attainable by God's grace. Beloved, you may have Such confidence before the Lord. That is possible even this evening. By God's grace at work in your life, friend, even the psalmist's experience in this case may very well be yours. You need to believe that. The devil will tempt you to doubt it, just as he would tempt you to presume. The psalmist here reminds us this in fact is attainable. And so we close, beloved, with just three further thoughts. I want you to notice, friend, that the confidence that the psalmist has, it's not only attainable, you and I are commanded to strive after it. If this is a means for you and I to run more and more freely in the precepts of God, and indeed it is, then you and I are commanded to seek after this very thing. This is something that's not optional for us. It's true as the confession says, not many of the saints in this life attain this degree, but all are commanded to strive for it. The second exhortation friend is that we need to also make use of the means. Beloved, in this case, what you find here is the man, of course, under the light of God's word, making use of the means of grace has come to this confidence. This is the confidence of the life of faith after all. We also need to remember the order in which this assurance came to him by God's grace. It was as the man was made, made more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, once more, I would remind you, the scriptures do not know of a kind of assurance that is divorced from fruitfulness. They simply do not know it. And so friend, if you are seeking after this confidence as you must, we must be seeking after fruitfulness, pleading that through God's grace, the benefits of Christ would be so applied as to make us more and more like himself. But then friend undergirding all of this, that which is at root to it all is faith. Beloved, it is the fruit of faith that is the integrity of which the psalmist speaks in this case. And so beloved, if you are hearing this this evening and saying, well, I just need to resolve to do better, you've heard wrong. Beloved, this kind of walking comes only as you and I hold fast more and more to the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way we are made holy is as our faith has increased in him. And so beloved, our endeavor should be first of all, to take hold of Christ afresh, to seek these things from him and him alone. And then friend to endeavor, to exercise that grace that has been given. Beloved as you do so, friend as you do so, and as God enables you to do so more and more as he gives you life, Friend, your experience will be as that of the psalmist. You will know more distinctly, and even by experience, the distinction between God's dealings with you and with his enemies. And beloved, you'll know more and more that power of grace that is in you is vital. You indeed do have boldness and access with confidence to God. through the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.