You, you hath he quickened, who are dead in trespasses and sins. That's how the apostle addresses Christians. He says, you were once dead. Spiritually, you were devoid of life and so devoid of sense. Being devoid of sense, you were as it were spiritually insensible unconscious, spiritually speaking, of people who were dead. But he says to believers, he says, you've been quickened. You now have life restored to you. And that certainly means, friend, that you are no longer unconscious spiritually. You are no longer insensible spiritually. You have become sentient. You are now a feeling, a living soul quickened by the Spirit of God's grace. And that certainly means this, that you and I, we become spiritually self-conscious, spiritually self-aware when the Spirit of God regenerates. It means that you and I do now actually act and are in fact sensible to God's dealings with us as living, souls, quickened by grace. And friend, that certainly means that we are a people who are a meditating people. And as a meditating people, we are then an introspective people. If to be spiritually dead in that sense is to be spiritually unconscious, then friend, to be made spiritually alive certainly means that you and I become spiritually sentient and self-aware. But what does that look like? What does it look like in a biblical sense to be introspective, to be spiritually sentient? Right throughout this altar, you and I have many examples are furnished for us that certainly answer that question. Well, our text this evening is certainly a prominent text that sets before us what it looks like to be someone made spiritually aware. Somebody who is not only meditative, but biblically introspective. This 30th Psalm is, as I've said already, a very prominent example of what this looks like. The mechanics, if you will, of being spiritually Self-aware. And the psalmist sets this before us in the first three verses as he sets before us his praise. He goes before the living God, he invokes his name and his exhilarating calls to extol the living God flow as we see from those verses from his own experience. He's a reflective man and these reflections have driven him to praise. And then as you go from verses four and following, you find that he moves away from speaking of himself to exhorting us, the reader and the fellow worshiper. And he says, you exhort God, but why? Again, the psalmist takes us back to his own experience, but all of that leads us friend to what you find there in the sixth verse. where the psalmist moves away from the application, as it were the entailment of all that has happened to tell us what in fact has happened that has induced these calls to praise. He was a man in prosperity that was brought low. And then a man delivered from that low condition. The psalmist then is a man, friend, who is a reflective man. He sets before us careful meditation about his own life, and from that meditation, he's induced to praise, and he exhorts us to follow suit. This is the exercise of a man who is spiritually self-aware, a man who is spiritually self-conscious, truly and biblically introspective. But I want you to notice, friend, that this psalm from the very heading sets us in a particular context. The context is quite relatable, I think, in many ways. It's the dedication of his house. This is supposed to be understood as David's palace. There was a man years before who said in his heart that one day he would perish by the hand of Saul. And now in brick and in mortar before him is his triumph. Saul did not prevail, but God had fulfilled his promise. He preserved David and now before him and on Zion, a palace was built for a king. And as David looks on at this wonderful crowning moment to his life, This wonderful triumph over his enemies that had long pursued him in the preceding years, he makes these reflections. What are these reflections? Friend, as you and I look back over the verses we've just briefly surveyed, you recognize that in this moment, David reflects on another moment. A moment wherein he was proud and had to be humbled. and after his humbling found God's mercy, even God's bounty. That's how David looks at this triumph. This is how a man who is spiritually self-aware examines that moment when he is brought into greater security, into a great triumph that previously to him thought unimaginable. He says, As a spiritually sentient man, he says, I am a sinner who has received mercy. Only free mercy have I received. I was proud, was brought low, and was delivered again. My friend, as we hold all of that together, you and I have a very basic theme, but one that's certainly practical. And that is that God's people are taught the freeness and purpose of his mercy. God's people are taught the freeness and purpose of his mercy. And I want us just this evening to very briefly look at the way in which the psalmist was taught these themes. I want you to notice first, friend, you and I encounter the psalmist's practice. It's there and you have it there in the first five verses. The psalm begins with, of course, an exclamation, and it should be read as an exclamation. He says, I will extol thee. Now, you also ought to read it as a vow. The psalmist goes before the living God and he promises that he is going to exalt his name. But I want you to notice, friend, that in this particular case, this vow and its substance, namely the praise of God, is induced from the psalmist's reflection on his past. It would be remiss of us to read over this point. Friend, with that which as it were is the engine of his praise in this case is the meditation which he exercises over the years by gone. This is a man who is a meditating man. And from that meditation is induced to worship. Now friend, from this simple observation, you and I see then that the godly are to observe God's providences. You and I, in other words, are to be a meditating people, a people who are reflective over the years that go before, and to do so before God, before the face of God. But how? In this psalm, I want you to notice the psalmist does actually guide us quite directly in how we are to engage in this work. First of all, I want you to notice His interest, first of all, is to recognize that all that has gone before is in fact the dealings of God with him. He's not a deist. Note here what the psalmist says. He says very pointedly, thou hast lifted me up. Again, friend, he traces every secondary cause to its primary. He says, in all of the vicissitudes of life, in all of its constituent elements, all of these things are simply so many tools or instruments in the hand of God. It is God who has done this in my life. Friend, he's not a deist. He's a man who says, I discern the hand of God, even through those providences that came by secondary causes. And friend, that's certainly instructive for you and me. Beloved, the atheist, the deist, he looks at secondary causes and goes no further. The psalmist is not such a man. Friend, he traces all things back to its first cause. And that is the first step, friend, that you and I must walk if we are to engage in this practice. We must say there is nothing that happens in this life. Nothing, friend, wherein I may not trace the providence of God. Secondly, I want you to notice, friend, as well, that he acknowledges that that which has happened to him has happened to him as he has been a man in prayer. This could be, I think, easily ignored, but note, friend, in this particular moment, he recounts that he cried unto the Lord, and he says there, and thou hast healed me." Not only then does he recognize the first cause of all in his life, but he also recognizes the ordinance of prayer. And he sees, friend, that his prayers have in fact been answered. It was not, in other words, friend, coincidence. Again, beloved, he is not a deist. The psalmist shows us really a second step in this work of meditation is to pray and then to watch. One of the Puritans put it this way. Whenever, if you could imagine, a mariner is forced to put all of his business and all of his family's effects onto a single ship and to ship it into a faraway land, do you think that that man would not watch the horizon earnestly as he watched the ship drift to that foreign shore? And do you not think that that man would wait and that he would watch to hear news of how that ship's journey? Well, whether it was successful or it wasn't. Friend, those who are earnest in seeking God at the throne of grace, they ought to be like such men, who watch to see how their plea before God is answered. And here the psalmist shows us that then, Beloved, when that deliverance that had been craved is in fact materialized, the meditating, the spiritually sentient man acknowledges that it is an answer to prayer, not coincidence or happenstance, but an act of God in hearing his people. But thirdly, friend, I want you to notice that this practice also ties experience to truth. I suppose that could be somewhat ambiguous. And in a sense, friend, you and I, we could say he's done this all along. But what I mean in this particular case is, you note, he says that the Lord's anger endeareth but a moment. And he says that, of course, as is the theological truth. The Lord is long suffering. The Lord toward his people manifests time and time again. He's saving and reclaiming grace, even after great falls. But what you and I ought not to miss is that the psalmist says, not only does he know this, but he himself has experienced it. Friend, it's one thing for you and I to acknowledge this truth as a theological reality in a cognitive sense. It's another thing to trace this theological truth through God's providences toward us. That friend is a higher act of faith than the necessary one. And so this is the psalmist's practice. He's a meditative and biblically introspective man. But I want us to come then to the sixth verse, where we encounter this next moment in the psalmist's life. He says that there was a time in which he was in his prosperity. And so he's recollecting, He is recalling for us a particular moment, a particular episode in his life before this. And that word prosperity really could be translated as it is elsewhere, ease or securities. It's not friend just that he had wealth and power, but that he was induced to a kind of ease, to a kind of security by those blessings. And as a response to all of this security, he says, I shall never be moved. Now friend, the purpose of that statement, as we read in the psalm, is pointedly to show us that the psalmist in his prosperity said something that by his experience would be later contradicted. He says, I shall never be moved. And in just another line, he says he was put to confusion. He would be moved. So what is the purpose of these sixth and seventh verses? It is to pit the psalmist's assertion in his condition of security against his experience that was subsequent. In other words, friend, what you have here is a man who is carnally secure, who presumed. The sin, the chief sin in verses six and seven is that of presumption. Beloved, here you and I are taught that it is a sin to presume on God's favor. And just very briefly, friend, we see why that is from the psalm itself. I want you to notice that here the psalmist limits God's dealings with him. Again, he says here that he shall never be moved. David was promised a kingdom. David was promised. He was promised that that kingdom would even be prosperous. He was promised a progeny that would endure. But what Oracle, what word from Samuel or Nathan or any prophet of God ever came to David wherein he was told he should never be afflicted? You won't find it. Beloved, what you and I have here is David. as he has moved beyond the promise. That he's moved beyond the word of God and has taken to himself and so limited God to a particular manner of dealing with him. Friend, what you and I see here is that then the psalmist has prescribed for God how divine favor would be showed to him. Oh, and this is so, so very easy. If God really loved me, he would do thus and such. God's favor must be exhibited in X, Y, or Z means or methods. Beloved, there are precious promises that we can pray back to God that are certain, but nowhere are we permitted to go beyond those promises and so limit the hand of God according to our own will or liking. Nowhere, beloved. And here the psalmist demonstrates that in his ease and in his security, he came to the pitch of saying God must deal in a certain way with him. He's prescribed and so limited the hand of the most high. The second thing I want you to notice, friend, in this assertion, in David's security, there is considerable emphasis that you and I should lay on the pronoun, Again, as you look back at the seventh verse, he says this, he says, my mountain, my mountain will be made strong by the Lord. David's mountain, David's kingdom, his success. Not a word in this moment of the reason why David was appointed king, not a word in this moment about the glory of God or the purpose or the cause of God, but my mountain says David. My mountain. Friend, that will become quite significant as we look at the subsequent verses. What I want you to notice here is that you and I have a warning in these two verses, not to limit the form or the end of God's favor. And so bend it to our wills. Beloved, here you have a warning for us to be careful. especially in those times of triumph, especially in those times of security, not to promise more to ourselves than does the word of God. But finally, and we close with this, there is a clear reversal in the Psalm itself. And you find that beginning really at the end of the seventh verse and through the end of the Psalm. The Psalmist says that he was troubled. We don't know, the psalmist doesn't tell us what particular form this chastisement took, but we know he was troubled. And that means, friend, more than just that he was in pain. It means that the man's soul was distressed. This particular affliction went well beyond his flesh. He was a disturbed man under these chastening works. And this induces him then to make supplication to God. And you and I should read this as the psalmist's moment of repentance. No longer is he a man who promises to himself more than he ought to. Now he goes to the mercy seat, to the throne of grace, as a man now distressed, now put to confusion, and now a man supplicating for grace. Now, what he prays for is that he would not go down to the pit. That's the essence, friend, of these requests. In other words, this is a prayer, of course, for his preservation. The Lord would remove his chastening hand in such a way as to preserve his life. But what I want us to meditate on most, friend, are the reasons why he makes these petitions. Because here you and I see the reversal in a powerful way. He asks a question, shall the dust praise thee? You and I, we ought to not think here eschatologically. He's not really focused here on what immortal souls do after the threshold of the grave. That's not his concern. His concern is very narrow here. What does a lifeless body do for God on the earth? Can a cadaver praise God? Of course, friend, the answer is no. And these questions ought to be read really as arguments that the psalmist uses with God as he pleads for the Lord to preserve him. But friend, the crux of those arguments are that he would praise God in the land of the living. And the idea of praise there, friend, it's synecdoche. It's supposed to be really representing all service to God on the earth. What does that mean? Well, friend, you see here a man who is praying for preservation now not as an end in itself. He's not praying any longer, thinking any longer about the mountain as being his mountain, as though its security was its own end. Now he says, just preserve my life, why? For thy sake. There's a reason why David would pray such. In the very first verse, the psalmist has a keen attention paid to those who are his enemies. In other words, beloved, you have here a man who recognizes that if he is to perish in this particular way, the enemies of God would have cause to triumph. It's very similar to what Hezekiah prays in Isaiah 38. The point, friend, is that he prays for preservation for God's sake. Why does he pray for security, for an extension of life, so that he might continue in his service to God on the earth? Friend, all of this concludes where he says to the Lord, he pleads that the Lord would become his helper. That means clearly, friend, that the psalmist is no longer prescribing to the Lord the way in which the Lord must deal with him. He simply says, be thou my helper in the sense friend there is that David is saying, whatever means so suit your pleasure. Whatever methods are most accordant to your will, just be thou my helper. And it ends, friend, at the end of this 12th verse, with again, the recall. David has made a vow. in which he will give thanks unto the Lord forever. Beloved, note this, that at the end of this psalm, the psalmist is a man who is reflected. He's a man who was once in prosperity. He was a man who once thought that God must deal with him in a certain way and only in that way. And then who was taught by God's dealings with him that in fact, in fact, Friend, his own security and his comfort was never an end in itself. So the psalmist, now a man more self-aware than before, prays only for mercy for God's sake, just that he might continue to serve the Lord in the land of the living. So as we close, Christian, what do we make of this? Well, as we started, Beloved, here you have a picture of the spiritually sentient soul. One who does know that God deals with him in this life. The one who does know that indeed there is nothing, friend, in his life where he cannot trace these vicissitudes back to its first cause, namely God. And he knows, of course, and he knows, of course, that this God is a hearer of prayer, And he knows as well that those truths and those promises that God has made to his people do in fact materialize in this life. And he has seen them in his own. He's a meditating man. My friend, you also notice in this text that he's a man who is conscious of his own pride. Conscious then also as well of the word's chastening hand. and made freshly conscious that his security, his wellbeing is never, was never an end in itself. Well, this is what it looks like to be those who are spiritually self-aware. And you and I will only learn this as we engage more and more in meditation. It also reminds us, friend, that those who are spiritually astute are those are those who are watchful in their prosperity. And when you come to a time where the Lord, as it were, has set you in a large and a wide place, the psalm is a warning to us, not to make such providences more than what they are. Beloved, those providences are God's free mercy to you, but he retains full prerogative to deal with you according to his pleasure. We are to be watchful in our prosperity, but in the end, we are to rest in divine mercy. Beloved, note where the psalmist again turns us, really from the start to the end. It's summarized so wonderfully for us in the fifth verse. His anger endureth but a moment, and his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. I don't know, friend, about you, But those words are especially sweet when you recognize that the psalmist here is speaking of the Lord removing his chastening rod after the psalmist himself had incurred it through sin. The psalmist is a man who then rests in divine mercy. To be spiritually sentient, beloved, means, of course, more than what we've said this evening. but it does not mean less. You and I, we must be a meditative, introspective people, as we see exhibited for us in the song. May we do so for God's sake. Amen.