Yet the Lord thinketh upon me (Quality Good)

[0:00] In Psalm number 40, and in the 17th verse, in the last verse of the 40th Psalm, Psalm 40, verse 17, But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.

[0:26] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. David, under God, wrote this psalm, which is obviously the work of the Holy Spirit.

[0:50] David himself said the Holy Spirit spake by him. At the same time, it is evidently an experimental psalm.

[1:03] He is testifying of God's gracious dealings with him. I am sure there were times in the life of David when he knew something about real, physical, actual poverty.

[1:22] But reflection upon this psalm would appear to make it plain that here it is not that form of poverty to which he refers when he said, I am poor and needy.

[1:40] The examination of the psalm and its spiritual content makes it evident that he is speaking concerning the need of his soul.

[1:53] Blessed are the poor in spirit. Oh, blessed are they who plainly see their emptiness and poverty, whose souls are humbled in the dust, and who in Jesus only trust.

[2:12] So here, I think we may say with confidence, we are looking at a person, a soul, who feels his state by nature to be that of poverty and of need.

[2:30] But I am poor and needy. Having thus made this statement, we may refer to various parts of the psalm later.

[2:43] Having made this statement concerning his present felt condition, he then makes a most amazing declaration.

[2:55] And it is particularly an declaration that I want to try and look a little this evening. Yes, yes, yes, in spite of what I am, in spite of my spiritual poverty and need, yes, the Lord thinketh upon me.

[3:20] The Lord thinketh upon me. If I gave my blessing this evening a title, I don't usually do so.

[3:36] It would be a thinking God. A thinking God. I am poor and needy, yes, the Lord thinketh.

[3:47] I am poor and needy, yes, the Lord thinketh upon me. Amongst many of the wrong approaches to the Christian faith that are appearing in the day in which we live is a kind of teaching that there is something wrong with personal religion, something wrong with personal experience.

[4:17] It must always be we and not men. I can only say this. If your religion is not personal, if it is not something known by you as an individual, then you have come short of the reality of the truth of the gospel.

[4:42] There must be a me in it. This is not self-interest. This is not selfishness. No. It is how stands the case my soul within.

[4:56] For heaven are thy credentials clear. Is Jesus Christ thy only plea? Is he thy great forerunner there? I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.

[5:17] It is a great comfort of it, times, when we are going through some difficult period in our lives, some difficult experience.

[5:27] I speak at the natural level for a moment, to know that someone is thinking about us. It is a comfort of man. When we are far away from home, perhaps.

[5:42] When we are sick or in hospital. When in trouble or in need. We have loved ones.

[5:53] We have friends. And in our hearts we know that they are thinking about us. They know us. They are acquainted with us. They have a concern before us.

[6:06] And we know that their thoughts are with us. How often we say of someone who is perhaps going into hospital or going through a time of sorrow and bereavement.

[6:19] We are thinking, I'll give. I hope that is not just a light expression. But it is a help. It is a comfort. To know that someone loves, that someone cares, that someone has a spirit of compassion toward us.

[6:36] And at the human level, it can be a comfort. During the war years, away from home in a foreign land, for a very long time, it was always something of a comfort to remember that we get it.

[6:54] There was someone at home thinking of us. But then there are evidences of such hope. A letter. A visit.

[7:05] A gift. Some help. Something which expresses that the thought was not merely superficial, but real.

[7:16] And when we get a letter from a friend, when we get some help from a friend, we prove that their thought was of real concern. Their thought of us in our name.

[7:31] Then you know as well as I do that that can be a help and a comfort. But let us lift our thoughts now in another direction, because here is something which is most amazing.

[7:45] there is a God, the eternal creator and sustainer of this world and this universe, whose greatness is beyond our thought and imagination, the high and the lofty one that inhabits eternity.

[8:03] And the psalmist makes this bold, but not presumptuous claim. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon man.

[8:20] It's amazing, isn't it? That this dear servant of God should have been led into such a knowledge of his God through the experiences recorded in this song that he concludes with this statement, the Lord thinketh upon man.

[8:46] A thinking God. We have a God that thinks and thinks about his people. In Psalm 115, a marked contrast is drawn.

[9:04] Between idols and images and things that have been invented as gods, a marked contrast is drawn between them and the true God.

[9:20] Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of their hand.

[9:33] I won't go through the rest of it. I'm sure you're familiar with it. These idols of silver and gold that are utterly helpless and worthless and unable to do anything for anyone.

[9:48] But then, what does it say of Israel's God? In verse 12, the Lord hath been mindful of us. The Lord hath been mindful.

[10:02] His mind is full of us. The Lord hath been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel.

[10:14] He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear him, both small and great. I am poor and needy.

[10:25] Yes, the Lord thinketh upon me. I'm glad it's both small and great. And you will note that the word small comes first. The Lord hath been mindful of us.

[10:39] A God that thinks upon his people. A God that has them in his mind. Let us then consider for a moment the thoughts of God.

[10:56] The thoughts of God. And the first thing I would remind you of is something that you will find in Isaiah and in chapter 55 of that prophecy.

[11:10] It says this, in verse 9, in verse 8, My thoughts are not your thoughts.

[11:22] Neither are your ways my ways set the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.

[11:35] And my thoughts than your thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

[11:48] So when we contemplate the salvation statement here, the Lord thinketh upon me, he is referring to a mind and to thoughts that are high, higher than the heavens, higher than any human concept thought or imagination.

[12:09] Compare this then with the thoughts of man, again, as they are defined in the scriptures. In Psalm 94, and in verse 11, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanishing.

[12:29] The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanishing. The psalmist said, I hate their thoughts.

[12:41] And God knows the thoughts of man that they are vanishing. In Genesis, we read that every thought of man's fallen heart is only evil continually.

[12:56] It's amazing, really, that man has been given the wonderful faculty of a mind and a form and a decision and so on.

[13:13] What amazing things men are capable of doing because they have such an amazing mind. And yet, that mind is alienated from God through wicked works.

[13:30] And so we see the outworking of man's mind in folly, vanity, sin, evil imaginations and idolatry of every sort.

[13:43] And the higher man seems to rise with his professed advancement and technology the deeper he seems to fall in morality and standard of conduct.

[13:56] It's all around us, isn't it? There was never an age surely that boasted of such progress and such achievement and where man has sung to such death of depravity, testifying of the working of his mind and his nature.

[14:16] God's thoughts are higher. They are sinless thoughts. They are holy thoughts. thoughts of the eternal mind that spake these worlds into beings.

[14:28] What mind? What thought? How high that thinking is. Yet we are also told and occurring again in the psalm and the psalm 92.

[14:44] The psalmist says that in psalm 92 in verse 5 O Lord how great are thy words and thy thoughts are very deep.

[14:59] Thy thoughts are very deep. They are powerful and they are very deep thoughts. Who have known the mind of the Lord or who being his counsellor hath taught him.

[15:16] there is a depth in the divine thinking that we shall never be able to plot. We shall never be able to fully explore.

[15:29] But he whose thoughts are higher than the very heavens his thoughts are deep indeed. Who can search the land? Who can understand such is the depth of the fall of God.

[15:47] Again we are told that his thoughts are innumerable in this very psalm. Verse 5 many O Lord my God are thy wonderful works which thou have done and thy thoughts which are to us forward.

[16:06] They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee if I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbered. High deep innumerable such are the thoughts of God.

[16:26] And at this point I would lay emphasis upon this word us forward. Us forward. I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh upon me this amazing eternal mind of a giant God yet directs his thoughts his concerns he is mindful of his people his thoughts are to us for him they cannot be reckoned up in order of them they are innumerable.

[17:10] amazing isn't it? A God so great a God so powerful a God so holy can yet think upon every one of his people and everyone may know that he thinks upon them.

[17:34] I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Now these thoughts they are high they are deep they are innumerable and yet they are fully expressed.

[17:54] Turning again to the statement in Isaiah chapter 55 I would remind you of a very important matter.

[18:07] He says as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts for as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and return it not hither but water the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater so shall my word be that going forth out of my mouth it shall not return unto me void it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it men of intellect men of thought like to produce their writings publish them that others may know the nature of their thinking or ever sphere their thinking may embrace and

[19:10] God in his infinite wisdom and mercy has been pleased to reveal his poor for they don't work the first things the same soul the state and the condition of the grain on which the seed falls is known to God. But the seed is important, it is vital, it works.

[19:51] And in this word, and through this word, the mind and the thought of God to usward comes down from heaven as a manna, as a rain, as a snow from heaven.

[20:09] And so shall my word be. That's the chapter that says, O everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

[20:20] It's the chapter that says, Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon.

[20:35] Now, it's the thought of God, and not the thought of man. Human nature resents, resents, for score upon him.

[20:48] The devil would stand in the way of every poor sinner who feels his poverty, would stand in the way and raise all thoughts of objection as to why their poor soul should not be saved.

[21:02] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. These thoughts are expressed in the scriptures, and these thoughts are the very essence of the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace.

[21:26] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. And what amazing thoughts they are.

[21:37] I am sure that you have read and considered this particular psalm many times. What is it that moved David thus to make such a bold statement?

[21:54] I repeat, it's not presumption. It is a recognition of what God has done for him that has made it evident to him that this God thinks upon him.

[22:08] He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and have put a new song in my mouth, even prayed unto our God, many shall see and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

[22:34] He can only be speaking of one thing. true conversion, true salvation, regeneration, being brought from darkness into light, being brought from a state of death to a state of life.

[22:53] And this is that which prompts him to say, the Lord thinketh upon me. Many who have had no thought of God have yet been the object of his form.

[23:11] For though they took no thought of him, yet many, a careless soul, a careless sinner, has been arrested by free grace, has been called for the gospel, and will not begin to spell out or enumerate cases.

[23:28] The whole record of the church of God abounds with them, where the God whose thoughts are so high, so deep, so innumerable, has thought about this one, and thought about that one, even before he had appeared, even before he ever knew anything of him, he has thought about them, and that the appointed time has come, and made this great change, which we have read about in the verses of this psalm, and we could stay with them for the rest of the evening, couldn't we?

[24:02] But I am just trying to demonstrate what the thoughts of God are, and how they are applied. And true conversion is something which inevitably proceeds from one source, the eternal thought, the Lord thinking upon me.

[24:24] There's an election of ways. There's a land book of life. There's those that the Father gave the Son, those for whom the Son died upon the cross of Calvary, then also I must breathe.

[24:45] That is the order of Scripture. It didn't begin here. It began up there. And it began even before the world and universe had a being.

[24:58] Yet the Lord thinking upon me, I know my sheep, and I've known of mine. What a God! What a great!

[25:09] What salvation! It can't fail. It can't fail. But then, another element in the thought of God is to be seen in this song.

[25:24] And it is the person of Christ himself. Turning for a moment to the epistle to the Philippians, I'm just going to remind you of another fundamental, well-known passage of Scripture.

[25:40] let this mind, let this mind be in you, this mind, this thought, be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought, thought, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

[26:01] God. It was something he need not aspire to because he was co-equal, co-eternal with the Father.

[26:12] He did God no irreverence in that he claimed equality with the Father. I and my Father are one. I am in the Father and the Father in me.

[26:24] He that hath seen me hath seen me. The Father thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation.

[26:46] The Lord Jesus never had a proud thought in his life. He never had a sinful thought in his life. His total thought was linked with love, mercy, grace, compassion.

[26:59] That is what brought him down. Here it is in this psalm. Following on from the verse I've already reminded you of God's innuable thoughts.

[27:12] It says there, sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire my ears hast thou opened, burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

[27:25] Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart.

[27:37] I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. You have got to turn to the epistle to the Hebrews and there in the tenth chapter to find that this prophetic utterance is directly relevant to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[28:01] then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God.

[28:12] He speaks there of, he speaks there of his sufferings and his death by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

[28:25] if you would comprehend the height of God's thoughts, the depth of his thoughts, the innumerable thoughts of God, you must come again to the cross.

[28:43] You must consider the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. If you need righteousness it is the only place you will find it.

[28:56] I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation.

[29:07] I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy fruit from the great congregation. What loving kindness, what truth? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.

[29:26] He loved the church and gave himself for it. He loved thee and gave himself for me. These are the thoughts of God. Sinners caught by grace.

[29:39] Sinners led to the only source of salvation. Jesus Christ and him crucified. And such as tread that path who come that way will declare with David and know what they are saying.

[29:56] I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh upon me. But we must move to a word that is uttered by the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 29 verse 11.

[30:18] For I know the thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord. Thought of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end.

[30:33] Isn't that a wonderful demonstration? I know the thoughts that I think toward you. It's to us walk. It's thoughts that are to us walk.

[30:44] That is what amazes me. That this God so holy, so high, so just, so righteous, so perfect, should for his eternal thought think upon sinners such as you and us and that thought should be put into its fullest expression on the cross of Calvary.

[31:08] And there, you may follow on from that. I know the thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end in the margin and end with expectation.

[31:25] An end with expectation. The things that God has prepared for them that love him. I have not seen nor heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit.

[31:49] You and may wonder what the end may be for each one of us in the termination of our life here below.

[32:04] It may come in an unexpected way, as so often it does, but it is not unexpected to give you an expected end.

[32:18] You and I may wonder sometimes how the case may stand with us. There are those moments when we do ask the question, am I his or am I not?

[32:33] I know the thoughts, but I think toward you, said the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

[32:45] You know, faith rises a little at times to an expectation, an expectation, what a wonderful thing the Savior said.

[32:56] I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there he may be also.

[33:08] And all these things are in the form, the mind, the will, the purpose of God. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.

[33:26] It's personal, it covers the whole collection of grace. Now these thoughts are declared by the psalmist in the second portion we read, in Psalm 139, as being very precious.

[33:45] Psalm 139, verse 17, how precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them.

[34:03] Precious thoughts. thoughts. And all precious thoughts will be about precious things.

[34:14] To blend that believe he is precious, exceeding great and precious promises. Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation stone.

[34:30] He laid that precious stone. which is clothed himself. Jesus is precious, says the world.

[34:43] If God has given you a place in his thoughts, then you will think about him. There's a reciprocal principle in scripture.

[34:59] Chosen of him our time began, I chose him in return. the top lady. We love him because he first loved us.

[35:13] Sinners who have been eternally for all by God are sinners who, in God's appointed time, will turn and think upon him.

[35:28] Of the wicked, it is said, God is not in all his thoughts. This God of precious thoughts will make his thoughts precious to his people.

[35:47] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. I quoted to him this morning, I unashamedly quote it again, to change the heart, renew the will, and turn the feet to Zion's hell.

[36:06] God. Now, it says in the closing verses of the Old Testament, in the prophecy of Malachi, verse 16, Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord heartened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that fought upon his name, but fought upon his name.

[36:46] Those who God thinks upon with eternal love and mercy and grace, they will come to think upon him, to consider how precious his thoughts are, and his thoughts will occupy their heart and their mind, will motivate them and encourage them, for they have a God who is a thinking God, nor will any be left out, turning again to Psalm 139, it says, Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

[37:29] Now I don't think that's just his physical frame he's talking of there, I'm sure it's the mystical body of Christ, and all the members written in his book, and then he says, how precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them, grace first inscribed my name in God's eternal book, just grace that brought me to the land, who all my sorrows took, what thoughts they are.

[38:02] A word in closing, and this I would mention, which we find in the gospel according to Matthew, chapter six, verse, therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, or where with all shall we be clothed, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of, that ye have need of all these things, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you, take therefore no thought for the mother, for the mother shall take thought, for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

[39:13] You see, it says earlier, which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his structure? Why take ye for, for Raymond? You see, there's a picture here of a God who thinks upon his people both in their providential and their spiritual needs.

[39:35] Nor will he ever forget them. He will remember them through all eternity. My name from the palms of his hands, eternity cannot erase.

[39:48] grace. There we are told in marks of indelible grace. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.

[40:02] What a mercy there is such a God. And what a mercy if we know such a God. The Lord thinketh upon me.

[40:15] Amen. Amen.