Sharing Glory increases our experiences of His Glory

In Psalm 119:9-12 we find a commitment to know God, but that commitment to know is followed with a commitment to share what he learns. It incredible because the commitments of the first four verses manifest themselves in the second half. For example, in verse 11 he commits to hide God’s word in his heart, but the Word hidden in our heart won’t stay there…it must come out.

First, he says I will declare, look at verse 13, “With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.” This takes boldness! Go into a biology classand say you believe what the Bible says about creation. Go into a philosophy class and speak for the teachings of Christ. Go to a sociology class and speak of the Bible’s view of man outside of Jesus. Or go to a psychology class and speak against Freud and show a view of original sin. Or speak publically for a biblical view of marriage…do you see? It takes boldness to declare God’s truth and it takes a renewed heart to do it with love!

Second, he says I will rejoice, in verse 14, “in the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.” The word for delight here is more of an idea of rejoicing—it speaks of exuberance and of festive joy. It is what people do when their team scores a last second touchdown, but instead of rejoicing in something so temporal and trivial—he says I’ll rejoice in your Word!

We treasure the world’s possessions—families will split over perceived favoritism with inheritances, friends will divide over a few dollars, nations will battle over resources…but he says I will rejoice in your Word as much as I will in all riches. What a goal! To value the Word of God more than all the riches of this world…when we live like this—the world will take notice, but when we kill ourselves over the same things and the same goals—they will ignore us.

Third, he says I will think…to think biblically. Here may be our greatest problem—we think about the things of the world for 166 hours a week, come to church with the other hours, and wonder why we aren’t growing. “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” You can’t meditate unless you hide God’s Word in your heart!

We daydream and we fantasize on the things of the world because we fill our minds with the things of the world, but when we turn it off, open it up, and pour it in…we will begin to meditate on God and on His Word and we will find things changing. Can I plead with you one more time—devote yourself to learning to think about the things of God and when you do get ready for a battle!

Just as soon as you start…the enemy will attack you with every possible thought and lust. You have to store God’s Word in your heart and then as you treasure it you’ll find yourself thinking about it…pondering it…meditating on it…and it will begin to come alive. “Blessed is the man who walks…stands…sits, but his delight is in the law of the LORD and on His law he meditates day and night.” This is that…that is this!

One thing about Yosemite is that people who have been there want others to know about it and spend time telling others and sharing with others what they saw. Why is that? Let me close with a quote from CS Lewis that I think will help,

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . . The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

So, in the telling others about the God we love, we bring Him more glory, but we also grow in our love for Him!