In the third stanza of Psalm 119 we move from the prayer for favor and illumination, he prays for guidance in verse 19, “I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me.” We are all sojourners, we are all pilgrims…none of us are home here on earth…we are just passing through.

The old song, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks, the first line says, “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possession lie, I am bound for the promised land, I am bound for the promised land, O who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land.” Do we see ourselves at home here? Or do we see ourselves as citizens of Heaven? A sojourner isn’t home until he or she is in Heaven.

If we are sojourners—we need guidance and the One from whom we need it is the One who made us, called us, saved us, and knows all things…He knows the plans He has for us…we must seek Him in His Word to find the things He has planned for us since before the world began…that is where God’s favor is found…in His presence and in His Word!

He prays for favor, for illumination, for guidance, and now he expresses from his heart, “My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.” What consumes us? What fills our longings? The Psalmist is consumed with longing for God’s rules…for God’s Word, for God’s way. This means he is consumed with God and wants to please Him. Not some of the time, but all of the time.

This is Christianity! Jesus told us to “Seek first the Kingdom of God.” When we claim to be followers of Jesus and yet seek first the world what does that sayabout our claim? When we claim to be followers of Jesus and yet seek first our own desires, our own wants, and our own comfort…what does that say about our claim? To be a follower of Jesus is to be consumed with Him, to delight in Him, to want Him above everything else. The whole stream of desire is found here—consumed with longing for Him all of the time.

Please, let the writer speak to you…let him help you evaluate your own heart.

Why do you want favor? Is it so that you can be obedient?

What do you look for in the Word? Do you look for wondrous things? He will have to open your eyes to see it.

Do you see yourself as a sojourner on earth or do you feel at home here? A sojourner looks for guidance…do you?

Finally, what is it that you are consumed with…it is it God or the world?I love that the writer speaks in the midst of persecution…this isn’t pie in the sky religion…this is the heart of a man living with the struggles we face.

Yesterday we saw the psalmist praying for favor, then, in verse 18, he prays for illumination. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” We will never know the truth of God’s law until He opens our eyes. This has been the theme of every stanza:

verse 7, “I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules,”

verse 12, “Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!”

We will see it again and again…it’s the truth of Scripture…there are wondrous things in God’s Word and we need His Spirit to see them. We are by nature blind to them, we are deaf to them, but the Spirit opens our eyes, our ears, and our hearts, and we see…it is Numbers 22 when Balaam’s donkey sees the angel, but he doesn’t, and verse 31 says, “Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way.”

It is 2 Kings 6:17, “Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So, the LORD opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

It’s Saul on the way to Damascus—leaving physically blind for a while but seeing Jesus as the only way. If you are saved it is because Jesus opened your eyes, and if you and I are to understand a living and active book we must have Him open our eyes to the wondrous things that are there. They are wondrous because they reveal a wondrous God. Make it your daily prayer—O God, “open my eyes that I may behold the wondrous things out of your Law!”

There will be times when all seems dark and growing darker…I took this picture the other night because I just liked the way the leaves looked against the sky, but as I kept looking I noticed, it’s hard to see in the picture unless you blow it up, that beyond the darkness was the North Star. The Word of God is our North Star…keep looking toward it!

In his book, A Little Book on the Christian Life, John Calvin said,

“Our lust in furious and our greed limitless in pursuing wealth and honors, chasing after power, heaping up riches, and gathering all those vain things which seem to give us grandeur and glory.”

We chase the world and sell our souls for what the world says we need, but all the while the Word of God speaks to us of true blessing, of true abundance, and of true joy.

I believe Psalm 119 is an exposition of Psalm 1 and that is certainly true in the third stanza. Psalm 1 speaks of the blessed man and the wicked man and here we see those same two people personified before us.

First, notice the blessed man in his personal prayer that comes from the heart. It is found in verses 17-20.

What we have is the Psalmist laying out his prayer in the midst of persecution and trouble. Look at his prayer. First, it is a prayer for favor, “Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your Word.” In the Garden, Satan deceived Adam and Eve by telling them that true joy would come from disobedience, but here we find just the opposite.

He is asking God for favor…many speak of favor in terms of worldly possessions…prosperity gospel preachers asking for his people to help him get a multi-million dollar jet for his own personal use…that’s his idea of favor, but the Psalmist wants God’s favor so that he can keep God’s Word. Do you see it? He knows that true abundance comes from obedience. When we discover this truth, it will revolutionize our lives!

When we seek to keep God’s Word we will find that He will deal bountifully with us…His favor comes by grace, but we experience it through obedience. We do not reward our children for disobedience…do we? How can expect God to reward disobedience? He blesses obedience, so the Psalmist prays for God’s favor…and the more favor he has the more he will obey and the more he obeys the more favor he experiences.

Jesus spoke of the anxiety we face over stuff and said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” He then goes on to say look at the birds, look at the flowers of the field, God cares for them and He will care for you. Isn’t that favor?

Let’s go back to the CS Lewis quote I ended with yesterday,

“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.”

We share what delights us, don’t we? Grandparents will bring out a picture of their grandchild before you can blink…I know, I’m one of them. Why is that? Because we delight in them. As we close out this section of Psalm 119, I think we have to really consider the level of delight we have in God.

The psalmist says I will delight, in verse 14, “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.” The pleasures that come from a renewed heart will be a settled delight in God’s Word.

You’ll want to hear it,

you’ll want to read it,

you’ll want to memorize it,

you’ll want to meditate on it,

you’ll want to study it,

you’ll want to hear it taught,

you’ll want to teach it.

Luther’s church pastors preached on Sunday at 5 am on one of Paul’s letters, then again at 10am with a sermon from a Gospel, then an afternoon message from the OT or catechism, then he preached again on Mon. and Tues. on the catechism, Wed. on Matthew, Thursday and Friday on Paul’s letter again, and Sat. on the Gospel of John…today’s church is full on Sunday morning, a quarter of that crowd shows up in the evening, and half of that shows up on Wed.

I’m not suggesting that we go back to that schedule, but shouldn’t we devote more time to the study of God’s Word with the people of God?

Delight in God’s Word will impact the books you read, the things you watch, the things you listen to…it will impact your conversation, your thoughts, and your actions. The Word of God is God’s Word and should be our delight because it is a letter from Him. He delighted in it so he said, “I will not forget your word.”

I have a short attention span when someone is telling me something my brain does not register as important and so do you. When God’s Word is valued and when we delight in it…

we will do whatever it takes to remember it.

We will guard our lives by it,

we will seek it wholeheartedly,

we will hide it in our hearts,

we will ask God to teach us so we can understand it,

we will rejoice in it,

we will meditate on it,

we will fix our eyes on it,

and we will do it because it leads us to Him!

Do you see it? When we value Him above all else—we will value His Word because it is only in His Word that we can know Him.

Let me make it personal. Eight years ago, I sat in a hospital beside my dying mother. I didn’t think about Auburn, about money, about politics, about meetings at church, or anything else…I thought about people—the people I loved the most, I thought about Heaven, I thought about Glory, and I thought about relationships.

When it looked like Mom was going to be gone within a few days…everyone was gathered and when our family gathers it is loud…everyone finally left and it was just me and mom…I took out this living Word and read it to my dying mother…she wasn’t responsive, but I just felt like she could hear me…I read Revelation 4 and 5, I read Isaiah 6, and then I read Psalm 23 and as I read I thought about what her blue eyes would soon see.

I drove home late that night…I turned off the radio and thought about the things of God, about eternity, and I prayed for God’s mercy—the mercy to let her come Home and to suffer no more. God was merciful and answered that request the next morning.

It’s moments like that, that cause you to reflect on wasted time, wasted energy, and wasted effort…let’s not waste another moment:

let’s take moments to turn off this world,

to open up God’s Word,

and let’s pour it in—so that as we go back into this world we can make an eternal difference.

I find the Instagram/Tiktok world to just be proof of what the psalmist said and of what CS Lewis said. I watched people taking photos at Yosemite. Climbing on rocks, posing, and looking at the picture intently. ((As the father of four daughters I’ve learned to simply not be the one who takes their picture!)). I’m not claiming to be superior to them, but I took pictures of the scene and the beauty while it seemed that many were taking pictures that focused more on them being there. Why?

For some, pictures are taken because we want to remember the beauty and share it. For others, it can be a self focus, look at me…I’m here! I never know what the person is thinking, but I do laugh because it is a habit of people from all walks of life and from all nations.

I just want to close by pleading with you and myself…let’s get the attention on God and His beauty. I was at Glacier Point last week, trying to get to a place to take a picture, and as I walked about 15 feet I heard three different languages. It dawned on me, people came from all over the world to see beauty. Church, would the world be more interested in Jesus if we simply made His beauty known?

The picture today is simply called “The Tunnel View.” You come through the tunnel and this what is before you. It’s Yosemite Valley with El Capitan on the left, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls on your right. I remember the first time I saw it…it was breathtaking. Last week, we drove through that tunnel five times in five days and it was breathtaking every single time.

Morning after morning as I read the psalms God’s Word takes my breath away. I do this blog simply because I want others to see His glory and share it.

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!

In Psalm 119:9 we find a question, “How,” we find an answer, “By,” and we find a secret that we looked at yesterday, “guarding it according to you word.” I want to continue in this by looking the means, “I have stored up your word in my heart.” Boice said here we find:

the best thing—God’s Word,

the best place—our heart,

and the best purpose—so that I won’t sin.

The means of sinless-ness is fueling the Spirit of God within us with the Word of God. You cannot walk in holiness and purity apart from the Word of God. To hide God’s Word in your heart is to treat it like a treasure…you guard it, you hold it, and you bury it deep inside and you enjoy it. Listen, this is nothing short of memorization. When we value God’s Word we pour it into our lives. I think this is one of the reason he spoke to young men in verse 9—young men and women memorize easier, but none of us are exempt.

How much of the Word of God is hidden in your heart? If you suddenly found yourself without your Bible and had no access—how much of it could you recall? Not memorizing the Word is sin…it leads to other sin. Maybe that’s why find so few sold out, wholehearted followers of Jesus—we are too lazy to hide God’s Word in our hearts.

The means is memorization and the goal is “that I might not sin against you.” Joseph was tempted by his master’s wife…he said, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God.” How did he know it was sin? God’s Word was in his heart. When Jesus was tempted—He said, “It is written.” We must treat the Word of God as God’s Word…and we must keep it specifically and diligently. Your goal is purity and that involves not sinning. Not, not sinning less; not, not sinning just a little, and not, not sinning less than your neighbor, but not sinning at all…that’s the goal we must seek. Jesus said, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Father said, “Be holy because I am holy.” That’s the goal!

He follows this with praise in verse 12, “Blessed are you, O LORD,” and then the request, “teach me your statutes.” We will see this all the way through this great Psalm. To know God’s Word means we must have God as our Teacher. You can’t know God apart from His Word and you can’t know God’s Word apart from His Holy Spirit. This is a living and active book and we need a living and active God to teach us. He must open our eyes, our hearts, and our ears so that we can understand it. The psalmist is committed to know…are we?

How do we know God? Yesterday we found that it starts with guarding our lives according the Word of God. Psalm 119:9 gives us a question, “How,” and then an answer, “By,” but this morning I want to move to the secret,

“With my whole heart I seek you.”

Halfhearted commitment, halfhearted belief, halfhearted anything accomplishes nothing. The secret to purity is to commit yourself wholeheartedly to the things of God. Anything less than that isn’t Christianity. But notice the sequence…we don’t start by trying to keep all the outward rules…we start by guarding our lives inwardlyand that inward commitment will lead to outward obedience.

We must form good habits, we must form positive disciplines, and we must center our lives around those things. Last week I said, no one accidently obeys—if you fail to plan you plan to fail and the same is true spiritually. We must discipline ourselves to wholeheartedly seek God…that means everything is included…

we watch what we watch,

we limit what we listen to,

we simply learn to turn off the world,

open up the Word,

and pour the Word into our lives.

You can’t expect to wholeheartedly seek God and the things of the world at the same time. Something has to give and far too many times we give away the spiritual and pursue the world and in doing so we seek God halfheartedly instead of wholeheartedly.

He seeks God with a whole heart because he does not want to wander from God’s commandments. He wants to be pure and holy so he sets his life toward that goal.

The question and answer, the secret, and then the means, “I have stored up your word in my heart.” Boice said here we find:

the best thing—God’s Word,

the best place—our heart,

and the best purpose—so that I won’t sin.

The means of sinless-ness is fueling the Spirit of God within us with the Word of God. You cannot walk in holiness and purity apart from the Word of God. To hide God’s Word in your heart is to treat it like a treasure…you guard it, you hold it, and you bury it deep inside and you enjoy it. Listen, this is nothing short of memorization. When we value God’s Word we pour it into our lives. I think this is one of the reason he spoke to young men in verse 9—young men and women memorize easier, but none of us are exempt.

How much of the Word of God is hidden in your heart? If you suddenly found yourself without your Bible and had no access—how much of it could you recall? Not memorizing the Word is sin…it leads to other sin. Maybe that’s why find so few sold out, wholehearted followers of Jesus—we are too lazy to hide God’s Word in our hearts.

Last week Kim and I enjoyed a week driving and walking around Yosemite. One of my favorite places is Glacier Point. There on that point I noticed sheer rock, but flowing over it was the source of life for everything below. Sometimes I find the Word of God just flowing into my soul and at other times I find my life hard and barren, but at that time I find the Word of yesterday flowing into my hardship today. Pour into the Word and let it pour into you.

Yesterday we started looking at Psalm 119: 9-16, and today we find the author committing himself to do two things.

First, in verses 9-12, we find a Commitment to Know.

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart, I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!”

How committed are we to know God? I think a good place to start is where he starts in verse 9…he starts with the question, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” The world tells the young people to go and live, to sow their wild oats, to experiment, and to come back to the things of God when your old and have nothing left to do…it is as if we believe true happiness comes only from indulging the flesh, but the Word of God says just the opposite because it knows the things of the world will not satisfy...the Word wants us to start following God as young as possible and to continue until He calls us Home. That’s where abundance is found.

Parents, I think we are going to have to reconsider how we educate our children…we’ve dumbed it down…in the schools and in the church. In the Church, we’ve exchanged the teaching of theology and doctrine and the expectation of memorization and meditation for trivia, games, and entertainment. If David Livingstone could memorize this Psalm by the age of 9…what can our own children do…and what can we do?

The question, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” How much time do you ponder on the idea of keeping yourself and your children pure? If we are to know a holy God—you and I are going to have to spend some time thinking about that question.

The Psalmist gives us the answer, “By guarding it according to your word.” In Leviticus, this same word speaks of how we repent and make atonement for our sin and how we live a life that pleases God. We must guard our lives—we can’t just do whatever the flesh wants to do…we must discipline ourselves as an athlete disciplines his or her body…we must not be squeezed into the world’s mold, but we must be transformed by the Word of God. We will see more about this over the rest of the week.

Last week I shared that in many ways this Psalm is an outline of Psalm 1. It really does come back to “Blessed is the man who…delights in the law of the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water…”

Last week Kim and I walked among the giant sequoias. They drink over 500 gallons of water every day in the summer! How do they get that kind of water in a land that is often arid? Much of it comes from the snow melt…they are enjoying now what the snow of yesterday provides. I want to urge you to pour the Word into your heart for NOW, but also for the summer droughts that come.

The picture above is of a sequoia that is between 2,000-3,000 years old. It was living when Jesus walked the earth! Think of the times of plenty and the times of drought this tree. It’s no wonder it is called the Grizzly Giant. Let’s be giants of the Word of God.

Last week we began our study of this incredible Psalm. In the first 8 verses, we saw the blameless or blessed man…today I want you to see the holy and pure man. Luther said this about our Psalm,

“In this Psalm David always says that he will speak, think, talk, hear, read day and night continually—but about nothing else than God’s Word and Commandments. For God wants to give you His Spirit only through the external Word.”

Jesus prayed that the Father would sanctify us in truth and then He said—Your word is truth. It is here, unlike any other place in the Bible, that we are taught that we cannot come to God unless we come through His Word. The Psalmist speaks about God in every single verseand in almost every verse he also speaks of God’s Word. Do not lose sight of what he says about God’s Word…in verse 9 it is ‘your Word,’ in verse 10 they are ‘your commandments,’ and in verse 12 they are ‘your statutes,’ and on he goes…this Word we study is God’s Word—these words are letters from Heaven speaking to us here on earth showing us how we can know our Creator.

In verses 1-8 we found the blessed man, the knowledgeable man, and the determined man.Here in verses 9-16, we find that same man committing himself to do two things.

First, in verses 9-12, we find a Commitment to Know.

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart, I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!”

Let’s pick up here tomorrow, but let me close…how committed are you to knowing the Word of God? Do you read it? Do you study it? Do you memorize and meditate? Do you spend time reading other’s thoughts about it? How committed are we? Pick it up and read it and get to know its Author!

So, we move from the blameless man, to the knowledgeable man, and finally, to the determined man.“I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me!” I love the fact that he sets the bar high…there is no sense of, “Well, we all sin,” or “Nobody is perfect;” he knows he isn’t perfect, but he speaks of being blameless and now upright.

The determined man is shown through his resolution. “I will praise you with an upright heart,” and “I will keep your statutes.” He is resolved to worship…knowledge of God should lead us to worship God...to praise God. He is resolved to be blameless and takes the necessary steps to get there. Are we resolved to be the men and women God calls us to be?

His resolution leads to his confession. I love this, “I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules.” I think there is a confession here…God, I can’t do it unless you teach me. I can’t praise you, I can’t be blameless, I can’t walk in your ways, unless you teach me your righteous rules.

We will see this over and over again…look at verses 25-29, “give me,” “teach me,” “make me,” strengthen me,” and “teach me.” He knows that God must move in his heart. Don’t ever be afraid to ask God to help you grow in Him, to help you understand His Word, and to help you to be holy. He will move mountains to get you there.

He closes with a plea, “I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me!” I think this is like what the Psalmist said in 103:14, “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” God, I am seeking to obey you, but remember I am just a man, please, if you will teach me I will keep your statutes, but until I learn…do not utterly forsake me.

I’m so thankful that God has promised to never leave us or forsake us, but I also hope we never take that for granted. We must seek to be blameless, we must seek to be knowledgeable, and we must be determined to be holy…and when we do…we will be blessed…we will be happy, and full of joy and peace unlike the world has ever experienced.

How do we do it? Let me give you four things—

(1) commit to read the Word of God every day,

(2) commit to study the Word of God every day,

(3) commit to properly interpreting the Word of God,

(4) and commit to apply the Word of God to everything in your everyday life.

From the blameless man we come to verses 4-6 and we find the Knowledgeable Man. Notice, he directly addresses God in verse 4, “You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.”

Three words for God’s Word,

precepts—these are detailed instructions,

statutes—these have the binding force of permanence because they are God’s statutes,

commandments—straight authority of what is said because of the One saying it. We have to know what God’s Word says because in the Word we find Him and we find life.

The knowledgeable man is a man who is aware of God’s commands. He knows what God has commanded and he knows the commandments must be kept. God’s commandments have never been optional…the very nature of the word commandment shows this to be true.

Second, he desires to keep God’s commands. Look at verse 5, “Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.” He yearns to desire to desire obedience…he yearns to do it steadfastly…not just to get him out of a bind, but as his lifestyle…he is looking for long term endurance in keeping God’s Word.

We are eternal beings and we have to thinking eternally. We can’t seek momentary obedience for momentary blessing…we must look for steadfast obedience for eternal blessing. He knows he isn’t there, but he says, “Oh that my ways may be steadfast…” Do you desire this kind of obedience?

And then we find the knowledgeable man not only desires, but decides to keep God’s commands. Verse 6, “Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.” We live in a world where the supposed ‘elites’ look down on those who would actually believe the Word of God, believe in God, and certainly, allow the Word to dictate how we are supposed to live what they are to think.

Don’t ever be ashamed of the Word of God…it is God’s Word and when man goes against the Word of God man is always wrong…even if the whole world disagrees. I know that sounds egotistical, but we have to have the mindset of Athanasius, a bishop in the early church. He stood opposed to the teaching of Arius, suffered through 5 exiles, and finally stood before the emperor who asked, “Do you not realize that the world is against you?” He answered, “Then Athanasius is against the world.” When you clearly know God’s Word—you can have that kind of confidence and you must decide to keep His commandments…fix your eyes on the commandments and keep them. Notice, “having my eyes fixed on all your commandments,” not just the ones that are convenient, not just the ones that we like, but all. Fix your eyes…like a runner in a race looking toward the finish line…set your eyes on Him and run with all you have even if you are running alone, but you’ll never be alone…He will always be with you.

Last time I introduced Psalm 119, and closed with these words, What I want you to see is that this entire Psalm is a detailed exposition of Psalm 1:1-2, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” This entire Psalm explains those two verses! So, let’s start with the Blameless Man,“Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.”

The blameless man is a blessed man. We all want to be happy, but the enemy tries to convince us that happiness comes outside of God. The psalmist says happiness comes from living a holy life before God. Notice it is the law of the LORD, they are His testimonies, and it is His ways. This is centered on God and finding God through His Word. In these first three verses, we find three things about the life of a blameless man.

First, his way, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless.” The word blessed speaks of being ‘happy, happy,’ but it goes beyond our earthly ideas of happiness. It speaks of overflowing delight, of deep seated joy, and of supreme satisfaction. That comes from a way that is directed by God’s Word.

That implies something…it implies that we will know God’s way. We can’t know it if we don’t set our hearts to study His Word. That is where He reveals His way to us. His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always right.

The world says happiness comes from doing whatever you want to do…think for a moment in terms of sexuality…which seems to dominate our culture. The Word tells us that sex is reserved for one man and one woman in marriage. The world says that is oppressive and yet people who seek to live like the animal world deal with guilt, shame, and depression—even when they are free to do it…true happiness comes from following the ways of God. We must know His way and follow His way if we are to be blessed.

But then he talks about his walk which would be the life lived in the way of God. Look at the end of verse 2, Who walk in the law of the LORD. And then at the end of verse 3, “Who walk in His ways.” This is practical living…it is a way of life…it is a matter of obedience. We live our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit as we walk in His ways and the ways, lined out for us in His Word.

His way, his walk, and then in verses 2 and 3, his will. “Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do not wrong, but walk in His ways!” To be obedient is to set your mind to be obedient. It is to determine that you will be a follower of God. It is rare that we accidently obey…you know the old saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That is true in our spiritual walk. We must make plans…we must set our will on Him. It is the idea of Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.”

Or how about Romans 8, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

The man or woman who will be blameless will be the man or woman who know God’s way, who walk in God’s way, and who set their will to obey God’s way. That’s the blameless man.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this, “Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look,

and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Determine to look for God’s way, ask for help, and when you find it walk in it!

As you know Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible…176 verses, longer than 30 other books in the Bible, and it is absolutely devoted to God and to the Word God has given us. Make no mistake…Psalm 119 is devoted to God first, His name shows up in every verse. It is also devoted to how we can know Him through His Word.

The Psalm uses 10 different words to describe the Word of God…seven of them are found in the first 8 verses…law, testimonies, ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, and rules. You’ll find the most common in verse 9, the word, and it also speaks of promises and judgments.

This Psalm will lead you to God’s Word, but most of all it will lead you to God Himself. It can literally save your life. Boice tells the story of a Bishop who was sentenced to death…he was on the scaffolds and as was customary in that day, they asked him to pick a Psalm to be sung…he picked this one and before they were two thirds of the way through it his pardon arrived!

Henry Martyn was a great missionary who memorized this psalm,

William Wilberforce who was instrumental in abolishing slavery once wrote, “Walked today from the Hyde Park Corner, repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort,

and David Livingstone recited it by memory at the age of 9! It would do us all a great benefit to hide these words in our hearts so that we will not sin against God.

I have no plans on walking through the entire Psalm, but I would like to look at a few of the stanzas for the next few weeks. It is an acrostic psalm and it is an amazing piece of literature…the first 8 verses start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second 8 verses begin with the second letter, and it continues like that for all 22 verses of the Hebrew alphabet. We are not told the author, but there many guesses—David, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and even Daniel…if I were to guess I would go with Ezra simply because it does seem to be a psalm written after the Babylonian destruction of the Temple and because he was such a student of the Word of God, but ultimately, we can just say the Holy Spirit gave it to us through the pen of a man who knew God and who knew His Word.

This morning I simply want to point out one thing and then we will spend the week looking at verses 1-8. Psalm 119 is a detailed exposition of Psalm 1:1-2,

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

This entire Psalm explains those two verses! So, let’s start tomorrow with the Blameless Man, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.”

Psalm 135 closes with a Repeated Reminder to Praise, “O house of Israel, bless the LORD! O house of Aaron, bless the LORD! O house of Levi, bless the LORD! You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD! Bless the LORD from Zion, he who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the LORD!” It ends as it begins—Praise the LORD.

He calls upon Israel, He calls upon the priests and the Levites, he calls upon the nations…all should praise the LORD!

Praise Him for He can see,

He can speak,

He can hear,

He can save,

He is living,

He is loving,

and He is good.

Praise Him and don’t rest until everyone joins you!

William Temple said, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

I love that quote…focus on the holiness of God as He has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture, feed the mind with that truth, let the picture of God in the Word purge your mind so that you think thoughts that please Him, and open up to the goodness and love of God and praise Him.

Let me close with these suggestions—praise Him more fervently than you praise anything or anyone else,

Praise Him continually—make it as natural as breathing,

Praise him publicly—don’t be ashamed,

Praise Him privately,

And praise Him now because if you are His child you’ll do it eternally…shouldn’t we get a head start?

Let’s continue our walk through Psalm 135 and the reasons to praise God. The psalmist gives us six reasons: first, praise Him because He is good; praise Him because He first loved us; third, praise Him because He is sovereign; fourth, praise Him because He is our Savior. He continues in verses 13-14 tell us to praise Him because He endures forever, “Your name, O LORD, endures forever, your renown, O LORD, throughout all the ages. For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants.” The God of the OT is the God of the NT. The promise keeping God is still keeping promises. The God who watches over His people watches over us. The story of Israel is our story…it is the churches story…that’s our eternal and enduring God. Praise Him for He endures forever, and He vindicates and has compassion!

Finally, praise Him because of the impact it has on you. That might surprise you, but look at verses 15-18, “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in them.” Spurgeon told the story of John Thomas, a missionary to India. He noticed a large group of people gathered at the door of a temple, and as soon as the doors opened they piled in and he joined them. An idol was set before the people and Thomas went to the front and raised his hands for silence.

He touched the eyes and said, ‘It has eyes, but cannot see!”

then the ears, ‘It has ears, but cannot hear,’

‘It has a nose, but it cannot smell,’

‘it has hands, but it cannot handle,’

‘it has a mouth but cannot speak, neither is there any breath in it.’

At the moment he fully expected to be rushed upon and killed an old Brahmin was convicted and said, “It has feet, but cannot run away.” The entire crowd felt shame and left the temple.

Our idols seem a little more sophisticated don’t they…they come in the form of bank accounts, homes, cars, teams, sports, hobbies, and people…but none of it will lead us to praise the God of this psalm. The impact of our worship is found in verse 18, “Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.” You and I will become like that which we worship. If too much time around a person changes you for the worse, too much time around an event…you have an idol on your hands. Worship God! Be like Him!

Yesterday we looked at the first two verses of Psalm 135 and the call to praise God, but let’s continue to look at the rest of the psalm. In verses 3-18 we are given the reason to praise the LORD. He gives us six reasons.

Verse 3, “Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to His name, for it is pleasant!” Notice the little word “for.” It gives us the first reason and in it helps us throughout this section. We praise God because He is good.

In the Garden, Satan came to Adam and Eve and tempted them along these very lines…you won’t surely die, God knows that if you eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you’ll be just like Him. He is holding out on you, He is trying to keep you down, He isn’t being good to you…we’ve swallowed that line ever since.

The beginning of praise is to know the goodness of God. God is good…all the time; all the time…God is good. We don’t always see the goodness of every action…we are not omniscient, we don’t see the eternal ramifications of what He is doing, but we must start here…praise God from whom all blessings flow. Every good and perfect gift you have is from above…praise God because He is good.

Notice, it is pleasant when you do this. It is pleasant to praise God…if you are walking without joy or happiness…start by praising Him and reminding yourself of His goodness and the good things He has done.

Second, we praise God because He first loved you. That’s what John says in 1 John 4:19, “We love God because He first loved us.” In verse 4, “For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as His own possession.” Paul uses this same logic in Romans…why Jacob? God chose Jacob over his brother Esau while they were still in the womb…before they had done anything good or bad. They had the same parents—it wasn’t like Ismael and Isaac. Jacob was the younger of the two—the older was supposed to be the chosen son. Why Jacob? It is the mystery of God…but Deuteronomy 7:6-8 takes up the idea of God choosing the entire nation…, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

God’s choice was a choice of love and grace and it is left within the mystery of His own decisions but make no mistake just as God chose them—the NT says He chose you and that is a humbling thing of which should constantly be a matter of praise from your lips. Praise Him for He is good. Praise Him for He first loved you.

Third, praise Him for He is sovereign. Look at verses 5-7, “For I know that the LORD is great, and that our LORD is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.” Simply put…the fact that God is sovereign means He is on the Thone and He is in charge. That is a matter worthy of our praise…especially when we consider that this comes after the first two.

Imagine a God fully sovereign who isn’t good. Imagine a God fully sovereign who doesn’t love. But imagine a good and loving God on the Throne moving this world toward His own purposes. Look no further than the exercise of His providence as he moved from man’s first sin to the cross and ultimately to the New Heaven and the New Earth. His sovereignty is a reason for great praise…He is the King, we are in His kingdom, and His kingdom is advancing.

Fourth, praise Him because He is our Savior. In verses 8-12, the psalmist takes us from Egypt to the Promised Land. Verse 4 took us back to God’s choosing of Jacob—Jacob’s 12 sons made up the Tribes of Israel. They would eventually go to Egypt where God had already sent Joseph to rescue them. 400 years later God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt, that’s verses 8-9, then in verses 10-11 we have God moving in them to strike down and judge the pagan nations, and in verse 12 we find God bringing them to the land He promised Abraham. God saved them and provided for them and that is worthy of praise.

God took Abram by the hand and called him, Abram obeyed, and God gave him a son by the name of Isaac. Isaac had twins sons—Esau and Jacob—God chose Jacob and through him God provided the 12 Tribes…the land God promised was delivered…God saved His people.

God saves us…He is good, He is loving, He is sovereign in our lives, and He redeems us…that is worthy of our praise! Many of these same examples are repeated in Psalm 136 and every single verse repeats this line, “for His steadfast love endures forever.”

Come back tomorrow and we will look at the other reasons to praise Him!

Yesterday I spoke of praising God in the dark…in the hard times, but I was again reminded of the need to praise Him continually in the last of the five psalms I read today. In Psalm 135 we find such a call to praise.

Calvin said, “The World is a theatre for the display of the divine…and the Church is the orchestra!” I love that thought…God created this world to display His glory and the center point of His creation was man and woman…we were created to bear His image, to worship Him, to show His glory in our actions, to praise His glory in our words, and to sing of His glory and to love Him with all that we have, but we fell and we constantly need to be reminded to praise the LORD!

That’s what we find here in verses 1-2, The Reminder to Praise.

Praise the LORD!

Praise the name of the LORD,

give praise, O servants of the LORD,

who stand in the house of the LORD,

in the courts of the house of our God!

What a shame that we have to be reminded. Plummer said,

“It is a sad fact and affords proof of a very fearful alienation from God that inspired men call upon us so often to do this work, to which we are criminally indisposed. Surely the holy creatures in heaven require no such perpetual call this this work.”

And yet we must be constantly reminded to “praise the LORD.”

Three times in these verses the psalmist says, “Praise the LORD! Praise the name of the LORD, give praise,” the three-time repeated word is the root of the word hallelujah, but it what does that mean. Ultimately, the idea of praising God is to boast in God, to brag on God, to make much of Him. What is the central focus of your boasting?

Audit your life…your Social Media, your Money, your Thought Life…what is the central focus of your boasting? Is it a team? Is it pleasure? Is it politics? Or is it centered in the true reason for praise? Is God the center of your praise? Is He the center of your decisions, your thoughts, your love, your life? That’s the call we find here in our psalm and it will be repeated over and over again throughout the rest of the book…praise the LORD…give praise to Him. We praise Him…we boast of who He is, and we boast of what He has done. We boast of what He is doing, and we boast of what He has promised to do. That’s the reminder…praise the LORD.

Do you fear the dark? I’m not really talking about the “night” as much as I mean the “dark night of the soul.” The times when you simply don’t feel the presence of God; the times when we feel less Psalm 23 and more Psalm 88!

Consider something, God made the light of day, but He also made the dark of night. Listen to Psalm 104:19-20,

“He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about.”

We love the hour of sunrise…the light comes in the eastern sky, the birds celebrate a new day, but I sat outside last night. The day choir of bird choruses was resting, but my ears were full…in fact it was louder than the daytime…it was time for the night choir sing.

We often focus on the Day Choir…the birds singing, the wind blowing in the trees, all praising our Maker, but the volume of the Night Choir is simply…loud. Katydids, crickets, cicadas, frogs, and the occasional owl…they too all sing for the glory of their Creator.

As I sat there last night, I thought about how we often view our lives…when darkness comes: depression, hardship, grief, we often forget the call to continually praise our King. But it would seem the insects teach us a lesson…when the darkness comes the time to praise is NOW!

Maybe the lightning bugs are a good reminder of what John said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Trust the Providence of God in the day and night and worship Him.

I have to show you one more thing from Psalm 95. The summons, the warning, but notice the Savior. Notice verse 1, “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” Who is the rock of our salvation? When Moses brought water from the rock after they grumbled at Massah and Meribah, he stood at the rock of Horeb, struck it with his staff and water flowed. What is amazing is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:1ff, “For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

That’s another blog all by itself, but their salvation was our salvation…it is Jesus. God swore in His wrath that they would not enter His rest…that rest was the Promise Land, but the book of Hebrews won’t allow us to keep Psalm 95 to the past…we must apply it to us today…what’s our rest. It is Heaven. How can we enter Heaven? In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

He alone gives rest for our soul because He alone can take us to the Father’s rest through His death, burial, and resurrection. But before I close let me pick back up where Paul left off in 1 Corinthians 10.

“Nevertheless, with most of them (the one’s that grumbled) God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not do evil as they did.” He then went on to talk about idolatry, sexual immorality, and putting Christ to the test by grumbling. He said, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape.”

Church, we must hear the summons, heed the warning, and seek the Savior and as we remember His beauty and see it in the Word we worship Him and sin loses its temptation…if we don’t we are in danger of being hardened in our hearts and there will be no rest for our souls.

As we walk through Psalm 95 we come a transition. The transition of the second half of verse 7 and leading into verse 8 is jarring…there is a clash here because we move from the summons to the warning. In verses 7-9 David goes back to Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. The people of Israel saw God move in mighty ways, but they were always prone to grumble. They grumbled against God and against Moses. Meribah was the word for dispute, and Massah was the word for testing. That summed up the wilderness wanderings where the people hardened their hearts—they heard God’s Word, but refused to obey…ultimately it cost them the promised land and they all died in the wilderness and it was their children who crossed over and conquered. They saw the work of God, but tested Him and refused to obey.

In verse 11, God adamantly said, “Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” We could easily think that was for them, but David takes his readers back to the wanderings and 1,000 years later the writer of Hebrews takes his readers back to the wanderings, and 2,000 years after that all three, Moses, David, and the writer of Hebrews take us back to the wanderings.

Let me sum it up—don’t just listen—obey. They heard God’s voice, but refused to obey. Last week I spoke of the availability of God’s Word to this generation…don’t just listen to it obey it!

Then, don’t test God—trust God. That’s the message of verse 9. Let me give you a quick run-down of what the people of Israel saw…

They plundered the Egyptians as they left,

God split the Red Sea and they passed on dry ground while God wiped out the army pursuing them,

they came to Marah and couldn’t drink the water—they grumbled against Moses and God cleaned the water and they drank,

they grumbled about bread and God gave them manna,

and then in chapter 17 they again grumbled about the lack of water…God had just provided and He did it again and again…this time by having Moses strike a rock and water flowed. Trust God—don’t test God.

Then, from that let me say, don’t grumble—embrace the grind. I first heard that phrase from Ray Lewis, a LB in the NFL…embrace the grind…it won’t always be easy, but God is using the hard times to shape you and mold you. The hard times make you more like Jesus! Embrace the grind!

Don’t whine—worship. The people of Israel were professional whiners…they cried and grumbled and whined against God and Moses over and over again. Every time I think, “Why does God put up with them?” I am reminded, He puts up with us! Don’t be like that…when difficult times come worship. Grow through it and remember what we said in verses 1-7—rejoice. You do that by getting to know God, by knowing His ways, and by avoiding His wrath through obedience.

Are you worshipping or whining right now? Turn the whine into worship…you won’t always feel like it, but our feeling has nothing to do with our call to worship. Worship through the hard times, worship through the valleys, and trust Him.

As we make our way through Psalm 95 we are letting David teach us to worship. We come rejoicing and we come remembering, but we also come reverently. He is God you know! Verse 6 says, “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!”

The psalmist does something amazing here—the three words he uses: worship, bow, and kneel, basically say the same thing. The word worship means to prostrate oneself…the idea is to kneel before God and to bow oneself and to touch the floor with your forehead. We are to worship before Him, we are to bow before Him, we are to kneel before Him…there is a real sense in which verse 7 says this, “Oh come, let us bow, and let us bow, and let us bow before the LORD, our Maker!” We are to bow before Him!

This speaks of humility before the greatness of Sovereignty. We enter into the presence of the One who made us and so often we are so casual…He is our Father, He is our Savior, He is our Shepherd, but He is our God...He is the God! Let us never forget that He is holy, holy, holy and let’s worship Him accordingly!

But there is something else…if we are to worship reverently, we must bow, but we must also come before Him and hear Him. The end of verse 7 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” To come before God and to worship Him is to listen to Him. To worship is to listen…the spoken Word, the taught Word, the prayed Word, the sung Word…that is worship. You can’t separate worship from the Word…fact is you don’t have worship without the Word.

The heart of worship is nothing less than the bending of our wills to God’s will and it is a renewal of our pilgrimage toward Him and His celestial city. That’s worship…nothing else will suffice!

Ponder this! Are you are person who worships? I’ve found that we all tend to worship differently…some have more passion than others, some have more freedom than others, but Psalm 95 leaves none of us out…these are the things we must do if we are to worship.

A few years ago we were in the midst of worship and I felt the Lord prompt me to get on my face…I wrestled with that…Lord what will people think…and to be honest I justified it, that couldn’t be God…that would bring far too much attention on myself…and we sang on, but I knew I had disobeyed Him. I don’t remember much about the next song, but I spent it entirely in repenting before God. The next week I felt Him say, will you listen to me now? I dropped to my knees and then to my face and simply obeyed Him. We won’t always be on our faces…especially in public worship, but I wonder if it wouldn’t do us all some good!

I was at a gas station pumping gas and I looked over and a Muslim man was by the wall next to a propane gas storage container and he was on his face in prayer. I watched him until the gas tank was full, and then I parked my car close to where he was. I waited until he was finished and then as he got up I went by and his hand. I said, “Brother, you don’t know me. I’m a pastor of a Baptist church and there probably isn’t a lot we would agree on theologically, but I’d give anything for a church full of people with the tenacity to do that!

I’ve seen Muslim men pray in the Exit Rows of our airplane, I’ve seen African truck drivers on the side of the road, where no one else would know the difference, in prayer. Why is bowing so hard for us?

Check out yesterday's post and catch up if you missed it, but let’s jump in where we left off in Psalm 95. We are to come remembering…look at what he says about God. The little word ‘for’ in verse 3 shows us that he is going to explain verses 1-2…here is why we come rejoicing. He is great! For the LORD is a great God. Who else is like our God? Made us, came to save us, called us, redeemed us, fills us, provides for us, and will allow us to spend eternity with Him! He is a great God!

He is King. “For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. He is the great King…the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the God of gods.” All other gods are man-made, all other gods are created gods, but our God is the God…the One who sits on the Throne and is Sovereign!

He is Creator…”in His hands are the depts. Of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” What a God! Chris Tomlin said it this way, “From the highest of highs to the depths of the seas…creation’s revealing your majesty.” He made it all and owns it all. You know what that means don’t you? It means He also owns you…you are not your own. Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

He is Shepherd. Look at verse 7, “For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.” That means He assumes responsibility for our care…He will protect us, He will provide for us, and He will lead us. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” God is no hireling…we are hand shaped by God and hand held by God! How can we not rejoice in God when we remember these things?

Yesterday we started looking at Psalm 95 and I took you to Hebrews to show you that this is both a Psalm of the Holy Spirit and a Psalm of David. I closed by saying, I think Stephen Cole was right when he said this is more than just an invitation…this is an ultimatum. That’s why the title today is worship God or die…that’s the idea we find in this Psalm.

The psalm can be divided into two parts…the first is found in verses one through seven and here we find the summons. It is a summons, “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD,” “Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving,” “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For He is our God,” We make worship about so many things, but most of them center around our personal preferences…in the Word, Worship is centered around the Object of worship…the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

When I read this Psalm on Sunday morning I found myself reading, and just moving on…but the Holy Spirit often gives me a gentle “Stop” nudge and I realized I was just reading to read. I had just read six things that opened with “Let us,” and I didn't do any of them. I went back and read the Psalm and hit the pause button and acted on his summons. Let’s break it down.

Notice, we are to come rejoicing. “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!” Christians are a singing people…the psalmist is calling upon us to give the King…the Savior…the acclamation He deserves. Singing is mandatory among the children of God and just in case you think, ‘well, I can’t sing,’ notice He doesn’t expect us to do what we can’t do, but we can all make a ‘joyful noise.’ We won’t all sing solos, and let me just say, we don’t all need to sing solos!, but we can all make a joyful noise and when we rejoice in the One who saved us that won’t be hard!

We come rejoicing by singing, by making a joyful noise and through thanksgiving…Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving…this is nothing more than humble gratitude for His abundant provisions. Think of what He has done…how can we not sing His praises with great thanksgiving?! We are to come rejoicing—singing, making joyful noises and thanking Him.

I often stop at places like this and sing something along the lines of Keith Green’s Oh Lord You’re Beautiful or maybe a hymn…let me repeat what I said earlier, for the Christian singing is mandatory…sing softly if you must, but you must sing!

Let me share something that happened a while back. I was sitting in my back yard, facing our bird feeders, and noticed all of the birds were gone…I looked for a hawk or my daughter’s cat, but neither were there. I could see them on the fence post, in some bushes, and in trees, but something amazing happened…I just started singing softly to the Lord and the moment I started singing everyone, I mean everyone of those birds flew to the feeder. I don't know what that means, I can’t explain it, but somehow at that moment, singing brought me into the Creator’s purpose for His creation and they knew I was ok.

You figure that out!, but let’s pick up here tomorrow.

I’m on sabbatical this month so my Sunday’s are much slower…I got to sleep in a little longer and then I got to sit outside and read the Psalms and take my time without thinking about the sermon I was about to preach. Yesterday, I read Psalm 95 and I want to spend the week in this psalm.

Psalm 95 doesn’t list the author, but it is one of those Psalms in which we have a Divine Commentary in the New Testament…the second half of the Psalm is quoted in Hebrews 3:7-4:10. I want to point out two things about what the writer of Hebrews said about the writer of our Psalm, first, he attributed it to the Holy Spirit, in 3:7 he said, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,” and then he quotes from the Psalm. What we have here is Spirit inspired…don’t forget that, but He gave it to us through a human writer…in Hebrews 4:7 the writer said our text was written by David, “‘Today,’ saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

This is a great reminder of what Peter said in 2 Peter 1:21, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” As we approach this Psalm, let’s remember that…these are words given to us by the Holy Spirit—they are worthy of our obedience! Let’s also remember what Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

Psalm 95 begins a series of Psalms, running through Psalm 100, where the psalmist calls upon us to worship God. John Stott said,

“True worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man, by the grace of God, is capable.”

Worship isn’t a problem for us…our problem is we tend to worship the creation instead of the Creator. David sets our God before us and calls upon us to worship Him and only Him. One commentator said this was an invitation to worship…I think Stephen Cole was right when he said this is more than just an invitation…this is an ultimatum.

I want to walk through the psalm this week, but I hope you understand how powerful it is for us to be able to say the words we read in our Bible are written by men, but they were carried on, they were inspired, they were given the words by the Holy Spirit. It isn’t like any other book…it is, as the writer of Hebrews says, “living and breathing.” Read Psalm 95 and get ready to worship with me this week.

This week’s blogs have been different…maybe because I’m in the first week of my month long sabbatical, but mainly it is because the cool summer mornings and evenings have allowed me to spend time sitting outside with God, my Bible and journal, and a cup of coffee (or two!).

I get up at different times each day. My responsibilities at the church require me to be up before the sun on at least three mornings a week and on those days I sit at the kitchen table which is on the backside of our house facing south. The bay window allows me to see the eastern sky and many mornings I know the sun is rising simply by the bird chorus. On some of the mornings when I can sleep a little later I am often awakened by the songs of the Redbird or the Wren…it is almost as if they are saying, “Get out of bed…you are missing it!”

One day last week, I was finished with my devotional reading and prayer time and I still had time before I needed to get ready so I went outside and just watched the sun rise. That evening I changed chairs and watched the sun set…it was a good day. There is something about being outside with God’s creation that simply renews me.

Isn’t it interesting that one of the most famous passages in the Bible is set in the environment of being outside. Think about Psalm 23…green pastures, still waters, paths of righteousness, walking through valleys, and even when the image moves from God as our Shepherd to God as our Host the table is in the presence of his enemies…which could well be outside on the battlefield.

Gary Thomas quoted Susan Power Bratton in his book Sacred Pathways,

“Experiencing the beauty and peace of God in nature is not a substitute for direct interaction with the regenerative powers of the Creator, but . . . the mending and binding so necessary to heal our stress-filled lives may flow through creation. For the spiritually oppressed or the socially injured, a pleasing or quiet natural environment can help provide spiritual release. Resting by a clear, free-running river or sitting on a sunny slope in a blooming desert grassland can bring peace and joy into very clouded souls.”

Think about Jesus…30 years of preparation for a three year ministry that would save the world and yet in the midst of all of the business of saving the world, Jesus often withdrew to the lonely and deserted places.

Some of my best memories involve time spent playing as a child in the woods. I went back to Ocean Springs, MS not long ago and those woods have been replaced by multi-million-dollar homes, but in a few weeks Kim and I will walk under the sequoias and sit in the meadows of Yosemite and I will simply be overwhelmed and overjoyed. Even this very day my family will enjoy the peaceful and yet over-crowded beaches of Destin, FL.

I think Luther summed it up for me,

“Now if I believe in God’s Son and bear in mind that he became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, pears, as I reflect that he is Lord over and the center of all things.”

Gary Thomas said regarding that quote, “If we don’t appreciate the outdoors, then maybe we don’t appreciate the Creator.”