In Psalm 119:46-47 the Psalmist says, “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.” Once again, we find the concept of delight. When we delight in God’s Word, when we trust His promises, when we live in that freedom—it won’t matter who we stand before or talk to—it’s hard to be intimidated by man when you’ve been in the presence of the Sovereign God.

Kings or beggars, rich or poor, strong or weak; all must stand before God and if we have already been in His presence and if we know that Judgment is coming—how can we be bedazzled by the power of the world and let our faith shame us? Look at Jesus before Herod or Pilate, look at Paul before the governors, look at Daniel and his friends before the king…they stood in God’s Word and refused to be swayed because they delighted in it and in Him!

We close with something very similar to delight, at the end of verse 47 and verse 48, “…I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.” Obedience, freedom, delight…and love. These are results of God’s salvation.

The lifting of hands has many meanings in our culture as well as in the Bible:

We might lift our hand in court and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

We might lift our hands to bless.

We lift our hands in prayer and in worship.

The idea of lifting the hand speaks of helping someone.

It could also have the idea of surrender.

I’m not sure which one applies here…maybe a little of them all, but I tend to see this as worship…I lift my hands, I surrender to your Word, and I worship you because I love you.

I love you enough to think about you. While Kim was gone this summer to Costa Rica, I thought of her often…when I went home I was aware that she was not there, and I missed her…why, because I love her. When we love God, we will delight in Him, we will walk in His freedom, and we will obey Him.

I love you enough to be faithful to you. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We are also told, “And this love, not that we love God, but that He loved us.” When we see His great love, when we see it displayed on the Cross, when we see that it involved His death for our sin so that we could be free from the bondage of sin and live with Him for eternity…how can we not delight in Him and love Him?

When you come to Psalm 119:44 we come to a series of things that come as a result of God’s salvation. I love this…I will trust, (42) and I will hope (43), but he goes further. Look at verse 44, “I will keep your law continually, forever and ever.” He promises obedience. I will keep. That’s what the Word does in our life…it takes us to God, to God’s promises, and through His Spirit it leads us to righteous living.

In 2 Timothy 3:16 we are told that, “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” but listen to verse 17, “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for ever good work.” Getting in the Word of God teaches us, reproves us, trains us, completes us, and equips us. That’s why Satan will do everything he can to distract you from the Word of God.

And then in verse 45, “And I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.” He is talking about freedom. Satan lies and tells us that freedom comes from living according to the desires of the flesh and that in disobedience we find the wide and easy way, but freedom comes from living in God’s will. Man was never more free than when he was in the Garden with the Father, but sin changed that.

The wide place is the freedom that comes from living in God’s will…the freedom that comes from obedience. Yes, we are called to walk the narrow road, but when you walk the ancient paths in the power of the Holy Spirit that narrow path seems wide…it is freedom. The world doesn’t understand this…they are like the people in Plato’s cave—living in the shadow world thinking shadows are the reality, but the reality is out of the cave of sin and in the light of God’s Word. Paul said, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; stand therefore and do submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

It is amazing to see how much better life is when we submit our rebel wills to the will of the Father and find the freedom of living in His abundance!

From the salvation of Ps 119:41, we come to the trust of verse 42. Now notice something…in verse 41 he asks God to bring him salvation according to His promises and in verse 42 the Psalmist, who has been rescued, knows he will be able to answer those who taunt him.

He realized that following God’s word would bring persecution…why are we so shocked when it comes. I love Acts 4 where Peter and John are warned to stop preaching in Jesus’ name, they are released and then the church prays for boldness. They said, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness…”. God filled that place with the Spirit and they continued to speak with great boldness.

We want persecution gone, but they knew it was coming so they asked for boldness in the midst of it. That’s the spirit of our verse…I trust in your Word, and my experience of you will give all the answer to their taunts that they will need. The way we live our lives speaks to the world…does our experience of God speak to the world around us? I love what a slave martyr said, “I cannot dispute for Christ, but I can burn for Him.” A holy life, lived trusting His promises, will give an answer to those who taunt. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study and give an answer for the hope we have, but we must stand in His promises.

In verse 43 we find, “And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules.” Here we find not just trust, but hope. His confidence is found in God’s Word and He wants it in his mouth…it won’t be in our mouth unless it is in our mind, our heart, and our thoughts!

I love the picture above, (especially the one I didn’t have to defame for his protection), it is one of the Chinese students I taught the last time I was there. He knew that his faith and vocation would bring much persecution, but still he came to learn and study the Bible. One night I heard a harmonica playing and followed the sound…I found him, kneeling, and playing music as he worshiped. He trusted his God and had great hope in His promises. Do we?

As we come to the sixth stanza of Psalm 119, let’s start with verse 41, “Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise.” Now, salvation here most likely has to do with the persecution that has come to him because of his faithfulness of God’s Word, but I want to focus on ultimate salvation…the salvation of our souls for eternity.

Salvation has what Matthew Henry called twin pillars. First, salvation is the result of the grace of God. His steadfast love is not something we’ve earned, it is not something we deserve, but it is a matter of God’s grace. “It is by grace we have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God…”.

“Let your steadfast love come to me.” “Steadfast love” is mentioned 203 times in the ESV. Your salvation is based on the steadfast love and grace of God…

He planned your redemption before the world began in eternity past,

He accomplished your redemption in the midst of human history,

and He is saving us, keeping us saved, and will one day ultimately save us forever in eternity future. It’s all by His grace.

The second pillar is that salvation is the result of the promises of God…, “Your salvation according to your promise.” God keeps His covenants, His promises, because He is God and cannot lie. He will do what He has promised to do. We can trust Him with the here and now because we can trust Him with our souls.

Why would we trust God for our eternity and not in the midst of time? Consider the promises of God. I’ve quoted this often, but CS Lewis’ quote never gets old to me, “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward, and the staggering nature of the rewards promised us in the Gospels, it would seem that our LORD finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Last week we saw that we need for God to teach usthrough His Holy Spirit…it happens over and over again…, “open my eyes” vs 18, “teach me” vs 26, 33, 68, 124, 135, “Make me understand” vs 27, “graciously teach me” vs 29, “Give me understanding” vs 34, 73, 125, 144, 169…we desperately need God to help us with His Word…consider going to His Word, asking Him to open your eyes that you might behold the wonderous things in it, and looking at the promises of God and basing your life upon His promises. It will change you!

This week I want to study the sixth stanza of Psalm 119. In verses 41-48 we find these words,

“Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD,

your salvation according to your promise;

then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me,

for I trust in your word.

And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth,

for my hope is in your rules.

I will keep your law continually,

forever and ever,

and I shall walk in a wide place,

for I have sought your precepts.

I will also speak of your testimonies before kings

and shall not be put to shame,

for I find my delight in your commandments,

which I love.

I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,

and I will meditate on your statutes.”

It is interesting to me to see how many times the Psalmist speaks of delighting in God and in God’s Word and of loving God and God’s Word.

Vs 14, “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.”
Vs 16, “I will delight in your statutes.”
Vs 20, “My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.”
Vs 24, “Your testimonies are my delight.”
Vs 40, “Behold, I long for your precepts.”
Vs 47, “For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.”
That’s just the stanzas that we have covered…you find it all the way through this Psalm.

We don’t often think about Christianity in those terms, but the Bible does. How do we get to that place? George Muller said,

“But in what shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in Him as shall enable us to let go of the things of the world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, this happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ.”

He also said, “The more we know of God, the happier we are.” The secret for Muller was time in His Word and time alone with God. He said, “I saw the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it…What is the food of the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and…not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.”

I say these things knowing that in our busy, media driven culture, I might as well be speaking Greek when I talk about spending that amount of time in the Word of God, but I know this to be true and if we can’t learn to turn off the world, open up the Word, and pour it into our lives we are running a race weighted down by the cares of this world and we will never grow in Christ.

I was talking to a former Missionary Kid who is now stateside and we were talking about the difference between the 3rd World spirituality and spirituality here in the West. In Africa, Asia, and other places, you often see clear evidence of demonic activity and you find witch doctors and such, but here it doesn’t seem as evident as you might see it there, or at least we don’t pay attention to it. He said something that struck me…the more I think about it the more I am convinced he is right…the demonic tactic of our culture is distraction. We can’t eat a meal, have a conversation, listen to a sermon, or read our Bibles and pray without stopping to see what someone has texted or posted on our phones.

My great grandfather would read his Bible early in the morning, leave his homes, hitch his ox or mule to a plow, and spend the entire day hearing nothing but the sounds of nature…he could actually think, reason, and meditate. I know we’ve evolved in terms of technology, and I don’t want to go back to those days, but spiritually we have dissolved. We don’t read, we don’t study, we don’t memorize, we don’t meditate, and we wonder why the church is so spiritually shallow.

What we find in Psalm 119 is a man who pondered upon God, the things of God, the character of God and the beauty of God and he did so by pouring into the Word of God. He was a sequoia in the forest of God’s people and this psalm is a sequoia amongst the forest of God’s Word. I want to walk through this stanza—once again the eight verses all start with the same Hebrew letter and the first four are concerned with God’s salvation and promises while the next four serve as a promise to testify and celebrate God’s Word. We will start tomorrow, but consider how much distraction plays in your spiritual life.

s we come to the end of Psalm 119’s fifth stanza, let’s review. We saw the request in verse 33, and the source of the request…the statutes of God. Then we saw the application in verse 34…he was looking for the Ancient Paths of Jeremiah 6:16 and wanting to apply them to his life.

From there we see him asking for strength in verse 36…God must show us the path, but He must also give us the strength to walk it. It is really all about Him! Verse 37 shows us that this path requires discipline because the enemy will attack us the moment we try to walk the ancient path.

And then we come to the reminder that we looked at in verse 38…the past judgments of God are present day reminders. Looking back at His promises leads us to be in awe of Him so that we may walk in holiness.

Verse 39 shows us the trust we need to have in God and the answer is found in verse 40, God gave him the request…he longs for God’s Word and seeks His righteousness!

The path of God involves:

our minds—He teaches us;

our feet—we walk His path;

our hearts—we desire Him;

our eyes—we look to Him;

and our desires—our very wants.

Everything is different. Now let me ask you the question that is begging to be answered…how different are you from the lost world around you? Are you a follower of Jesus? That all depends on if you are following Jesus. Does it impact the way you think, where you go, what you desire, what you look at, and your very wants? Following Jesus involves all of us…the entirety of our being. Are you a follower?

We come to verse Psalm 119:38 and we see the reminder,“confirm to your servant your promise that you may be feared.” The word for confirm is “to say,” tell me your promises God…tell me your promises so that you can be feared.

Two things:

(1) the promises would be the entire Word of God as a whole, and

(2) the fear is both fear to go back, but also fear as in awe…it takes both to stay in the way.

The past judgments of God are present day reminders of why we need to stay on the path, but the present promises leave us in awe as we seek to stay with Him…His beauty keeps us from the worthless things and the selfish gain.

Verse 39 shows us asking him for the trust to trust God, “Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good.” Reproach could be seen as disgrace—disgrace from sin. Is he dreading not finishing well? Do you think about that? I think about it all of the time…I want to finish strong. It could also be the disgrace that comes from the enemy—the scorn and contempt of verse 22 that comes from walking in God’s way. Don’t dread what man can do…dread only what God will do if you are not faithful. Trust His judgments and pay no attention to man’s.

Finally, we come to the last verse, “Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!” Here is the answer…God has answered his prayer in verse 36—he longs for God’s Word and seeks His righteousness.

Jesus never left a person in his current condition and considered him a follower. He always called him out of where he was and to His way. He hasn’t changed.

He is calling us out of the world and to His kingdom.

He is calling us off of the path in which we were born upon, and He is calling us to His path…the narrow path, which comes from the narrow gate, and the few that are upon it are recognizable…they are the ones carrying their cross, denying themselves, and following Jesus.

As we dig into Psalm 119:33-40 we find the writer coming to the source in verse 33, but look at verse 34 and see his application, “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law, and observe it with my whole heart.” I want to know your way and I want to understand how to apply it to my life. Do you want that knowledge? It is the idea we find in Jeremiah 6:16, “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.”

He is asking God for the ancient paths, the ones walked by the saints that have gone on before us...we don’t need new and clever ways to God…we need the ancient paths laid out for us by God in His Word.

Then in verse 35 he asks for the strength to go, “Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.” I love this—teach me your way, make me understand it, and lead me in the path…teach me, for I can’t see it; make me understand it, for I’m bound in this world; and then lead me because even when you show me I still can’t be trusted to walk it. I need your strength to do it.

He doesn’t stop there—in verse 36 we see his desire,“Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.” Verse 35 is a prayer for God to lead him and now he prays for God to make him willing to go when He leads him. He knows his heart and he knows his heart is naturally not for the things of God—it is deceitful above all things and desperately sick…so he asks God to change his heart. What a great prayer! What an incredible request…teach me your way, give me understanding of that way, lead me in the way, and make my heart want your way! Do you see how absolutely God centered this is! This wouldn’t make it on the self-help book section because self can’t do it…this is a God thing that God must do.

It is interesting that the first four verses of this stanza had to do with a focus on instruction that results in obedience, but the next four will have to do with a focus on deliverance from those things that would keep him from obedience. Let me show you what I mean.

He moves on and seeks the discipline needed in verse 37, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.” You know why he asks for this? He knows that as soon as he tries to walk God’s path…the enemy is going to try to allure him with the things of the world. In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian and Faithful come to Vanity Fair which was set up by Satan to try to divert people from the narrow way. Bunyan has them covering their ears and crying out to God, “Turn my eyes from worthless things.”

Some of those things are good in and of themselves, but they are terrible gods…God will often allow suffering in our lives to get our eyes off of these things and back onto to Him. This is the discipline that centers in the Holy Spirit’s power. I love what the Psalmist is doing…he is covering his tracks…asking God for all that is necessary for him to follow God.

Teach me your way, make me understand your ways so I can apply them, lead me in your ways, change my heart and make me desire your way so I can walk in them with delight, and then God turn my eyes from worthless things, so I will keep my eyes on you as I walk your way.

We will pick up here, but don’t just read this…apply it!

This week we come to the fifth stanza of Psalm 119, verses 33-40, and we find a man coming to the right place for the right lesson. Look at his requeststarting in verse 33, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.” That’s where we need to go…to the source…we must come to Him if we are to understand His way.

There is an amazing transformation in the NT—the disciples walked with Jesus and never seemed to get it, but after the resurrection they were different men. The men who denied him died for Him. The men who ran from the guards charged into danger and faced it with great boldness. The beginning of the change is found in Luke 24 where the risen Jesus meets with the disciples. In verse 44ff, He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…”. He then told them that He was sending them to the world, but first He called them to go and wait until they were ‘clothed with power from on high.’

Jesus opened their minds and at Pentecost, filled them with His Spirit, and they were never the same. These ‘uneducated’ men baffled the educated because they had been in the School of Grace. Acts 16:40 says that Lydia believed because the Lord opened her heart. 1 John 5:20 says, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”

You might say, I wish I had Jesus to teach me what He taught the disciples and you do—His Spirit is within you and the NT is the result of Him leading them to write down Jesus’ teaching for us. Learn to ask Him to teach you, but notice what the psalmist asks, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes.” He wants to know the way…not just facts about the Word, but to know the way so that he can apply it.

Many want to know facts for facts sake, but the writer wants to know the way of God and promises, “I will keep it to the end.” He isn’t interested in knowing trivia—he wants to know the way so that he can follow it to the very end of his life…he goes to the source.

In Luke 14 Jesus speaks to the crowds about the cost of discipleship. He said following Him will lead to breaks within the closest relationships because they simply will not understand your devotion to Him, He said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Then he spoke of counting the cost before you follow Him and said, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Did Jesus mean that?

Can we follow Him with one foot in His kingdom and one foot in the world or must we count the cost, take up the cross, renounce everything and everyone one, and follow Him? Calvin said, “There is no middle ground between these two things: either earth must become worthless to us, or we must remain bound by the chains of extravagant love for it.” Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

Does that seem out of place to you? Does that seem extreme? Does that seem to be something for then, but not for now…maybe it is true for those who live in communist countries, but not for those who live in the good old USA? There is only one way and Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” I want to suggest that Jesus meant exactly what He said every time He opened His mouth and that if our brand of Christianity doesn’t match the one found in the Bible…it is ours that is wrong.

If the lessons we have learned in our schools of faith allow us to think like the world, talk like the world, want what the world wants, and love what the world loves…we need a new school…we need to come to Jesus and enter into the school of His grace and discover the Way to life. That is only found in His Word and that is why the writer of our Psalm is consumed with it…it leads him to God and to life and he wants to eat and drink all that he can.

This week we will look at Psalm 119:33-40 where we will find a man coming to the right place for the right lesson…hope you will join me tomorrow as we dig in.

We are in the 4th stanza of Psalm 119 and have looked at the Psalmist as he moves from his sin to the sovereignty of God. As we move from verse 25 we come to our Sanctification.

Sanctification is the process by which God makes us holy. He does not skip that process in any of His children. If you have been born again…He is sanctifying you. There is one type of Christian and only one: a person who has been justified and who is being sanctified…that’s it!

Now, you are justified by grace alone through faith alone, but sanctification is not only by God’s grace…it starts with Grace, but God doesn’t do it for you in a way that you have to put forth no effort…in other words there is no idea of “Let go and let God” in the Bible. He does it by working in your will and your desires as you work out what He is doing through the strength He gives you. In the final three verses the psalmist speaks of doing three things, but I think there is a fourth thing found in verse 27, so let me give you four things we must do to grow in our sanctification.

First, let’s look at his devotion in verse 27, “Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.” You see it? God if you make me understand it, I will meditate on it. It takes grace to understand the living and active spiritually inspired Word, and it takes good ole sweat equity to meditate on it.

You’ll have to kill a million warring thoughts to stay focused, but if you are going to be holy you will have to devote yourself to meditation. There is no way around it…think about the Word when you wake up, while you go throughout the day, when you lie down…make the Word the default setting of your brain!

Second, look at his decision in verse 30, “I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.” You must choose today, tomorrow, and every day whom you will serve. It is the best way, He has the words of life; life here and life eternal, and His way is abundant with peace and joy, but you won’t just stumble upon that path…you must choose.

He asked God to graciously teach him in verse 29 and now he says, I have chosen the way of faithfulness. How does he do it? He sets the rules of God before him.

He comes to the Word,

and stays in the Word,

and allows the Holy Spirit to direct his path through the Word.

Listen, the Word must dictate our politics, our recreation, our relationships, our work, our home life…everything must come under the Word of God. Set it before you and live it.

Don’t be a disciple of the news anchors, don’t be a disciple of the radio talking heads, and don’t be a disciple of any political party…be a disciple of Jesus and live it by living out His Word in obedience. As followers of Jesus we are citizens of His Heavenly Kingdom…let’s live like it.

Third, look at his determination in verse 31, “I cling to your testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame!” This is same word we saw in verse 25…I do like the KJV’s translation of this verse, “I have stuck unto they commandments.” He is not stuck with—it isn’t a burden…he is stuck to—it is a commitment, a determination. It is one thing for me to say, “I’m stuck with Kim,” and another thing for me to say, “I’m stuck to Kim.” You must choose, you must cling with everything you have to God’s Word!

Finally, look at his desire in verse 32, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.”

He will meditate—that’s his devotion;

he will choose—that’s his decision;

he will cling—that’s his determination;

and he will run—that’s his desire.

Now get this, God, I will run when you enlarge my heart! It is amazing…when you run your body needs more oxygen, that’s why your breathing grows more rapid, but then your heart works harder to get the blood to your body and without the proper amount of oxygen lactic acid grows and your performance drops…what is amazing is that as you run more and more, your heart grows…it actually enlarges in a good way.

I’m not sure how much of that the psalmist knew, but he did know this—the more God enlarged his heart the more he could run and the more he ran in God’s commands the larger his heart would grow.

There are three main verbs in this stanza and all three have to do with his prayer:

give me life,

strengthen me,

and enlarge my heart…and from those three prayers we find these four resolves:

I will meditate,

I will choose,

I will cling,

and I will run.

What do you need to do today, right now at this moment, to grow in your faith? Christianity is a lot like riding a bike—you go forward, you go backward, but you really can’t just stand still. If you are saved, God has declared you to be not guilty and He has declared you to be righteous, and the moment He justifies you He begins to make you holy…He begins to conform you into the image of Jesus.

If there is no evidence of that process, something is wrong. Something is lacking. If there is no evidence of progressive sanctification in your life you really must come back to the beginning and make sure you are actually saved. What do you need to do to grow in your faith? Will you do it?

In the early 2000’s I made several trips to Mombasa, Kenya. In that port city there stands a bell, pictured above, and that bell is all that is left of Frere Town, a place for freed slaves, is a bell from an Anglican church that was built by the freed slaves. They would often ring the bells to sound warnings when Arab slave ships were seen approaching Mombasa Island.

What do we do when the Holy Spirit warns us of danger? Do we flee temptation and grow or succumb to it?

We are in the 4th stanza of Psalm 119 and have looked at the Psalmist as he moves from his sin to the sovereignty of God. As we move from verse 25 we come to our Sanctification.

Sanctification is the process by which God makes us holy. He does not skip that process in any of His children. If you have been born again…He is sanctifying you. There is one type of Christian and only one: a person who has been justified and who is being sanctified…that’s it!

Now, you are justified by grace alone through faith alone, but sanctification is not only by God’s grace…it starts with Grace, but God doesn’t do it for you in a way that you have to put forth no effort…in other words there is no idea of “Let go and let God” in the Bible. He does it by working in your will and your desires as you work out what He is doing through the strength He gives you. In the final three verses the psalmist speaks of doing three things, but I think there is a fourth thing found in verse 27, so let me give you four things we must do to grow in our sanctification.

First, let’s look at his devotion in verse 27, “Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.” You see it? God if you make me understand it, I will meditate on it. It takes grace to understand the living and active spiritually inspired Word, and it takes good ole sweat equity to meditate on it.

You’ll have to kill a million warring thoughts to stay focused, but if you are going to be holy you will have to devote yourself to meditation. There is no way around it…think about the Word when you wake up, while you go throughout the day, when you lie down…make the Word the default setting of your brain!

Second, look at his decision in verse 30, “I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.” You must choose today, tomorrow, and every day whom you will serve. It is the best way, He has the words of life; life here and life eternal, and His way is abundant with peace and joy, but you won’t just stumble upon that path…you must choose.

He asked God to graciously teach him in verse 29 and now he says, I have chosen the way of faithfulness. How does he do it? He sets the rules of God before him.

He comes to the Word,

and stays in the Word,

and allows the Holy Spirit to direct his path through the Word.

Listen, the Word must dictate our politics, our recreation, our relationships, our work, our home life…everything must come under the Word of God. Set it before you and live it.

Don’t be a disciple of the news anchors, don’t be a disciple of the radio talking heads, and don’t be a disciple of any political party…be a disciple of Jesus and live it by living out His Word in obedience. As followers of Jesus we are citizens of His Heavenly Kingdom…let’s live like it.

Third, look at his determination in verse 31, “I cling to your testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame!” This is same word we saw in verse 25…I do like the KJV’s translation of this verse, “I have stuck unto they commandments.” He is not stuck with—it isn’t a burden…he is stuck to—it is a commitment, a determination. It is one thing for me to say, “I’m stuck with Kim,” and another thing for me to say, “I’m stuck to Kim.” You must choose, you must cling with everything you have to God’s Word!

Finally, look at his desire in verse 32, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.”

He will meditate—that’s his devotion;

he will choose—that’s his decision;

he will cling—that’s his determination;

and he will run—that’s his desire.

Now get this, God, I will run when you enlarge my heart! It is amazing…when you run your body needs more oxygen, that’s why your breathing grows more rapid, but then your heart works harder to get the blood to your body and without the proper amount of oxygen lactic acid grows and your performance drops…what is amazing is that as you run more and more, your heart grows…it actually enlarges in a good way.

I’m not sure how much of that the psalmist knew, but he did know this—the more God enlarged his heart the more he could run and the more he ran in God’s commands the larger his heart would grow.

There are three main verbs in this stanza and all three have to do with his prayer:

give me life,

strengthen me,

and enlarge my heart…and from those three prayers we find these four resolves:

I will meditate,

I will choose,

I will cling,

and I will run.

What do you need to do today, right now at this moment, to grow in your faith? Christianity is a lot like riding a bike—you go forward, you go backward, but you really can’t just stand still. If you are saved, God has declared you to be not guilty and He has declared you to be righteous, and the moment He justifies you He begins to make you holy…He begins to conform you into the image of Jesus.

If there is no evidence of that process, something is wrong. Something is lacking. If there is no evidence of progressive sanctification in your life you really must come back to the beginning and make sure you are actually saved. What do you need to do to grow in your faith? Will you do it?

In the early 2000’s I made several trips to Mombasa, Kenya. In that port city there stands a bell, pictured above, and that bell is all that is left of Frere Town, a place for freed slaves, is a bell from an Anglican church that was built by the freed slaves. They would often ring the bells to sound warnings when Arab slave ships were seen approaching Mombasa Island.

What do we do when the Holy Spirit warns us of danger? Do we flee temptation and grow or succumb to it?

We move from the Psalmist seeing his sin in the first half of 119:25 to the sovereignty of God. I love what he does. He starts by looking at who he is, “my soul clings to the dust,” but then he turns his attention to who God is and bases his requests on the two…he comes knowing who he is, but he comes knowing who God is. That’s the secret for all of us. He knows he is dust so what does he do? He turns to a sovereign God. We see his need, he asks God, “Give me life according to your word.”

God formed Adam from dust, but He breathed life into him. God spoke this world into existence…there is no life apart from God. There is no life apart from His Word. Everything else is just a shadow of the reality. God brings us to life in our mother’s womb, but He also brings us to Spiritual life from the midst of our Spiritual death.

I love what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:49, “Just as we bore the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of Heaven.” That is only if we are brought to life by God. Has He brought you to life? Ask Him to give you, life according to His Word…which means we will repent of our sin and trust in Him! You see, we are all clinging to death, but we need to be clinging to God and that isn’t possible unless He brings us New Life, gives us a New Nature, and Saves us. Like a man cleaves to his wife, so we must cleave to God through new life.

Then we see the relationship in verse 26, “When I told of my ways, you answered me.” The phrase, “when I told,” is the same as we find in verse 13, “I declare,” but there he is declaring to man and here he is declaring to God. He is laying it out before Him. He isn’t foolishly trying to hide from our all-knowing and all-present God like Adam and Eve did in the bushes…he is laying it out, and here is the beauty of it, “God answered him.” When you come before God with new life and in relationship, He hears you and answers you and works with you. But that doesn’t start until God sovereignly moves to bring you to life.

Then we see his heart—“teach me your statutes. Make me understand the way of your wondrous works,” “strengthen me according to your Word,” “graciously teach me your law.” Do you see this…he wants to know all of God’s Word, he isn’t content with just a little, but he also knows he can’t know unless God makes him know, he can’t understand unless God opens his mind, his eyes, and his ears.

Notice in verse 27 the “wondrous works” are mentioned again, in verst 18 he said, “Open my eyes, that I might behold wondrous things out of your law.” There are things within the Word that are more precious than silver, more costly than gold, and more beautiful than diamonds…we must dig with the Holy Spirit’s help and discover those things.

Don’t be the person who says, “I’ll never be able to understand that…”. Who knows, God may choose to show that truth to you and help all of us. Dig into His Word but do it with total dependence upon His Spirit.

I love the advice I read a while back, for every look at yourself take 10 looks to Christ. Don’t ignore your sin, but don’t dwell there either…turn to our Sovereign God and drink from His well. Years ago, I was on a Safari and the hotel was on a hill looking down on a watering hole. In the midst of the dry and dusty plains of Kenya there was a source of life and refreshment.

Have you found the springs of living water in Jesus?

Three weeks ago we started looking at Psalm 119. I want to continue this week by looking at the fourth stanza,

“My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!

When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes!

Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.

My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!

Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!

I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.

I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame!

I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!” (25-32)

In verse 71 of this Psalm the writer said, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” Calvin said, “Whether we suffer poverty, exile, imprisonment, contempt, sickness, childlessness, or any such thing, let us remember that nothing happens apart from God’s pleasures and providence, and that God Himself does nothing that isn’t perfectly in order.”

We don’t often think that way, but we must learn to count the trials of our life as blessings…they make us more like Him. Luther said, “I want you to know how to study theology in the right way, I have practiced this method myself…Here you will find three rules. They are frequently proposed throughout Psalm 119 and run thus, prayers, meditation, and trial.”

The Psalmist was in the midst of trial—we saw it last week and we see it again today, but trials drew him closer to God.

When God is our focus, when God is our delight, when God is the center of our desire, we will gladly endure all things to get to Him. As a mother endures labor knowing the joy that is to come, we must endure the labor of life’s trials so that we can grow in our sanctification and in our joy.

In our stanza there are several things happening, but I want to break this down into three main headings. First, the Psalmist sees his sin. Look at verse 25, “My soul clings to the dust.” Throughout the Bible we see dust:

man was formed from dust,

dust was a symbol of humility,

and it was a symbol of grief. He said, “My soul clings to the dust…”. God said to Adam, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ecclesiastes says, “All go to one place. All are from the dust and to dust all return.”

Dust is a reminder of the frailty of our humanity…we are mortal, we live, and we die, and that is becauseof our association with Adam…in 1 Corinthians 15:49 Paul said, “We all bear the image of the man of dust.” We have all sinned and we have all fallen short of God’s glory. Our souls cling to dust…we will see this word again in verse 31, but you can’t get any closer than what is implied in this word...it is stuck to, cleaving to, close to, but we see not just his sin, but his sorrow—look at verse 28, “My soul melts away for sorrow.” It is one thing to know you’ve sinned, it is another to grieve over it. The Psalmist sees his sin and we see his sorrow. Let’s turn to the second theme tomorrow.

I took the picture above in June of 2005. It’s a house somewhere on the dusty plains of Kenya.

I’ve been reading one selection each day from Malcom Guite’s poems in David’s Crown. He does one “poetic response” to each of the psalms. Yesterday after reading Psalm 67, I read Guite and he had a line in the poem that will guide this attempt for the day.

“Feel after Him and find Him, learn to hallow

The places where the veil seems very thin:

The forest grove as sunrise or the hollow

In the hills on autumn evenings when

We seem to hear the horns of Efland blowing

And strange unearthly longings draw us in.”

That led me down a really good rabbit hole and here is the way I started down it. “The horns of Efland,” I knew it, but couldn’t place it, so I did what anyone in this day and age would do…I consulted The Google!

Google led me to Tennyson’s poem The Princess: The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls and the line that Guite referenced,

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Well, that leads me to, “What are the horns of Efland?” except Tennyson wrote “Elfland.” It’s a magical place that maybe the horns of hunting echoing across a valley which led him to imagine music blowing from a mystical realm of elves.

Well, I decided not to linger there for long, but that did cause my mind to think of another person who heard the horns blowing…in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Pippen hears the horns of Rohan blowing as they arrive to save Minas Tirith. Tolkien said,

“But Pippin rose to his feet, as if a great weight had been lifted from him; and he stood listening to the horns, and it seemed to him that they would break his heart with joy. And never in after years could he hear a horn blown in the distance without tears starting in his eyes.”

As I sat and thought of Tennyson’s horns of Elfland and Pippen hearing the horns of Rohan, I was brought back to the horns we are awaiting.

In two places Paul speaks of God’s trumpet that will blow one day in the future. In 1 Corinthians 15 he said,

“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

And then in 1 Thessalonians he said,

“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

I’m not sure when that horn will blow, but I know this, when it blows the dead “in Christ” will rise and those who are alive and “in Christ” will be changed and we will see Him and be changed to be like Him and nothing will ever be the same.

I can only say, Blow the Trumpet Lord, I am ready!

I’ve been building a case that Psalm 1 is an outline for Psalm 119 and it is really obvious in the third stanza. We’ve seen the wicked, the sinner, and the scoffer, but let’s go back to the blessed man. “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 the scoffers, BUT his delight is in the law of the LORD and on His law he meditates day and night.”

We move from the wicked, the sinner, and the scoffer, to the psalmist’s delight, “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” Verse 165 says, “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

The counselors and counsel of God’s Word should be our delight. It is there we learn to respond as He would have us respond…it is there we learn to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to rejoice when we suffer…the world never counsels us that way, but God’s Word is true. It shows us the value of self-denial, of dying to self, and of taking up the cross and following Him.

Meditate on what God did in the lives of those who have gone before us…how the wicked plotted against Joseph and Daniel, and yet they remained faithful and God blessed their faithfulness. Meditate on what God did through Jesus and His disciples. Learn to come to the Word of God for everything.

Let’s not forget to turn to the Scriptures for the origin of the world,

Let’s turn to Scripture to find out how to bring up our children,

Let’s turn to Scripture to see how to invest God’s money,

Let’s turn to Scripture and learn to walk in this world and when we do we will find the abundant life Jesus promised…we will find His favor, His illumination, and His guidance.

One thing I have found helpful is to continually pray that God will give me a thirst for His Word and a hunger for it. When I find my hunger isn’t as it should be I ask God to help and He does. He delights in answering that prayer. Will you ask Him to help you delight in His Word?

In the third stanza of Psalm 119, in verse 21, he moves from the blessed to the wicked and here we move from a personal prayer from the heart to a painful prayer from the midst of persecution.

Think of it in terms of Psalm 1, “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.”

Let’s let that outline this section—first, notice the wicked in verse 21, “You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.” He is speaking of God and what God does to the proud and insolent. He uses two strong words…the insolent who are accursed, Paul told the Galatians, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law and do them.”

John Phillips said there is a threefold development of sin here.

First, you find pride as the root of sin, then error as the flower of sin, and finally the curse of God as the fruit of sin. The wicked are proud—they magnify self over God by seeking to do things their own way and ignoring their Creator and His Word. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

The result of ignoring God’s Word and setting out on your own path is error…disobedience will lead to error every single time. And finally, the ultimate fruit of that is that the wicked are accursed—they are wicked because they wander from His commandments and because of that He curses them...He would rather they come to Jesus and let Him take away their curse, but if they refuse, He treats them as they deserve to be treated.

Second, in verse 22, we find the sinners, “Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies.” They are attacking him because of his faithfulness to God’s Word. He isn’t suffering because of his sin, he is suffering because of his righteousness, he says, “I have kept your testimonies.”

I read about a man this week who was involved in getting Tyndale’s English Bibles back to England. They took him and whipped him, then they tied small ropes around his forehead and tightened them until his eyes bled, then put him on the rack until he was crippled, and for good measure burned him at the stake. He wasn’t tortured for unrighteousness…it happened because he wanted to make the Bible available. The Word tells us in 2 Tim 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, will be persecuted.” Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5 that we are blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness sake!

Third, in verse 23, we find the scoffers, “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.” He is being attacked, leaders are plotting against him, but the key is what he does while they plot, scoff, while they scorn and show contempt…he doesn’t fighting fire with fire, he isn’t attacking them…he chooses to turn to the Word and he meditates on it.

While, his world is falling apart around him, he seeks the stability of God’s Word. While those that oppose him attack him, he seeks the truth of God’s Word. He meditates on what the Word says instead of listening to what the world says. What a lesson for us all…as followers of Jesus we must turn to His Word for His truth.

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.