Speaker: Commitment is an increasingly rare quality in today's culture.
Take something like the transfer portal.
If you don't know what the transfer portal is, you're thinking this is something
about a sci-fi movie or a video game, and it used to be about those things.
Uh, but now, college athletics has opened up a brave new world
called the transfer portal.
And what's happened is things like the name and image and likeness, the NIL deal,
which allows universities and colleges to pay college players, ha- has opened up
this whole category where a player can…
And, and you've seen the, the reels, or you've seen the videos
o- of the player as a senior.
He's sitting at the table there, and he's got all the different hats of
the universities in front of him.
A- and he's sitting there saying, "I've decided that I'm gonna
go, and I'm gonna play for…"
And he picks up the hat that he's gonna play for, and he puts it
on, and he's excited, and Mom's excited, or she's upset 'cause she
wanted him to go to somewhere else.
But they're saying, "I'm committing to this school," until
transfer portal season opens up.
Because when the transfer portal opens up, they get to make decisions.
And it's not always the player.
Sometimes a, a coach will go to a university and say, "I'm all in with
this university, and I'm signing a 40,000-year contract with this school.
We're gonna win 40,000 championships," until two years later, some big
SEC school comes knocking on the door, and that coach is like, "Never
mind, I'm gonna go over there."
A- and so the players are left going, "Well, I wanna leave because
I was really committed to the coach, not necessarily the school."
A- and so commitment is now something that's malleable in our culture, right?
It's not just in the world of college athletics either.
I, I looked up, uh, divorce statistics recently, and while, uh, since 20-
2000 to 2023, the rates of divorce have decreased in our nation.
Uh, you might think, "Well, that's a good thing.
Uh, maybe that means commitment is going up."
But the problem is, the rates of marriage have also decreased in our
nation, almost as, as fast as the rates of divorce have been going down.
See, people i- increasingly are wary of commitment.
We don't wanna commit, and I think a lot of the reasons why we don't wanna
commit is because we're afraid that maybe something better is gonna come along.
We think, "Well, maybe there's gonna be a better option out there," or,
"Maybe I can further my career in a better job," or maybe i- if you're,
you're in a dating relationship, "I don't know if I wanna commit to this
lady because maybe there's a better one down the road," or, "I don't know if
I wanna buy that house because maybe a better one will come on the market."
We're afraid of commitment But when it comes to God, there is no better.
When it comes to God, th- there's, there's not a better option
that's gonna come along ever.
We read it in Psalm 16:11, "Those who go after other
gods," what does the Bible say?
"Multiply their sorrows."
When it comes to God, for Christians, there is no better
God that's gonna come along.
So it's good for us as Christians to swim against the culture, to go
upstream, and to say, "We're, we're not gonna let commitment wane as
a church, but we're gonna double down on our commitment to God."
If anybody should be a committed people, it should be the people of God.
And so this morning, what I want us to see in Psalm 119 is that a
surefire way for us this morning to measure our commitment to God is to
look to our commitment to His Word.
Let me put it a different way for us.
A, a devotion this morning, a devotion to the God of the Word is gonna look
like a devotion to the Word of God.
A devotion to the God of the Word is gonna look like a devotion to the Word of God.
And now, we've been in this whole series this summer called A Summer in
the Word, a- and so hopefully it's not a surprise to you that we're talking
about the Bible again this morning.
But maybe you're here going, "Man," and you're rolling your
eyes, just hopefully internally.
Please just roll them internally for me, um, in your heart, or just not at all.
But maybe you're sitting there going, "Another message on how
I need to be in the Bible."
A- a- and yes, it's another message on h- why we need to be in the Bible.
A- and, and here's why, y'all.
Uh, this is, and, and, and maybe I can get a little bit of response here from us.
Do you believe that this is the inerrant and authoritative Word of God?
Yes.
Yeah, from Him, right?
Okay.
So that means already we've all…
All of y'all that said yes, at least in the room, that that means that this book
is better than any other pursuit that you could have on the face of this planet,
because that is true of nothing else in the world except for this book right here.
Uh, the, the Bible is the only place that God has most plainly and clearly revealed
Himself to us and said to us, "This is who I am, and I want you to know me."
A- and so if that's true, then a- as much as we pursue anything else in this
world, maybe you're pursuing career advancement, maybe you're pursuing your
marriage, you're pursuing parenting, th- th- those are all fine and good,
but we should pursue the Bible even more, because it's in our pursuit
of the Bible, the Word of God, that we get to know the God of the Word.
And so that's why our commitment to the God of the Word is indicative of
our commitment to the Word of God.
It, it's, it's a reciprocal relationship.
The more you get into the Word of God, the more you're gonna
love the God of the Word.
The more you love the God of the Word, the more you're gonna
wanna be in the Word of God.
L- look at our first three verses this morning in verse 57
First four verses.
The Psalmist says this, "The Lord is my portion.
I promise to keep your words.
I entreat your favor with all my heart.
Be gracious to me according to your promise.
When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies.
I hasten and do not delay to keep your commands."
Again, I can't say that I'm devoted to God or talk about how much I love the
Lord if I have no concern for His Word.
But to talk about that, right?
Being committed to the Word of God.
Okay, but what does that look like?
How do I do that?
I wanna be committed to God.
W- what does that look like?
H- how do I go about pursuing that?
Our first point this morning, just plainly, is this: commit to
God by committing to His Word.
It starts with commitment.
Our devotion to God is, is, is, is seen in our devotion to His
Word, and so we need to first start by being devoted to His Word.
And, and we see that in these first four verses and, and there's really…
there's, there's four things here that, that are ways that we can commit
ourselves to the Word of God, or, or at least four thoughts about what
commitment to the Word of God looks like here that I want us to see as sub
points under this first point here.
Look at verse fifty-seven.
He says, "The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words."
The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words.
A- a- and we've seen this before from the psalmist in,
in one nineteen and one eleven.
He says, "Your testimonies are my heritage.
Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart."
The word heritage there, the psalmist was saying portion.
They're my inheritance.
They're what I treasure.
They're the things that I, I long for, the thing that I prize.
And here, back in our passage in verse fifty-seven, the psalmist
is saying the Lord is that.
And so, as a result, he says, "I promise to keep your words."
Uh, the first way that we commit to the Word of God is to commit, is to commit.
Verse fifty-seven.
To say with the psalmist, "Yes, the Lord is my portion."
I'm committing to that truth, that reality.
I'm choosing the Lord above all other things in my life.
There are other good things in my life, but nothing is as good as the Lord is.
The psalmist wanted Yahweh.
He wanted the Lord.
He wanted God, and I hope that's true of every believer in the room this morning.
That all of us would say, "Yeah, I wanna be able to say the Lord is my portion."
Like the psalmist says in Psalm sixteen eleven, "There is no
good apart from the Lord."
That we would say, "The Lord is my portion."
I hope that given the choice, we would say, "Take the world, but give me Jesus."
I hope that we would say, "Yes, uh, God, you are, you are my portion.
I, I, I promise to keep your words."
A- and yet that's easy for us to say right now this morning as we're surrounded by
other brothers and sisters in Christ.
It's easy for us to say on the, the high of, of Sunday as we gather together as
the church, but what about Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday?
Will we still say, "Take the extra thirty minutes of sleep, and instead
give me thirty minutes more with Jesus"?
Would we say, "You know what?
Take the hour of doomscrolling on social media, and give me an hour of Jesus"?
Take the world, but give me Jesus.
Would we say, "The Lord is my portion"?
And, and notice the psalmist's response, "The Lord is my portion.
I promise to keep your words."
It's a, a clause that's a result of the first part.
He's saying, "Because the Lord is my portion, because He's my treasure,
because He's my inheritance, because I want Him more than anything
else, I promise to keep His words."
The psalmist knew that if he wanted more of God, he needed more of the Word of God.
But to be able to keep the Word, we need to have the Word.
To keep is, is to, to treasure.
It's to store up.
It's to commit to.
It's to conform to.
It's to practice.
It's to be careful about adhering to it.
That's all behind the idea of the word keep.
And so if we're gonna keep God's Word, we have to know God's Word.
And listen, y'all, it's not enough to just show up and listen to me every Sunday.
I'm not enough for that.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but, uh, by every word
that comes from the mouth of God.
You guys need daily interaction with God's Word.
And again, before we push back on that, I don't want you to, to say,
"Okay, well, the pastor's just telling me I need to read my Bible more."
I want you to see that, that God's Word is telling us that.
But more than that too, I want you to just treasure the Word
of God and say, "Why wouldn't I?
Why wouldn't I?"
Again, what did we all agree to earlier?
At least most of us in the room I think did.
That this is the authoritative, inerrant Word of God, that
God has given this to us.
Think about it.
He had these books, these words written down thousands of years ago and preserved
through the transcription and the copying of scribal, uh, manuscripts over the
ages, and He had them bound for us into a single canon of 66 books of the Bible.
And when you look at the Bible and you look at the stats on reliability and you
begin to investigate it, there is no other book, ancient or modern, that is as well
attested and reliable as the Bible is.
And you have to step back and ask yourself the question, why did God do that if
not for us to read it, to know Him?
I mean, the God of the universe has said, "This is, this is
how I want you to know me.
I'm giving you a book that's all about me."
And, and, and this is not meant to be a, a burden to us, but when we
think about it that way, it should be something that we would say, "Man, I,
I, I want it as much as I can get it.
I wanna commit to the Word of God."
For some this morning, that might be the main takeaway today, and, and praise God.
I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna commit to being in God's Word.
I'm resolving.
This is, this is what I'm gonna do But second, notice i-if you want to
commit to the Lord, it, it's not just committing, but it's also expecting His
favor in return, His favor in return.
This is the Double Stuff Oreo on the end of the stick, okay?
It's not a carrot.
Carrots, nobody likes carrots except for rabbits and people with
bad eyesight, 'cause carrots are supposed to make your eyesight better.
It's the Double Stuff Oreo on the end of the stick, or it's your Christmas
tree cake, or it's whatever you like on the end of the stick, okay?
It, it-- The, the psalmist is saying there's good that comes
from being in the Word of God.
It's not just, uh, like I said, it's not a burden, but it's in the Word
of God that the psalmist can say, "Uh, Lord, I, I, I want your favor."
That we should expect favor when we give ourselves over to
the study of the Word of God.
He says it this way.
He says in verse 58, "I entreat your favor with all my heart.
Be gracious to me according to your promise."
I entreat your favor.
The word favor there is the word for the face of God.
He says, "I wanna see your face.
I wanna be in your presence, Lord."
And the safest place and the, the, the most accessible place for us to find
the presence of God is in the Word of God, is to be there, to sit with Him.
And so he says, "Be gracious to me according to your promise."
He knows that to be in the presence of God, he's gonna need the grace
and mercy of God to atone for his shortcomings, his sin in life.
So what does he say?
He says, "Be gracious to me according to your promise."
The word promise there, it's one of the synonyms that the psalmist uses
for the Word of God in Psalm 119.
And so here he says, "There is grace and there is mercy and there is favor
to be found in the Word of God."
In other words, there's good, there's the Oreo, there's the Double Stuff
Oreo on the end of the stick for us.
The stick might be, "Hey, uh, you need to be in the Word of God consistently."
That might be the thing that's like, "Okay, I gotta do that.
I gotta wait.
I gotta sacrifice to do that."
But there's good to be found there because the psalmist says, "Man,
I, I know that there's favor and there's grace and there's mercy to
be found for me in the Word of God."
But third, not only to expect favor in return, but third,
to determine to obey it.
If I'm gonna commit to the Word of God, I'm gonna commit by
saying, "Lord, I'm, I'm all in.
I'm committing.
I'm committing expecting your favor," and then I'm also-- I'm gonna
determine that as I go to the Word of God, I'm gonna obey the Word of God.
And so he says this.
He says, "When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies."
When I think on my ways, such a good practice for us to get into.
The word "ways" there, it implies our, our patterns of life, our
spheres of life, our behaviors.
If you've ever read a productivity book, a lot of times it'll talk to you
about determine what your roles are.
What are your different roles?
Maybe you're an employer or employee, or maybe you are a manager, or
maybe, uh, some of your roles, let's get outside the work environment.
Y- maybe you're a mom, you're a dad, uh, y- you are a brother, you're a
sister, you're a husband, you're a wife.
Uh, y- you are any number of things.
Those are your roles.
Those are the ways of your life.
And so the psalmist says, "I'm gonna give thought to my ways,"
and that's good for us to do.
We shouldn't just let life happen to us.
We need to think about, we need to proactively take time occasionally,
weekly, monthly, whatever that is, and say, "Lord, I wanna consider my ways.
I wanna consider my life."
And, and the idea is there's all these paths that might be taken, and the
psalmist says, "If I see any of my ways that aren't on the path according to the
testimonies, the Word of God, man, I wanna turn my feet off that path and onto the
path of the testimonies of God's Word."
And so I'm gonna look at my life, and I, I, I might say, "You know what?
I feel like I'm, I'm doing okay in most of my ways of my life, but man, my-- the, the
path of my free time over here, I'm not really following the Word of God when it
comes to the way I'm using my free time.
I gotta get that back on the path."
Or maybe you're thinking about the ways of your life and you're going,
"Uh, generally, I would say I'm, I'm doing okay, but man, my thought
life recently has not really been in accordance with the Word of God.
I, I, I haven't been following God's Word in what I've been
giving my thoughts over to."
A- and so this is an opportunity to turn your feet to His testimonies, to
say, "I need to think about that way in my life," and say, "What does it look
like to conform now to the Word of God?"
In other words, to come to the Word of God and to obey the Word of God.
Or maybe it's, "You know what?
I'm doing okay, but, but my marriage isn't great.
My role as a wife, my role as a husband, I'm, I'm not really being the husband or
the wife that God has called me to be."
O- o- okay, so considering that way, what does it look like for my-- to
turn my feet to His testimonies in that area of my life and to obey His Word?
And so when we commit to the Word of God, because we wanna commit to the God
of the Word, a part of that means we come to the Word of God ready to obey
it, ready to say, "Lord, you are Lord.
I'm gonna turn my feet to your testimonies."
A- and along those lines, because He is Lord, that, that final point here
is we need to eagerly prioritize it.
We need to eagerly prioritize the Word of God in our lives and our obedience to it.
He is Lord, right?
Jesus is our Savior, right?
He's the, the, the, the King.
He is the Son of God.
He's the one who holds all things together.
But one of the key relationships that we have to Him presently as believers
is He is our Lord or our Master.
And what that would imply then is that we are His subjects, right?
We are His servants.
We are even, if I could go so far as to say, we are His slaves.
And so what does He say there in verse 60?
He says, "I hasten and I do not delay to keep your word.
I hasten and I do not delay to keep your commandments."
Uh, think about it like this.
If, if you had a, uh, if you had a servant, and that servant even,
even with a good master, and Jesus is a good Lord, He is a good master.
He's not harsh, He's not cruel.
But if you-- even with a good master or a good servant, uh, or a good Lord, the
servant's job when the master says or the Lord says, "Hey, I want you to go
and do this," the servant's job is not to say back to the Lord or to the master,
"Okay, I'll get around to it eventually."
Right?
That's not the servant's job.
The servant says to the Lord, "On it.
I'm doing it right away.
Let me, let me get that done pronto."
Right?
Because that's the relationship that exists.
That's the expectation that exists.
And so when we come to the Word of God, we need to be like the
psalmist and say, "I'm hastening.
I'm not delaying on this anymore."
I'm not coming across a passage of Scripture, in other words, and
thinking to myself, "You know what?
I'm gonna apply that and obey that when I get older."
Or we're not coming to a passage in, in the Scripture saying, "You know what?
I'm gonna apply that to my life when I'm a more mature believer."
Or we're not coming to a portion of the Bible and saying, "You know what?
I'll obey that when, uh, when I get out of the trial that
I'm walking through right now."
No, because Jesus is our Lord, and this is His Word, when we come to
it and we see that He calls us to obey, then our response is, "On it.
I'm gonna obey.
I'm going to determine to obey it.
I'm gonna eagerly prioritize that obedience in my life
Commit to God by committing to His Word.
I, I've been dabbling in, in dipping my toe in the, into the world of Claude
recently, and I know I'm behind on that.
And somebody was telling me there's something called Hermes out there,
which I guess sits on top of Claude.
I don't even know what that means.
But they were saying that it can do some even more amazing things,
and maybe you understand that.
Um, but I've been trying to understand Claude a little bit more, and I'm coming
over to it, and so I've just been watching some YouTube videos, and here's how you
do this, and I'm learning about projects and master prompts and all that stuff.
But I, I, I haven't really given myself over to it fully yet.
I, I'm just kinda on the outskirts.
I'm, I'm intrigued by Claude, and so I'm, I'm watching things, I'm learning
things, I'm impressed by things.
I hear some of y'all tell me about what you can do with Claude.
I'm like, "Wow, that sounds really cool."
Uh, but I haven't yet said I'm all in with Claude.
I haven't committed to Claude, and so I'm not taking the courses to
learn it yet or to, to really dive in and get hands-on with it every
single day so that I can do it.
A-and so I'm, I'm somebody who's intrigued by Claude, but
I'm not yet all in with Claude.
And my fear is that some of us as Christians are more intrigued
with the Word of God than we are all in with the Word of God.
We'll listen to a sermon.
We'll listen to sermons weekly on it.
We'll listen to podcasts.
We'll read books about it.
We'll hear other people tell us what God's Word has done in their lives.
But for us, we're really not there where we're all in with the Word of God,
saying, "I need it every single day in my life, and Lord, I want you to do in
my life through the Word what you've been doing in their lives through the Word."
And so the, the opportunity here for us as we sit here this morning is
to think, "Man, if I wanna commit to God, I need to commit to His Word."
'Cause to be devoted to the God of the Word is to be devoted to the Word of God
One thing I know, though, is if you're gonna make that commitment,
you're gonna face opposition.
You're gonna have an opponent because you have an enemy who's prowling around like
a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
You have an enemy that doesn't want you in the Word of God.
You have an enemy that's gonna cause you to go, "I'm not…
No way am I setting my alarm 30 minutes earlier tomorrow morning."
You're gonna have an enemy that's like, "Man, this pastor's just
legalistic telling you to be in the Word of God every single day.
Don't worry about that.
You don't have to listen to him.
After all, there's grace."
You're gonna have an enemy that's gonna try to undermine and do everything
he can to keep you out of God's Word because he knows how powerful it is for a
Christian to be in God's Word every day.
And so along those lines, look at what David writes n-next,
or the psalmist writes next.
He says this: "Though the cords of the wicked ensnare
me, I do not forget your law."
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law.
This is what I call sanctified obstinance.
The author's saying, "Even though the enemy may think
he's got me, he doesn't got me.
I'm going to determine to remember the Word of God.
I'm not jumping ship from the Word of God."
Our second point when we think about what does it look like to be committed to
the Word of God in order to be committed to the God of the Word is this, don't
give up at first signs of struggle.
Don't give up at first signs of struggle.
And listen, if, if you're here this morning and you look at these first two
points and you're going, "I, I'm there.
I'm committed to the Word, I'm in the Word daily, and I'm, I'm not giving up when
it comes to the struggle," praise God.
I, I just hope that this encourages you, that you can say with the psalmist, "Amen.
I know where you're at, psalmist.
I, I'm, I'm there myself, too.
I've, I've tasted and seen the, the good things that you've tasted and seen, too."
But for others of you this morning, m-maybe you, you're there and
you're thinking to yourself, "Okay, pastor, I've done this.
I've read God's Word.
I, I, I've, I've gone through seasons where I'm praying every single day.
I, I've gone through seasons where, man, my, my church attendance has been aced.
I'm, I'm there all…
Every time the doors open, I'm there.
I'm serving in the church.
I'm showing up in my community group.
I'm encouraging other believers.
I'm sharing the gospel with people.
And, and listen, pastor, I had trials just come at me, and right now I'm not
in a good place, and my temptation is to say, 'Is any of it even worth it?
Is this working?
What about the favor that you were talking to me about in the, the first point?
I don't feel that right now.'"
Be encouraged because the psalmist knows where you're at, if that's you.
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me.
What are the cords of the wicked?
The cords of the wicked, the idea there is it's, it's a trap set for an animal.
It's like the enemy is the, the hunter and you are the prey.
We talked about that in 1 Peter Chapter 5.
You've got an enemy who's a roaring lou- lion seeking someone to devour,
and you're on the menu, right?
And so he's laid the traps, and the cords of the wicked, for the
psalmist, it feels like they've got him, like they've ensnared him.
This is one of the areas where we should be encouraged if we read Psalm 119,
that this is not written by somebody who didn't go through it in life.
This is not written by somebody who just had an easy street kind of a life.
In fact, if this is King David, think about King David's life for a minute.
There's a good chance that Psalm 119 is King David.
We don't know 100%, but there's a good chance.
But think about King David's life for a second.
So you have David, the shepherd boy, and he's just living his life.
He's got his brothers out there, and along comes Samuel to, to Jesse's
house, and he says to Jesse, uh, "I'm here to anoint, uh, one of your
sons to be the next king of Israel."
And Jesse parades his finest before him, and, and Samuel
says, "Nope, none of these.
Do you have anybody else?"
And Jesse was like, "There's a shepherd boy out there, but don't worry about him."
Samuel's like, "Well, actually, let's worry about him.
Why don't you bring him in here?"
If you're wondering what version this is, this is the PSV, the Pastor's Standard
Version that I'm quoting from here.
Um, and so here comes David, and David comes in and, and Samuel looks
at him and says, "That's the guy."
So David's now the anointed future king of Israel, but the problem is there's
already a king in Israel named Saul.
So David just goes back to his life of shepherding his animals, and next thing
you know, the Philistines draw up for battle, and now Israel and Philistia
are at war with each other, and there's this giant, literal giant named Goliath
who's out there, and he's taunting God.
David, meanwhile, the anointed future king of Israel, he's living
his best life with the sheep.
A- and his dad says, "Hey, David, why don't you go check on your
brothers on the front line?"
So David goes up there.
He happens to hear this giant taunting God.
He says, "This isn't happening."
He goes to Saul.
He says, "Saul, I'll go battle this guy."
Saul says, "Go for it.
Here's my armor."
David says, "No, thanks."
He goes out with his sword or with his sling and his
stones, and he whips it around.
He lets it fly.
Thud.
Nails the giant right in the forehead.
The giant falls down.
David goes out, cuts his head off.
David wins.
Everybody goes wild, and everybody's like, "David's the greatest."
In fact, it even gets better from there, doesn't it?
Because then King David is brought into the service of Saul, and he's conscripted
to be a warrior in Saul's army.
And so David goes out and starts fighting battles, and the people
start singing songs about David.
David is the one.
Saul killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands.
And so David is doing even better for himself now, and things are going
great, and then he's playing the harp for Saul, and Saul picks up a spear and
throws it at him, not once, but twice
David gathers his friend Jonathan, and he says to Jonathan, "Hey, Jonathan, I think
your dad might be a little upset with me.
I think he's trying to kill me."
Jonathan says, "No way."
And so they, they plot to figure out if that's true, and
it finds out, yeah, it's true.
Saul wants to kill David.
He doesn't throw spears at everybody.
He's, he's really trying to hurt David here.
So David takes off on the run from Saul, and David's in the wilderness, and
David's surrounded by his mighty men, which sounds really cool, but if you've
ever read the description of the mighty men, these are the societal outcasts,
and they're the ones that come to David.
And so David's running, and he's hiding in caves.
He even has to take shelter with the Philistines for a moment in time.
Now, think about David in that moment
That the cords of the wicked ensnare me.
Imagine if David had said, "God, this whole you thing is not really
working out for me right now.
I'm out
Whether it's David or not, the psalmist knew what it was to be in a situation
to say, "Lord, what is going on?
This is not the way that things are supposed to be right now."
Christian, you should expect that.
Spiritual warfare, as we've talked about multiple times, is real.
And so maybe you're here this morning and you're thinking to yourself, "I,
I, I don't just expect it, I'm in it
I'm in it.
I, I feel like I've been reading the Word of God, I've been doing the things,
I've been walking after the Lord, I've been praying, and I've got the thorn
in my flesh, or I've got this strained relationship here, or I've got this
incessant pain in my back and the doctors are telling me, "You know what?
You're gonna have to live with this, 'cause there's
nothing we can do about it."
And I'm sitting here saying, "Lord, the valley is too dark right now for me
Circumstances like that might cause even the best of us to say, "Is it worth it?
Is it working?"
But that's why I think the first word in verse 61 is so important.
It says, "Though."
Now, it's not there in the original, but it's implied
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, even if that should happen, though
that should happen, though that should be the reality, though I should be
oppressed and downtrodden, though I should have no earthly hope, I will
not forget your law, your Torah, your instruction, your guidance, your teaching.
Why?
Because it's there that I find the hope that I need.
It's there that I find the comfort that nothing in this world can offer.
And so rather than in the tr- in the valley of the shadow of death,
running from the Word of God, you need to run to the Word of God.
Let me just read for you Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 31, and just listen
to this, and maybe you're in the valley, and listen to these words in the valley.
A- and if you're not in the valley, think back to the last time you were
there, and think about these words as an example of how running to the
Word of God can be such a balm for the soul when you're in that moment
saying, "The wicked have ensnared me."
Paul says, "What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also
with Him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus is the one who died.
More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
who is indeed interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or
nakedness or danger or sword?
As it's written: 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are
regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.'
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Nothing in this world will give you that comfort.
Nothing will.
Nothing can cast your mind from the affliction to the, the, the
presence of God and to remind you of your future like the Word of God
Passage that says this light momentary affliction is preparing
for me an eternal weight of glory.
Or even referencing the shadow of death, Psalm 23, "Even though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil."
Because you're with me
See, the safest place for the Christian isn't to run away from the Word of
God in times of trouble and to con- conclude that this isn't working.
But rather it's to double down and get even further into the Word of
God during times of trouble, to be reminded and to have your perspective
shaped and to have your hope given and to have your peace provided
That there's something more than what you're going through right now.
That's so secure that nothing in all creation will
separate you from that future
And so we go to the word of God, not away from it.
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law
As we weather the storms, as we press on in our devotion to the
Lord, it's gonna have an inevitable and unavoidable impact on our lives.
It's gonna show up, in other words, in our lives.
Look down at verses 62 through 64.
The psalmist says this.
He says, "At midnight I rise to praise you because of your righteous rules.
I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts.
The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.
Teach me your statutes."
In this final section in our passage here, I want us to see a, a three-part
picture of the person who's committed themselves to the Word of God.
This is, in other words, what it looks like.
When we give ourselves over to the Word of God, we wanna commit to the
Word of God, and we wanna commit to the Word of God by committing to His Word.
We wanna commit to the Word of God by, by not giving up, by enduring,
by pressing on, and then we wanna commit to the Word of God by making
sure that it shows up in our life, that we are all in with the Lord.
Final point this morning is this.
Show your love for God's Word through a transformed life.
Show your love, show it, evidence it, for God's Word through a transformed life.
Talked about this illustration before, but it, it's so poignant and so helpful.
It's like going to Hutchins BBQ, right?
You go to Hutchins, and then you always know when somebody has been at Hutchins.
Why?
'Cause they smell like they've been at Hutchins.
And, and we've been to other places too.
Tender's great.
They, they do good pork up there.
We've been to other places too that shall not be named in the presence
of such a, a place as, as Hutchins.
But, but we've been to other places too, and they're good,
but no place is like Hutchins.
No place sticks with you for like 48 hours.
You gotta shower after going to Hutchins.
Like your hair, it gets into the follicles.
Whatever they do there, it just, you just smell.
And if you work at Hutchins, I gotta imagine that you just give up.
You're just like, "I'm just gonna smell like smoked meat for the rest of my life."
Not a bad thing.
Not an awful thing.
But you know somebody's been to Hutchins because you can smell it on them.
We need to be so saturated with the Word of God that people know
we've been with the Word of God because they, they pick it up on us.
They see it in us.
They hear it from our mouths.
They hear it as we give the perspective on what we're going through at this time.
They see the difference in our lives.
They see that God is changing us, that God is making us more like Christ
And so let me suggest to you what a life committed to the
Word of God is gonna look like.
A life committed to the Word of God is gonna look like this.
First, it's gonna evidence a genuine love for the Bible.
It's gonna evidence a genuine love for the Bible.
Notice what he says in verse 62.
He says, "At midnight I rise to praise you because of your righteous rules."
At midnight I rise to praise you.
Now, uh, in first service, uh, this was perfect.
We had a, a baby, and we talked beforehand, and I said, "If you could
just start screaming, uh, right at the time when I get to this point,
that would be really helpful."
And she did.
She did awesome.
Praise God.
Awesome.
Um, but, uh, it was such a, a good reminder to me.
If, if you're a parent, you hear that newborn cry, and it does two things.
Number one, it, it, it just causes you to feel the warm fuzzies about
the, the cuteness of the baby, and also it gives you a little bit of
PTSD 'cause you remember hearing that cry in the middle of the night
and just going, "Oh, sleep is gone.
It's over.
It's time for me to get up," right?
Most times we don't love being woken up in the middle of the night.
O-one of my boys came to me last night and woke me up because he had
a, an ear hur-- ear infection, and, you know, 'cause it's the weekend.
So why not get an ear infection when the doctor's offices are closed?
That's helpful.
But, but while I, I love my son, it, it wasn't great to wake
up to an ear infection, right?
Most of the time, we get woken up in the middle of the night
or a nightmare or something like that, it's not a good thing.
But here the psalmist is woken up.
Notice he says, "At midnight I rise to praise you."
He's not already up.
He's not pulling an all-nighter.
He's awoken by the Word of God.
I, I'm inferring here, but, but I might suggest that maybe he's
even dreaming about God's Word.
You know how a lot of times when you're just obsessing over something,
you start dreaming about it?
Well, I wonder if the, the psalmist, and a- and again, going back to Psalm 1:2, his
delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law, and he meditates day and night.
If that's happening, my guess is that the Word of God is invading his
dreams, and he's being woken up by the Word of God, and he can't help
but to get up and to worship God.
That's a life that loves God's Word.
That's a life that just is saying, "I love the Lord, and I love His Word so
much that it's waking me up at night."
Do you love God's Word so much that you're dreaming about it?
That it's waking you up at night and you're, you're thinking
about scripture when you wake up
I got room to grow there for sure.
But I want that.
I wanna strive after that.
I want others to know that I love God's Word, not just because
I'm a pastor, be- but because I, I actually do love His Word.
I want that to be all of our, our goal.
That's a life committed to the Word.
It's a life that evidences a love for the Word.
Second, it's a life that evidences a genuine love for other
believers, for other Christians.
He says this.
He says, "I am a companion of all who fear you, of all those who keep your precepts."
That's verse 63.
I'm a companion, I'm a friend of those who fear you.
People of the Word naturally gravitate towards people of the Word
If you are living a life that's saturated by God's Word and characterized by
obedience to His Word, you're gonna want to surround yourself by other
people who are doing the same thing.
And the inverse of that, unfortunately, is also true.
If you're living a life where you're not in the Word of God, if you're living a
life where you are, are not walking in faithfulness to Him, then you're not
gonna wanna be around people who are.
And so one of the evidences of our commitment to the Word of God is that
we want to be around other believers.
We wanna be around people that are gonna stir our affections for Christ,
that are gonna cause us to love the Word of God more, and we're gonna
wanna do that in their life, too.
It's one of the reasons why we do community groups here at our church,
to create an environment, to create an atmosphere, to create a place where
you can build relationships with other Christians who love the Bible also
and love the God of the Bible and, and they wanna help you do the same, and
they want you to help them do the same
Who are your closest friends, your closest companions?
Are they people who love God's Word?
Are they people who help you love God's Word more?
Are they people you are spurring on to love the Word of God more as well?
A life committed to the Word evidences a love for other believers.
And then third, and finally, a, a life committed to the Word evidences
a love for learning more of the Word.
A love for learning more of the Word.
Look at verse 64, "The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.
Teach me your statutes."
In other words, everywhere the psalmist looked, he couldn't
help but see evidence of God.
The earth is full of your steadfast love.
And so his conclusion was, "I wanna know you more."
And in that conclusion, he said, "Teach me."
Teach me what?
Teach me your statutes.
Teach me your commandments.
Teach me your Word.
Spurgeon put it this way, he said, "Those who have resolved to obey
are the most eager to be taught."
Those that have resolved to obey … Remember our first point
about committing to the Word of God.
Those that have resolved to obey, that have committed to him, those are the
ones that are most eager to be taught by him, that are most eager to say,
"Okay, Lord, help me understand."
When we give ourselves over to the Word of God, y'all, what it does is
it creates and it, it, it draws us into this, this, this vortex that
This is the cyclical pattern.
It, it, it's like this, I come to the Word of God to know him, and as I come
to the Word of God and I learn more about God, it causes me to love God even more.
And because I'm loving God even more, what that's gonna cause me to do is
say, "God, I want to have more of you.
I wanna know you even more than I do, because I wanna love you even more."
And so then we're back into saying, "Lord, teach me more."
And then we're taught more, and then what does that do?
That causes us to love him more.
And then what does that do?
That says, "Man, I wanna know even more."
And here's the great news for you, Christian, you're never gonna get
to the place where you're like, "I need the Bible part two."
We're never gonna be done with the Bible.
W- anytime you pick up the Word of God, there's more to be taught there.
You've got the infinite riches of the Word of God that are
contained in the scriptures.
So it doesn't matter where you're at in your walk with Christ,
there's more for us in the w- Word.
There's more for us there.
There's a reason why we can go to it every single day and expect him to
teach us and to instruct us and to cause us to grow each and every day.
So a life committed to the Word shows up.
We evidence our love for the Word
Through our love for the Bible, through our love for other
believers, and through our love for learning more about the scriptures
I'm confident that if you dive into the Word, commit yourself to the Word, it
will have its work done in your life.
And it's not just because I, I say that myself, but because God's
Word even says that of itself.
Psalm 55:10 through 11 says this.
It says, uh, Isaiah 55, excuse me.
"A- a- as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there,
but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the
sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which
I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
Christian, if you've got the Spirit of God dwelling within you, the Word of
God is gonna do its work in your life.
The Spirit of God is gonna see to that.
The Spirit of God is gonna fulfill this promise in your life.
It's gonna take God's Word and the time that you spend in it, and it's gonna make
sure that there is no wasted time in the Bible, that it will always do something
in your life to make you more like Christ
And so again, commitment, though it's a, a, an increasingly rare
quality in our culture, it shouldn't be increasingly rare in the church.
We should be countercultural in that.
Our commitment to the Word of God, because of our commitment to the God of the Word,
should be front and center for all to see.
That's one of our distinctives, right?
The Bible is central, and that's true of, of our ministries.
We want that to be true, but we also want to be-- that to be true
of our own lives as Christians.
We want the Bible to be central in our lives.
There's no better option out there besides God.
You're never gonna find something that's better than Him, and to be committed
to Him is to be committed to His Word
As I was talking about Isaiah 55 just a second ago, though, one of
the reasons I know that that will be fulfilled in your life is because of
the Spirit of God dwelling within you.
And the only reason that we have the Spirit of God dwelling within
us is because of what we're about to remember right now, which
is the death of Christ for us.
See, apart from God's intervention in sending Jesus Christ, His perfect,
spotless Son, to die on the cross for our sins so that we can be forgiven, and
to rise again three days later so that we would live with Him forever, none
of us in this room stand a chance at understanding really anything about this
But because of the gospel, because of the cross, because God has saved us,
redeemed us, adopted us, and called us His own and given us His Spirit,
now we can come to the Word of God.
We can give ourselves to it, we can read it, and we can be transformed by it
What we're about to do right now, if you're new with us, is something
that is, is for the church.
In other words, it's, it's for Christians.
And so if you're not a Christian, please just let these elements pass by.
This is something where we do this to remember something that God has
done for us, and that is the gift of Jesus Christ, His Son, His body
broken, His blood poured out for us.
And so if you're an unbeliever and you would say, "Yes, I know for sure
that I'm not a Christian," please just let these elements pass by.
If you're here as a Christian, I wanna encourage you two ways during
this time, because the elements are, are passing and we take it together.
I wanna encourage you to do two things.
Number one, I want you to encourage, to encourage you to be thoughtful right now.
It's easy for us to go through the motions.
And so as these elements are passed, uh, you might be thinking about what's coming
up, you might be thinking about Hutchins, you might be thinking about lunch, you
might be thinking about the rest of your day and things that you have to do.
But I wanna encourage you to, to, to try to press pause on all that and to
focus on what these things represent.
The body of Christ broken for you, the blood of Christ poured out for
you, a- and why that was necessary.
And then the second thing I wanna encourage you to do is,
is spend time in confession.
All of your sins were forgiven at the cross, past, present, and future.
But at the same time, it's good for us to keep short accounts with the Lord.
And so before we take the elements, it's good for us to stop and to think
back on our, our lives over the last week or, or however long and say,
"Lord, do I have, do I have sin?
Do I have unconfessed sin in my life that I need to bring to you right now
and lay it at the foot of the cross?
I know that it was already atoned for, it was already paid for,
but I need to confess it and ask for you to forgive me of that."
It's a good thing to do as well.
So the mus- music is gonna play, the elements are gonna be passed, and then we
will take them together as I come back up.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that our standing before you is not
based on our own righteousness.
God, it's not based on our track record.
It's not based on our past.
It's not based on a spiritual resume of ours.
But Lord, our standing before you goes back to what we're remembering right now.
Your act, your initiative, even as we read in Romans 8, that you did not spare your
own Son, but freely gave Him up for us.
But that's the reason that we can say with the psalmist, even back
from our scripture reading, that we have no good apart from you
So God, we thank you for Jesus, that he shed his blood for us, that he died in
our place so that we might be forgiven
His body broken for us, his blood poured out for us.
What a glorious reality that is.
We would be remiss not to say thank you, not just today, but
every single day of our lives
And with those lives, Lord, we wanna live in response, faithful to you.
We wanna pursue you.
We wanna know you more and more
We stop now to remember the death of Jesus on our behalf
Apostle Paul said this.
He said, "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you
That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when
he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
Let's eat
In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup
is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until He comes.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we look forward to this week.
We don't know what's in store for us this week, and we admit
and acknowledge that you do.
We pray that you would help us to pursue you at a, a deeper understanding, a
deeper knowledge of you this week, Lord.
That we would dive more into the Word of God this week, that we would ingest
more of it into our lives, Lord, that we would get ourselves more into it a- as,
as, uh, Lord, we, we apply ourselves to understand the, the greatest gift that
you provided for us outside of Christ, which is the revelation of who you are.
So God, thank you so much for the Bible.
Thank you for Scripture.
Thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for this week in front of us.
We pray that we live it faithful to you.
We pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.