Speaker: All right, well this summer we are gonna be diving into Psalm
119 together, Summer in the Word.
Uh, Psalm 119, if you're not familiar with it, is the longest chapter in
the entirety of the Bible, and you're saying, "What did I sign up for?"
I'm not preaching the whole thing this morning.
Uh, Psalm 119 is 176 verses.
It's broken down into 22 different sections, and it's
actually a massive acrostic.
Now, you may have to reach back to growing up, elementary school days,
to remember what an acrostic is, but an acrostic is a poem where each
line begins with the same letter.
And now you may be looking at your English Bible saying, "Okay, I've got a B, I've
got a W, I've got a W, I've got a B.
Uh, this doesn't look like an acrostic."
Uh, and that's because it's not in the English.
It is in the Hebrew.
In the Hebrew, there's 22 characters in the Hebrew alphabet, and so Psalm
119 in 176 verses is broken down into 22 sections and each section begins,
each line of that section begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
And so this is a, a Psalm that was organized and put together in, in
such a way to make it memorable.
Memorable.
Uh, it's memorable for other reasons, too.
In fact, legend holds that there was a man condemned to die in Scotland, and he
was brought up to the, the gallows and the noose was put around his neck, and it was
tradition that the condemned could request a Psalm to be sung before their execution.
And so this man was shrewd, and he said, "I'm gonna request Psalm 119.
Give me the longest Psalm you got."
And so they did.
They began to sing Psalm 119, and before they got two-thirds of the way
even through the Psalm, his pardon came and he was released from the
hangsman, hangman's noose, and he was freed to go about the rest of his life.
Psalm 119.
Uh, the greatest impact of Psalm 119, though, is not
its length, it's its content.
Psalm 119 really is, uh, the magnum opus on the Word of God, on the scriptures.
One commentator said this, "This giant among the Psalms shows the
full flowering of that delight in the law of the Lord, which is described
in Psalm 1, and gives its personal witness to the many-sided qualities
of scripture praised in Psalm 19."
Or another said this, "Here we have set forth in inexhaustible fullness what the
Word of God is to a man and how a man is to behave himself in relation to it."
Psalm 119.
It, it is the magnum opus on the scripture.
It praises the Word of God.
In fact, 171 out of 176 verses, at least, there's debate, at least
171 out of 176 verses of this Psalm refer directly to the scriptures.
Psalm 119 is all about the scriptures.
In fact, Psalm 119 uses eight different words to refer to the
scriptures that you'll see show up time and time again in the book.
You've got word, you've got law, testimonies, statutes, commandments,
precepts, rules, ways, and there's even a, a few others that show
up less often than these do.
But any time you read any of these words in Psalm 119, it's
referring to the scriptures.
There was a man whose name was John Ruskin, whose mother made
him memorize large portions of the Bible, and one of the things that
she had him memorize was Psalm 119.
Again, Psalm 119 is set up to be memorized.
That's why it's in an, the acrostic form.
That's why in the Hebrew each one was beginning with the same Hebrew letter.
22 sections.
It was memorable, as large as it was.
And this man, John Ruskin, said this.
He says, "It's strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught
me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my childish mind chiefly
repulsive, that is, the 119th Psalm, has now become of all the most precious
to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of the love for the law of God."
I hope that that's gonna be the impact that this psalm and this summer has on us.
I hope that this psalm is going to cause us to love God's Word more.
I hope that it's gonna cause us to desire the Word of God more, to be hungry for
the Word of God more, to want to dive into, to immerse ourselves in God's
Word, to memorize it, to store it up, to treasure it, and to realize the positive
impact that it will have on our lives.
That's why we're gonna spend the next 12 weeks in Psalm 119 together.
It's not gonna be the typical verse by verse approach that we normally do in a
book, just like we finished up 1 Peter, although we, this morning, are gonna go
through the first eight verses that way.
But some of these, as we gather together, will be focused on the theme that the
psalm brings out, and then we w- might use that and springboard to another
passage that develops that theme for us.
But we are gonna start in Psalm 119 together every single Sunday.
And I want us to see the impact that this psalm is gonna have on our life.
Again, this morning, we're gonna be in the first eight verses of the psalm, and the
first eight verses focus in on the concept of the blessed life, the blessed life.
And so as we get into this, it's, it's yearbook season.
I know my kids just brought theirs back, and maybe you can think back
to when you got your yearbooks and everybody signed the yearbooks.
And you can see up at the top of your notes page there, the
title of the sermon, HAGS, right?
HAGS, Have A Great Summer.
I hope I'm not the only one that knows what that is.
I'm not trying to call anyone any names in the church here.
Have A Great Summer, HAGS.
Well, what I think we're gonna find this morning in Psalm 119:1-8 is that
the key to a great summer, and in fact, the key to a great life, is making sure
that we have ourselves immersed in the Word of God, that we've dived into the
Word of God with everything that we are.
What does that look like?
Well, grab your Bibles and open up to Psalm 119 with me.
Not only do we wanna see what it looks like, but why?
Why is that the key?
W- why is more Bible gonna make me have the best summer I've ever had?
And why is more Bible gonna improve my life?
Well, if you're a Christian, the answers are contained here in Psalm 119.
Let's just read the first eight verses together.
In verse one it says this: "Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with
their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways.
You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.
Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.
Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules.
I will keep your statutes.
Do not utterly forsake me."
Let's look at the first three v- verses here.
The first ver- word of, of verse one and the first word of verse two, same
word there, it is the word blessed.
Remember, this is about the blessed life.
How to have the blessed life here in verses one through eight.
The word blessed is from a Hebrew word that's the word Asher.
In fact, that's one of the tribes of Israel, isn't it?
It's also my youngest son's middle name, and it's a word that means
happiness or blessed or fortunate.
And so the author is saying, "If you want to be the, the one that has a, a happy
life, a blessed life, a fortunate life, it's going to involve these things."
Psalm 1:1-2 that Pastor Rod referenced during our worship time says, "Blessed,"
same word there, "Blessed," happy, fortunate, "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."
Again, the scriptures.
"In on his law he meditates day and night."
Blessed.
Having a, a blessed life, a happy life.
Now, before we move further here, it's probably helpful to
define what we mean by that.
What do I mean by a happy life?
Am I promising you that if you get more into the Word of God that your
summer is not gonna have any sorrow, there's not gonna be any tears, that
you're just gonna be, like, walking on sunshine for your whole life?
No.
No, that, that's not what we are referring to when we say a happy life.
I- in fact, some have pressed the distinction between something known as
happiness and something else known as joy.
Some have, have argued that, that joy is the heart posture.
Joy is, is the, the attitude, and happiness is the emotion that can flow.
Now, if we are Christians, I believe that even in the, the, the deepest valleys
of sorrow and heartache, there is a joy that abides that can even produce some of
the happiness in us, even though we may at the same time be wrestling with the
tears and the sorrow and the heartache and the pain, frustration, even anger.
And so when we're talking about having a blessed life, we're not talking about
you're gonna walk out of here and, and it's gonna be cloud nine for the
rest of your life, and you're gonna be able to say, "As long as I read my
Bible, everything's gonna go perfect," because you're gonna come back to me
with your receipt and say, "I want my, I want my money back," 'cause
that's not the life that I'm living.
The blessed life is, is different than that, but the best, blessed life is, is
better than that Because the blessed, blessed life is gonna help you tap into
that abiding joy, that, that posture that approaches whatever comes your way in
this life with a confidence that says, "I know that the Lord is on the throne and
that I have a hope that's secure in Him."
God's Word plays such a key role in that.
Many have said Psalm 119 is the most thorough exposition of Psalm 1.
Psalm 119 takes the idea of joy and delight in the law of God and
expounds that into 176 verses.
And joy is really the dominant theme, as we'll see as we study this book together.
And it's not that David or whoever the psalmist was
Some think it was David, others have, have questioned this.
It's not attributed in the book here.
But whoever the author is, as we're gonna read this, we're gonna see it's not as
though he was living a perfect life.
He was up against difficult situations in, in difficult seasons.
He was even fearing at times.
And yet the dominant theme throughout the book or throughout the chapter
here is the theme of joyfulness.
And so he says, "Blessed," or happy, fortunate, "are the
ones whose way is blameless."
Blameless.
It, it, it's the word in Psalm 18:30, same Hebrew word back in Psalm 18:30,
when it says, "God's way is perfect."
Okay.
So how in the world ... We're starting out, uh, with a, we're, we're playing
without a full deck right now, right?
Because if, if the key to blessing is to be blameless, well, then
who among us can tap into that?
Who among us can be perfect?
Well, if perfection is the definition of blamelessness here, then the
answer is none of us can, right?
All of us fall short of that standard.
All of us have sin in our lives.
So how, how can I be blameless?
Well, let me just remind you, back in the, the Old Testament, we find out that
there were men who were called blameless.
In fact, Noah was said to be a blameless man in Genesis 6.
David, in portions of his life, 2 Samuel 22, was said
to be a man who was blameless.
Job was a man, even though the word blameless is not necessarily used,
when God attributes to him what he does as he's saying to Satan,
"Have you considered my servant Job?
There's none like him in all the earth," we could look at
Job and say Job would meet the standards of being a blameless man.
And then in the Psalms we find time and time again it speaks of God's
interactions with the blameless.
For example, Psalm 18, Psalm 37.
So there must be a category in which blamelessness, even though absolute
perfection is not achievable, that there can be some sort of
blamelessness for you and for me.
I've said it before from the pulpit, and you've probably heard it before,
that God wants m- you to be holy more than He wants you to be happy, right?
But that's only true if we're talking about happiness when it refers to what
the world defines as, as happiness.
I- if we're seeking the happiness that God is holding out, then we would say that
God does want you to be holy and happy.
In fact, l- let me just say it this way, God wants a holy happiness in your life
He wants a blamelessness in your life that comes from you studying the Word of God,
learning the Word of God, applying the Word of God, living out the Word of God.
We read from Deuteronomy six during our scripture reading time that as the
parents of these Israelite children, and then even out beyond that time and
even for us today, we want to teach our children to obey the Lord because
to obey the Lord is, is good for us.
It's right.
It's helpful.
It's a blessing for us.
Whatever situation or season that you're in, to walk blameless before the Lord,
that is to set yourself to obey Him, to, to examine your life for any root of sin
and to rid it of your life as much as you possibly can, to do that is gonna
put you in a place of blessing, a place of joy, a place of God-given happiness.
Because again, the happiness that we're talking about is not circumstantial.
It, it's not based on what's going on in your life.
It's based on how your life is going with the Lord.
Sometimes it's gonna be realized in abiding joy and confidence
that God is on the throne.
Something happens, your life takes a left turn that you weren't expecting, and
you're left feeling out of control, but trusting in the one who is in control.
And so you have an abiding joy and abiding happiness, and
you're able to trust in Him.
Why?
Because you've gone to the Word of God, and you know who He's revealed
Himself to be in the scriptures.
Sometimes that joy is felt in, in a peace that surpasses understanding, like Paul
talks about in Philippians chapter four.
You've got anxieties.
You've got things weighing you down.
The s- the future is uncertain, and you go to the, the Lord in prayer,
and you cast your anxieties on Him because He cares for you, and what you
receive in return is the peace that surpasses understanding that guards
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
That sometimes is what that joy looks like.
But all this induces the question, okay, so then what does
it look like to be blameless?
How can I be blameless?
How do I do this?
How do I tap into this?
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
Well, that's the rest here of verses one through three.
There's three words that show up here in these verses that I want us
to, to hone in on here, and those are the words walk, keep, and seek.
Walk, keep, and seek.
These three words are the key to our finding this access to the blessed life,
to this blameless life, and it begins with a serious devotion to the Word of God.
Point number one is this: Get happy by getting serious.
I saw this week something o- about the Blue Angels, w- which, uh, I remember
once we were, we were driving, uh, on one of our trips back from, from
California to Texas or, or vice versa.
We were driving through, um, El Centro, California.
Anybody know where El Centro is?
It's, it's the middle of nowhere.
There's not a lot of good that happens in El Centro, except
for the people that live there.
I'm sure it's delightful for them.
Uh, but the Blue Angels train in that area, and we didn't know
that until all of a sudden we're driving along and our kids...
And we got a free Blue Angels show on, uh, on the eight as we were driving out
there, uh, to, uh, to leave California.
B- but the Blue Angels are fascinating.
Did you know that they do something before every flight called chair flying?
Some of you may know what this is.
It, they get folding chairs, and they sit together in the room, and I saw
a video of it this week, and they go through with utmost meticulous attention
every single part of their flight.
They get there in their full flight suits, they sit in the chairs, and they begin
to rehearse their program in their minds.
They close their eyes, all of them do, and they close their eyes, and they
go through the whole thing, including their radio calls and all of the minor
adjustments that they're gonna make while they're up in the air, everything else.
And it's not just here that they're doing it, it's their bodies too.
They're sitting in the chairs, and they're, they've got their hand on
the joystick and they're, they're making all of the d- I'm acting like
I know what to do in a p- cockpit.
You don't want me flying a plane.
And they're making all of these different adjustments as they're, they're sitting
in the chair, and they're doing all this, and they're going through all of
it, and their feet are on the pedals a- and, and they're, they're even
moving their heads with the G-forces that they know they're gonna expect
when they're flying th- their program.
Why do they do that?
Because they take what they do seriously.
They take what they do seriously.
They know what's at stake when they get behind the throttle of
this fighter jet that's worth m- millions and millions of dollars.
And they know that they have to be serious about their approach to
it, because if they're not serious about their approach to it, what's
at stake is, is, is far too much.
It's far too great.
Church, y- you may be checking the box on your daily Bible
reading each and every day.
You may be crossing it off like I do on my, my cards here.
Um, if you don't have a card like this, this is our daily Bible reading card.
Let me just introduce that to you.
You can grab one on your way out.
We'd love for you to jump in with us.
We've got a podcast to help kind of explain what's going on.
But, but if we're not careful, if we're not serious about our approach
to the Word, our time with the Lord each and every morning can become
about crossing off a number instead of engaging in a relationship.
I want us to be serious about what we do as we approach the Word of God.
The Blue Angels are serious because of what's at stake, and, and we need to
be serious because what's at stake for us is not a multimillion-dollar machine
or, or our physical well-being, but what's at stake is our relationship
with God and the well-being of our soul.
When you are fed by the Word of God, it should nourish you.
There's a, a seriousness about the approach.
We should be intentional about that, and we're gonna develop that
more as we move along this morning.
But I think we see the seriousness in these first three verbs here
that we find in verses one through three, the first one being walk.
Walk in the law of the Lord.
The one who's blameless is one who walks in the law w- of the Lord.
To walk in the law of the Lord is to pursue a, a path of life.
It's a pattern of behavior.
It's a way of life.
It's a course of action.
This path, notice, is laid out for us by the law.
The word law there is the word for Torah.
It's the instructions of God.
And for the psalmist, this probably was referring to the actual law,
the first five books of the Bible.
For you and I, this expands, doesn't it?
Second Timothy 3:16 and through 17 says, "All scripture is God-breathed,"
and notice its usefulness, "and it's profitable for teaching and
reproof and correction and for training in righteousness that
the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work."
And so the instruction of God's Word is for us to set the path
upon which we should walk, and we need to be serious about that
when we approach the Word of God.
What does that mean?
That means my posture needs to be one of submission when I
pick up the Bible every morning.
I'm coming f- to Him to say, "Lord, what...
How do you want me to walk?
What do you want my life to look like?
How do you want my, my, my behavior to look?"
And so I'm submitting myself to the scriptures when I come to
read the Bible every single day.
And so when you pick up the Word of God, are, are you coming with that
same posture to obey the scriptures?
Are you coming teachable to the Spirit, to the Word?
Are you coming even to passages that you've read 100 times still saying, "Lord,
teach me something new this morning.
Help me to see something that I haven't seen before.
Show me in my life where I need to get off the wrong path and on the right path."
We need to walk if we're gonna be blameless, to walk on the
way of the law of the Lord.
But the second thing he says is we need to keep His testimonies.
Blessed is the one who keeps His testimonies.
Again, testimonies is a, a word there for the scriptures, the things that God has
set forth as true, what He has testified to be His Word, and we want to keep them.
We keep His testimonies really in two ways.
We preserve them, we guard them, the idea of even kind of treasuring them up.
We're memorizing the Word of God.
We're storing it up in our hearts there.
We're keeping the Word of God in that sense.
B- but that leads to the second way that we keep the Word of God,
which is we apply the Word of God.
In other words, we obey it.
We not only come with a heart that is submissive to it, but we come
with a spirit of obedience to the Word of God every time we pick it up.
So when I come seriously to the Word of God, I want to come with
the right posture of submission and also the posture of obedience.
I'm coming to the Word saying, "Lord, teach me and show me, and
then I wanna, I wanna keep this.
I wanna do this.
I wanna walk it out.
I wanna live it out.
I wanna obey it."
And then the final verb he says here is we want to seek the Lord.
We want to seek the Lord.
Seek Him with their whole heart.
This is about devotion.
When we come to the Word of God, we come to encounter Him, and when we do that, we
come fully surrendered to that pursuit.
Second Chronicles, or, uh, rather First Chronicles 29.
First Chronicles 29 verse 19 says, "Grant to Solomon my son," David is praying for
his son, "grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments,
your testimonies, your statutes, preserv- performing all, and that he may build the
palace for which I have made provision."
Notice what David asks for before he even asks for the obedience of his son is the
devotion of his son And so as we come to the word of God with a serious posture,
we wanna come with that s- posture, that heart of devotion before the Lord.
We're climbing onto the operating table every time we pick up God's word,
and we're giving the scalpel to the Spirit of God, and we're saying to the
Spirit, "Lay us bare before the word."
This is what it looks like to get serious with the Word of God.
This is what it looks like.
He wants your, your full devotion, to surrender your whole life to Him.
When you come, you're seeking Him in every arena of your life when you
pick up the Word of God to read it.
There's not an area of your life that's off-limits.
When you come and you take up the Word each day, it's not like you're
taking up the Word going, "Okay, God, I'm, I'm giving you permission to get
after me in these areas of my life, but don't touch this one over here."
No, we wanna seek Him in the entirety of it.
We wanna come before the Lord and say, "Lord, I'm yours.
Do with me what you will.
Take the Word, apply it to my life.
Use it to make me more like Christ."
You know, if, if this were just me up here pontificating about, "Hey,
you need to read the Word of God.
You need to, to, to be submissive to it.
You need to be obedient to it.
You need to be devoted to the Word," and, and it was just me up here
just saying that, you might walk out kinda discouraged this morning.
Maybe you're gonna even walk out skeptical or cynical, being like,
"Yeah, here's just another to-do list from these Christian pastors.
Read my Bible more."
A- and, and that's why I'm so thankful that this psalm
begins the way that it does.
What's the first word again?
It's the word blessed.
Blessed, verse one, verse two, blessed.
And so this is God telling us, this is God telling you this morning, if you
wanna live the blessed life, it looks like coming after Him ev- every single day to
say, "Lord, I wanna walk in your ways, I wanna keep your testimonies, a- a- and
I wanna seek you with my whole heart.
I wanna do that because I want to be in the path of blessing that comes from you."
And so if you will do that, if you'll get serious about that, that's why
I say get happy by getting serious.
Because God is giving you the blueprints.
God is giving you the way forward to, to experience more of the blessed
joy that can abide no matter what else is happening in your life, and
it begins with you coming with a serious posture before the Lord every
single day to say, "God, I'm ready.
I'm ready.
I'm gonna submit, I'm gonna obey, I'm gonna be devoted to you."
But it's not just the, the getting serious.
That's, that's the start.
That's the heart posture.
After we get serious, then we gotta begin to diagnose our life and to say, "Okay,
how, how am I doing in these areas?
Am I ready to take the Word and do what needs to be done here?"
Pick up again in verse four.
He says this: "You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.
Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.
Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments."
See, once we're serious about the Word of God, then we need to get after
examining our life To see are there any areas of my life that are competing?
Are there any areas that are distracting me from my pursuit of the word?
Are there any areas that are obstructing me, keeping me from obeying the
word of God the way that I need to?
Uh, in other words, once you get serious about the word of
God, it's time to get focused in your pursuit of the word of God.
Second point is this, get happy by getting focused.
Get happy by getting focused.
Once we get the right posture, that posture that says I, I want to submit, I
want to obey, I wanna be fully devoted, then it's about moving to this idea
of saying, "Okay, now I wanna focus.
I wanna pay attention.
Lord, what does it look like now to pursue you?"
Uh, notice the word there in verse four.
He says, "You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently."
Diligently.
In this middle section, we're gonna see three things.
We're gonna see the requirement, we're gonna see the reality,
and we're gonna see the resolve.
A- a- and so right away in verse four, we see the requirement, God's requirement.
You, God, Father, Yahweh, you have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
Uh, the word diligently I, I think is an important word for us because maybe
you're out there saying, "D- uh, you, uh, in the ... Read the Bible every day?
Every day?
Come on."
There's Bible reading plans out there that are, like, five days a week, right?
Okay, God's word says, "You have commanded that I keep your word diligently."
It's hard to, to do something diligently and take a day off from it.
I- if, if I'm gonna say, "Man, Lord, I wanna keep your word diligently.
I wanna submit myself to your word.
I want to, to be ready to obey your word.
I wanna be fully devoted to you except on days when my life is just busy,
or except on Saturdays.
Lord, that's my day I sleep in.
Or except on, on Sundays, 'cause after all, I'm at church.
I already got enough Bible on Sundays.
Or when I'm on vacation, God, they ... I, I get a grace period, right?
I don't have to read my Bible every day when I'm on vacation, do I?"
You have commanded that your precepts should be kept diligently.
Diligently.
Man, we need to ha- to feel the weight of that word and say, "Man, that,
that, that's ... I, I, I need to be in the word of God every single day.
If I'm gonna be diligent about God's word, I need to be in, in it every single day."
And, and before we chafe o- at that, before we grate
against that, and before we
We're like, "Okay, whatever, Pastor.
Read my Bible every day.
Here's another one of those sermons," a- again, remember,
God has commanded this why?
Why has He ultimately commanded this?
For your what?
Come on.
C- for your what?
Rhymes with mud but starts with a G.
Good.
For your good.
I wanna make sure we're all tracking with this.
God wants you in the word every single day keeping His precepts
diligently because it's for your good.
It's good for you It's good for you to be in the Bible every single day.
It's good for you to come to God's Word submissive, obedient,
and devoted every single day.
It's good for you.
This has been clear from the beginning, from the giving of the law.
We read about it in Deuteronomy 6.
But earlier in, uh...
Wait a minute.
Genesis, Exodus, Levit- Yep, earlier.
Uh, Leviticus 26:3-6.
Here's what it says here.
He says, "If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them."
Notice walk, observe, do.
That sounds a lot like those verbs that we were just looking
at in the, the last section here.
If you'll do that, if you'll walk, observe, and, and do them, then I will
give you rains in season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees
of the field shall yield their fruit.
Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest
shall last to the time for sowing.
And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.
I will give you peace in the land.
You will lie down, and none shall make you afraid.
And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword
shall not go through your land.
In other words, as God is bringing Israel into the Promised Land, he's saying,
"I want you to keep the word of God.
I want you to keep my commandments.
I want you to obey my laws because it's good for you.
Because it's good for you.
That it may go well with you in the land to which you are entering."
Right?
Psalm 19.
We're in Psalm 119.
Psalm 19 is another passage that, that extrapolates upon the wonders
of God's Word a- and specifically on the good that it does for us.
Listen to Psalm 119 or, or Psalm 19.
In fact, if you wanna turn back 100 chapters, you can.
Psalm 19.
Psalm 19:7.
I'll give you just a second there to get there if, if, uh,
if you wanna turn back with us.
Psalm 19, the first part of Psalm 19 praises the creation of
God, praises general revelation.
We'll put it that way.
I- in Psalm 19, "The, the heavens declare the glory of God," which I don't know if
you got up early enough to get outside this morning and see the clouds in the
sky and the sun bouncing off of them.
It was, it was, it was Psalm 19.
It was that kind of a morning.
It was like, "Okay, God, I see you."
So the, the general revelation, the first six verses.
Then he s- turns to the way that God has specifically revealed himself to,
to us and the, the benefit of that.
Look at verse 7.
He says, "Man, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.
The rules of the Lord are true, righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than
honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping
them there is great reward."
Y'all, you being in God's word every single day, coming with a heart
that's ready to, to be submissive, to be obedient, and to be devoted
to him, to pick up the Word of God that way is, is good for you.
You're not gonna find anything else that does what Psalm 19 says the Word
of God does for us There's good riches in it, but that's the requirement.
You should keep them diligently because, again, they're for your good.
Okay, but what's the reality?
That's the requirement, what's the reality?
Look at verse five.
He says, "Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes."
Uh, this is a moment of honest reflection from the psalmist here.
He's saying, "Oh, that, uh, that my ways were, uh, that were..."
Oh, there, it's in the Hebrew.
It's an emotional interjection here.
He's saying, "If only, if only my ways were steadfast.
If only I was stable, consistent, secure in keeping your wa-
your ways, your statutes."
See, what the psalmist is doing here, I think, is he's, he's
bemoaning what he's missing.
He's saying, "Lord, you've commanded them for my good and, and I
just, I w- I, I wish I was more steadfast in keeping your ways."
Not because...
Notice, i- I don't think this is the psalmist saying, "Because I, I, I'm
just ashamed, and woe is me, and I, I'm not, I'm a miserable failure because I'm
not keeping your commandments enough."
I think he's saying, "Man, I, I want more of your blessing.
I wanna experience more of this blessedness that, that
you're talking about here.
I wish I was more consistent.
I wish I was more steadfast."
I wonder if you've ever been able to relate to the psalmist here.
I know I have.
This longing to be more consistent in your walk with Christ, this
longing to be, to have a greater hunger for the Word and a greater
faithfulness to apply it in your life.
A- a- and yet I, I would say if you're like me, more often than not,
that's born out of guilt and shame more than it is born out of a desire
to say, "Lord, I'm, I'm forfeit.
I'm missing so many blessings that otherwise I'd be experiencing right
now if I just was more faithful to pursuing your Word and you through it."
So the reality is the, the requirement's there.
The reality is, man, we could all grow in this.
None of us are, are, are nailing it.
None of us are, are, are acing this course.
All of us have room to say, "Man, how can I get more Word in my life?
How can I be more submissive, obedient, and devoted to the Lord
when I come to the scriptures?
How can I do this?
If, if that's your requirement that they be kept diligently, I can keep
them more diligently than I'm keeping them right now, and, God, I desire that.
I desire that."
And so that leads to his resolve.
He says, "Then I shall not be put to shame.
If, if I could be more steadfast, then I would not be put to shame, having my
eyes fixed on all your commandments."
Then when, when we are steadfast in keeping his precepts, that, that aim that
we have, th- then I won't be put to shame.
I'll be living a life of blessing.
I'll be living a life of confidence.
We'll talk about that in just a minute here.
I'll be living a life that is that 1 John 2:28 kinda life that, that
says, "Hey, uh, now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears
we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming."
I- if we're diligent about keeping the precepts of the
Lord, w- Lord, come quickly.
Whenever you wanna come, I'm gonna be ready for you.
That's the resolve that we should have, and to fix our
eyes on all your commandments.
Which, which commandments do we need to fix our eyes on, church?
All of them.
I may be acing it in one area of my life and, and yet I may have two or
three areas in my life that I'm like, "Okay, I know I got, I know I got sin
over here that I need to deal with, but you know what I wanna focus on?
I wanna focus on the commandments that I'm doing really well.
Let me focus on these."
Psalm is saying, "Man, I, I...
To, to keep them diligently, I need to focus on all of them."
The requirements, the reality, the resolve.
Uh, we would, uh, take my kids occasionally to, to Disneyland and, and
I remember bringing them to California Adventure, and there was a rollercoaster
there called the Incredicoaster.
And, and my oldest, Josh, was able to ride it when we went for the
first time, but my daughter, Annie, fell just short of the requirement.
The requirement, what is that thing?
It's that wooden arm that sticks out here, and it's objective as objective can be.
There's no way that you can get around it.
That's what the standard is.
The reality is for my daughter, she fell just a little bit short of that standard.
And so what did she do?
She resolved in her heart to grow that extra inch or two so that next time
we went to California Adventure, she'd be able to ride the Incredicoaster.
Now, how much control did she have over that?
None.
Y'all, sometimes God's Word in our lives is like that height requirement for us.
We read it and we're like, "Oh, man, I don't measure up.
I don't measure up to the word."
And yet what it should do with us, because of the good news of the grace and mercy
that's ours in the gospel, is give us a resolve to say, "Okay, but I'm going to.
I'm going to."
God's Word is, is like the surgeon's scalpel like I was talking about earlier.
It's opening me up and showing me, man, I got some areas of my life that
I need to bring into submission to the Lord that aren't, aren't there yet.
And the good news is, is you've got the Spirit dwelling within you if
you're a Christian, and you've got the ability to have this resolve
to say, "Okay, I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna get focused.
I'm gonna set my gaze on all His commandments.
I'm gonna get focused on the things that matter, the things that count.
I'm gonna get my focus off the things that the world has thrown
at me and onto the Word of God and say, 'How can I grow in this area?'"
Next time I come to this passage that I'm reading that's just kicking me in
the, the, the face, I wanna make sure the next time I come to it, I'm not
gonna be kicked in the face again.
I'm gonna be like, "God, praise God for the way that You're working on my life
and producing more Christ-likeness in me."
And so I'm gonna get refocused when I feel that.
It's a seriousness that produces a focus that ultimately should
result in a determination.
A determination.
Look at verse seven and eight with me.
Verse seven and eight says this: "I will praise you with an upright heart
when I learn your righteous rules.
I will keep your statutes.
Do not utterly forsake me."
One of the, the clear benefits in keeping the word is the impact that
it has on our souls, on our souls.
We go from shame, notice in this verse, to praise, from guilt to worship.
And so in these final two verses, the psalmist moves from a, a serious focus
to a de- a thoughtful determination to learn the word and to keep the word.
And so in our pursuit of that blessed life, in our pursuit of the best
summer that we're ever gonna have, i- in our pursuit of ha- having a great
life, as we approach the scriptures, we not o- only approach with a
seriousness and a focus, but finally we approach with a determination.
Get happy by getting determined.
This is where we plan the application of it.
We dealt with our heart po- heart posture in point number one, then
we dealt with, with diagnosing our life, figuring out where do I need to
refocus my life in point number two.
Uh, point number three here is talking about how do I
then move towards application.
I wanna now live this out, and there's two practical goals the psalmist has here
in these verses, verses seven and eight.
The first is he says, "I will praise you with an upright heart
when I learn your righteous rules."
So the first goal of our time in the word is to produce more worship in our
lives, that we should be determined as we grow in the, our knowledge and
understanding of the scriptures to live a life that is gonna be more worshipful,
an upright life, an upright heart.
It was a, a word that meant perfectly vertical or horizontal, either way.
Straight, honest, in conformity.
An upright heart is a heart of integrity, and that's something that the psalmist
is going to have and experience as he continues to, to come to the word of God.
I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules.
The word when could be as.
So as I'm learning your rules, Lord, as I'm coming to the scriptures,
what's the effect it's gonna cause me to live an upright life, a
life of integrity as I apply it?
What, what's that gonna do?
That's gonna make me worship you more.
It's gonna increase my praise of you.
And so I'm determined, Lord, towards that end.
The more we grow in godliness, the more we grow in worship.
A- and what do I mean by that?
That you'll all of a sudden get in the car and be like, "I only
wanna listen to Chris Tomlin.
I don't wanna listen to anything else."
Or whoever your, your person is.
M- m- maybe, but not necessarily.
Uh, one person has said, "We are always worshiping something."
We're always worshiping something.
You, you are, are never not worshiping.
You have been created to worship.
It's a natural outflow of us as human beings, created by our creator to worship.
So we are always worshiping.
The question is what or whom?
And the more we give ourselves over to the Word of God, the more we say, "Lord,
I want to have a submissive, obedient, devoted heart about the scriptures.
I wanna focus on all your commandments.
I wanna resolve to, to set myself to grow in my steadfastness in keeping them."
The more we do that, the more we will find out who we are worshiping
is God, even in the moments it might not look like we're worshiping God.
Case in point, Colossians chapter 2.
Colossians chapter 3, not chapter 2.
Probably also chapter 2, but chapter 3 specifically, verses 23 through 24:
"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing
that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.
You are serving the Lord Christ."
So when I read that, "Work heartily, as to the Lord and not for men," and I come
to that with that submissive, obedient, devoted heart, then I'm going to work all
of a sudden, and my job becomes worship.
Doing the reports that I have to do at my job that normally I hate to do
all of a sudden takes on a greater significance because I'm gonna do those
reports as an act of worship to God because I'm serving Him and not men.
And so the more we are in the Word of God, it begins to transform
these arenas of our life.
Or how about this one?
James chapter 4.
We're gonna be studying James next in the, the fall, but James chapter 4,
verses 13 through 15: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we'll go into
such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit,' yet
you don't know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life?
For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"
Okay, as I read that in my daily Bible time, and I come to that with that heart
of submissive, obedient devotion to the Lord, all of a sudden now as I sit down
to plan my week, it's an act of worship.
Because I'm putting down my appointments, I'm putting down my
doctor's appointments, I'm putting down the meetings that I have at work.
I'm putting down what I'm gonna do in the evenings.
I'm planning my meals for my family with an open hand before the Lord saying,
"Lord, if you will, this is the plan."
A- and so in that submissive, in, in holding your week, your schedule,
your calendar out before the Lord that way, you're, you're worshiping Him.
The more we are in the Word of God, the more our whole life
becomes an act of worship to Him.
It produces that, it transforms that, it creates that, and that's the, the joy
that comes to us by that, the happiness.
But then he also says this: "I will keep your statutes.
Do not utterly forsake me.
I'm determined to keep your statutes.
Do not utterly forsake me."
The psalmist knew that if he was going to be faithful in keeping the statutes of the
Lord, the Lord would never forsake him.
A- a- and so this is really a, a point that's making the opposite
by making the, the negative here.
A- and so this is the second component that, that happens when we come to the
Word of God, is you will have a greater and greater security and confidence in
your walk with Christ The more that you are giving yourself over to the Word
of God, the more that you are coming to it, again, with that submissive,
obedient devotion, the more that you are focusing in on His precepts and
commandments saying, "I'm resolving to set my mind on the Word so I might
be more steadfast in obeying them," the more you will find that you feel a
great security in your walk with Christ.
John 10, I was reading it this morning, where Jesus talks about being the Good
Shepherd, and He talks there about He, He goes before His sheep, and it says His
sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.
They know His voice.
There's security in the sheep following the shepherd, and they
follow the shepherd because they hear his voice, and there's safety there.
Let me ask you this morning, church, where do we hear the voice of Jesus today?
It's in the Word of God.
It's in the scriptures.
If you wanna follow Him, you have to hear His voice.
You have to know His voice.
If you're gonna know His voice and hear His voice, you
gotta be in the Word of God.
If you get in the Word of God, then what does that mean?
That you're going to have that security, that confidence that you
are following after the Savior.
This book is, is so much more than that checklist.
There, there's an email that I, I get in my inbox multiple times a week.
It's called The Pour Over.
I would commend it to you if, if you're interested in this.
It's a, a compilation of news a- and it's, it's written by believers, so it's,
it's the main headlines, and it's from Christians, from believers, and then they
have Bible verses that are associated with each headline to help you think biblically
about what's going on in the world.
It's called The Pour Over.
They even have a family component that tackles big topics, big headlines
for you to be able to talk through that with your kids at home, and
they help you with some prompts.
They say, "Hey, this is how you can explain the war in Iran to your
kids at the, the dinner table."
And so The Pour Over.
I, I read that, and it's helpful, a- and I appreciate it, and I open
it up, and I'll read through it, and I, I come to it going, "Man,
this is gonna be useful to me."
But guess what, y'all?
It's not the Bible.
Doing the crossword.
I, I, I'm, I'm at that age now.
I do the crossword.
I...
It's an age, I think, you hit.
I don't know when it is.
It's different for everybody, but I remember my dad doing the crossword
growing up every single day, and it was back in the newspaper
back when we had those things.
And I thought to myself, "How boring is that?"
And here I am.
I'm, like, not missing a day.
New York Times crossword pu- puzzle, it's on my app.
I just gotta.
I do it.
Man, there's enjoyment in the crossword, but it's not the scriptures.
I'm reading a book right now on World War II that one of you lent to me, and
I appreciate that, and it's fascinating.
It's keeping me up.
I'm, I'm reading it at night.
I'm, I'm struggling to put it down.
But it's not the Bible.
The Bible is the Word of God to us, and how we approach it needs to be
done thoughtfully and carefully.
We need to be serious.
We need to be focused.
We need to be determined.
Y'all, here's what I'm gonna challenge you for for the next 12 weeks along the
lines of, of this I'm gonna challenge us to get serious, to get focused, and
to get determined on God's Word for the next 12 weeks, and I'm gonna ask
you to commit to be in the Word of God every single day for the next 12 weeks.
For some of you, y- you're like, "Check, I'm there."
Great.
Others of you, you're like, "I'm almost there.
Maybe I can do that."
Some of you, that may seem overwhelming.
But I'm just asking you, just for 12 weeks, to say, "Okay, I'm gonna rethink
my schedule, I'm gonna find the time, and I'm gonna get into the Word."
I'm calling this the QT Challenge.
Not the Cutie Challenge, not the QuikTrip Challenge, the Quiet Time Challenge.
We talk in our church a lot about the DBR, and, and, and I
love that, Daily Bible Reading.
It stresses the fact that it's supposed to be daily.
But one of the things that I think can be a downside to that is, again,
it can become about crossing off a number on a, on a piece of cardboard
or whatever that thick paper is.
And I, I want it to be more than that.
I want it to be more than that for me, and I want it to be more than that for you.
So the QT Challenge looks like this.
This is what I'm gonna ask you to do every single day for the next 12 weeks as
we're in this study of the, of Psalm 119.
I want you to, to pick up your Bible, and before you get into
the Word, I want you to pray.
Pray.
If you gotta confess some things before the Lord, confess
some things before the Lord.
I want you to come to the Lord, I want you to ask Him to show you
something from the scriptures.
I want you to ask Him to help you understand what you're about to read.
I want you to pray so that you're set up with a heart that's gonna
come expecting an encounter with God when you read the Word.
Second, then I want you to read it.
Whatever the passage is, whatever your reading is for that day, I want you to
read it a- and read it thoughtfully, because the next step that I want you
to do is I want you to reflect on it.
I want you to reflect on it.
If you're doing the Daily Bible Reading with us, the Old Testament and New
Testament, I want you to go ahead and read the Old Testament and then stop
and reflect on the Old Testament.
Ask yourself, "Okay, what am I taking away from this today?
What does the Lord wanna show me in this today?"
I was doing this this morning a- a- and I was going through s- f-
First Chronicles, I think, seven...
Yeah, 17 through 19.
And so you got the Davidic covenant there and you got a couple other things.
And I, I just saw this morning, as I reflected back, I was like, "Man, God,
you are just showing your sovereignty through chapter 17, through chapter
18, and ch- through chapter 19.
And, and you are just reminding me that you are a God who is sovereign.
You're in control of all these things."
And then I flipped over to, to the New Testament reading in John 10, and as
I was reading that, I read that, and then I stopped and I reflect, and what
I reflect on was what I talked about a minute ago, that Jesus is, is the
one whose voice I need to be hearing, and if I'm hearing His voice, then I
have to be in the place where His voice is found, which is the Word of God.
So do some reflection about it.
What needs to change?
Or, or there's some things that you need to apply.
And then finally, I want you to, to close by praying.
If this is the Word of God to us, then every time we read it, He's
communicating to us, and it's helpful for us to then communicate back to
Him To say, Lord, thank you for this.
If there's something that you need to do, a change that you need to make,
pray for the, the ability to do that.
Ask that He would help you to do that.
Resolve before Him, commit before Him to do that.
Maybe He's gonna lead you into a fresh season of, of confession during
that, that concluding prayer because He's gonna show you, man, I've, I've
been, I've been sinning in this area.
Or maybe He's just gonna lead you into praise.
God, thank you so much for what I've just read.
Thank you for what you're showing me about this.
But spend some time praying.
That's the challenge for the next 12 weeks.
I think it's doable.
Not only is it doable, but, but it is well worth your time.
This is the way to have not just a great summer, but a great life, by
giving yourself over time, and time, and time again to the Word of God.
So as we embark on this summer study, I wanna just encourage you to use this
as a time where God is giving us all a reset on our quiet time, a reset on
our time with Him, to make a plan, to set our schedule, to make the Word a
priority, to get accountability from a brother or sister in Christ, to resolve
to get into the Word every single day.
And I promise you, you will never get to the end of it and say,
"I wish I hadn't done that."
I'll just conclude with this thought.
I don't know of a single Christian on their deathbed who has thought to
themself, "I wish I hadn't spent as much time in God's Word as I did."
But I can tell you one thing in my own heart, I'm already thinking about my
time should I know when it's coming, and I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna
say, "Man, I wish I had spent more time in the Word of God than I did."
And
what I want that to do now is I want that to motivate me to
close that gap as much as I can.
Let's pray.
Lord God, we thank you so much for the scriptures.
We thank you for their truths.
We thank you for the joy that is found in keeping them.
We thank you that you gave us your Word not to leave us beaten and bloodied
in a spiritual mess to say, wow, we don't measure up, but to show us how
good it is to pursue Christ-likeness.
And we thank you that our standing before you is not in how good we are at obeying.
It's not in how faithful we've been in reading the Bible every day.
It's not in any of those things.
Our standing before you is about our relationship with you through Jesus.
And that relationship, Lord, should create a desire within us to love you more, to
draw closer to you, and you've provided a way to do that through your Word.
And it's not just about the then and there.
We can have those blessings and that joyfulness that's ours here and now.
So God, I pray that this summer we would truly give ourselves over,
surrendered fully in submissive, obedient devotion to the Word.
As we seek to grow as your followers.
In Jesus' name,
amen.