Living by God’s Word
Living by the Word • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 4 viewsNotes
Transcript
Thank you for the time away…we had a wonderful time…restful & relaxing…
A couple notables…every church we attended…having a Church Picnic/Pot Luck…
The first church we attended was in Paris…Forward Church in Cambridge is planting…Health Hub…
Had a nice visit with Derik & Amanda Fuller…sends his greeting to those who may remember him.
Then we attended Grace Baptist…in Charlottetown…they too were having a Church picnic…
A second notable…every church we attended…was doing a study in the Psalms.
So by the third Sunday, I was asking God… “What is it You are telling me?”
Then of course…I remembered that I still have not finished Psalm 119…so I knew God wanted me to complete that study before we continue with our journey through Revelation.
So open your Bibles please to Psalm 119:169-176…longest Bible chapter.
22 stanzas…of 8 verses.
Each stanza titled by a Hebrew letter…memory tool to help the Hebrew reader remember content.
You can’t miss what is on his heart…God’s Word…in almost every verse…law, statutes, word, commandments, testimony, promise, precepts…(worth circling)
C.H. Spurgeon said of Psalm 119 “…we would do well to commit it to memory.”
So we have been working our way through the psalm…stanza by stanza. Final stanza today.
The theme throughout the psalm has been “Living by the Word”.
Reminding of the importance of…God’s Word for Living the Christian life.
It is an appropriate title…because the psalmist has over and over professed…
How much he LOVES the Word of God…
How much he wants to KNOW the Word of God…
How much he STUDIES the Word of God, and…
How he wants to LIVE BY the Word of God. He even prays for God to help him to do so.
Again, the psalmist…will have things to teach us about how to live the Christian life by God’s Word.
Pray: Before we read God’s Word…let’s look to Him and ask for His help and blessing.
Read: Psalm 119:169-176
The first thing to notice is that…(like in many other stanzas before)…It is a PRAYER…
In fact, throughout the entire psalm…he switches between PRAISE to God and PRAYER to God.
Notice the first line of the stanza: “Let my cry come before you…”
Commentaries divide the stanza into two…v169-172 “Lord, hear me” & v.173-176 “Lord, act for me”
In other words, the first part is a plea…for the Lord to HEAR his prayer.
The second part is a plea…for the Lord to DO SOMETHING…go into action for him.
Living by the Word…means living by prayer.
1. This Psalm Teaches Us About PRAYER…Psalm 119:169-170
Psalm 119:169-170
169 Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word!
170 Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word.
Look at v.169
Something is weighing heavy on his heart.
In other words: “Hear me Lord! I don’t know what to do!”
Look at v.170 “Let my plea come before You; deliver me according to Your Word!”
He is obviously facing some kind of situation where he does not know what he should do.
There is a fervent, passionate, forcefulness in his words.
QUOTE: “…we are often in those situations where the only resource left to us…is to pray.” (Boice)
You can’t fix it…can’t intervene…no one can help…you have only one resource…and that is to pray.
ILLUST: Parable Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. Lu.18:9-14
Two guys prayeing in the temple…
One was a Pharisee (full of self)… the other a despised tax collector (end of his rope/desperate).
The psalmist was not full of himself, he knew the Scriptures…he had no other resource but to pray.
Have you ever been in that kind of situation (maybe repeatedly) in your life where the only thing you could do about your circumstance was to PRAY? To leave it in God’s hand.
Struggle: How easy it is for you and I today our first resource we look to is Google or YOU Tube…
We live in probably the most resource-full time ever in world history.
We can get answers with a simple Google search…organizations/articles/websites/apps/books/pod casts etc…to help you.
What is my concern with all of that? It lessens our dependence upon God and His Word.
We know God is sovereign…no accidents, no coincidences with Him…so God always designs for us to be precisely in that predicament/circumstance/situation…so that we will go search for answers elsewhere?
No…He wants us to lean on Him and the resource we have is prayer.
God uses these situations/circumstances our deepest distresses in life to sanctify us…
The HS works in the difficulty of our circumstances…He sanctifies those circumstances
Our distress is a natural…God given way…to stir us to pray…
And so the psalmist is once again reminding us that living by God’s Word means living by prayer.
2. This Psalm Teaches Us About DISTRESS…Psalm 119:169-170
Now the second thing I want you to see also comes out of these same 2 verses…
Because for the umpteenth time we find the psalmist in some kind of LIFE DISTRESS…
I have mentioned to you that I firmly believe it was David who wrote this psalm…
Was David facing the heart ache of Saul wanting to kill him?
Was it the heart ache of his son’s usurpijng his throne?
Whatever the situation…we dont need to know…but it does remind us that
Living by God’s Word does not exempt you and I from the distresses/dangers/disappointments/discouragement/despairs of life.
He says: “Let my cry come before you, O LORD; let my plea come before you. Deliver me…”
“my cry” = a passionate emotional outburst…
Again, he is in a circumstance where he needs to be delivered from danger and distress.
It is not because…he hasn’t been reading God’s Word…he has.
It is not because…he hasn’t been studying God’s Word…he has.
Reading & studying God’s Word does not mean that he does not encounter distress in his life.
In fact, his study of God’s Word is designed to EQUIP/PREPARE him for when he does encounter the dangers/distresses/discouragements in the Christian life.
So it’s so important for us to understand that living by God’s Word…does not exempt us from distress…danger…disappointment…discouragements…despair…it PREPARES us for that.
James 1:2 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
See also: Romans 5:3-5
It teaches us how to respond when we’re there but it does not remove our need to depend upon God.
3. What this Psalm Teaches Us About JOY & PRAISE…Psalm 119:171-172, 175
171 My lips will pour forth praise, for You teach me Your statutes.
172 My tongue will sing of Your word, for all Your commandments are right.
175 Let my soul live and praise You, and let Your rules help me.”
Living by the Word means living a life of joy and praise.
The Christian life is…a life of JOY & PRAISE.
Note the “for”…causative = because You have taught me Your word…my lips pour forth praise.
He is moved to joy & praise…not only by God delivering him…
But also BECAUSE of God’s Word…he pours forth praise to God.
God has made him to be glad in Him. God has made us to be glad in Him
One of the ways we are a witness to His grace in our lives…is how we live lives of joy & praise.
Our hearts and lips should be filled with praise here…
There is enough sorrow in all our lives that we could, if we let ourselves, cry for the rest of our lives.
But if we let ourselves do that, we would not be living up to the joy that is and ought to be in our hearts because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
The joy & praise we are called to live and express does not mean hard things are absent from our life.
It means that God’s grace is present in our life and THE GREATEST PROBLEM we have ever faced has been dealt with.
How often do we look at our problems/ circumstances…and we are overwhelmed by them and we often respond to being overwhelmed by those problems with fear, bitterness, anger, anguish, despair and sorrow.
But believer… understand/remember that the biggest distress we ever faced was the consequence of our enmity with God…God Himself has taken that away…at the expense of His own Son.
Acts 16 Paul & Silas in prison…praying & singing hymns to God…other prisoners were listening.
Why? Their biggest distress in life has been dealt with when Jesus died on the cross for their sin.
Peter wrote to a suffering church: 1 Peter 1:8-9 “…you believe in Him and rejoice with joy…”
So there should be joy & praise in our hearts & lives no matter what else is going on.
No matter what really hard things are going on, we, as Christians ought to be living a life of joy and praise.
That’s what Living by God’s Word means. It means a life of joy and praise.
Do you wonder if people out there get that about us?
Is that something they would say about the believers at Fellowship, Burford?
If it’s not, we need to pray for the Lord to adjust our joy in the Lord, maybe pray something llike
Lord help me not to be so overburdened by the anxieties and cares of this world, that the joy that You have put in my heart by the work of the Holy Spirit through the grace of Jesus Christ would not fail to radiate in our relationships with others.
Living by God’s Word…means a life of joy and praise.
When we realize how much God has done for us…
And what great things He is doing and what He will do…
The result is JOY and PRAISE…and that produces strength…and that strength enables us to endure the distresses, disappointments of life.
Focussing on God’s presence and promises…our joy and strength will increase.
If we focus on fallible & fickle people & uncertain circumstances…our joy will decrease, and our strength will also decrease.
4. What this Psalm Teaches Us About GOD’S LAW…Psalm 119:174-175
174 I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight.
175 Let my soul live and praise you, and let Your rules help me.
Notice his perspective of God's Law: “…Your law is my delight.” And: “…Let Your rules help me.”
We live in a day and age where many just don’t like rules i.e. ads, social media, pop culture.
Even Disney princesses celebrate breaking rules…main characters who say “…rules aren’t for me!
Even ads for the Outback Steakhouse there are “No Rules. Just Right.”
(Just don’t try walking out without paying; I think that rule will be enforced!)
What is it about our culture? We just don’t like rules.
But notice what the psalmist says here to God: “Your law is my delight…let Your rules help me.”
“They don’t rain on my parade. They don’t ruin my life. They don’t cramp my style. They help me.
WHY DID GOD GIVE HIS PEOPLE RULES?
To Reveal His holiness…character
To show His poeple their own sinfuness…
To show His people their need for a Saviour…
It guided them…Protected them
Ultimately lead them to Jesus …who fulfills the Law.
So when we don’t like God’s law…the boundaries He has put in place for our benefit… when we are afraid of God’s Law/ rules…or we reject God’s Law…
It shows that we do not believe that in His grace the Father has loving purposes for our good…stored up in the rules/commandments of His Word.
And it is those who have made friends with God by grace who realize that the Law is no longer their accuser but their friend.
The Law is there to help them. It’s a rule of life, not a curse of death.
The psalmist reminds us of that here.
Living by God’s Word…means knowing and believing…His commands are meant to bless us.
5. What this Psalm Teaches Us About STRAYING…Psalm 119:176
173 Let Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.
One final lesson to see in this stanza…
In the very last verse of the psalm…think about the entirety of the psalm for a moment…
Remember the psalm has been devoted to… the glory of God’s Word
The psalmist repeatedly express his love for God’s Word…his determination to obey it
HE KNOWS HE IS GOING TO NEED GOD’S HELP!
Then the very last verse we have the psalmist praying for what he wants God to do when he doesn’t.
“I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.”
You see…Living by God’s Word means not only treasuring God’s Word…loving God’s Word…studying God’s Word…praying God’s Word and being guided by God’s Word…
Living God’s Word…means having a humble, repentant, dependent heart…
That recognizes that…we all will still need the Lord’s rescue.
Loving and studying the Word attentively does not mean that we will never stray in our Christian lives or that we will never need God’s rescue.
In fact, if there is anything that our study of God’s Word should teach us….is to doubt the faithfulness of our hearts and trust the faithfulness of our Shepherd.
And the psalmist, precisely because his nose has been in the Book, ends with a prayer.
“Lord, when I stray, and I know I will, because I really believe this Book…I want to ask You this one thing. Come after me like a lost sheep. Don’t leave me to my own devices and desires. Come rescue me because I’ll need You.”
Fellowship…you know in your heart you will need God to rescue you when you stray and begin to sink… He will rescue.
And so we come to the conclusion of our study of this psalm.
May God help us and make us all to Live by His Word. Let’s pray.
