Sermon Tone Analysis

Bible Reading

Today is January 2, 2021… So, you know what that means?

It is time for your New Year’s resolutions… Many of which involve going from being undisciplined to being disciplined… They often revolve around fitness… “I am going to work out and get in shape this year!”

… I have made this one, more than once… or maybe “I am going to start eating healthy this year!”

… no more junk food or soda… I have been there and done that… Maybe you are going to get on a budget this year and spend money more wisely this year… While our New Year’s resolutions maybe genuine and sincere… According to Christian Author Ted Dekker only about 8% of New Year’s Resolutions are actually kept… I have to admit that I usually am guilty of bringing the average down.

But I want to challenge everyone here to a different resolution this year… I want to challenge everyone here to read the Bible through in a year this year… I want to turn it into a congregational New Year’s Resolution… So you may be thinking right now why?

I am not that good at reading or why?

I have so many other things I need to do that I can’t get done as it is how go expect me to add that to this list… I would ask you to listen to my reasons why this morning and keep an open mind and heart… There are many different reasons and many different angles I could have chosen, but the one we are going to look at this morning is you should read the Bible through this year to learn the commands of God… You may be saying to yourself right now… What?

I don’t need more rules… The truth is our culture today is not into rules… we live in a society that brags about breaking the rules and doing it your own way… I remember being at a conference where a pastor shared his story he said he never wanted anything to do with Christianity because when he looked at the Bible all he saw was a big book of rules and he didn’t need any more rules in his life.

So why should we care about keeping God’s rules?

Why should we commit to reading the big rulebook this year?

As we turn to our text this morning, psalm 119, I want to discuss four reasons this morning for studying and keeping God’s commands.

Before we get to the reasons, I want to begin with a little background on

Psalm 119.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible we do not know who the author is and it is an acrostic.

The chapter is broken up into 22 sections of 8 lines each.

The 22 sections correspond to the Hebrew Alphabet and each of the 8 lines in the sections begin with the corresponding letter.

So the first 8 verses, in Hebrew all begin with Aleph the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

The main theme of psalm 119 is how precious the law of God is to the psalmist and what a blessing it is to follow God’s commands.

The psalmist refers to them as law, testimonies, ways, precepts, commandments, judgments, and word.

The first reason to keep God’s commands is found in verse 1, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!”

For clarification, to walk in the law of the Lord is another way of saying to keep His commandments or to be obedient….

So what is the result if you walk in the law of the Lord or that is if you keep His commandments?

The result is you will be blessed… You might be wondering what does that mean?

I will be blessed… Some people today pervert that to mean that God will make you wealthy… I remember hearing a so-called pastor proclaim plant your $1,000 seed today and God will return it 30, 60, or 100-fold based on Mathew 13… This is NOT what God means by you will be blessed…  Listen to how my ESV study Bible describes this word blessed… It states, Quote “Blessed… The truly happy person is happy because God showers him with favor.

Jesus uses the Greek equivalent in Matt.

5:3-11 better known as the beatitudes; also in James 1:12.

The Latin translation, beatus, is the source of the word beatitude… Blessed is more than a temporary or circumstantial feeling of happiness, this is a state of well-being in relationship to God that belongs to those who respond to Jesus’ ministry” end quote…So being blessed isn’t about receiving material wealth or supreme health… What is it really?

It is about a relationship that is restored onto God… Remember what was the result of the fall by Adam and Eve in the garden?

The immediate result was, death was introduced into creation… remember God created perfection and Adam introduced death into the perfect creation… Now the physical death that was introduced was not immediate, but the other death that Adam and Eve experienced that day was immediate… that is the spiritual death they experienced… Their relationship with God was immediately severed… And that is everyone’s condition ever since.

According to Ephesians chapter 2,

we are all born spiritually dead…  So if we obey God’s commands we will be blessed…

Second reason for keeping God’s commands, look at verse 4,

This one seems obvious but we should keep God’s commands because God has commanded us to… That is why we call them the 10 commandments not the 10 suggestions… but if we are not careful we can miss this point… We often have the right answers but we fail to see how we are not actually applying them… I had a friend call and ask me for help.

He had a major decision to make and wanted my opinion… He told me the moral dilemma he was facing and his reasons for … I began with the fact that God commands us not to… He said yeah, yeah, I know that but besides that what do you think?

I want to be clear I am not being critical of this man because I do the very same thing.

We know what the word of God says but we still entertain wrong ideas… Why?

I think we have the wrong prospective on the commandments of God… remember earlier I spoke about the man who says the Bible is a big rulebook?

The problem isn’t the fact that God gives us rules; the problem is sin has blinded us as to why? Let’s go back to the garden… Why did God tell Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

The serpent lead them to believe it was because God was holding out on them… they could have a better life but God was trying to keep them from it… An illustration that I like to use is with my own children… For Christmas little Elias got a cool Tonka pickup truck.

Do you know how much fun it would be to go out on the nice paved after church and play with it?

That nice smooth paved parking lot… that little truck would just glide across that smooth pavement… He would have so much fun… So why do I not allow that?

Is it because I am mean and want to keep something good from my son?

Of course, not… I know what will happen… he will eventually get hit by a car and possibly die… The same is true of God… He did not tell Adam and Eve to not eat because he wanted to keep something good from them… He already created perfection and gave them every other tree in the garden to eat from… He gave them everything… He told them not to eat to protect them from the danger that He saw…

The third reason for keeping God’s commands is in verse 37

You see by default our eyes are focused on worthless things… Look at our godless culture… what does it focus on?

Money, power, and pleasure… Have you ever seen the bumper stick that reads “He who dies with the most toys wins?”

Is that correct?

Is that really what matters in life…how much stuff you can accumulate?

Or how much power you can gain?

Or how much pleasure you can get?

No! The psalmist asks God to turn his eyes from these worthless things and give him life… life in what?

The psalmist asks God to give him life in God’s ways… or in other words give him life by giving him the ability to keep God’s commands…

For the fourth and final reason, look at verses 9,10, & 11 with me they state,

The final reason for keeping the commands of God is sanctification, which is defined by Merriam-Webster, as the state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after baptism or conversion.

To put it another way, it is the process of growing in Christ likeness… It is becoming more and more like Jesus every day.

In some circles, salvation is obtained by praying a prayer and that is all that matters… You just have to pray and ask Jesus into your heart and how you live the rest of your life doesn’t matter… Question, “Do you think if you don’t love Jesus you will get into heaven?”

I hope everyone here would agree to the answer being No… So, logically that leaves us with the question, “Do you love Jesus?”

Most people would quickly answer yes… but do you really?

Do you know that Jesus told you how you can know for sure that you love Him?

So, don’t deceive yourself… If you love Him you will keep His commands and if we do not read the Bible, how will we know His commands?

You may be wondering if you can stick to the plan.

Maybe you have been here before and tried to read through the Bible in a year and failed.

I know I tried numerous times and failed.

It takes discipline and I want to share with you this morning an important truth about discipline it comes from a book by Donald S. Whitney titled Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.

And I wanted to share with you what he has to say about discipline… He says “Discipline without direction is drudgery.”

I want to share with you his example.

“Imagine six-year-old Kevin, whose parents have enrolled him in music lessons.

After school every afternoon, prompted by his mother, he slouches into the living room and strums songs he must practice but doesn’t like while watching his buddies play baseball in the park across the street.

That’s discipline without direction.

It’s drudgery.

Now suppose Kevin is visited by an angel one afternoon during guitar practice.

In a vision, he is transported to Carnegie Hall.

He’s shown a guitar virtuoso giving a concert.

Usually bored by classical music, Kevin is astonished by what he sees and hears.

The musician’s fingers dance on the strings with fluidity and grace.

Kevin thinks of how stupid and clunky his own hands feel when they halt and falter over the cords.

The virtuoso blends clean, soaring notes into a musical aroma that wafts from his guitar.

Kevin remembers the toneless, irritating discord that comes stumbling out of his.

But Kevin is enchanted.

His head tilts to one side as he listens.

He drinks in everything.

He never imagined that anyone could play the guitar like this.

“What do you think, Kevin?” asks the angel.

The answer is a soft, slow, six-year-old’s “W-o-w!”

The vision vanishes, and the angel is again standing in front of Kevin in his living room.

“Kevin,” says the angel, “the wonderful musician you saw is you in a few years.”

Then pointing at the guitar, the angel declares, “But you must practice!”

Suddenly the angel disappears and Kevin finds himself alone with his guitar.

Do you think his attitude toward practice will be different now?

As long as he remembers what he’s going to become, Kevin’s discipline will have direction, a goal that will pull him into the future.

Yes, effort will be involved, but you could hardly call it drudgery.”

So, what is our future goal?

What can take our discipline of daily reading the Word from drudgery to delight?

You must have direction and you must have a goal.

If your only goal is to read the Bible in year to say you read the Bible in a year… it may become a drudgery… but if you replace it with a higher calling that drudgery can be transformed into a delight…  The higher calling is learning the commands of God so you can keep the commands of God.

Why?

Because God is a harsh task master… No it is because he is a loving Father who knows that when you keep His commands you will be blessed… not necessarily with earthy things but blessed with a restored relationship with Him and if you love Him you will keep His commands… So, will you?

Will you take the challenge this morning to read through the Bible in a year with us?

In an effort to see the impact of Bible reading, the ministry “Back to the Bible” had 400,000 people surveyed.