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Psalm 119 • Sermon • Submitted
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Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a blessing to be here and share the Word of God with the saints at Durbin Memorial Baptist Church.
I recognize that my sermon introduction has become a bit standard in that I say something similar each week. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is a reference to the way the apostle Paul began most of his letters to the various churches throughout his ministry. And then, it truly is an honor, privilege, and blessing to share the Word of God with the congregation. I never want to forget how fortunate I am to be able to preach the Word and none of us should take the privilege to gather and hear HIs Word together as a body of professing believers for granted.
It is the professing body of believers that I want to focus on this morning. A few weeks ago I read to the church from the book of Colossians. Now, it is my intention to walk through the whole book of Colossians this fall so we will dive into this a bit more then, but briefly allow me to read how the Apostle Paul prayed for the believers in Colossae
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
There is so much goodness to glean from the prayer Paul prayed for the saints at Colossae. When the times comes we will break down what each of the pieces entail. But for our purposes today, I want to touch on the primary charge of Paul’s prayer. He said that it is his prayer that the believers in the church would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, that they would have spiritual wisdom and understanding from that knowledge, and that from that knowledge they would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. He reminds them that they were transferred from darkness into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, who is the great redeemer and where we receive forgiveness of sins.
To sum it up, Paul prays that the glorious gospel the church has received would influence every aspect of each person’s life.
How do they do that? Well, he prays that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will and then apply it.
So, where do we find the knowledge of God’s will? In His Word!
Remember 2 Timothy! All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Timothy is also instructed to rightly divide or, that is, rightly handle the Word of truth.
Church, it is my prayer, that as professing confessing believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, it would be our sincere desire to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will and walk through life in a manner worthy of the Lord. And it is such a grace the God of the universe would reveal Himself to us through His word. Every single one of us has access to that Word. What a blessing that is. What a privilege we have.
I’m kind of weird in that I love putting together furniture that comes in a box. Book shelves, TV stands, all of that. I actually enjoy working through the instructions and making the final product. But as I go about it every time, I am glued to the instruction manual. Hopefully the instruction manual is in english, because that makes it easier to understand.
When it comes to living in a manner worthy of the Lord, we are so fortunate that we have an instruction manual. We have God’s Word. But I don’t want to reduce God’s Word to simply an instruction manual. God’s Word is not only instructive, it is introductive. I think I may have made that word up, but let me explain: God’s Word introduces us to the Creator. It introduces us to our shortcomings. It introduces us to the Savior. God works through His Word to produce faith in our lives. By God’s grace we are saved through faith in Jesus Christ, and faith comes from hearing by the Word of God!
If you would, open your Bibles to Psalm 119. As we have been walking through Psalm 119, we have seen the centrality of the Word of God in the psalmist’s life. Today’s section is no exception. It is my prayer that you will see the goodness of God and the goodness of His Word. Let us begin with verse 73.
Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
My son is still a ways away from talking, but if he is anything like his father, he is going to be an inquisitive little guy. There is one question in particular that I am already trying to figure out how to articulate an answer for that will be truthful and appropriate when the time comes. I am talking about the day when AR looks at me and says, “Dad, where do babies come from?”
This can be a very tricky question for parents to explain on a level that makes sense at the time. But when we really sit back and think about it, it is a biblical fact that babies come from God! All of us exist because of the Creator of the universe!
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
God said to Jeremiah
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
A Christian lyricist I love wrote a children’s song called God Made Me and You!
This is why I rejoice in the recent decision by our Supreme Court. It is stated in the decision, “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” In our state, legislation now exists that protects preborn children! I want it to be clear because there is so much confusion promoted by those who stand against this decision, that there is specific language to allow needed medical treatment when a mother’s life that is in danger. Our state law is constructed to protect both the child and the mother. Advocating for the lives of preborn children is understanding that they are human beings, made in the image of God and deserving of protection!
Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Church, I rejoice In knowing that more protection is now provided for those who cannot speak for themselves. We must now support families more than ever. We do this through supporting organizations like Sunrise Children’s Services that put children in Christian homes. We do this by helping mothers in need. We do this by cherishing the life of everyone formed and fashioned by God. We must do what we can to raise up a generation of God fearing, God honoring children that bring Him all the more glory. My good friend, Pastor Tim Wade at Boone’s Creek put out a statement a few weeks ago that I co-signed and hope that as a church we would as well, he said “if you are in Kentucky and scared because you’re pregnant and feel like you don’t have anywhere to turn, please let me know. I will help you. Boones Creek Baptist Church (In our case Durbin Memorial Baptist Church) will help you. Now, let’s keep pressing forward!”
Look back to our Psalm
Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
The Psalmist wants to be given understanding of God’s commandments because he first understands that God is the creator! This is a fundamental truth that we all have to understand! In times passed it was an assumed fact that everything comes from a “god” even if there was disagreement on who that “god” was. In our modernity, many now reject that claim, and instead affirm that everything has burst into existence by pure chance.
Searching through the available online resources, and looking at the best statistical models scientist and mathematicians have to offer, it would take a great deal of faith of to believe that everything we know of in this universe has formed by pure chance. With this understanding the late apologist and Liberty professor Norman Geisler wrote a book entitled “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.”
I have always said that if you were to accept all of evolutionary assertions that are made, you would still have to explain how at some point, something came from nothing. That simply does not happen.
If we are being honest with ourselves, it is clearly evident that everything comes from a Creator. And if you understand that, then you must understand that YOU come from a Creator. The wonderful thing about Scripture is that it introduces us to THE Creator. The Creator God who formed you in the womb. And because you were fearfully and wonderfully made by the Creator, it should be your sincere desire to know the God who made you.
That is what our psalmist understands. He says Oh God, Your hands made me and fashioned me. Because I am indebted to You for my existence, I want to know you, please Creator God, give me understanding that I may learn how to serve you!
Commitment to the Word of God begins with the desire to know the God from whom the Word is given. Your personal maker has given His Word directly to YOU! The right response to that is to dive into His Word for your joy and His glory! Through the study and proper understanding of God’s Word you are granted reverential fear of the Lord. You see how Holy, Mighty, Jealous, Great, and Glorious He is. You see what grace it is that He would reconcile any of us sinners unto Himself.
When we are rooted in the Word of God we should be a bastion of hope for others who know, love, and fear Him.
Look at the next verse:
Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice,
because I have hoped in your word.
Think about this declaration by our psalmist. Those who fear you, God, shall see me and rejoice!
When I was on vacation, I had the opportunity to visit the church of a friend of mine in Michigan. Our friendship started in the pandemic and to this point had been fully formed through Zoom calls. He leads a group I am in that seeks to improve our productivity efforts for the glory of God. When we got to meet after the service, it was a joyous occasion! This brother in Christ had helped me quite a bit throughout the last couple of years and now we got to meet and shake hands! We were united in our love for Christ and getting things done for the glory of God and I have to say, when I saw him I rejoiced!
In a our dark world, it should be encouraging to see other believers! It is such a blessing to be back with this church. To have time to get together. To praise together. To pray together. I hope that it is never the case that we dread to see one another. We are united in our love and fear of the Lord and we rejoice in the presence of one another!
Think about your life, the way you present yourself and the way you represent the Lord. When other believers see you, do they rejoice to see their brother or sister in Christ? If you are living in reflection of the grace you have received, they should! We should be living everyday exuding so much hope from the word of God that other believers rejoice in our presence!
This is why it is so important that you are being primarily discipled by the Word of God more than the nightly news! We shouldn’t be ignorant of the things happening around us, but please know that the news cycles are built to keep you tuned in and that they primarily do this by giving you a buffet of dismay! It’s story after story of the end of the world. It’s the same thing on social media. Media isn’t incentivized to offer any hope!
But when you are consumed by and discipled by the Word of God, you are given an end of the world message, but that message is stamped by the glorious hope there is in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the amazing hope there is in the forthcoming New Heaven and New Earth, where sin, death, pain, and sorrow will all be no more!
Church, we better be hoping in the Word of God because that’s the only real hope there is! Hoping in the Word of God enables us to live in such a way that we are blessing to others!
Christian, when another brother or sister sees you in the grocery store, it shouldn’t be that they try to hide between the toliet paper display! We should all desire to live lives so full of hope from God’s Word that others who believe in God rejoice and even desire our presence!
Now hear me out here, this does not mean that everyone is going to love us!
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
Those who reject God may very well seek to avoid us at all cost. But when we live as the aroma of Christ to God, to those who are being redeemed, we are a fragrance of life! We don’t just peddle niceties for the sake of being like. We hold fast to the Word of God and speak in Christ. Those who fear the Lord see us and rejoice because we share in the hope of God’s Word.
When we hope in God’s Word we see His ultimate sovereignty in everything that happens which should give us peace in our trials:
I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous,
and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Here the Psalmist says the the rulings of the Lord are righteous. God’s judgments are just.
It is easy to agree with this at a very broad level. We think of the Lord as the great Judge who will vanquish all evil. And that is right and true. But when you look at the second half of the verse, you see that our Psalmist is not only praise the macro judgments and rulings of the Lord, but also the righteous decrees of the Lord on a very personal level.
Ask yourself, do you praise God for His Sovereignty in your life, even in the most difficult of Circumstances?
I mentioned to the church right before I left out that a girl I went grew up with suddenly passed away. I had the honor of preaching the funeral last Saturday. During the funeral I shared one of the most gut wrenching, emotionally raw Psalms in all of Scripture. Psalm 88. In that Psalm Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite is lamenting for absolutely devastating circumstance he was going through. I encourage you to look at the book out front entitled When Pain is Real and God Seems Silent by Ligon Duncan. It walks through the psalm.
The overall point to that Psalm and the message I shared at the funeral is that it is okay to not be okay. We are going to go through times of affliction. We are going to go through dark situations. We don’t have to slap on a smile and pretend like nothing has happened.
In those times, we need to cry out to God evermore. That is what the Holy Spirit inspired Maskil to do. That is what we should do as well. Maskil, though in deep pain, understands the Sovereignty of God. He writes:
Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
That is the end of the Psalm. He tells the Lord that he understands God is in control of everything. He is crying out to the Lord through His suffering. He does not doubt the Lord’s position nor God’s right to let events unfold the way they have, even if they are uncomfortable.
It would seem to me that our Psalmist in Psalm 119, likely David, has gone through difficulties, maybe on the same level of despondency as Maskil. And though things have been difficult, he praises God even in his affliction
I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous,
and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Lord ALL of your rulings and judgments are righteous. God is faithful even in affliction. He uses all things for good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
What is your response to affliction? Please know that when you love the Lord, even your darkest days are used for your ultimate good.
The psalmist understood this and goes on to lift up five prayers in the next five verses. Theses are petitions in accordance with the Will of God. You may have noticed our new bulletin covers that say “In Clay’s Ferry as it is in heaven” That is our specific prayer that comes from the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth, in Clay’s Ferry, as it is in Heaven.
When we are consumed by the goodness of God’s word, it permeates through out prayers. Pray for God’s will to be done in these ways:
Let your steadfast love comfort me
according to your promise to your servant.
Pray for God’s love to comfort you.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I shared with the family at that funeral that the only source of lasting comfort is in the Lord. He has revealed that in His Word. We can cling to the promises of His love shown all throughout Scripture. Know that God will never break His promise. Though we often take back our word, the Lord never will. His steadfast love never ceases. Pray that He would let His steadfast love comfort you.
The psalmist also prays:
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live;
for your law is my delight.
Remember the verses from Lamentations we just read!
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
God is true to His Word, His mercies never come to an end. We pray for His mercy in accordance with His wIll.
Without the gift of these tender mercies, we find ourselves lost and discouraged. “All the candles in the world, in the absence of the sun, can never make the day. The whole earth, in its brightest visions of fancy, destitute of the Lord’s love, can never cheer nor revive the soul. (Bridges cf. Enduring Word).
Pray for His mercy and delight in the righteousness of God!
the psalmist then also prays:
Let the insolent be put to shame,
because they have wronged me with falsehood;
as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.
Pray for justice! Pray for the insolent, the arrogant, those who deny the Lord’s goodness. Pray even that they may be put to shame!
ANd you might think, woh, Brad, that’s mean! Aren’t we supposed to love everyone! My answer to that is Yes! But Love is not blind acceptance and adulation despite indulgence in wrongdoing! Love is truth! Pray that the Lord would shame the insolent! That He would tear them down so that they would see their folly. You don’t have to get caught up in their business. The psalmist said he’s gonna spend his time meditating on the precepts of God. I’m not suggesting that you get wrapped up in trying to be a part of bringing people down. No, you need to be filling your mind with the goodness of God’s Word. but pray that HE would put the insolent to shame. And why do you pray that?
Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
We want the proud to be put to shame so that in their brokenness they may finally seek the name of the Lord! The beatitudes say blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth! All of those are pointing to being broken of our undeserved pride, and falling before the God who is the only one deserving of praise! It is when we are humbled and broken that we see the true need their is for the Savior Jesus Christ. Pray for the insolent to be put to shame
The psalmist also prays:
Let those who fear you turn to me,
that they may know your testimonies.
We have already talked about being a source of joy for others who fear the Lord. Pray that God would use you to build up others and help them grow in Him.
The last petition in this prayer is verse 80:
May my heart be blameless in your statutes,
that I may not be put to shame!
Lord, may we honor you in all that we do. This coincides with he prayer we read from Colossians earlier:
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Here is where all of the petitions in this prayer comes from
Show 3 Circles Graphic.
Show 3 Circles Graphic.
God is perfectly righteous.
We are broken in Sin
Jesus has restored us. He convicts us of sin and shows us our need of a Savior. He then provided that Savior in Jesus Christ.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you have been reconciled to God, rest in His Word. If you would like to know more about what faith in Jesus Looks like, come forward during this hymn of response. Let’s pray.
