“My Attitude Towards the Word” – FBC Morning Light (6/9/2023)

Well a good Monday morning to you, hope you had a good weekend and getting the week off to a good start.

Had a great week last week at church with our vacation Bible time, a lot of good attendance,

children came and learned much about God's big plan for our

lives in creation and so on.

So anyway, well today we're reading in our Bible reading plan in 2 Kings 23 and 24,

in Romans chapter 4 and in Psalm 119 verses 17 to 24,

that's the third stanza of Psalm 119.

And I want to look at both the 23rd chapter of 2 Kings as well as this

section in Psalm 119, because we're

challenged in these passages regarding our attitude toward God's Word.

And that is a good question for us to ponder.

What is my attitude toward God's Word?

And so first of all I want to look at Josiah's attitude in 2 Kings

23, because remember Josiah turns out to be a pretty good king in

Judah, one of the better kings of Judah's history, and

in the quest to refurbish the temple they find a copy of the scroll, they find

a copy of God's Word, and that prompts Josiah to find out what does this have

to say, what's our fate, because we have been so negligent toward God's Word and so forth.

Well anyway, he gets ahold of God's Word, he hears what it says, and then this is his

response in 2 Kings 23 verse 3, listen, it says, Then the king stood by a pillar, you

had the whole people come together, the congregation come together, the king stood by a pillar

and he made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments

and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul

to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

And all the people took a stand for the covenant.

So here's the king who's taken over the throne in a time of spiritual decay,

he realizes just how far removed from God's Word the nation has become, and he makes a

commitment, I'm going to obey his Word, I'm going to follow this

covenant that God has made with us, I'm going to keep his testimonies and his statutes and his commandments and so on.

In other words, you get the sense of Josiah saying, whatever God has to say, I'm going to listen

to it, whatever God wants me to do, I'm going to do it, whatever principles God lays out in his

Word, I'm going to live my life by those things.

And that challenges us, doesn't it?

Is that our attitude?

Do we have that attitude when we go to church on Sunday?

I hope we open our Bibles on a daily basis when we do.

Do we have this attitude that says, you know, whatever God tells me to do here, I'm going to do it,

whatever God reveals about himself, I'm going to believe it, I'm going to hold firmly to

his Word?

That's a challenging position that Josiah has taken.

Interestingly, the congregation, all the assembled people, they stood with the covenant.

Basically, they were saying, yeah, we're right with you, Josiah, we're going to be just like you.

Well, when you continue reading in our reading today, you get to chapter 24, Josiah

dies, and very quickly another king comes on the throne, and he turns his back on everything that

Josiah stood for, and so do all the people.

So unfortunately, one man's obedience cannot compensate for the whole

nation's rebellion.

Nevertheless, what I want you to get is Josiah's attitude toward the Word.

Is that my attitude toward God's Word?

And then we jump to Psalm 119, and in this third stanza of the 119th Psalm,

we are challenged again with a couple other statements that have to do with the

attitude toward his Word.

Verse 17 says, Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live

and keep your word.

Is that my desire in life?

I want to live so that I might obey.

And verse 18 gives us a good verse to pray before we open the Scriptures.

Verse 18 says, Do not hide your commandments from me.

Open my eyes, I'm sorry, verse 18, open my eyes that I may see wondrous things

from your law.

We should go into church on Sundays, and we should open our Bibles with that

prayer on our lips, or at least on our heart.

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

Don't go to church passively.

Don't open the Bible in a passive sort of an attitude.

Be proactive, and ask the Lord to open your eyes that you may see.

And then thirdly, in verse 24, we're challenged by this statement of the

psalmist when he says, Your testimonies are my delight.

Your testimonies are my delight and my counselors.

Ask ourselves, are they?

Is God's Word my delight?

Do I look to God's Word for counsel?

Those are some challenging questions to ask ourselves, are they not?

Especially in this day and age when there's so much personalization, individualization

in our approach to living the quote -unquote Christian life.

We go to all kinds of counselors except God's Word.

We delight in reading all kinds of stuff, and hearing all kinds of stuff, and watching all kinds of stuff,

but what is our attitude toward God's Word?

Let's certainly challenging to us, and hopefully

those challenges will direct us to a better approach to the Word.

Help us, Father, to have these attitudes toward your Word, attitudes of wholehearted commitment,

attitudes of a desire to see what you have for us, and an attitude that delights in

your law.

This we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Monday.

Hope your week gets off to a great start.

God bless.