Keep sharing good news without ads.
Psalm 119:129-136
Amen, wonderful words of life. Psalm 119 is our Sunday night book, if you will, chapter, going through this. And it was a few weeks ago, it was before I went to Mexico, actually, that we were looking at verses 129 through 136.
We started there, we got through two of those verses. The plan will be to finish that stanza tonight. Wonderful words of life, that's what we call that sermon, and we'll just call this one, super creative sermon title, Wonderful Words of Life, Part Two.
So there you go. You know, it was on this day, October the 6th, 1536, that they finally executed one of England's most notorious outlaws. This man had been on the run from the government for several years.
They finally were able to track him down and through their, well, I would call deceptive tactics, they were able to trap him, capture him. And this man's crime, of course, was that he was a smuggler of illegal goods.
Not just a smuggler of illegal goods, he was a producer of illegal goods. And these goods were seen by the government as subversive to the very rule and reign of the government of the time, and even subversive and a destroyer of their very faith that England claimed to hold so dear.
So on this day, finally, October the 6th, 1536, they strangled this man to death, and then they burned him alive, or they burned him after his death. They burned him at the stake. Before he died, his last and final words were these.
It was a prayer. Lord, open the king of England's eyes. You see, this man who was put to death on this day, October the 6th, 1536, is a man by the name of William Tyndale. The illegal goods that he was smuggling is the word of God in English.
William Tyndale was not just a smuggler of the word of God in English, he was the producer of the word of God in English, a very gifted man, a devout man, a man that we will see in heaven, and a man that we owe much debt to.
Obviously, we believe in the sovereignty of God, and we believe that God is in control of this, but God used William Tyndale in a very mighty and powerful way in order to get us the Bible in English. I don't have this statistic readily available, but I believe it's something crazy, like 98 or something.
But when the King James Bible was produced, they used something like 98 of William Tyndale's work. Maybe that's too high, but they used a lot of William Tyndale's work. So this is Reformation month.
Remember, October is Reformation month. We owe a great deal of debt to people in the faith whom God has used to bring us these precious truths. And one of those, the most precious truth, perhaps we would say, because from this truth, everything else flows, is the word of God in a language that we can understand.
And so tonight, we continue to look at seven things that the word of God produces in believers. I'm just going to tell you guys, I'm not trying to bring the hammer out and smash your toes at the beginning of the sermon.
Usually we save that for a little bit later. But we ought to be reading our Bibles more. And it's an important day to remember that, the death of William Tyndale. It's an important month to remember that, Reformation month.
We believe to be a church that is seeking to align ourselves with the scriptures. And how dare we would go around and talk about how biblical of a church we are if we're not a people who are readily in the book that God has given us.
So let us be a people of God's book. And let's see tonight what it produces in us. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word? So here we are, Psalm 119, beginning in verse 129. Your testimonies are wonderful.
Therefore, my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light and imparts understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name.
Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me. Redeem me from man's oppression that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes.
My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, may the death of your servants in the past like William Tyndale not be in vain. May we not be a people who have the word of God on our phones and the word of God laying in our cars and by our bedside and on our family room table, but not read it.
And let us be people of the book and let us remember tonight that your Holy Spirit works through the reading and preaching and teaching of your word to produce these things in our hearts. And so Lord, we pray that you would do that and work even tonight under the preaching of your word.
We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. So you may be seated. A couple of things, the first two things are just review, but it's been a few weeks. And so I'll say that the first thing we remember is that the word of God produces in believers delight.
So we saw in verse 129, your testimonies are wonderful. The word of God is not drudgery to the believer. The word of God is a delight to the believer. And as we interact with the word of God, as we read it, as we sit under the preaching, as we're involved in the teaching of the word of God, we see the scriptures as a delight.
Secondly, the scriptures produce in us discernment. Verse 131, the unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. I'm glad. You ought to be glad.
Why?
Because we're just kind of like a blue collar, simple community, right? Like maybe it's not, we don't have anything, there's nothing wrong with higher education, but you think about the people in our area and some of the things that we do and say, well, can we understand the word of God here too?
Yes, it imparts understanding to the simple. It gives us discernment. It helps us to understand the difference between right and wrong. And others have said it this way. It helps us to understand the difference between right and almost right.
So the word of God gives us discernment. But now we enter into tonight's sermon. Thirdly, the word of God produces in the people of God desperation. So here we are in verse 131. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments.
I'm desperate. This is what I am hungry for. This is what I want. I want the word of God.
As the deer pants for water,.
So my soul longs for thee. Imagine that you're in a desert and the sun is scorching overhead. You almost got that at Goat Fest yesterday, if you went, right? Because it's like, why do we complain about this?
It happens every year. But you get fall and then you get summer and then you get fall and then you get summer. And then it's like, okay, really fall's here. And then yesterday you get summer. Again, unless it's hot, you know.
But imagine you're in a desert and you're hot and the sun's beating down and you're scorched and your throat is parched and your mouth is dry and your tongue is swollen and you're just barely trudging along one foot in front of the other.
And all of a sudden you look up and there you see there's an oasis. There's streams of cool, flowing water. Would you say, well, I'm just, I'm too busy today, right? I got too much going on today. I'll get to that tomorrow.
What would you do?
With all the strength you had left in you, you would sprint as hard as you could and you would plunge into those streams and you would drink deeply. You would be desperate for this water. Well, that's what the text says.
I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Friends, is there desperation in your life for God's word? You think about that. If there's not, what do you do? Turn to the Lord. Ask Him.
God, would you produce in me a desperation? Would you help me? My priorities get out of whack. It's so easy. I get out of habit. You know, I understand. It's easy to get out of habit, isn't it? You get out of habit.
Okay, I'm out of habit.
Lord, help me.
Help me to get back on track and help me to stay faithful and help me to keep plugging along. Sometimes the way God has ordained the Christian life, sometimes you got to keep plugging along and then the desperation will catch up.
You understand? So the answer to tomorrow morning, if you don't want to read the Bible, the answer is to not wait until you want to read the Bible. The answer is tomorrow morning, you get up and you read the Bible.
You say, yeah, but if I don't want to, isn't that? No, no, you read the Bible because what happens when we interact with God's word? You understand that when we interact with God's word, the spirit of God actually uses the word of God to break our hearts and to change our desires.
So that's what we do. So tomorrow, whether you feel like it or not, you get up and you encounter the scriptures and you pray for God to give you desperation. Fourthly, devotion. Verse 132, turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name.
Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
That's interesting, isn't it?
What right, think about this tonight, what right does a psalmist have to ask God there in verse 132, turn to me and be gracious to me. That seems rather bold, a rather bold request of the psalmist. But this is the way of the covenant people of God.
This is the way of the covenant children of God. We are recipients of God's grace. Remember Nahum 1 .7, just a few weeks, or I guess it was last week that we were on Nahum 1 .7 on Sunday morning. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
He knows those who take refuge in Him. God knows in a saving covenantal way those who take refuge in Christ. And so those who take refuge in Christ, we pray bold prayers even like this. Turn to us, O God, and be gracious to us because of what Christ has done.
Remember the gospel tonight. Christ has fulfilled all righteousness. Christ has become a curse on the tree for us. Christ has risen again from the dead. Christ has secured the favor of God for His people.
And by grace alone, through faith alone, we have trusted in the atoning work of Christ alone. And we're devoted now to God's name. We love His name because we're recipients of His grace. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name.
Why do we love God's name? 1 John tells us we love because He first loved us. You see how the psalmist appeals to God based on God's own word. Keep steady, verse 133, my steps according to your promise.
You understand that there's a connection between our devotion to God and our devotion to God's word. The psalmist understands that the way is narrow and that the way is hard. And so he says, keep my steps steady.
Kind of like this morning too, let no iniquity get dominion over me. We talked about this morning from Nahum, the analogy of the people who were like drunkards and the analogy of the thorns. The people of God understand in the scriptures that sin is crouching at the door.
It's waiting for us. It's ready to leap. It's ready to get dominion over us. And so the psalmist prays for his devotion to God and let not sin get the final say. Let not iniquity get dominion over me.
Don't let sin entangle me. Don't let sin deceive me. So delight, discernment, desperation, devotion. Fifthly, we're talking about what the word of God produces in the people of God. And we're walking through Psalm 119 and here we are on this stanza.
And we're thinking through when we interact with the word of God, what does it produce in the people of God? And fifthly, we see here duty. Verse 134, redeem me from man's oppression. And here's why. That I may keep your precepts.
So the last verse, we saw a prayer for spiritual concern,.
If you will.
Keep me from sin. Don't let sin have dominion over me. But now we see a prayer for a physical concern. Deliver me from my oppressors. Now, I wanna teach you something in the scriptures that I think we miss sometimes.
We're very good. We're very good at praying for one another's physical problems. Let's pray for sister so-and-so's operation. Let's pray for brother so-and-so's situation at the job. And it's right, by the way.
It's right that we would pray for one another's physical struggles. We should. We should pray for God to provide. We should pray for God even to work miracles, as it were. When we have situations like Connell's friend from Arizona, Mr. Art, when he's been diagnosed with cancer and we've been praying for him, and we should pray that God would work in this man's life and we hope that he will work in his life and we pray for that physical healing.
This is right and this is good. But here's something that's missing sometimes when we pray for physical things. And that is the idea of the psalmist in 134 is redeem me from man's oppression in order that, I'm supplying a few words there, so that I may keep your precepts.
So listen to me tonight, church. The reason that we pray for one another's health, the reason that we pray for one another's job situation, the reason that we pray for these physical matters is so that we could be even better followers of God's ways.
That's what's on the psalmist's mind. Don't just free me from man's oppression.
Because I want a life of ease.
I want to spend more time at the lake. I want to be able to do all the things I want to do. But free me from man's oppression, why? So that I can walk better and more faithfully in your ways. The church of God thinks about how we might follow God.
Again, this is not for salvation. We don't want to follow God so that he'll save us. We want to follow God because he has saved us. Because we've put faith in Christ. We've rested in his atoning work.
We've trusted his perfect life, his death on the cross for our sins, his resurrection. And now we seek to walk in his ways. The church of God wants to keep the ways of God. And we understand that when we study the scripture, the word of God produces duty in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives.
Our prayer for physical healing or deliverance ought always to be paired with a desire to follow God's word. Sixthly, delight, discernment, desperation, devotion, duty, desire. Verse 135, make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes.
This is reminiscent of Numbers 6, 24 through 26. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Friends, the word of God produces in the people of God a desire to be in the presence of God. One of the things that we do on Sunday mornings, the men, we pray around 8 .45 on Sunday mornings. And one of the things we pray often, maybe not every single Sunday, most Sundays though, we pray for the presence of God.
We pray that God would meet with us. We pray things like this. If God doesn't meet with us, we don't wanna meet, right? You understand that there's a lot of places that would call themselves churches that gather Sunday in, Sunday out, but God ain't there with them, right?
That's terribly sad. Now, obviously you say, well, isn't God everywhere? Yes, God is everywhere. We have the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere. God is in all places, but he's not in all places in the exact same way, you understand.
He's in places at times to bless in a particular and precious way. And the people of God desire the presence of God. We want his face to shine upon us. We want to meet with God. When you came to church tonight, did you think, well, I wonder how long the sermon is gonna be?
I wonder how many songs we're gonna sing. I wonder about all the prayer, because I wonder if anybody's gonna show up tonight. I wonder what this night is gonna be. Or did you think, I'm going to church again on Sunday night because I wanna meet with God.
The people of God desire to meet with God. We desire to meet with God personally. We desire to meet with God corporately. But this is our desire. Make your face shine upon your servant. But also, he desires something else.
If I can meddle just a minute. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. He desires the presence of God, but he also desires to learn. He desires to learn. It is a fascinating phenomenon.
That's probably the most, you know, the kindest way I could put it. It's a fascinating phenomenon in the Bible Belt today that so many claim to be God's children, but they have no desire to learn. They have no desire to be taught.
They have no desire to grow. In fact, the things that they complain about are not learning enough. The things that they complain about are maybe the sermon's too long, or y 'all just talk about all that deep theology over there, or whatever the case may be.
But they have no desire to learn. Now, that kind of sounds humble. Maybe it sounds humble. Oh, I just want the simple truth. But oftentimes, it's actually from a heart of arrogance. I don't wanna learn because I already know it all.
Or maybe they would not admit they know it all. I don't wanna learn because I already know enough. I have as much of God as I already want, and I don't wanna know anything else. I don't wanna, you use those big words, justification or predestination, or whatever the case may be.
I don't care about those words.
I've already got it.
I've got no desire to grow. But I'm telling us tonight that God's word produces in the people of God a desire to learn more of God's word.
Teach me. That's what the text says.
Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.
I wanna know.
Like, just think about that practically, like tonight. Like, don't you wanna know? We sing that song, I Wanna Know More.
I wanna know more.
Well, we haven't sang it in a while, I guess. I wanna know more about my Savior. I wanna know more about my Lord. I wanna know more about His atoning work. I wanna know more about the blood of Christ.
I wanna know more about grace. I wanna know more about the doctrine of the last things. I wanna know more about the wisdom and wonderfulness and beauty and glory of God. I wanna know more about the church.
I wanna know more about worship.
I wanna know more about how God would have us to operate.
I want to know more.
That's why we give away resources. That's why we're serious about teaching and preaching, and that's why we do Bible studies.
We want to grow.
None of us here, your pastors here, Pastor Jacob and myself, we haven't arrived at a place where we say, you know what, we're at the pinnacle of Christian knowledge and we don't wanna know anything else.
No, we're hungry. We want to learn.
Because we love God. This is the reality of the believer. And Paul prays that for the Colossians. If you read Colossians 1, 9 and 10, he prays that they would grow, that their knowledge of God would abound.
They would grow in the knowledge of God. So this is what the word of God produces in us. Now, this last one is surprising, or maybe it's surprising. The word of God produces in the people of God delight, discernment, desperation, devotion, duty, desire.
Now here's one that maybe you weren't ready for. That is, the word of God produces in the people of God a sense of despair. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let's be careful what I'm meaning contextually.
Verse 136. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Now, that's an odd one, isn't it? All these other ones were like, yeah, okay, I get that. I see where you're coming from. Delight, discernment, desperation, devotion, duty, desire.
These are all good things. These are all positive things. I want these things. But then we have this one.
Despair.
My eyes shed streams of tears because, why? People do not keep your law. Now, let's consider this for a moment tonight, church. This ought to be our reaction to those who do not walk in the way of truth.
We've tasted and we've seen that God is good. We've seen the glories and wonderfulness of the Gospel, the great and sovereign grace of God in Christ. All that Christ has done, His perfect life, His fulfilling all righteousness, His being the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, His completing the covenant of works and ushering in, inaugurating the covenant of grace.
We've seen the nails driven into His hands and to His feet, the spear piercing His side, the wrath of God falling upon the Son, the Son calling upon God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And knowing that He was put in place of His people, put in place of sinners, that the wrath of God would fall upon Him and not upon us, that God, as the scriptures that we're memorizing on Sunday morning, that God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemns sin in the flesh.
We see the beauty of the Gospel.
We see His death for us,.
His resurrection so that He was raised, Paul says in Romans 4 .25, for our justification. And we love Christ and we run after Him and then we see that so many reject Him. That He is a God with disposition towards forgiveness.
The scriptures are full of places where it says things, it says God is slow to anger. He's ready to forgive. And we see the people walking like, man, whatever.
I don't want that.
Or they get mad. Sometimes people get mad. I've heard Alex preach in the open air. I've been blessed by that a lot, I've heard him. I heard he was preaching yesterday and just preaching on the reality that we're sinners, but oh, the goodness of God to forgive us.
And I saw this lady, maybe about, I don't know, 15 yards from him and she just had a scowl on her face. And I just asked her, I said, ma 'am, are you a Christian? And she said, are you? I was like, well, we're doing evangelism, you know?
And she said, this is hate. You think about that, it breaks my heart that we'd be preaching the way to God is through the finished work of Christ and that people would respond by saying, well, this is hatred.
But listen, the psalmist is heartbroken by people who break the law of God. And that's sin, right? That is the definition of sin, a lawbreaker, doing what God says not to do, not doing what God says to do.
Our hearts should break, I'm saying this point,.
For the lost.
And if your heart does not break for the lost, there's a serious connection here between the word of God and our hearts having the right disposition towards the lost, right? You want a bigger heart for the lost?
I'm telling you, be a man or a woman of the book. Let the word of God shape your disposition towards the lost. The world today doesn't need more angry Calvinists, right?
That's not what we're after.
It needs men and women who are beholden to God's word, anchored in these truths that we believe, Reformed Baptist theology. But that produces in us not anger, not hatred, it produces in us a heart that will weep for the nations.
They bring it home to you.
You get angry at Kamala Harris?
Yeah, me too. There's some righteous anger that we should have.
About some of her policies.
When's the last time you took her name before God and said, would you save that woman? Our disposition towards the lost is that they would be saved. I understand the imprecatory Psalms, I get it. And there's scripture and they're right and they're beautiful.
And the enemies of God. Listen, this is just the word of God, not me. The enemies of God will have their teeth stomped out of their mouth. That's true. He'll break their teeth. But until he comes and judges the world and righteousness.
It's our desire, it's our disposition that the loss would be saved. That they would repent and believe the gospel. Or how about we go to the other side of the political aisle? We are certainly unapologetic about being conservative here, but my eyes shed stream of tears because people do not keep your law.
Is your heart broken for the change in policy and the GOP when it comes to abortion? Kind of just hands off like, well, no, no, no. Well, let's just look, let's just leave it up to the states. And we're not going to sign a federal abortion ban.
We're just no, that's not what we're going to do in the name of political expediency. I'm going to say to me, wow, well, but if they don't do that, they won't get elected. Look, I'm just saying this. If the people of God are serious about God's word, then we ought to weep when people do not keep the law of God.
We ought to weep.
Friends, I'm saying that when we go out into the streets, when we take tracks, when we preach the gospel, our disposition ought not to be one of hate. We saw a lot of strange people yesterday. If you were at the GO Fest, you could know there were a lot of strange people.
But I saw people, people of who I assume to be in the LGBTQ community and people we could list the sins, things that I assume. And when I saw them, I can tell you that there is a temptation of my flesh to be like, why are you like that?
Why are you living that way? Why are you doing these things? There's a temptation in our flesh to be angry, to spit anger and hate and those sorts of things. But I'm just telling you tonight, if we love the word of God, if the word of God is in our heart, if we're interacting with the word of God, then we're like the psalmist, my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.
I'm just saying that we need to be careful. We're standing on truth. But we don't take that truth and seek to beat people over the heads with it. We take that truth and we seek to genuinely offer it to them, pleading with them to embrace Christ as their only suitable and all sufficient savior.
Show me a man plugged up regularly in God's word and I'll show you a man who has the tendency to be the most evangelistic. Because God's word reveals God's heart. And we see in God's in God's word, his heart for the nations.
We see in the scriptures the worthiness of God to be adored and followed and honored and worshiped. You understand, first and foremost, that's why our eyes shed streams of tears. It's one thing about those people, but it's another thing because God is not being honored.
Right?
The lamb who was slain, Jesus who had felt the nails in his hands and in his feet and the wrath of God poured upon him and the crown of thorns was pressed upon his brow. This Jesus, he's worthy to receive the full reward for his suffering.
And so our hearts are broken. And we want people to know Christ. We want him to receive the glory. Listen, if you find yourself with a disposition of just always being angry at the lost, there is righteous anger.
Please don't misunderstand me. We should be righteously angry about some things in our country. It's frustrating. But if you let that spill over into you just have no time for evangelism or you have no time to pray for the lost or you have no time to care about the souls of men and women, then I'm telling you tonight you're in sin.
And you need to repent and you need to ask God to soften your heart and make your heart like this verse here. That my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Friends, has God's word given you a soft heart for the unconverted?
We believe serious truth. We believe the Bible. I'm unapologetic. Listen, I'm just unapologetic. I understand I get people that complain and they just think I'm crazy. And they're like, y 'all believe in predestination over there.
Well, look, it's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. So if you honor God in all ways, including being heartbroken for the lost in this community. I believe God loves Perryville. Why would I say that? Why else would he put a gospel preaching church?
Why else would he put evangelists in this community and in this church? Why else would he put people passing out tracts? And some of you even who are passing out tracts or involved in these things or at least you're praying for us or you care about these things.
Why would God do these things? I believe because he wants to make a name for his son in Perryville, Arkansas. Why Perryville, Arkansas? I have no idea, but I know this.
No one even knows we exist.
And that's exactly the kind of things that God delights to do, is to take the small, despised, out of the way things of the world and to do great things in them to make a name for his son. So. That's where I'm at.
I've gone a bit on a tangent on that, but let me just wrap it up and we'll close by reading this stanza one more time and considering, friends, is the word of God producing these things in your life? Of course, I know it's a Sunday night crowd, but I offer to you salvation in Christ.
Some of you, perhaps the reason that God is not producing these things in you is because your heart lies dead, your heart lies cold, your heart is like a desert and it needs life. And I'm telling you tonight, would you cry out to God for salvation?
This gospel that you've heard a few different times in the sermon, would you repent of your sins and believe it and rest in Christ and see, too, if God would not work these things in you? Your testimonies are wonderful.
Therefore, my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name.
My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Father, would you make this stanza of Psalm 119 true in our lives? Would you bear fruit in our lives with your word? Bless us, keep us, make your face shine upon us.
May we desire your presence. May we desire to follow what your scripture says. May we desire to learn. May we desire to be a people in a church that are serious about your word. And God, give us a heart for the lost.
We pray for all the tracts and all the message that was preached and all the literature that was given out yesterday. And we pray that it's just a small step, perhaps, in bringing many sons and daughters to glory.
We pray that the seed that was sown, that the Spirit of God would plant it deep within hearts and bring sinners to repentance. Even if we never know it. Even if they're in some other state. And they get saved, they get baptized, and they're a faithful member of a church somewhere.
And we never know it until glory. We just pray that you would do it for the glory of Christ. And we pray it in Jesus' name.