Blessed Obedience

Amen, there are many wonderful attributes of our Lord Jesus. He is

King, He is Savior, He is Lord, He is God, He is friend.

And I appreciate you leading us in that song, Master Gunnar. Psalm 119, one of the great things that God has done for His people, not only has

He redeemed us, not only has He called us into a holy calling and gathered us together, but He's given us

His book. And Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the

Bible, 176 verses. And there are many things you might speculate that this chapter would be about, maybe many great doctrines that this chapter might be about, but this longest chapter in the

Bible is a chapter about the Bible. It's a chapter, a love point, if you will, a love song, if you will, about the

Bible, about God's Word. I hope that you understand as we go through Psalm 119 that the

Bible has a high view of the Bible. You say, well, preacher, you guys down there at Providence, y 'all have a high view of the

Bible. We do. Why? Because the Bible has a high view of the Bible.

And so, this is what this psalm is about. Tonight, we'll take up this first section.

If you remember, 176 verses divided into 22 stanzas because each stanza, there's 22

Hebrew letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So each stanza takes up a

Hebrew letter, 22 stanzas. Lord willing, most of the sermons, I gave myself an out, most of the sermons will cover an entire stanza.

So that's what we're going to do tonight. And we're going to cover verses 1 through 8. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word and we discuss tonight blessed obedience.

Hear the word of the Lord. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong but walk in His ways.

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.

Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules.

I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me. Father, help us to understand this passage tonight.

We pray, Lord, that it encourages us, strengthens us.

Lord, help us to be a church that desires to walk in the ways of God, the ways that you have prescribed for us in your

Word. Help us to love your Scriptures and be people of the Book. We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen. You may be seated. Now, I didn't tell you this, but one of the reasons that I love

Psalm 119 is because it gives me a biblical defense of alliteration.

You see, we have 176 verses divided in 22 stanzas, and each one of these stanzas like we're in tonight, that's a stanza, verses 1 -8, each of these follows the corresponding letter of the

Hebrew alphabet. So in Hebrew, this is alliterated. Each verse in this stanza begins with the

Hebrew letter Aleph. So this isn't to show off the writer's intellect here, but it's done this way as a way of memory, as a way of recitation.

It also shows us that you can expound the Hebrew alphabet, you can expound the

English alphabet, you can expound whatever alphabet you want in the human language, and you can never exhaust the wonders of God and His Word.

There's always more that you could say. And this is a reminder as we consider this psalm.

One long song about God's Word. Tonight, so we look at blessed obedience.

For some people, that's a bad word in Christian circles today. You don't want to say that word. What word? Obey, right?

But it's the plain testimony of Scripture that all mankind, all governments, all unbelievers, all

Christians, all churches, all families, everyone is required to obey

God. This is the plain teaching of the Scriptures. But this stanza of Psalm 119 also teaches us that those who obey

God are blessed. What does this first stanza sound like? Does it bring, as we're memorizing

Psalm 1, do you see any connections, any themes? Certainly there are.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep

His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.

Obedience for the Christian is not mere duty or drudgery, but it is delight.

Now it's been said that holiness is happiness. So this word here for blessed connotes happiness.

I'd probably qualify that term by saying true happiness. Not just emotions based on happenings, but true and abiding joy.

So that's what we want to look at tonight. Blessed obedience. What does a blessed life look like?

Well, I answer that in one word, and that would be holiness.

A blessed life is a holy life. But you know me, I'm going to break this down into three points.

And I might add, alliterated, because I have biblical precedent for alliterating.

So, point number one. Positional holiness. Number one.

Positional holiness. Verse one. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.

Now listen to me, church. The first thing that you should think about that, you should not read that and be like, oh yeah, that's me.

The first thing we should stop for a second and consider. Because this is strong language.

Is my way blameless? Do I do no wrong?

Do I seek God always with my whole heart? Okay, the reality of this beginning of the psalm is this.

There was somebody who did that once, and it wasn't you. In fact, it's only been done once, and it'll only ever be done once.

William Plumer comments this. Gloriously is Christ the end of the law, meeting its demands, satisfying its claims, bringing in everlasting righteousness.

All depends on Him, who is our strength and our Redeemer. I submit to you tonight, church, that verses one through three ultimately point us to King Jesus.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep

His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.

The only person that has ever perfectly done that is Christ.

And He is our hope. Before moving on to anything else in this psalm, we must remember this great truth.

Without this truth that I have just said, you have no hope. You are not blessed tonight unless the

Lord is your righteousness. Why? Because you cannot have a blameless way.

You cannot have a perfect walk in the law of the Lord. You cannot perfectly keep the testimonies of God.

You cannot seek Him with your whole heart. You cannot do no wrong ever and walk in His way perfectly.

You need Christ. But that's the good news of the Gospel. We have

Christ. His way is blameless, yet He became sin. 2 Corinthians 5 .21

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Do you believe that? Forgiveness of sins is available because Jesus was blameless.

And then He died. He rose again for the guilty. And here's the point. Remember point one.

By faith in Christ, you're positionally holy. You are set apart. And you are credited.

When God looks at you, He sees this because He sees Christ. If you're in Christ, He sees

Christ. Even though we are sinners, if we're in Christ, we're justified. That's the good news of the

Gospel. If you go out and you keep this, you really, really, really, really try your best and maybe do as good as you can, maybe

God will bless you. No, we have a sure blessing because of the Gospel. This is what it means to be blessed.

Listen to me, church. This is not the prosperity Gospel. The prosperity

Gospel is the false Gospel that says, come to Jesus to get blessed with stuff.

Come to Jesus and you get something else. I didn't come up with this, but whatever you come to Jesus for, that's your

God. So if you come to Jesus for Jesus, that's your God. If you come to Jesus for stuff, stuff is your

God. Right? The prosperity Gospel says you get stuff. You get to be healthy. You get to drive nice cars.

You get a sweet parking spot. You get a raise. Your kids get to a nice college. That's not the Gospel.

Our greatest need tonight is the forgiveness of sins, not a BMW. But guess what?

That's what the Gospel gets us. That's what Jesus gets us. Remember, we discussed Ephesians 1 -7 this morning.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

This is Jesus' psalm. Can you imagine the Lord Jesus praying this psalm all on earth? Now we have no record that He did that, but I don't think it's out of bounds to consider that He did that.

Imagine Jesus praying this. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping

Your statutes. Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all Your commandments. I will praise

You with an upright heart when I learn Your righteous rules. I will keep Your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me.

Can you imagine our Lord Jesus praying that? Whether or not He actually prayed that while on earth, we may not know, but we do know this.

The sense of this psalm is, these verses here, that is His life.

He is the perfectly blessed one. He is the perfect obedient one.

And look what verse 8 says. I will keep Your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me.

Now consider this. Jesus is the obedient one. Oh God, don't forsake

Him. And yet, what happened on the cross? He was cut off, the Bible says, for the sake of His people.

He cried out Psalm 22 before the Father. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

The one who perfectly kept God's statutes was forsaken under the wrath of God in the place of ruined and vile and helpless sinners.

He died and rose again and is now ruling the universe. And the call to mankind is, believe this, trust this, rest in this.

Put your faith in the blessed one. And if you do, you have justification. You are counted righteous in Christ.

And by His work, we are set apart positionally. We are positionally holy before God.

And we are blessed. But, not only do the blessed have positional holiness, they also have practical holiness.

On the other hand, but here's the deal. This is just the Bible. Those who are positionally holy find themselves to also be practically holy.

Positional holiness will result in practical holiness.

There is no such thing as being justified before God that does not result in a life that also will be sanctified before God.

Now we don't want to confuse positional holiness and practical holiness. We don't want to confuse justification and sanctification.

But neither do we want to preach such a gospel that results in people being justified before God and then returning to live in a life of filth and wickedness.

That's not the Scripture. That's not truth. Those who are positionally holy desire practical holiness.

They desire God's commandments. They desire verse 5. Don't you see that? Isn't that the call of your heart?

Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. Isn't that the cry of a regenerate heart?

It is. Because John 14, 15, Jesus says, If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

Those who love Christ love to do what Jesus has commanded.

Can you be perfect? That's usually what brought it. Well, no one's perfect. That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about on this journey of blessedness, you are pursuing holiness.

You are changed. Oh, that the church may be disciplined. That we may be steadfast.

Or as King James puts it, may be directed to keep his statutes. May the church yearn for holiness.

Verse 3. Who do no wrong, but walk in his ways. The blessed are those who walk in the ways of God.

That's Psalm 1 again, right? We want to walk God's road. Now consider something with me if you will.

We pray all the time. This is a continual prayer for us, isn't it? We pray for God to bless our church.

We pray for God to bless our home. We pray for God to bless our friends.

To bless our family. To bless our nation. And this is not wrong.

So God providing material things is not wrong. The Bible says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

God provides financial blessings. God provides health. God provides protection.

God provides numerous physical blessings. So we're not against that at all. But the text says, the blessed ones are those who walk in the ways of God.

Those who, Jeremiah 6 if you remember, follow the ancient paths. Those who,

Psalm 1, do not walk in the counsel of the wicked. So hear me just a second. We are presumptuous at best, and downright wicked at worst, to ask

God to bless us while simultaneously not seeking to walk in His ways.

I cringe sometimes when I hear politicians or news reporters asking

God to bless our country because I know their type of life. I know the sins that they promote.

They come before God presumptuously at best and downright wickedly at worst, demanding that He bless us while they spit in His face and walk contrary to His ways.

Those set apart in Christ positionally seek to follow

Him practically. And how we follow Jesus practically is by loving and trusting and following this book, verse 3, by walking in His ways.

We're not saying that we can perfectly fulfill verses 1 -3. That's only Christ. But this doesn't stop us from desiring and actually walking the road that Jesus walked.

So let me say this, churches, individuals, families, nations who refuse to walk in God's way, who ignore the

Bible, who disregard its precepts, who treat it flippantly, friends, these have no expectation of God's blessings.

You shouldn't pray for God to bless your family while you're cheating your employer at work.

Or you shouldn't ask God, practical application for forgiving in the church, don't ask

God to bless your finances if you're not generous with the church. You understand?

Don't ask God to bless your efforts or ask

God to save people, your neighbors, if you're not evangelical. Does this make sense? I'm not saying that God requires perfection from us in order to bless us, but there is a connection between we desire to obey what

God says and with that is an expectation of gracious blessing. I'm kind of taking a long time here, but let me say this.

The sad reality is in some cases God has completely removed his favor from a church or from a home and people, they don't even realize it.

They can just continue on. The music's great, the numbers are great, the budgets are great, and so they just continue on not knowing that long ago

God left them because they refused to walk in obedience.

Just consider that. God's blessings are rooted in His grace, of course we believe that, but this reality does not create in us a desire to live for ourselves and ignore the

Word and just expect God to bless us anyway. Rather, since we are a people positionally set apart in Christ, we now seek to follow

Him practically. Positional holiness, practical holiness, and then thirdly, let me address this, persevering holiness.

Verse 6 says, Then I shall not be put to shame. Having my eyes fixed on all your commandments,

I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes.

Do not utterly forsake me. Now in verse 8, the psalmist cries for God not to utterly forsake him.

You need to be reminded tonight that we persevere in holiness only in and through Christ.

If God forsakes us, we will not persevere, but we can be confident of this reality.

All those in Christ will persevere. We call this the perseverance of the saints.

Now let's be careful here. We don't mean that anyone who has ever walked an aisle and says to us,

I am a Christian, that they will go to heaven. Not everyone who says, I am a

Christian, or who has necessarily prayed a prayer, or who has professed faith in Christ, not everyone who professes faith in Christ is actually a believer.

There will be those who fall away, but not from true salvation. It's just that they walk the road of Christianity for a while, they weren't actually saved, and they fall away.

But those who are born again, there is no such thing in the Bible as one born again who becomes unborn again.

Those born again are preserved to the end in such a way that they persevere.

You understand those are two different words. Preserve, persevere. Preserve is God holding us. Persevere is our continuing on in faith and holiness and love and truth.

But we persevere because God preserves.

We do fall down. We do mess up. But we don't pull an atom and run away from God.

Rather, we're confident in the grace shown to us in Christ. We run to Him. The true believer, listen to me church, to the end, the true believer loves holiness.

John Bunyan once wrote, He that hateth holiness hateth God Himself.

It's a burden to see today that many professing Christians seem to loathe piety.

They make fun of piety. They loathe prayer. The smallest meeting that you can get in a

Baptist church is when you call a prayer meeting. Or they loathe time in God's Word. Or they forsake the

Lord's Day. Or they forsake the fellowship of the saints. But I'm encouraging us tonight that true believers love holiness because we love

God. Again, verse 5. O that my ways be steadfast in keeping your statutes.

This is the prayer of a regenerate heart. And true believers persevere in holiness to the end so that they will not be put to shame.

Verse 6. Then I will not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

The solution to our guilt and shame is ultimately Christ. In Christ, believers will not be put to shame.

But furthermore, listen to this. A life lived in accordance with God's Word has nothing to be ashamed about.

Now I mean this in a couple different ways. First, a life lived in accordance with God's Word has nothing to be ashamed about because we don't have anything to hide.

What you see on the outside is who we really are. Right?

We don't have these secret besetting sins behind closed doors. We don't let anybody look.

We don't let anybody know. Why? Because we're genuine and transparent people. We have nothing to be ashamed about.

We want to walk in the way of God. We want to organize our family under the authority of Scripture.

We seek Christ by faith. We have nothing to be ashamed about. Are your pastors, your church members?

We should be able to say to one another, I have nothing to be ashamed about. I'm not saying that I'm perfect and I fail every day.

I need the Gospel. I need Christ. But there's nothing in my life that you should be able to point to and say you continue in that way.

You should be ashamed. Because we seek to follow God's ways. Secondly, let me say this.

By not being ashamed, verse 6, then I shall not be put to shame. If we are trusting

God, and if we are living in accordance with His Word, the world can ridicule us, and the world can try to make us feel shameful or ashamed.

But brothers and sisters, there is never any shame in following what God's Word has to say.

Even if the world ridicules us. If you read the Bible every day, you weirdo.

I had a person ask me recently, what do you do? What do you do when you're reading the

Bible every day and your teenagers are looking at you all weird? This was a person ask me this.

A person who has just recently started to read the Bible every day. So what do you do?

You're reading the Bible every day and now your teenagers are looking at you weird. I said there's a couple things. One, there is a bit of sorrow there.

This is a new thing. And so we're sorry that our teenagers didn't grow up our whole life seeing us read the

Bible. And so it's a new thing. It's weird for them. So we're sorry. We regret that. We take that to the

Lord and we repent and we keep going. But secondly, what do you do if you read the

Bible and people think you're weird? You keep reading the Bible. Why?

Verse six. Then I shall not be put to shame. I don't care what the world thinks about me.

Right? Now that's a lie, isn't it? Because sometimes we do care what the world thinks about us.

That's why we don't share the gospel sometimes. That's why we're afraid to stand up when someone's saying something in error and we're like,

I'm going to stand up. No, okay, I don't want to be the weirdo here. What I'm saying is, it's okay if the world mocks us and ridicules us.

They mock Jesus, right? They ridicule Jesus. That's okay. In Christ, we don't have to be ashamed of following what

God has said in His Word. And it results in a life of having our eyes fixed on all

God's commandments. And so when we stand before the throne of God, we will not be cast off in shame, but welcomed into the joy of our triune

God. You really have a choice in one sense. You really have a choice in one sense of who you want to be ashamed of or who you want to receive shame from.

So tonight you can choose, I want to receive shame from the world. I want to live for Christ and I want the world to ridicule me.

Or you can choose, I want Christ to be ashamed of me.

So I want the world to accept me and when I stand before the throne, I want Christ to be ashamed of me and to say, depart from me,

I never knew you. Those are really the two options. I'm either going to be shamed by the world or I'm going to be shamed by Christ.

I choose shame by the world because in Christ there will not be shame.

Persevering holiness results in a life where we fix our eyes on God's Word. Verse 7, I will praise you with an upright heart when

I learn your righteous rules. Learn, think about this, a life of persevering holiness is a life of learning.

This Hebrew word for learn has the idea of being instructed, being taught. Believers who persevere in holiness are continually learning

God's Book. So listen to me tonight, church, no matter what stage of life you're in, you never reach a point where you've learned enough of the

Book. Never. I just became a Christian. Do I need to learn a little more?

Yes, you do. A lot more. Why I've been walking with the Lord 40 years? Do I need to learn a little more?

Yes, you do. A lot more. Why I've been walking with the Lord 120 years? Do I need to learn more? Yes, you do.

A lot more. In fact, we'll be learning more and more about God for all eternity because Christians are learners.

We want to learn His righteousness. This is our desire too, right? I was at a church one time, not here, many years ago.

I was teaching through Philippians on Wednesday night. There was this lady, she was a little bit contentious,

I guess, but she said she didn't need any of that because she's learned all that before, right? You're like, no, that's not the disposition of the

Christian. Teach me the Book of Ephesians. Don't worry, I'm not going to do this. Hypothetically, teach me the

Book of Ephesians the rest of my life, right? And it is enough because I want to learn

God's righteousness. I want to know Him. I want to know His ways. And then the more we learn from God's Word about God's ways and about God's will, the greater that we praise

Him. I will praise you. Learning and praise, there's a connection.

So someone says, well, I don't care about all that theology. No, no, no, listen to me now. Theology serves doxology.

Meaning, the more we learn about God, now if you just want to learn about God to beat people over the head, you're in sin, you need to repent.

We want to learn more about God, why? So we can praise Him more. Not so that we can beat someone on the

Internet or win a seminary exam. We want to know more about God so that we can love

God more, so that we can praise God more because He's worthy of our praise. And then

I might make one more note here as well. All of God's decrees, all of God's judgments, all of God's rules are qualified by this adjective here in verse 7.

I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules.

All of God's ways, all that God is, all that God does, all that God says, all that God commands is righteous.

And you remember from the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, believers hunger and thirst for righteousness.

They seek to know and follow His righteous instructions. And then we'll revisit verse 8.

I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me. Again, there's a reminder that without God we will not persevere.

In other words, it seems like the psalmist understands here, I will keep your statutes. Don't leave me, right?

Maybe less of a bargain here, like I'll do this and you do this, but rather this is the desire of my heart.

I want to keep your statutes. Please don't leave me because I can't follow your ways. I can't do what you want me to do.

We can't be the church you want us to be. I can't be the husband you want me to be or the father or the pastor.

I cannot do these things if you leave me. Don't leave me. God made this deal to Moses.

Moses passed, but He made this deal to Moses. Essentially, He said, these people are stiff -necked, rebellious people, but because I promised them, this is my paraphrase, because I promised them the promised land,

I'm going to let them keep it. They can have it. I promised it to them. They can have it, but I'm not going with you.

Now, what would you do? You can have heaven. You can have all the great things the

Bible talks about, but you can't have God. I'm afraid too many professing

Christians would say, okay, deal, but let the cry of our heart be like this psalmist.

No, no, no, no, no. If you're not going, I'm not going. I need you.

I want you. I love you. Do not forsake me. We confess our need for the

Spirit's continued work, the continued grace of Christ in the gospel, the continued kindness of the

Father upon our lives. If God forsakes us, we're sunk, and so we confess in this psalm our need for His continued grace to persevere in holiness.

So we conclude now. That's it.

First stanza. 21 more stanzas to go. How are you this evening?

Are you living the life of the blessed? Are you walking in blessed obedience?

Will you pray tonight for God's blessing while simultaneously resting in Christ and walking in His ways?

Do you value tonight God's Word? How can you put that into effect practically this week?

Maybe this week, a challenge maybe, you want to take me up, maybe not this week, maybe next week, maybe sometime in the near future though.

You know, you just open up Psalm 119 one evening and you just read it. And just think on it.

We read it as a church a few weeks ago. Let it soak into your mind and heart, and let this position, let this psalmist view of the

Word of God be ours. Let's pray. Father, help us to be a people who are positionally holy, practically holy, and who persevere in holiness.

Let us love Your book. Let us trust it and walk by it. We pray that You would not forsake us.