Keep sharing good news without ads.
Psalm 119:97-104
Psalm 119, we've been expositing this great chapter, the longest chapter of the Bible, we've found ourself in verse 97. Tonight we'll cross over the verse 100 mark. The Bible is referred to, in certain circles, as the good book.
And truly, it is the good book. And we're in this psalm tonight, we're going through this psalm, we're preaching messages through this psalm, because it highlights the importance of the word of God. It shows us, it highlights the delight that the redeemed can and should have in the word.
And then also we've seen throughout our exposition that it offers practical ways to use the word. Reading it, memorizing it, meditating on it. In Genesis chapter 3, the fall of Adam and Eve, the way that Satan infiltrates the garden is he attacks the word of God.
And would we look around today and say that his strategy has changed? No, in homes, in politics, in government, in schools, in churches, in individual lives, Satan is always after attacking the word of God.
And so we want to be ready to stand against that. Is God's word, is it really true? Is it really a delight? Is it really good for us? And these are questions we wrestle with every day. We may affirm these truths in our mind, but every time we neglect, as Gunnar mentioned at the beginning of the service, every time we neglect the scriptures, we are giving in or giving over to these temptations about the Bible.
So tonight, I just want to talk about the result of loving scripture from this next stanza that we're in, verse 97, and I'll read through verse 104. So let's stand as we honor the reading of God's word.
A lot of people say David wrote this psalm. Others have said we don't know. I told you before, some have said Daniel. But verse 97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word.
I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way.
Let's pray.
Father, help us to love your law. Help us to love the way that it tastes, to love thinking about it, to think about it in such a way that we turn our feet. Instead of going this direction, we go that direction.
Instead of choosing this thing, we choose the other thing because it is good to us. It's instructed to us from your word. Help us to love this book and to submit our lives to it, to build our house upon the rock, as it were.
We pray that our country would return to this book. This book, this book was such a foundation for the beginning of our nation and how we have strayed from it. So I pray, even tonight, that our leaders would return to this book.
We pray that our government officials in the state, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, would be a lady of the book. We pray that even for the repentance in our national leadership. And we pray that you would give us men who would be people of the book.
And most importantly, of course, we pray our churches would lead out in this. Help our church. Let us not look to others, let us look here. Let us be, make sure that we are people of the book. We thank you for Christ and what he has done.
We pray we're resting in him. We pray it in his name.
Amen.
You may be seated. The first point, just three points tonight. First, the foundation for loving God's word. The foundation for loving God's word. You see the psalmist starts out in verse 97, how I love your law.
What joy, what exaltation. The psalmist love, loves God's law. He loves God's word. He loves the scriptures. This is the truth of every believer. We love the Bible. We want to read the Bible. We want to study the Bible.
We want to sin under the preaching of the Bible. But where does this come from? What is the foundation for loving God's word? Well, friends, it is being born again. It is being regenerated. When we are born again, God writes his law on our heart.
We love the Bible. The unregenerate, unbelievers, they don't love God's word. Why do people today take God's word and take it out of context, or twist it, or not listen to it, or not submit to it?
Because they don't love it.
But for those who have fled to Christ, we proclaim verse 97 with the psalmist. It is the cry of our heart. Oh, how I love your law. In the New Testament, in 1 John, the apostle John says that if we are born of God, we love Christ.
We desire to keep his commandments. In fact, this is one of the ways that we can know if we're truly believers. Do we love the Bible? Is the Bible precious to us? How do I know if I really love the Bible?
Well, you have places like John 14, 15, where Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. In 1 John, John says the commandments are not burdensome, meaning we want to know what God would have us to do, and then we want to align our lives with his will.
We're not talking, of course, about perfection. But listen to me tonight. One of the marks of a true believer is that we desire to live under the kingship of Jesus. We want to live practically as though Jesus is Lord, to bow every square inch of our lives to his authority, like we talked about this morning, that corridor of our heart.
We want to open every door to him. Now, I've heard people say things in sin, usually to justify their sin. They say things like, I'm just trying to do the best I can. I'm just trying to live like Jesus wants me to.
But here's the reality we have tonight. Remember this, church. We don't have to guess how Jesus calls us to live. Isn't that good news? Like, we don't have to wonder, how does he want us to live? What does he want?
He's told us.
That's one of the reasons, anyway. The psalmist proclaims, oh, how I love your law. Now listen, when we talk about the law, of course the law exposes our sinfulness. The law drives us to Christ. The law exposes our need for Jesus.
In our catechism questions, right now we're on those two. What is it, 95, 96, or is it 96, 97? Anyway, the point is, one of the questions is, can any man perfectly keep the 10 commandments? And I haven't memorized them yet, so I'm summarizing.
But basically, the answer is no. Since Adam, no person has perfectly kept the commandments. Okay, then what are the point in the next question? Then what's the point of the 10 commandments? Well, they show us our need for Christ.
And they show us what God desires of us. And so we need to be reminded that we need the law to drive us to Christ, but once we're in Christ, it's the law of God that shows us the things that are pleasing to Jesus.
Now remember about verse 97. Anytime we get an opportunity like this,.
We should take it.
But don't you see this is perfectly cried out in the heart of Christ, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. What I mean is, Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of verse 97. Jesus is the one, you might say, who loved God's law to death.
He fulfilled every jot and tittle, and was crucified for lawbreakers like us, and rose again. And when we are born again, when we put our faith in this Christ, when we trust Jesus, the law of God is written on our hearts.
We want to follow Christ. We want to please our king. We rest in his perfection, and yet then we seek to follow his will. So I'm saying tonight, do you want to please our king? Then we must be in his word.
The foundation for loving God's word is that we would be Christians. We'd be born again. We would be in Christ. Secondly, the fruit of loving God's word. We continue. So the text says, oh, how I love your law.
It is my meditation all the day. You understand what meditation is, right? Meditation is thinking on the scriptures. It's what we think about. What are you thinking about right now? As you mow the lawn, or clean the house, or drive to work, what are you thinking about?
I find my mind often wondering. I'm thinking about politics. I'm thinking about, boy, what would it be like to kill a big deer this year? I'm thinking about, what if the Razorbacks.
Were good this year?
Or all these things that fill our mind, right? And we think about, what would it be like if I had a million dollars, right? All these things kind of occupy our mind. But the psalmist says, what he's thinking about all the day long, he's meditating on scripture.
You understand?
That's why it's a good habit for us. We read the Bible in the morning, and then the rest of the day, we ask God to call it back to our mind.
We think on it.
We meditate. It's our meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.
Meditation. The Bible's always with us. What we love, Matthew Henry says, we love to think of. How do we know if we truly love the Word of God? Well, one indication is we love to spend time in the Word of God.
You can read the Bible without loving it, but you can't really love the Bible without reading it. Love for the Word. Meditation on the Word is a result of loving the Word, or the effect of loving the Word.
All right, let me give you this analogy. And I think this is a reality in the hearts of some. But you go to the store, you buy, I don't know what store you'd go to, Lowe's maybe. You buy a pear tree. You plant the pear tree.
You fertilize the pear tree. You water the pear tree. I don't know how many years it takes. Just go with me. A few years later, you realize that the tree is producing apples. Well, what's wrong with the pear tree?
It's not a pear tree. It's an apple tree. Now, there's multiple things that you can do. You could go out there and cut off the pears and duct tape apples on the tree, but you really haven't fixed it. Or you could say, you know what?
What I need to do, if I just fertilize it more, right? I'll put more Miracle-Gro. You're not gonna get apples that way.
Why?
Or you're not gonna get pears. What's the analogy? One of, whichever. You're not gonna get that, right? You're not gonna get pears from an apple tree. What you gotta do is you gotta dig it up and you've gotta plant a pear tree if you want pears.
And this is the reality in the hearts of some. They don't love the Bible because what they need to happen in their life is they need to be born again. If the scripture is never our desire, if we're always trying to use duct tape and Miracle-Gro to make us love the Bible, then the problem could be we need a new tree.
And even on a Sunday night crowd, I think it's worth mentioning. They, if this is you, cry out to Jesus in mercy. Trust His grace. The repent and believe the gospel. The fruit of loving God's word is that we would spend time in God's word.
The psalmist says there in verse 98, it's ever with me. I go back to that quote earlier from Matthew Henry. What we love, we love to think of. The Bible is rich. Let me encourage you with that. So we really so often do not give the Bible its due.
We cannot exhaust it in a thousand lifetimes. If you don't love it, it's not the problem of the Bible. Again, go to Jesus. The root of our problem is not time management or busyness. The root of our problem is lack of love for Christ.
So go to Christ. He is the answer. But consider tonight how lovely is this book. It is a master literary treasure. It is a miracle of penmanship. It is the breath of God on paper. It is the voice of God in writing.
It is literally the word of God, the voice of God, if you will, in written form. It is totally true and trustworthy. It is inerrant and infallible. It is beautiful. Its narratives are illustrative. Its poetry is moving.
Its prophecy is gripping. Its grand story from cover to cover of Christ and his rescuing of people out of their fallen misery by a sovereign love, it is overwhelming. Beloved, this is the book. I believe today that we've gotten kind of embarrassed by it.
I talked about it a little bit this morning. We're kind of embarrassed by the Bible. I still know, like in this country, for a long time, for many, many years in this country, at its inception, man, there was real Bible preaching.
People loved, people loved, I'm not, look, look. I understand that America has never been, you know, in the sense of like Israel or whatever. I'm not talking like that. It's never been like a theocracy or whatever.
I don't mean that. America has its faults. It's had many faults. But what I'm just saying is the foundation of our country, in many respects, was the word of God. And people in our country did love the word of God.
The Bible was popular, even in popular culture references and such. But we've lost today in our nation.
The respect for the scriptures, the love for the scriptures.
Now the Bible is mocked. Now the Bible is questioned. Now the Bible is denigrated. But I'm telling us tonight that this is God's book. We must behold its beauty. We must trust its promises. We must exalt its savior.
And we must follow its precepts. And then thirdly tonight, let me just mention the function of loving God's word. So we go on in the Psalm and look at some of the things he says. He says things like, I'll go back to verse 98.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the age, for I keep your precepts.
So here's what we've seen so far. Being in Christ causes us to love the word of God. Loving the word of God causes us to be a people in the word of God. And now what is getting into the word of God results in?
Well, I'm gonna answer this. There's multiple things we could talk about, but I'm gonna answer this in one word based on the context of those verses I just read. So you're in Christ, you love the word of God.
You love the word of God, you read the word of God. You read the word of God, what happens? Well, here's an underrated thing I think in churches today. You get wise. If you read the word of God, you become wise.
Not wise in the ways of the world necessarily, I'm not saying, not in a sense of worldly wisdom, I mean like the things that the world might want you to be wise about or whatever. I'm just talking about biblical, practical, real, godly wisdom.
In verse 98, it says your commandment makes me wiser and made me. Just notice there, it's singular. The psalmist sees all of God's word as a whole. From Genesis to Revelation, all of the world, obviously I know that the psalmist in the context wouldn't have thought through it that way because now we have a completed canon.
But for the believer today, from Genesis to Revelation, we really see God's word as a whole and the word as a whole makes us wise. It gives us wisdom. It actually and truly and really is a sufficient word from God.
It's what I like to call sometimes uncommon sense. That's what we get from the Bible, meaning wisdom that not everyone else has. And in the context, look, this is not popular, maybe I mentioned it this morning, but it's just clear, your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies.
The church has enemies. And we talked about this morning, God will triumph over the church's enemies, but if we will trust the Bible, if we will read the Bible, if we'll teach the Bible to our children, if we'll sit under sound preaching of the word of God, then we will receive wisdom even over our enemies.
Have you wondered sometimes, have you looked at the world sometimes and you said, look, if we could just step back, if we could go, or let's say it this way, if you could go back 100 years ago and you could say, hey, I'm from the future, it's 1924, I'm from the future.
In 100 years, we will ask a Supreme Court nominee, can you tell us what a woman is? And she will not be able to give a definition. We will live in a society that cannot define what manhood is, what womanhood is, what marriage is.
We will have people using the wrong bathrooms. We will have men participating in women's sports and someone in 1924 would look at you and be like, there's no way, that's impossible. You know how dumb that stuff is?
You know how foolish that is? Because sin makes you dumb, right? I don't know if that's really a polite way to say it, but sin makes you a fool, it really does. You continue to run after sin, you're gonna do foolish things.
But the word of God makes the church wise. So consider, verse 99, similar, look at this. The psalmist says, I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. The word of God makes us wiser even than those who would instruct us.
Now, we wanna be humble about this, we don't wanna be prideful about this, but maybe there's an analogy, some of you guys, and not long, you know, you're going back to school, you're listening to teachers, and we should listen.
Just, by the way, let me go ahead and say this. Just because someone is unconverted doesn't mean they don't have any life wisdom.
To share with you.
Like, you'd be really foolish to be like, oh yeah, you're gonna teach me how to change a tire? Well, you're not saved, so I don't even know, you know, like, that would be silly. You should listen, you should listen, but you should be discerning, and what makes you discerning is the scriptures.
So the scriptures teach us how I can listen to an unconverted man or woman, and I can glean from them the truth while spitting out, as they say, the bones. You know, the saying, chew the meat, spit out the bones.
You can do that. But the only way that you can have your power of discernment trained is being regular students of the word of God, reading the word, sitting under the preaching of the word. Some of you young men, you know, Kermit, Braden, Latravius, Caleb's not here this evening, you need to grow in your discernment.
Why do I say that? Am I picking on you? No, I'm not picking on you, I'm saying you're young men.
You're young men.
You're not as smart as you think you are. You're not as smart as I thought I was when I was 16, 17. But you have a church family that loves you. You have people willing to invest in your life. Listen to the word of God.
It will make you wiser than your teachers. We too need to listen to the word of God. Verse 100 says it this way. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. Now, we must respect those who are older than us, right?
They didn't get to be whatever age. It's funny, it's relative now. When I was probably, you know, when I was 15, I thought 38 was old. 38's not old, right?
It's not old at all.
And some of you think, you know, well, 80's not old. But the idea is that someone older than us did not get that way without having to go through a lot of life experience, so we should respect that. But still the point is here, the psalmist says that just because someone is older does not mean that they have godly discernment.
Just because someone has gray hair does not necessarily mean that they have biblical wisdom. So we're not after just life understanding or just making it to a certain age. We are after biblical maturity.
We are after biblical discernment. Listen, I'm gonna tell you tonight that I don't just want common sense. Well, you gotta use common sense. But as a believer, I want more than common sense. I want uncommon sense.
The Bible is a wise book for people who love godly wisdom. And if you love the Bible, it results in wisdom. Wisdom results in the pursuit of obedience. Verse 101, I hold back my feet from every evil way.
In order to keep your word. Now think about that. He says, I understand more than my enemies. I understand more than my teachers. I understand more than the age. So then what does this wisdom result in?
This wisdom results in a life pursuing obedience to God's word. This phrase, this idea in verse 101, I hold back. That is, I may be inclined to sin. It may be my nature to sin. It's in all of our nature to sin, right?
And so you say something like, this is the arguments we're hearing today. Well, I have to do this sin because I was born this way. And I didn't come up with this, but it's a helpful saying. Of course, if we want to grant you were born that way.
But that's why Jesus says, you must be born again. You need a new nature. And so what happens is, as Christians, sometimes that old man reaches out and says, do this thing. And we can say, well, I want that.
My flesh wants that. Therefore, I should do that. But the psalmist says, no, no, no, I hold back. I hold back my feet from every evil way. My feet wanna, you get the imagery? My feet may wanna go that way.
My feet may be inclined to go that way. It may be a great temptation for me to go that way, but instead I hold back. I don't do that thing.
Because I love the word of God. I've become wise.
I'm reading the Bible. I understand it's truth. And so I understand that's not the way that I should go. I wanna please God. Verse 102, I do not turn aside from your rules for you have taught me. The psalmist understands the ultimate teacher of the Bible is God himself.
I do not turn aside. You've gotta just, you've gotta be okay with this not being a pejorative. Or if it is a pejorative to you, it's not gonna be a pejorative. And that is for someone to call you narrow-minded.
You're narrow-minded. Okay, well, in a sense, the answer to that question is, or the answer to that accusation is guilty. Yes, I'm narrow-minded.
Because scripture has put blinders on me. I don't want to turn aside, verse 102, from the rules of God. He has taught me. I don't wanna go down this path.
I don't wanna go that, down that path.
I'm like Gunnar with those new glasses he has and the little spots right there. You know, you can't block your peripheral vision. That's okay, I appreciate him wearing those because it reminds me that I gotta focus straight ahead.
Right?
I don't wanna go down that path. I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go down that path.
I wanna go straight ahead. I don't wanna turn aside from God's rules because I love his word. Verse 104, we'll come back to 103 in just a minute. Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, listen, this is very strong language.
I hate every false way.
So the believer is not neutral with sin. We hate it. Let me caution you with this. There is some truth in this for sure. You have a propensity to hate sin in others more than you hate sin in yourself.
So you gotta start first and foremost with hating sin in yourself. It doesn't mean that you can't ever say anything about sin in culture, other people's sin. It doesn't mean that you have to not ever say anything about that.
But it does mean we would do well to listen. We should hate our own sin first and foremost.
And the most.
But the text says we hate every false way. So we hate sin in ourself. We hate sin in the church. We hate sin in our nation. And we despise every false way. First and foremost, because sin is an affront to God.
And God is worthy to not be sinned against. And then beyond that, sin destroys families. Sin destroys individuals. Sin destroys churches. Sin destroys nations. I was looking at a picture the other day.
And someone did a little picture from start to beginning. I think it was like 12 photos, maybe 16 photos. But it was of this young woman who was on meth. And so it started out the first picture and you're like, well, this is an average looking, beautiful young lady.
And as the picture, as the pictures progressed, it was like it turned your stomach to see how meth turned this young lady to an unrecognizable monster. And it's very sad, heartbreaking. That's what sin does.
Sin does it externally sometimes with things like meth. But often it does it internally and we don't see it as much. Because people can paint on a nice little face on the outside, but internally sin is destroying them.
So we hate sin because it's an affront to God, but we hate sin because it destroys people.
So we're serious.
We get understanding from the scriptures and we hate therefore, verse 104, every false way. Now, I want you to see something else. Being in Christ causes us to love his word. Loving his word causes us to get in his word.
Getting his word results in obedience, or sorry, getting his word results in wisdom. Wisdom results in a life, a path, if you will, of obedience. And what does being in his word and getting wisdom and walking in obedience results in?
It's interesting.
Verse 103, more love for God's word. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. So if I'm in Christ and I'm loving the Bible and I'm growing in wisdom and I'm walking in obedience, then what does that result in?
I just keep loving the word of God, right?
I want more of the word of God.
It's honey, I love that, right? How sweet also are your words to my taste. I've used this analogy before, but like, aren't you glad it doesn't say something like cabbage? Like some of you are weird, you maybe really like cabbage.
You think to yourself during the day, I can't wait to eat cabbage. Okay, well that's not most of us. But when we say honey, we're like, hey man, I understand honey, honey's sweet. It's a beautiful thing.
This is what the word of God tastes to us.
It's sweet and I love it and I want it. So more love for God's word is the result. And when we love God's word and we begin to apply God's word to our lives, we continue to grow in delight for God's word.
So an apple tree can't produce pears. But listen to this good news. A sick pear tree can be nurtured and pruned, brought back to health so that it produces bigger and better pears. So let me say it this way.
If you are a Christian tonight and you're saying, man, I just don't have the love of God. I don't just have the love of God's word like I need. Well, we can cultivate a deeper love of God's word.
How?
Well, obviously we need God's grace, but God works through means. So what I'm saying is get in the Bible.
Like don't say to yourself,.
I'm gonna wait till I have a love for God's word before I start reading it every day because it'll never happen. Read it every day and let God cultivate in your heart a love for his word. I hope that makes sense.
Read it, apply it, repeat. Do you love God's word tonight? I hope your answer is yes. Do you love God's word enough tonight? Well, our answer is probably no. I rest in the grace of Jesus to cover that sin.
But hear me tonight, my resting in Jesus doesn't mean I rejoice in laziness or condone apathy. Instead, as I rest in the gospel tonight, it fuels my desire to get in his word and to grow in my love for it.
Let me close with this. I think it was Kevin DeYoung in his book on holiness. But he says that for Christians to grow in holiness, we need spirit-powered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled effort. Let me just show you a couple verses from this psalm.
We need the power of the Holy Spirit to grow in our love for the Bible. Verse 34 of Psalm 119 says, "'Give me understanding that I may keep your law "'and observe it with my whole heart.'". It is the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding, who empowers us to know what the Bible says and to live out its reality.
It needs to be gospel-driven. Verse 57 says, "'The Lord is my portion.'". In other words, gospel-driven means I don't try to keep the word so that God loves me. Rather, I have come to understand God loves me in Christ.
I rest in Him, and therefore, as a result of that, I desire to keep the word of God. That's a big difference. Thirdly, faith-fueled. It's fueled by faith. Verse 81 says, "'My soul longs for your salvation.
"'I hope in your word.'". In other words, I understand. Like, I have faith that if I am in God's word, I'm going to grow in the Lord.
I'm going to come to know Him more.
I'm going to grow in obedience. I'm going to be the Christian He would have me to be. And then finally, this is the one we don't like, but it's important. Spirit-powered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled.
Finally, effort.
Effort.
Making a plan. I'm going to have a plan to read the Bible. And whatever that plan may be. I'm going to have a certain time that I read my Bible. I'm going to do these things. I'm going to apply what we know.
And if the Spirit is in us, and we have fled to Jesus for forgiveness of sins, even the sin of neglect of our Bibles, if we believe what this passage tells us about wisdom, then we will practically get in the Bible.
So, the foundation for loving God's word is being in Christ. The fruit of loving God's word is that we will desire it and read it. The function of loving God's word is that we'll not only read it, but we'll seek to apply it.
We'll cultivate more love for God's word. And we will say together tonight as a church, I hope with the psalmist, verse 97, oh, how I love your law.
Father, we pray that you would bless us tonight. Help us to cultivate love for the Scripture. Thank you for what you're doing in this church. Forgive us for our lack of love for this precious book. But we run to Jesus again.
We rest in Him and we're confident that you have taken care of our sins in Him, in Jesus. Lord, help us to have spirit-empowered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled effort when it comes to growing in the Scriptures.
And we pray it in Jesus' name.