WWUTT 1199 Who Walks in the Law of the Lord? (Psalm 119:1-32)

Psalm 119 as a Love Song for God’s Law

1 John 5 3 says that God's commandments are not burdensome. That's not the way you hear about God's commandments. You often hear that they're a burden to you. But it is our delight to know God's law and to keep it when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing and if this is ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky.

In our Old Testament study, we have been in the Psalms and today we're up to the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there. Now even though this is going to take us a few weeks to get through this, it is neatly divided up for us into 22 sections and each section is titled with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

22 letters, 22 sections, and each section is eight verses long, like little psalmlets for us to go through as we study Psalm 119 together. If you've been listening to me on Sunday morning, you know that I'm going through the Sermon on the Mount and a few weeks ago I made some references from Psalm 119.

I said of this Psalm that it is a love song to God for his law, expressing praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for giving his law to his children. And you'll see that word law come up a lot, but there's other words that are used here for law as well.

The Synonyms for God’s Law in Psalm 119

Testimonies is one of them. What God has solemnly testified to be his will. And we know the will of God when we study his law. Another word is precepts. What God has appointed to be done. You want God's will to be done, then you desire to follow his precepts.

Another word is statutes. That's what I used earlier this week when I was reading from Ezekiel 36 verse 27. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

That is a divine command that has been given from the law giver. It is a statute. Next word, and you probably know this one associated with law, it's commandments. We even refer to the Ten Commandments as the law of God.

It's what God has commanded. Another synonym for law that you'll see in Psalm 119 is rules. What our divine king has ruled to be right. And finally, word. The word word is synonymous with law in Psalm 119.

It is what God has spoken. So let's begin here with these first eight verses under the heading of Aleph. That is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119 beginning in 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. 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.

And there we have pretty much every word that is used synonymously with law. It comes up there in just the very first section of Psalm 119, but that's setting a theme. So you can kind of see how the rest of Psalm 119 is going to go.

The psalmist praising the Lord for his law and knowing that his way is right. And it is set when it is kept according to the rules that God has established. Now, we understand and we've said this many times as Christians who are saved by grace through faith.

It's the only way anyone's ever been saved by the grace of God through faith in him, in his son Christ. Certainly, though those who are on the Old Testament side of the cross did not know it was Christ that they were looking toward.

But nevertheless, they had faith in a Messiah who was to come according to the law and the prophets which testified about him. So they did not know the name Jesus Christ, but nevertheless, this is who they put their faith in as the promised seed God said was going to crush the head of the serpent from Genesis chapter three, when the curse of mankind, when the curse was given on all of creation because of the sin of mankind.

So there was a faith and anticipation in the Messiah who was going to come to redeem us from all lawlessness. Right. So we as Christians understand that we are saved by grace through faith. And therefore, if we are in the grace of God, it is by faith we are saved in Jesus Christ and we are not under the law.

We are under grace. We are not under the law. Right. That does not mean that there is not a law for us to keep for, as we've read earlier this week in Romans three thirty one. Do we abolish the law? No.

Do we throw out the law by our faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. I was reminded just yesterday of this passage that was written by Martin Lloyd-Jones. This is in his book Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, and he says the following.

They will say, I am not under the law, but under grace, and therefore it does not matter what I do. Paul wrote his sixth chapter of Romans to deal with that. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

God forbid, says Paul. That is an absolutely wrong and false view of grace. The whole purpose of grace, in a sense, is just to enable us to keep the law. Let me put it in this way, Lloyd-Jones says. The trouble with us is that we so often have a wrong view of holiness at this point.

There is nothing more fatal than to regard holiness and sanctification as experiences to be received. No, holiness means being righteous, and being righteous means keeping the law. Therefore, if your so-called grace, which you say you have received, does not make you keep the law, you have not received grace.

You may have received a psychological experience, but you have never received the grace of God. What is grace? It is that marvelous gift of God which, having delivered a man from the curse of the law, enables him to keep it and to be righteous as Christ was righteous, for he kept the law perfectly.

Grace is that which brings me to love God, and if I love God, I long to keep his commandments. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, Christ said, he it is who loves me.". Again, that's from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Martin Lloyd-Jones.

That book has been a trusted companion of mine as I've been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount on Sunday. So we as Christians, likewise, should have a love and appreciation for Psalm 119. We should be able to pray with the psalmist as he does in this psalm.

Lord, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me. My friends, as a friend of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, hate, sin, and love righteousness.

And you know what is righteous when you read the law of God. Let's go on to the next one. Now, this next section is titled in your Bible, Beth. This is actually pronounced bet. That's the pronunciation of this Hebrew letter.

Purity, Delight, and Storing Up God’s Word in the Heart

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips, I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. And here you have just as in the first section of Psalm 119, those synonyms for law coming up over and over again. I love the way this begins.

And it has been so meaningful to me, especially when in my 20s, I went far astray from keeping the commandments of God. I'm sorry, verse nine was terribly penetrating for me. How can a young man keep his way pure?

By guarding it according to your word. And I recognized in my 20s, I had not been doing that. I still looked like to most people as an upstanding young man. There were moms who wanted me to marry their daughters.

They would say things like, why can't you find a good young man like Gabe? And fathers would say to their sons, why can't you be like Gabe? That's really the reputation that I had. But they had no idea that I was living in darkness and walking in sin.

I put on a good show, but behind the scenes, I was I was desperately languishing in my own sinfulness, chasing after the passions of my flesh, being consumed in the desires of my mind for things that were worldly and not godly.

And it was things like Psalm 119 that pulled me out of that. In fact, there probably wasn't a chapter of the Bible that was more impacting on me in those days than Psalm 119, because I realized I was walking in a way that was not honoring of Christ.

If I was going to say that I was a Christian and I was following Jesus, but I could not delight in Psalm 119 like the psalmist delights in God's word, then I was not walking with the Lord. It terrified me and caused me to repent, to turn away from my sinful and wicked way.

And I delight to come into this psalm now and teach it. Psalm 119, which I've taught in my church before. I've been through the psalms before. Even before I became senior pastor that I was leading a class going through the psalms.

But I delight to teach in this now because it means so much more to me than it did when I was not walking in these things. I can see that God has lifted me from my darkness and has transferred me to a path of light because of what I read here in Psalm 119, delighting in the way of God rather than in the way of darkness.

Verse 11, I've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. That's a verse that we learn in Sunday school. You probably learned it when you were young. Maybe even in Awana. Awana, believe it or not, has been around long enough for us of the generation X, I suppose, to say, yeah, I used to attend Awana.

I did when I was fifth and sixth grade. It's been around long enough now that parents are sending their kids to Awana saying, hey, I was raised up in this when I was your age. So that's one of those verses that you learn when you were really young.

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. With my lips, I declare all the rules of your mouth, knowing that what we read here in the Psalms comes from the mouth of God.

It's not just words on a page. It's so much more than that. It is God having spoken and those words being written down for our building up and edification to know the way of rightness that is pleasing unto the Lord.

We have it in his word. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Let's look at the third section here. This is Gimel starting in verse 17. Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word.

The Light of God’s Law for the Blind and the Sojourner

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth. Hide not your commandments from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones who wander from your commandments.

Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.

Look back again at verse 17, where it says deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word. It is a praise unto the Lord that we live according to the word of God, not according to our ways.

As you read in the book of Proverbs, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is the way of death. This is the way of life we're talking about here. The way of Christ is the way of the living.

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. That is what Christ has done for us. He has opened our eyes. We were once blind, but now we see. Amazing grace, right? Once blind, but now I see.

As Jesus would heal the eyes of the blind and open them, so he does with every person who becomes a follower of Christ. Our spiritual eyes have been opened. We were stumbling around in blindness. We were in darkness.

Quite frankly, we were dead. And Christ has given us life and opened our eyes that we may see the good things in the law of God. Those who do not know the goodness of God's law continue to stumble around in darkness because they're still blind.

They don't know how good God's law can be, and so they will mock the law. They'll mock the Old Testament. They'll mock the prophets. And Jesus saying in Luke 16, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

So if they're mocking Moses and the prophets, they're not going to listen to the word of Christ either. For the word that Christ spoke is the word that was spoken through the law and through the prophets, pointing to the Christ who was to come, who was going to fulfill all of these things.

Jesus opens our eyes. Even his healing of the physically blind was to demonstrate that he had the power to open the eyes of the spiritually blind. And now we don't hate God's law. We love it. Those who are walking in the way of Christ love his law.

They behold wondrous things out of the law. I'm a sojourner on the earth. Hide not your commandments from me. How are we guided in this life? By the commandments and law of God. Let's go on to the next one.

I'll save enough time here to cover one more section. This is Daleth verses 25 through 32. My soul clings to the dust. Give me life according to your word. When I told of my ways, you answered me. Teach me your statutes.

God’s Law, Grace, and the Way of Faithfulness

Make me understand the way of your precepts and I will meditate on your wondrous works. My soul melts away for sorrow. Strengthen me according to your word. Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law.

I have chosen the way of faithfulness. I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord. Let me not be put to shame. I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.

Couple this with what we read in the previous section and you see some similar themes. Deal bountifully with me that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things. And here in verse 25, my soul clings to the dust, recognizing that I am but a dead man.

In the previous Psalm, verse 23 or previous Psalm, previous section of Psalm 119 verse 23. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. The laws of the one who sits enthroned over all of creation, all of the universe.

His laws are much greater than these worldly things that these princes come up with, which are never for my good, but for their benefit. Whereas the laws of God are perfect and righteous and for my good, that I may walk in them and they may give life to me.

So then you get to verse 25, my soul clings to the dust. Give me life according to your word. Just like we read in verse 17, that I may live and keep your word. When I told of my ways, you answered me, teach me your statute.

So when I confessed my sin to God, God answered and showed me the way of righteousness. Our sin is not pleasing to God. It is the keeping of his law that is pleasing to God. And he is the one who shows us that.

I mentioned this to you earlier this week when we were looking at Romans chapter three. It is not by our will that we have been awakened to the life that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is by the will of God that we come to life in this.

And so you see, open my eyes, lift me up from the dust, make me understand the way of your precepts. This understanding that we have, it comes from God. It does not come from us. And I will meditate on your wondrous works.

My soul melts away for sorrow. Strengthen me according to your word. Now that's really fascinating. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to get at least as far as Daleth here as we're doing this study today.

We don't typically think of the law of God as being uplifting, do we? What have you typically been told about God's law? That it's burdening. That we turn to Christ so that we might be freed from the law.

That's a wrong understanding of the law. That's a wrong disconnect between law and grace. If somebody is teaching you that. Believe in Jesus so that you will be freed from the burden of the law. Well, the law is not a burden to us.

The law of God, according to the psalmist here, sets us free. We are set free from the penalty of having broken the law. We're not going to be judged under the law because we've been set free in Christ.

We have the righteousness of Christ who kept the law perfectly. So in this way, we're not under the law, but we are under grace. That doesn't mean the law doesn't matter. That doesn't mean that we don't keep the law.

For once again, as I quoted to you from Romans 3 31, we uphold the law. It is the law of God that gives us confidence. It is the law of God that gives us hope and meaning and understanding and truth in uncertain times, in a world in which truth is relative.

And they'll say there is no such thing as truth. What is true for you may not be true for me or may not be true for this person. OK, and then you're just left wondering, well, what is true? How can I know what's real?

How can I know what meaning and purpose is if everything is just abstract and all over the place? Well, the answer is in the law of God. The law gives us meaning and purpose because when we read the law, we see God's will for us.

My soul melts away for sorrow. What is the strength for this person who is melting away in sorrow? His strength is the word of God, his law, statutes, commandments. That's our strength. Because how do I know the right way to live?

How do I know the direction to go? It's in the law of God. And when you read God's law, you are lifted from the dust. You are lifted up from a place of hopelessness, feeling like you are going unto your death, feeling like there is nothing meaningful or important anymore until you read God's will in his law, and then you delight to serve the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, a heart that's been transformed by Jesus Christ and filled with his spirit so that you may be careful to keep his statutes and walk in his rules.

Put false ways far away from me. Graciously teach me your law. To know the law of God is by the grace of God. I have chosen the way of faithfulness. I have set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord.

Let me not be put to shame. I will run in the way of your commandments. I will run in the way of your commandments. I'm even more than walking now. I'm running with joy when you enlarge my heart. Let's conclude with prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us in Jesus Christ our Savior. We were all under the law. We were going to perish under the law because we could not keep your law.

We had broken it in every way, but Jesus kept the law for us, died for us, and now everyone who is in Christ Jesus will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Let us not walk in the way of these false teachers who will say things like we need to unhitch from the Old Testament.

For all of it is the Word of God from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. And it is your delight that we keep and walk in this way, for it is the way in which Christ walked. And so enlarge our hearts that we may love your law and meditate on it day and night.

Forgive us our sins. Lead us in a way everlasting. In your name we pray.

Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .tt .com.