The Bible is Great

Also, Gunnar, if it's not too humbling, you can call Alex, you got it? Okay. No, I'm just using this.

Yeah, I'm not, I mean, the lapel got broken. I'm not mad about it.

So, no, we can still use the lapel. It's just, I'm not using it. Psalm 119, verse 33 through 40.

Let's stand as we honor the reading of God's word. Teach me,

O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end.

Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.

Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise that you may be feared.

Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. Behold, I long for your precepts.

In your righteousness, give me life. Father, would you bless the preaching of your word tonight?

May it edify us. May it point us to King Jesus. Grow us as a church.

Let us grow in our love for Christ and holiness and sanctification. And we pray,

Lord, even through that, we would be able to reach out, and others would be added to this body. And we pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen. You may be seated. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is kind of give you an overview, the outline there in the beginning, but distinctives of the word, distractions from the word, and a desire for the word.

So I want to talk about, first of all, distinctives of the word. So as we approach this book tonight, we approach the book of the

Bible, and we approach this psalm, what is it that makes the Bible unique?

Why is the Bible a different book than any other book that's ever written?

Why is it different than other religious texts? Why is the Bible different than even good Christian books that you might read?

Well, here are a few thoughts from the psalm. Number one, this book, the Bible, the scriptures, are of divine origin.

Now look at what the psalmist says here. Perhaps it's David, perhaps it's

Daniel, perhaps it's some unknown Israelite that we won't know until we get to heaven. But the text says, verse 33, your statutes.

Verse 34, your law. Verse 35, your commandments. Verse 36, your testimonies.

Verse 37, your ways. Verse 39, your rules. Verse 40, your precepts.

I say to you tonight that we aren't dealing with man's ideas. We aren't dealing with someone else's thoughts about who

God is or what He has done. We are dealing tonight with God's Word. This is

God breathed. Someone says to me, well, I don't know if I like all that the

Bible says. To disbelieve, to dislike, to not enjoy what the

Bible says is to disagree with God. You're not disagreeing with David or Daniel or Peter or James or John or Paul.

You're disagreeing with what God has said. And the Bible is distinct because it is of divine origin.

This is God's book. We had some discussions this week. I was in a meeting and just talking about some of the kings of Israel.

Really, some of the kings of Judah. And one of the kings of Judah that we were talking about is King Asa. You know, one of the descriptives of King Asa was this.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Can I tell you something, moms?

Dads? Grandparents? Teenagers? It really doesn't matter in your life if you wind up gaining the approval of your peers.

It really doesn't matter ultimately if you wind up gaining the approval of your community or of your neighbors or of your government.

So long as you are doing right in the eyes of the Lord. And how do you know if you're doing right in the eyes of the

Lord? The Word. We must go to the book.

So it is of divine origin. Secondly, why is it distinct? Because it is good. Look at verse 39.

Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. What's a nickname we call this book sometimes?

The what book? You can interact. The blank book. The good book.

Why do we call this the good book? Because it literally is book.

It literally is a good book. It is good. In other words, I remember

I was just thinking there on the fly while I was in. I remember in 10th grade biology, one of the things that we had to do in 10th grade biology, we had to take the textbook home.

And we had to record definitions out of the glossary. I hated that assignment. I don't even know if it benefited me or not.

I can't remember any of those definitions, right? So I had to take the biology book home, copy down the word and the definition.

That was so boring. I didn't like it. That's not the Bible. The Bible is not a chemistry textbook. It's not a thesaurus.

It's not a dictionary. It's good. You can read other good books in your life, but their goodness is only a comparative goodness.

This is the standard of goodness. And other books are only good insofar as they align with what the good book teaches.

Thirdly, so it's divine origin. It's good. Thirdly, it is a delight. Look at verse 35. Similar to good.

Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Okay. This is like Psalm 1910 says, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.

When we really begin to understand the Bible, it's not drudgery to us. Oh, I got to read the

Bible today. Right. Like some of us, I know in this room, we've talked about it and stuff like we've been on different diets and stuff like this.

You're like, oh, I got to eat this. I don't want to eat it, but I got to eat this. I got to stay on the plan. I got to stay on the diet.

But that's not what the Bible is like. The Bible is a delight to us, not drudgery.

One of the things I noticed about reading this whole Psalm, this whole, or sorry, yeah, the whole

Psalm, but also this whole section, is really, this is a definition of what the regenerate heart looks like.

The regenerate heart, you must be born again. You take a four -year -old and you say, love broccoli, love broccoli, love broccoli.

They're not going to love their broccoli. Right. Like the old joke, like for a four -year -old, what's the difference between broccoli and boogers?

Well, you can get a four -year -old to eat boogers, but you can't get them to eat broccoli.

They need a change in their taste buds. Friends, the Christian has a change in his heart's taste buds.

We love the word. We look at the word as a delight. Fourthly, it's life -giving.

Look at verse 37. Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.

Or look at verse 40. Behold, I long for your precepts and your righteousness. Give me life.

This book gives life. Its focal point is the life -giver himself.

Its focal point is Christ. By reading and hearing it preached, we are appointed to Christ as our only source of life, as our only hope of righteousness.

Christ is the life -giver and the law -fulfiller. He gave his righteous life in the stead of ruined sinners, bearing

God's judgment and rising again. Our need for forgiveness and the solution to that need are both revealed to us in the word.

We constantly, even as Christians, submit ourselves to the word because the Bible continually reminds us of our need for Christ and the glorious grace that we have in the gospel is constantly leaping out of these pages, reminding us of the life -giving goodness of Christ.

Listen, I want to be more serious about evangelism. I want to be a better mother.

I want to be a better father. I want to lead my family better. I want to be a better church member. One of the practical counsels

I would give you is to constantly be immersing yourself in this book. It can't just be sitting on your shelf.

It can't just be something you want to point to every now and then, but we must be under it, loving it.

And also, not only is it like the source of life, but think of it this way. It is full of practical, life -giving wisdom.

Yes, it points to Christ, but it also shows us Christ -centered wisdom for our homes, for our families, for our nations, for our finances, for our churches, all of these things.

So that is the distinctiveness of the word. This is why the Bible is unique. There's more

I could say on that. Secondly, though, let's talk about this, distractions from the word. So if everything

I said is true, and it is, it's here in the text, so if the Bible is of divine origin, if it's good, if it's a delight, if it's life -giving, then why don't you know the

Bible more than you do? One time, I told you about this man I talked to in Kentucky.

His name was Harold, and one of the first things he said to me when we checked in at the conference, he said,

I was lucky enough to be born Roman Catholic, so I don't have to go to your conference. I was like, okay, man.

And I tried to talk to him later on, and I failed ultimately to bring the fullness of the gospel to him.

But one of the things I told him is, you need to read your Bible. And he said, no, this man's probably in his 70s.

And he said, I've read through the Bible three times. Okay.

Is that an accomplishment? To be in your 70s and say, well,

I've read through the Bible three times. Do you know that if you give yourself about 10 minutes a day, let's say 15, let's say you're a slow reader, you give yourself about 15 minutes a day in the

Bible that you can read through the Bible once a year.

Let's say, well, I don't have 15 minutes. I only have seven and a half minutes a day. Okay. All you have is seven and a half minutes a day, and you're a very slow reader.

That means every two years you have gotten through the entire Bible. That means if you're a

Christian for 40 years, how many times would you have gotten through the Bible? 20. All right.

So, like, don't tap. They're like, oh, yeah, well, why don't we read it more than we do? Why don't we know it?

Because there's distractions. So let me mention a few from the text. And I mention these because I want us to fight them even in my own heart.

First, we see the mention of selfish gain. So look at verse 36, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

Do you see there's an option here before the psalmist that he mentions? I could either turn to your testimonies or I could turn to selfish gain and I can't turn to both at the same time.

So I'm either going to turn to your self testimonies or I'm going to turn away from your testimonies and to selfish gain.

Or the King James says covetousness. So the love of self, the love of money, the love of stuff will keep you from the word of God.

Are you listening to this? Loving the things of the world, being self -focused, self -centered is going to keep you from being in the

Bible like you should be. Money, for example, has a big hold on us. None of us think that we have enough money and all of us would like to have more money.

Now, money is not evil. The Bible does not say money is the root of all evil. It doesn't say that. It does say the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

So you need to understand that selfish gain will keep us from the word. It will destroy us.

The Bible says covetousness is idolatry and it's heinous before the eyes of God that we would cling to riches and not

God. Don't forsake God's riches for the riches that the world has.

I love that line in the song that we sang earlier. I trade my treasure and all my rewards just to know

Jesus. There is nothing that you have carnally in this life. Nothing secular, nothing worldly that you have in this life that is worth holding on to to miss out on the treasures that we find in the book.

Because the book points us to Christ. Some of you need to assess your life. We need to assess our life.

We need to think, what's my Monday? What's tomorrow morning? So don't just hear this sermon tonight. Think about tomorrow morning.

What is it that is going to stop you tomorrow morning from getting into the book?

And let's think through that. Let's repent. Let's reprioritize. So secondly, selfish gain.

Secondly, worthless things. Verse 37 says, turn my eyes from looking at worthless things.

It would be good for all Christians to think for just a moment tonight. Teenagers, even my own children, listen to this.

What are some things that keep you distracted? So, maybe it's television.

Maybe it's internet. It was mentioned this morning. Maybe it's just scrolling on social media. Maybe it's how much time you spend looking for a deer or looking for a new pair of shoes.

Now, none of these things are necessarily evil. I'm not saying that these things are evil in and of themselves.

But they are worthless when we will joyfully set our eyes upon them and not set our eyes upon the life -giving ways of God.

Our eyes are so captivated by lesser things that we'll fail to have the time that we need in the

Word of God. Let me just encourage you. Let me counsel you with a habit to cultivate. One of the first things you set your eyes on in the morning, be the

Word of God. Turn your eyes from worthless things. But then, you need to listen that there are evil things.

So, I've kind of talked about neutral things that by that I mean like looking at Facebook is not sinful in and of itself.

It is sinful if it distracts you from the Word of God. But then there are things that are inherently to look at are sinful.

And when we set our eyes on these things, it's a double problem.

It's a distraction and it's sinful. So, pornography, godless movies on television, godless acts, the list goes on and on.

So, let's move to the third point. So, distractions from the Word, selfish gain, worthless things.

So, third, I'll just call sin. Verse 39 says, turn away the reproach that I dread.

Back in verse 21, do you remember what he said? I'm going to read that. Verse 21 of Psalm 119.

You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones who wonder from your commandments. So, sin will keep you from the

Word of God. Pride, wondering from God's commandments. Again, I don't mention this a whole lot, but it really is like a vice in our day because it's so accessible.

So, I need parents to listen to this. And it doesn't just affect men. It also affects women.

Young people, old people, all are susceptible to this vice in our world today. This wicked sin.

And that is the sin of pornography. If you're setting your eyes on pornography, you need to repent.

You need to confess that to the Lord. You need to repent. And then let me encourage you with this. You need help.

You need accountability. This is why God has given us the church. If this is something that you're struggling with, you don't need to try to fight this on your own.

If you're a man, you need to go to another faithful brother in this church. You can go to Pastor Jacob or myself.

You need to go to another faithful brother. You need help. You need accountability. If you keep looking at this, it will destroy you.

And it goes to you too, ladies. Ladies, if this is something you're struggling with, you need to go to another faithful lady in the church.

Teenagers, you need to go to your parents. This is serious. Let's turn our eyes from looking at worthless things.

You think when it comes to the terms, I don't mean just beat this rabbit trail or what am I trying to put it, two things.

Beat the dead horse, chase the rabbit trail. Anyway, I don't mean to just go on and on about this, but listen to me.

This is not a harmless vice. You understand that in the pornography industry, it's a terrible industry.

It's so abusive to women. The pornography industry has destroyed people.

It is destroying people. So you look at something on the screen and you think to yourself, oh, no one else is being hurt.

No one else knows. Yes, you are continuing to help such a wicked and godless industry.

And you're destroying your very soul. So take very seriously what the psalmist says in verse 37.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things. Stop, confess it, repent, go to Jesus and then enlist brothers and sisters, men, brothers, ladies, sisters in the church to help you.

And then, of course, other sins we could add. I'll just put it this way. D .L. Moody has a pretty classic quote.

The Bible will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from the Bible. That's it.

I think about the story we heard this morning that was so well taught and preached from 2

Samuel 11 and 12 by Pastor Jacob. You think about the life of David. You think about the slow descent.

You understand no one, almost no one ever wakes up and says, you know what

I'm going to do today? I'm going to commit adultery. 99 .999999

% of the time. That's not how it happens. You know how it happens? It's a slow.

There's a song by Casting Crowns around my brain right now. It's a slow fade, right?

It's slow. It's like I'm not going to be in the Bible today. I'm not going to go to church today.

I'm just going to slowly just kind of distance myself. I'm going to be full of self as Jacob preached this morning.

I'm going to be full of pride and confident in myself. And I'm just going to go my own way and inch by inch and inch, inch, inch.

And then all of a sudden I've fallen in a despicable and horrible way. So don't take lightly what the psalmist says.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things. And verse 39, turn away the reproach that I dread.

Now here's a question I want to ask. How does God turn away the reproach of His people?

Well, this gets us to the gospel. Setting the reproach of His people upon Christ and dealing with it justly.

Christ, the good news of the gospel, is the reproach that we fear. Christ bore the reproach of His people.

Only the life of Christ was perfectly pleasing to God. And then He laid down that life as a sacrifice for our sin.

That's how come there's hope. Like if you're addicted to pornography, if you're addicted to sin, if you're addicted to substance abuse, if you're a transgressor of the law, there is hope for you tonight because Christ bore the sins of His people on the cross and rose again from the dead.

That's the hope that we have. I fear the reproach, God. Good news, the reproach was laid upon Christ.

So you don't have to bear it if you'll go to Christ. Repent. Trust Him.

Believe His Word. He rose again. We're getting ready this Sunday.

We celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. But we love this special time of year that we highlight, hey,

Christ rose from the dead. He lives. So that all who put their faith in Him will be counted righteous in Christ.

Oh, I can't remember. I can't remember the guy's name now. Some of you baseball people will remember.

But there was a number of years ago. I think it was 2010 -ish, maybe.

I don't know. I'm making it all up now. I'm going to get to a point where I know what I'm talking about in just a second. But do you remember there was a

Cubs fan? And the Cubs, you know, they're cursed forever. And it was like in the championship game.

They were like one out away. He sticks his glove over the left field. It happened. And here he is.

He gets a ring. Now, here's the analogy. The Gospel is even better than that.

This guy who messed up the Cubs championship hopes of winning a

World Series, now he gets a World Series. He didn't even do anything. And he gets a World Series ring.

And he's counted as a World Series champion, if you will, along with the Cubs. But the Gospel is even better than that because we are the ones who were against Jesus, against God.

We were running our own way. We were doing our own things. We were rebels. We were rebelling against the goodness and kindness of God.

And yet God has cleaned us up and given us a championship ring. But even better, the righteousness of Christ.

And this is what we need. And then finally, let me just mention this desire for the Word. So if selfish gain and worthless things and reproach will distract us from the

Word of God, what will give us a desire for the Word of God? Well, look at this prayer. Like, this prayer is so laden with dependence on God.

We don't often admit how much we need God. But look at this. Verse 33, teach me.

34, give me. 35, lead me. 36, incline my heart.

37, turn my eyes. You understand? Like, we're so dependent. Like, where does this desire?

We need God. So if God's at work within us, here's some things that should be happening to us.

And I'll just mention them quickly. One, our minds will be changing. So verse 33, teach me.

It's appalling to me how many professing Christians never seem to, like, grow. Like, they feel like they learned all the doctrine they need when they were in Sunday school.

And now the rest of their Christian life is, like, just whatever. But the psalmist is saying, teach me.

Guys, if you're never learning doctrine, if you're never growing in doctrine, if your doctrine is never changing to be more and more conformed to Christ, then your brain is dull and stale.

I'm not saying that pejoratively. I'm just saying that's the reality. The psalmist says, teach me. If God is working in us, our mind is changing.

Verse 34, give me understanding that I may keep your law. We don't just need a change of heart.

We need a change of mind. We need to be more discerning as believers. Secondly, we do need a change of heart.

Verse 36 says, incline my heart to your testimonies. Now, we get a change of heart, believers do, in regeneration.

But even as Christians, we know. How about that song we sing, Come Thou Fount? Prone to wonder,

Lord, I feel it. Isn't that true? Like, even though I have a regenerate heart,

I have a new heart. God has given me by his sovereign grace a new heart. Yet this heart is still prone to wonder.

It's like, here's Christ, oh, fool's gold. No, no, Christ, no, no, look at this shiny stuff.

So we need God to incline our hearts to his testimonies. Look at verse 38.

Confirm to your servant your promise that you may be feared. By the way, this might be one verse to prove the necessity of the preaching of the gospel to God's people.

We need the promises of God confirmed to us over and over and over and over again.

And if you think to yourself, oh, we need the gospel confirmed to us so we can go out and sin like we want. No, no, as the gospel is confirmed to us and we're reminded of the precious promises of God, what happens?

Verse 38, we fear God. The better we understand the gospel, the more we rightly fear

God. So if you say to yourself, I understand the gospel so well that I live a life of sin and licentiousness and rebellion against God.

That's how much I know the gospel. I say to you, friend, you don't know the gospel. Because if you know the gospel, you increase in your fear of God, in a holy, righteous, humble, correct fear of God.

Not dread, but holy awe of who God is. And then not only do we need a mind change and a heart change, but of course, a life change.

These things lead to a change in action. So lead me, verse 35, in the path of your commandments for a delight in it.

Listen, this whole song, Psalm, keeping, walking, doing, delighting. These are the characteristics of a

Christian. Like, I want to be careful. I definitely want to be careful. Like, doing things doesn't make us right with God.

I'm not saying that. You know I'm not preaching that. We are made right with God. It's the opposite, right? We're made right with God, and as a result, we live a life that is changed.

But here, an emphasis that I think that we need to make in our day and age, and that is, this book gives us the definition of a believer.

You want to know what a believer looks like? You don't get to ask this person, that person. Well, I just think you're not supposed to judge, and I can do whatever

I want. I don't go to church, but who are you to judge me? I don't care about the Word. I don't have to read the

Bible. I literally hear this from people. The Bible's not my highest authority. Jesus is.

That's dumb. Because it separates Jesus from the authority that He mediates to us through the

Scriptures. This is how we know Jesus' authority, because this is His Word. So all

I'm saying is, your grandmother, or your aunt, or your grandkids, or your neighbors, or the pastor you see on the television, or even me,

Quatro. We don't get to define Christianity. We don't get to tell you what

Christianity is. The book does. The book defines for us what a believer's life looks like.

In fact, let's just close this way. I'm going to read this passage, and you just tell me, is this your heart?

Because this is the heart of a regenerate man who wants to know

God, wants to know His Word. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end.

Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with your whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.

Hold on. Just think for just a second. You think about your friends, your family. Think about, does this describe them? Well, I don't know if they're really a

Christian or not. Here's one way. Does this describe them? Is this what they want? Is this their desire?

36, to incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. To turn my eyes from looking at worth of things.

Give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise that you may be feared. He wants to fear

God more. Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. Behold, I long for your precepts in your righteousness.

Give me life. Is this the definition you say? Well, I don't know if they're a believer. Well, here's one test.

Is this descriptive of who they are? Because this is what a believer looks like.

A hunger for the greatness of God. And seeing him as revealed in his book.

And you don't have to apologize. You shouldn't be rude. You shouldn't be a jerk. But you don't have to apologize for holding the standard of God's word as your standard for what constitutes a believer.

So, I already said we'll close, didn't I? So, we really do have to land the plane.

And I'll just end this way. Is this your heart tonight? And if it's not your heart, you must go to God.

The only one that can change your heart is God. I can't do it. Jacob can't do it. No amount of works on your own effort can do it.

It's only God. It's only God. If you don't love his word, you need to go to the source and have him change your heart.

Go to Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And we pray that we would be a people of your book at this church.

And that we would continue to love it and sit under it and live out its precepts. Resting our failures and sins in Jesus who lived, died, and rose again.