Psalm 119
This is Psalm 119 verses one
through eight. Blessed are those who are integrated
in the way, who are walking in Yahweh’s teaching. Blessed are
those who are preserving his testimonies with the whole heart
are seeking him. Yes, indeed, they have determined
not to act with deviance, but have determined to walk in his
ways. You have yourself commanded your
precepts for total keeping. Oh, would that my ways were established
to keep your statutes. Then I would not be embarrassed
when I look at all our commandments. I would give thanks to you with
uprightness of heart when I learn the judgments of your righteousness.
Your statutes I will keep. do not leave me at all. When I was in seminary, I had
a friend named Mark who I think was in his 50s when he was a
first-year student. And he already had a Master’s
of Counseling from one of the other seminary campuses from
a long time back. But he was a new Master’s of
Divinity student. And when he showed up, we became
instant friends. He’s from East Tennessee. I went
to college up there, so we had a lot to talk about. He was just
an interesting fella, but he was terrified of learning Hebrew. He was terrified of learning
the Hebrew alphabet, and he sort of became famous. He was a East
Tennessee boy. He went to the University of
Tennessee. He was in the marching band. He played the trumpet,
and he decided he would learn the Hebrew alphabet to Rocky
Top. You know, Rocky Top, My Home Sweet Home, all that. So
he sort of got known as the one who learned the Hebrew alphabet
to Rocky Top. Well, he graduated from seminary
a few years later. He served in the Charlotte area
a couple years. But he took a call to Florida,
to the PCA. And when he got down to the Florida
PCA, he was on the floor of Presbyterian giving his examination for transfer
from the ARP in North Carolina. to the PCA in Florida where they’re,
guess what, all Gator fans and they hate Tennessee. And one
of his former classmates outed him, hey everybody, Mark can
sing the Hebrew alphabet to Rocky Top. And so guess what he had
to do on the floor of Presbytery? He had to sing the Hebrew alphabet
to Rocky Top, which he in Gator country was quite glad to do. But the Hebrew alphabet has 22
letters. Ours has 26. The Hebrew alphabet
has 22. I think you’ll see in your Bible
in Psalm 19 that each eight verses stands for a letter. You’ll see
the aleph, beth, gimel, dalet, and so on. Most of the letters
are what we might consider kind of consonant sounds. But Psalm
119 is A through Z, if you will. They don’t have A through Z.
It’s really A through T. But it’s an A through Z psalm. It’s an acrostic. Each stanza,
each eight verses, has to do with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119 is the third of three
of the Torah or the Law Psalms. Psalm 1 is the first. It speaks of those who reject
the Torah and do not live according to the Torah. Blessed is the one who doesn’t
sit, walk, and stand in the way of the ungodly, but he is like
a tree planted by streams of water. So it speaks of those
who reject the Torah and do not live it. but it contrasts them
with those who love and obey the Torah or the law of God. So Psalm 1 is the first Torah
Psalm in the Psalter. Psalm 19 is the next one. The
heavens declare the glory of God. Day after day pours forth
speech. There is no language where his
voice is not heard. And then in verses 7 through
14, it speaks of God’s special revelation, the law of God and
its benefits. And then Psalm 119, which we
land on tonight, is the third, the final, and the greatest of
the Torah Psalms. It has 176 verses. It’s A through
T, and it’s not exactly synonymous with our A through T. or A through
Z, but there are 22 stanzas with eight verses each. And these
Torah Psalms have in common six or eight words, law, statutes,
precepts, commands, fear, ordinances. I’ll mention a few others in
a few moments, but the Torah Psalms have a lot of these words
in common, these synonyms for God’s word. If you were to be
without church, Which is a reality. I mean, we may get handed down
from on high this week. We can’t gather. The United Methodist
Church, I think, shut down every church in North Carolina. If
you’re a United Methodist, you can’t go to church. Lots of people can’t gather.
It’s like saying to a person, the kitchen’s closed, right? No food. You’re going to starve. But do you think God in his providence
has a way to take care of his saints when they can’t get to
church? You’ll chuckle and say, well, there’s always Charles
Stanley on TV. He’ll always be there, I suppose.
Well, God knows his saints. can’t get to church. Now this
isn’t a reason to say I can have church on the golf course and
whatever else people all say nowadays. But don’t you think
God in his providence, he has a way to nurture his saints when
they can’t get to church. We have homebound people, we’re
providentially hindered from getting to church sometimes ourselves.
But Psalm 119, it may be that it was written in the time of
exile, when the people of God were taken out of the promised
land, out of Judah, out of Jerusalem, away from the temple, which by
the way was destroyed, and they were taken to a foreign place.
And it could be, it probably is, that Psalm 119, an A to Z
psalm, was composed in a poetic way, highlighting the law of
God, which is greater than the temple, it’s greater than any
other experience the Jew might have had, and it made it easy
to memorize. We whine at memorizing verses,
so we like verses like John 11, 35, Jesus wept. Or we like Psalms,
like Psalm 117, just two verses. We like the short ones. But the
Hebrew people, they memorized. They memorized and hid things
in their heart and in their minds so that they might live for God’s
glory in a better way. And so it could be that Psalm
119 was a gift for those who lived in exile and they were
away from Jerusalem. There are other moments in the
history of God’s people where they were away from Jerusalem,
particularly maybe AD 70 when the Romans destroyed the temple
in Jerusalem again, the Diaspora where the Jews were scattered
across Asia Minor, around the Mediterranean, etc. And so they
had a way to hide Torah or law in their minds and hearts. And
it was for life. It was for living. It was for the benefit of their
growth and grace. And so sometimes we may say to
ourselves, or we may say out loud, why do we sing the doxology
every week? Why do we have some of the same
liturgy we have every week in Sunday church? Well, what if
you couldn’t go to church? What if you were laid up? What
if you were holed up? What if you were held up? What
if, for some reason, you were providentially hindered from
God’s house, God’s people? The repetition, the memory, the monotony, as you might say,
has a payoff. You could probably lie in the
hospital bed and rattle off some verses and some creeds, hum some
hymn tunes, and you could receive some spiritual benefit from having
worked out as it were and strengthened your spiritual muscles for a
day when you needed that great strength. So what does Psalm
119 teach us? Well, there’s a bunch of things,
a handful of things. I mentioned some themes and then
we’ll just take a peek at verses one through eight. But one of
the things that Psalm 119 teaches us is that God is a self-revealing
God. God could have made the world
and everything in it. He could have let it service
itself. He could have remained aloof
from it. And he could have never entered
real space and time in human history, but he did. And one
of the things we like to say when we speak of the scripture
or God’s revelation is God condescended to speak to us. He did not have
to, there was no requirement, but God has revealed himself
to us by his word and spirit. He’s revealed himself to us by
his own son, the Lord Jesus. God revealed himself to some
people in the Old Testament in specific ways. Adam and Eve had
face-to-face fellowship before sin. God revealed himself to
Moses in the burning bush. God passed by the backside of
Elijah when he hid him in the cleft of the rock. Even of Moses
it was said, with this my servant I speak with him face to face.
And there are other glimpses where Isaiah sees God exalted
in the throne room of heaven. There’s Ezekiel, there’s John
on the Isle of Patmos, there’s Paul who’s caught up into the
heavens, but also meets Jesus on the road to Damascus. But
primarily God speaks to us and he meets with us. He reveals
himself to us by his word and spirit. And when he does so,
we need to recognize that he has condescended to do that.
The fact that we can have and hold Bibles in our hands is a
great privilege. And so Psalm 119 reminds us that
God has not left himself without witness, that there is for us
in the scriptures the way of salvation and the way of living
righteously. So there’s self-revelation. There’s
also a handful of synonyms. This is the second thing I want
to point out to you. I mentioned a few words that are in common
with Psalms 1 and Psalms But Psalm 119 has a few more of these
words. In the Torah Psalms, you have
common law, statutes, precepts, commands, fear, and ordinances. But in Psalm 119, you have about
eight words that appear in most every stanza. and you’ll hear
some connection between the two sets of words, ones I just gave
you. Now these, law, statutes, precepts, commandments, laws,
plural, decrees, word, statutes. These are all synonyms for God’s
word, but they also have specific meaning and messages. But these
words, most of these words are in every single of the 22 stanzas. There’s a couple of stanzas where
not all the words are there. At least six of them, I think,
are in most. But God’s law, his statutes, his precepts, his commandments,
his laws, his decrees, his word, his statutes. I think I said
statutes twice, sorry. But these are for our wisdom,
for our living, for our good. And so that’s the second thing
I wanna point out. The third is that there are other
themes in Psalm 119 other than just the Bible. The Word of God
is a theme, but some of these stanzas are psalms of confidence,
psalms of trust. There’s sorrow, there’s grief,
there’s request for help. And so there are other themes
other than just the Word of God. And then the last thing I want
to mention before we look at verses 1 through 8 is Psalm 119 echoes
what the Bible says about itself in other places. The law of the
Lord imparting life. The law of the Lord teaching
us the way to live righteously and wisely. Those are things
you’ll find in Deuteronomy. Those are things you’ll find
in, for example, 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17. All scripture is breathed out
by God. it explains its usefulness. And so Psalm 119 is a unique
psalm, but it connects us to the whole of scriptures. Now let’s take a peek at verses
1 to 8. This interesting translation
that I read to y’all at the beginning by Alec Mottier has at the top
of its heading not it’s not part of the Bible verses but it says
a longing and then he has in his footnote four times the idea
of keeping God’s Word is heard and it’s it’s a means of blessing
and so we long to be blessed and if we long to be blessed
don’t we then long to live the way of blessing and so the way
to be blessed by God is to live a according to his way that is
blameless. So you want to think of aspects
of Psalm 119 as a longing to live righteously, a longing to
live a godly life. There’s also the word in this
Psalm, but in verses one through eight, walking with God. I want
to walk in your ways. And walk is an important word.
Think about all the way back in Genesis, Enoch. What do we know about Enoch?
Not much, but what do we know? He did what? He walked with God. And it’s a euphemistic way of
saying we lived for God. We walked in His ways. We kept
His statutes. We went to church. We sat under
the means of grace. We read our Bibles. We kept table
talk by the bed or wherever it is you keep it. We won’t ask. You listen to your podcast. You
say your prayers. You do your devotionals. You pray with and for others.
It’s a way of life. And I don’t know if you caught
this in verse 1. I read to you verse 1 from this
translation. I think y’all have heard me quote
before. There’s a book on education. The author, well, there’s two
authors, I’m forgetting their names at the moment. I’ll think
of it and probably blurt it out. But in the introduction to this
book on Christian education that was written nearly 100 years
ago, it says, in America, mind you, this is 100 years ago, we
treat Christianity like a condiment. You know, it’s put a little salt
and pepper on our lives, put a little Jesus on our lives,
and make it Christian. The point this man was trying
to make is Christianity is not a condiment. It’s a world and
life view. You can’t have a worldly life
with a little Jesus. You know, you can’t live a worldly
life and just say your prayers at night and hope it gets better.
You can’t live a worldly life but say a dinner blessing. You
can’t live a worldly life but go to church at Christmas and
Easter. That’s what Americans do, isn’t it? I think it’s probably
why, preaching to the choir tonight, right? A lot of people were probably
pretty doggone happy not to go to church today. They got an
excuse. The church said we don’t have
to come. I mean, you know, what do we all want when we’re in
school growing up? To get out of school. Sorry.
Sorry, teachers and principals. School’s terrible, right? School. I still hate school. I haven’t
been in it in years. It’s a good thing, a godly thing.
Go to school. work hard, live well in the world
God puts you in charge of. Now I’m really losing my train
of thought. But don’t you think some people were happy to be
told, you don’t have to go to church today. They didn’t feel
a lick of guilt because they weren’t in God’s house with God’s
people, listening to God’s word and learning God’s ways. And
that’s a sad state of affairs, but here’s a psalm that teaches
us to long to integrate the Christian world and life view into every
moment, every aspect of our lives, how you work, how you live, how
you chop wood, how you raise the kids, how you’re grandparenting,
how you see and serve others. Every bit of our living has to
be informed by God’s law. I was thinking of the Apostle
Paul saying, we take every thought and make it captive or obedient
to the word of God. He says that to the Colossian
church. Everything we do needs to run
through the filter of God’s word. Is it right? Is it good? Is it
glorifying? Is it Christ exalting? Is it
wise? Is it foolish? Will it be productive? Will it be unproductive? And
so the psalmist says, Blessed are those who are integrated
in the way, who are walking in Yahweh’s teaching. Blessed are
those who are preserving his testimonies and with the whole
heart they are seeking him. You can talk about your kids
when they’re not in church. One of my children loves Clemson
football and has a Clemson t-shirt that says All In. And that’s
what’s here in Psalm 119. You could wear a shirt that says
Psalm 119, all in. I’m all in to serve God. I’m
all in to obey his commands. I’m all in to hide it in my heart.
I’m all in with living a righteous Torah-based life. Y’all know the Hebrew word for
law is Torah. I’m all in. So what does this
psalm teach us? Well, verses one through three
speak of the blessedness of the one who lives this way. And then
verse four, verse four says, you yourself have commanded your
precepts for total keeping. If we obey God’s law, if we walk
in his ways, if we follow his precepts, if we do step one,
step two, step three, step four, if we look to these laws and
we keep them, we’ll have a blessed life. If you were to look back
at your life and see all the mistakes you made, Some mistakes
would be, that’s just life, right? You picked the wrong stock and
bought it, and it tanked, right? I was talking to somebody that
did that this week. I should have bought that stock, not this stock. I would
have made money if I bought that one. That’s just life, right?
But you can look back at other mistakes and say, I should have
listened to my parents. I should have done this or that.
I was talking with a young girl recently whose mom and dad were
discouraging her relationship with a boy. And she was looking
at me kind of pleadingly, like, tell my parents they’re wrong.
And I just said this to the young lady. I said, your parents know
more than you do. They’ve made mistakes. And they
don’t want you to make the same one. And by the way, if you listen
to them, you’re always going to have them. This boy, whether
he’s good or bad, stupid or wise, whatever, he’s not gonna have
your back like they will. I mean, he might if he turns
out good and y’all get married, whatever. But if your parents
are saying, put on the brakes, you better listen to them. But
can’t we look back at life and say, should’ve, would’ve, could’ve? And it’s usually related to obedience
or disobedience to God’s ways and his wisdom. So if we obey
and live life according to God’s ways, we’ll generally find a
great blessing. You yourself have commanded your
precepts for total keeping. We like to have a little worldliness
and sprinkle a little Jesus on top. And it’s really the other
way around, isn’t it? We live a godly life and a little
worldliness sometimes, well, oftentimes it seeps in, but we
need to reorient our brains. Jesus says, if anyone loves me,
he will keep my word. And then verses five and six
speak about a person committed to the word and how they prosper.
They have no shame, but they have hope. Oh, that my ways were
established to keep your statutes. Then I would not be embarrassed
or put to shame when I look at all our commandments. And then verses seven to eight,
the laws of God, the laws of God lead They lead to righteousness. The laws of God help you be like
the law giver. Your statutes I will keep. Do
not leave me at all. How do we live like this? That’s
the $64,000 question. How do we live like this? We
want to love God’s law. We want to live it. Well, first
of all, you have to be a Christian. A non-Christian cannot hear,
believe, and obey God’s law, but a Christian can. So we pray,
first of all, that God would give us a new heart, take away
our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh, which really
sounds weird because We say, take away my heart of stone,
give me a heart of flesh. Then we say, don’t live by the flesh,
live by the spirit. That one always gets me. But that’s the
way the Bible says it. So we just have to keep all these
categories in mind. But we want to live by the spirit
of God, which is put in us when we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We want to immerse ourselves in the laws. Think about this
for a minute. Are you going to live a good
Christian life if you go home this week, you pop your Bible
on the counter inside the door when you get in the house, and
it stays there till next Sunday morning, looking nice and pristine
and collecting a little dust, as we like to say, and you just
cruise the internet all week, you watch TV all week, you listen
to worldly things all week, and you come back next Sunday, how
are you going to feel? A little dried out. But imagine if you
to swap the remote and the internet with your Bible. I mean, it’s
still fine to watch TV. It’s still great to look at the
internet, those kind of things, but they suck our time away.
But what if you spent more time in the Word? And what if the
Spirit was at work in you? You would have a different outlook
and perspective on life. And so we need to ask for God’s
grace to help us to do it. Last year, I went to a breakfast
in Graham and it was four persecuted Christians, and the story was
told that went like this. A man that was speaking to us
went to a Chinese church, and they had this very interesting
ceremony in the Chinese church where, in addition to the Bible
that their pastor had, they had one copy of God’s word extra,
and they shared it through the congregation. And every Sunday,
they would have this ceremony where that extra Bible, not the
one the pastor had for his studies, but the extra one, would get
passed from family to family. And one family would bring the
Bible forward, and there would be a ceremony where they transferred
it to the next family for the week. And the family giving up
the Bible usually would be in tears. But the family about to
receive the Bible and have their week with it would be so full
of excitement. And the story went something
like this. The family would take the week off of work. They would
cut off all outside activities. They would clear their calendars.
And day and night, day and night until the next Sunday, they would
sit and read the book together. And word was they got through
maybe the middle part of the Old Testament before Sunday came
and they had to bring it back. When have we ever? sat maybe
for 20 minutes and said, I cannot get up. The lure of the TV is
no good. The lure of the internet or the
buzzing of the idiot device is not worth it. And we just keep
sitting. I think modern technology has
really warped our brains. We’re more attracted to the gadgets
and the visual. And that’s the time we live in.
I understand that. But I see it personally. I see
it in my own life. What used to be easy to do and
a delight to do, you’ve got to force yourself to do now. Because
these little devices have changed our brains, and often not for
the better. So let’s take encouragement from
our Chinese brothers and sisters who are limited and what they
can see of God’s word, and when they have opportunity, they love
it because they want to integrate it into every aspect of their
lives. Let’s look to our God in prayer.
Lord, we thank you for this psalm, even just a little bit that we
could see of it tonight. And we pray that as we go from
this place tonight, that we would love your law, meditate on it
day and night, that you would establish us like trees planted
by streams of living water, that you would let the things of this
world, the things that want our attention so much, pass by so
that we’ll spend time in your word, spend time learning your
ways, and that our hearts would beat for you. Help us and hear
us, we pray in Christ’s name, amen.