Psalm 119. It's been a long winter, hasn't
it? We've already been sick a couple
of times at our house the whole round, you know. I'm ready for
summer. Oh, this is the first day of
winter? Oh. Nice. It's good, isn't it? Psalm 119. You remember now, we've divided
this chapter into three trains of thought. As I looked at just
the magnitude of this chapter, I realized we're going to have
to, unless we're going to go verse by verse by verse, which
we could do, but it'd take, it'd take about a year probably. But,
I think it's good to break it down in these three considerations. First we saw the names for the
word of God itself and how meaningful they were and how God's word,
what it is and what it is to us. His judgments, his statutes,
his commandments and so on. And secondly, and now we're in
the middle of looking at our interaction with the Word of
God. What's our reaction or relationship to the Word of God? And we saw
last week that we walk in it. It's not just something we hit
and miss. We walk in it. And when you walk,
you walk in somewhere. It's a progression, isn't it?
And we seek. We long for and desire. Diligent we're diligent about
it by God's grace. You got to be Because the Lord
says you're gonna find me when you seek me with all your heart
and that's what we're in the word for is to find him to come
to know him to learn of him and Then we saw how that we have
respect unto it. But now look at verse 7. I Will
praise thee with a brightness of heart when I shall have learned
my righteous judgments You might think this goes without saying,
but this is what we're thinking about. We learn. We learn the
judgments of God. Remember that the word judgments
refers to the deciding of a case. We learn how God thinks, how
God decides things, how he reckons. You remember how Paul says, Likewise
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto
God. Why are we to reckon things that
way? Because that's the way God reckons it. Likewise you do like
God does. And we learn how God reckons
things. That's the judgments of God.
He decides every case. He makes judgments on things.
He makes decisions. His decisions are worth talking
about. Mine aren't. His will in matters. That's what
we learned. How do we learn that about anybody?
Well, remember what our Lord said in Matthew 11, 29. He said,
take my yoke upon you and learn of me. You learn of somebody
by being yoked to him. He said, I'm meek and lowly and
hard. You'll find rest. But who do you know better than
anybody in the world? Who do you know the best? Well,
if you're married, I can probably answer that for you. You know
your husband or your wife better than anybody. Well, how do you
know them? You're yoked to them. Remember
2 Corinthians 6, 14, be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with darkness? So people are
spoken of there as being yoked together. And it's important
who you yoke yourself with. Marriage is a bond like that.
And so being yoked We begin to learn about one another and eventually
over the years that happens you learn how she thinks and what
she likes and what she doesn't like and You know what? She'll say a lot of times before
she's gonna say it. Sometimes I get it wrong though
But You know it says in Psalm 103 7 that the Lord made his
ways known unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.
The children of Israel saw what God did, but he revealed something
deeper to Moses, his ways. The way God thinks, if we can
even use that word. He doesn't think in the same
sense that we do. It's not a thought process for
him. He's omniscient. He knows everything all at once.
It always has, it always will. But we learn the mind of God. With God, it's his word that
teaches us of him. But also, remember that the word
is something that we experience. It's not just something that
we read. And then just forget it. It's something that we live.
And we need to consider three things when we're thinking about
this. What we're doing is learning the judgments of God. Learning,
learning of Him. Learning who He is and how He
reckons things and what He likes and doesn't like. Everything
about Him. The mind of God. We want to enter into the mind
of God. And there's three things we've got to think about. First
of all, never speculate about that. We say, well, we've come
to know him. Well, I know Vicki pretty well.
And that leads me sometimes to think I know what she's going
to do and what she's going to say. And usually you can get a pretty
good idea over the years how somebody's going to react to
something. But you don't know what God's
going to do. I don't know for sure what she's
going to do or say, much less God. We need to forget about
what would he do, find out what he did and rejoice in him as
he's revealed in this book. Don't speculate beyond the word
of God ever. We can't just say, well, I know
God and so I know this about him. If it's not clearly revealed,
plainly revealed, indisputably revealed in the word of God.
All right. And then secondly, we're not
left just to our understanding when it comes to God's word.
Just the mind of men that we all have different IQs and different
Capacities to learn and things like that, but that really doesn't
enter into this that much Because God deliberately chooses the
unlearned and the ignorant and the foolish and reveals Great
things to them And so this really doesn't have anything to do with
that. The Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ in the Word
written and in the Word preached and reveals them to us. That's
the only way you're going to know God. You can use the means
and we should and we must. God's not going to just give
it to you in a dream. We're going to have to look into
the Word together. You're going to have to hear it preached and
read it and study it and meditate upon it. As we've said and as
we've seen. If you don't know God, he's gonna
have to make himself known to you. And thirdly, it is, as we've
said already, it's a process, it's a walk, it's a life, it's
a way. We don't learn in a sitting.
Now we may learn a little something each time. You may come in here
tonight and you may leave here saying, and I hope you will,
say, you know, I came in here, I didn't know that, and now I'm
walking out here and I do know that. You might be able to get
a hold of something like that. But to learn of him is a lifelong
experience It's called growth in grace 2nd
Peter 3 18 but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ to him be glory Both now and forever
Amen And I read the last part of that verse for a reason look
listen to it again, but grow in grace and in the knowledge
of of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. First I want to look
at that word grow. But after he said that, you grow in grace
and grow in knowledge, grow in understanding of him, mature
in your thoughts of him and in your perception of him and your
understanding of him. And then he said to him be glory
both now and forever. Amen. Alright, first that word
grow. It's the same word used for plants
And babies, human people, developing, maturing, getting bigger for
a while and more capable, more advanced, more smarter. Everything that's alive grows. And everything grows at a different
rate, but nothing grows all the way overnight. Have you ever
seen anything grow and you can just sit there and watch it happen?
No, not really. You can say, boy, it almost seems
that way, you know. People talk about sit there and
watch the grass grow. You can't really do that, can
you? Maybe it did grow while you were watching it, but you
can't tell the difference. It takes a while, doesn't it? You
see it over time. And again, now the full wording
of this verse, where he says, grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Savior, and to Him be glory. The reason I emphasize
that is because look at verse 7 again, our text. He said, I
will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned
thy righteous judgments. What's the result of growing
in grace, of learning of him? We're going to glorify him. To him be glory. The more you
know, the more you know. It's hard to even really talk
about growing in grace because sometimes you get to thinking
that maybe that's happening and then you start looking at yourself
for a little while and you realize, I still don't know anything.
I don't know anything. But it does seem by God's grace
that he becomes more wonderful as we get older, as we mature.
And that's a result of learning of Him. To know Him is to love
Him, and to love Him is to glorify Him. Now listen to our, well, what
naturally happens as I learn of Christ and His Word is I glorify
Him. And not just with my mouth, but
with my life, with what I do. I praise Him more and more. Why does God do everything that
He does? For his glory So I pray he would teach us that
we might give him the glory that's due unto him more and more so
Now verse 10 has our next word in it that we haven't looked
at yet verse 9 talks about taking heed unto the Word of God But
that's the same word as keep and we looked at that already.
It's the same original word That's translated keep so let's look
at verse 10 What is our interaction with the word there? Well, he
says this, Lord, don't let me wander from it. Don't let me
wander. That's instructive, isn't it?
You know why he says that, don't you? Think about what David is praying
here. He's saying, Lord, unless you prevent it, unless you actively
do not let it happen, I will wander from your way. I will
leave your word. I will leave you. We know that's
right, don't we? We know that's right. I'll leave
your judgments. I'll leave your light. A man named Robert Robinson in
1758 wrote the words of a song that we're very familiar with,
prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Every saint
of God that's ever sung that song. We could say it honestly,
couldn't we? I feel it. I'm prone. Listen
to this whole verse that applies to our text. Oh to grace, how
great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be.
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, like a chain, like a shackle,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts
above. That's just honest, isn't it?
The Lord's gonna have to do something to keep us. He's gonna have to
keep us. Because we sure enough will wander. And that's David's
prayer here, don't let me wander. And that's the prayer of a sheep,
you see, that's what sheep do, they wander. But thank God our shepherd is
the good shepherd. He's the bishop of our souls.
He's the one responsible for our very souls. And we can't,
we would wander, but we can't wander. He's not going to let
it happen. I've seen people, known some very, very well, very
intimately, who have heard the gospel for
decades, who seemed to be very faithful
and humble servants of God became dear friends of mine. I've seen
them turn into bickering, selfish, proud fools in a very short time. What in the world happened, Chris?
Well, they left the gospel, or it left them. Either the Lord
took the light away, the Lord took the candlestick away, or
they moved away from the gospel. I've seen it in many cases. And that's our proneness now.
None of us are immune to that. You want to see what you really
are. The Lord uses his gospel to keep us. The promises, we
have our perspective on things and we're in our right mind because
God teaches us now. And that's a lifelong thing,
like I said. And I tell you right now, for one thing, I know that
a true sheep of God, we would wander. There's no question about
that. We'd leave him in a minute if he let us go. But he's not
going to do that. He's not going to do that. And
so as I believe it was Paul that said, if they were of us, they
wouldn't have left us. And I don't believe God will
take his candlestick away from his people, do you? From his
elect. And so we're not to be judges
in that, but I know this, if God takes his light away from
me, I'll be what I described a while
ago, a proud, bickering, selfish, self-righteous idiot. And I am
that now, but you'll know it real quick if I ever leave the
gospel or if the Lord takes it away from me. Now we didn't look at verse 9
because we have already in our last study talked about keeping
the word of God. It means to watch over and it
does, where it says take heed, there in verse 9, it means to
keep, it means to watch over and guard and protect. And we
did talk about that already, but let me read you a verse of
scripture that we didn't look at the last time when we talked
about that. Listen to this in regard to that,
and in regard to us wandering from the word. Therefore we ought
to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels
was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him? Now we ought
to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip." That word indicates
to drift away it's the picture is you tied your boat up to the
dock but you didn't do a very good job and so it just drifted
away it drifted away and you went back to to get in and it's
gone and so we see these two pictures us wandering as as sheeps
or maybe goats I don't I hope to God that I'm one of his sheep
I have a good hope that I am. I have a good hope that I am.
But we're going to find out. You know what will happen? You
know what the test is? If you continue. If you don't
wander away, then you're one of his. Because that's not because
sheep don't wander. That's the first thing they'll
do. But that's because he won't let his sheep wander. He's just
not going to let it happen. So if I do, you can just say,
oh, there's old Chris, he's a goat. He looked like a sheep for a
while, but he's a goat, sure enough. Or the other picture here is
to let it drift away, for the word just to drift away. And
we don't have any, we don't care. We don't even know that it's
happening. Before we look at verse 11, look
again at the first part of verse 10. I want to get this before
we move on. He said, With my whole heart
have I sought thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments. Now remember, we said this last
time, I believe, but remember that the Word itself is not our
goal. We don't want to wander from
the commandments. Why? Because we're seeking Him. The Word itself is not the goal.
The Word is the means to the goal. This is very important. Very, very important. Christ
is the goal of the law, of the Word. We don't just seek to know
the Word, we seek to know Christ by the Word. And that's very,
very important. The Pharisees, you know, they
were sticklers for the Word, you know, even though they didn't
do anything it said. They completely misunderstood
it. They were blind to it. But boy, they were all about
the law and memorizing scripture and things like that. And the
Lord said, you won't come to me. And the whole word points
to me. The whole word, the whole point of the word, the whole
goal of the word is Christ. The word itself is not the goal.
This is what Paul said in Romans 10, 4. Think about it with me.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. to everyone
that believeth. Now think about what he's saying.
There's two meanings of this word end. Christ is the end. Christ is the end. And both meanings
apply to him here. Which one is it? Well, it's both
because both are scriptural and true and clearly taught in the
word of God. First of all, the word end means
the termination of it. It's over. Christ is the termination
of the law for righteousness. Not the termination of the law,
God's law, God's word is forever, but his law for the purpose of
me obtaining a righteousness before God, that's the end of
it when I meet Christ. Once we know him and have him,
we never look again to the law for righteousness with God. Christ
is the end of that. Now, this word, end, is from the root Greek word,
tello, T-E-L-L-O, which means to set out for a definite point
or goal. So it's the termination of the
law when you meet Christ, the law for righteousness, for your
righteousness. You'll know when you meet and
know him that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Only through the faithfulness of Christ through faith in him
is a sinner justified before God freely through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. But also a set point or goal. Christ is the goal. He's the
set point of the law. The law of God, God's giving
of his law, had a set goal or purpose in mind. And that was
not to cause people to obey. God's not that naive. He didn't
give you the law so that you would be a moral, you know, upstanding
citizen. So that you would obey it. God gave the law because we do
not obey. And we're not about to. We're not about to measure up
now. Once we know Christ, I understand that we have a different walk,
okay? Our motivation is love for Him and we want to serve
Him. But you still ain't ever gonna do anything that measures
up to His law. Christ is your righteousness
or you don't have any. So God gave the law because we
don't obey, not so that we would or could. The goal of the law
is not righteousness by the deeds of the law, though many are deceived
about that. He said of the Jews as a nation,
as a whole people, he said they did not obtain what they sought
for. What? Righteousness with God, because
they sought it not by faith, but by the deeds of the law.
The goal of the law is Christ for righteousness. That's what
Paul said right there in Romans 10 4 That's why God gave him. It's a schoolmaster to bring
us to Christ. And that's what it does. That's
what it did And what it will do And then the last one we'll
look at tonight in verse 11 Thy word what it's our relationship.
What do we do about it the word we saw what it is, you know,
it's it's more than just commandments It's more than just strict You
know, God's strict uncompromising commandments that we're to obey
or perish. It is that. We're responsible
before God. And that's why Christ had to
come and save us. But it's also the judgment, the
mind, the heart, the mind, the revelation of who God is. It's
the expression of his will. It's his promises. It's the gospel.
It's all these things. But also, what do we have to
do with it? Well, David said, I've hid it in my heart. That's
a beautiful picture. I've hid it in the word of God. By God's grace, I've hidden it
in my heart. Why'd you do that, David? Because
I don't want to stand against him. I don't want to dishonor
him. Do you? Now, we do. We will. We have. But before God in Christ we're
perfect. And in this flesh I want to be
perfect because I don't want to dishonor my Lord. Even though
I never will be. Now this literally reads this
way. His word, thy word have I treasured in my heart. That's
the first word in the definition of this original Hebrew word.
I've treasured you. I lay it up, I store God's word
in my heart as I would a treasure that I'm
protective of and that's priceless to me. It's hidden. It's not for sale. What I keep in my safe is not
for sale. You may not even know it's there.
Listen to Proverbs 23, 23. Buy the truth and sell it. What does the truth cost? Well,
it doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost any money, does
it? You can't buy it. Those that
tried to buy the gift of God of any kind, Paul condemned that
man, I believe his name was Simon, who tried to to buy the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, you know, with money. Paul said, you need
to go to hell with your money in your hand. That's what he
said to him. Your money perish with you. What a blasphemous thought that
we could buy the truth. And yet, what does it cost? In
a sense, it costs everything. Because this is what our Lord
told that rich young woman, go sell everything you have. Give
it to the poor. Don't give it to God. for righteous,
for salvation, for heaven. That's what religious people
would do. Oh, I sold what I had and I gave it to the Lord. No,
he said, just give it away. I don't have any use for it and
neither do you. Just give it away and come follow me. What would
that have cost him? Well, everything. But he wasn't
buying the favor of God with it. The Lord didn't want any
of his money. The Lord says, give me your heart.
Give me your heart. So when Solomon says,
buy the truth and sell it not. Judas sold the truth for 30 pieces
of silver now. Did he not? You say, who would sell the truth?
Well, everybody sitting here tonight and one standing here.
Everybody. Christ is the truth now. And
we'd sell him for a glass of water if he lets us go. Buy the truth and sell it not. Also wisdom and instruction and
understanding. The Word is precious to us because
He's precious. I want to show you that and I
want to camp out a little bit in 1 Peter 2. We'll look at that for just a minute.
1 Peter 2. Verse 6. I think with me. Let's use the
last brain cells we've got today. I'm on my last few. How about
you? Let's burn up the last few. Looking into this, I believe
this will be a blessing to you. What are we saying? The Word
is precious to us because He's precious. 1 Peter 2.6 Wherefore also, and
we treasure, we treasure His Word in our heart because He's
precious. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Don't
forget that now. You see what we're talking about?
We're talking about the Word of God all through Psalm 119. Every
verse but two or three has the Word in it. The Word of God in
it. The written Scripture of God. Wherefore also it is contained
in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone.
What's contained in the Scripture? God saying, look here, there's
my son. Here's the chief cornerstone. This is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. elect, precious, and he that
believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore,
which believe, he is precious. But unto them which be disobedient,
the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense,
even to them which stumble at the word. being disobedient whereunto also
they were appointed. It didn't surprise God. It didn't
catch him off guard. But you, but you, you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people
that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time
past were not a people, But are now the people of God, which
had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Now, I read that passage of scripture
not just because it shows that Christ is precious to us. That's
key to our text, isn't it? Because David said, I've treasured
the word of God in my heart. And here's why he did that. Now look at it in this text.
He is precious to us. Christ is precious to us, but
why is he precious to us? How did that happen? Well, first
of all, it's because he's precious to God. Look at verse 6 again.
Remember that he said, to you that believe, Christ is precious.
God's chief cornerstone, elect and precious, is precious to
you. But first he said, he's elect and precious in verse 6.
Not to you, he just is. So, why is he precious to me? Because he's precious, period,
that's why. His preciousness is not subjective. He is precious. Whether he's
precious to me or not, he's precious, alright? Secondly, he's precious
to us because we believe. unto you which believe Christ
is precious by the grace of God we believe now he's precious
whether I believe or not he's precious to God which means he's
precious whether I believe or not but bless God bless God he's precious to me
he is precious to me more and more More and more, by God's
grace, by esteem, with Moses, even his reproach, greater treasure
than all the riches of this world. If the Lord Jesus Christ came
where you were tonight, physically, and said, go sell everything
you have. Jimmy, go sell everything you
have and give it to the poor. You're coming with me. How long
would it take you? You'd phone it in, wouldn't you?
You'd phone it in. You'd call some man and say,
take care of that for me, I'm gonna go with you. You wouldn't
hesitate. And I don't reckon I would either,
by God's grace. But then thirdly, this is most
important now. Why is it that way? Look at how
it is that we believe it. This is our lesson to not now.
I treasure God's word in my heart. Do you? By God's grace I do. Why is that? Well, he's precious. He's precious to you that believe.
Well, what is it that we believe? It's contained in the scriptures.
Verse six, it's contained in the scriptures. This is what
we're talking about tonight. And notice in verse eight, look
at verse eight with me. It is those who stumble at the
word who reject God's chief cornerstone. Those who stumble at the word
of God, they don't believe God. They disallow the person of prayer,
they disallow disallowed indeed of men, that chief cornerstone,
and they do so because they stumble at the word. They don't believe
God. It's foolishness to them. Neither
can they know it because it's spiritually discerned. So then
what's the remedy for that? How then do I believe? Is it
because I'm smarter than them? Oh, this is key now too. Look
at it in this passage. How this passage illuminates
our text tonight in Psalm 119. Are we smarter than them because
we believe or have we distinguished ourselves from them by some kind
of a decision or by our will in some way? No, look at verse
9. Let it sink in for a minute. I'm going to let you just read
it and let it sink in for a second. Look at verse 9. What's the difference? Is He precious to you? Look at
this world. This world doesn't think anything
of your Savior. What are you doing treasuring
Him in your heart? Oh, we stumble not at God's Word. We count Christ to be precious.
He's the only begotten, precious, dearly beloved Son of God. Why?
Because we're chosen. Because God chose us, sanctified
us in Christ, you're holy, set apart, called us his own. That word peculiar people means
something that belongs to somebody. You belong to him. That's what
that word peculiar means. And called us out of darkness
into his marvelous light. That's the difference right there.
God picked you out and did everything necessary. And what's the result? Christ is precious to me. Now
think about this. You are chosen. He just said
in verse 6 that Christ is God's elect. Christ is God's elect. Is that not what he said in verse
6? Precious cornerstone. He uses
the same exact word with regard to us here. Elect. Same word. Chosen. We are chosen people. Same word. We are chosen in Him
and that's why we choose Him. In other words, Christ is precious
to me because I was precious to Him first. That's why. We love Him because He first
loved us. Oh, what a treasure. Let's pray
together.