Anchored in God’s Word: Psalm 119:145-176

We do study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

If you want a paper copy, just lift up your hand and someone can bring it along to you.

We're going to be in Psalm 119, finishing up Psalm 119, in fact, today.

It's also our joy to worship alongside folks from all over the world.

Last week we had people from London, UK, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Chennai, India.

May the Spirit of our Lord move among you as he's here today.

So we have been studying Psalm 119, as I said, over the past several weeks.

We took a little break during the Advent season.

And this morning we're going to open up to its conclusion, the last four stanzas.

Psalm 119 is a masterpiece.

And I hope you've seen that if you've been studying it with us.

It's a masterpiece, and the structure spans 176 verses.

22 stanzas, eight lines each, and it's an acrostic.

Each stanza is situating itself around one of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, with the first line of each verse beginning with that letter.

And still, it's not just comprehensive, but it's rich with meaning as it points to his word.

It's more, though, than beautiful poetry.

It's at least that, but it's more.

Within these 22 stanzas, the psalmist demonstrates with honesty and hope that a life of faith in God and a reliance on his word does not resemble a mathematical formula.

We walk with lamp light, as the psalmist has already told us, with the path before us, not floodlight that shows us all the details.

Christian growth is not a simple clean up and to the right.

Trust in God and his word is hard work.

Especially when circumstances around me might be chaotic.

The tempest inside us might be the same.

And the psalmist is honest about that.

We just sang about it as well.

And he gives us a sturdy anchor to hold on to, to tether ourselves to by going back again and again and again, almost annoyingly, to the Word of God.

He's writing perhaps to himself and all who would read it.

Let me tell you, he's saying, what's real.

Let me tell you what's true.

And he's talking to himself and to us in at least three different directions.

This is who God is.

Remember this.

This is who you are, and this is where we're headed.

This is who God is.

Although the tempest is raging all around us, remember the reality, the truth of who God is, his character, his faithfulness, his promises, his sturdy word.

This is who God is, this is who we are, his children, who live and breathe by every word that comes from the mouth of the Father, whose promises we must cling to.

This is who God is, this is who we are, and this is where we are headed: salvation.

Shalom, peace for all who turn to Him.

Now, we don't know with certainty who wrote who the author of Psalm 119 is.

Some conclude it's King David, that Spurgeon does.

Others think perhaps it was written much later by someone in the exile period, maybe like the prophet Daniel or some other leader in that time.

Either way, it does seem the psalm as perhaps a prayer journal of some kind throughout this leader's life.

From youth and inexperience that we see in the earlier parts of the Psalm to the later years and the maturity that comes with time.

If you've been studying with us, you probably noticed that Psalm 119 has touched nearly every aspect of human life.

We even subtitled this series, The Word of God for All of Life.

And he's expressed nearly every human emotion, human struggle, human sorrow.

I'll put a few up on the screen.

This list isn't exhaustive, but we see suffering and betrayal, temptation, joy, anxiety, sleeplessness, shame, decisions, drift, hope.

So I think we can say that the psalmist, this psalmist, has been through some things, and maybe you see yourself up there.

Maybe you resonate with one of those.

In every one of those life experiences, the psalmist tenaciously returns again and again and again to the word of God, his law, his command, his precepts, his testimonies, and so on.

All together, eight words that describe the multifaceted character layers of God's word to us.

Why?

Because we forget.

Because we drift.

We need an anchor that tethers us to the reality of God in Christ.

Don't we?

Don't forget.

This is who God is, his character, his mercy, his covenant love.

This is who we are, his children, who he invites to come.

There isn't a square inch of my life or your life that does not need the grace of our Lord or the wisdom of his word.

And this is where we're going.

The psalmist didn't know it yet, but the promises that he talks about in this psalm are find their fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ, in his cross, and his resurrection.

William Barclay says it this way: Here's the great truth that only when we see things in the light of God do we see things as they are.

It's only when we see things in the light of God that we see what things are really important and what things are not.

I think Barclay's right.

So this week I learned more about a literary device that novelists today and filmmakers use called the Unreliable Narrator.

I don't know if anybody's heard of that today.

You probably experienced this literary device before in the very inspirational and uplifting film The Sixth Sense.

The filmmaker intentionally steers the storyline so that you and me in the audience believe that Bruce Willis's character is alive and well, but at the end, spoiler alert, he's been deceased the whole time.

So Shyamalan uses that unreliable narrator technique, that device, to shock his audience.

And I think we all know that the world, our own hearts, the evil one, can use that same technique.

We read it in our Bible reading plan this week.

The serpent said this.

Did God actually say an unreliable narrator?

And they can't be avoided entirely this side of heaven, but Psalm 119 gives us an anchor to hold on to, a reliable narrator that says, No, here's what's true.

This is who God is, this is who you are, this is where we're going.

And I'm so grateful for God's truth in his word.

Turn with me, if you would, to Psalm 119, 145.

And as we've done throughout our study, in just a moment, we're going to read the text aloud together.

I'm so glad to be here with you.

Before we do that, let me read, or let me pray, if you wouldn't mind, as we invite the Spirit to do his work.

Heavenly Father, we bow before your presence this morning.

With our Bibles open, we ask that you'd open your word to us and open us to your word.

May your spirit convict and comfort and lead us to your Son Jesus, in whose name we all pray.

Amen.

Psalm 119-145, and I invite us all to read together.

We'll put them up on the screen here.

Psalm 119, 145.

Let's read.

With my whole heart I cry, answer me, O Lord.

I will keep your statutes.

I call to you, save me, that I may observe your testimonies.

I rise before dawn and cry for help.

I hope in your words.

My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.

Hear my voice according to your steadfast love.

O Lord, according to your justice, give me life.

They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose.

They are far from your law.

But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true.

Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever.

Let's sit with that for just a minute.

There's a weightiness to this stanza, as other stanzas before it.

Look at the first verse, 145.

With my whole heart I cry.

146, I call.

I call to you, save me.

It reminds me of Peter when Jesus calls him to get out of the boat, and Peter begins to sink into the water because he sees the storm raging around him, and he calls out, Lord, save me.

147, I cry for help.

You can see what's going on here.

Turmoil.

148, my eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I might meditate on your promise.

So either voluntarily or involuntarily, he can't sleep.

He's taking that time to meditate on his promise.

And we know in the New Testament, this side of the cross, that all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus.

He's longing for Jesus.

149, to hear my voice according to your steadfast love.

And I love Robert Alter, a Jewish scholar.

He says, Hear my voice as befits your kindness.

So beautiful.

There's a tenderness here.

In Kof.

Almost all of Psalm 119 is in the form of a prayer.

Almost all of it.

Appealing to God.

But here in Kof, this stanza alongside earlier stanzas, we're witnessing a prayer in the midst of a storm.

The prayer has urgency, it has emotional weight.

With my whole heart, in other words, all of who I am, I cry out to you.

Save me, O Lord.

I cry for help.

It's likely many in this room resonate deeply with this kind of prayer.

It touches some point of your life, some crisis or turmoil.

When you're in the heat of the pressure cooker, it is natural for our language to be nearly unrestrained.

And I think that's what we're seeing here.

Sometimes we can do nothing but cry out, call out to the living God.

And even physically, in moments of urgent prayer, it's natural for us to be affected.

My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, it says in 148.

Other psalms will say, I stretch out my hands to you, I have nothing else.

Remember, the psalmist is constantly tethering us and himself, I think, to reality.

Especially in a crisis when you don't know what's up from down, what's left from right.

This is who God is: a promise maker and a promise keeper.

Remember that.

This is who you are in the grip of his covenant love.

Look there at 149.

Hear my voice according to your steadfast Hesed love.

Remember who you are.

Caught in his grip.

This is where we're going.

One day he will wipe away every tear.

So if we look, if we keep looking at 149, I love this.

Hear my voice according to your steadfast love, according to your justice, give me life.

Both love and justice in this same section here.

Of course, we see that most fully at the cross of our Lord Jesus.

This prayer is so beautifully God-centered.

He doesn't say, Hear my voice according to my good behavior this week.

Hear my voice because I've gone to church, because I've completed my Bible reading today, because I've kicked this habit or that one.

No, he says, Hear my voice according to your Hesed love.

A covenant love, an unshakable love, an unbreakable bond to those who have turned to him.

We live in a time when we feel, you know, it's it's our right for our opinion to be heard and agreed with.

But this posture of humility from the psalmist doesn't boast in any rights.

And he anchors his request to be heard in the character of a God of steadfast love and justice.

And he doesn't know it in full yet, but he's pleading the blood and righteousness of Jesus, and so can we.

In the New Testament book of Hebrews, the author calls us to come boldly with our cries for help and mercy.

Hebrews 4:16, let us then with confidence or boldness draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

And you and I should do just that.

But we can only come boldly as a child of the Father because of what God has done for us in Jesus.

All our boast is in Jesus, in his cross, in his righteousness.

And that is the gospel truth that this psalmist knew a little bit of, and we know more fully now.

So when we draw near to the throne of grace, we find that he's already near, that he's giving more and more grace, grace that saves, that sanctifies, that sustains.

Look at uh verse 150.

The psalmist recognizes God's nearness.

They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose, they're far from your law.

And 51.

But you are near.

He recognizes that fact.

This is a man who knows God intimately.

He knows the voice of Yahweh because he knows his word.

The cry of anguish in the midst of turmoil stems out of a lifetime of intimate prayer with the Heavenly Father.

You see that?

He knows who God is.

He recognizes his own frailty and he knows the promise of future grace.

Spursion says, He who's been with God in the closet, that's the personal time in worship, will find God with him in the furnace.

In other words, when your heart is shaped by the nearness of God through his word and spirit, when times are good, you'll recognize it more clearly in the midst of the storm.

Let's look together at the second stanza here, resh.

And I invite all those who are 40 and over to read aloud.

All those 40 and over, if read together, resh at 153, and up on the screen.

Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.

Plead my cause and redeem me.

Give me life according to your promise.

Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes.

Great is your mercy, O Lord.

Give me life according to your rules.

Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies.

I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.

Consider how I love your precepts, give me life according to your steadfast love.

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

So the psalmist is still facing trials of many kinds.

And in the midst of it, he still keeps holding on to the anchor of God's promises in his words, and it reminds me of a lyric we sang earlier: Christ, the sure and steady anchor, when the tempest rages on, and that's what's going on here.

But later in the song it says, Deeper still then goes the anchor.

This is who God is, my redeemer and hope for salvation.

This is who we are, the one who needs mercy, the ones who need grace to walk in faithfulness.

This is where we're going, a life according to his promises.

Look with me at 160.

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

Christopher Ash points out that the word translated sum here, Roash, is a multifaceted word, which means something like the source, the beginning, the head.

So what the psalmist seems to be saying here in this climactic ending in the stanza is that God's word has been true from the past and will be forever into the future.

He is staking his life on the surety of God's word.

And here we see one of the secrets, I think, of this faithful life, not perfect, but faithfully walking in the ways of God.

He knew the promises of God.

He knew them in his bones deep.

He filled his mind with the scriptures, he stored them up in his heart, as we read in verse 11 early in our study.

He obeyed his word.

Not just a heady exercise, not just a life hack, but because there, in his word, he found safety, he found wisdom for life, truth for how God intended his world to work for us to work.

And his tenacious meditation on the truth of God's word, his scriptures, gave him a deep storehouse supply.

Storehouse supply of hope when the storm came and it came again.

When the temptation drew near, when he stumbled and he needed a word of grace.

And that listening, that storing up, that obeying of the word of God, tuned his ear so that he became intimately familiar with the voice of the Father.

Growing in our love for God's word, it shapes, and I would say it actually stokes the affections of our heart towards God Himself.

I think we see that all throughout the life of this man.

If this is a prayer journal throughout his life, John Piper says the word of God is not just to be studied, it's to be savored.

God wrote his word to awaken in us a taste for him.

I think that's true.

We actually see this play out even more in the next stanza.

So I'm going to invite all those who are 40 and under to read aloud at verse 161.

And the title of this, the Hebrew letter here is Sene or Sheen.

It's actually both, it's the same letter, said in two different ways.

And I was thinking, how why is this?

Well, in the United States, we we call our last letter of the alphabet Z.

And everywhere else in the world they say Zed.

Incorrectly, I think, but they say Zed.

That's what we got here.

It's the same letter, seen and Sheen.

All those under 40, let's read this aloud.

Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.

I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.

I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.

Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.

Great peace have those who love your law.

Nothing can make them stumble.

I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and I do your commandments.

My soul keeps your testimonies.

I love them exceedingly.

I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.

Amen.

And just to be clear, I'm pretty sure that the over 40 crowd won that little contest between the two.

So it seems to me that this stanza reads differently than others.

It's a different tone, or as the kids say, it's a vibe shift.

You probably notice that although he does mention persecution once and falsehood, he's not he's not crying out for deliverance this time.

Did you notice that?

Some suggest there may be a new level of maturity at this point in his life, and perhaps there's some truth to that.

He's been through some things.

Yet in this stanza, it's chock full of joy and contentment.

The persecutors are still coming.

But it's full, it's bursting, it's it's coming right off the page.

Joy and contentment.

I hope for your salvation, Lord, he says at 166.

And he's using God's personal name.

There's a resilience here that's been hewn from a deeply anchored love and trust in Yahweh.

Hope is not just wishful thinking there in 166.

I hope for your salvation, Yahweh.

It's not wishful thinking, it's a settled confidence that Yahweh has him in his grasp.

Do you have that settled confidence today?

Let's look at the kinds of phrases he uses in this stanza.

We'll put them up on the screen.

My heart stands in awe.

I rejoice.

I love.

I praise you.

Great peace have those who love your law.

I hope for your salvation.

All my ways are before you.

Do you see how God directed that is?

I love that.

Koram Day.

The proven faithfulness of God and the reliability of his word has so shaped and warmed his heart that he cannot help but be moved to awe and worship.

Look there at 161.

Princes persecute me without cause.

And a prince back in those days could be any military leader, some great person.

This could be scary stuff.

Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.

He's not in awe of the prince.

He's in awe of God and his word.

Fear of God drove out the lesser fears of the princes.

TVCer Carrie Kimbrough, reflecting on this stanza earlier this week, mentioned, he seems like a well-rested believer in this stanza.

I think she's right.

I want to be like that.

Rested not because I've denied what's going on around me or inside me, but rested because I have this settled confidence in the promise that I am forever in his grip.

The God of my salvation, Yahweh.

The psalmist was anchored to the reality of who God is because he returned in again and again to his word.

Jeremiah says it differently.

He says, Thus says the Lord, speaking for God, stand by the roads and look, ask for the ancient paths, that's the word, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

Paul would say it differently in Romans 15, for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope.

Do you see the source here?

Do you see why Jesus, quoting from Deuteronomy, when he's in the temptation with Satan in the desert, he says, We live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Father.

Look at verse 164, if you would.

Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.

That doesn't mean he literally set alarms to pray seven times a day, but seven is a number of completeness.

His life is saturated with God's word, with prayer and praise, and it becomes part of the ordinary rhythms of his life, of his day.

But then he says the strangest thing.

If we keep reading, seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.

So if I'm honest, I think if we're all honest here, God's rules are not the first thing I think of when I'm wanting to praise the Lord.

But I think here there's something for us to learn, something for me to learn.

The psalmist is praising God, his Father, for revealing to him in his word what a flourishing life before God looks like.

Not just a checklist to follow, the scriptures show us what reality looks like for a well-rested believer.

There is a way to live which demonstrates love for God and for others and makes us more human, the way that we were designed to live.

And Jeremiah calls that the good way.

And who would want more of that?

Eugene Peterson says this exegesis, which is this the study of God's word, is loving God enough to stop and listen carefully to what he says.

That's what we do when we come here on Sunday morning or in your quiet time in the mornings at home.

There's great peace for those who love God.

Did you notice that?

165, great peace.

It means numerous, varied, rich peace for those who love God and his word.

So, want a prescription for peace?

Here it is.

Fall in love with his law, his voice, his promises, walk in them, turn to him.

The well-rested believer is the kind of person we all want to be around, isn't it?

Genuine, lasting, persevering rest and contentment requires a deep level of trust, settled confidence in the Lord.

Jesus, do you remember, he invites all who were not well rested.

He invites all who didn't have great peace, come to me who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, the good way.

And learn from me, and you'll find rest for your souls.

What a great promise.

Let's set our eyes now on the final stanza, Tov here, 169.

And for this final one, I want us to all read this together.

Verse 169.

Let my cry come before you, O Lord.

Give me understanding according to your word.

Let my plea come before you.

Deliver me according to your word.

My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes.

My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right.

Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.

I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight.

Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep.

Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

Well, this is the word of God, and we all said, thanks be to God.

This final stanza is, I think, such a fitting end.

And we've suggested throughout the entire study, all 176 verses, all 22 stanzas, shows us that God's word is for all of life.

So I'll put this list back up on the screen to remind many of us of the seasons that this writer has been through.

And again, maybe you resonate with one or two.

It's not exhaustive.

In this final section, with honesty, he moves between cries for help to songs of praise.

He longs for salvation and he delights in the law of God.

In other words, in this final stanza, I think we see here a microcosm of the Christian life.

A life that undulates, a trust that wanes sometimes.

Growing in grace is not a straight line up and to the right.

We're all in the middle of our own sanctification, as Paul Tripp says.

But what this psalmist demonstrates to us, I think, in this stanza and all throughout the entirety of his life, is an anchor that has been rooted deeper and deeper over his years into the Word of God, which reveals to him just who the God of the Word is, reality.

The grace giver, the deliverer, the one who makes a way for salvation, the one who seeks after the undulating, the one who seeks after the lost sheep.

So who is this psalmist?

Let's look at 176.

He discloses himself.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep.

Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

The psalmist is a lost sheep.

And he knows he must be sought.

And he trusts in the seeker.

He knows that he will wander from the pasture from the good way.

He knows that, but for the grace of God.

He knows he will tremble in fear with whatever's going on around him, but for the grace of God.

And the word grace isn't used here, but it's the background music of this entire psalm, which points forward to Jesus, whose stated mission was to seek and to save the lost.

The psalmist ends this prayer journal, if that's what it is, with an honest recognition of his own weakness and ongoing need for grace, but he does it with joy.

Look at 171, my lips will pour forth your praise.

172, my tongue will sing of your word.

175, let my soul live and praise you.

I love that.

An ordinary life suffused with the worship of the living God.

Earlier he was crying out for help, and he ends by giving thanks to God and worship.

That's what a heart that's shaped, warmed, sustained by the promises of God's word looks like.

Coming boldly to the throne of grace in our time of need, saying, Help.

And bowing humbly in awe and joyful worship before the God of grace.

Thank you.

The world, my own heart, your heart, the evil one.

Look, we're notorious, unreliable narrators.

But the sum of all God's word is truth that endures forever.

We can stake our life on it.

Left without the light of God's word, we drift into spiritual amnesia.

We forget.

And the psalmist anchors us to the reality revealed in the word.

Who is God?

Who am I?

Where are we going?

We come to the word when we're like lost sheep, we're trapped, we're drifting, we're anxious, so that we might remember again just who Yahweh is, our Father, the grace giver, the promise maker, promise keeper, author of salvation in Christ.

He's the one who goes before us.

He's the one who walks alongside us and keeps us to the end.

We come to the word so we know who to thank for every breath, every blessing, everything true, good, and beautiful in this world.

We come to the word to learn again what it means to be human.

As his image bearer, to walk in the ways of God and to live, to live in the kingdom of Jesus, to become a well-rested Christian.

Do you want that?

We come to hear again our hope for today and for eternity.

In verse 174, if you look there one last time, the psalmist longs for the salvation of God.

It's what he's longing there for there is Jesus.

What we long for is Jesus.

All the promises of God find their yes in Jesus our Lord.

Great peace for today in unending peace for eternity.

And God in Christ has shown kindness to the psalmist and to you and me, eternal kindness, I would say.

Unworthy as I am, lost sheep as we are, he has sought us out.

And I love that the psalmist ends with that.

And so we return to his word to be anchored to the reality of who he is.

And as we do, our hearts can't help but be moved to wonder and to worship.

The word of God grows in us as we come to it.

It grows in us a deeper capacity to love and trust the God of the Word.

We come to love Him even more.

Michael Reeves says, like wax, the heart takes the shape of that which warms it.

So, friends, let's cling together.

This week and the rest of this year, let's cling together to the promises of God in Christ, the word made flesh, who is a sure and steady anchor of our souls.

Church, we all said to that, Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, you are worthy of our worship this morning.

For innumerable reasons.

You're worthy of our praise.

Where we have drifted, call us back.

Where we have forgotten what is true, may your spirit open your word to us and open us to your word.

And then do it again tomorrow.

And then the next day.

We ask for great peace, the kind of peace that can only be found in your son because of his work for us on his cross.

May your grace fuel and empower us as we walk in the good way.

And may we leave this place with a settled confidence in your steadfast love for us, caught in your grip, settled, well rested, knowing you have us.

In the precious name of our Lord Jesus, we all said.

Amen.