Revived by the Word | Psalm 119

As you know, over the past few weeks,

we've been making our way through a series

of important themes in the longest chapter

in the entire Bible, Psalm 119.

This is an entire Psalm dedicated to the glory

of God's written word to his people.

And as a Bible-loving church, we love this Psalm.

It speaks to our hearts and it affirms our commitment

why we want to put the word

at the center of everything we do.

But as we begin this morning,

I have a question for everybody to consider.

I know that you love the word, but do you trust its power?

There's all kinds of reasons why we love the word,

but do you trust in its power?

I mean, really, truly believe that the inspired words

in that book before you, applied by the Holy Spirit,

has the power to transform your heart

and to change your life.

And if you say, yes, of course,

do you read it as such?

Do you approach it in that way?

Do you turn to it in your time of need,

knowing that it has divine power to instruct and correct

and train and revive you?

And that is the big theme for our time this morning,

the power of God's word to revive us.

And you should know that this has,

that concept has a long history,

both in biblical history and in church history,

this idea that God's word empowers his people.

From the rediscovery of the book of the law

during the time of King Josiah,

to the post-exilic reading of scripture in public

by Ezra the scribe, the word changes culture.

It changes the church.

It changes God's people.

To the translation and spread of God's word

into the common languages of Europe

during the Reformation,

to the great awakenings that took place

in the early American colonies,

wherever and whenever God moves to put his word back

at the center of the lives of his people,

we see revival and we see transformation.

And it was true in the Psalms as well.

So grab your Bibles.

We are going to Psalm 119.

And we're gonna start by looking at verse 25.

So try to find verse 25 in Psalm 119.

Here's what we're gonna do this morning.

It's gonna look a little bit different

than it has the last couple of weeks.

The first two parts of this series,

we were looking at just one section of Psalm 119.

Today we're gonna look at portions of three sections.

And the goal is to flesh out three unique ways

that the word revives God's people.

And I'll just go ahead and give you the spoiler alert.

The power of God's word to number one,

revive us from despair.

Number two, the power of the word

to revive us out of worldliness.

And number three, the power of the word

to revive us in the midst of affliction.

And as we go through these verses,

you know what we're gonna find?

A whole bunch of really simple, straightforward language.

This is the translation, the interpretation

of these sections is not hard.

It's very practical and filled with wisdom.

So if you're one of those people

that likes to jot down spiritual nuggets,

as you go along, you're gonna be writing down a lot today

because there's a lot of practical stuff in here.

By the way, before I jump into this,

I just, I'm gonna show you this image.

Now, these are the three sections

we're gonna look at today.

You don't have to see that.

I just want you to see all of those highlighted portions.

Those are all mentions of God's word

in these three sections we're looking at.

Look how overwhelming that is.

I'm gonna read it now.

Your word, your statutes, your precepts, your wonders,

your word, your law, your ordinances, your testimonies,

your commandments, your testimonies, your way, your word,

your ordinances, your precepts, your righteousness,

your word, your commandments, your word, your statutes,

your precepts, your law, your statutes,

and the law of your mouth.

In 21 verses.

What do you think the theme of Psalm 119 is?

The glory of God's written word to his people.

This is why we love this Psalm so much.

All right, so we're gonna be looking at this.

All right, are you at verse 25?

Good, our first section this morning

comes under the title of Dalet,

which is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet

in the fourth section of this beautiful Psalm.

And what we're gonna see right out of the gate

is the psalmist is in a very bad place.

So bad that he feels as if he's close to dying.

And there seems to be both a physical threat to his life

and also a spiritual crisis going on in his soul.

So he turns to the Lord with this incredibly deep

and heartfelt cry, verse 25.

He says, my soul cleaves, or better,

my soul clings to the dust.

Revive me, he says, or give me life according to your word.

Now, if you're thinking biblically,

that phraseology there might trigger something in your brain.

The image that he's grabbing hold of here,

my soul clings to the dust.

And by the way, that word cling is important

because he's gonna come back to it at the end.

But the picture of dust takes us back where?

To the creation account in Genesis two,

when the first man was formed from the dust of the earth.

And then a chapter later after the fall,

we're told that back to dust,

man shall return when he physically dies.

So if you're an Old Testament saint reading the Psalms,

you understand this term dust as synonymous with sheol,

which was the place of grief, the place of humiliation,

and the place of death.

So that tells you just how deep the despair

of the psalmist is in this moment.

But I think there's even more going on here

because when the psalmist,

and you see this a lot in the Psalms,

the psalmist talk about sorrow and they talk about despair,

but referring to the dust is not the normal way to do that.

So I think what's happening here is he's using this

as a theological throwback to the garden,

talking about the brokenness that came about

because of the fall.

And like you and I today,

he finds himself struggling with the effects

both of living in a fallen world,

but also being fallen himself as a sinner

who so badly wants to please God,

but he finds himself in a wrestling match

with his own flesh.

And we can all identify with that, right?

So he cries out from this very low place,

this broken and despairing condition,

and he asks God to once again bring him to life,

revive my soul, oh Lord,

according to the promises of your word.

And this is how revival comes to us

when we've hit rock bottom.

It comes from a deep need and a dependence on divine mercy.

When we get to that place where we say,

I cannot do this on my own,

I can't revive myself, Lord, I need you to do this.

And it also, revival also usually comes

from a greater awareness of personal sin and a desire

and a need to come clean before God

through confession and repentance

so that we can reestablish that close abiding relationship

that God wants to have with us.

That's what it means to be revived,

to be brought back to life.

And so the Psalmist does this, look at verse 26,

he says, I have told of my ways,

or as the CSB translated, I have told you about my life.

Here's what he means.

Lord, I've come before you

and I have spread everything about my life before you.

I've told you about my troubles.

I've told you about the sinful paths that I have walked.

And now I'm telling you about this need

in my time of despair.

Now, why does he do this?

Because he believes with all of his heart

that God cares for him.

And he believes with all of his heart

that God hears the petitions of his children,

especially in times of distress.

And even when we stumble into sin,

that God listens to his children.

And we get the good news in the very next phrase.

The Psalmist is correct.

The Lord does hear.

It says, I have told of my ways and you have answered me.

What a comfort that is, right?

That God hears us.

And then look at the follow-up request.

Now teach me your statutes,

which is a very important thing to add.

What that means is he's not content

with just emoting with God,

crying out to God and laying out his need and his troubles.

He actually wants more.

He wants to go to the next step to say,

I wanna understand your ways, Lord.

So he asks him to teach him more.

And friends, this is textbook stuff for what it means

to deal with God in the midst of despair.

So we all go through times, hard times in life.

Go back to the textbook here and say,

this is how I'm to deal with these problems.

We go to the shepherd of our soul,

the one who cares for us.

We deal openly with him and honestly with him.

In humility, we lay everything that's happened

in our lives before him.

And we have a great example of this in scripture.

This is what King Hezekiah did back in 2 Kings 19.

Do you remember?

He and Jerusalem were facing destruction

at the hands of Assyria.

And we're told that he went into the house of the Lord

and he spread on the altar before God.

This letter that he had received threatening Israel

from Sennacherib, the King of Assyria.

And he laid it before the throne and said,

Lord, I can't fix this.

I need your help.

And in response, God heard and he saved not only the king,

but he saved the city of Jerusalem.

So we lay it before God.

Troubles, concerns, temptations, failures,

and we ask our Father for help.

So if you're in despair, trust that God can lift you up.

And if you're struggling in darkness,

trust that he can give you light.

And if you've grown weak,

know that God can strengthen you and sustain you.

And if your needs are so great,

just know that he can supply whatever you need.

But let us not go to prayer and fail in the way

that James warns us, right?

James is very clear about this.

We don't wanna go to prayer and ask with the wrong motive.

We don't wanna go to prayer while at the same time

doubting as we're praying.

And most of all, we don't wanna fail by not asking at all.

So all those things are important.

And here's my suggestion.

I'm gonna just talk heart to heart with you.

Don't wait until a time of despair comes upon you

to make this a habit.

Sometimes we tend to put our spiritual walk on autopilot

until really bad things happen.

And then we go into crisis mode.

What do I do, Pastor Jeff?

Make it a habit now.

And I tell you this from personal experience.

It's taken me decades,

but I've been able to develop this type of daily habit.

And it's a great comfort.

Many of you know that I tend to work late into the night,

actually into the early morning.

You can ask my wife.

But what I have found is when the house is really quiet

and I've put everybody to sleep,

and it's just me and the Lord,

and I'll often just wander downstairs

and I'll sit on my couch,

and I will just have a conversational prayer with God.

And I'll thank him, first of all,

for so many good things in my life,

including this church and you guys.

And just walk through the victories of the day

and also walk through the failures and the stumbles

to go back over,

okay, Lord, here's what happened today in ministry,

and here's the people I talked to or texted with,

and here are their prayer requests.

And just to have that conversational daily process

of walking through life with the Lord.

And then I just say,

Lord, can you give me a little bit of rest tonight?

Just enough to strengthen me to get through tomorrow.

That's all I need.

Is enough strength to press on towards the goal tomorrow.

And honestly, it's not complicated.

It's not complicated to develop a conversational

prayer life with God,

where you're bringing all of that stuff before him.

But make it a habit now.

Start to develop that so that you don't find yourself

in a time of crisis, amen?

All right, the psalmist continues in verse 27.

Make me understand the way of your precepts,

or make me understand the meaning of your precepts

so that I will meditate on your wonders.

And I love this.

Here's another indication that the psalmist

isn't just interested in being rescued.

He wants more.

He really does wanna understand

the principles of God's word.

So he prays for divine illumination,

which is always a great prayer.

Holy Spirit, cause me to understand the text.

Illuminate the meaning.

And then if you look at the last phrase of this verse,

you see that he firmly believes that if he comes

to understand God's word on a deeper level,

that is gonna take him to a predictable and healthy place.

What is that?

That he will more clearly recognize all the wondrous things

that God has done.

He'll see all the things that God has done in the world

and specifically for his people.

And again, that's something that each one of us

should ask the spirit to do.

When we open up God's word,

Lord, help me to see more of your wonders

and then give me a thankful heart for all of those things.

This is basic stuff, isn't it?

Now, in verse 28, the psalmist comes back to his grief.

My soul weeps because of grief.

And that word grief in the head,

and that word grief in the Hebrew, tugha,

refers to a heaviness of heart or intense sorrow.

Now, you might ask the question,

well, we just dealt with your problem in verse 25.

Why are you coming back to this?

And the answer is repetition.

How many times have we seen this in the Psalms?

Repetition is given to us for emphasis.

Again, the Lord wants to see the utter depths

of discouragement that this man is in.

And we go through this too.

We're not immune to this in this age.

Many of us here this morning

can identify with the psalmist here.

Times in your life where you were just overwhelmed.

You're overwhelmed by the circumstances of your life

and the tears just keep coming,

and you're desperate and you're like,

I don't know how I'm gonna make it through this.

Almost everybody here has had one of those moments.

Spurgeon describes this so well.

He says, heaviness of heart is a killing thing.

And when it abounds,

it threatens to turn life into a long death

in which a man seems to drop away

in a perpetual drip of grief.

Very, very descriptive, right?

That's what the psalmist is going through.

So what does he ask for?

When you're feeling like that, what does he ask for?

He says, strengthen me according to your word.

Now, here's the thing about that prayer.

That tends to flow off our lips quite easily.

We pray this a lot, strengthen me Lord.

But what does it actually mean?

Have you ever stopped to ask the question,

what does it mean?

It means to take hold of the power

that is available to you

by virtue of your union with Christ.

This is why I asked the question in the beginning.

Do you believe in the power of God's word?

To take hold of that, to intentionally lean into Christ

and trust that he has you.

You belong to him.

He's promised you in his word that you were in his hand

and under his wing,

that nothing can separate you from his love

and that somehow in the midst of this grief,

he is working this together for your good.

Those are all principles from scripture.

And if you don't know the word,

it's hard to fall back on those things,

but they're all very clear.

This is why going back to the word

is so important in moments of grief,

because our tendency in crisis and despair

is to trust in what?

How we're feeling and all of our emotions,

which are always all over the place,

but those things are not reliable in a time of crisis.

Our feelings and emotions can be off base.

Instead, we need to rest in God's goodness

and his sovereignty.

And we go to his word to remember that,

to go back to these principles

so that we get a broader perspective on what's,

when we're in crisis, we feel like we're in a tunnel, right?

And all we can see is what's right in front of us.

We go to the word and what do we get?

This broader perspective of what's really going on.

So important guys, to come back to the word.

Look at verse 29 now.

He prays, remove the false way from me

and graciously grant me or teach me your law.

So in his crying out to God in complete honesty,

he prays another prayer that we should imitate.

Lord, make my ways your ways.

He has a basic prayer.

Make my ways your ways.

I am tempted to take other paths.

I am tempted to pursue my own wants,

my own desires, not yours.

And I'm always tempted, feel me on this.

I'm always tempted to take the path

that leads to my personal comfort

over the path that leads to godliness.

We all wrestle with that.

It's part of what's baked into all of us.

We shouldn't try to deny it because it's true,

but a scripture saturated life

when it's graciously illuminated by the spirit

has the power to help us see those things

and to change our habits and to transform our hearts

to actually desire God's way.

To overcome what we think in our flesh

is the more fun way or the better way

or the way that's gonna benefit me

to the true better way, which is God's way.

Now, the last three verses in the section

are really beautiful.

You'll see them in four declarations of commitment

and they're easy to locate

because the psalmist gets very personal here.

Here's what he's gonna say.

I have chosen, I have placed, I cling, and I shall run.

Do you remember the biblical principle

I tried to get through last week?

That resolve and dependency go hand in hand.

Resolve and dependency go hand in hand.

And these last three verses are great examples of this

because when it comes to progressing in maturity

and growth in our spiritual life,

what we call big word sanctification,

scripture gives us two principles

that at first glance look like they contradict.

First of all, the Bible says that we cannot bear

any spiritual fruit apart from abiding in the vine.

We can do nothing apart from being connected

to the vine of Christ.

But then scripture also says, second,

that we're to strive with all diligence

to bear spiritual fruit to the glory of God.

Now, how do you reconcile those two principles, right?

Well, Philippians 2.13 does it well.

Those two things somehow in God's economy

work in perfect cooperation with each other.

Philippians 2.13 starts out by saying,

work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

That's a call to action.

Work it out.

In fact, the Greek verb here, katergatsomai,

literally means to perform, accomplish, or achieve something.

So we're to work towards confirming our salvation.

But then the verse goes on,

because it is God who works in you.

Work out your salvation because it is God

who is at work in you,

both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So we actively pursue godliness as God does the work in us.

Does that make sense?

That's really important.

They work perfectly together.

Sometimes in the Bible, we look at things,

we go, I don't know how that works,

but if God says they're both true,

they're true.

And we take it at face value and we believe it.

So we resolve in our hearts and our minds

to be doers of the word,

and we go hard after that goal,

while simultaneously depending on the Lord

to produce the spiritual fruit in us.

Resolve in dependency.

Make sense?

So with that in mind now,

look at the I statements in the verbs

in these last three verses.

Verse 30, I have chosen the faithful way,

or the way of truth.

I have placed your ordinances before me.

I cling to your testimonies.

O Lord, do not put me to shame.

I shall run the way of your commandments,

for you will enlarge my heart.

So the first thing the psalmist has resolved to do

is to choose the faithful way,

to choose a life of loyalty to God and to his word.

Now you think that's easy.

No, it's not.

Not everybody can do that.

Think of the rich young ruler

in the New Testament gospels.

He was offered the way of eternal life by Jesus himself,

but he couldn't do it.

Why?

Because his material possessions were too important to him.

So he walked away from it.

By contrast, if you look at the great faith chapter

of Hebrews 11, you read about Moses.

It says he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,

choosing, key word, choosing to be mistreated

with the people of God,

rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Why?

Because he considered the reproach of Christ

greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.

Wow.

So Joshua says it too.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Our response to God's grace requires us

to choose the way of his word.

Amen.

Then the second thing he says,

I'm resolved to set my mind on your word.

He says it this way.

I have placed your ordinances before me.

Super simple thing to do.

I've opened the book.

It's in front of my eyes.

It's in my mind.

I see it right there.

I've opened the book.

Now I wanna get these principles

from the mind down to the heart.

And as I step out the door into my day,

the word is now my compass and my guide and my light.

This should be a daily practice.

I lay the ordinances of God before me, right?

Put it before my eyes, get it in my mind,

transfer it to my heart.

I walk into the day,

because I don't know what's coming,

but guess what?

As the haze and fog of life comes,

because I've been in the word, I know where I am.

And when temptation suddenly pop up in front of me,

I know how I should respond.

And the psalmist says, that's what I do.

I put these things before me.

Third thing, he says, I cling to your testimonies.

Here's this word cling again, right?

This is so cool.

Earlier, what was he clinging to?

To the dust, close to death.

Now, now he's upgraded.

He's clinging to something very different,

something to very powerful, right?

The dust of the earth is gonna pull you down,

but God's word is gonna lift you up.

So now he's clinging to the right things.

He's chosen to do that,

by opening up the word and putting it before his eyes.

And then last thing, this is my favorite of the four,

I will run the way of your commandments.

So this section ends with this great note of confidence.

He had been beaten down into the dust,

now he's up and running.

This is where we wanna get to.

It's a beautiful progression, right?

Now we see hope in this man.

We see freedom from the worry and the despair

that he'd been feeling up in verse 25.

I'm not just gonna walk in your ways, Lord,

I'm gonna run, run in your commandments.

It's a, he's gone from despair

to this enthusiastic, joyful passion,

because he's been in God's word.

Can't stress that enough.

And all this happens, the psalmist says,

as you Lord enlarge my heart,

as you broaden my understanding of your word.

Because that's what soaking in God's word will do.

It will fill your heart with the right affections.

It will fill your mind with the right instructions.

And then it will release you to run hard after God.

Again, Spurgeon puts it beautifully.

He says, the feet soon run

when the heart is free and energetic.

Let the affections be aroused

and eagerly set on divine things.

And our actions will be full of force,

swiftness and delight.

The remedy for despair is never to trust in ourselves

or to forge our own way through it,

but to go back to God's word

and to trust in the power of his word.

Amen?

Okay, that was the longest of the three.

The next thing we're gonna go through quick

because I don't have all day this morning.

But let's look at the second section here.

Drop down to verse 36.

This comes under the title of Hey,

which is the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

It says this, incline or turn my heart to your testimonies

and not to dishonest or better, not to selfish gain.

Turn my eyes away from looking at vanity.

Have we heard about vanity

in Adam's series in Ecclesiastes?

Vanity, worthless things.

And revive me in your ways.

Establish your word to your servant

as that which produces reverence for you.

What a beautiful section.

So here we're talking about being distracted by worldliness

and we see it described in two distinct forms.

First of all, a warning about pursuing selfish gain,

which involves the related sins of greed and coveting.

If you're never satisfied with what you have,

if you're always longing for more,

if you can't find contentment

with the things that God has provided

and that you believe that somehow you're owed more

or that you deserve to have all of your dreams fulfilled,

you might be in trouble of greed

and covetousness and dishonest gain.

If it's anything but the Lord that you desire,

it's idolatry.

If you desire anything more than God,

because this is a matter of the heart,

it says right here in verse 36,

it's a matter of the heart.

It's a matter of affections

and we should always be testing ourselves.

What do we really love?

What do we love most?

Day to day, what is your heart fixed on?

Is it stuff?

Is it getting ahead?

What is it?

If it's anything above God, it's idolatry.

And the psalmist is clear, it's an issue of the heart.

And what he's learned here is that his heart

needs to be inclined towards God's word

if he's gonna find that satisfaction,

if he's gonna find contentment.

So that's the prayer.

Lord, cause this to happen in my life.

By the way, that's a really great word to use in prayer.

Lord, cause this.

Make this happen, because I can't do it.

So cause my heart to be inclined towards your word

so that I stop feeling so discontent all the time.

Turn my heart, he asks.

Don't let me be deceived and seduced

by all of the worldly stuff that I see.

So that's the first thing.

The second form of wordliness you see here

is having our eyes fixed on worthless things.

Rather than fixing our eyes on things

that last, that have eternal value,

what brings glory to God.

And listen, again, we're all in this boat.

We all know this principle.

We all feel it every day,

because there's so much media and entertainment

and technology that comes before our eyes.

It's like this endless stream of content

that wants to steal our time and steal our focus.

And because of the chaotic pace that we live at right now,

we have this, maybe you're, okay, maybe you're like me,

maybe not, but you're like, what am I missing?

Have you heard about this show or that show or seen that?

We feel like we have got to take in

all the content that's out there,

or else we're missing out, right?

Be careful.

And by the way, it's not all evil.

I'm not saying that watching Netflix is evil.

I'm just saying we have to steward this very carefully.

We've got to guard our hearts and guard our time, right?

And once again, you see in verse 37

that the psalmist says that he needs God

to do this work in his heart.

He says, first of all, he said, incline my heart.

Now he says, turn my eyes from this stuff.

If I cross a line, if I get out of balance

and all I'm doing is looking at content all the time,

turn my eyes from it, because our eyes are powerful.

You know that, right?

The eyes tend to lead the body.

And we shouldn't forget that the original sin in the garden

started with what?

The eyes, because the fruit looked really good.

So the eyes lead the body.

We've got to be very careful.

So the psalmist says, turn my eyes, Lord, right?

Great prayer request, cause this to happen.

Lord, turn my eyes.

Not that I'm not going to see things,

but when I see them, turn my eyes to something better.

Turn my eyes to something that actually has value,

not worthless things.

And bring me back to life through your word.

Produce in me, look what he says, reverence for you.

Produce worship in me.

Not just on Sunday mornings,

but every day produce that worship in me.

Are you starting to see some of the beautiful

and really practical words in Psalm 119?

We just have to apply them, right?

We just have to take them in and apply them.

Okay, last section.

I want you to drop down to verse 65.

This is under the title of Tet,

which is the eighth letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

Verse 65, notice how this section of the Psalm

begins with gratitude.

He says, you have dealt well with your servant,

O Lord, according to your word.

This is a beautiful confession of confidence

and trust in God's sovereignty.

Remember, the psalmist has been down in the dust.

He's been struggling with sin,

yet he's still able to say to the Lord,

God, you have dwelt well with me.

You have been fair to me.

More than fair to me.

You've been good to me.

That's important, right?

Now, the Hebrew word here for well is tov,

which is usually translated good.

And you see tov used six times in these eight verses.

It is the dominant theme of this section.

So listen now, the psalmist does a very wise

and godly thing here.

And we can all learn from this.

In the middle of his trial,

he stops long enough to acknowledge God's goodness to him.

Now, when we're in a trial, what's our tendency?

Ah, right?

I'm in chaos.

I'm out of control.

I'm thinking things and I'm feeling things.

I'm all over the place.

But he says, before that,

before I start dealing with all of that,

Lord, you have dwelt well with me.

You've been good to me.

Honestly, this is always a good place to start.

How has God dwelt with us?

How has he dealt with us?

Is he not worthy of praise

for what he's brought into our lives?

I'm not saying it's not easy.

The thing you're going through is easy.

I'm just saying start here.

God, you have been good to me.

You've chose me.

You've called me.

You've drawn me to yourself.

You've rescued me.

You've declared me righteous in your sight.

You've blotted out my record of sin.

You've brought me to life.

You've put your spirit within me.

You've adopted me into your family

and you've given me eternal life.

Guys, that is an impressive list.

So even when you're going through hard times,

stop and think about that.

God, you have dwelt, dealt well with your servant.

No matter what you're going through,

you can go there in your mind, in your heart

and say, Lord, you're worthy of praise.

Now, the hard part is sometimes,

sometimes God's goodness flows into our lives

through affliction, the purifying waters of affliction.

And the psalmist here in this section

is gonna connect the concept of affliction

with divine discipline.

So he says in verse 66, teach me good discernment.

Teach me sound judgment and knowledge, he says.

For I believe in your commandments.

Here's another request that we should imitate,

that we should pray often, right?

We all need more discernment in our lives.

Every one of us.

Rather than relying upon our feelings and emotions,

which are all over the place,

we fall back on the principles of scripture

and we ask God for wisdom about what is actually true.

Right?

And we ask the Lord to reveal to us

things that we've begun to believe that are lies.

Lord, I'm gonna go back here

because this is gonna tell me what's true

and reveal to me things that I believe that aren't true.

Right?

When are we most vulnerable to believing lies?

In the midst of affliction.

It makes it doubly important to do this.

So the psalmist says, Lord, grant me wisdom and insight

so that I can think rightly in the midst of the trial

and I can make good and wise decisions.

Now in verse 67, we get some more background information.

He says, before I was afflicted, I went astray.

But now I keep your word.

So he doesn't explain the affliction here,

but if you drop down to verse 69,

you get an idea of what's going on.

Look at verse 69.

The arrogant have forged a lie against me.

They have smeared me with lies.

So what it looks like is the psalmist is under attack

from prideful enemies.

They've plotted against him.

They've run a propaganda strategy against him.

And nothing is more emotionally painful

than having your character assassinated in public

when you know it's all untrue.

It's super painful.

That's the type of thing

that can drive you down into the dust.

So the psalmist is going through deep emotional anguish here

and he seems to identify it as divine discipline

that's been brought into his life for a purpose.

And what is that purpose?

To drive him back to the word.

Lord, you've brought this into my life

to drive me back to the word.

And if I'm back in the word,

that's gonna put me back on the path of blessing.

This is a key principle this morning.

When the world mocks you and lies about you,

do not respond in the flesh.

Go back to the word for what is true.

Now, this is a hard one for me

because I like to be a fighter.

I like to think I'm a fighter.

When the world mocks you and,

I mean, we all saw the Olympics, right?

The opening of the Olympics.

Did it make you angry?

To see what they were doing?

I get it, right?

When the world mocks us and lies about us,

we can say, hey, that's wrong, but guess what?

We don't respond in the flesh.

Pagans do pagan things.

We go back to the word so that we know what is true.

And this is gonna get more and more important.

As the world gets darker and we get mocked even more,

we have got to respond well.

When we're slandered like this,

here's our best strategy.

First of all, know what the truth is.

Second of all, stand up for what is true.

Third, speak up about what's true.

And most of all, then back up that truth

with a life that's above reproach, right?

Because if you just exchange evil for evil,

you've not represented Christ well.

Know the truth, stand up for the truth, speak the truth,

but back it up with a life that shows who Christ is.

Amen?

Again, Spurgeon nails this.

If the mud which is thrown at us

does not blind our eyes or bruise our integrity,

it will do us little harm.

If we keep the precepts,

the precepts will keep us in the days of insults and slander.

So now the psalmist says, okay, Lord, I get it.

I accept your discipline.

It was bitter medicine, but I accept it.

And in spite of the pain, I can now declare to you

that this turmoil you put me through was good in the end

because it drove me back to you.

And it drove me back to your word.

And he commits here, he says, look,

now I keep your word in verse 67.

Now I will observe your precepts, he says in verse 69.

So God produced the result that was needed

through the affliction.

I can't tell you how many times in my life

this has happened to me.

And I know some of you experienced it as well.

Slander, lies, attacks, and man, it can take a toll on you.

But each time the Lord has sustained me through prayer,

through going back to the word,

and through close friends who've come to my side.

And in the end of all that,

now looking back over decades and decades of ministry,

you can ask Tanya, I look back on those things and go,

that was terrible.

But boy, did I learn something about myself

and about God in the midst of all of that.

And that's the result that God wants to produce

in affliction, make sense?

All right, I'm short on time.

So let me close with this, look at verse 68.

You are good, the Psalmist says.

And that is a powerful ontological statement about God.

He is good in his essence, in his attributes,

that is his core identity.

He is good, and you do good, the Psalmist says.

And therefore I ask you again, teach me your statutes.

And then drop down to verse 71, look at this.

It is good for me that I was afflicted.

Underline that one, highlight that one.

It is good for me that I went through this,

that I may learn your statutes.

So lots of tov here, right?

Good, good, good.

God is good, he does good, and affliction

that I go through is ultimately for my good.

Good, good, good.

Lord, I would never have drawn up this path in a million years.

Have you ever done this thing before?

Like Lord, I would never draw this up.

I would never have done this.

I would never pray for what I've gone through.

I would never ask for it.

But now looking back and reflecting on it,

I can say thank you.

I can say thank you.

And I can say teach me more, even if it means more affliction.

And the reason the Psalmist can do this

at this place in the Psalm here,

the reason he can say that is because he absolutely believes

with all of his heart the core truth that God is good.

Without that, if we don't know God is good

and we're not sure, affliction doesn't look so good, does it?

But he knows that that is what, that's who God is.

He is good and he is absolutely trustworthy.

Now, let me just say this as a caveat.

If you're going through suffering right now,

trial, affliction, I'm not trying to rush you to this place

because it's a process.

We've all been there.

But this is where we need to get to at some point

in the affliction so that we can mature in our walk

with Christ, make sense?

Now, let me just say this also

because I was just having this discussion

with a couple of members this past week.

What we see here in the Psalm is the Psalmist

is making a connection between his affliction

and God's discipline.

But that's not always possible to do.

Not every trial that we go through is disciplined for sin.

It all has a purpose.

You gotta know that.

But it's not always because of sin

because we can't always make that connection

and we don't have special revelation that says,

you know what, Jeff, you're going through this

because of that.

We don't have that special revelation.

So we have to be careful not to overestimate

or underestimate the connection between sin and discipline.

And the fact is, James tells us that sometimes

God brings trials into our lives

for the simple process of sanctification.

Not because we sinned in some particular way,

but because we need to be sanctified.

He says the testing of our faith produces endurance in us.

It produces perseverance and that leads us

to being more conformed to the image of Christ.

So we gotta be careful that we don't jump to conclusions

about every single trial.

But we do need trials, all of us,

because that's when God gets our attention most.

Did you know that?

It's so funny.

The Lord said to Judah in the days of Jeremiah,

he said to the prophet, he said,

I spoke to you in your prosperity,

but you wouldn't listen.

That is such an insightful verse.

I spoke to you, Judah, to turn you back

while you were prospering, but you would not listen.

So now what comes next?

Calamity and trials.

We should learn from that.

One thing I wanna make sure we do in the midst of the storm

is to make sure that we are wide awake

and paying attention to what's going on around us.

Have you heard this statement before?

The worst type of affliction is wasted affliction.

Wasted, why?

Because we didn't see what God was doing,

because we trusted in ourselves,

because we refused to go back to God's word,

and in the end, we didn't learn anything.

And so that's wasted affliction.

Last word from verse 72, and then I'll close.

Verse 72, the law of your mouth

or the instruction from your lips is better to me

than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Man, I hope truthfully that every person

in this room this morning can say that,

that that's how you view God's word.

Do you actually believe in its power?

Do you believe in its power to revive you

when you're in despair?

Do you trust the power of God?

Do you trust the power of the word

to smack you out of worldliness

and to bring you back to the Lord?

Do you believe that the power of the word

will sustain you and teach you something very, very valuable

in the midst of affliction?

Friends, the psalmist has this right.

God's word is more valuable

than all the money in the world.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for the beautiful language

in these three sections of this psalm.

God, it just affirms in our hearts

so deeply why we love your word.

And I pray for myself,

for my brothers and sisters here this morning

that we would move past loving your word

to trusting in the power of your word

as your spirit illuminates us.

That we would trust you more and more,

that you transform hearts,

that you are in the business of growing and maturing us.

And sometimes, Lord, that comes through hardship

and it comes through trials.

So God, help us to pay attention

to the work that you're doing in our lives.

Help us not just to go on autopilot,

but to constantly put your word before us,

to seek your face,

to ask you to cause these things to be true

and to be true to your heart.

That you would cause these things

to be true of us in our lives.

That we would commit to that this morning, God,

and we would keep walking on this journey with you,

abiding in the vine and knowing that you care for us

and you love us.

Thank you for our time this morning.

We pray in the name of our Savior,

Jesus Christ, amen.