Psalm 119:9-16 | Ready! Aim! Grow!: Pursuing the right goals when reading God's Word

Speaker: Everybody has 24 hours in a day.

That's probably not news to you.

You probably have known that for a long time.

Uh, but I wonder if you know how many minutes you have in a day.

You have approximately 1,400 minutes in the day, 1,440 minutes.

That's, that's a full day, 1,440 minutes.

A- and so the question I want you to start with this morning is, why should

I give some of that time to the Bible?

Why should I take…

I only have 24 hours, a- and I'm sleeping for a, a good portion of

those hours, depending on maybe you've got a newborn at home, maybe

you're sleeping for three hours, maybe you're sleeping for more than that.

But the time that I'm awake, which is even less than this, why should I

give some of that time to the Word?

I preached last week and, and introduced something called the, the Quiet Time

Challenge, saying, "Hey, for the next 12 weeks, I'm gonna challenge you to

be in God's Word every single day."

And some of you may have thought to yourself, "Well, okay, but, uh, the

Bible doesn't tell me I have to do that."

And you're right, it doesn't.

But I'm gonna actually suggest this morning that the Bible tells you or

suggests that we should have more than that, more than that I- it's imminently

w- valuable to us to, to think about what we possess in the, the scriptures.

And it's so important for us to think about the fact that not only should

we take advantage of what we have and, and give ourselves over to the reading

of it, but we need to realize that what God expects of us is, is, I would

say, more even than just having a, a daily quiet time in the scriptures.

God wants us to be a word-saturated people, and what will h- help us

get there is if we understand the goal of what it is we're doing

when we pick up the Word of God.

And so this morning you may be in, in one of three places.

You may be here this morning saying, "I, I don't really read

the Bible on a regular basis."

And if that's you this morning, I hope this morning's message is going

to address some of your objections.

I hope this morning's message is gonna encourage and motivate you to,

to even see, man, there's, there's good to be found in reading the Word.

A- and if I approach it with the right aim, the right goals, that

there's even a, it's life-giving and this is a good thing for me to do.

A- and that maybe this morning you'll walk away with a game plan to say,

"I wanna get into the Word more."

Or maybe the second group out here this morning may be those that

are, are in the Word, but you're in the Word with the wrong motives.

You're in the Word because you feel a burden that you have to do this because

there's some sort of expectation that good Christians do this, and if you don't do

this, then you're not a good Christian.

Or maybe you're in the Word because you're thinking to yourself, "Well,

I, I want to be a smarter Christian, and so I'm gonna study my Bible."

Or maybe you're in the Word because you're thinking to yourself, "Well, I, I want

to know more than my atheist coworker so that I can give a defense for the gospel."

Not all of those are bad reasons, but they're not the main reason either.

And so for you, I hope this morning that this message is gonna give you

three other aims or motives when you pick up the Word of God that

are gonna encourage you to dive in deeper and to get after it even more.

The third group is the group that's here, you're in the Word

of God, and you're thriving in your relationship with the Lord.

And for you, I just hope that this morning's message is gonna encourage

you in that, to say, "Keep going.

This is good."

And you'll be able to listen to what the psalmist has to say, our author has to say

to us in Psalm 119 and say, "Yes and amen.

I get that.

I get that."

But I mentioned I, I think God wants us to be saturated with the

Word of God a- and here's why.

Passages like these.

So Deuteronomy chapter six says this.

It says, "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of

them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when

you lie down, and when you rise.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be

as frontlets between your eyes."

In other words, you should always be focused on them.

"And you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates."

I look at that and I think that's, that's more than just a,

a daily hat tip to God's Word.

I think that's a, a life that's saturated by the Word of God.

Or in Joshua chapter one verse eight.

Joshua chapter one verse eight says this, "The Book of the Law shall

not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night."

Notice that, meditate on it day and night.

So that you may be able to be careful to do according to all

that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and

then you will have good success.

Again, that's a life that's saturated with the Word of God.

Or Psalm 1:1-2, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

Psalms 1:1–2

nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his

delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."

Again, day and night, saturation.

I'm gonna flank it here in Psalm 119:105.

Psalms 119:105

We're gonna get here in our study eventually, but Psalm 119:105

Psalms 119:105

says, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path."

Uh, uh, anytime I have to wake up in the middle of the night when

something's going on with one of my kids or something like that, I, I grab

my phone and I turn my flashlight on.

Now, I know what my house looks like.

I know what my room is like.

I've been through there and walked that path a, a hundred of times, m-

more than a hundred times, and yet I still have the, the light, because when

it's dark, I need the light to see.

Your light, your path as Christians is illuminated by the Word of God.

Again, it suggests a, a, a c- constant companion to our, our walk.

New Testament, okay?

That's all Old Testament.

Let's talk New Testament.

Is there this expectation in the New Testament?

Matthew 4:4, Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live

Matthew 4:4

by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

So I need the Word of God for my nutrients.

I need the Word of God as a daily intake.

The way I need food, I need God's Word.

John 8:31-32, Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples."

John 8:31–32

To abide in something is to remain in it.

It's to stay there.

"If you remain in my word," if you marinate in my word, in other

words, "you will be my disciples."

Ephesians, or, uh, before Ephesians, John 15:7, Jesus said, "If, if you abide

John 15:7

in me," and not only should we abide in the Word, but His words abide in us.

So we, we want to abide in His Word and His words to abide in us.

"Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."

Now Ephesians 6:17, "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

Ephesians 6:17

Spirit, which is the Word of God."

Talking about spiritual warfare, that every single day we have an enemy

who's prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, and

the Apostle Paul tells us here in Ephesians that God's Word is the

sword to help fend off his attacks.

And like we talked about in that message back from 1 Peter Chapter 5,

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

He's not taking a day off, which means that we shouldn't take a day off.

In fact, not only is He not taking a day off, He's not taking an hour off.

He's not taking a second off.

Meditate on it day and night.

Be saturated by it.

Colossians 3:16, I think this is the clearest en- encouragement for us

Colossians 3:16

here in the New Testament, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly."

Let God's Word dwell in you richly.

Fill yourself up with the Word of God.

Be saturated by the Word of God such that if someone were to wring you

out, what would come out is Scripture.

2 Timothy 3:16 and 17, "All Scripture is God-breathed."

2 Timothy 3:16

Now, when Paul is writing this to Timothy, his primary thought process here

is the Scripture of the Old Testament.

So what Paul is saying here is Deuteronomy, Leviticus,

Numbers, it's God-breathed.

1 and 2 Chronicles is God-breathed.

He's saying this is God-breathed, and not only is it God-breathed, but he

says it's, it's also profitable for teaching and reproof and correction

and training in righteousness, in order that the man of God may be complete

and equipped for every good work.

Again, I think the Bible is not just saying, "Hey, you

need to be in the Word daily."

I think the Bible is saying more than that.

You should be saturated by the Word of God.

1 Peter 2:2, as we end this list of Scripture verses here, he says

1 Peter 2:2

this, "Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk," that

is the milk of God's Word, "that by it you may grow up into salvation."

Long for it.

Long for it.

Uh, bef- earlier this morning, I was, I was back doing some final

prep, and I was, I was watching these videos of these remote tribes that

were receiving the Bible in their own language for the first time.

Uh, one of them was the, the Kimyal people, and they were in,

in a remote area in, in Africa.

And they received the, the Word of God in their own language

for the first time, and they…

The celebration was so great in their village that they danced for six hours.

And one of the pastors being interviewed there said, "God has

finally spoken to us in our language."

Christian, God has spoken to you in your language, and not just in

the English Standard Version, but also in the NIV and the NLT and the

Christian Standard Bible and the LSB.

I mean, the wealth that we have in the Word of God is unrivaled at

any other time in human history.

And what I'm saying to us this morning is I think what God has called us

to is not just to pursue a life of sermons and Christian devotion books

and worship music, but foundationally, before all of those things, to pursue

a life of time in the Word of God.

To pick up the Word, to read the Word.

And, and, and again, maybe you're not there this morning, and I, and I get

that, and I, I understand that it's hard.

But that's where I hope that this morning's sermon is gonna help you

reframe your approach to the Word, that you're gonna think about your

approach to the Word differently.

Why am I picking up my Bible, in other words?

What is really there for me as I take up the Word of God

and as I read the Word of God?

And so we get into it in these first three verses here in Psalm 119:9-11.

Psalms 119:9–11

It says, "How can a young man keep his way pure?

By guarding it according to your word.

With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments.

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I may not sin against you."

So the psalmist opens with this question: How can a young man keep his way pure?

And it's not just young men, it's all of us.

How can we keep our way pure?

To, to keep your way pure is to live a life of godliness.

And the reason that frames, I think, everything else that he's gonna talk

about here is this: We will only be as close relationally to God as we are godly.

Now, salvation has reconciled us.

We've been brought near to God.

That's a total work of Jesus.

Your experience of your relationship with God after salvation has

to do with how much you are like Christ, how godly you are.

And so the psalmist's question should grab our attention because it should cause

us to stop and think to ourselves, "Oh man, he's, he's opening the door to…

For me to ask and, and answer the question, 'How can I

draw nearer to the Lord?

How can I improve my relationship with God?

What does that look like for me?'"

How can a young man keep his way pure?

To live a godly life, to, to pursue that, that lifestyle, is to draw closer

to the Lord by, what does he say?

By keeping it according to your word.

By keeping it according to your word.

And so if we want to draw near to the Lord, in other words, we can't do that if

we have set the Word of God aside and our only Bible intake is what we're hearing

right now this morning Again, does God say, "Thou shalt be in my Word every day"?

No.

I think He says more.

And so as we look to this, i- i- i- it is worth our attention to say,

"Okay, so then what does it look like to guard it according to His Word?

How do I do this?"

Well, that's where the rest of our passage comes in.

That's where the rest of our passage comes in.

A- as we get into this, the first thing that we should see here is what I was

beginning to unpack a, a moment ago, that when you come to the Bible, you

come to the Bible first and foremost, f- before any other reason, for God.

You come to the Word of God for the God of the Word.

You come to the Bible to have an encounter with Him that is

relational at its very foundation.

So when you pick up the Bible, there's a lot of different reasons you might

pick up the Bible, but the main and first reason you should ever pick

up the Bible, anytime that you pick it up, daily and more, is this.

You wanna pick up the Bible first and foremost to pursue intimacy with God.

First point this morning is this.

Make Bible reading relational.

Make Bible reading relational

I told the first service, I'll tell you this too, this AI did this new,

uh, this new slide deck for me.

It's my content.

I wrote the sermon, I wrote the slides, but I, I, I dumped

my, my old slides in there.

I was like, "I don't…

This is ugly.

Make this look better."

And it did.

It did.

Pastor Rob's been trying to get me on AI for a long time, and so

I'm, I'm starting to see the light just a little bit in certain areas.

I promise you, you have my word, I will never write a sermon with AI, ever.

I, I went through far too much seminary to throw that all away

to let a computer write a sermon.

That's also an abdication of duty, and a man should not be

a pastor if he's gonna do that.

That's not why I'm using AI.

But it did make it look prettier, right?

Yeah?

A little bit?

Okay.

But that's why all three points are up there.

I heard from some people in the first service, they appreciated that.

They're like, "I was able to kinda see your argument as we got into that."

So whether you like…

If you like it, I'd love to hear from you.

If you don't like it, have a great week afterwards, you know?

I, I mean, just do.

We love you.

Read the Bible.

Um, anyways, make it relational.

M- every time you pick up God's Word, you are, are picking up the Word of God.

God is speaking in your language, in other words, and He's speaking to you, and He's

having a, a, a relationship with you.

It's like this.

I, I could, I could get to know my wife in a lot of different ways.

So when I was in college, I, I got to know her through in, first through what

we called Stalker Net, which is a, a very pleasant name for the online directory.

I, I was like, "Hey, she's cute.

What's her class schedule?"

And for whatever reason, the administrator saw fit to give us access

to everybody's class schedule, and so I was able to s- to plan my routes to

try to run into her from time to time.

And then, you know, I could also get to know her, I could, I

could look at her Facebook page.

What are, what are her likes?

What are her dislikes?

Who's her family?

Things like that.

I could get to know her by talking to her friends who know a lot about her.

And I could get up next to her friends and be like, "Hey, why

don't you tell me about Amanda?

I wanna know as much as I can about Amanda.

You know her.

You love her a lot.

You tell me about her."

See, I could do all that, but that would not be nearly as effective as what it

took, which is to spend time with her, to get to know her, to talk to her.

That's where my relationship really was formed with her.

Talking to friends a- about her is like listening to somebody who

preaches great sermons without you ever getting into the Word of God.

You may hear people that can help you understand God's Word, and that's great.

It's not the same thing as the Bible.

In fact, let me tell you this.

If you would say, "Well, my primary devotional time is just listening to

good sermons, and I get a lot out of that, and, and so I, I don't do, I

don't read the Bible on my own," I, I…

If your pastor is worth his salt, he would be mortified to hear that Because nothing

I say, unless I'm quoting scripture, has the authority of the word of God itself.

Nothing I say is going to be as, as impactful in the Spirit using it in

your life as the word of God itself.

I'm not saying preaching is, is pointless, otherwise I would just retire, right?

It has its place, but it can't be your primary meal.

You wanna get to know God?

Don't just talk to people that know Him.

Talk to Him.

Get in the Bible.

Read the Bible.

Look at what the psalmist says.

He says, "With my whole heart I seek you.

How can I keep my way pure?

By keeping it according to your word."

And then right away he says, what does that look like?

First and foremost, I gotta be seeking Him.

I gotta want the relationship with God.

When I pick up my Bible, I gotta want God more than I want the biblical

knowledge, or to be smarter, or to check a box, or to get somebody

off my back, or to make a defense.

The first thing I have to do when I pick up the Bible is

I have to say, "I want God.

I want you, Lord."

And, and that informs a lot about the, the time and the place that

we pick up the Bible and do our devotional time, have our quiet time.

Having your quiet time on the way to work by just listening to the Bible,

maybe not super effective when the guy cuts you off and you're having

regressive sanctification in that moment instead of progressive sanctification.

Carve out some time.

Susanna Wesley famously would take her apron and, and put it up over her head,

'cause she had that many children.

That was where she got her quiet time, and she trained her children to know

when Mom's got the apron over her head, she's spending time with God.

Find time, right?

This is what Jesus did, didn't He?

In Mark's gospel it opens up, Jesus is doing a, a run of miracles.

He's healing a bunch of people as they're bringing them, and He's healing the sick,

and then it says, "The next morning He got up and He went away by himself to a

desolate place to be with his Father."

Whatever your time is or place, it doesn't have to be in, early in the morning.

But find time, find place to truly seek Him, as he says

here, with your whole heart.

Be fully devoted.

Be undistracted.

Last week I, as I introduced the quiet time challenge, I said it would be good

for us to begin before we get into the Word each day to pray, and this should

be part of that prayer: "Lord, help me to seek you right now with my whole heart.

Help me to be undistracted.

Help my attention to be undivided and to be fully fixed on you."

And so whatever that looks like for you, to find that time, to find that place,

to put the phone away, to turn off the notifications, to get away from the noise,

to get away from everything else and say, "Lord, this is about me and you."

Because your relationship with Him is what's happening there dynamically,

perhaps more than any other time, when you pick up the Word and you read,

God's talking to you in your language.

Read it.

Own it.

Believe it.

He says, "With my whole heart, I seek you."

The Word of God is not a, an end in and of itself.

It's a means to an end.

It's a means to an end, and that end is a deeper relationship with God

What that looks like as it works itself out, look at verse 10, the rest of it.

He says this, he says, "Let me not wander or stray from your commandments.

I've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."

And so for the psalmist to seek Him with his whole heart looked like allowing

the Word of God to then take root in his life and cause it to transform his life.

In other words, he said, "Lord, I want to seek you with my whole

heart, and then I want to own your Word and I want to obey it."

A lot of times we can pit obedience and relationship against each other.

A- a- and we l- we like to hear about our relationship with God, but as

soon as we start hearing about the need to obey God, somehow we, we pit

those two things against each other.

And what the psalmist is saying is, that is what our relationship with God is.

God is pleased when we submit ourselves to Him.

We draw nearer to Him as we obey Him.

And so the psalmist says, "I, I don't want to wander from your commandments.

I don't want to stray from your rules.

Lord, I want to treasure them up."

That's what he means there in verse 11, "I've stored up your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you."

But notice here that the, the relationship is still in view.

"Let me not wander or stray from your commandments, Lord.

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."

I think that's in- informative for us.

He doesn't just say, "Uh, let me not wander from the Bible.

Let me not wander from the law.

I've stored up the, the Bible in my heart that I might not sin."

He's using these personal pronouns because the psalmist is

saying, "This is about you, God.

When I read the Word, it's about you.

It's about my relationship with you.

It's about deepening my relationship with you."

And so whatever our reasons are that we pick up the Word of God, we pick

up the Word of God first and foremost because of our relationship with Him.

We store it up because we want to live it out, which is gonna

cause us to draw near to Him

Charles Spurgeon described what this life looks like, and he said it this way.

He said, "Let each person, young or old, who desires to be holy and have

a holy watchfulness in his heart, and to keep the Holy Bible open before

his open eye, there he will find every turn of the road marked down, every

slough and miry place pointed out, and with a way to go through unsoiled.

And there, too, he will find light for his darkness, comfort for his weariness, and

company for his loneliness, so that by its help he will reach the benediction of the

first verse of the Psalm, which suggested the Psalmist's inquiry and awakened

his desires, that he might be blessed."

And so Spurgeon is saying it, it's, it's about drawing near, and we

draw near through this holiness, and this is the impact that the

holiness has in and through our lives.

And y'all, here's the thing.

We have a, an advantage over David, over the Psalmist.

We have an advantage over so many of the, the people in the Old Testament that we

read about under the New Covenant, because we've got the Holy Spirit dwelling within

us to help us do all this, to help us understand the Word, to help us desire

the Word, to help us apply the Word.

And so as Christians, we should expect when we come to the Word of God that He

is going to illuminate the scriptures for us, show us how we can apply it

to our lives, and that all of that, in the end, is gonna cause us to have a

deeper and closer relationship with Him.

This is why we pick up the Bible.

We pick up the Bible because it is first and foremost a pursuit

of a deeper relationship with God.

In that deeper relationship with Him, though, one of the things that

He's gonna be doing through that time is He's gonna be teaching us.

He's gonna be helping us understand more.

He's gonna be instructing us.

Have you ever tried to teach somebody something who isn't really teachable?

All the parents in the room said, "Amen."

Trying to convey something to some- somebody about, uh, wisdom that you

have and they, they don't really want the wisdom that you have.

Trying to help them when they don't want your help

We need to be careful not to have that posture and that attitude

when we come to the Word of God.

We need to be careful that when we come to the Word of God, we recognize

that we are coming to the God of the Word, who is there to teach us.

And that's what he's saying here in Psalm 119, verses 12 through 13.

Psalms 119:12–13

He says, "Blessed are you, Lord.

Teach me your statutes.

Teach them to me.

With my lips I declare the rules of your mouth."

And so the second way that we approach the Word of God, not only do we wanna

approach the Word of God and make it relational, because it is, that's the

foundation of our pursuit of the Word, but the second thing that we wanna do as

we approach the Word of God, the second goal, the second aim that we have, is

we wanna come hungry and come teachable.

Second point, come hungry and come teachable.

One of the men in our church, uh, loves to, to bless us as

pastors, uh, by occasionally taking us to Hutchins Barbecue.

And so he'll extend the invitation, and he'll be like, "Hey, we're gonna

go to Hutchins this week," and then he'll follow it up with this statement.

He'll say, "Come hungry.

Come hungry."

He doesn't have to tell us twice, right?

And, and, and Hutchins is th- the…

It's the pinnacle.

It is the best.

Uh, at least for brisket.

Tender has an, an argument for ribs, but for brisket, no place

is, is as good as Hutchins.

And you show up there, and when you get to Hutchins, you wanna make sure that

you've got an appetite for Hutchins.

So what does that mean?

That means that morning I'm not eating.

I'm not eating breakfast.

A- and when I get to the office that morning and I'm doing my

study and my stomach starts to gnaw me, I'm not going for the, the

snacks that we have in the office.

I'm not touching those.

In fact, I'm not even, really even drinking water.

I'm showing up at Hutchins hungry and dehydrated, because I want as much room

in my stomach as possible to eat that meal, because that meal is so good.

And, and when you get to Hutchins, right, what do you do when you get to Hutchins?

Well, you go through the line.

If you've not been there, uh, what's first?

What's first is the star of the show.

It's the meat.

They don't give you the sides first.

You're not showing up at Hutchins going, "Okay, I want the okra, and I

want the mac and cheese, and I want the beans, and I want the slaw, and

I want the potato salad," and then getting to the meat and being like, "I

don't have any room for the meat left."

What a tragedy that would be.

It's not like the, the mac and cheese is bad.

It's good.

It's great even.

Potato salad is, is decent too.

But none of those compare to the meat

Church, when we pick up the word of God every day, we gotta have that hunger.

We have, we have to come hungry to the word.

And, and here's the thing, your sermons and your podcasts and your Christian

living books written by John Piper and all the other superstars in the world,

that's the mac and cheese and the okra.

That's the, the beans.

That's the slaw.

That's the potato salad.

They're good in the right context, but they're no

replacement for the main course.

The Bible's the main course.

The word of God is what you come hungry for every day.

It's coming hungry saying, "God, I wanna feast on your word."

A- and so we come hungry, but we also come teachable to the word, and those

two things have to both be there.

We're picking up the word to sit under it, not to sit over it in judgment of it.

A- and so in Matthew 18, the disciples are, are arguing together, and

they're gonna ask Jesus a question.

They say, "Teacher, who's gonna be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

And Jesus doesn't answer them the way that maybe they thought He would.

He doesn't say, "You know, the, the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,

it's gonna be the one that's been walking with me the longest."

He doesn't say, "The greatest in the kingdom of heaven, it's the

one that's the most righteous."

He doesn't say, "The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one that

is the most powerful here on Earth."

Instead, what does He do?

He picks up a child.

He picks up a child, and He says this.

He says, "Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you

will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

He's saying a lot in that, but one of the things that I believe He's

saying is we need to have a childlike humility in our posture of pursuit

of the word every single day.

My kids ask me questions all the time, questions that I often am like, "Really?

You don't, you don't know how to do this?

You've been with us for this long, and we failed you to this

point 'cause you can't do this?"

But at the same time, I'm delighted that they ask me

because it's a childlike humility.

They're coming to me saying, "Dad, teach me," because they know that I know

We need to be before the Father saying, "Father, teach me."

We need to have that childlike humility every time we come to the word of

God, expecting Him to teach us.

Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.

That word blessed is, is not the word for happy like it was earlier.

There was another word for blessed.

This is the word for praise you.

God be praised.

Teach me your statutes.

The word teach there in the, the original language, it's, it's intensified

in its form and it's intensified in its form, and it even suggests a

continual repetitious ongoing pattern.

Lord, teach me and keep teaching me.

I never wanna be done learning.

Keep showing me the things that I don't know.

I said earlier, we should be praying before we come to the word that the

Lord would give us a, a, a fully devoted heart to seek Him with all that we are.

This is another part of our prayer before we pick up the word of God

that we should have, "Lord, teach me.

Teach me when I come to your word this morning."

Instead of coming to Second Chronicles and being like, "Oh man, Second

Chronicles, I don't know that I'm gonna get much out of this today," instead

of that, we should pick up the word of God and say, "Lord, I need you because

I'm gonna be in Second Chronicles.

I need you more than I've ever needed you before.

Teach me, Lord.

Teach me through what this is.

Teach me what you would have for me today."

And if you walk away with one thing, praise God for that.

Teach me your statutes, Lord.

I wanna be hungry.

I wanna be humble.

I- I- imagine th- this is, this is God, the, the only God that exists.

There's only one, right?

And he's saying that he's here and, and the psalmist is saying that you

can say to him, "Will you teach me?"

I- imagine being a painter, an artist, which I'm not by any stretch of the

imagination, but imagine if you were, and Rembrandt was your instructor.

To learn at his feet, to say, "Wow, he might even be able to

help me get beyond stick figures."

That would be amazing to have somebody like Rembrandt teach me how to paint.

Or, or imagine if you're a chef and you had one of the, the greatest chefs

in the world teaching you how to, to, to prepare your food, and you had

access to that person at any time.

Or whatever your hobby is, you had the greatest at it that's ever lived, past,

present, or future, at your disposal whenever you wanted it to say, "Can

you teach me something right now?

I need your help

We have the God of the universe

Right here

Such that we can say to him, "Teach me

Teach me your statutes

Have you ever seen a hungry baby go after baby food?

Your spoon, the, the spoon feeding age where they, they have no control over

their, their limbs at this point, but yet they know if they did, they would

just grab that spoon and eat that jar way faster than you're feeding it to them.

And so what happens?

Their eyes get really big and they, they just start hyperventilating

and their li- limbs flail about because they're trying to communicate

to you, "Will you feed me faster?

I want more food."

We could do with a little bit more of that when it comes to the Word of God.

To recognize again what we have

in what we have

No generation has had the access to the Word of God that we have

I mean, you think back again, those jungle tribes that are, are, are

receiving God's Word, and their response is, "We're gonna stop what we're doing.

We're gonna dance for six hours to praise God for this."

Tears being shed as a pastor says, "God has finally spoken to us in our language."

And we, we, we fill up on other things

We have God saying, "Hey, I'm here.

I got everything necessary for life and godliness, and I'm willing to teach you

Are we going and sitting at His feet?

Are we longing like newborn babes for the pure spiritual milk of the Word?

Uh, there's a, a story in the Bible where there's two sisters, and, and

one of them's name is Mary, the other one's, other one's name is Martha, and

they're getting ready to host Jesus.

Now, ladies, I'm sure that you can probably relate to Martha in this one.

Jesus is coming over.

We need to get the fancy guest towels out.

Jesus is coming over.

We need to vacuum.

Hey, Jesus is coming over.

I have to prepare a meal.

Jesus is coming over.

I need to make sure everything's ready.

And so that's what Martha does.

And, and that's fine.

Nowhere in the interaction does Jesus tell Martha, "Hey, what you're doing is wrong."

But while Martha is busy doing all of these things, her

sister Mary has welcomed Jesus.

Jesus sits down, and Mary sits at Jesus' feet and listens

to Him and says, "Teach me."

A- and Martha, as she's doing everything, she's looking over her shoulder probably

thinking to herself, "Well, I'd love to do that too, but we've got all

this stuff that we need to get done.

I'm too busy to sit at Jesus' feet."

And so Martha says, "Teacher, can you send my sister over here, please?

I could use some extra hands."

And Jesus looks at Martha, and He doesn't say, "Hey, Martha,

what you're doing is wrong.

Hey, Martha, what you're doing is not worth it."

Rather, He says, "Martha, Mary has chosen the better portion."

She's chosen the better portion, to sit at the feet of Jesus and say, "Teach me."

I don't know what your life looks like, except I guarantee you it's

busy because that, aside from good, i- if, if we were to take a poll,

when somebody says, "How are you?"

my guess is number one answer would be good, number two answer would be busy.

And there's probably both of those things in your life right now.

And now you've got a pastor that's up here telling you that, man, it,

God doesn't just want you to be in the Word daily, He wants you

to be in the Word more than that.

He wants you saturated with the Word.

And, and you already told me, "I only have 24 hours, and I only

have 1,440 minutes, and I, I'm spending a lot of that time asleep.

And then I've gotta get up, and I've gotta go to work because I've gotta

support my family, and I've got meetings that I can't move on my calendar."

And m- maybe you're, you're a stay-at-home mom.

You're thinking, "Uh, okay, but I've got my kids, and I gotta make sure that

they get up, and, and I've gotta feed them, and I've gotta get them breakfast.

And I've gotta plan their day because I don't wanna just sit them

in front of the TV all day long.

And we've got a playdate over here, and I've got doctor appointments over

here, and I have to get to the dentist appointment that I made for myself.

And then tonight we're having this family over, and the house has to get ready,

and the house is not ready because I have children that mess it up for a

living, and so I have to clean it up.

And so I've got all of these things going on, and now, Pastor, you're telling me

that I need to come and, and I need to be hungry and teachable before the Lord."

And I'm just saying, y'all, none of those things are wrong

But Mary has chosen the better part

And so whatever that looks like for you, to find the time to sit with Jesus

and to say, "Teach me your statutes."

To give yourself to the study of the Word of God, to open your heart up

to, to what he has to tell you through the Word, it's gonna be worth it

whatever needs to be changed.

Find time to be Mary in the midst of all of the stuff that you're being Martha with

Teach me your statutes.

A-a-and it doesn't just stay with the receiving, it's also

then what the declaring is.

'Cause look, he says, "With my mouth I declare your, your rules.

With my lips I declare the rules of your mouth."

To declare is, is to recite or to recount.

A-and so one of the signs that we know something is that then

we can teach it to someone else.

So when we have Adventure Club up here, that we had this, this last

Wednesday and we did the closing ceremonies, it was, it was awesome.

It was cool to see all these kids up there.

And they're memorizing all of these verses, and one of the things that we

do is we have them memorize the verse and not just show up and say, "I did

it," but we have them memorize the verse and show up and then recite it.

Because that shows us that it's, it's something that they've stored

up, that it's there, they know it.

And so it's inevitable that when we come before the Lord and we say, "Teach

me your statutes," that if, if we're doing that faithfully, that it's gonna

fill us up and then we are gonna start talking to other people about it.

Charles Spurgeon had a, a great admiration for John Bunyan, and

he said this of John Bunyan.

He said, "Prick him anywhere and his blood is bibline."

In other words, he bleeds the Bible

The very essence of the Bible flows from him.

He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul

is full of the Word of God.

Again, does the Bible say, "Read me every day"?

No, I think it's more than that.

Be saturated.

Be like this

One more thing on, on Hutchins really quick, and I, I know it's the 11 o'clock

service, and this is cruel 'cause lunch is right around the corner.

You're going, "Okay, Pastor, you're talking about barbecue.

Come on now."

You don't have to tell anybody that you've been to Hutchins.

You know why?

You're gonna smell like you've been to Hutchins.

It's the worst part about it 'cause three or four hours later, when you're

stuffed full of Hutchins, the last thing that you want is to smell meat and

smoke, and it just seeps into your body.

And until you take a shower and burn the clothes, you're not

gonna not smell like Hutchins.

I used to love it in California.

I'd come visit out here, and I was homesick 'cause this is home for me.

And I even went to Hutchins once.

I, I bought a T-shirt from Hutchins, and I took it home with me, and it

smelled like the Hutchins smoke, and I just left it in my drawer, and I

didn't wash it 'cause before I was satisfied with Hutchins, I-- the smoke

was like, "Oh, I want more of this."

Once you've been to Hutchins, people know you've been to Hutchins.

Do people know that you've been sitting with Jesus?

Can people smell, hear, see the impacts of your time in the Word in your life?

Are you so hungry?

Are you so satisfied in your pursuit of Jesus that it is

flowing from you such that people would say, "He's been with Jesus.

She's been with Jesus"?

That's our, our aim.

Come hungry, come teachable.

And, and here's the glorious reality of all of this in the end, is none of

this is meant to be a burden to you.

None of this is meant to be drudgery to you.

Maybe that's where you're at at this point, but the good news, the promise of

the Bible is that it won't stay there.

Keep going.

In, in verses 14 through 16, he says this: "In the way of

your testimonies, I delight.

In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches.

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

I will delight in your statutes.

I will not forget your word."

In the way of your testimonies, I delight.

Uh, do you remember the first time that you ever tried coffee?

Anybody?

Yeah?

Okay.

Uh, for me it was a, a tiny little thimble, and the first time I tried

it, it was the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted in my entire life.

I was like five or six years old at the time, and I just remember thinking to

my parents, "You're trying to poison me.

Why?"

And then I rem- remember asking myself the question, "Why do you guys drink this?

This does not taste good."

Now, I drink a cup of coffee every single morning.

Why?

Because I've, over the course of my life, acquired a taste for it.

If we give ourselves to the study of the Word of God, we will, the

promise is, acquire a taste of the Word of God so that it becomes

our delight more than all riches.

So our final point this morning along those lines is that acquire a

taste for the riches of God's Word.

Acquire a taste for it.

Cultivate the flavors, the, the, the taste.

And, and here's the thing, y'all.

When, when I first started drinking coffee, it wasn't the

just straight black coffee.

I was starting out with the, the, you know, the, the entry level drug that

Starbucks pedals, the Frappuccinos.

So I was getting the Frappuccino, which had the espresso in it, but it

was way outweighed by all the rest of the sugar and stuff in there.

And so I would, I would drink that, and I'd be like, "Well, I'm drinking coffee."

And I was.

I was drinking a little bit of coffee.

And then I had a lot of help with that too, right?

And, and then I got into college, and I tried to start the, the latte

thing, and I was like, "Okay, I'm, I'm venturing out a little bit more.

I taste more of the coffee in here, but this is still tolerable."

And then I got to seminary, and out of absolute necessity, I had

an IV just hooked up to my li- veins, which is black coffee just

pouring through me the whole time.

This morning, like any morning…

In fact, I got in a fight with my coffee pot this morning, so that's

another story for another time.

But, um, spiritual warfare.

Uh, but this morning I sat down, and I had a, just a cup of straight

black coffee, and I love it.

And the thing is, it's, it's not just that I love the effects.

I don't just love that it helps me wake up.

I love the taste.

I crave it.

I desire it.

So I went from five and six years old trying that thimble of coffee going,

"This is the worst thing I've ever had," to now I'm like, "How do I get more?"

I'll drink decaf at night just 'cause I, I like the flavor

God's Word, right?

Maybe you're, you're with the thimble right now of God's Word, and you're,

you're just saying, "I, I, I'm struggling right now to, to want it."

And, and maybe you're looking at, at us saying, "Hey, the daily Bible reading.

Be in the daily Bible reading plan.

Read the Old Testament, read the New Testament.

Do it every day."

And, and you're going, "Whoa, that sounds like you're just asking me to,

to take a giant mug of black coffee and just down it, and, and that's not very

palatable for where I'm at right now."

Listen, u- unabashedly, we, we want you to get there.

And, and so here's what I'm gonna say.

If that looks like the Frappuccino start of saying, "You know what?

I'm just gonna jump into the New Testament right now.

I'm gonna read a chapter in the New Testament.

I'm gonna read some of God's Word right now.

I'm gonna get into the, the, the, the area that's a little

bit more palatable right now."

And, and here's why I'm okay with that.

Here's why, y'all.

Because I trust what God's Word says about itself.

And so if you have the Spirit of God dwelling within you, I trust that if

you will begin to do that, to say, "I'm gonna start by just reading

the New Testament," you will want more and more and more and more.

The Spirit of God will cultivate a taste for His Word in your life.

And before you know it, you'll be reading the Old Testament, you'll

be reading the New Testament.

You'll be with us.

You'll be asking questions.

You'll be writing in questions to the podcast going, "Hey, what about this?"

But here's the deal.

As your pastor, I'd rather you, you be in a little bit of the

Word than none of the Word at all.

And so whatever that looks like for you to, to, to wade into it, do that

A- and again, you might be out there going, "Yeah, but the Bible doesn't say

I have to be in the Word every day."

No, it says more than that.

And if you're a Christian, and the Spirit of God dwells within you,

you should have an, an inert, uh, in- an inherent desire within you

to say, "I want more of the Word."

And so if you're not there right now, let's work to get there, 'cause He

says, "In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in riches."

I don't want you leaving the riches of God on the shelf.

I don't want you forfeiting the blessings of God by not being in the Word of God.

And when we get there, we begin to do what He says in verse 15,

to, to meditate on His precepts and to fix our eyes on His ways.

Uh, to meditate in, in, in our culture means to empty your mind.

To meditate in the Bible means to fill your mind, to fill your

mind with the Word of God, to keep it mulling over in your mind.

All right, I, I've set your appetite up, now I'm about to kill your appetite.

So just, um, warn you.

Um, have you ever seen a cow eat?

This is in keeping with Hutchin's, right?

Cows, Hutchin's, barbecue.

The, the cow that you enjoy as brisket, it used to eat grass, and what it

would do is it would eat the grass, and then it has multiple stomachs.

And that's as far as I'm gonna go on that 'cause I don't even remember how st- how

many stomachs it has, but it has many.

Um, and it eats the, the grass, and it swallows it, but then that meal's

not over, and this is where it gets a little unappeti- uh, appetizing for us.

What it's gonna do is it's gonna take that grass that it was eating, and it's

gonna regurgitate it back into its mouth, and that's what we call the cud, C-U-D.

I say we as though I'm a farmer.

That's what, that's what is, we call the cud.

Um, and it's gonna take that cud, and what's it gonna do?

It's gonna keep chewing on it.

Why?

Because it's got more that it can get out of it, and it's gonna do that multiple

times before it fully digests the cud.

That's biblical meditation.

You begin to delight in the Word of God so much.

And maybe at the Frappuccino level, you're like, "Hey, I read a gospel, uh, part of

the Gospel of John today for the daily Bible reading, and I took away something.

Here's, here's the thing that I took away."

Again, it may not be four or five seminary level insights, but it may be

one insight that God is teaching you right now, and praise God for that.

And so guess what?

Meditate on that all day long.

Chew the cud on that thing all day long.

Get as much out of that as you can all day long.

Learn to delight in the Word of God that way

He says, "I will delight in your statutes.

I will not forget my word."

Acquire a taste for the riches of the Word of God.

Find delight in it.

Y'all, here's the thing.

I, I delight in my relationship with my wife, but if I treated my wife

the way that a lot of Christians treat our Bible My relationship

with my wife would be in shambles

I- if I pursued my wife like a lot of us pursue God, my relationship with

my wife would be on a life support

I could maybe come home from work and my wife wants to tell me something,

and if I treated her the way that a lot of us treat the Bible, I would look

at her and be like, "Uh, what you're saying right now, it, it bores me.

I'm not interested in this.

I'm gonna skip ahead to sections that interest me."

Or if she came to me and she was sharing her heart with me and, and

I, I looked at her and I was like

Um, yeah, I, I, I don't really have time for this conversation right now.

Can we, can we find another time to meet?

I've got a couple minutes on the way to work.

Do you wanna call me while I'm in the car?

Or if my wife came to talk to me and I said, "No, no, no, it's okay.

I'm, I'm good.

I talked to other people who know you about you today.

And, and I heard from them how much, how awesome you are, and they told me

how much they love you and how much I should love you, and they gave me

reasons why I should love you, too.

A- and so I, I'm good.

I'm, I'm filled up.

We're good."

Can you imagine the state my marriage would be in?

And, and we wonder why we feel distant from God?

We wonder why God's not doing more in our church than he is?

We wonder why

You know, I think, I don't think, I know if we set ourselves to truly

become the biblically saturated church that I think God wants us

to be, that He would do far more in our midst than He's doing right now.

We wouldn't be taking away chairs in the back of the room

for the 11 o'clock service.

We'd be adding a service.

We'd be saying, "Hey, we gotta have more baptisms."

We'd be saying, "Oh man, look at what God's doing in this marriage in

redeeming this and redeeming that, and fixing this and doing this," and,

and, and, and it would be everywhere.

And, and, and yet it comes down to not a deficiency.

We're, we're not lacking anything.

It comes down to whether or not we wanna do anything with what we have

He's given it to us.

He's spoken in our language.

The God of the universe has condescended to us to be able to

speak in our language such that we would be able to understand Him

And so here it is at the end of the day, y'all.

I can't do anything to change what you're gonna do tomorrow morning with

the Bible or the next six days between now and the next time we meet together.

I can't, I can't do anything on that.

Just like when somebody preaches to me, they can't do anything

in my heart about that either

And, and, and maybe, you know, you're frustrated with this pastor that's

up, up here telling you all of these things, and you're going, "Okay, this

is just a read my Bible more sermon."

It, it is, unapologetically.

Unapologetically it is

The only difference I'm asking for you is to read what we're studying right now,

read what it's saying, and to ask yourself the question, do you believe this?

Forget me.

Forget me.

Some of you are like, "Yeah, forget you."

Forget me

Just read, read His Word and ask yourself, "Do I believe the

promises that are here in His Word?

Do I want what He's holding out to me?

And am I willing to do what it takes to access it?

Do I want a difference in my relationship with God?

Do I wanna know more because I want Him to teach me more?

Do I wanna find delight in the Word of God?

Do I want those things?"

If you do, the roadmap is clear.

The goals are out there

But you have to want it.

And that want, I think, is gonna come back to the question of

do you actually believe this?

It's one thing, as Pastor Rod was saying about the song that we sang, it's sh-

same thing when it comes to the Bible

We can agree on the surface, but do we believe it?

If we believe it, I think it has to make a difference in our lives.

I think it has to transform us.

I think it has to, to say, "Let's go.

God's word is here.

He's written to us in our own language, in a way that we can understand it.

He's given it to us.

It's right here.

Let's get after it."

Again, with the right motives, with the right goals.

I think it will transform our church, it will transform your lives, it

will transform marriages, it will transform individuals, it will

transform our culture, our community, if we can get serious about it.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word, that you have spoken to us

in a way that we can understand.

You've spoken to us in our language.

You've spoken to us in a way that, that makes sense, that we can read it and see.

And, and while there are some parts that, yes, are confusing,

Lord, there are so many parts of it that, that are abundantly clear.

And even the parts that are confusing aren't reason for us to just throw in

the towel and say, "Well, I give up.

I'm not gonna do this anymore."

And so, God, I pray that you would help us to have a great hunger for your word.

I pray that you would keep us teachable, sitting at the feet of your word.

I pray that you would keep us like Mary, that we would carve out time to just

sit and be in your presence and get to know you, pursuing you relationally.

That we would sit in your presence to say, "Lord, teach me

that I might know more of you."

And that we would find over time that we grow in our appreciation for our time

in the word, that we begin to delight more and more as we see the benefits of

it, as we live a life of faithfulness to you and draw nearer to you every day.

Lord, your word is such a valuable, precious resource

that we hold in our hands.

I pray that we would use it the way that you've intended us to use it,

that we wouldn't waste what we have.

We've been given access to it like no generation in human

history has ever had access to it.

And so, Lord, help us not to squander that, I pray.

I pray that we would be a biblically saturated church, that people would know

anywhere we go that we've been with Jesus.

We pray this in his name,

amen.