Psalm 119 "Know the Lord Through His Word Written"

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah.

! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah,

either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us

that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian,

we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the

Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do

what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian,

checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us

questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things

that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, we give you thanks and praise that you have created us. We

give you thanks and praise that you are a God who speaks. We thank and praise you that you have made

us as human beings to speak, to listen, to use language, not only to each other, but also to you.

And we give you thanks and praise that in your word written, you have spoken to us.

We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would move with gentle power in each one of us today,

that we might treasure more and more your word, read your word more and more, ponder your word more

and more, and do what you tell us to do in your word. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus,

your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.

So this isn't a therapy session. It's a sermon. But people who know me know that one of my weaknesses

is that I'm not very good at having difficult conversations. I'm a bit of a difficult conversation

avoider. And in particular, I'm, I mean, I guess there's some conversations that I'd be fine with,

for instance, like asking for money. That's not something which is necessarily difficult

for me, for the church, or for some other worthy, you know, project. But I'm not very good at having a

conversation where I have to issue a godly rebuke, to tell somebody that what they're doing is quite

wrong. And because I love and care for them, and I want to see them flourish, they need to really take

it into, take it on. I'm not very good at that. And as some of you know, that over the last couple of

weeks, I have had to have a conversation like that. I'm not with somebody in the church. I'm connected to

other churches and other organizations, and I'm canon of church planning and all that. So it's,

but a couple of people, I didn't want to go into the details, because it should be private,

but they knew that I was going to have this conversation, got cancelled, rescheduled.

And I asked people to pray for me, because it's not something which I'm naturally very good at.

And one of the things, about an hour, maybe an hour and a half before I had that conversation,

I got a text from one of the people praying for me. And it was a text, which just was a quote of a

Bible text. And it was such a spectacular word for me. It was such a help to get that Bible text.

It just, it really encouraged me. It made me realize I was doing the right thing, and I had

the right heart. And I read it several times between getting that text and having that conversation.

And just thank God for the text and prayed into it. And it just really spoke to me. It was very,

very helpful. One of the things you could pray for me is that on Sunday mornings, as I'm working on the

sermon throughout the week, I start always on a Monday, usually I start on the Monday, reading the

text. And one of the things I pray is that as I'm preparing, as I'm studying the Bible, preparing to

speak, I ask that the Lord would speak to my heart through the text. And by heart, I'm not meaning my

emotions only, I mean the biblical sense of heart, which is the very center of who I am, which is out

where my mind emerges, my will, my emotions, my affections, my desires, all of that flows out of

my center, my heart. And I ask that the Lord would speak to me in his word, to my heart.

And I think every week he does. And sometimes it shows up in the sermon. But once again, because

this isn't a therapy session, but a sermon, sometimes it never shows up in the sermon, because it's

just addressing something very personal in my life. Maybe making some sin I need to repent of,

a blind spot that I've become aware of, maybe sometimes an infusion of joy or hope. But I ask

every week that the Lord would speak to my heart through his word, and that when I preach, I would

be able to have the word speak to your heart. And if you would pray into that, that would be very,

very good, if you're trying to think of how to pray for me week in and week out. Now, I mention that

because all of us have that type of experience where the word speaks to us very, very deeply and

powerfully. But we also have other different types of experiences with the Bible. At times, the Bible can

seem spectacularly boring. I mean, it can't be spectacularly boring. It would be drearily boring.

And sometimes for us, if we're honest about the Bible, we find it incomprehensible. And sometimes we

find the Bible offensive and don't quite know what to do with it, or extremely puzzling.

I mention all of that because today we're going to look at Psalm 119. Not all of it. It's 176 verses.

Um, Morris asked me the other day, should he print all 176 verses in the announcement that goes out?

And should he warn everybody to bring a packed lunch? Because the sermon was going to be exceptionally

long as I went verse by verse through all 176 verses. And I said, no, we're just going to look at the

first 16 verses. But the Psalm 119 is a love poem, a love prayer, a meditation upon the beauty of God and

the beauty of his word, and its wonderful power and the spectacular place it can have in our lives.

That's what the Psalm is all about. It's a 176 verse meditation and exaltation in God, the God who is

there, who speaks, speaks by his word, and that we as his people get to hear his word and have that

word have a role in our lives. And that means it's not just the parts that speak directly to our heart

in a way that we can think of a time, like I could tell you that time just a couple of weeks ago,

but that I'm telling you all this because the Psalmist wants us to persevere in reading the word

because of this wonderful power. So let's have a look. If you open your Bibles, it's Psalm 119.

If you don't have a Bible with you, there are some here that you can use or keep as a gift from us.

And if you don't have a Bible, it's going to be up on the screen, but there's something about having

your own Bible. And I want the congregation to be able to look and see if I'm playing fast and loose

with things and have the Bible come into your hearts for yourself. And actually, here's the,

if I was to give you my own summary and my own words of the message of this Psalm, it would be this.

I'm sorry it's not written up there. It's just, just listen. The triune God truly speaks,

and he speaks so you will truly know him. And the more you know him, and the more you seek to know him,

that the more you seek to know him, the more you will want to hear him speak. So read the Bible

regularly, ponder it deeply, and do as it says. That's the big message of the, of the Psalm. That

the God is, Francis Schaeffer back in the 70s wrote a famous book at the time called He is There and He is

not silent. And so the triune God is there. He speaks, he speaks the truth. He speaks so you will

know him, and you want to know him more. And the more you know him, the more you'll want to hear him

speak to you. So read the Bible regularly, ponder it deeply, and do as he says in his word. That's

sort of a big summary of it. But you can have this other summary of it, which is the very first word of

the Psalm, which says the same thing. And I would, one of the reasons I actually didn't put the,

my summary up there is I'd rather have you memorize the first verse, because that's God's word.

I gave you a summary. It's better if you heard God's word than my word. But one of the, one of

the things I tried to pray into this week about my sermon is I could spend all this time explaining

different problems and very little time actually just having the word proclaimed. And that sort of,

I, in attempting to, to help the text, I'd undermine it. I want you to know God's word. I want you to

all hear it yourself. So look at this first verse, which is in many ways is a, is another, is, is the

summary of the whole Psalm. It goes like this. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk

in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

So the word blessed, for some of you who don't know what it means, we get confused by it. Blessed means

that God moves and does something with power in the life of a person. And the way he works in power

in the life of a person can be either something to do with preparing you for eternity and making

you right with God, or it can be something that has to do with your, just the, the current world

that we live in, or it can be a bit of both. So a bit of a surprising thing. One of the ways to be

blessed, I was thinking about that this week because I had a couple of things that came up this week that

humbled me. And I'm, I'm, I'm a normal fallen, sinful human being, and I don't find being humbled

a pleasurable experience, but I realized that's one of the ways that God blessed me.

Pride isn't a blessing, being humbled is a blessing. Because humility is, is, is, is, we're made to be

humble, right? But so it, you know, it could be, you know, you could, the blessing, the ability to

thrive. So it's God does something that leads you to thrive. And it could be thriving in a sense of,

of, you know, of a deeper life of prayer, reading his word, of humility, of a better ability to use

your spiritual gifts. It could also be a blessing of the, the normal, just created order. He blesses

you with finances, with a promotion, with a house, with, with health, with strength. And it can be one

or the other, or a bit of both. And so that's what this is saying. Blessed, it's a, something that God is

doing are those whose way is blameless, who walk. And, and walk here just means how you do your day,

right? How you do your day, moment to moment throughout the day, who do your day in the law

of the Lord. And it uses the, the idea here that the, the Lord has spoken and created the law. And

we'll talk about that in a moment. But there's an important thing here that you need to understand

just off the beginning. And I know this could get people off on a tangent, but one of the common

problems that we human beings have is that we doubt that God's word is connected to our thriving.

So if you just went up the hill a little bit to the church, just up the hill, if you went into that

church on a Sunday morning, you would see for pride of place in the, in the front of the church,

a huge gay pride flag. And if you talk to the people in that church, they'd probably try to tell

you that the Bible doesn't say what the Bible really says, but that the Bible is just very clear

on this particular issue. But if, if you really pressed underneath all of that would be a sense

that you have thriving and you have God's word. And sometimes God's word works against thriving.

And as good Canadians, if you have to choose between thriving and God's word, choose thriving.

But this text, it's very, look at it again, blessed are those whose way is blameless,

who walk in the law of the Lord. It shows here that that's never a choice that we have to make.

That God's, God works with his word. It's the power of, that his power to come into our lives,

to help us to thrive, works with his word speaking. And as his word speaks, it works with this power

that comes from God for our thriving. It's never a choice that we have to make. I mean, we can look

at it and puzzle over it and ponder over it and come and ask others in your small group or your,

you know, your spiritual mentors or your pastor about how to, you know, how to, how, how to,

you know, how do these things work together? How does generosity work with me thriving financially?

You know, how to, I mean, being financially generous. How does, how does the Bible's word on,

on sexuality help me to thrive sexually? Like we can be puzzled about it, but, but God's word is

saying right off the beginning, we never have to make that choice. God has this power to make us thrive.

And he has, he speaks his word and the two of them work completely and utterly together in harmony.

They help each other. And that's this fundamental idea of the scriptures.

Now, before we go any further, there's a couple of problems that some people have with all of this.

Like if you look at it again, blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

And the first one is just this whole idea of, of law. Like, I mean, you know, if, if we were honest,

I mean, I know there's some lawyers in the room and they might actually really like the word law,

but for most Canadians, they'd probably say, I wish I could have gone back in time and just had a bit of a conversation with the psalmist.

But forget about that for a moment, because it's not just the psalmist, it's ultimately God.

But we wish that we could say to God, you know, God, pick a better word than law.

Like, it's not very attractive.

Seems a bit, I don't know, like legalistic, a bit judgmental.

It's not something that Canadians are going to, going to, going to resonate with.

And that's the, that's the first thing.

And, and, and we'll, we'll, we'll deal with that, you know, a little bit in a moment.

But the, the other idea that we have problems with is, okay, George, the Bible just says that,

but you don't have to, you shouldn't believe it just because the Bible says it, should you?

And, you know, if you're a Christian, you, you should believe it because the Bible says it.

But if you're outside of the Christian faith trying to understand it,

or even if you're within the Christian faith and you'd never thought about it,

I don't have the time to sort of, I mean, it would be a whole other talk just to do this.

But here's how I would argue that this is a, in fact, true.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord,

that God does actually speak, and his speech is found in the Bible,

and his speech is something that we should be walking in, we should be keeping in, and living by.

And, and we don't have to just take it initially just purely by, by blind faith.

And here's how I would argue for it.

I would say, first of all, let's just take this as a, as what it originally was,

a series of ancient texts and documents.

And if we take it in particular, just the New Testament for us right now,

and I take you through and try to show to you how the, the, the New Testament documents,

each of the individual ancient biographies of Jesus and the letters and some of the other things,

that these were written by eyewitnesses of Jesus or by people who talked to eyewitnesses.

It was written when eyewitnesses were alive, that we can trust that the documents that we have in our hands

are fundamentally the documents that were written back then.

And that would be the first thing.

And the second thing I'd say is, and if you read these documents,

you get a very particular picture of Jesus.

You get to see his, his great wisdom.

You get to see his great insight.

You get to see his humility.

You get to see his love.

You get to see his compassion.

And even many people who aren't Christians, like Mahatma Ghani,

have been often very touched with just the wisdom and the charity and the compassion of Jesus.

And I said, that's going to bring you into a little bit of a conflict,

which is talked about by C.S. Lewis of Lord Lunatic and Liar,

because Jesus says that he is God, the Son of God, that he comes to die for his sins,

that he's going to die and rise from the dead.

And that would be the third thing, that all of these ancient documents

and the record of other people afterwards is that Jesus did die on the cross,

that he was buried, and that on the third day the tomb was empty

and Jesus had risen from the dead.

And because of the ancient documents and because of those other things about Jesus,

it's a completely reasonable thing.

I'm not saying it can be proved like mathematical certainty,

but it's a very reasonable thing.

In fact, it is, I would say, the most reasonable way to understand the ancient evidence

and the start of the Christian faith to accept that Jesus really did die on the cross,

he really was buried, and then the third day he really did rise from the dead

and the tomb was empty and he appeared to people.

And if that is true, then obviously that is who he is has been vindicated,

and then we'd want to know what Jesus had to say about the Bible.

And once again, it's beyond the time that I have right now,

but at the end of the day, Jesus was a Psalm 119 person.

Jesus said that the Bible was written by God for us.

He believed that.

He quoted it in that type of way, and that's why we trust it.

Because Jesus is a Psalm 119 person,

I am a Psalm 119 person.

He is well worth your trust.

He is well worth your obedience.

And so he has told us to trust God's word,

to ponder it deeply, and to do what it says.

So that's why it's valid to take this when it says,

blessed are those whose way is blameless,

who walk in the law of the Lord,

to take it that what we're hearing is an authoritative word from God

when we read the Bible.

And it's an authoritative word from God to us in our human situation

that we should remember,

that we should for our good ponder,

that we should for our good seek to do,

knowing that as we do this,

God's power for us to thrive is also at work within us.

Now, I'm only doing 16 verses,

and I want to do something that helps you to read later on yourself.

And what I want to let you know of is that Psalm 119

has what I call the Russian novel problem.

And by the Russian novel problem, I mean this.

The first time when I was in university, 100 million years ago,

I wasn't taking an English course or a Russian literature course,

but I wanted to become better educated,

so I thought I should read a book by Dostoevsky.

And most of Dostoevsky's books are like this,

I mean they're exaggerating a bit,

they're big, fat, honking books, right?

But he had one book called Crime and Punishment that's only this big,

so I thought I'd start with Crime and Punishment.

And so I started reading Crime and Punishment,

and I'm having a real hard go with it,

like really, really, really hard go with it.

But I'm persisting because I want to be better informed,

and it's supposed to be a brilliant book.

And finally, I don't know how it is,

maybe I was talking to somebody about it,

but about a third of the way or halfway through the book,

I realized that one of the reasons I was having a hard time reading it

is I actually thought there were way more characters in the book

than there actually were,

because I didn't understand how Russian names worked.

So I didn't realize that you could refer,

in Russian you could refer to a person by their entire name,

you could refer to a person as part of their name,

you could refer to a person as their first name,

and you could refer to a person as their nickname.

So I was wondering why there were 12 characters

at a certain part in time of the book

when there was actually only three characters at that part of the book.

And so I was always confused.

So finally I realized, okay, well that's dumb of me,

but how would I know that's how Russians do things?

So I went back to the beginning of the book,

I got out a pad of paper and a pen,

and every time I came across a Russian name I wrote it down.

And I started to figure out,

because I talked to somebody how it worked,

and so I'd write down all the names of person one,

all the names of person two,

and then I was able to read the book,

and it's a great book and you should read it,

by the way, knowing stuff like that.

So the same type of thing can happen when you read Psalm 119.

You can think that you're having to sort of take different things

and weigh them against each other,

or that there's different things going in different directions,

when part of the way that Psalm 119 is structured

is it's structured, I think,

every verse except like eight or something

are using one of eight words,

different ways to understand God's speech to us, the Bible.

And out of those other, I think, eight times,

I might be wrong on the number, I'd have to check my notes,

there's a couple of words that just show up a couple of times

that basically fit with those eight,

and I think there's three times

where it has no mention of word whatsoever.

So what we're going to do is we're going to sort of go through

a bit quicker the other verses,

and we're going to look at the eight different words

that Psalm 119 uses to help us understand God's speech to us.

So verse one,

blessed are those whose way is blameless,

who walk in the law of the Lord.

And the word law is the Hebrew word Torah,

or Torah, I can't remember how to,

I don't know how to pronounce it,

so don't take that I pronounced the Hebrew correctly on that.

And so it could either mean

the first five books of the Old Testament,

it can mean what we Christians call the Old Testament,

and our Jewish friends either call the Torah or the Tanakh,

the entire Old Testament.

And it also actually can just refer to,

it refers to instruction.

That's fundamentally what it means.

But it's not just any old instruction,

it's that God's word instructs us authoritatively,

just like law,

instructs us authoritatively about how we are to live.

And that's one of the first words.

The second word that comes up is in verse two.

Look at it.

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,

who seek him with their whole heart.

So you see, this is really important,

because it's not as if, you know,

you have the law bit,

and you have the testimonies bit,

and you have to figure out how they balance each other,

and they're not going in different directions.

These are just eight different word images or pictures,

all trying to help us to understand

this one thing that God does,

which is speak.

And he's spoken in a public way

through his word written, the Bible,

which is an open revelation,

a public revelation.

And it's just eight different ways

to understand the full aspect and range

of what God does when he speaks.

And so the word testimonies,

in the original language,

is God solemnly testifying

as to what his will is

and what is important and valuable.

That's what the word testimony is,

trying to communicate that when God speaks,

he's communicating to us.

It's a solemn thing,

and he's letting you know

this is really important.

This is really valuable.

This is really worth paying attention to.

And that's what the word testimonies means.

Blessed are those, verse two,

who keep his testimonies,

who seek him with their whole heart.

And this is another thing.

Just note that what the Bible keeps together,

we human beings want to keep separating.

It's not, I mean, there are some people,

you know, when we were starting Ryle Seminary,

and I talked to professors and students

about this sometime,

what we don't want to have

is like a completely online program

that you can just read text

and you can live in your basement

and never actually talk to people

and become, you know, keyboard jihadis

who fire off angry emails to people,

denouncing them for minute...

I just got a letter, an email the other day

for a blog that I wrote

for the Gospel Coalition

that was such a nitpicky, dumb thing to say

and making me claim

like I didn't believe the Bible

and was not being a faithful teacher.

And gosh, that person needed

to get out of their basement

and actually talk to people

and not be a keyboard jihadi.

Like, I don't know how I'm going to respond to her

because I feel like saying,

get a life is my response

and don't be such a, you know,

a dumb nitpicker, right?

Anyway, sorry, this is therapy.

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't have used the sermon

for part of that.

But the point is that you don't...

Listen to Psalm 119, verse 2.

Psalms 119:2

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,

who seek him with all their heart.

God's word and seeking him personally

and relationally, they fit together.

You know, it would be impossible for me

to say that I want to know my wife more,

but I never want her to speak to me.

If every time I came home, I said,

Louise, you're going to have a vow of silence

and you're going to, you know,

wear something that covers all of how you look

for the next little bit.

And yes, I really want to know.

No, that doesn't work for human beings, right?

So there's nothing at war with that.

It's a seeking of him.

The third word is really neat as well.

In verse...

Sorry, the third word comes up in a moment.

Verse 3,

Who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways.

And the word ways is,

I think it's either two or three times it shows up.

It's one of those, you know, non-eight big words,

but it's...

The ways here does, in the original language,

imply something written.

So to get a bit of a sense,

it's really like as if, in a sense,

you're seeing a verbal map of something.

That's behind the word ways.

So verse 3,

Who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways.

Verse 4,

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.

And the word precepts here is a neat word.

And so it's...

What it is, it's things which are very, very important,

but it's a detail word, okay?

So I know there's a...

You know, if you take a technical writing program,

you want to have somebody who's able to take instructions

and give all of the details

so that you can follow each step.

I hate it when I try to get instructions somewhere

and it's skipping five steps

or it's ambiguous.

Precepts is a detailed word.

And the details all being important.

And that's what precepts is.

So verse 4,

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.

Verse 5,

Oh, that my ways may be steadfast

in keeping your statutes.

And the word statutes there in the original language

has this idea that it really is...

Like, this is like a non-negotiable law, okay?

You shall...

You know, you don't kill people in Canada.

You're not allowed to kill people.

That's like a...

That's not a negotiable law in Canada

that's all right to kill people.

No, no, you don't kill innocent...

Yeah, I should qualify.

You can't kill innocent people just willy-nilly.

And so, but in the word statue,

it's something which is really deeply laid down.

It has binding force and permanence.

And then verse 6,

Then I shall not be put to shame

having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

And commandments is the word to help me to remember

that God is in fact God and I'm not.

It's the word of a superior

speaking to somebody who's subordinate to the superior.

So that when we're hearing God's word read to us,

I am to have the attitude, the heart posture,

that he is God and I'm not.

He's an authority.

He's the creator.

I'm not an authority.

I'm a creature.

And when he speaks, I should listen

because he's over me.

Properly over me.

And within it, it's...

The thing which is really important about this,

if you use a bit of a military analogy,

what you would never want in the military...

I know there's at least one person present

who used to be in the military.

What you would never want is 5,000 privates

let loose with weapons,

with no officers.

That would be a nightmare,

to have 5,000 privates running around with weapons.

You need authority over it.

You need to have officers.

You need to have a mission.

You need to have a chain of command.

And that's all implied in here,

that we should see ourselves not just as privates

doing whatever we want,

but that there's an authority over us.

And then the next thing is in verse 7,

I will praise you with an upright heart

when I learn your righteous rules.

And rules is a good word.

It also can sometimes be translated as decisions.

It means that God has in fact made certain decisions.

He's made certain judgments

about certain types of situations.

He's made decisions around the fact

that our thriving in a world with money

should open the door for us to be able to make money,

and that we should pray for systems

that allow people to make money.

But you can't thrive in terms of money

and making money if you're not also generous.

It's rules around sexuality.

It's decisions about how these different things go

if we want to thrive in the area of our sexuality.

And then verse 8, I will keep your statutes.

We talked about that earlier.

Do not utterly forsake me.

Verse 9, how can a young man or a young woman

keep his way or her way pure?

By guarding it according to your word.

And this is the most general word.

It's just emphasizing that the laws,

the precepts, the commandments,

they're actually words.

God himself actually speaks to us with words.

It's the most general of all of the words.

And then there's just one more.

Verse 10, with my whole heart I seek you.

Let me not wander from your commandments.

Verse 11, I have stored up your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

And there the word translated as word

is a different word in Hebrew.

And that word emphasizes,

sometimes in Psalm 119,

it will be translated as promise.

So it's a word that emphasizes

that it's not just that God is saying,

don't do these things,

but he's also making big promises

that there's something wonderful and beautiful

and anticipatory.

It would be in a little bit like

if you had kids or grandkids

and you say, let's get in the car,

we're going to go somewhere.

Come on, hurry up, we're going to go somewhere.

And the whole idea about the command

to come into the car and go somewhere

is the implication isn't going to be

that you're going to go pick some kale

and eat it, which would not excite most children.

But maybe that you're going to McDonald's

for ice cream cones.

There's something in there of promise

and delight in those words.

And so that gives you a basic sense.

In all of these cases,

it's God who speaks.

He speaks words to us in our human condition.

He speaks words to us in our human condition

so that we will desire to truly know him.

And the more we truly know him,

the more we will want to know him

and the more we will want to hear him speak.

And so because of that,

we should read the word regularly.

We should ponder it deeply

and we should do as he says.

But there's a bit of a problem for some of us.

And that is this.

George, could you just go back?

Like, look at that.

Remember you said, George,

that first verse of Psalm 119

is sort of a summary of the whole thing.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless,

who walk in the law of the Lord.

And even in like verse nine,

how can a young man keep his way pure

by guarding it according to your word?

George, so here's the problem, George,

with all of what you said.

You've made it sound very, very convincing.

You've made it sound very, very delightful.

And I should do that.

But George, like I'm thinking of people,

you know, sometimes people

who've left the Christian faith.

I think of sometimes people

who talk to me from outside of the Christian faith

and they just say,

George, there's no way in God's earth

I can ever be blameless.

Like I tried, I tried,

I went to church for a while

and I tried to live a really, really good life.

And I don't know, you know,

then I, you know, then I,

I just can't, you know,

and God's word,

you can say all of those things,

but it just crushes you sometimes.

And George, if you're honest,

like that word blameless there,

George, do you think you're blameless?

I remember one person said that,

George, do you think you're better than me?

You think that's why you're going to go to heaven,

you know?

And the implication was you're not,

like I know you, you're not.

Well, the, they,

those are really, really good concerns.

It's really interesting

that in the providence of God,

this, the gospel text that we just read

before I preached was that story,

the parable that Jesus gives

of the Pharisee standing off,

like at a place in the temple

and sort of, you know,

standing there with his chest puffed up

and looking really, really,

really self-satisfied

about how great a guy he was

and how much better he was

than other people

and looking down his nose at people.

And, and in many ways,

that, that whole parable

and then the tax collector,

the one who's not viewed very well

in society

and his beating his breast.

That, that word blameless and pure

in some way

in the original language,

it, it, it,

there's a great mystery

and a great promise in that word.

Because I, I guess I would say,

I am, I am blameless.

Now, don't roll your eyes.

The original word

is, is capturing something.

It's capturing not just,

it implies the need

for forgiveness

and being forgiven.

And so, you see,

in some ways,

that parable that Jesus talked,

gave,

is a, a, a window

into two different ways

of coming to the word.

It's on one level

because he hadn't died

on the cross yet.

It's a way to understand

two different ways

of reading the Old Testament.

But even after the death

and resurrection of Jesus,

it's two different ways

to be a Christian.

And one way

is that you read texts like this

and you, you think

you've got to be blameless.

And you, you try to pretend

that you're blameless.

And, and that only,

all it does is make you

into a phony.

All it does is make you

into somebody who

does things

and pushes people away

so they can't actually see

what's going on

beneath your facade.

And,

and, and many people

get into that

and see it

and they just get sickened

by it

because they,

they just,

they can't live

all those rules.

They can't,

they just can't.

But these original words

are opening the door

to this mystery.

mystery.

And the mystery is

that the only way

to be blameless

is to be forgiven.

And that human beings

desperately,

desperately,

desperately

need to be forgiven.

It's hard to go

a month

or two weeks

without hearing

somebody,

somewhere,

talk about

our need

to forgive ourselves.

Talked about it

other places,

not going to talk about it now,

but forgiving yourself

will absolutely,

absolutely,

absolutely,

absolutely,

absolutely,

absolutely never work.

What we are sensing

is our need

to be forgiven by God

and to be able

to accept it.

And so

that's the,

it's pointing

to this wonderful thing

and Jesus is helping us

to guard against

two wrong,

like the one wrong way

of reading the text

and the right way

of reading the text,

which is,

see,

when God,

one of the reasons

we don't like the Bible

is because it's an intervention

by God

into our lives

and most people,

when they have people

making an intervention,

like the other day

when I've had to speak

to somebody,

it was really,

what they needed

to understand

is that it was

an intervention

and we don't like

interventions

when they're happening

but afterwards,

we're glad

that somebody intervened

to deal with something

that was going on

in our lives

and that we could have

a blind spot dealt with

or that we can have

an evil in our lives

dealt with

or something like that

but God intervenes

with his word

and it challenges

our pride

and he intervenes

most spectacularly

and most deeply

by having his son come

and die on the cross

and he dies on the cross

in our place.

He is the Lamb of God

who takes away

the sin of the world.

He is the one who dies

so that we will be forgiven.

He is the one

who dies on the cross

and can speak

to the one guy

on the cross

who began the day

also being crucified

beside him

haranguing Jesus

but then comes

and turns

and realizes

something about

the divinity

and the beautiful

the beauty

and the grace

and the compassion

and God being at work

in that

many people

are just

they're just

castigating them

but he sees

something powerful

about the compassion

of God

and he asks

that when Jesus

will remember him

when he comes

into his kingdom

there he is

dying on the cross

and Jesus says

today you will be

with me in paradise

and that can only happen

if that man's sins

are forgiven

and so there's

this profound promise

in the scripture

yes if you come

to know Jesus

your sins are forgiven

they are forgiven

and it's because

they are forgiven

that's that's how

you're going to stand

before God

in all eternity

you still do wrong things

and those wrong things

that you've done

they're also forgiven

and so there's this

whole promise

and dynamic

that you hear

text like this

blessed are those

whose way is blameless

who walk in the law

of the Lord

that I want to hear

his word

and when I start

to realize

that there's things

in my life

I don't have the hope

I should

or I haven't been

thankful as I should

or I haven't been

as pure as I should

I haven't held

to the truth

as I should

I've listened to lies

and I shouldn't have

and I can ask

his forgiveness

for that

at the same time

in light of forgiveness

that I can press on

to try to make

my life a better life

knowing that as I read

his word

and hold fast

to the cross

that there's a power

from God

that comes into my life

for me to thrive

that's how this song

it begins by pointing us

to the point

to the cross

that we can't

read the scriptures

if we try to read it

without the cross

we're just going to become

terrible

legalistic

arrogant

stuck up

people who think

they're better

than everybody else

and everybody

will run from us

we need to be humbled

right off the

it humbles us

right off the bat

so brothers and sisters

blessed are those

whose way is blameless

who walk in the law

of the Lord

read his word regularly

if you have problems

reading

and not everybody's

a reader

get the YouVersion app

on your phone

and for all of the

major English translations

you can listen

to the Bible

if you have trouble

reading

listen

take in the bus

drive in the car

out for a walk

put on your

headphones

and listen to the word

don't have to read

you can listen

but get it into your life

and when there's things

that you don't understand

and things that confuse you

that's why there's the church

that's why there's Bible studies

that's why there's a woman's group

that's why there's a youth group

that's why there's a men's group

that's why there's Bible study groups

that's why there's sermons

for you to understand

understand and grow

and thrive

invite you to stand

let's bow our heads in prayer

Father

we give You thanks and praise

that You

we're not just talking

into the void

we're not just sort of

talking out loud

that You hear

You hear

and that Jesus is present

and the Holy Spirit

is at work

that You hear

and You want us

to speak to You

and we give You

thanks and praise

that You speak to us

in the Bible

Your Word written

and Lord

we ask that You

help us to be

Psalm 119 people

help us to trust

that You will

cause us to thrive

as we

hear Your Word

and take it

and take it as an authoritative

word in our lives

as we ponder it

and as we seek

to try to live it

we give You thanks and praise

that You know our weakness

and our frailty

and our need for a Savior

we give You thanks and praise

that You have intervened

by sending a Savior

the Savior that we need

and we give You thanks and praise

that every word of Yours

is an intervention

into our lives

that we might become

more like Jesus

that we might be fit

for the new heaven

and the new earth

that we might bring You glory

so Father make us

as individuals

Psalm 119 people

and make us as a church

a Psalm 119 church

all for Your glory

and we ask these things

in the name of Jesus

Your Son

and our Savior

and all God's people said

Amen