Highlights: Psalm 119 - Week 6

I'm continuing our series today in Psalm one nineteen. It's called Highlights, and

you see it's highlighted Ssalm one nineteen. I don't know if anybody in this

room still highlights your paper Bible, but I encourage you to do so.

And we're going to continue in our series today Psalm one nineteen. And I

know it's been long. We kind of covered the whole summer with Psalm one

nineteen, but that was intentional because if you recall, it's the longest chapter

in scripture. It's one hundred and seventy six verses. It's twenty two stanzas.

It's a poem, so it's divided into stanzas. There's just a few

facts that I just can't get over about this passage of scripture. It's just

so interesting to me. But there's a point to it. Twenty two stanzas.

Why twenty two because there are twenty two letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

Okay, So each stanza of the poem has eight lines, and each of

those eight lines starts with the corresponding letter. So the first stanzas starts with

the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Every line in the original language it

starts with that letter. And I don't want to beat a dead horse,

but I'm highlighting this for you because it's a system that it's set up in

a certain way. The Psalmist wrote this according to the most common and easy

to remember system of his time, his alphabet. I bring that up to

you. We talked about that all the time with our team captains, with

our teams, with our group leaders, about creating systems. We talk about

on our staff a lot. Create a system. Because life is hard enough,

things are confusing enough. You need to order your life in a way

that is a system that keeps you close to God. And make it simple.

The Psalmist made it simple. I'm gonna use the alphabet. He knew

it as well as you know ABCD, and he ordered this prayer this way.

Life is hard enough. Living out your faith is hard enough. Don't

overcomplicate the process by which you get close to Jesus. Make it easy.

But you do need the systems. If you notice, Chief has mentioned a

couple of times in the past few weeks that this psalm it's long, it's

so long, and it's it was written at different times of the psalmists life.

We can see that there's real life contexts around that that in each stands

that we see he might be going through something a little bit different, and

he uses a lot of the same phrases, a lot of the same words,

but we can tell he was living his life. And I point that

out to you because we're living our lives. Right. That's why we wanted

to dive into this psalm, is that we wanted to look at something that

was that was practical, that was would reflect the human condition as much as

it does reflecting the Almighty God. And it's actually one of three. The

Book of Psalms has divided up into several smaller books, and it's actually one

of There are a lot of categories of psalms. There are prayer psalms,

There are praise psalms. There are complaint psalms. Anybody complain, Well,

that's okay. If you do, you should shake your head. Yes,

don't lie to me. Y'all complain, I complain. We all do it.

The psalmist did it. It's in the Bible. It's okay to complain

in the proper context, proper perspective, right, It's all right. There

are a lot of different types of psalms. This one could be categorized as

a prayer psalm because it is a prayer, but it's also a Torah psalm

is one of three Taura psalms. Psalm one, Psalm nineteen, and Psalm

one nineteen are Turrah psalms. And this is important because we're gonna get to

it in just a minute. It's important because it's so tied back to the

first five books of your Bible, God's Law, God's original plan for living

the way you were supposed to order your life. It's so tied to that.

And as I was reading this, and you know, Chief gave us

homeworkers supposed to be reading this every every week. Right, if anybody'd been

reading it every week, don't raise your hand. I don't want to know.

Don't expose yourself. I'll be honest with you. I read it most

of the weeks, but not every week. But if you've been reading through

it, you'll notice that it almost seems like he's repeating himself. The psalmist

continues to say, God, I love you, and I love your law.

I love you, and I love your law. I love you,

and I love your law. He seems to kind of repeat that over and

over and over, and as I was reading it preparing for the sermon,

it almost seems like the Psalmist is trying to convince himself. You know,

sometimes you have to convince yourself a little bit. That's okay, that's human

that sometimes you just need to. You need to. I say it a

lot when leading worship. Hey, you got to sing yourself into this.

You may start that song and and not really believe what's coming out of your

mouth. Yet keep singing it. Let the Holy Spirit do some work.

Let it become real to you and to me. As I was reading Someone

one nineteen, it's almost like the Psalmist is like, I do love God.

I do love his word. It's almost like he's telling his flesh,

the part of him that's not right I do. This is who I am.

I'm not who I was before God. This is who I am now.

Sometimes we just need to get ourselves into gear and we realize that everything

around us is pulling us in the opposite direction of God. If you don't

believe me, log into Twitter one time. A lot of us from Facebook.

Just go the scroll Facebook for about two and a half minutes, and

you tell me if everything's not trying to pull you away from Jesus. It

is. So I don't see this as a weakness of this Psalmist. I

don't think that he was a weak believer that he had to convince himself.

I think that he realized everything around, everything else is trying to pull me

away from God. But being close to God is the only thing that really

matters. So I have to put this in place. I have to pray

these things in such a way so that my flesh was spawns to the true

spirit part of me. I don't think it's a weakness. I think it's

I think it's actually because we can't even trust our own flesh. If we

don't order our lives so that we get close to God, we will fall

away from him. I mentioned all this to encourage you that praying and seeking

God. Listen to me. Praying and seeking God with repetition, that's not

bad, that's actually good. Do you know how think about how kids learn

in school. You do the same stuff over and over and over until you

can prove that you know it right. Seeking God with repetition, with remembrance

is vital. It's vital to a vibrant faith. Journey. You want to

live the faith filled, abundant life that Jesus promised us, You're gonna have

to put some things in place to repeat so that you remember, so that

your heart actually changes. And I stand here is guilt as they come.

I don't like to I don't like to stand up here and act like I

have this handled and figured out, because I don't. I don't think that

does you a service by saying I've got this learned from me. I'm not

the paragon of this, Okay, I just spend time in the world.

I'm just I'm just telling you that we have to do this because the times

ahead of us Church are going to require more dedication. Hear me. I

love you, hear me. The times ahead of us are going to be

tough. It's just the way the world is going. It's going to require

more dedication and devotion to God than we've ever had before. And if you

don't build these systems now while things are relatively calm, when things are more

chaotic, when things are more difficult, the things that aren't set up on

a system that's easy for you to follow are going to fall away. Right.

So I want to encourage you today that's what we're really getting at all

that said, turn with me to Psalm chat Psalm one nineteen. We're gonna

start in the ninth stanza, which is labeled by the Hebrew letter tet,

starting in verse sixty five, and we're gonna go to seventy two. We're

gonna do all eight verses. I'm doing something a little different with you.

We're gonna go We're gonna read a verse. We're gonna talk about it,

and go read aiverse. We wena talk about it. Are you ready?

We're gonna take a journey through this, through this ninth sends it together Psalm

nineteen, one nineteen, starting in verse sixty five, You have dealt well

with your servant, Oh Lord, according to your word, here's what I

get. Everybody, look up, you've read it. You got it according

to your word. The Psalmist opens with gratitude, the declaration of praise,

and what I want, what I want us to really capture this morning,

church, is that there's so much even in just one verse, that if

we really take the time to look at it. He opens with this declaration

of praise, and we can tell the Psalmist has a close relationship with Yahweh

with God, with Jovah. We should know that already where sixty five verses

in, so we should have already understood that. But if we were just

starting right here in sixty five, we can tell these guys are close.

The Psalmist and God, they got a thing going on. And there's this

clear connection already according to your word. Back to God's word being the foundation

of that relationship. That God's God's word was so important to the Psalmist.

It's the main way that he heard from God. And here's the cool part,

it's the main way you hear from God too. You don't need a

booming voice, right, you don't need a thunderclap. You have the Bible.

He's already written it down for us. So if you're if you're wondering,

where is God, Where's why is God not speaking to me? He

is. It's written down. So God's words the foundation of this relationship.

And God conducts himself a certain way according to his word. When God says

that it becomes truth. So he says these things, He said these things,

So he operates according to what he has said, because that's his character,

that he's true, that he's real, that he's He can't operate outside

of his character because that's who he is. So God conducts himself according to

his word. Therefore, the Psalmist wants to conduct himself according to God's word

because they're so close. He wants to be like God. It's a call

back to Psalm one nineteen, verse forty one, if you just go a

little bit previous in the In the same chapter he talks about you always love

and salvation. They came to the Psalmist why because God promised that it would.

And when God promises something, it will come to pass. So God's

love his this relationship started salvation. God saved him because he said he would.

And we often, I don't know, if you're like me, we

often feel like God's not dealing very well with us. Anybody feel that way?

Sometimes, any real Christians in the room that we're willing to say,

Hey, Sometimes I wake up and what I'm going through, I don't really

feel like God's dealing well with me. I wake up like that sometimes.

In fact, just this week, I woken up a few days and some

things have happened, and I thought, what are we doing? What is

this? What is happening? Why are you not dealing well with me?

Why I want to encourage you that God has already dealt well with you.

It's important to remember that in the midst of our turmoil, in the midst

of our chaos, in the midst of our situation, that just seems like

God, you have left me here in this anybody feel that way sometimes,

So there's the psalmist that's okay, God, you left me here in this.

Well, I want to encourage you that God has already done enough.

He has already given you everything that you need. It's important to remember that

God has dealt well with us, because He is already provided everything that we

need to be saved. It's that old adage. If you've been in church

any amount of time, you've probably heard, well, if the Good Lord

never did another thing for me, he's done enough. And we kind of

said that maybe too much. We don't really feel the gravity of that,

right, But it's true that if God never did another thing, he's already

worthy of the rest of our lives because he has given his son that we

may be saved. Let's go to verse sixty six. Are you ready?

Verse sixty six teach me, Salmas says teach me good judgment and knowledge,

for I believe in your commandments. Again, we see the relationship that Yahweh

is. Now he's not just the almighty right, he's not just almighty God,

but he's also a teacher, a mentor salmast Hey, get close to

me God, God, teach me. I already know you, already believe

in you. But teach me God's power and his holiness. I think for

me sometimes I get caught up in that that. Oh, well, if

he's, if he's so powerful, so holy, he must be far away.

Because if he's, if he's that great, if he's that powerful,

if he gets close to me, I'm I'm gonna burn up. I'm not

I'm not holy, I'm not ready, I'm not clean. But here's man,

this is just the beautiful part of the gospel is that God, in

all of his power, in all of his holiness, he wants to be

close to you. He's beckoning, calling you to come close. Here's the

other encouragement we get out of verse sixty six that God does not call us

to something without equipping us to do it. Well, pastor how you get

that out of out of verse sixty six. Well, look, if he

commands it, he'll provide the means to do it. Why because we already

know that this almost understands God to some degree. We already know they have

this relationship. And then he's asking him to teach him good, good judgment

knowledge. Why because I believe in your commandments. And if he commanded it,

he will provide the means. If you go to James chapter one,

verse five, you got that one, Jeremy James chapter one, verse five.

We don't have to read though, we don't really read into it.

But just for example, James writes, if any of you lacks wisdom,

let him what ask who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will

be given to him. So, if God's calling you to be wise,

he will give you wisdom, but you have to ask. So the Psalmist

here is illustrating that that, hey, I've already got the faith, I've

already been saved, I've already got this, But hey, I now I

need something to accomplish your purpose God, And the only one that can teach

me is you. The Psalmist already believes. But listen, belief is not

the end. Salvation is not the end. I think a lot of times

we just want to make it. Sometimes you just want to make it right.

I just want to survive today. I just want to survive this week

at work. I just want to survive my kids in the evening. Right,

you want to you want to just want to make it through. But

God has God's gonna get you through it. He's already given us all that.

Once we are saved, there's more to be done. Faith is not

the end, it is the beginning. Because of faith in God, there's

this desire to know more. Palma says, teach me. I know you,

but teach me more because here's the reality. True belief always leads to

growth. So if you look at your life and you're not growing, do

you hear me that if we look at this, this is a responsibility of

all of us that we look at our lives. If I don't see growth,

then there's something wrong in my faith department that I maybe I'm not Maybe

I'm not checked all the way in God hasn't moved. I have moved,

And the same is true with love. We go to Philippians chapter one,

verse nine. Philipians chapter one, verse nine, Let's go to it together

says this and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more

with knowledge and all discernment verse ten, so you may approved what is excellent,

and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Paul writes

this that the Philippians is the illustration of what we're seeing right here in verse

sixty six that Okay, I want you to grow, and I want your

love to abound more and more. Why because that love will lead you closer

to God. The closer you get to God, the more he affects you.

Anything. Yahweh touches changes, right, He's just that. That's just

who God is. When he comes into contact something that changes, it has

to change. He's that overwhelming presence. So the closer we get to him,

the more we change, the more we look like him. God's truth,

which leads us to love. It helps us gain proper perspective on the

world around us. And when we get proper perspective of the world around us,

we live fruitful lives, lives that mean something, lives that matter,

lives that affect the other lives around us. And if you're living according to

God's law, God's truth, then you're gonna lead people naturally into that same

way of living that prepares us for what is to come again, the harder

days that are ahead of us, the end of time that's ahead of us,

the return of crisis ahead of us. I want to be ready,

do you. Here's how we get ready's making sure that we ask God to

give what we need, that He would continue to teach us that our salvation

would not be the end, but would be the beginning of our real life.

Let's go to verse sixty seven. Before I was afflicted, I went

astray, but now I keep your word. Now I'm gonna go really quick

over this affliction portion because I got one more in the tank for you next

week about afflictions. If you feel afflicted in the room, please come back

next week because it's powerful what we're going to talk about. But here the

Psalmist refers to this affliction how it affected his life. Something happened to him,

and I want you to notice this. He says, before I was

afflicted, I went astray, But now I keep your word. He went

astray. It wasn't the affliction that costs him to go astray. He went

astray away from God. And then the affliction happened this, this, this

pain came to him, and in the midst of that pain, he was

brought back to God. So we can we can kind of read into this

a little bit, and we can infer that he realized his error, the

error of his ways, and he returned to the Lord. This is actually

one of the very few times in a prayer psalm where affliction is viewed in

a in a good way, that's viewed positively. A lot of the prayer

psalms that talk about affliction and it's oh God, where are you? God?

You've left me? Where when are you coming back? Oh God,

I'm afflicted like this, repay my enemies this many times over. But but

but here in one nineteen this salmist says, this affliction, it was it

was there that that I realized and I came back. Now I keep your

word. More on that in a few verses, let's go to sixty eight.

Psalmist says, you are good and do good. Teach me your statutes.

So there's this obvious connection here between God's goodness and what he does.

Again, God doesn't act outside of his character because he's good, he does

good things. Here's the important truth. What God has done, what God

has said. What God has commanded, they reflect his character. So you

want to get to know God, you have to go to his words.

You have to look at his deeds. You have to look at the commandments

because they reveal his person, they re feel his character. And this is

most clearly born out in scripture. For the Psalmist, who was the Torah.

Remember those first five books Genesis, Sexis, Lyticus, Umbers, Deuteronomy.

Right, we have those, but listen, you have a leg up

on the Psalmist. I'll tell you why, because the Psalmist had that,

and the tour is fantastic. If you haven't spent time reading those first five

books really getting into that, I know it gets it gets a little bit

overwhelming. And Leviticus there's a lot of genealogies, and there's a lot of

rules, and there's a lot of counting in numbers. Right, yeah,

I know, but but but it reveals something about God. That God is

intentional, that he that he cares about his people, that he cares about

the world, that that that he desires the best for his people. So

they were commanded to live a certain way, and the Psalmist had that.

But you have the rest of Scripture too. We live in such a time,

and we're so blessed and privilege to live in the time that we do

because we have all this other revelation. We can go to the Gospels and

read about Christ, we can go to the Paul's letters and read the teaching,

and now understand that the theology a little bit better. We have so

much available to us to be able to discern God's character. And I know

that when we think about the Torah it can be overwhelming. But I don't

want you to get caught up. I really hear me, Church, I

really don't want you to get caught up in that your relationship with God as

a set of rules. That is a mistake that I think we've made over

the years as the church at large, that Okay, well, if you'll

do these things, then you'll be the ultimate disciple. But it's the other

way around. If you will pursue the Lord, then the things that you're

supposed to do will become easier. The things you're not supposed to do will

become more difficult. Don't get too caught up in thinking that God's law as

you read Someone one nineteen over and over the law of the law of the

law. I can't follow the law. It's too many rules. I agree

with you, it's very difficult. So God sent his son to fulfill the

law right. And remember how Jesus summed up the law and the prophets and

all of the Old Testament. It's two things. Number one, love the

Lord your God with everything that you are. And the second is like it,

love your neighbor. That's the law. When you read law, when

you read precepts, I want you to just for the time being, just

distill it down to those two things. Make it easy. If I can

live this way, then I'm fulfilling God's law. The Psalmist desires to be

good like God is good. And again, the point of learning God's ways,

to learning his statutes, learning his commandments, is because it deepens our

relationship with him, because the more we learn about him, the more we

fall in love with him, because it's who he is. We have these

weird ideas about him because we are looking somewhere else for our definitions about God.

We think that, oh, well it was you know, this thing

happened to me, and the person that did it was a Christian. So

now don't please, don't go to another person to try and understand the Lord.

First, pursue his spirit, pursue his word. Let him reveal himself

to you, because to know him is to love him. It will deepen

your relationship. And the further we go into relationship with God, the more

we become like him. Let's go to verse sixty nine. We're gonna reverse

sixty nine and seventy together. The Psalmist says, the insolent smear. We

smear me with lies, but with my whole heart, I keep your precepts.

Their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.

This is really where I want to camp for just a second. It's easy

as we read this to insert ourselves here, because I'm sure when I read

the insolent smear me with lies, I'm sure somebody came to your mind.

Oh surely, not right. I'm sure there's so there's a group of people

that you're like, Oh, man, I know exactly who that's about.

That's so and so that keeps talking about me. It's not hold on.

We have to be careful because the Psalmist, while we can identify so much

with him, the reality, the reality is that in most of the Psalms,

they're written by people who were very prominent people, a lot of them

written by King David of Israel, really important guy, right, And in

the Old Testament that the way got interacted with people was different and it was

select few people who really got to get on the end side. So we

need to assume that this psalmist, which was probably not King David, but

we can soon that this almost was a prominent person that's gonna become really important

in just a second. So I want you to be careful about inserting yourself

too far into the scripture. But what I want to pull out of here

is that the insolent they're not your haters, They're not your rude neighbors.

They're they're not your those family members that you know, you go to the

cookout, you go to the reunion, you go to the Christmas whatever it

is. You know, Um, I don't want to see so and so,

because they're gonna bring that thing up and it's gonna light me up and

we're gonna get into a fight again. And then I'm not gonna get any

turkey. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna be so mad. I want to even

enjoy the peach cobbler. It's not the insolent. Are not those people.

It's not disgruntled church members. We don't have any of those. Instead,

the insolent can be defined as those who reject God and therefore his law and

his truth and his precepts. The Psalms was being targeted because he kept God's

law. They were directly against him because he was trying to lead toward God.

We see that contrast with but. When you read but in the Psalms,

it means but, it means in contrast to the line that just happened

the insolence memory with lies, but my whole heart, I keep your precepts.

Their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.

What we're gonna get to at the very end of this is that we can

we really get to decide whether we want to be more like the Psalmist or

more like the insolent. We all have that choice. But we see this

happening in our world abroad. I don't think that I need to go through

any specific examples for you to agree that the world around us at large is

against us because we keep God's truth. God's truth is under attack the world

at large, doesn't really have anything to do with a particular political party or

a particular ideology. It is all of it again, is opposite from God.

Because we feel we feel under attack as the Church, as Christians,

as believers, because God's truth is being attacked, and because we believe that

we get some of that some of that shrapnel from those attacks, and we

feel like it's against us, but it's really against God. Again, proper

perspective, your war is not against people. It's not against it's not against

others who don't believe like you. It's against the enemy. The powers and

principalities that are against God are against you because you're of God. The cause

that the result of that rejection is that the heart becomes unfeeling like fat.

The Hebrew word is also in Isaiah six ten. It says, dull fat,

dull? What does fat? Do we see it? In nature?

I want to think about a whale. Think about a cold water whale and

has all that blubb or all that fat to insulate it right, to keep

it keep its most vital parts protected from the cold temperature around it. Fat

is a barrier. So when the Psalmist brings this up we see that the

heart gets this barrier around it becomes unfeeling, like fat. That fat,

instead of being a protection, then actually shields the heart from being able to

feel God. When someone rejects the Lord, their hearts slowly start to lose

the ability to feel and think properly. Remember also in the Hebrew language.

I keep going to it because there's just so much revealed in how these things

are written. And in Hebrew, heart and mind are connected. All the

time. We use those two separate words and we think, well, mine

is my brain and my heart is the thing that keeps my blood pumping.

But spiritually they are connected all the time. That what goes in here is

gonna drip down to here, and what drips down to here and takes root.

I start acting like that, right. So, if our hearts get

that fatty barrier around him because we reject God's truth and his law, then

we can no longer receive the good things because they can't get through the barrier,

and the heart becomes unfeeling, and then you can't be who you're supposed

to be. If you scroll through whatever social and you see all those people

that are so hateful and so busted up it's because they can't feel anymore.

They have rejected the truth so long that they can't even they can't even get

back to it because this barrier is keeping them out. It's a compounding problem.

And again, I'm sure some people come to mind, but I want

to encourage you. And this doesn't sound like an encouragement, but it is.

I promise you probably can't convince someone to come to God with your words,

Certainly not on a screen. Okay, it takes heart, it takes

relationship. You probably can't convince them because their heart is probably if they're if

they're, if they have rejected God along enough, it's probably so unfeeling that

your words just bounce off the same way that cold water bounces off that whale.

They don't even they don't even register that. All the more reason why

we need the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit can pierce right through that

fat, eliminate the fat, and make that heart feel again. It's what

happened to you and me when we said Jesus be the Lord of my life.

He pierced through it all to give us a new slate to start from.

It's a it's a word of warning for believers too. Right here that

when we don't delight in God's law, this this compounding effects happened. It's

like my diet. I'm bringing this up because this is something that I think

about a lot now. I joke around with with Alan and a few others

about turning thirty, and when we turned thirty, things just changed. So

I don't feel the same as I used to feel, okay, And I

know everybody's like, oh, would you just wait, brother? I wish

I could wait. Time seems to be keep going faster and faster. It's

insane. But when I think about this scripture and this is what this this

verse seventy just really got me, and I think about if I go to

Taco Bell. Bear with me. This doesn't sound spiritual, but it is.

If I go to Taco Bell and I order that box, you know

the box, you know the one It's got everything in it and they can't

even like fully close it because it's got all that stuff. But and then

they give you like thirty seven sauces because you're like, hey, can I

get some hot sauce? And they're like, yeah, sure, we don't

want it, so they give you all of it. You get that box

and I'll tell you what it's good. And the next day. I don't

know if this resonates with you, but this happens to me every single time.

The next day, I'm like, man, I'm thinking about that box.

I might have to go get that box again. And I've done it,

and I've gone and got it. The second day, and maybe the

third day, and that fourth day, I want that box so bad I

can't. It's like this, I gotta have that. I gotta have that

burrito right now. I just want it more and more and more. And

maybe it's sweets for you. I'm not really a sweets person, but it

does happen. I can I can open a bag of sour Patch kids,

Pastor shaneos on top about it. That can open those. I can start

eating them and I'm like, man, those are good. Let me get

another handful. Well, you know what would be good after this handful,

another handful, and then suddenly the bag is gone. This happens to us

naturally. It happens to us spiritually too. When you take that first bite

of whatever it is and indulge your flesh and indulge the part of you that's

not godly, that part just gets this appetite just becomes It's like, oh

I need more, now, I need more, I need more. It's

vicious and it grows on us and it gets out of control really really quickly.

So believers, we're not immune to getting fatty hearts. In fact,

we might be at most risk because once you accept the Christ, you start

to get those attacks from the enemy to try to pull you away. So

we have to be careful that we don't allow it. But but here's what

happens. The same is true in the opposite. When we pursue God,

we want more and more of God. If you don't believe me, just

try it. Just just start your morning with fifteen minutes of prayer. I

bet you want to do it again tomorrow. And I bet if you'll keep

it going, if you'll, if you will just make your schedule that for

a week, I bet you'll want a little longer than fifteen minutes the second

week, because it's because it speaks to the spiritual part of you, and

it's I gotta have more God, I gotta have more God. That's the

way it's designed on purpose. When our hearts become fatty, when they become

dull, we feel less and less of the need to turn back to God.

Let's go to verse seventy one. It is good for me that I

was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. Now we will return back

to the previous mentioned previously a mentioned affliction. The Psalmist is more forward this

time. He tells us what happened. He says that it was a good

thing. I gotta I was astray. I got afflicted with this, and

it turned me back. It helped me learn, Hm, what next week,

next week? Next week? This trouble caused him to realize how far

he was from God, and he returned. But I want to encourage you

from verse seventy one is that you might learn his statutes. And learning statutes

sounds like, oh, well, I gotta memorize things if that helps you.

But learning God's statutes is not memorization. It's not legalism. It's not

some outward projection of holiness or righteousness. I'm sure you know these people too,

and so maybe maybe, and I've been guilty of this too, that

sometimes we project this outward. I am with the Lord, I have been

with the Lord, but on the inside you're rotting. It's because we don't

like to look weak. We don't like to look messed up, so we

put on this facade. But I want to encourage you that learning God's statutes

is not putting that outward projection of I'm doing well. It's it's not following

that list of rules to the letter, so that it's that I take these

things in. I read that Torah, I read that scripture, I read

that Bible because it teaches me more about God. And the more I know

about him again, the more I fall in love with him. Less wrap

it up. Verse seventy two. The law of your mouth is better better

to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. The Psalmist puts a bow

on the stanza here with this incredibly bold statement, a statement that convicts me.

It might be easy for us to assume that, well, the Psalmist

was writing a poem pastor Clay, so he's exaggerating. I really don't think

he is. And here's why. Remember we talked about the Psalmist usually were

prominent people. They're usually people in high standing. It's likely that this guy

knew what it was like to have wealth. He knew what it was like

to have everything that he needed. And even so God's law is worth more

than those things. I don't believe he's exaggerating. I actually think that it's

just a just a wholehearted, genuine proclamation that he experienced everything else and this

is better. I say that because over in Psalm nineteen ten, King David

wrote that one. That's another Toro Psalm, and he talks about how how

God's law is worth that much to him. And we know for sure King

David had what he needed. He was a king and they conquered. He

was a warrior and he had a palace. I think King David had some

understanding what wealth was like, and even so God's law is worth more.

Proverbs chapter eight versus ten eleven. The author encourages the reader to take the

instructions over silver and over gold. Proverbs we think was likely written by King

Solomon, David's son, who literally had the world. Take some time and

read about King Solomon in scripture. He had it all, He had everything

that he could ever possibly desire, and at the end of it all,

none of it was worth anything without God. So take it from these people

who already had everything that we work for that we desire, that the pursuit

of anything else is worthless without God, without his truth. Nothing else brings

us closer to God than the things that come directly from Him. And again,

what really drew me to this particular patches and we're closing if the band

wants to get ready or really drew me here was verse seventy I've been just

really wrestling with this psalm ever since we started the series a few weeks ago.

And again I feel really convicted when I read this, because when I

read verse seventy two, my immediate thought is, I don't think I'm there.

I don't think that I value God's law over everything else. I think

I got some work to do. And maybe you feel that way too.

Perhaps you've realized in the course of this that something's not quite right with your

view or with your lifestyle. Maybe you don't have that high view of God's

law. Maybe we don't fully haven't fully digested that, and to understand that

that's the best, the easiest, the quick, not the easy, but

the quickest way for us to get there. That it's it's direct to him

because it came straight from him. This poetic language is so descriptive and so

vivid, and we may not all be able to right that way or declare

our feelings that way. So I don't want you to be intimidated by the

the the grand statements of the Psalmist. So when I first started reading the

chapter, it it's like, how can I ever live up to this God?

How can I ever value your truth, your precepts, your law?

How can I ever value it that much? How can I get there?

Here's what we can do. We can all take an honest look. We

can take inventory of our lives, and we can determine right now here,

in this room, right there online, wherever you are. Are you more

like the Psalmist or more like the insolent? Where do we fall? Because

we all fall somewhere in the in between those two. And I think that

there are very few who would wear insolence proudly like a badge, like I

am the insolent and I'm happy about it. I don't think. I really

don't think people just wake up and do that. I really don't. I

really think that what happens is people over time, life kind of grinds us,

life kind of gets life kind of gets at us. I don't know

that there are very many people who just wake up and go I'm gonna go

against God today. Who picks a fight with God? Only those whose hearts

are fat and dull because they can't feel him, they can't receive him.

And the reason why developing this unfeeling heart is so dangerous is because of how

subtle it happens. I know that if you're in this room and God's dealing

with you right now, if you're online, God's dealing with you right now

with this. You didn't wake up this morning and decide I want to go

toward the insolent side of the spectrum. But maybe, just maybe, the

situation, the circumstance I'm dealing with, is grinding me down, and I'm

finding my I'm finding my release, I'm finding my my coping mechanism. It's

somewhere other than with God, and it's starting to develop that fat around your

heart. I'll tell you it happens to me. That's why I was so

convicted when I got in the verse seventy, because I read that unfeeling like

fat, and I said, wait, that's me. Sometimes I just don't

feel it because I let that diet get too bad. It happens is we

spend more and more time and The circumstances of our world have led to this

too, but we can't blame that it's our fault because we take advantage of

the circumstances that happen in our world. Over the past few years, it's

been easier to be separated, easier to be isolated, and we've developed these

habits that keep us away from each other, and that causes our hearts to

get dull. It happens every single time we don't find our true delight in

God's law, and it happens subtly. So what do we do. Let

me give you some practical steps, and then I want our altar team to

become in just a second, and I want us to pray, and then

we're gonna baptize a few people and it's gonna be awesome. We'll celebrate.

Let me give you some practical step apps what to do. And today you

find yourself with that doll. Maybe you haven't been feeling quite right, you

haven't in that in your heart and your spirit. There's something not right.

Maybe you've been maybe you've been dealing with it. I just don't. I

come in and it looks like looks like Clint's really feeling it. I'm not

feeling it. It looks like Pastor is really feeling it, but I'm not

feeling it. It looks like everybody around me, he's got their hands up

and they're dancing and they're jumping, they're singing. They know all the words.

They're probably reading the words. Just say you know, but that's okay.

Maybe you feel like I'm just not feeling I just can't. I can't

feel God like I used to, or maybe I've never really felt him.

I don't even know what that's like. Here's what you can do. Number

one. First step, if you're taking notes, write it down. Take

the first bite. Your diet can't start until you start the first meal,

So take the first bite. Just like a diet change. It will take

time for you to get used to the taste, because if you've been eating

taco bell and then you sit down with the grilled salmon with no sauce,

which is terrible, I gotta have sauce. But you sit down and the

grilled salmon no sauce and the broccoli that's got no seasoning, you really want

that taco bell because I'm used to it. That's so much more desirable because

I don't want this help thee because it doesn't it doesn't fit my palate right.

But if you'll start taking the first bite, and if you'll keep taking

a bite, you're gonna develop that taste and you won't be able to get

enough of God's truth. They can be overwhelming. Initially when we think about

God's saw, it's overwhelming. But the longer you commit to it, the

smoother that process gets. Doesn't mean your life becomes super easy, but the

process by which you get close to God gets smoother. Because you've been you

begin to understand him more, You begin to see him more, and when

you can see him, you can pursue him. Begin with what the Psalma

says in verse seventy two. He says, the law of your mouth is

worth more to me the law of his mouth. It's all written down.

Start there, Take the first bite. Use the systems. We talked about

systems at the very beginning. I said that intentionally, because use the systems

that somebody else has already built. That's totally okay. You know the roads

that we drive on, someone else design that, but we use them why

because they're designed the best. I mean, I can't if I go dig.

If I go pave my own road, it's not gonna be as good

as what's there. Somebody thought about, Somebody really smart thought about that before

I did. Use the systems that already exist. Let me give you one.

The Book of Proverbs has thirty one chapters. How many days ere in

a month? Thirty or thirty one except for February, which is weird?

Right? Read a proverb every morning today is the sixteenth. I'm not even

proverb sixteen this morning. Use the system that's so simple, because if you

start, and here's what we do. We try to create these systems that

are complex, and I think we do it from a place of pride because

we want to be impressive. I want to be impressive. I don't have

a problem telling you that I want to be an impressive person. I want

someone to ask me how I get close to God so I can be like,

WHOA, I got this strategy, and I came up with it and

it's tight and it works. I want to do that. But if I

try to come up with this complex system, I give up before I ever

get to God. Use the easy systems. Take the first bite. Step

two, that is step two, rid system. Step three share your journey.

This is the hardest one. Is the hardest one because again, we

I think we all want to be impressive, we all want to we got

it together. But if you're not sharing your journey, you are robbing yourself

and others of the total experience with God. God has always been in community.

He has always designed it to be a sharing. We share our faith

not just with those who don't know Him yet, even though that's that is

the commandment, but we share it with those who already know Him. Because

where I'm at eating my taco bell, you might be there and I can

share that experience with you. And you go, oh, you know what,

Actually, I just had it two days in a row, and I'm

glad you brought that up because I was about to go on a week bender

of taco bell. I was about to go a vender with stuff that's not

of God, and it was gonna make my heart fatty. But since you

told me that about you, I don't feel so isolated. I don't feel

so alone. You know what, Let's let's plan to go to lunch together

so that we both know that we're not going to taco bell. I'm being

so serious, Church, I know it's funny, but I'm being so serious.

If you'll get in a group, if you'll just come a little bit

earlier on Sunday, or stay a little bit after and start talking to some

people in the fourier at the coffee bar about what you're dealing with, what

God's doing to you, where you're at. If you'll just be honest and

transparent, we will grow together. And us together is so much stronger than

any one of us separate. When we reduce our experiences with God down to

our private time, hear me, then we're gonna pray when we reduce our

experiences with God down to our private time. I'm not saying you shouldn't have

private time with God. You should. You should, you certainly should.

But when we reduce our whole God experience down to that private moment when things

get hard, you don't have to tell anybody that you quit. Let us

think in if if all your time with your relationship we got so private that

when you quit talking to him, no one else knows. Your heart will

get fat in a hurry telling you so, if you'll group together, if

you'll if you'll just start sharing your journey, if you'll just start sharing your

experiences. I promise you're not the only one dealing with that, and it

will keep you accountable so that when the enemy comes against you, you've got

somebody who will pray with you. You got somebody who's praying for you.

But for some of us, we need a drastic touch today. What would

you stand with me as we enter into this this altar moment. Some of

us need that drastic touch, those practical steps right, take the first bite,

create the system, share the journey. I want you to take those

and do those during the week. But some of us today need that drastic

touch, and we need God to do something today. Maybe maybe you know

my heart is as dull as it gets. It's got such a barrier around

it that I don't feel anything anymore. The Holy Spirit can fix that in

a moment, if you'll open up to him.