The OG Playlist: Songs about The WORD | 11/16/2025

All right, well, welcome back. There are notes available on the

back table to the message. If you want to grab those either

now as I'm teaching through or on your way out, feel free to

grab those. All right, if you have your

Bible, take it and turn to the book of Psalms.

And it's kind of right in the middle of your Bible.

You're going to find Psalms 150 chapters long, and the longest

chapter in Psalms is Psalm 119. It's very long and you can find

verse one O 3 is where we're going to start there.

So Psalm chapter 119. And let me just say, if you're

Psalms 119 · chapter mention

watching online, whether it's 1111 right now or sometime in

the near future, then welcome to you and I hope you enjoy our

service. But also we want to invite you

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Consider this your invitation. Hope to see you in person

sometime soon. All right, if you're in the

middle of your Bible, Psalm chapter 119, again, the longest

Psalms 119 · chapter mention

chapter in the Bible, quite long.

And I'm going to read from verses one O 3 to one O 5.

The psalmist writes how sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth. And through your precepts, I get

understanding and therefore I hate every false way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

This morning I want to continue in our series in the Psalms,

where we're looking at the what we're calling the original

playlist, the OG playlist. And I want to talk to this

morning about songs about the Word, songs about the Word

meaning God's Word, the Psalms that are written about God's

Word. Let me pray for us.

God, What a joy it is to be together on this snowy fall day.

And we've enjoyed singing to you and just being together in

Kononia and fellowship. And now our children are in

their respective classes and learning about you.

And here we sit also ready to dig into your word.

And this morning as we continue in the Psalms, and specifically

as we look to the Psalms that speak about your ways, your

Word, your truth, we pray that you'll inspire us and grow us in

the name of Jesus. And everyone together loudly

said Amen and Amen. All right, well, we have been

here in the book of Psalms. This is our 8th message.

And I have had a blast teaching through this.

Just a few more weeks and then we'll get into Christmas season.

Wade is going to be teaching next week, and we'll be in Texas

for Thanksgiving, looking forward to that.

And then I'll be back after Thanksgiving and we'll wind down

our series into the OG playlist. But what we mean by this is that

the Psalms are like the original playlist.

They're the OG, right? And God puts together this

playlist thousands of years ago. And the playlist that got put

together here, it's written over a period of 1500 years of songs

and God compiles them together through the Holy Spirit.

And they go from the era of Moses and Exodus all the way

through post exile, which you'll remember if you went to Sunday

school or you studied this. God's people are carted off into

exile into Babylon. And this is the era of like

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they're they won't bow before

the idol. And so they're thrown into a

fiery furnace. Some of these songs would have

been written in that era. So 1500 years and 150 songs.

And now we get to glean from them today.

And I consider it a playlist. Like when you, you know, from

those of us back in the cassette days, remember we would make a

mixtape on a cassette. How many of you remember burning

CDs? How many remember that right?

Burning CDs, right. You'd make a place.

But anymore, now it's just on your iPhone or wherever where

it's so much easier just to go and access playlist or make your

own. The book of Psalms is a playlist

that is put together by God, by the Holy Spirit.

And all of these years later we get to glean from them.

So I have really enjoyed teaching through this.

And let me just review what we've been teaching.

And you could go back by the way, and get these messages.

Someone was asking me specifically how to do this this

morning. You can find our podcast at

YouTube, on Facebook, at anywhere you podcast on Apple,

Spotify, Amazon, our our messages and services are on all

of those platforms. OK, so you could go back and

find the other messages in the series.

So we talked about initially just I gave you an overview of

the Psalms, but then the next week I mentioned that there are

several songs that talk about who God is and what he's like.

And so if you want to get to know God, a great way to get to

know him is through reading through the Psalms, because the

Psalms often explain the character, the goodness, the

nature, the personality of God. A great way to get to know God

is our Father. And there were songs of

repentance, particularly David after his sin with Bathsheba in

Psalm 51. He he comes along.

We talked on this several weeks ago.

He said created me a clean heart of God and renew a right spirit

within me. And repentance is part of the

discipline of a Christian life, right?

If you're going to fall after Jesus, then throughout our lives

there are times where we repent of sin and behaviors, and

repenting with these psalms is a good way to see, OK, this is a

model of right repentance, and David does it well.

Created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within

me. And then we looked at the

sorrowful psalms, the idea that many of the songs are laments

and they're sorrowful. David finds himself hiding in a

cave from Saul and he cries out to the Lord, feeling forgotten

by God. That's something that ends up in

the Bible, David and other songwriters feeling forgotten

and abandoned by God. They're there to give voice to

those times where we feel abandoned.

It has got abandoned, the snow. But there are times where we

feel that way and these songs give voice to it.

And we looked at songs of grief, maybe a death in the family, a

divorce, something very tragic can lead to, again, just

overwhelming, even physical grief.

And the Psalms have several songs that are like that.

They give voice to grief instead of us just burying our grief and

denying it. Instead, these Psalms that we

went through go find the message again.

They give voice to those seasons and times of grief.

And then finally, last week, we looked at a song that's

misunderstood. It's Psalm 137, where the

psalmist ends that Psalm by saying, blessed is he who takes

my enemies babies and dashes them against the rocks.

What a crazy idea is that? Well, that one's often

misunderstood. So if you were, if you missed

that one, go back and get it. The psalmist is saying, God, I

trust vindication to you. I'm not going to take revenge.

I'm not going to be vengeful. They're trusting God and His

sovereignty to bring justice. And it's OK to cry out and pray

for God's justice to come. We see in the revelation there

will be final judgement. When it comes, God's people will

celebrate and rejoice. So this morning, after all of

those weeks, now we're going to go through and see how often it

might be surprising to you how often the psalmist promote God's

Word and honor God's Word. They honor Scripture over and

over and over again. And sometimes it's called the

Word, and we'll find that there are other times that it's called

something else. But All in all, and we found it

right here in Psalm 119, initially it's called, How sweet

are your words to my taste, word meaning Scripture through your

precepts here they're called precepts.

I get understanding and then he goes back to calling Scripture

God's Word. Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light into my path. We're going to see how often the

Psalmist are honoring and revering and promoting God's

Word, His pathways, His precepts.

Now you must know that when the psalmists are writing their

songs, they only have a fraction of the Bible that we have,

right? Especially the early Psalms.

So remember, the first five books of the Bible are called

the Torah, and it's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and

Deuteronomy. And Genesis, of course, is the

story of creation and Noah's founder and Abraham, who's the

father of our faith, and Jacob, who has twelve sons, have become

the tribes of Israel. All of those stories are found

in Genesis. And then Exodus is the story of

Moses going to Egypt where the Jewish people are enslaved by

the Pharaoh. And Moses goes by the direction

of God to say, let my people go. And then Exodus, we, we get a

lot of the laws of God that God speaks through Moses.

And Moses also writes again, the Leviticus numbers in

Deuteronomy. And so when the psalmist are

talking about God, your word is a lamb to my feet.

It would have been those five books.

That's all that they had. Now we have the rest of the Old

Testament to go on. We have the stories of Jesus in

the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus, the Gospels.

And we have the New Testament letters.

We have so much more scripture to lean into than those who were

writing these songs thousands of years ago.

And because of that, we could be grateful.

Again, more, more scripture to go on.

But they just had the tour. And be aware of that as you read

through the Psalms. Now look, let's look at a

variety of words that are used when referring to Scripture.

In the Psalms we see that law or instruction not just rules.

The laws of God were not just rules to hold us back, but

instead they were guidelines that led to a blessed life.

And there are 25 times in the Psalms where the psalmist are

honoring God's law. Psalm One, verse 1 and 2 is an

occasion of this. It says blessed is the man who

walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 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.

The Psalms kicks off this way. This is the first of the Psalms

encouraging us to delight in the Lord and to delight particularly

in the laws of God. Did you know you could find

delight in the laws of God? They're not intended to be a

weight around our neck. Instead, we can find delight in

the life that we live when we follow after God's principles

and instructions. Then the word Word is found 39

times in the Psalms. An example again from Psalm 119

that we read. Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path. 3939 * 39 times the psalmist are

promoting the word of God. And then there are 9 times where

the psalmist referenced the words of God.

Psalm 12 verse 6, it says the words of the Lord are pure words

Psalms 12:6

like silver refined in the furnace on the ground, purified

7 times honoring the words of the Lord.

Then then the term testimony, which again is like the truth of

God. It's found 23 times, precepts is

found 21 times and commandments are found 22 times.

Here's an example. That's Psalm 19, seven and

eight. The Psalm writer says the law of

the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple, the

precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart, and the

commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening in the eyes. 23

other times they use the term rules, the rules of God.

Other 23 times they talk about the statutes of God, four times

they talk about the judgment of God, and 14 times the songs in

the Psalms speak of the promises of God.

So all told, in the Psalms there are 203 times where God's word

is mentioned again in all these different forms, precepts, laws,

rules, word 203 times. Now that being the case, that

means that it's important that it's mentioned that often.

God's Word being promoted in the Psalms numerous times.

The New Testament also quotes the Psalms mention of God's

Word. So watch it.

The Bible is promoting itself. The Psalm writers are promoting

God's truth in God's Word in all of these occasions.

And if you've been reading through the Psalms, maybe you've

seen this. If you haven't seen it, then I

want to encourage you, keep reading through the Psalms, keep

listening to them. Some of you have found YouTube

links or other links to listen to them.

I mentioned weeks back that I love one by Kristen Getty, who's

from Ireland, and it's the ESV that she reads.

You can hear it on YouTube or the Bible app.

If you're not into reading, then you can find audio versions of

it. And just her reading through the

Psalms with her Irish accent, it's so cool.

So check that out. Someone friend sent me a, he was

in his deer stand hunting, listening to the Psalms that she

was reading. It was really sweet.

So find ways to absorb the Psalms.

And when you're reading or listening, be aware of how often

203 times where God's word is elevated.

Now Jesus quoted from the Psalms and his prayers in the Garden of

Gethsemane. Remember the night that Jesus

was betrayed before he's arrested in the garden.

He's praying and John overhears his prayer and puts it in John

John 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17 and it's quite beautiful Jesus heart for his

followers and John 1717 Jesus is praying this over his followers.

He says sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth. Here again, Jesus now is

promoting in the tradition of the Psalms.

He's promoting God's Word and he's quoting particularly from

Psalm one 19160 that says the sum of your word is truth and

every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

Jesus quoting and praying in the fashion of the Psalms, which are

promoting again God's Word and truth.

Paul tells us how to del how to dwell richly in the word.

If you want to have a deep relationship with Jesus, then

Scripture is how you grow and knowing who God is.

And the Psalms are encouraging God's God's word.

Colossians 3. This is Paul's instructions, he

says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to

which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.

We're going into Thanksgiving time.

Be thankful. And let the word of Christ dwell

in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all

wisdom. And watch this singing psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts

to God. Paul in the New Testament is

encouraging. You want to dwell deeply in

Jesus. Well then, sing the Psalms and

the hymns and the spiritual songs, and as you sing the

psalms often you're going to see a promoting of God's Word.

And it should raise an awareness and appreciation, a love and

admiration in us for God's truth.

We're made to connect with God richly through His Word.

We connect with Him. And reading and listening to the

Psalms remind us often about the depth and value of Scripture.

And we can grow to delight in God through the Psalms.

And that is the goal for us. We want to get to a place where

we delight in God and knowing His truth that comes through

Scripture is even the more a way to like, grow to know who God

is. I love what CS Lewis says in his

writings Reflections on the Psalms.

He says the psalmist delight in the law, not because they find

it restrictive, but because they see in it the very mind of God,

something beautiful and life giving.

That's why the psalmist is delighting in the Lord in the

Word, because it leads to closeness, beautiful and life

giving. I didn't put in your notes who

said this, but it's Timothy Keller.

He says delighting in God's Word is delighting in God himself.

You want to get to know God, You get to know him in his Word and

this is a big principle that that we just have to lean into

you if you want to know God and dwell on him richly.

The way to do that is through reading, listening to,

absorbing, hearing it taught about reading God's word.

The Psalms promoted all of those times.

Now I want to clarify something for you, particularly the use of

the of of the word in John's gospel.

OK, when John in the New Testament, John was a disciple.

If you're new to the Bible, John was one of the followers of

Jesus in the New Testament. He writes his account, his

gospel story, telling the miracles, the teachings, the

death and burial and resurrection of Jesus.

OK, so John introduces Jesus in a unique, profound way.

John 11 at the start of his gospel, he says in the beginning

was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

And then in verse 14 he says, and the Word being Jesus became

flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as

one of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now when John is talking about the Word in this occasion, do

you think that he's talking about the Bible?

Is he saying Scripture became flesh in the beginning with

Scripture? If he means Word, does he mean

the Bible in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with

God and the Word was God? Well, of course he's referencing

Jesus here and he's using the language of Genesis one, one

that says in the beginning God created the heavens and the

earth, but he's speaking he's he's certainly using Genesis

language. But additionally, John is using

a unique introduction of Jesus to draw people in who were watch

this. They spoke Greek and they were

Greek in their thinking. OK, now you remember that when

Jesus is walking in the face of the earth, the Roman Empire is

in charge. They've conquested and conquered

all of these area in the ancient world, but before the Roman

Empire was the Greek Empire. And the Romans come along and

they defeat the Greeks, but they continue to speak Greek and they

continue to admire the Greek culture, the Greek philosophers,

the Greek way of life. And so when John comes along, I

want to clarify that John is not saying in the beginning was the

Bible. He's saying in the beginning,

the Greek word that he uses in this occasion is the word logos

or logos. And John is leaning into a

philosophical term that those who spoke Greek and those who

thought like Greeks would have appreciated and understood.

Because the Greek philosophers like Socrates and Pluto, and I

mean Plato, Plato, Pluto's the dog, right?

So he was a philosopher too, but different era.

So the the philosophers, the Greek philosophers, they spoke

of the logos and to them the logos is what what people were

chasing after. It meant like the meaning of

life, the purpose that we're all filled, we're all arrive with

this void and something is needing to fill it and we

believe it's relationship with God through Jesus.

But the Greek philosophers, they were looking for other things to

fill that void and they called it the logos.

They would sit around and talk about the logos.

So when John says in the beginning was the word, he's

saying in the beginning that purpose that you're looking for,

the meaning of life that you're looking for.

It's Jesus. And he was there in the

beginning, and then he put on human skin and he came to this

earth and he dwelt among us. Jesus is not the Bible, so to

speak. I mean, he's the fulfillment of

Scripture, yes, and we get to know him in Scripture.

But John is saying that in this occasion when he uses the word,

the word he uses logos. He's saying Jesus was there in

the beginning and the purpose for life that you're looking

for, It is Him. Now, certainly we find truth in

Scripture and Jesus again, fulfill Scripture.

But John is saying Jesus is the meaning and purpose for life

that we're all looking for. And in your notes, I have the

Greek way of spelling it out there Logos.

Now while it's true we grow to know Christ more to his word,

John is not calling Jesus scripture, but instead the

meaning of all that the Greek philosophers were seeking.

Now Psalm 37 verse 3 for go back to the Psalms again, back to the

Psalms 37:3

idea of delighting ourselves in the Lord.

The psalmist says trust in the Lord and do good.

And dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of

your heart. In this occasion, we're being

commanded to delight ourselves in the Lord and we delight

ourselves in Scripture. We find God in Scripture, we get

to know Him. We grow in our understanding of

who God is by being faithful to Scripture.

Whether you're reading or listening or hearing it taught

about that is the way that you're going to grow in your

faith and in your walk with Jesus and a hunger for God's

truth found in His Word, a delighting in it.

That is the discipline that we're trying to grow as

Christians and it takes work. It takes discipline and the

Psalms obsession with the word reminds us often of how

important the word is and we are wanting to delight in God and

it's going to take effort and work.

Now I wore these boots today, these boots, I've had them for

like 4 years, 3 or 4 years. And and when I got these boots

initially 3 or 4 years ago, I got them here at Jays.

They're thorough, good boots. They're really, I love them.

I think they're great boots, but I went to get them and the guy

at the young man at Jays that was helping me, he went, brought

the shoes and I've tried them on and he looked at me kind of

sideways and he's like, so he goes, are you a working man?

And when he said that I was like, well, yeah, I'm a working

man. Of course I work, I have a job,

right? But he buddy, what he meant I

think was are you a Carpenter? Are you construction guy?

Are you in the trades? Why are you buying these boots?

I'm like because I like them. I'm a working man, right, But

not in the tradition that maybe he thought, right.

So I call these my working man boots, right?

So here's The thing is that if we're going to grow in our

relationship with God, if we're to get to a place where we

delight in the Lord, then we have to become working men and

women. We have to put the work into

growing in our delight of God and learning God's principles

and ways. And again, the Psalms, as you

read through the Psalms those 203 times that you're going to

see them just talking about how great God's laws are and how

great his word is in his precepts.

It's reminding us that yes, this is God's truth is great and it's

life changing. And again, they only had the

first five books of the Bible to go on when they were bragging

about how great God's truth was. We have more the teachings of

Jesus, the New Testament, we have all of this and we should

be leaning into it. Now.

I'm going to end with a song this morning.

And this is a, this is a song that I wrote like, gosh, like in

2002. And it still resonates with me

just thinking about our love for God's Word and our love for

God's truth. And some of you might remember

there was a group in like the 70s and 80s called Harvest.

It was Jerry Williams and Ed Carr.

Anybody remember the group Harvest?

Yeah. So Ed Carr was one of the, it

was like Simon and Garfunkel for a while.

It was two of them. And they were just really great.

And my parents, who are I'm sure watching right now, had Harvest

Records in our home when I was a boy.

And then I saw them in concert like in the 5th grade.

And then I saw him like the 7th grade in a concert.

And then years later, as I grew up, I got to meet Ed and we

started touring in a band together called Mirror Out the

Praise Band in my late 20s and got to write some songs with

him. And he's just a legend and was

in touch with him this week. And it just kind of reminded me

of the song. But the heartbeat of the song

has got, I want to learn more about you.

And then I want to live what I learn, and I want to become more

like you with every page, every page in Scripture and His word

that we read and lean into it should cause us growth as we

delight in the Lord. So Tani has the lyrics for this.

Maybe I'll have you sing it with me.

And you, by the way, you can find us online if you just

Google Kirk Caulfield. I want to learn more.

You'll find it like Amazon or iTunes or wherever you stream

your music. It goes like this.

I want to learn more about you and live what I learn.

I want to be calm more like you. With every page I turn, with

every story in every verse. Show me treasures from your word

more about you. I want to learn more and I find

a light Lord. As a.

Student of your truth. And I.

Seek the wisdom that can only come from you and I will finish

what I started. Help me follow through and fill

my heart with words of life to guide me.

Will fill my heart with words of life to guide me.

I want to learn more about you and then then what I'll learn.

I want to become more liking with every page I turn or with

every story in every verse. Show me treasures from your word

more about you. I want to learn more.

And. I have a promise.

That your word. Will be my life here on this

pathway as I travel through this life and help me hear you.

I am listening and opened up my eyes.

Fill my heart with words of life to guide me.

Oh fill my heart with words of life to guide me.

I want to learn more about and then what I learned.

I want to be calm. More like you with every page I

turn. Oh, in every story you never

reverse. Show me.

Treasures from your word more about you.

I want to learn more. Tony, maybe you can back that up

to the course. And would you sing that with me?

Can you make that your prayer this morning as we finish up,

say I want to learn more about you.

Here we go. Let's try it together.

But I want to learn more about. You and then live.

What I learn I want to become more like you.

Or with every page I turn O in every story and every verse.

So many treasures from your word.

More about you. I want to learn more.

Oh. Say.

More and more, more and more and more and more about you.

More and more and more and more and more and more and more about

you Jesus. More and more and more and more

and more and more about you. I want to learn more.

God, it's our prayer that as we delight in your Word that you

will guide our path. You will grow within us an even

greater love and understanding of the depths of your truth.

Lead us God to greater depths in your word as the Psalms

encouragement. We pray this in Jesus name and

everyone together said Amen. Hey, before we go, I just want

to take a moment. If you're here this morning and

you've been wrestling with the decision to become a Christian,

and what does that look like, what does it mean?

Well, the Bible says that if you believe in your heart and

confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, then you shall be

saved. And maybe you're here this

morning and you've never made that commitment, then I want to

give you an opportunity to do so.

And you don't have to understand all of the doctrine and theology

of our faith. You just need to know that Jesus

is calling you to come and spend eternity with Him.

And it can happen because of the price that he paid on the cross

and the fact that he rose again and that he is God.

He's calling us to repentance, to turn from our own selfish

ways, and to invite Him to be the Lord of our lives.

So I'm going to pray. And if you've never done that,

or maybe you've just been far from God and you want to say,

God come and reign in me again, then I encourage you to pray and

echo this prayer with me. And then I would encourage you

to tell somebody, go in and let a friend or relative know you

can reach out to me and let me know that you made that decision

so that you can be encouraged in your decision to follow and

chase after Jesus. I'm going to pray and I

encourage you to echo this prayer.

Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and I say I want

you to be the Lord of my life. So I surrender to you.

I surrender to you reigning and ruling in my life.

So I repent of my sin and I thank you for forgiveness that

comes to the cross and the resurrection of Jesus.

And I thank you for eternal life.

Now that comes in the Holy Spirit, come and abide in me and

I thank you that that eternal life that I received now will

last forever and I will spend eternity with you.

Help me to grow in your ways, to grow in your word as we talked

about this morning. Come and be the Lord of my life.

I pray in Jesus name and everyone together said Amen and

Amen. All right, well, again, thanks

for coming this morning. Before we go, I want to say a

blessing over you. So if you'll stand together and

prepare your heart to receive this blessing, and then we'll

go. And now may the Lord bless you

and keep you, and may he make his face to shine upon you.

And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of

glory, may it have bound to you. May the peace of God that passes

all understanding, may it surprise you in the midst of all

of the challenges that life brings.

And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the

forgiveness of God, that is new every morning.

May it be especially new to you now and your mornings to come.

And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your

mind. You are salt and you are light.

Go now and be salt and light unto the world, you.

Are blessed. Hey if you have time to help.