[0:00] To be reminded that all I have is Christ. And it's actually in here I put it into my sermon as well. So it was just amazing to hear that song before I stepped up. I'm privileged to be here this morning to preach from God's Word.
[0:15] I am nervous, but the Spirit can use my nervousness. So before I start, I'd just like to pray. Heavenly Father, what a wonderful God you are.
[0:27] What a merciful God you are. As we look at Psalm 19, help us to be reminded that you are sovereignty over all. That we are here today to glorify you, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer.
[0:44] I pray, Lord, that you settle my nerves and that we settle each other's hearts and souls. And help us to be reminded, Lord, that your Word is to penetrate our hearts, Lord.
[0:58] And your Holy Spirit can use your Word to penetrate the heart of us. Not just to tittle our ears, but to get into our hardened hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.
[1:08] So what I'm going to do today, instead of reading Psalm 19, I'm going to walk through Psalm 19. I love walking through passages.
[1:20] And Psalm 19 is a fantastic psalm. It's challenging. It's encouraging. And it's tough. And there's a reason why it's called, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
[1:34] Because I couldn't preach this without keep reminding myself, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. So we're going to look at Psalm 19 in three ways.
[1:50] We're going to look at Psalm verses 1 to 6. We can see the creation revelation. God being revealed in creation.
[2:02] We're going to look at, then we're going to go down to 7 to 10. We will see the Word, the Scriptures. The special revelation. God being revealed in Scripture.
[2:15] And finally, we're going to look at verses 10 to 14. Our personal revelation. So, we're going to look up, down, and in.
[2:30] And that's what we must do when we're looking at Psalm 19. We must look up, down, but most importantly, by looking up and down, it should make us look inside. To see the personal revelation of Jesus Christ.
[2:45] So, Dave tells us, David, Dave. I was after reading about him so much this week, we became friends. I don't call him David no more. I call him Dave. So, David tells us that God is revealed in nature.
[3:00] He tells us that God is revealed in Scripture. And God is revealed in character. Have you ever cried out, Lord, say something?
[3:12] Why don't you just say something? Well, Psalm 19 tells us God does say something. We just don't listen. What more do you want to hear from God if he's calling out from above? Calling out from below and calling out from being within?
[3:25] He is calling out. So, the question is, why aren't we listening? And that's what we'd like to answer as well as we go through Psalm 19 this morning. So, keep in mind, listening.
[3:39] Why aren't we listening? Now, I don't know you. I'm not here to point fingers at why you're not listening. So, you'll have to answer that yourselves. But I know my own heart. And my heart is the same as your heart. And my church is the same as your church.
[3:50] And our hearts are hardened. And we don't listen because of our sin. So, we're going to start at verses 1 in Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God.
[4:05] And the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. The heavens declare the glory of God.
[4:18] Now, David is a shepherd in Bethlehem. He's standing in a field, minding his sheep. Bethlehem hasn't got much life. He's standing there.
[4:29] He looks up. He sees the heavens. The blanket of stars. He looks up. And he sees and hears God. And he comes to the realization that God is showing himself in the heavens.
[4:48] He's showing himself in creation. Have you ever thought of yourself that you're done? You're not worthy?
[4:59] You're lonely? You're lonely? God's not speaking to you? Well, David suggests we go out and we look up. And we see God in creation. We can see his handiwork.
[5:11] And what comes to mind in my handiwork is a surgeon's hand. Like, you wouldn't go to a surgeon who has a shaky hand, would you? Well, I wouldn't. I would say I could pity the scar when he's finished. But God's handiwork is precisely cut like a surgeon's hand.
[5:27] The way we are on this planet, in this world, precisely placed in the universe. We can see God's precise handiwork in our world.
[5:40] When we see the leaves falling in spring. When we hear the rain beating off our windows in the winter. When you see our breath in a cold morning. These things points to the creation of God.
[5:56] We as a church demonstrates God's glory in his creation. We are here to create. We are here to glorify God. Now, I might be biased in this one.
[6:09] But the Cork accent. It's the only accent that sounds like you're singing and talking at the same time. Now, if that's not a demonstration of God's glory.
[6:21] I might just go on over it. The Cork accent is a demonstration of God's glory. So we can use everything to see God's glory. Verse 2 tells us that day after day it pours out.
[6:36] So day after day it pours out our speech. Night after night it communicates knowledge. It doesn't stop. It keeps showing us the knowledge of God.
[6:50] And what is knowledge? It shows us the truth about who God is. So if you're having a bad day today, guess what? Tomorrow is another day.
[7:02] Just because you're having a bad day tomorrow will also show the creation and the glorification of God. Verse 3 tells us that there is no speech.
[7:13] There is no words. Your voice is not heard. I saw this first. I said, this is a contradiction. How could you have a voice that's not heard?
[7:24] And it looks like a contradiction. I love meeting people who tells us, I don't believe in the Bible because it contradicts itself. And I'm looking at him and I says, no, you don't believe in the Bible because it contradicts you.
[7:36] It contradicts everything that our heart wants and desires. It contradicts everything that we believe to be true in this world. And it contradicts it.
[7:47] And that's why people don't believe in the Bible. It has nothing to do with the contradiction that they say the Bible has. Because the Bible don't have contradictions. what this is saying here is like there's no voice no i'm a yapper i like communicating i like coffee after chatting i like meeting people and talking to them and sometimes i forget that i have a family and they want to go home 10 minutes ago so as i'm talking i look over to my wife burr and she's looking at me and i know i should have left 10 minutes ago now there's no voice sean i can't hear her but i know i should have been gone 10 minutes ago and i think we all have that knowledge of knowing things without hearing anything and that is what sam or david is saying here in the sam there's a knowledge meant without the voice but we know we see and we can look and we know that god is glorified in creation so that brings us to verse 4 the messages has gone out to the whole world and the words to the ends of the world in the heaven in the ends in the world so the message of god goes out everywhere that's the best thing about the creation and the realization that god is speaking in creation because we have no excuses it doesn't matter if you're from cork city or the tribe in timbuktu it doesn't matter god is speaking to us in creation there is no boundaries there is no language differences we can all hear it so we have no excuses of not listening to god if you don't believe if people don't believe in the scriptures if people don't believe in anything like that they still can't deny that god is talking to them in creation you can know hebrew chinese greek they're all nice things to know but it doesn't matter it doesn't matter there's no boundaries so can i ask you a question why don't we listen why don't we stop and listen to what god is saying paul tells us in romans 1 i'm going to flick the romans 1 but paul tells us in romans romans 1 20 he tells us that for his invisible aptitudes that is his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made as a result people are without excuse for true they know god they did not glorify him as god or show gratitude instead their thinking became worthless and their senseless heart were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanging the glory for the immortal god for images resembling mortal men birds four-footed animals and reptiles people don't listen because they want to worship the creation rather than the creator we love seeing things that gratify us we love seeing things that we can create and control and it becomes our god it's like exodus 32 with the golden calf we have our hearts want to control god so we create images we create and everybody has them i've got an arm full of golden calves that i go out there when life is tough
[11:51] but we must not worship them it must not become a worship disorder that we start worshiping things that we create rather than the creator but paul tells us what happens if we do this these things so the heart becomes foolish but god paul gives us a row give us a warning in romans again before we do what we just read in romans 18 like paul tells us what's going to happen to these people what's going to happen to us if we reject what god is saying so again in romans 118 paul tells us for the god's wrath is revealed from the heavens against all godliness and unrighteousness for people by who their unrighteousness suppress the truth since what can be known about god is evident amongst them because god has shown it to them did you see the unrighteousness suppression we suppress our own unrighteousness do you suppress your own unrighteousness and what happens when we suppress our own unrighteousness we will feel the wrath of god i don't say that this morning to frighten me or paul didn't say it to frighten me but it's the truth people will tell you that it's okay to live in this world and do what you want to do we as believers know that that's a lie now you can't be a christian if you're bathing in your sin you can't now we are all going to sin but if you're lying back bathing and enjoying your sin you're not a christian because you love your sin and you love the creation more than the creator and paul is saying that the wrath of god you will face we will face the wrath of god if we don't accept the lord jesus christ as our savior and express none of our righteousness that's what nobody none of us can hear or can boast we're all unrighteousness and if you suppress it you think you're right you think that you're that you are righteous newsflash you're not does none of us here righteous the only righteous person is the righteousness of jesus christ and the blood that he shed in the cross is what needs to cleanse our unrighteousness so we try not to suppress that it's nothing to be shameful for we can come to christ with our unrighteousness jesus will accept us with open arms he wants us as cork and as the cork slang he wants us with warts and oil he wants us as we are he are he wants us broken he wants us unrighteous he wants us he wants a relationship with us so with that we're going to go back to the sun and verse five and i really should have marked this better than i did in verse five as it tells us it is like a braves room coming out of his home it rejoices like an athlete running the course it rises from one end of the heavens and it cycles their earth and it cycles to their other end nothing is hidden from the heat my wedding there i felt strong i was full of energy and excitement i was just about to receive my wife
[15:55] i was proud i was happy i was confident this is the way we should be when we talk to people about jesus christ we should be like the bride or the groom ready to burst out of his chambers and the running scene everybody likes an old running scene everybody likes i'm a runner not physically but mentally everything that there's something strong i run and the fastest i can get out of a situation my eye is looking at this corner though i know it's there so i know it's behind me so that's my first expression is how i'm going to get out of this i'm a runner but everybody loves scenes of running my favorite scene of running in the movie is forrest gump i love it because he's his legs are embraces he hasn't got as much energy as his friends but he runs and he runs and he strengthens his legs and one of these days he got chased and he ran so fast you could see the legs breaking there's the braces broken his legs and that boy ran and his head went up in the air and the sun was shining on his face and he was smiling and that reminded me of our christian life it's tough it's hard but we must run with the gospel of jesus christ and the more we run and the faster we run our legs will get stronger and stronger and we will be able to run as fast as we ever thought we could be with our heads in the air the sun beating down on top of our face and smiling from air to air because we know that our treasures are not to be stored in this world and as matthew matthew tells us in matthew 4 wherever your treasures is stored there is your heart we must store our treasures in jesus christ we must run with his word to the world and tell people about him and the sun is used in this verse because no one can escape from it it's everywhere it comes up and it doesn't matter what you do you can hide under the shade but it's still here so that was david looking up now after looking up and he's seeing the creation and he's seeing god revealed in creation what does he do he looks down he's standing in the field looking at his sheep and david now after seeing the glorification of god he looks down into his scriptures what we do today he looks down into the scripture that he had at the time was torah the old testament so he looks down and he sees and he says in verse 7 to 8 the instructions of the lord lord is perfect renewing one's life the testimony of the lord is trustworthy making the inexperience wise where would you get that where would you get them the instructions of the lord when you look here you can see that david is after replacing god with lord he's gone into torah he's using lord as in yahweh he's showing he's telling us about yahweh is perfect he is complete he's without blemish lacking nothing and he will revive your soul he will renew and bring you back to him if you've strained you can return david talks to us through the torah in these verses
[20:05] that's his gospel today we have the full gospel we have the full gospel in jesus christ and if david is telling us that his torah can be trusted our scriptures can be trusted again we live in a society that tells us you can trust them you can't trust them it doesn't matter how good it sounds it's too good to be true you cannot trust what people are telling in this world we must use scripture as a filter we must filter what we are being told through scripture and it will reveal to us god will speak and reveal to us if this is true or not because scripture is true so we must use scripture when we look down into him and we're going through our lives you must use it we must filter what's happening to us through the word of god so you can read any books you want you can listen to any sermons you want about god which is good but remember that all these are filtered experience from other people's experiences you need we need to have our own experiences with god unfiltered and the only way we can do that is spend time on his word and understanding it for us i mean have you ever seen instagram or facebook and you see these hashtag no filters i know they're filtered you see the guy that's sitting down and their eyes are about this size and they've got lips they're about that size and their skin their jaw is tiny and you're saying that picture is filtered and they're saying no filters it's lies but we live in a society that loves to filter what's going on in our lives we love to put things that we can convince ourselves that it's true but no and it's not you know i have anxiety up here unfiltered but the lord jesus christ walks through me with his spirit i have nothing to offer only a puny fish but the spirit can feed the multitude of people with it i need to humble it's unfiltered so we're looking around verses eight the deceptions of or the perceptions of the lord are right making the heart glad the command of the lord is radiant making the eyes light up i love that it's right it makes your eyes light up and it lasts forever matthew 24 the heavens and earth will pass away but my word will not pass away but my word will last forever we're gonna die sorry if anybody knew that but we are gonna die we are all returning to dust we are gonna pass away this building is going to pass away society in another 50 years time is going to look different the buildings are going to look different but jesus christ and his word is going to endure forever forever way beyond how long we're gonna last and the and the the word will make your eyes light up oh this sounds amazing don't it we'll be able to going to see things clearly the scales are going to be removed and we are going to see the glorification of god through scripture are you ready to see her that's the thing i'm going to see that your eyes are going to light up it reminds me of when the kids come in at five o'clock in the morning and you're half asleep and they turn on
[24:07] the light you are screaming in pain you the first thing you want to do is grab them covers and cover your head you don't want to see the light it's too bright that's what it can be like when god goes into your heart the first thing we want to do is run we're being exposed it sounds great but it it can be blinding highlighting sin i remember the first time my single highlighted i was petrified petrified and i wanted to grab the blanket and put it over my head and shut out that light i did not want to see it but the longer you stay in the light the longer you stay in the presence of jesus christ you will get up and you will open the curtain and behold the sunrise the sun jesus christ and all his glory you will see but you have to adjust the eyes you have to adjust the eyes to the light and the only way we can do that is through scripture the perfect revelation of jesus christ so we're going to go to verse 10 we're going to come back to verse 9 i skipped the fear the fear of the lord is pure enduring forever that's what i was talking about it but it goes on forever but it's fear we should fear the lord we're not worthy of him but we should also remember he's a merciful god fear is good but without that mercy of jesus christ fear is not good if there is something in your life that's not bringing to jesus christ it's not the spirit the spirit leads you to christ so if you have fear and that spirit is leading you to christ it's the spirit but if you have fear that makes you run it's not the spirit verse 10 it tells us they are more desirable than gold than abundance gold of pure gold and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb i grew up far from honeycombs i've never tasted honeycomb before i spoke to a few people and they said it's amazing so i'll take the award for it i've tasted honey but not from a honeycomb and the honey from a honeycomb is supposed to be pure honey and you're supposed to desire it more than that now i can if you talk to me about the pure honey and the pure taste of alcohol i can tell you what that's about i was an addiction for many years and that was my honey the drink that i drank i desired it more than jesus i loved it it made me into anything i wanted to be it was more desirable with a relationship with god and when i look at this and i think about the times i was in that addiction and the promises that it gave me and the more i desired it today i can stand here and i can tell you jesus christ will fill you with as much joy that you've never experienced in any addiction it doesn't matter what drink you put down your throat whatever you shoot into your veins or whatever lines you put up your nose it has nothing compared to what jesus christ has to offer you and whatever your addiction is telling you it's a lie you're being deceived it's a temporary release with the end you're going to face the wrath of god and that's where that song that we just heard before we came before i came up here that i played out of my baptism it was the first song that i realized looking at the lyrics what was going on i didn't know i was running i didn't know i was doing it on my own murder i didn't know what was happening until
[28:09] i heard that song and the most important verses i heard was i once was lost in darkest night yet thought i knew the way the sin that promised joy and life had led me to the grave i had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will and if you had not loved me first i would refuse you still hallelujah all i have is christ hallelujah jesus is my life that's it he's my life i'm not here because of my own murder i am not here because of what i've done and i've done mad things i've been claiming mountains in medjugorje i've been in crawling on my knees the statues in fatima i've been three days barefooted praying around monks beds awake for 46 hours to remove the shame and guilt from my past and could never do it until i open up the scripture one day and i've seen we all fall short to the glory of god and i realized that i am not worthy and he is and if i didn't accept the price that he paid for the cross was his blood i still owe debt and it's not a physical debt it's a spiritual debt damnation eternity in hell that's the debt jesus christ paid for that is the debt he paid for us and if we don't accept that payment then we have to pay next in eternity death so verses 11 in addition the servant is warned by them and keeping them is an important reward so looking back it can tell us the promises of the promises of scripture it's perfect it's right it's sure it's pure it's clean and it's true how would you get that living in this world so now we looked up we look down it's time to look in it's time to look in and listen to god revealing himself in our souls in repentance now david looked up into the heavens and he must have been wow he looked down into the word of god and he must have been in awe and then he must have looked in in the personal revelation and he must have went yuck what am i and that's the way we must do we must look in and we must not beat our chests and we must say yuck we are all sinful we are all unjust we are all hardened of hearts we are all the same there's no different there's no mightier than mighty we are all struggling we are all living in this world in this world as best as we can we all long to be satisfied in this world but guess what we will never be satisfied in this world you know why because we are not created for this world it doesn't matter what this world tells us or what it promises us we will never have satisfaction in this world and we shouldn't because we are not created for this world we are created to be in heaven in a glorified body and a glorified soul with jesus christ and in there we will have the satisfaction that we long for down here
[32:12] and that goes out especially to the young people here that are living in society and it tells you that you can be who you want to be and you don't have to be this person and you can live the life that you want to be because it's the only life that you have it's lies it's lies you never see the news and they'll tell you look lads let's take out the bible and pray to jesus christ no you won't you'll never hear that news and where will you hear that news in your local church it will tell you the truth it will tell you that we are not created for this world we are not to be satisfied in this world we are to be putting our treasures in heaven in the next world that we are created for and in there we will find rest come all you who are weary and i will give you rest we can relax when we make it but we must persevere through this world so david looks in in verse 12 he said who perceives his intentional sin cleanse me from my hidden faults when i read this i went oh reminds me of a story i love stories so i was in a system before i became a christian and i had to go to get confession and i was sitting in the confession box and i confessed and i moved and i left i was convicted and i went to another confession box in the same day and i confessed the sin that i remembered and i left and i sat down and had a cup of coffee and guess what i remembered more sins and i went back in again for the third time on monday and the priest told me when was your last confession and i said this is my third one today and he looked at me as well foreheads and he said why do you keep coming back and he says i said because i'm remembering my sin as i leave i'm petrified i'm scared and i'm remembering sin and i need to confess it and he looked at me and he says i am forgiving you of all your sins in other words don't be coming back no more we're sick to that yeah that's the way i picked it up but not realizing it's like i had sin i didn't even know i committed we have sin that we don't know that we commit we could be talking to people in this in the conversation and we could think it's great not knowing that what we're saying is sinful we don't know we have on we have sin that we don't even know that we're committing how could we stand here today and say that how can i stand here today and say i am just by my own i am just by my merits when the word of god tells me no you're sinful you got sin that you don't even know you have how can you righteous from that you can't you can't it's in unintentional sin cleanse me from my hidden falls moreover keep your sovereign from willing sins verse 13 then i will be blameless and cleanse from blunt rebel rebellion notice in verse 13 david saying that he's not asking for forgiveness he's not saying please forgive me because he knows that he has sinned that he doesn't even know he have so he can't ask for forgiveness for something he doesn't have that he's not that he does not aware of so it's the sin that he's asking for is asking jesus to stand in the way of that sin that he doesn't know that he has jesus stands in the way of our sin that he that we don't even know that we have when we want to sin and we're sinful natures and we're going to keep sinning we must run to jesus jesus is saying we are going to sin i've paid for the price of sin
[36:14] but we're going to be sinners until we're in his presence but jesus christ will stand in between our sin and we can run to him when we are in temptation and then we are blameless and then we are cleansed so you're looking at verse 14 may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you lord my rock and my redeemer we got there where did we get there because oh lord my rock and my redeemer we would not have got through psalm 19 without realizing that we are all here today because lord jesus christ is our rock and our redeemer what a mighty king we serve what a mighty king we serve that he takes us as sinful as we are and loves us that he paid a price winningly for us and accepts us sin and all and wants a relationship with us jesus christ is our lord and savior we are right and just because of him the blood he shed on the cross nothing else he took our sin and paid the price we owed we are saved not by our merit or our works we are saved by god's grace freely given freely given so we cannot boast and beat our chests to other people amen and i'd like to end this i'm not going to sing it because of a voice like two cats in a plastic bag but we're going to sing oh lord and oh lord my rock and my redeemer thank you oh