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[0:00] Psalm 119, starting at 25. The word right above it is left in Hebrew.! It's one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.!

[0:10] Because the whole psalm is an acrostic. Daleth. My soul clings to the dust. Revive me according to your word. I have declared my ways, and you answered me.

[0:23] Teach me your statutes. Make me understand the way of your precepts. So shall I meditate on your wonderful works. My soul melts from heaviness.

[0:35] Strengthen me according to your word. Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me your law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth.

[0:46] Your judgments I have laid before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord. Do not put me to shame. I will run the course of your commandments.

[0:59] For you shall enlarge my heart. The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

[1:25] Let's pray. Let's pray. Oh, living God, the giver of life, thank you for breathing out your scriptures, and thank you for how your Holy Spirit now takes your scriptures, and the word of God in the hand of the Holy Spirit, so to speak, is sharper than a two-edged sword.

[1:47] Lord, we pray, Lord, that your spirit will use your word, and all that you reveal in your word about who you are, and about Jesus Christ, and the good news of salvation for sinners like us, in God, through Jesus.

[2:03] That you'll make this so clear today, Lord. We pray that your word will wash over us, Lord, like a tide from the most pure ocean, that you'll cleanse us by your word, Lord.

[2:15] You'll sanctify us. You'll prepare our souls for eternity with you. Lord, for those who are in darkness and know nothing about your word, we pray that today you will shine the glory of who you are on these dear souls, that they will not be the same, that they will know you through your word, we ask.

[2:37] Amen. Oh, how lovely is the word of the Lord. Amen.

[2:50] Oh, how lovely is the word of the Lord. That's my one message for you today, but let's walk through this passage one verse at a time and appreciate it more and more together.

[3:01] Psalm 119 is anonymous. It's also the longest chapter in the whole Psalter, in the whole Bible. Some possible authors include David because many of the phrases and the style is very similar to David's.

[3:18] Another possibility is Ezra because he was the priest who taught the people the law. This would be a very fitting psalm for them to sing over and over, remembering this lesson of the precious word of God.

[3:29] Others have supposed possibly Daniel or Jeremiah. Both lived in a similar time. Both were raised up by the Lord and were in exile, so they're lamenting the loss and longing to have that worship of God restored, which comes through in this psalm.

[3:45] Now, the beautiful thing about God's word is while we don't need to know who the human author was because we have the divine author, the Holy Spirit, who breathed out all of Scripture.

[3:58] And he does this in such a gentle, kind way. As I mentioned, Daleth is the Hebrew letter D. So A, B, C, D. It's early on in the sequence.

[4:10] To use our own English spin on that, the mood or the tone, the condition of the author, the human author, is dire, depressed, and doubting.

[4:25] Now, the Bible gives us here one little snapshot, like a case study, but we can turn to a number of other parts of the Bible and we're going to hear very different tones, very different styles. The beautiful thing about God's word is that the one Holy Spirit breathed it out through the pen of over 40 different human authors on three different continents in three different languages.

[4:49] Well, you know Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament, what was the third? There are portions, like in Daniel, which were Aramaic. Very good. It was written over 1,500 years.

[5:02] And despite all this diversity and all this variance from a human perspective, the Bible, the Holy Word of God, reveals one way of salvation, one God, one hope, one promise.

[5:15] The one message of all the scriptures is life in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. That's what it very clearly presents to everyone who God will give an ear to hear the good news.

[5:29] 2 Peter 1, verses 19 and 21 says, we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns, knowing that scripture came through holy men of God, speaking as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

[5:50] That's how this glorious, lovely library, this Bible came to be. The reason I picked our passage today, more broadly, it's because all of Psalm 119 is all about the word of God.

[6:05] Every single couplet is going to mention the law, the word, the testimonies of God in some form or another. The whole psalm lifts up the loveliness of God's word. But the reason I chose Dalif, specifically, this little stanza, is because we're so small, I'm able to know our congregation very well, very easily, very naturally.

[6:27] And this psalm, this stanza in particular, is for those who feel dead. Yes, Christians, who have the Holy Spirit, but we feel a deadness.

[6:38] We need reviving. It's for Christians who feel weak, and that's who we are. Some of us, army crawled this morning just to be here.

[6:49] It's for those who are so aware of their sin and hate their sin. And it's for us who feel very unloving much of the time.

[7:00] That's why I picked it. It's because I don't want to just tell you what God's word is. I want you to be reminded and experience it in the condition that we are right now, in our weakness.

[7:11] Let the power of God's word in Christ wash over us. So here's four encouragements from this passage. Number one, when your soul clings to the dust, ask the Lord to disciple you in his word.

[7:26] When your soul clings to the dust, ask the Lord to disciple you in his word. Look at verse 25. That's exactly what the psalmist cries out.

[7:38] My soul clings to the dust. Revive me according to your word. I have declared my ways and you answered me. Teach me your statutes.

[7:51] By the light of nature, every one of us can clearly see God's goodness, wisdom, and power. So every one of us, before this holy God, is left without excuse.

[8:06] We sit here knowing that God is my creator. He is holy and just, and I owe him worship. We know this. Yet we also know that we fall short of his glory, don't we?

[8:22] We don't glorify and enjoy God, even though that's the end for which he created us. And so we know what dust is, the way the psalmist uses it poetically.

[8:35] God made us human beings from the dust. Dust we are, and to dust our bodies shall return. So when he says, my soul clings to the dust here, dust stands for the lust of our flesh, this body that we're in in this life, our pride in this life, worldliness.

[8:58] That's the dust that his soul is clinging on to. We know what this is like, don't we? Ephesians 2, 3, speaking to the church, people like you and me, reminds us that we were all slaves to the dust.

[9:16] By nature, children of God's wrath. We all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of our fallen minds.

[9:28] He says, my soul clings to the dust. That verb, to cling, it's used and translated in other parts as cleaves. It sticks to it.

[9:39] It's intimately joined together. It's a bond that's exceptionally tight. It's like two objects that are glued together, unwavering, deep affection for that thing.

[9:54] Specifically in Genesis 2, 24, it's the exact same word used to describe how a man will leave his father and mother and shall cling or cleave to his wife and the two will be one flesh.

[10:08] And this is what the psalmist is saying. My soul clings to the dust. Put it in our own words, it could be like this.

[10:18] My body will return to dust when I die. I know this. But my inner man, my soul, still clings for this perishing life.

[10:29] My thoughts, my desires, my personality, who I am inside, it clings to this earth, the dust from which I was made.

[10:40] And so what's the solution? Look again at this verse. He says, revive me according to your word. I've declared my ways to you. I've confessed this is who I am and you answered me.

[10:52] You spoke. He says, teach me your statutes. The solution is the same for us as for the psalmist. because this is my condition, because this is the bent of my soul.

[11:07] I need God himself to disciple me. Teach me according to your word. Look in verse 25. He uses that to describe the scriptures.

[11:19] He calls it the word of God. This is one of seven terms, one of seven titles given to the scriptures. The word of God is the most broad. It's the way that God has revealed or unveiled and made known what his promises are.

[11:37] He says, Lord, I'm declaring this to you about my ways. My soul is crooked. If left to myself, my soul will still actively and persistently choose dust over glory.

[11:52] If left to myself, I will hold tightly to this world instead of to the world to come. If left to myself, my affections will grasp tightly to this life instead of the next.

[12:05] My flesh is too powerful for any other philosophy, any other course of study, any other teacher. No other source of truth in this world is sufficient to give me the knowledge of God, to know the will of God, that it's necessary for salvation, that God reveal himself to me.

[12:25] And in his word, he's given us the full revelation of how he can bring life to a soul that's twisted like that. The psalmist confesses, Lord, I need you to speak to me.

[12:40] Answer me, he says. In verse 26, teach me your statutes. This is how God speaks to him and answers his cry. And it's the second term used, statutes.

[12:52] Statutes describe God's binding, permanent decrees. Statutes are permanent because the literal Hebrew word is engraving something in stone, inscribing it somewhere that won't get erased.

[13:08] These are the statutes of God. He says, Lord, your word is stable. My soul is not stable. I'm going to put myself under your teaching, your statutes over me.

[13:20] And you discipline me, you disciple me. You correct my heart. You be my teacher. I'll be your student. And your statutes are my curriculum.

[13:34] Revive me, Lord. Put your life inside my body. My body, my flesh, it's like a bag of dust. Breathe life into me, enliven me according to your word.

[13:49] And he says he trusts God to do this because God has promised this in his word. And the psalmist didn't have the full revelation which we do now.

[14:00] We can turn to 1 Peter 1.23 and be reminded how we too are born again of incomparable, incorruptible seed through the word of God which lives and abides forever.

[14:15] It's the same prayer in the New Testament. And this means this. God is the one who spoke and creation came to be.

[14:27] And that same word of God that creates life is just as powerful to revive again my soul and to sustain his life inside of me.

[14:40] So dear brothers and sisters, when your soul is clinging to the dust and it will do this again as long as we're in this life, ask the Lord to disciple you according to his word.

[14:54] One more time. And if you feel spiritually dead today or at another moment maybe later this week, through his word the Lord promises to revive you again.

[15:07] Oh how lovely is the word of our Lord. The second encouragement is this. When your soul is depressed meditate on what the Lord has done in his word.

[15:23] When your soul is depressed meditate on what the Lord has done in his word. Look at verse 27. Make me understand the way of your precepts so shall I meditate on your wonderful works.

[15:37] My soul melts from heaviness. Strengthen me according to your word. When was the last time you experienced this level of depression?

[15:51] I know that for some of us it was just this past week. Verse 28 he describes it as the soul, the inner man melting because of a great heaviness.

[16:03] can you imagine the weight it would take to collapse your soul down to that point of liquefying it and letting it drip out of your body.

[16:18] It's like he's saying I don't know how to describe it but the heaviness upon me is so unbearable. My body is like a vessel that's just leaking out my very soul.

[16:30] what he says next in verse 27 make me understand the way of your precepts. God I can't even understand what's going on inside my own soul and so please make me understand your precepts.

[16:49] And here's the third word he uses in this stanza to describe the word of God it's precepts. Precepts highlights the detailed specific instructions appointed by God to govern his people.

[17:03] And it's something that we won't understand naturally. We can't just sit there with God's word and completely grasp it on our own. It has to be the Holy Spirit illuminating it, teaching it, showing through meditation on God's word the details inside his word that are life-giving that are a blessing for us.

[17:26] He prays so to speak, take my thoughts off of myself and put my thoughts on your word instead. Lord, I'm so depressed by my own guilt, by what I have done, so teach me to meditate instead on your wonderful works.

[17:45] Strengthen me, Lord, as I ponder you, what you have done as recorded in your word. Romans 15, 4 tells us, this is why we have the Bible.

[17:58] God's word was written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Turn to the scriptures when we need hope, when our souls are depressed.

[18:13] We can thank the Lord and the language of our confession. God, you have revealed yourself in writing. By your word, you establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh, the malice of Satan, and the worldliness of the world.

[18:32] Because of your statutes, we know the truth. And this authority that God gives us through his word does not depend on the testimony of any person or church, but on God, the author alone, who is truth itself.

[18:48] Your word is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter.

[19:02] How lovely is the word of God. So brothers and sisters, when your soul is depressed, meditate on what the Lord has done as recorded in his word.

[19:17] If you feel weak, remember how through his word the Lord promises to strengthen you and me. How lovely is the word of our Lord.

[19:30] The third encouragement is this, when your deeds accuse you, lay before you what the Lord has decreed in his word.

[19:41] When your deeds accuse You lay before you what the Lord has decreed in his word. Look at verse 29. The psalmist prays, remove from me the way of lying and grant me your law graciously.

[19:58] 30. I have chosen the way of truth. Your judgments I have laid before me. In these verses, the psalmist knows the temptation to lie, to sin.

[20:15] He's in need of grace. He sees options before him. He's tempted away from the truth and the Lord persuades him on the way of truth.

[20:27] And he says in the last phrase there, your judgments I have laid before me. This is how God did it. So he's guilty.

[20:37] He's accused. He's wrestling with his own sin. The Bible tells us that the devil is the accuser of God's people. Even though Christ has silenced our adversary before the throne of God, the devil gets no audience in the throne of heaven to accuse God's people any longer.

[20:59] But the devil still accuses you and me to ourselves, doesn't he? The devil lays our recent and past sins before us. The devil speaks condemning thoughts into our ears.

[21:13] The devil tries to burden God's people. with guilt. And how is it that the Lord ministers to us in those moments? Verse 29, he says, remove from me the way of lying.

[21:30] Lord, I don't ask you to lower your standard of righteousness. A lie is a lie. And I have a bent toward being deceitful. But he says next, grant me your law graciously.

[21:46] Your law is good, but I can only receive from you the grace that the law exposes my great need of. And here he uses a fourth term for the word of God, law.

[22:00] The Hebrew word is Torah. The first five books of the Bible and also the law. So it's the law of God. It can mean teaching or direction, instruction.

[22:11] It's revelation that steers the believer away from the path of deceit that leads to destruction. He says your judgments I have laid before me.

[22:23] And there's the next term, the fifth one, judgments, the judgments of God. Another English translation would be rules or ordinances. These are God's legal declarations about what is right, true, and good.

[22:37] 2 Timothy 3.15 says help me to know the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

[22:51] And so what he does, the psalmist crying out in his sin is to say Lord your judgments what you have said is right and wrong, I lay it all before me. I don't dodge your law, I don't try to bend it or find a way to work around it.

[23:05] It's all laid before me. And now you need to minister your law to me in a gracious way. And so what God does is he gospels him through it. And that's what the Lord loves to do, it's to gospel you and me out of our guilt time and time again.

[23:23] We can rehearse this together this way. We can pray like the psalmist Lord, I know you are holy and just. I know your law is good. Lord, I'm a sinful law breaker.

[23:37] I lay all your judgments before me and that's what it makes me. I confess my heart is deceitful, my lips have lied, and I've rejected the way of truth.

[23:49] But I know from your word that I deserve a capital punishment for my sin against you. When I sin against you, I'm acting as if I'm God. But yet, Lord, in your same word, you show that you are gracious to me.

[24:04] you bound yourself to a wretched sinner like me by your covenant of grace. You've ministered your law graciously to me. And it's by the blood of the only substitute that you could rightfully accept.

[24:19] That's the life and the death of Jesus Christ. He's the one who chose the way of truth when I failed. Your judgment that I must pay, you took upon yourself instead, upon our Savior, the Lord Jesus.

[24:37] We know by your word, your decree to save a people for yourself. We know by your word, your decree to love us in Christ while we were still your enemies.

[24:48] We know by your word, your decree before the foundation of the world to redeem us in Christ. We know by your word, your decree to be our God and to have us be your people.

[25:02] forevermore. We know this by your word and I've laid all of your word in front of me to receive your grace one more time.

[25:15] We can thank the Lord for his lovely word. His holy scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

[25:29] obedience. We praise God through the Holy Spirit. It's his spirit who makes us to see the heavenliness of the contents of the Bible, the power of the system of truth, the majesty of the style, the harmony of all the parts, and the central focus on giving all glory to God in Jesus Christ by his word.

[25:54] So, brothers and sisters, when your deeds accuse you, lay before you what the Lord has decreed in his word.

[26:06] When you feel sinful before the holy God, remember that through his word, the Lord removes you from the way of sin. He reminds you you're covered in Christ's righteousness.

[26:20] And we have certainty of this because it comes from the very word of God. himself. Oh, how lovely is the word of our Lord. Or the fourth and final encouragement for today is this.

[26:33] When you cling to what the Lord has declared in his word, he shall direct your desires. When you and I cling to what the Lord has declared in his word, he shall direct our desires.

[26:49] Look at verse 31. He says, I cling to your testimonies, O Lord. Do not put me to shame. I will run the course of your commandments, for you shall enlarge my heart.

[27:05] You notice this beautiful full circle. It's a great redirection of the psalmist's soul from where he started in this stanza and where he is now at the end of it, isn't it?

[27:18] At the beginning of this stanza, when he started this prayer, you remember what his soul clung to? You can say it, it clung to the dust. In verse 25, but now look at what the soul clings to, it's the same word, the same verb in verse 31, I now cling to your testimonies.

[27:41] Here's our sixth term for the word of God, testimonies. These are God's solemn witnesses! about his own character and his covenant.

[27:53] It's so glorious, it's so otherworldly that no human mind could conceive of a creator God, and that this God would covenant himself to a people.

[28:05] It's God self-testifying, it's the testimonies of who God is, preserved for us in writing, so that we can have certainty and believe.

[28:16] it's like the psalmist says, I've tasted now by the end of the stanza in your word that you are God. I've experienced through your word that you are good, and now I'm stuck, I cling to Christ through the ministry of the word.

[28:36] I cling now to your testimonies. Lord, you have knit my soul intimately together with Christ, your living word. I'm glued to your word.

[28:49] I have a deep affection for you, oh Lord, through your word, your testimonies. The quality of your word is incomparable.

[29:00] It's lovely. The perfections of your word are matchless. Lord, I'm trusting your testimonies, your promises, your word. I trust, I receive, I rest in your word.

[29:13] Lord, by your help, I'm not hedging my bets anymore. I'm throwing myself on what you've promised with abandon. That's what he says, let me not be put to shame, Lord.

[29:28] Prove yourself true. Don't stop being faithful now, Lord. I need your steadfast love again now. I need your covenant faithfulness again.

[29:40] run. And I love verse 32. He says, I will run the course of your commandments. Here's the seventh and final term for the word of God.

[29:51] Commandments. Commandments are God's authoritative orders. It's what a king pronounces over his kingdom. They provide a clear, defined path for how the citizens of the kingdom are to live.

[30:09] And he's saying, Lord, prove yourself once more like you always do. And notice how he's asking it in prayer form. Verse 32. I will run the course of your commandments, but he hasn't run yet.

[30:24] And he says, for you shall enlarge my heart. God hasn't enlarged his heart yet. He's praying this with hope, trusting the promises, trusting what the king has said.

[30:37] It's still in prayer form, but it's prayed as a believer who has known God's tender mercies and who needs them again. It's a believer who knows that God's mercies are new every morning.

[30:52] How do we know this? From his word. He said so. It's like he's saying, Lord, I know you will do this again because you are faithful.

[31:03] You promise yourself to your people again and again in your word. I love how we sing this when we hide it in our hearts. Lamentations 3, 22 and 23.

[31:14] The word of God. The steadfast love of the Lord never fails. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.

[31:26] Great is thy faithfulness, O Lord. Lord. And then he says, I shall run for you shall enlarge my heart.

[31:39] Our legs run toward whatever our hearts consider lovely, don't they? That's what we move toward. We move closer to something we love.

[31:51] We come to love something when we behold it as lovely. And it's true that the more we love something, in general, despite our own weakness, the faster we will move to that thing.

[32:06] Our hearts are small, so that's our problem. We don't have great capacity to behold how lovely God is. And so, first the Lord has to enlargen the heart.

[32:19] He has to make our hearts capable of great love. The wonderful word in English for a great heart, an enlarged heart, is magnanimity, magnanimous.

[32:32] It means big-hearted. That's what the Spirit does to Christians. He expands our capacity for love, and he fills us with more love for God, because God first loved us.

[32:49] So for you and I, who in our flesh, we feel unloving, remember that through his word, the Lord promises to enlarge our hearts. We can be fully persuaded and assured, like the psalmist of the infallible truth and the divine authority of the scriptures.

[33:09] And these come from the internal work of the Spirit, who bears witness by and with the word in our hearts. Much more powerful than our own flesh.

[33:21] So when you and I are tempted to cling to the dust one more time, we trust the word of God, the promises of God, and the power of the Spirit to apply the word of God, to cause our hearts instead to cling to what God has declared in his word, trusting he will, by his power, direct our desires back toward him.

[33:44] Oh, how lovely is the word of our Lord. Let's pray and thank him. Oh, Father, it's so marvelous to think of how you even communicate with us, Lord, our creator, and how you have acted in human history every single generation, how you've revealed yourself and you've testified of who you are in your word.

[34:19] We thank you for this treasure, Lord, and how through the scriptures, by the work of the spirit, you draw us to yourself. You magnify your glory to us.

[34:30] You cause us to behold your loveliness. And your spirit then applies this powerfully, pulling our hearts closer and closer to Christ. Lord, we praise you that Jesus ran perfectly the course of your commandments.

[34:47] needs. Thank you that you give us a desire, Lord, to be closer to you, to walk as a disciple of Jesus. We thank you for our Lord Jesus who turns to us and says, simply, follow me.

[35:04] May you be glorified in our lives, in the life of this church, we pray, for Christ's sake alone. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.