[0:00] Psalm 119, Words of Life. I love that description for the Bible, for God's Word, the words of life. As you turn to Psalm 119, I'm going to read to you. We got a little certificate here, all right?
[0:12] I told Whitney we will put it on the refrigerator in the kitchen since we don't have another place for it. But it's from Awanom, and I read it, and I thought it really summarizes what's happening in our other rooms in Awanom.
[0:26] And it would be worth me sharing with you in here. It says, Congratulations, Vision Baptist Church, for completing nine years of discipleship through the ministry of Awanom.
[0:36] I like that part. Discipleship through the ministry of Awanom, and that's what's certainly happening. Your commitment to mentor a generation that will one day be leaders of tomorrow is by no means a small task.
[0:48] Teaching children and youth to come to know, love, and serve our Lord Jesus Christ is at its core following our greatest commandment. Take a moment to reflect on all the faces that have graced your ministry.
[1:01] Now capture a vision for all the faces God will send in the upcoming years. The future of the church is at hand, so remain strong. Lean into Jesus as you continue in your quest to build resilient disciples who will stand for the church and Jesus Christ in the days ahead.
[1:15] So I didn't know that, but I guess they keep record of it, and we're at nine years of having Awanom. And so make sure when you see your Awanom workers that you tip them on your way out, and you also thank them for their ministry of making resilient disciples.
[1:28] The ministry of discipleship has loved so much about what was said there. So I'm 119. I'm going to review. I'm going to be in a hurry about reviewing from last week because the section comes together. There is no praising the Lord, which is our theme in our portion of Scripture tonight.
[1:43] There's no praising the Lord if you don't see the wonder of God's Word. God never asks us to force a smile. They can always provide a smile to us regardless of what's going on.
[1:54] So we see the wonder of God's Word. He can always heal our hearts. Maybe that would be a better way to say it. Maybe there won't be a smile on your face, but you can still praise Him. And so we're not skipping first Him doing a work in our heart before we would praise Him.
[2:08] He's not demanding a praise out of us that He isn't worthy of. He isn't demanding a praise out of us that He hasn't given us plenty of evidence for, or as it was sung tonight, the words of life from John chapter number 6.
[2:21] And so as we do, let's try it different this week. Psalm 119 verse 161. You look down at your Bible. When we get to the expression for the Word of God, you say it with me, okay? And remember, one of them has two.
[2:33] Are you up for this, Zechariah? You look ready, okay? You got a half gallon of water. You're ready to go for anything. He's always prepared, all right? And Psalm 119 verse 161. Princes have persecuted me without cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.
[2:51] All right. Pretty good. A little echo in here. Auditorium feels bigger than I with echo. Verse 162. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil.
[3:04] I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.
[3:17] Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments. My soul has kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee.
[3:31] So we saw a heart that was captivated by God's word. It was unwavering. Even though there was persecution coming at a high level, the royalty, princes were persecuting. David, if he's writing this, it could have been called from Saul and associates.
[3:44] It could have been coming from family members. But he was attacked on many fronts throughout his life. But he said, I'm not going to allow that to take my attention away from the fact that my heart standeth in all the word.
[3:56] It is the biggest thing in my life, as he would say. And I gave you this quote, and maybe Thatcher will put it back up there for us. But it says, from Spurgeon, So we have, it's so important.
[4:16] It's what's happening in our other rooms. Pray that it's happening in here. A high reverence for the word of God. And so we've seen through Scripture that there's a godly fear that marks the people of God.
[4:27] And we're also mindful of what happens when we don't have a proper fear of God and His word. And we become overcome. And so the quote that Thatcher just had up there, which is not the one that I just read for you, it says this, I will go to the length of saying that unless we do have a deep awe of the word, we shall never have high joy over it.
[4:46] Our rejoicing will be measured by our reverencing. Our rejoicing will be measured by our reverencing. So if the first few verses of this section speaks about reverencing the word, this last section that I want to focus on tonight has to do with rejoicing in it and praising the Lord.
[5:05] I rejoice at that word, verse 162, as what? As a person who has found the great spoil, better than the treasure map that you wanted as a kid to find, you have already found it.
[5:16] The question is, will you have eyes that see it? And we're told in Scripture that it's a great spoil given to us, but that doesn't mean that we should not. He'll give us understanding. He has the words of life. But we also study to show ourselves approved.
[5:29] And we don't want the lesser glories of the word of God that's out of context. We don't want to rejoice in something that we have found and fabricated in Scripture. We want to know it because any passage of Scripture in its grammatical, historical context, and its true meaning is going to outshine anything that we could put upon the Scriptures.
[5:48] And so we ended last time saying that kids label too many things as a lie, but as adults we don't label enough. And then I ended with a great charge to tell you to decimate the word of God, but I meant to say disseminate the word of God.
[6:01] And I should have just stayed in my lane and said, share the word of God, because I know that one's a good one, okay? Don't destroy the word of God, but spread it. And we aren't content creators like YouTubers, but we are people that are just putting up Scripture wherever we can and leaving it.
[6:17] I don't recommend graffiti. I'm always surprised by Christian graffiti, right? You're in a bathroom stall and somebody writes a verse, and you're like, good, kind of, what are you doing, you know? Like, who are you? I want to meet this Christian vandal out there.
[6:30] But we should find good ways, legal ways, to distribute the word of God. So that portion about reverencing and rejoicing in it, it leads us to this last portion, which really speaks about rejoicing and praising the Lord.
[6:45] As we talk about, and we should be a church of prayer, and I try to bring that up in conversations, try to bring that up in our schedule as a church, another aspect of our church that has to be so, needs to be true, is that we're people that praise the Lord.
[7:00] That we should teach our kids how to praise the Lord. We should teach one another how to praise the Lord. It ought to be normal in our lives. What happens in this room as we meet together should only be a reflection of what happens with us when we're not in this room.
[7:14] We rejoice in the Lord here, but not only in here. It doesn't stop in the foyer, and it wouldn't stop when we meet together in our homes, that we ought to be people that would share testimonies. Verse 164.
[7:26] Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgment. Seven times a day. Great peace have they which love thy law, nothing shall offend them. Lord, I have hope for thy salvation and done thy commandments.
[7:39] So the Lord's righteous judgments and His words are a constant matter of prayer. His righteous judgments. His right way. He gets it right. The way that God does things is right.
[7:51] It is perfect. And I can rejoice in it. I should be looking for it. Not do you rejoice seven times a day. You could ask yourself, do you rejoice once in seven days? Seven times a day.
[8:03] We know that number seven. It shows up a lot in the Bible. We see that for when we're talking about being complete, right? So when we're talking not about the technical sense of finding seven times a day and setting your alarm through the day, but we're talking about just throughout our day, there's a time of praising Him just all throughout it.
[8:21] Mark's uncle, Pete, he was sharing with me. He asked me a question, and you always love it when people put you on the spot, you know, especially as a pastor. I just love when people put me on the spot. He did it. He didn't mean to.
[8:31] He said, have you ever found yourself at a continual state of prayer where you just prayed all the time throughout the day? You know, he's like kind of like the Bible tells us to. I'm like, you put me in a really tough spot here.
[8:43] I'm either going to be honest with you or I'm going to tell you that I don't feel like that I've done that. But he helped me in my understanding of it or how that would be possible in our lives.
[8:55] And he said, you know, I found that when I was grateful in my life, I found myself naturally just praying all throughout the day. I would just come upon something and I would say, well, thank you, God.
[9:06] Thank you for how beautiful the sky is. And so if you're a grateful person, and I think about that, and when we're grateful, praying throughout the day would just come very natural, right? But if you're ungrateful and then you're just having to kind of create things, then it wouldn't be coming very natural to you.
[9:23] So he helped me with that understanding. I had an altar call right there at that moment in the back of the church that day. But being grateful people would make this very possible, would keep us in this constant communication with the Lord.
[9:37] We should speak to the Lord seven times a day. And if we say nothing else, we should just say, thank you, Lord. It's me again. I want to say thank you. Joy and honor.
[9:47] Not only do we get to experience the joy of God in worship, but it's essential if we're going to truly honor Him. There's a great joy in worshiping the Lord. There's a great joy in recognizing the wonder of Him, but it's essential if He's going to be truly honored.
[10:03] Praise that isn't expressed. It isn't complete the enjoyment. That we should be people that express our gratitude to the Lord.
[10:13] A teenager asked me, this has been many years ago, but they asked me, how is it okay that God wants so much for Himself? You know, you read in the Bible, God wants so much for Himself.
[10:26] It was a teenager, but he's asking a very deep question that's been asked by many people, that's been asked by unbelieving philosophers and all that. How can God be so God-centered, right?
[10:36] We'd much rather have a man-centered God. How can God not be more about me? Does He not know me? You know, and that's what he was asking. How is it okay for a person, because we're teaching teenagers, this is not about you, right?
[10:47] It's not supposed to be about you. But God, as one man said, He wants a perpetual eulogy. He asks of our praise. He wants to continually from it. But what we find in Scripture is that when God receives praise from us in worship, which He's deserving of at any cost, I mean, He can set the terms if He wanted to ask of them.
[11:08] But what we find is that when we worship God, it doesn't deplete us, but it gives us life. These are the words of life, right? And so we find in worshiping the Lord, it doesn't deplete us, but it gives us life.
[11:22] Because He's not a God that needs anything. What's He say in Psalm 50, verse 12? He says, If I were hungry, I would not even ask you for a recommendation of where to go, right? He said, I wouldn't tell you.
[11:32] For the world is mine in the fullness thereof. If I was hungry, I wouldn't even bother to ask you because you would not even have the ability to meet that need for me.
[11:43] So He doesn't come to us with a deficit that He needs to take from us, which is what we do, right? When we're selfish, we mean that we want to take from people to meet a selfish need. But not our God. He doesn't lack anything.
[11:54] And so in our worship of Him, it brings incredible joy as we live out what He has. And so how and why, how do you worship a God who needs nothing? The question little kids ask themselves around holidays, right?
[12:07] How do they get mom and dad something? So what do they do for you? Brother Ty, I don't know if your daughter's ever wrapped your plates for you, right? They take something that was already yours and give it back to you.
[12:17] But when we think about worshiping a praise of the Lord, we shouldn't think of it in regards of compliment only, but we should think of an overflow of the heart. If you think of a praise that's just simply like, hey, I like your earrings or nice pants, Kyle, you know?
[12:32] Now you think about complimenting somebody, you're saying that you see something. But that's one aspect of praise. But there's also this overflow of rejoicing that is supposed to happen.
[12:44] An enjoyment that spontaneously overflows in joy. And we've seen it and we enjoy it. And we're told to do that. We're supposed to spend time together. Jesus took the disciples to a wedding.
[12:54] I mean, it's amazing that that's recorded. They went to places where there was rejoicing, that people would just overflow with happiness about something that's happening.
[13:05] You see it at sporting events. You find it at weddings. You find it maybe it's at the, you're at a thrift store and you find something you've been looking for and you just get so excited, you know, about it. I don't know what it is for you.
[13:17] But you have times in your life where you were excitement and talking about it. All right. When I get excited, I just have to call my mom, you know, or when I'm sad, I just have to call my mom.
[13:27] Just kidding. All right. And so there's certain things that you have where you say, I got to call somebody. And I love it when Stephanie calls me this to tell me like, she needs to double her enjoyment of something just by telling me.
[13:42] What do you want me to do about it? I want you to know this because I know this as well. Because if it really delights your heart, you want to share it with others. That's a praise. That is praising something. That is what we're talking about here.
[13:54] God desires our greatest good and God is truly to love us. He gives us himself, which is the greatest good. And God desires to call me in the worship as the most loving thing he could possibly do for me.
[14:05] So my proper response in worship is the most glorifying thing I could do for him. And I want to encourage you, church. Let's be a people that are praying, that are singing to the Lord, but let's not overlook the role of sharing the testimonies one another.
[14:20] If we serve us, we reflect in sharing our lives together. My father-in-law, Pastor Cofield, he says something that I want to live by. He's lived by it for 49 years. I would like to live by it as long as God would allow me to.
[14:34] But he says, I will not preach to many until I have preached Christ to one, meaning that I won't stand up before many people and praise the Lord if I haven't done it in my daily life because you shouldn't have a choice in the matter, right?
[14:47] You shouldn't have a choice in the matter. When we behold the Lord and we worship him, it's got to be, it should overflow out of our heart. And so we should be a thankful people. In Colossians, we're told to give thanks unto our Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
[15:04] And you know Colossians focuses on warning against false teaching, but gratitude becomes such a, it's a great guard or a great defense. Later on in the chapter, Paul will repeat in verses 15 through 17, it will talk about being thankful or singing with grace in your heart and giving thanks to God and to the Father by him.
[15:24] And so a thankful people are people that are protecting their hearts from the complaints of this world, from false teaching. Something we could give to our kids. I know I reference our ministry to the kids.
[15:35] I think I think about it more on Thursday nights because they're not in this room. And so I miss seeing them as we'd see them on Sunday night. And then on Sunday morning, we replace them with adults throughout here. But right now, I just realize the kids aren't in here.
[15:48] And to teach them, when we think about the world that they're growing up in, if I could explain to you the world that teenagers are growing up in right now, you would ask what mission field is this and how quickly could we send missionaries there?
[16:00] And I would say you're living in it and you are the missionaries for this, for these people. But one of the great things we can do for them is to help them be grateful for what God has given them. The instruction they've received, they can be grateful for it.
[16:14] Because if they're not, they're going to feel like they're living in a deficit and look for it in other places. And so being a thankful people, here's a few ways to be thankful according to the scriptures. Before I give you verse 165, I want to show, remind you, that thankfulness, like prayer, it's a spiritual discipline.
[16:32] It requires effort and intentionality. You choose to be thankful. Now you have plenty of surplus. You have plenty of reasons. You're not scratching for reasons to be thankful. God has given those, but you make the decision that you're going to be thankful.
[16:47] Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Great peace of them that love the law, nothing should cause them to stumble. Nothing should pull them away from the truth.
[16:57] The happiness of us as children of God can be summed up in one word. It's peace. We have been made at peace. We've been reconciled to God. And so this act of devotedness should flow from the fact that we have just been accepted by him.
[17:12] You know, if there's no certainty, there can be no great feelings of love and delight. One of the greatest things, right, that you're told in any kind of parenting book, if you're thinking about the children in your home, or if you've been caring for children that weren't born into your home, that what has to be so foundational is they have to know that they are loved, accepted.
[17:32] They have to feel at peace. And that, same with us, there's no devotion to the Lord if we don't realize that there is a certain peace that he has given us. And so we thank God for that.
[17:43] We say, God, everything else is falling apart, but all the things that really matter are held together by you. And your whole life is falling apart. You say that, but the things that really matter are held together by him, and they don't fall apart.
[17:54] So we thank God for peace. 166, Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments. So we hope in him, this confident waiting that produces an obedience in it.
[18:05] Lord, I've hoped in salvation, and as a result, I will do your commandments. Which is to simply say, if you want to keep a commandment, if you're struggling with keeping a commandment, if you know there's something in your area that's a constant temptation and you're not keeping it, here's the first thing that you need to do.
[18:23] Simply love it. Just love it. If you love it, then you will obey it. If you want to keep a command, simply love it. The rest will certainly follow. So the thing that you're wrestling with, identify it, and then say, if God says this is true, then that's words from heaven.
[18:40] That's wisdom from heaven. I'm not going to be frustrated by it. I'm not going to consider it wrong. I'm not only going to consider that it's not wrong, but I'm going to know that it's right, and I'm going to love it.
[18:51] I'm not going to be like a kid that sees it as a guardrail that's keeping me from having fun, but I'm going to say, God, thank you for this in my life.
[19:02] If you want to keep a command, simply love it. But my soul has kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. That's not how our kids or how you as a teenager spoke about a curfew, right?
[19:14] That is not how you spoke about the things given that you did not say, I have kept my curfew because I love my curfew, all right? Because you didn't see your parents' love and intention towards you and giving it.
[19:25] My soul has kept thy testimonies. I love them exceedingly. The Christian, we don't acknowledge as some the separation between duty and privilege, but we'd say it's one and the same. It's a duty, but it's no less a privilege.
[19:38] We love his precepts. We hold them close to us. Nothing enables him thoroughly to keep them but love. It motivates us to obedience. It's not a slavish fear, but a love for God's Word.
[19:50] And that motivates us. Last two verses here. My soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I have kept thy precepts, and thy testimonies for all my ways are before them.
[20:01] We love them. They're the words of life as we've heard tonight. And then we have precepts and testimonies that are here. Before I give you definitions of those, I want to look at the phrase here.
[20:12] For all my ways are before them. That's that audience of one that we live for. These precepts, the step-by-step instructions and procedures and testimonies.
[20:24] The God's firsthand account of who He is and what He's done and what He will do. We live knowing that He watches us. One of my favorite sermon illustrations, and I feel like it's been a few months, so I'll share it again with you.
[20:36] He's a college football player who didn't get much playing time, but his senior year, his dad, he gets into the game, and he does so good at the beginning of the game that the coach allows him to continue, plays the entire game.
[20:52] The end of the game happens. He's in the locker room, and they bring him the game ball, and they just say, that's incredible. What got into you? What happened? And he says, you remember my father who had come to all the games, and he had come to all the practices, and he passed away this last week.
[21:09] And you may know this. My father was blind. And so the football player says, I came to believe that this may be the first game that my father ever saw me play in.
[21:20] And it's this idea that he was playing for this audience of one. He wasn't playing for the opposing team. He wasn't playing it for the stands, but he was playing it for an audience of one.
[21:31] That testimony that would be given here, for all my ways are before thee. That's a heavy thought. It's not one that often motivates me, as it should. But if we know that we have a God who's loving towards us, we rest in that peace and hope that we have, and that we live according to His commandments, we ought to be grateful for it.
[21:49] Because that hard decision you made that nobody knew about, where you obeyed His commandments, and you're never going to be honored for it at your job, and nobody's ever going to know that you overcame the temptation, it isn't a net zero. It isn't like nothing happened.
[22:00] But the God of heaven knew that, because all your ways are before Him. He sees you obeying the precepts. He sees you living out these testimonies. My soul has kept thy testimonies. I love them exceedingly.
[22:12] Love for God yields love for His Word. It's a beautiful description of the way it ought to be for us. My soul has kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly.
[22:23] Obedience to the Word is a testimony to our world and to our God that we believe Him. We should love them exceedingly. David loved what he knew about the Lord and what he had available.
[22:35] But could you imagine how much David would have loved to sit down outside of a cave and open up and read Luke 21 through 23 as we're studying on Sunday morning, how much incredible witness of God that we have in His Word and testimony, and to read about the cross, it's available for us.
[22:54] And so this reverence for God, he has a reverence for God, which leads to reverence for His testimonies. So let me encourage you. And if we can, we'll end with that song, that first song that we sing, which sounds like a fight song, all right?
[23:07] So you know what I'm talking about. I don't know what it is, but it makes me want to do the tomahawk chop like the Braves did, all right? And it's probably British, right, Travis? Is it one of your British songs you brought in here? All right. And Come You Weary.
[23:18] What is it? Yeah, okay. We'll sing. You'll know all the words here in a moment, okay? And we'll sing it. But I'll pray the Scripture with us before we end the night. But let me encourage you. Pray that God will help you understand what you're reading when you come to it.
[23:31] Pray that God brings into your remembrance the truth of other passages that will help you understand what you're reading. And worship is not going to be real or acceptable in our church if we're not seeing the wonder of His Word.
[23:43] This is the Word of God. Jesus will come back someday, but for now we see a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even also as I am known.
[23:54] But I want to know what is available to me today. I want to press my face up against God's Word, and I want to see Him as well as I can. And I can grow in that. I can see better. I can become a better student.
[24:04] I can get help. I can listen. I can prepare my heart as I study the Word. It's what Ezra said that he did. You know, when you go to God's Word, it's not just the preparation of your mind. As Brother John told on Sunday night, helping people learn to read better is a spiritual, it's a way to help somebody, right?
[24:20] We can study in that way, but we also prepare our hearts when we come to God's Word. But we want to see Him and wonder and love Him as we started off and say that we want to be people that can say, I'm going to pray for us before we stand and sing.
[24:37] Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your Word that we have available to us, Lord. I can hold it in my hand. Lord, I have several copies of it.
[24:47] It's available for me in so many different ways, Lord. And I'm just so blessed by it, Lord, and I'm thankful because the things I see in this world, Lord, they discourage me. And there's times where I feel like I'm like the psalmist here and I feel persecuted without cause.
[25:03] Lord, not to the extent that the psalmist was, not to the extent that many people, even in this room. But there's times, Lord, there's things that come in my life that distract me. But I want to have this heart as a person who says, My gaze is going to be upon the Word.
[25:17] I'm going to rejoice in it as a person who found just the greatest of all treasures. And anything else compared to it, Lord, I'll consider it a lie if it doesn't line up with Your Word. But I love Your law, Lord.
[25:29] I want to praise You all throughout the day. But I want to be a grateful person that just looks around and who doesn't complain about the failure of man that rejoices in the righteousness of You, Lord, how You do things right.
[25:42] I want to have great peace by this, Lord. I don't want to stumble. I don't want to be offended. But I want to be a person that walks a straight path as I pursue Your Word. Lord, I thank You for the expectation and the hope that I have in my salvation.
[25:56] Lord, I'm confident in that. You have given me great peace and great hope. And I thank You, Lord. I want to obey Your commandments, Lord, because I know that Your commandments come from You and that You're loving.
[26:08] And, Lord, I want to keep Your testimonies not out of fear but because I love them. Lord, I love Your words because they came from You. And, Lord, I love You. So I keep Your precepts and testimonies, Lord, because I know that all my ways are before You and I'm grateful for this.
[26:23] Lord, may this be our heart. Lord, we thank You for the words here of the psalmist. And, Lord, may it be true of us that we would be people, Lord, and I would just stand in awe of You. In Jesus' name I pray.
[26:34] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.