[0:00] Psalm 119, verse number 25. Thank you, Kristen and Jonathan. A song that reminds us that we can abide in his strength. And it's always wonderful.
[0:12] Kyle mentioned that preparing his first message in John chapter number 1 in Chile, thinking about that. I told you on Sunday morning, James Meostum was preaching through the same passage in Luke. And thinking about, in this room here, we have some new believers on Sunday night.
[0:27] Austin will be getting baptized here. We're so excited about that. He has some family. And recognizing that there's new believers and you hear a statement like that, it's really enjoyable to know that you can help explain what we mean when we say that.
[0:43] How do we say that the strength that is given to an all-powerful and mighty God can be the strength that we abide in? There's no doubt that we would say he is very strong.
[0:54] And then you may even come to the realization that you are very weak. But how can there be any correlation between his strength and your weakness? How would you abide in that strength? Think of this passage.
[1:04] We find an answer. I know in this passage we find an answer to that. My soul cleaveth unto dust. Quicken thou me according to thy word.
[1:17] My soul cleaveth unto the dust. That's how this passage starts out. He is so troubled, verse 28 says, that he is so melteth for heaviness.
[1:29] That he is as if he's crying so much. If you picture a candle that's there and it's just melting away. And being a person, imagining yourself as a person that as I'm crying, I'm just disappearing because of the heaviness on my life.
[1:44] A person that's on the ground, laying there, that can cry out and said that, I want to be quickened. I want to be made alive. I want to be strengthened, Lord.
[1:57] And how will I do this? It's going to happen according to your word. And that's the answer in simple form. Is that how does the strength of the God of heaven strengthen you here on the dust of this earth?
[2:09] It's going to happen from his word. And he does it. He has a troubled soul. The psalmist says, where can I go? What does he do in this situation? But he lifts up his soul, as the song says, lifting up his eyes unto the Lord.
[2:26] Whatever we do, whatever we do, whatever state we are in, whatever condition you found yourself in today, you must go before your God honestly and declare for him the entire case.
[2:40] You need to just lay it out there before him and speak to the Lord. That's what's happening here in the psalmist. I often will say David. We don't know who wrote Psalm 119, but I just automatically revert the thinking of David in the psalms.
[2:54] But this psalmist is somebody that knows what it's like to be pressed down to the ground. And when you're pressed down in this situation, it's not about information.
[3:06] It's about living honestly. When he's laying there before the Lord and he cries out to God, he's not saying, I have information, God, that you need to know about me.
[3:16] What he's saying is, I want to live honestly in front of you. I'm not going to come to you and tell you everything's okay because people around me think everything's okay. And I may be doing pretty good at telling them everything's okay.
[3:28] But God, when I speak to you, I'm going to speak honestly. And I'm going to tell you, this is what's on my heart. This is what I'm thinking. This is what I'm feeling. Friday night with the teenagers, we had an expound.
[3:40] It comes from the story of Aquila and Priscilla and how they expounded unto them greater things from the Bible. We've been doing this at Pearson's basement now for many years. And this was getting back to school.
[3:51] And I spoke to them about the use of emotions. You know, and one of the things I told them I want to share with you is that the most emotional relationship you should have is with the God of heaven.
[4:02] The most emotional relationship you should have is with the God of heaven. I don't mean erratic, emotional, like driven, that your thoughts aren't going ahead of your emotions. But if there's anger in your heart, that ought to be communicated.
[4:15] You need to be honest towards God. If there's sadness and sorrow, it ought to be communicated. Sometimes we speak to God as if we're speaking to a wall or an impersonal God or an inanimate object with no feeling and emotion, but our most emotional relationship should be with Him.
[4:32] And that's what we see is a person pressed down to the ground crying out to God. William Plummer about this passage says, If we are sad, the Lord can cheer us.
[4:44] If we are dark, then the Lord can give us light. If we are in the dark, the Lord can give us light. If we have no strength, He can strengthen us. If we want, if our wants are many, He can supply them.
[4:55] If we are shut up and cannot come forth, He can enlarge us. Whatever is our case, let us state it all before the Lord. I would encourage you tonight, if you have not had an open and honest conversation with the Lord, do not let the night pass before you would call out to Him in an honest conversation and allow Him to strengthen you.
[5:21] Verse 27, Between those two hard passages, a man laying on the ground saying, I'm as the dust, also saying, I have been melting away. Verse 27 says, Make me to understand the way of thy precepts, so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
[5:38] It would be very good. Let's say verse number 25 together. Psalm 119, 25, My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me according to thy word.
[5:50] You won't always have it on a monitor behind you, right? And I won't have it in front of me at all times. But would you put that to memory and the heart? And when you're quoting back the scriptures, I know in Awana they have to get it perfectly right to get their check in their box and it's important they learn it accurately, but it's going to be okay if you don't have all the words exactly right when you're praying them back to the Lord.
[6:11] But you remember saying, Lord, I have been, I'm just down on the ground. I'm completely, I can't get any lower in this life and I'm asking that you would quicken or make me alive.
[6:22] But between these two expressions, this so challenged the person is laying down as upon like, their face down upon the altar and between expressing their condition, he cries out and says, God, teach me your statutes.
[6:39] Like, there's something that this psalmist knew about God and inspired by God's word to share with you that he cried out to know God's word. That's something that's often missing. That we're communicating our emotion to God, we can communicate how bad things are, but with the same effort and with the same emotion, we should also cry out and say, God, I need to know your word and your precepts.
[7:03] And in knowing it, I can go from where I'm at to declaring your wondrous works, verse number 27. Going from being in this hopeless condition, knowing God's word, to now declaring it to other people.
[7:16] And so verse 27 is kind of a summary verse that takes all these verses from beginning to end. First thing that is prayed here is, Quicken thou me according to thy word. My soul cleaveth to thus quicken me, bring me the life, revive me according to your word.
[7:32] The psalmist knew that he can't do it himself. Have you ever been there? You're at the point you didn't know how you would go on, you're ready for it to be over, you couldn't go on, so you call out to God, fix this.
[7:45] Fix my heart, revive me, quicken me. He's crying out to God face down, sunk to the dust and the crushing weight of trouble. Adam was created by dust, thus also associated with death, just the lowest place in his life.
[8:03] But God can bring life when nobody else can. Exodus chapter number 8, there's magicians, there are Pharaoh, there is Moses, there's the going, the back and forth, or Aaron's rod, and this lice is made out of nothing, and they said, this is the finger of God, that only God can take what is not alive and make it alive.
[8:25] It's communicated all through the Bible. This psalmist knew what was going on. God, if I am going to go from where I'm at to where I need to be, you're going to have to do it. I'm going to have to find your strength. And then so it says, not only does this revive me or quicken me, but strengthen me according to your word.
[8:42] Revival in a biblical sense is marked by an awareness of sin, an urgency to confess, and to make things right. Verse 6, I've declared my ways, thou heardest me, teach me thy statutes.
[8:56] I've declared my ways honestly before you, Lord. You have heard me, now teach me your word and your statutes. Mike, before the service, Mike invites me to church more than anybody, all right?
[9:08] Mike is always inviting me to another church. Some revival services. The guy loves church. He loves the Bible. And I'm always disappointing him. I got a lot of church going on in my life, Mike, but I'll try to get with you sometime.
[9:20] I always ask if they're having a potluck. If they do, I might be able to join them sometime. But I appreciate that about him. And he said this, and I think you'll understand what he's saying. He said, they were having a revival meeting, but they didn't just have a meeting.
[9:32] They had a meeting, all right? You know what he's saying here? It wasn't, they didn't just, you can't put it on the schedule. You can't just say, we're going to have a revival meeting. You can put it on the schedule. It's that you've got to come with an open heart of honestly before God being willing to confess your sin.
[9:46] Say, God, I want to think about sin the way that you do. I want you to work in my heart and that God's really doing something. He showed a great testimony of a church not far from here that people have come to know Christ over the last week.
[9:58] And we're praying for it, praying for Mike and his family that he's taking there. But it's the recognition that we can't program this. Sure, we could put it on the calendar, have somebody come in, say that's revival services.
[10:10] Yes, we can discipline our lives in certain areas that would bring obedience, but it has to be the work of the Holy Spirit and us yielding to him to have this awareness. Such comforting words to say that God has strengthened him, that he would declare it, that he would teach him his statutes.
[10:28] In John 10, 28, we know that's the passage about not being able to be plucked out of the hand of God, is the strength of me, according to your word, is that even when I feel all alone and completely separated and on the ground here, as the psalmist is, I'm still in the hand of God.
[10:46] I may be on the ground, but I'm still in the hand of God. And that brings comfort. Understanding that life of the faithful is in God's hand, under his protection, is vital to this revival and strengthening.
[10:57] First of all, quicken me, make me alive, revive me. Second, it just says, make me, verse 27, make me to understand the ways of thy precepts, so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
[11:10] Make me, create me by teaching me what I need to know and I will speak of your great name. He wants God to cause him to understand the ways of his precepts.
[11:20] He longs to not just know, but to understand. God's word to such an extent that it transforms his whole life inwardly and outwardly. So he says, make me, Lord, make me, just recreate me.
[11:34] Now that's what Jesus tells the disciples, I will follow me and I will make you fishers of men. He is in the making people business, right? He is taking them in the word and so it isn't, I want to know intellectually more the word.
[11:47] God, I want you to take your word and I want you to transform me. I want you to make me. Two of God's favorite words that we can say to him are this, teach me.
[11:58] Teach me. That's what he's saying here is teach me. Psalm 119.12, blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. God, teach me.
[12:08] In the middle of trouble, if a person's laying on the ground, they don't, and somebody comes and taps them on the shoulder and says, hey, do you want to go to Bible study over here? The person would say, do you not understand I'm in this horrible situation and you want me to go attend another Bible study?
[12:25] What he's saying is, I'm not wanting to go to another Bible study. I'm not wanting just to sit in a circle and talk about the Bible. I'm needing to hear from the God of heaven so much that it comes into my heart and transforms me, which is the real intent of Bible study.
[12:40] The written word of God and the activity of the Spirit, they go together. The Spirit speaks through the word. So as Christians, we ought to be saying that often. Teach me. Teach me, Lord.
[12:52] Ecclesiastes 4.13, Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king who will no more be admonished. Been taught this passage to our teenagers last week.
[13:05] Such a strong passage. You're in a better position if you are poor and teachable than if you are old and you will not be teachable. And so we say, God, teach me.
[13:16] Next one, verse 8. My soul melteth for heaven and strengthen thou me according unto thy word. This prayer says, strengthen me. As his soul is melting away, he says, God, I need to be strengthened. Such a vivid picture in the story of Elijah.
[13:29] He's praying for revival. God calls fire down from revival. It was an incredible revival. Mikan was there on the front row. All right? And the revival fire comes down from heaven.
[13:40] He's so excited that we know that he outruns the chariots to the capital city. That's pretty excited. And he believes, he thinks, I'm going to go, I'm going to set up my lawn chair. Nationwide revival is coming to my country.
[13:53] It's what I prayed for. It's already started. And as he is sitting there, a delivery comes. Are you Elijah? Yeah, the tish bite? Yes, you've been served. All right? And so Elijah here gets served these papers and it's Jezebel in 1 Kings 19 too.
[14:07] She sent a messenger into Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me and to more also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.
[14:19] That's a pretty heavy message, right? This woman is set out to kill him. He is going, waiting for revival. And then we know the depression that came into his life, the debilitating, anxiety.
[14:33] He was pressed down to the dust. His soul was melting away. 1 Kings 19.6 it says, And he looked, Elijah, and behold there was a cake baked on the coals and a cruise of water at his head.
[14:47] And he did eat and drink and laid him down again. Elijah was strengthened by God. Nobody else could have done that for him.
[14:59] He turned to God in his helpless state. And he gets fed a little bit and then you know what happens after he eats a little bit? He falls back to sleep. He wakes up again. He gets a little bit more.
[15:09] Consumes a bit. It's a strengthening. By no accident, right? That God's showing there's a strengthening that was happening. That God strengthened him at that place. And he gives you the same promise that you can go by the river and that he will strengthen you and that he will feed you not by ravens but by his written word.
[15:26] And so if you feel weak, you feel powerless, you have no strength, you're laying in the dust, there is strength available. There is a cake made for you. There is a cruise of water available for your thirsty soul.
[15:39] Just a quick side note. As I was looking at verse number 6, I was so surprised at how quickly we go from that story to verse number 19 where Elijah departs and he finds Elisha and he calls upon him and God uses through that discipleship ministry of Elijah to Elisha to multiply his ministry to go farther and do things and I was just so challenged that God took such a breaking experience in Elijah's life and the next thing he does is he puts him beside somebody that he can help.
[16:14] Elisha wasn't with him at the river but I know Elisha must have been very glad that he went through that. Elijah wouldn't have wanted it differently and I'm sure Elisha wouldn't have wanted it any differently because God used that in his life in a powerful way to mold who he was.
[16:30] There is a strength available. Psalm 138.3 In the day when I cried, thou answered and strengthened me with strength in my soul. That's what God does. You cry out, he feeds you with his word.
[16:42] You cry out and he will strengthen you. When we are the most aware how utterly helpless and most reliant on God's strength is when that our soul weeps because of grief it will be strengthened.
[16:53] Apostle Paul was in a place like Elijah like this psalmist in 2 Corinthians 12.9 and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
[17:08] If it wasn't for my infirmities, if it wasn't for me being laying in the dust, I may never cry out, God teach me and strengthen me because I would just continue hobbling through life believing that I have enough strength in myself.
[17:22] Then he cries, remove me, which is to protect me from lies and provide for me your law. Verse 29, remove from me the way of lying and grant me the law graciously. This is done by the grace of God exercising itself through the written word.
[17:36] As we saw last week or two weeks ago in verse 9, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way but by taking heed according to his word. The protection is going to come from that word.
[17:47] And he talks about God's law as a gift. Remove from me the way of lying and grant me that law graciously. The only way we can get rid of the lies is to accept the truth of God's word.
[17:59] Grant me, Lord, this is a gift. It's gracious because I can conform my direction to it. Spurgeon said, if the law be not in our hearts, the lie will enter.
[18:11] If the law be not in our heart, the lie will enter. So this is a gift because without it, I would only be subject to the lies of this world. I would have no protection.
[18:22] I would have no protection from this world and all the things that it said to me. A few years ago, there's a video we showed in church. A guy woke up and he unwrapped his pillow. He unwrapped his toothbrush.
[18:33] It was all wrapped in a Christmas present. He walked out and his wife, she was wrapped and the kids were wrapped and everything was wrapped. The car was wrapped. It's not like one of those commercials where the wife gives the husband a car with a big bow on it.
[18:45] Those commercials bother me so much. Stephanie never buy me a car without talking about it. It will not end like the Christmas commercial. And so they're unwrapping all these presents in the day.
[18:56] Honestly, why don't you wrap your Bible up tonight and open it up tomorrow like it's a gift and just say, I can't believe I have this because without it, I would have no protection. My mind would absolutely be useless in the fact that the world would just beat it up and I would have no protection.
[19:11] Shame me not. I have stuck unto thy testimonies, O Lord. Put me not to shame. Verse number 31. Put me not to shame. Caleb, every time I think about that word shame, I think about a good old George Bush-ism where he said this.
[19:25] There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas where Caleb's from. Probably in Tennessee. They say, fool me once, shame on. Shame on you. Fool me, you can't fool me again.
[19:36] All right? And that's what he said. I think it's like, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Right? But that isn't how it came out. And there's a real aversion to shame, right?
[19:48] Psalm 6, 31, 46, 116. It said a lot. The result of wandering away from the path, it brings shame. It brings an escape. The woman at the well in the hot part of the day was hiding.
[20:00] Adam and Eve was hiding. There's a lot of stories in the Bible where people are hiding. Shame causes you to want to hide. The Bible doesn't tell you not to hide. It tells you where to hide it.
[20:10] That's shame. Hebrews chapter number 6, that by two immutable things, two things aren't moving, in which was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation. We have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
[20:26] Bring your guilt, bring your shame, bring your heartache, bring all your pain, as we sing, and hide it in Christ. Take it to Him. Don't hide it from yourself, but call out an honesty in your prayer and say, God, there's guilt and shame.
[20:40] I'm laying here. I may be laying here because of my own doing, but I'm not going to hide from you. Verse 32, I will run the way of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
[20:51] Those three words, enlarge my heart. Would you say that with me? Say, enlarge my heart. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful thing?
[21:02] Is there any of you that would not want to line up for that? If we had the heart enlarger setup machine in here today and you would say, who would pass over that? I've got my niece Ashley in here in Chase.
[21:13] We haven't seen them in a while. She has a large heart. She would be lined up. She would be the first one to line up to say, God, I want, if my heart is going to stay the way that it should, you're going to have to do that.
[21:24] You're going to have to enlarge my heart. Went from confessing, God, I'm in this awful place. I'm going to speak honestly to you. The clinging to God's word, the choosing to run.
[21:36] I've already got down once. I'm not sure that I can get back up. All right? And I'm definitely not running. We'll have three different people play this out, okay? Kyle, you be the runner. All right? So it went from laying in the dust to running to the commandments in just a short amount of time.
[21:50] How do we go from laying in the dust to running to the commandments? In the middle, we find somebody crying out, God, teach me. I love this. When your heart is set free from the constraints of trouble and anxiety, the psalmist says you can use this liberty for more energetic service.
[22:13] the anxiety and the stress in your life, the shame that you feel when you don't go to God and speak to Him honestly and when He doesn't strengthen you, it takes your entire life completely.
[22:26] You have 10% of your life you're living off of. But when you take all of that and just give it over to Him, the energy that is brought into your life that can go back to Him is just incredible.
[22:38] I told Greg yesterday in a meeting, there's just a lot of spinning plates at all times around here for us and there's a lot of stress and sometimes there is, I don't think you're surprised about that, right?
[22:51] You people are high maintenance, all right? And there's things that go on and so we just had a summary of the day and this is, I know at your workplace you say, I wish my boss felt like that where our boss does, okay?
[23:02] He's okay with it. We've talked to the Human Resources Department. We can say this. We are just going to be holy people having fun. It's just so much joy. That doesn't mean it won't look like work but it's just fun to serve the Lord and when we are doing something and it's not an energy that's provided by the Lord and joy, then we're going to stop because there's something that cannot go done sometimes but we have to be people that are loving our Lord that have to get done.
[23:29] I do understand I still got to mow the grass even if I don't feel happy about it, okay? I know there's those things in life. It's to say though but when those indicators go off in life where we know we're working at our own strength and there's no abundance of joy that is there and no energy that we're not just going to press through but we're going to lay in the dust and say, God, I need to speak to you honestly.
[23:49] There's energy that is there. An enlarged heart is a soul that has been strengthened through the steady intake of God's Word. The beginning section was clinging to dust and now we are clinging to the Word.
[24:02] The response and resolution of the believer to God's grace is this. Hebrews 12.1 Wherefore, seeing we've also compassed about with so great a cloud of witness, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so does easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
[24:20] Go to God, lay things at the altar and leave it there. So how is this possible? How do we go from clinging to the dust to running in God's will?
[24:32] It's possible according to God's Word. And do you feel like you're melting away? He will strengthen you. Feel like you're clinging to dust? The Word of God will teach you to stand up and run.
[24:45] Heavenly Father, I thank you tonight with all that I have in me to say thank you for your Word so neglected in our lives, Lord, as a source of strength.
[24:55] Lord, not in the turning of pages but in the turning of our heart towards your will and way for us. Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters in here tonight.
[25:07] Some of them may not be clinging to dust, Lord, but they might not be very far off. And we know, Lord, that we need strength that can only come, Lord, from you.
[25:18] So, Lord, I pray that there'll be a covenant made, a renewed commitment from all my brothers and sisters in Christ to look in your Word for the strength that is needed. Take us from people that are clinging to dust, the people that are running in your will.
[25:32] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.