Thanks very much, Aaron. Good morning, everyone. Really good to have you with us, whether in person or through the wonders of science.
Does the Bible ever surprise you?
I think if you read it regularly and thoughtfully, you'll find it quite often does.
You may be reading a passage you feel is quite familiar, you've read many times before,
and you suddenly see something in it that you hadn't thought of in the past.
It's God through the Spirit revealing his word to us, making it real.
The Bible is like a kaleidoscope. Every time you look at it, you see something a little bit different, something very wonderful.
Sometimes, though, you come to a verse when you're reading a passage, and you almost think, well, does it really say that?
Does it mean what it says?
And sometimes you just have to read it again, and you realize, yes, I wasn't reading it quite right.
Sometimes you're reading the context round about it, or think of other passages and come to understand it through that.
But sometimes I think there are verses that are in the Bible almost there to surprise us,
so that we stop and think and can reflect a bit more on what we've just read.
And I think the last verse of Psalm 119 is a bit like that.
Aaron referred to it in his prayer.
Now, before we talk about it, let me just recap a little bit for the benefit of those who haven't been here,
a reminder for those who have.
For the last half dozen weeks, we've been going through Psalm 119, a wonderful poem,
beautifully constructed, 176 verses in 22 equal sections,
with each section headed by a letter from the Hebrew alphabet,
and every verse in that section starting with that same letter.
It has a wonderful theme, which is the psalmist's love for God's word,
and he has eight different words he uses time and again to describe the Bible and God's laws and God speaking to us.
And he really loves his Bible.
He loves God's words, God's law, what God has revealed to us.
But alongside that, he has some enemies.
He has foes in high places who are out to get him.
And a large part of the psalm is the psalmist praying to God for preservation,
for deliverance, that he may be rescued from his enemies.
And he feels that he can come and pray that to God because he loves God's word
and because he trusts God's promises.
And the impression you get very much as you read the psalm
is that here's someone who sees himself as one of the good guys,
and there are lots of bad guys who are out to get him.
People who in their wickedness have no time for God's law
and want to destroy those who love God.
And then we come to the very last verse in the psalm.
Right at the end, verse 176 starts,
I have strayed like a lost sheep.
And that seemed to come out of nowhere.
It's completely different from what's in the book of the psalm,
which is talking about the psalmist's love for God and his word
and his desire to follow God.
So where does that come from?
I'm going to offer two suggestions, one just now and one at the end.
And you can see which, if either of them, makes sense to you.
My rule of thumb when I come to a psalm,
and I want quickly to establish what it's about,
is to look at the beginning, look at the end,
and then look at the middle.
Psalm 119 is a very long middle,
but we'll talk briefly about the beginning and the end.
In the first few verses, the psalmist talks about
how blessed the people are who love God's law and obey it.
And then in verse 5 he says,
Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decree,
then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.
So right at the beginning of the psalm,
the psalmist is establishing with us,
actually he's not perfect,
he longs to be more obedient to God.
And so then he comes at the end,
and he says something similar,
I have strayed like a lost sheep,
seek your servant,
for I have not forgotten your commands.
Now see the parallels in these verses.
On the one hand, the psalmist is confessing
that he hasn't followed God's law in the way he should.
But he's also saying,
I really love your word,
I love your commands,
I haven't forgotten them,
I want them to be the basis for my life.
And the verses that come in the middle
expand on that in a wonderful way.
I find this quite encouraging.
If you just read the middle sections of the psalm,
the psalmist could come across as a bit smug,
maybe a bit self-righteous.
You might even think he's a bit hypocritical,
because we know that no one apart from Jesus
was able fully to obey God's law.
But the psalmist is very honest with us.
I'm not obeying God's decrees the way I should.
I've strayed like a lost sheep.
But despite that, I love God's word,
I trust him,
I want to be obedient to him.
All of us, I'm sure, can say that we have strayed,
that we have done things that are wrong,
that we don't live the lives we should.
I wonder whether we can also say,
I love my Bible,
I love God's word,
I want to be obedient,
do everything that God tells me to.
That's a huge challenge,
but it makes the psalm seem more realistic to me,
that we can identify with the psalmist,
and we can take the challenge of our love of God's word.
Now, having been through the psalm,
if you've been here the last half dozen weeks,
you may be wondering what's new or different
in the section we're looking at today.
The psalm is deliberately quite repetitive,
as the psalmist comes back again and again
to similar themes,
and draws out new things from them.
Well, I suggest that the thing that's distinctive
about these last four sections
is the intensity with which the psalmist writes.
It starts with talking about God,
I call with all my heart.
Four times in 11 verses, he says,
preserve my life.
Here's someone who's in grave danger.
He's in danger of being killed
or believes that he is,
and he knows his only hope
is to be found in God's promises.
Now, rather than go conceptually
through the four sections,
what I want to do is to focus
on the very last section in the psalm,
which is called Ta,
if you've got the Bible in front of you,
but we'll also bring in the earlier sections
and see how they relate to that.
So here's where we're going.
We've got three simple headings.
Hear my prayer.
Accept my praise.
Save my life.
You've reached in this two or three verses
from this, the end of the psalm,
and then there's another section
that we'll refer to as well.
So first of all,
hear my prayer.
Verses 160 and 170,
the psalmist says,
may my cry come before you, Lord.
Give me understanding according to your words.
May my supplication come before you.
Deliver me according to your promise.
The psalmist is desperate that God should hear
and should answer his prayer.
His prayer,
when he's in a time of difficulty and danger,
he knows he needs God's help.
So going back to the other section,
which is the one that's headed,
Quoth,
from verse 145 on,
he says things like,
I call with all my heart.
Answer me, Lord.
Hear my voice in accordance with your love.
But maybe the intensity of his prayer
and his desire for God to hear him
is most evident,
if you've got your Bible in front of you,
in verse 147 and 148.
The psalmist says,
I rise before dawn and cry for help.
I have put my hope in your words.
My eyes stay open throughout the watches of the night
that I may meditate on your promises.
Here's someone who's so focused
on bringing his prayers to God,
who is so eager to come before God
and to lay all his concerns on God,
that he lies awake at night
thinking about God's promises,
recognizing what God has said
and claiming them for himself.
And then he's up before everyone else in the morning
to start his prayers.
He knows his enemies are close.
He knows they've got no time for God's law.
But he says God is also near
and he can be completely trusted
because he never changes
and nor do his promises.
As the old Tim says,
standing on the promises that cannot fail,
when the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
by the living word of God,
I shall prevail,
standing on the promises of God.
I wonder how much that's true of us,
that we believe God's promises,
that we take God's word seriously,
and that we come before him fervently,
constantly,
bringing the desires of our hearts,
knowing that he is the one who is able to save us
and relying on his strength in our weakness.
When it comes to recognising the value of scripture
in modern times,
one of the great examples
is the man who's known as Brother Andrew.
Brother Andrew is the founder
of the Open Doors organisation
that you may have heard of.
He's a Dutchman,
but he's best known for his book
called God's Smuggler.
When he went behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s,
he saw just how few people had Bibles,
even a church that might be no Bible or one Bible,
and he was determined that he wanted
to get God's word into the hands of more people.
Christians were desperate to get Bibles,
and they couldn't.
So Brother Andrew started to smuggle Bibles
into communist countries.
Fairly early on,
one of the best-known stories
is when he was travelling to Romania,
he was going there in a Volkswagen Beetle,
and hidden around the car,
there were lots of Bibles.
And he came to a checkpoint at the border,
and he quickly realised
that the guards were going through every car
with a fine-tooth comb.
They would take spending up to an hour
searching the cars for anything illegal.
Brother Andrew knew
he had lots of illegal things in his car,
that he would at the very best be turned back
and have his Bibles confiscated,
maybe even be arrested.
So here was a situation
where he had to come to God
with a desperate plea,
recognising that there was nothing he could do.
And here's what he prayed.
He said,
Dear Lord, what am I going to do?
I know that no amount of cleverness on my part
can get me through this border search.
Dare I ask for a miracle?
Let me take some Bibles out
and leave them in the open
where they will be seen.
Then, Lord, I cannot possibly be relying
on my own stratagems, can I?
I will be depending utterly on you.
So he got us some Bibles,
spread them in the seat behind him,
and went,
no doubt, with great trepidation,
drove forward to the checkpoint.
He handed over his paper to the official there.
He was going to get out of his car,
and the official said no.
He just scribbled on the papers,
handed them back,
and said,
You can go.
The Bibles were open sight.
Anyone could have seen them,
but they weren't challenged.
On other occasions,
Brother Andrew developed a prayer
which was something like this.
Lord, you made blind eyes see.
Now I pray that you make seeing eyes blind.
Despite many times taking Bibles
into communist Europe,
he managed to do it with God's strength
and through his prayers
and to deliver to many Christians
the book that they most needed.
That's an unusual story.
It's remarkable.
In many ways, it's exceptional.
We may not expect that kind of thing
particularly to happen to us.
But all of us are called
to have this kind of faith in God.
To believe that in the most difficult
and desperate situations,
we can continue to trust in his goodness.
We can continue to rely on his promises.
And to pray fervently
for what matters most to us,
knowing that God is faithful to what he says
and that he will work things for our best.
That doesn't always mean we get the answer
we expect.
God's ways are higher than our ways
and we have to trust that he knows
a lot better than we do.
But James says in his letter
in the New Testament,
when you ask,
you must believe and not doubt
because the one who doubts
is like a wave of the sea
blown and tossed by the wind.
Do we really believe God's promises?
And do we constantly and fervently
bring to him the desires of our heart?
Psalmist prayer.
Hear my prayer.
The second heading I've got is
accept my praise.
And this is verse 171 to 172.
I'm going back to the section
in verse 161 to 168.
Verse 171 says,
My lips overflow with praise
for you teach me your decrees.
May my tongue sing of your word
for all your commands are righteous.
The psalmist is in a desperate situation.
He's in real danger for his life.
But despite that,
he's determined to keep praising God.
If we look back at the section
between 161 and 168,
you might see there are two letters
at the top.
Looks like it's two Hebrew letters.
It is actually just one.
It's pronounced apparently sin or shin
depending on whether there's a dot
to the left or the right.
So if anyone was confused by that,
that apparently is the explanation.
What's more important though
is what's in the Bible.
And this section is unlike
any of the others
that we're looking at today
because it's not made up
of requests to God.
It's made up of statements
expressing the psalmist's confidence
in God.
He says,
I rejoice in your promise.
I love your law.
I wait for your salvation.
And then most powerfully of all,
perhaps in verse 164,
he says,
seven times a day,
I praise you
for your righteous laws.
Seven times a day
is probably meant to represent
a continuous attitude of praise
rather than a strict count
every day.
But despite his plight,
the psalmist is determined
to keep trusting
and praying.
During the night,
he reminds himself
of God's promises.
He gets up early
to bring his prayers to God.
And then his days
are filled with reflections
of God's goodness to him.
Not that also his prayers,
but partly highlights here
reflections on God's goodness.
I think one of the greatest tests
of our Christian faith
is how we respond
when things seem to be going
badly for us.
When we face opposition
or when tragedy strikes,
when we're asking God why
and we don't really seem
to get an answer,
can we still recognize
God's goodness
and praise him?
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5,
rejoice always,
pray continually,
give thanks in all circumstances,
for this is God's will for you
in Christ Jesus.
Now I realize
that's easier to say
than to do
and I'm very aware
that some of you
have suffered
far, far more
than I have.
But in the most difficult
of times,
it's good to recognize
that we worship
a faithful God
and to bring him
our praise
and our thanksgiving.
He will never let us down
and we can praise him
for that.
Lara Martin is,
among other things,
a worship leader
and a songwriter.
And shortly after
the 9-11 atrocity,
Lara Martin
visited Ground Zero
in New York.
I'm sure many of us
have done
a place where you
really feel
the weight
of what happened
on that day.
And Lara Martin,
as she was there,
was moved to write
the song
The Voice of Hope.
It's one that we sing
fairly regularly.
Let me remind you
of some of the words.
And through the storm,
yet I will praise you.
Despite it all,
yet I will sing.
Through good and bad,
yet I will worship.
For you remain
the same
King
of kings.
And faced with
the greatest
of tragedy,
faced with
the most difficult
situations
that the world
has had to cope with
in most of our
lifetimes,
she was reminded
that even in
these kind of
circumstances,
we can bring
our praise to God
because we know
that He is good
and that He has
our interests
at heart.
And we have the strength
to do that too,
even in the darkest
times,
to bring our praise
and our thanksgiving
to God
for all that He is
for the Lord Jesus
and for His help
in our lives.
That heading today
is Save My Life.
That's the last
four verses
of the psalm
and again
looking backwards
is from verse
153 to 160.
From verse 173
the psalmist says,
May your hand
be ready to help me
for I have chosen
your precepts.
I long for
your salvation,
Lord.
Your law gives me
delight.
Let me live
that I may praise you
and may your laws
sustain me.
So again,
as he's done
time and time again
that the psalmist
says he needs
God's help,
he pleads for it
and he reminds himself
of the value
of God's law
and how much
he loves it.
As I said,
the similar theme
in verse 153
to 160
section
is headed
Resh.
This is maybe
the most intense
part of all
in Psalm 119.
It's where the psalmist
is really feeling
the burden,
the weight
of what is happening
to him
and the danger
he faces
and his need
for God.
So three times
he says,
preserve my life.
He's asking
for deliverance.
He asks for redemption.
He looks for
God's
compassion.
I'm not sure
there's very much
more I need
to say about this
except that God
wants us
to be honest
when we pray.
He wants to bring us,
bring him
our worries,
our fears,
our questions.
Now of course
God knows all
these already.
God knows
everything.
But as a father,
as an earthly father,
likes his children
to talk about
their needs
and their desires
to him.
So our heavenly
father wants us
to express
our true feelings,
not to hide them
or to pretend
that they don't exist,
to express
our true feelings
to him,
but at the same time
to trust
in his goodness.
To trust
that he is
the all-powerful
God who is able
to help us
and he is
the all-loving
God who wants
what is good
for us.
As the psalmist
says,
he loves us,
his compassion
is great
and we can
trust him
with every aspect
of our lives.
And if today
some of us
are going through
difficult times,
we have worries
about the future,
perhaps fears
of what lies ahead.
Let's recognize
this God
who loves us
and let's be honest
about our fears
with him
but let's put
our trust in him
knowing that
he cares
for us.
I said I'd
finished by
returning to
the surprising
confession
in verse 176
that the psalmist
has strayed
like a lost
sheep.
Earlier we
compared the
start and the
end of this psalm.
I want to finish
by comparing it
with a different
psalm.
Psalm 1 in many
ways is very
similar to
Psalm 119.
Now it's an
awful lot shorter,
only six verses
in Psalm 1
but the overall
theme is similar.
It's about those
who love God's
words and the
blessings that
come to them
and contrary
to that,
the judgment
that comes
to those
who ignore
God.
So verse 1
of both psalms,
Psalm 1 says,
blessed is the
one who does
not walk in
step with the
wicked.
Psalm 119
says,
blessed are those
whose ways
are blameless.
Now we go right
to the end of
both of the
psalms.
Here's the way
they end.
Psalm 1
ends,
the way of the
wicked leads
to destruction.
Psalm 119
ends,
I have strayed
like a lost
sheep.
These may not
look very
similar,
but the two
words I've
highlighted,
their
distraction and
lost,
are actually
exactly the
same word
in the
original Hebrew.
I think it
pronounced
abad.
It is a word
that has a
variety of
different nuances
depending on
the context.
Perhaps the
extremes are
in these two
verses.
One,
destruction.
The other,
someone who
is lost,
who is in
danger,
and who
needs to
be found.
I think the
contrast there
is quite
telling as
we think
about ourselves
and our
relationship
to God.
In Psalm
1, at the
end of the
psalm, the
psalmist is
talking about
those who
have rejected
God, those
he calls
the wicked.
And he
says they
can only
look forward
to destruction.
If they
keep going
on the
path that
they've
chosen,
there is
going to
be judgment
from God
at the
end.
Now, we
mustn't think
that the
wicked is
just kind
of evil
people out
there and
there's
nothing to
do with
us.
What the
psalmist
would describe
here is the
wicked is
anyone who
rejects God's
way and
who chooses
to go
their own
way.
And looking
at it from
a New
Testament
context, we
could say
that the
wicked in
this context
are those
who reject
Jesus and
don't put
their trust
in him.
A New
Testament
teaches us
that Jesus
is the only
way to
God and
those who
don't trust
in him,
those who
rely on
themselves,
will inevitably
face God's
judgment.
They will face
the destruction
that the
psalmist
talks about
here.
When we
come to
Psalm 119,
it is
clearly
different.
Same
word,
slightly
different
meaning.
The
psalmist
can describe
himself later
in the
verse as
God's
servant.
He says
he hasn't
forgotten
God's
commands.
Yes,
he's gone
astray.
He's wandered
like a sheep.
He's got
himself in a
pickle.
He's in
danger.
He needs
help.
But he
knows the
shepherd and
he knows
that he
can rely
on him.
The good
shepherd won't
let him go
despite all
his failings.
And of
course, we
know from
our New
Testament that
Jesus is
the good
shepherd and
that no one
can pluck
his sheep
from his
hands.
Whatever we
may face,
if our trust
is in him,
we can have
confidence that
he will be
with us,
that he
will protect
us.
That when we
go astray,
he will seek
us out and
find us and
bring us back
to the fold.
And we know
how great his
love for us
is because he
said the good
shepherd gives
his life for
the sheep.
And of course,
Jesus died on
the cross to
take the
punishment for
our sins.
So I think
just as I
finish,
there's a
question for
each of
us.
For some,
perhaps the
question is,
are you
willing to
commit your
life to
God?
Do you
know the
good shepherd?
Are you
willing to
trust Jesus
to have your
sins forgiven
because he
took the
punishment and
to know that
you won't be
counted among
the wicked who
will be
ultimately
judged by
God?
For other
of us,
those who
maybe have
been Christians
for a long
time,
maybe for a
short time,
the question
of this
passage of
the whole
psalm is
whether we
cultivate our
love for
God's word.
Do we
treasure it?
Do we
read it
looking for
God to
speak to
us?
Do we
seek to
obey it?
Do we
see this
as the
most important
book in
the world
God?
one which
can lead
us in
the right
ways that
God has
for us?
And we
know that
if that is
us, then
yes, we
will stray.
Yes, we
will go
wrong
regularly.
But we
will be
welcomed
back by
our shepherd
as we
confess our
sins to
him.
Let's not
forget our
little season,
Psalm 119.
It's been a
great privilege
to go through
it and to
think of the
wonders of
God's law
and of
God's word.
But let's
particularly
apply it in
our lives and
make sure we're
trusting him in
every aspect and
seeking to
follow him.
Let's pray
together.
Father, we
thank you for
this wonderful
Psalm that
we've considered
over the last
few weeks.
We thank you
for the
Psalmist and
his great
love for
you and
for your
word.
We thank
you that
your law
which to
some would
be seen
as a
burden,
to him
as a
delight,
something he
can enjoy
and use
as the
basis for
his life.
I pray that
you will
help us to
have that
love for
your word
that the
Psalmist
did,
that we
may value
it greatly,
that we
may spend
time daily
reading it
and thinking
about it
and asking
you to
speak to
us from
it.
We thank
you there
is so much
we can
learn,
even
from
passages
we have
read many,
many times
over the
years.
We pray
above all
that all
of us
will have
our trust
in Jesus,
that we
will know
him as
our
saviour,
as the
one who
died for
our sins,
the one
who is
our good
shepherd,
and that
we may
know that
we have
in him
eternal
life.
We thank
you for
your presence
today.
We thank
you for the
privilege of
being able
to worship
you and
to learn
from you.
We again
pray for
Edmund Fiona
and pray
for your
blessing on
their work
in Argentina
as we give
your thanks
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.