Okay, good evening everyone.
Good evening.
Okay, so I wonder if you can think of a time when someone has inspired you to do something
by what they've said.
It has become quite common for businesses and various institutions to hire in a business
expert or guru or motivational speaker to come and inspire their employees to take on
some new initiative, to motivate them to make more sales or close more deals or whatever
it is they need to do to make the company more money.
Now when it comes to a motivational speaker, the first thing I would want to hear is who
are they and what have they done?
Have they done something to warrant me taking the time to listen to them?
And if they're there to inspire me, then I want to know that they've actually done something
inspiring.
Now once I know there's a reason to really listen, then I can start to evaluate what they're
saying and work out if what they're saying rings true and holds together as a coherent
set of ideas.
But when it comes to any kind of expert advice, listening alone is not enough.
If I've heard something that's inspired me, well then I would actually need to do something
about it.
Tonight, let me tell you that you're going to hear from someone more inspiring than the
most expensive business guru or the top motivational speaker and you're going to have to decide what
you're going to do about what you've heard.
Now you might be sitting there thinking, letting Peter preach a sermon has really gone to his
head.
But believe me when I say that I'm telling the truth because I'm not talking about myself.
I'm not even talking about King David, the author of the psalm we're going to look at.
I'm talking about God.
So let's listen to what God has to say through the hand of David and let's think about who
God is and what he's done, what he's said and what we should do in response.
So let's look at Psalm 19.
Turn to it with me, please, if you can.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech.
Night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech.
They use no words.
No sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth.
Their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.
Like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other.
Nothing is deprived of its warmth.
The law of the Lord is perfect.
Refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy.
Making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right.
Giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant.
Giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure.
Enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm.
And all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold.
Than much pure gold.
They are sweeter than honey.
Than honey from the honeycomb.
By them your servant is warned.
In keeping them there is a great reward.
But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins.
May they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless.
Innocent of great transgression.
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight.
Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Let's pray.
Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to come together and look at your word and consider it for ourselves.
And I pray like David.
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight.
Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
So, let's start by looking at the first six verses of this psalm.
And let's see whether this God is really worth listening to.
So, how can we answer that question?
Well, just like a motivational speaker, we can ask, who is he?
What's he done?
And we can see who God is and what he's done through creation.
Through our natural world.
It speaks without words.
Without a voice.
It tells us a lot about God.
David writes,
The heavens declare the glory of God.
The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Can you picture David?
David, perhaps in his shepherd days, out in the open, staring into the vastness of the night sky.
Have you ever stopped to ponder the immensity and beauty of the heavens?
One thing I still miss about my home, where I grew up in Northern Ireland, is the dark skies.
Having grown up out in the countryside and now living in the big city,
stars are much harder to see at night.
And there is something magnificent about seeing a clear, dark sky with its thousands of pinprick lights.
Being able to pick out the vast Milky Way or watch shooting stars streak across the sky.
When we go to Altna Creek in Aviemore for the dine weekend away,
I always hope for a clear sky.
So that we can see the stars during our night walks.
Though it can be pretty difficult to get the kids to stop,
turn off their torches, their phones,
and look up and let their eyes adjust
so that they can really see the beauty of the night sky.
And even the very scale of the universe is amazing.
It's something that as a child I can remember thinking about and struggling with.
How could the universe be infinite?
How is it possible for space to just go on and on and on and on and on?
But equally, how could it stop?
How could there be nothing?
How could there not even be empty space?
Surely there must be something.
So anyway, I just had to stop thinking about it and accept that it's beyond me.
And I thought it might be worthwhile to just watch a short video.
It's just three minutes long.
This video, it's from an app, a phone app called Cosmic Eye.
So that's why it's in portrait mode,
even though we're watching it on widescreen.
So forgive me that.
And let's just take these three minutes
to have a think about the very scale of God's universe.
Okay, so hopefully that helps to just give you some idea
of the scale of the universe that God has created.
I just feel that even the scale of the universe
tells us so much of God's power and awesomeness.
So David talks about the heavens.
He also talks about the skies.
And the skies can provide just as many wonders,
mighty towering clouds, beautiful rainbows,
breathtaking sunsets, and awe-inspiring thunderstorms.
I personally have always really enjoyed being in a thunderstorm
with a healthy sense of the danger they pose,
but nonetheless just really enjoying the raw power on display.
And it points me to God's power.
It just gives me a little hint of his almighty power.
Now at the end of verse four,
we see David turns his attention to the sun,
this bridegroom, this champion.
It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other.
Nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Now, perhaps David didn't know about Scotland.
But in all seriousness,
even here in Scotland,
we are totally dependent on the sun and its warmth.
Without the sun shining on the earth,
it would soon freeze.
It would just take a matter of weeks.
And any plants without artificial light would soon die.
And if you've ever experienced a solar eclipse,
or even just a partial eclipse,
then you'll know the eerie feeling of darkness during the day,
and may well have noticed the drop in temperature that occurs
even within that short time.
And staying on the theme of eclipses,
listen to an explanation from a NASA website explaining how an eclipse happens.
eclipses occur due to the special coincidence of the moon and the sun being the same angular size.
The sun is 400 times wider than the moon.
But it is 400 times further away.
So they coincidentally appear to be the same size in our sky.
This is what allows us the phenomenal beauty of the total solar eclipse.
Now you see that NASA's explanation,
it recognizes the phenomenal beauty of an eclipse.
But it simply puts it down to coincidence.
The study of nature,
both in a scientific sense and in an art sense,
is a very wonderful and worthwhile thing.
But when we completely miss its designer and creator,
then we're in trouble.
Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1,
verse 20,
For since the creation of the world,
God's invisible qualities,
his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God,
they neither glorified him as God,
nor gave thanks to him.
But their thinking became futile,
and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise,
they became fools.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,
and worshipped and served created things,
rather than the creator.
So if you don't already,
then please do take time to be amazed
by God's creation.
But always let it point you
to God's invisible qualities.
So I hope from this,
you've just had a little bit of a sense
that God really is worth listening to.
He's worth taking the time to hear.
And thankfully,
God doesn't leave us
with just the silent proclamation of creation.
He has more to say.
So we've evaluated God's work.
Now let's evaluate his words.
So what is God's word like?
What will we see if we take the time
to evaluate God's words?
Perhaps it's worthwhile to picture David again,
having stared into the night sky,
having felt the warmth of the sun as it rises.
He's been amazed at God's handiwork,
and then starts to think of all that he's read
or been taught from the scriptures.
And when David thinks and writes about God's words,
it's interesting to note
that whereas before,
in thinking of creation,
he uses the word God,
he now switches to Lord,
which is actually the way
God's personal name
is shown in most English Bibles.
It perhaps would be better rendered as Yahweh,
God's personal name.
But the point is
that David first thinks about God's greatness,
this God who created the universe,
and then moves to thinking about God
in personal terms.
This amazing God
has made himself known,
not just in a big,
far-off kind of way,
but also in a right here,
something to say about your life
kind of way.
God has drawn near to us
in his word.
And what does David make
of Yahweh's words?
Have a look at verses 7 to 10.
Yahweh's law is perfect.
His statutes are trustworthy.
His precepts are right.
His commands are radiant.
His decrees are firm and righteous,
more precious than gold,
and sweeter than honey.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Perfect,
trustworthy,
right,
radiant,
firm and righteous,
more precious than gold,
and sweeter than honey.
And what effect does David say they have?
They refresh the soul.
They make the simple wise.
They give joy to the heart
and give light to the eyes.
So what is it that God says?
Well, tradition gives the number of commandments
in the Old Testament
as 613 commands.
That's rather a lot for us
to consider just now.
And I don't have a nice three-minute video
that I can show you
to amaze you with God's commands.
But thankfully,
Jesus summarizes
all of God's law
in just two commands.
In Matthew chapter 22,
an expert in the law
tries to test Jesus
with this question.
Teacher,
which is the greatest command
in the law?
Jesus replied,
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul
and with all your mind.
This is the first
and greatest command.
And the second is like it.
Love your neighbor
as yourself.
All the law
and the prophets
hang on these two commandments.
Here we see
the very heart
of the law.
This is what it's all about.
Loving God
and loving others.
Can you imagine
what the world would be like
if it kept
these commands?
What a difference
it would make.
What a difference
it would make
to our own lives.
but we have creation
and now know so much more about it.
We have the completed Bible
and within it we have the definitive account
of Jesus' life and teachings.
And in Jesus, like we sang,
we have the full and final revelation of God.
At the start of the service we heard from Hebrews chapter 1.
Let's read Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 to 3 again.
In the past, God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets at many times and in various ways.
But in these last days,
he has spoken to us by his Son,
whom he appointed heir of all things
and through whom also he made the universe.
The Son is the radiance of God's glory
and the exact representation of his being,
sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Jesus is the ultimate way
that God speaks to humanity.
And if you read what the Bible says about Jesus
and evaluate his work and words,
I think you would agree
that the description David gives of God's word
could pretty well apply to Jesus.
Jesus is perfect.
Jesus is trustworthy,
right, radiant, firm and righteous,
more precious than gold
and sweeter than honey.
Again, we see God's character in Jesus.
We see it in creation.
We see it in his word
and we see it in Jesus.
And ultimately,
we see it in Jesus' death on the cross
and glorious resurrection.
God,
who asks us
to love him
and to love others,
first loved us.
Romans chapter 5, verse 8,
says,
God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
So I hope that you can see
that God's words are good.
If you don't already,
then please do take time
to read and meditate
on God's word.
And when you need help to understand,
because we all do,
please ask a member of Brunsfield.
Join a home group
or look for other good resources
that I can point you to
or Graham can point you to
or many others can point you to.
And I know in my life
that I don't do this enough.
You know,
thankfully as part of my job,
I have to read the Bible
so I can teach it to children.
I have to study passages
and really kind of understand them
as best I can
so that I can,
in a simple way,
explain it to children.
But there's something different
about just enjoying God's word
for itself.
To read it
and to meditate on it
like David did.
And that leads me on
to my third and final point.
So we've evaluated God's work.
We've evaluated God's words.
Now let's evaluate ourselves.
Now if you are very keen
on having three points
all starting with the same letter,
you can go Glasgow for this last point
and say evaluating ourselves.
But I'll just stick to ourselves.
So what about ourselves?
Like I said at the start,
it's all very well hearing
an inspirational speaker
realizing that they're worth listening to
and agreeing with what they've said.
But if we don't put into practice
what we've heard,
then it's all a bit pointless.
So what then for us?
What do we see
when we evaluate ourselves
in light of what God has said?
So let's first look
at verses 11 to 13
and see what David saw.
David knows that God's law
is a warning to him
and also the way
to great reward.
And it shows him
that we have two different kinds
of problems
in keeping to God's law.
Hidden faults
and willful sins.
These hidden faults
are not just faults
that are hidden from others,
but are actually hidden
from ourselves.
Who can discern
their own errors?
David puts it.
And in a commentary I read
it was put like this.
The truth is
you have no idea
how sinful you are.
Compared to God
and his word
we fall very short indeed.
We don't need to try to sin.
It will happen
without us even realizing.
The next problem
is willful sin
and the stranglehold
that it can put us in.
The sin where we know
it's wrong
but we just do it anyway.
Perhaps we feel
we just can't help ourselves.
Or maybe we've justified it
in our own minds.
Or maybe we're able
to downplay it
and think
well
what we're doing
is not really that bad.
It could be worse.
But if we're not careful
it will lead us
to what David describes
as great transgression.
You see
sin can easily snowball
and get out of control.
So what can we do?
What can be done?
Firstly
we need to recognize
that we are not
basically good.
Not when we evaluate ourselves
in light of God's character
and word.
When we ask ourselves
how are we
at loving God
and loving others
what is that evaluation like?
I know
when I think
about myself
even just loving
those who love me
can be so hard.
Parents
siblings
spouse
children
yes I love them
but
at times
do I really show it?
No.
Romans 3
23
puts it like this
for all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory
of God.
So
like David says
we need to ask
for forgiveness
and
if we
confess
our sins
God is
faithful
and just
and will
forgive us
our sins
and purify us
from all
unrighteousness.
we also need
God
to keep us
from willful
sin
and
great
transgression.
We absolutely
need God's
help
to overcome
sin.
It is not
something we can
do
on our own
and if we
do these
things
then we
will be
blameless
not because
we're perfect
but because
we are
forgiven
because of
God's
grace.
Jesus
who showed
us what
God is
like
lived
in perfect
obedience.
He never
failed to
love
and he
became sin
for us.
Took the
punishment we
deserved
so that we
can have
eternal life
if we are
trusting in
him
and then
we can
truly
call
God
Lord
our rock
and our
redeemer.
Let's pray.
Lord
thank you
for your
creation.
Thank you
that we
can look
and marvel
at its
beauty
and scale.
thank you
for using
it to
reveal
your
glory
to
us.
Lord
thank you
for your
word.
Thank you
that you
have given
it to
us so
that we
can know
you.
Thank you
for Jesus
and all
that he
revealed.
Lord
thank you
that you
love us.
Thank you
for Jesus
and because
of him
you are
willing to
forgive us.
Thank you
that because
you love
us
you are
willing
to
transform
us.
May
these
words
of my
mouth
and this
meditation
of my
heart
be
pleasing
in your
sight.
Lord
my
rock
and my
redeemer.
Amen.