Psalms 19

He has set a tent for the son which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man running its course with joy. It's rising as from the ends of the heavens and it circuits to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired. Are they than gold? Even much fine, gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant. Warned in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden false , keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.

Let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

And so when Dan first came to central, you may remember there was another hurricane that went through Florida and put a tree through the side of his house and there was repair work for quite some time. And , uh, Dan , uh , the , I think the drop dead time was Friday noon. He decided he needed to go home and be with his wife , uh , in Jacksonville. Uh, because , uh , I don't know if you know it, but there's a big storm called Dorian that is hitting on the way.

I believe God can disintegrate that storm. He often doesn't, but I believe he can. I believe he can redirect it. And I believe he can protect people that we love and know in the midst of very difficult situations. And so before we go to the word of God, I want us to pray and I don't want us to pray sincerely and meaningfully. I want us to pray for Dan. I want us to pray for Cindy. I want us to pray for Florida.

I want us to pray that, that this hurricane will not have the damage that it's anticipated to create. At the same time, I'm aware that there are people here this morning that uh , you're facing your own storms may not be a hurricane. It may be something in a relationship, it may be financial, it may be a decision, it may be something personal that only you know about.

And you know what, I am so glad you're here cause that's just , this is where you need to be because we want to pray for you as well. But let's have some moments in prayer. I'm taking liberty to do this because I'm standing in for Dan and I feel a real burden to pray for him and his wife especially. But also I think it points to the bigger need that a we can pray about. And so if you would like to join me and Neil at the front, you can do that.

Uh , we'd like to just spend a few moments in prayer bringing these things before the Lord and we know that God can do great things. There's more to come as God works. And let's , let's bring our hearts before the Lord and seek to pray earnestly. Not only for Dan but for one another here this morning. There may be somebody here who needs a special touch from God, somebody who really is in need in a way that you could hardly express.

And we want to spend just a few moments lifting those things before the Lord and then we'll go to his word together.

Lord, we pray that a in a way that only you can do, you would lord overrule in this situation, Lord, our desire would be that this hurricane would be totally redirected Lord. And we know you can do that. But Lord , we bring this before you and ask for your protection. We ask for a limited suffering. We asked for a Lord, right decisions to be made by those who are responsible in those areas of the country.

And Lord, we pray for brother Dan and his wife that you would lord, give them a sense of peace and your presence in a special way today. And we pray that Lord, especially for all of your children, Lord, there may be many that don't know you, who are in great fear right now in Lord. Somehow we pray that you would use this to point people to you because you are the one true God, the Living God, the awesome God, the God of all power and authority.

And yet the God who loves us and gave himself for us in Jesus. And we thank you for that. Lord. We pray for one another this morning. Lord, we need you. We need you, Lord . We need you to uh , uh, to direct our hearts. We need you to guide our lives. We need you lord, to , to work in our situations and Lord for people. To some morning that are feeling the storms of life in a very real way.

We just ask your hand upon them, Lord, that a , you would bring your relief, your direction, your help, your instruction. Lord, Lord , we believe you can do this. We believe you're a mighty God. We thank you for all you have done, the great things you have done below . We know there's more to come and low . We pray for that more even in our lives today. Not only Lord thinking in the future, but right now in our lives do a work. Lord, if someone hears in need of salvation, we pray for that low .

We pray for those who are just needing to be closer to you. Oh God. Draw them to yourself for those who need a word of wisdom, Lord, give that to them. Those who need guidance, we pray for that, Lord, for those who are in need of healing. Lord, we thank you that we can bring the physical needs before you and we ask Lord for your healing hand and you're strengthening hand, you're renewing hand upon each one in need. So Lord, we come before you in prayer. Lord, we are your people.

Where are your children? Where those Lord who depend upon you and we long Lord for you to be exalted and to be glorified and so do your work in our lives. Lord, we might rejoice even more in you and Laura bear witness to your greatness, to those around us. We thank you. We bless you. We praise your name. Lord, be with us as we look at your word. We pray in Jesus name, Amen and Amen.

Well, thank you so much for being willing to let me lead in prayer and so my thanks to pastor Dan for this privilege. I also want to give a special word of thanks to Dr Tommy . Why did the awesome orthodontist who at nine 30 last night did a little emergency surgery in my mouth that relieved some suffering and I still could've preached probably, but you might've seen some pain and agony on the face. Now that's not his usual working hours by the way.

Friday night, Saturday, Labor Day weekend at not usual, and he was just coming back from vacation. They didn't even go home. That's a brother and Jesus right there. And so , uh , I appreciate , uh, Tommy doing that. It didn't take long, but boy, it was good. Right ? Uh , what I want to do this morning is I want us to look at Psalm 19 and I want us to think of it in terms of of God going after our heart, that we need to be people who are shaped by God.

We sing a lot about God reaching into our lives, but my concern today is, is our heart really after God, are we United in, in our hearts? Are we really focused on him? Is God in the right sense? Our Passion? Are we preoccupied with our relationship with God? I don't know about you, but life gets busy and we get involved in a lot of activities and we get a lot of concerns and decisions takeover and practical things take over.

And all of a sudden we find that our relationship with God is sort of a thing. It's just part of our lives. It's not really something that's central. And in the midst of all of the issues, we lose track of what's happening on the inside. This psalm is going to take us to the inside, the inside of our lives, not the outside, not the smile, not the things that we might be talking about. It's going to take us to the, because that's what God's interested in. Oh, thank you Tommy. I see you there now.

Uh , but this is a beautiful song and my concern this morning, you know, what's the sort of burden behind this message is that it's so easy for God to sort of get crowded out of our lives and we find ourselves going through the day to day. I'm not talking about Sunday morning. I'm not talking about right now. Although it can happen right now.

I'm talking about the rest of the week and whether or not our hearts are really, really in tune with God and walking with him and serving him and loving him is really at the focused in the midst of anything we're going through. Cause I believe that's the way that we see God work in and through our lives is when our lives are right with him. And that's not a passing issue for the psalmist. I would think he would think that's the most important issue in life.

Even more important than you know who won the games yesterday. He really would. This would be the most important thing in life. The relationship with God and God wants to shape our lives. And I think this som represents someone who's life has been shaped by God, who wants to please God. Just like football coaches with their team. They have like a whole array of players, right? Who have different philosophies of how to play football and what does a coach need to do?

He somehow needs to get everybody on the same page, right? Everybody having the same goal, everybody having the same approach to football so the team can play United in that goal to play football. Well, God wants to unite our hearts. God wants to bring us close to himself, but it does involve us responding to him and we're going to see in this psalm how God communicates with us and then how we need to respond to him.

And I'll try to do it as quickly as I can, but in this amazing psalm, it begins in verses one through six with a celebration of the glory and sovereignty of God in creation, celebrating God's glory. And sovereignty is what the psalmist is doing. He says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork day to day pours out speech God is speaking through his creation and night tonight reveals knowledge. There is no speech through other words whose voice is not heard.

Their measuring line goes out all through the earth and their words to the end of the world. And sadly, extreme evolution ideas have robbed us sometimes of sensing the glory of creation and sensing that God made this. And even though it's tainted by sin, and as we learned Thursday night at a banquet here for forsaken children, that creation is broken and it's hurting and it's damaged. We still in the vastness of the heavens and in the beauty of what we do see, beautiful in creation.

We get a picture of who God is and we have a sense that we are his creation. We are his by way of creation and the psalmist is celebrating that glory. He's celebrating who God is in his glory and in his sovereignty and he moves on with this poetic language that I probably would find hard to write concerning the son . Most of the times when you think of the sun, you may not be thinking in beautiful terms. You may be complaining about the heat, right?

Well, look what he says in the end of verse four he says in them that is in this whole creation of God. He says, he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber. Boy, he's ready. That's what he's saying. And like a strong man. I like that a strong man runs its course with joy. It's rising from the end of the heavens and it circuit to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from his heat.

He's poetically speaking about the sun going from horizon to horizon and God is in control of that. God is in control of our world and we know there's a mystery to that. There's a mystery to hurricanes, maybe not meteorologically. I was talking to somebody after the first service that deals with whether I , there's really fascinating, but anyway, there's a mystery to God's sovereignty, but the psalmist starts there and he's saying, this is our God.

This is our God, glorious sovereign, someone who's in control and sometimes when we're in the midst of some difficult problem in our lives that anybody ever have a difficult problem or is that just me? It's sometimes it's good to step back and recognize that God is bigger than this. He's fully capable. He hasn't come off the throne. He's very able and we can trust him, but the psalmist recognizes that aspect of who God is and that God speaks to us even through the creation around us.

But then he makes an abrupt change in verse seven but it's not really as abrupt as it looks because now he's going to talk about God's special communication with us because see, God has given us his word and that word is given to us to shape us and to draw our hearts to God. That's what the word of God is all about. So let me just look at this for a few moments with you because we're going somewhere and that's diverse.

14 which is going to be the close of this amazing psalm, but he says, the law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is sure. Enlightening the eyes, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether . I don't know what your relationship is with God's word, but God's Word is God's speaking.

This is God's word and this is how God communicates to us, and he shapes our heart that we'll be in tune with him. Notice the content of God's word. There are so many words used in this passage. The word law, the word testimony, the word precepts commandment, the fear of the Lord, the rules of the Lord. What that speaks to me of is the sufficiency of God's word, the completeness of God's word, the fact that God's word is totally sufficient to guide us in his will. That's what it's for.

It's not going to tell me necessarily how to change the filters in my air conditioning. That's not the purpose of God's word. God's word is to help be , have a relationship with him and to know his will and his way for my life, and it is totally sufficient for that. It is complete. It is God's word given to us for that purpose.

And ultimately that word points us to the living word, our Lord Jesus Christ, because it's in him that we have life and life eternal, and it's that word that makes us wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. So it leads us to Christ, but it also leads us to the way in which God wants us to live. When you're in some location and you're trying to get to another place, you may pull out your gps.

You may find some way of getting that course or direction, but that's what the word of God does. It instructs us. It directs us that our lives might be in the center of his will. Praise God for that. Praise God for that. It's so easy for us to go astray. It's so easy for us to go in this direction or that or just to listen to the latest advice or someone else's suggestion. Whereas God has given us his word to guide us through the difficulties of this life. Notice the qualities of this word.

He says, it's perfect. It's sure it's right. It's pure. It's clean, it's true, it's righteous. Why is that? Because it's God's word. It has the same character that God has and so we can trust his word. It's not fake. It's not misleading if not lies. It's not half truths. It's not a spin.

It's truth, truth that we can rely upon to guide us and as I said, God wants our hearts and one of the ways he gets our hearts as we listened to him and as we feed on his word and we allow this complete, sufficient, perfect word to speak to us and to guide us, it gives us wisdom. As it says here, it gives us joy, but I like what it says at the beginning here. It says it's revives the soul.

If you find yourself sort of spiritually dull , if you find yourself distant, detached, cold in your relationship with God, one of the best things to do is to get aside and to spend some time in his word and to ask God to speak to you and God to work with you and to open up your heart to him so that you'll have a living vital relationship with him. I do not believe that the Lord Jesus Christ left Heaven and came to earth and lived a perfect life, died a death for our sins.

Rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, poured out his holy spirit that we would have a dull and distant relationship with God. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind. I think he wants us to have just a close, intimate, loving relationship with our heavenly father. And yet the practical side of that is you generally stay in conversation with somebody that you love.

And that's why we need to be in the word and allow the word of God to restore us, to revive us , uh , to guide us even to warn us. The scriptures have lot to say about evils to avoid, and boy, we need warnings. There is such a Tennessee even with though that we're believers and we have the Holy Spirit, that sin nature is still around. It can, we can easily go astray. Warning signs are very helpful.

You ever been on a mountainous area and you have that warning sign that says there's a steep incline or that there's a steep curve or a big curb ahead and you need to row right accordingly. We need warnings.

There's a big thing going on right now with this whole opioid crisis and whether or not warnings were really issued to illustrate how serious opioids are, whether or not people didn't listen to those warnings, whatever that was, we need warning labels for things that are potentially dangerous. Am I correct? I'll take that as a yes. And that's what God's word does for us. It warns us against those things that are dangerous to us spiritually.

And so the psalmist is celebrating the word of God, not just what God has shown us in his creation, but his word. And so I want to urge us that we do need to be people in the word, people that are in the word of God, not just to get academic knowledge, but to allow the Lord to shape our lives, to allow him to work in our hearts, allow him to go deep within us. So what's, what's the end result? How should we view the word of God?

Well , verses 10 and 11 really spell that out, and I know this is poetry, but take it seriously. He says more to be desired. Are they than gold? Even much fine gold. That's how valuable we're to value the word of God. And I'll tell you, I could take you to places in the world where the word of God is treasured because it is so rare and they may only have parts of God's word and they long for more because that word has been their pathway to life in Jesus Christ.

And I just noticed the new version has come out and I was talking to Carlene in the bookstore. And I think sometimes we get too familiar and we get to use to just a , the various options that we have. And we don't, we forget that this is God's wonderful word to shape and guide and direct our lives both now and into eternity. We should value the word of God. We should have joy it. He says, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Now you know that eating is work, right?

But if you really like what you're eating, you don't think of it as work, do you? Well, what he's saying is there's work in being in the word. It takes time to, to put the word of God into our hearts.

And yet we should enjoy it because it is so, and think of all of this, the doings of God that are thought of in written out in scripture, from creation all the way through to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and all of His grace and mercy, what enjoyment there is in recognizing the greatness of our God. And what he's done for us. But then of course we need to obey the word of God. He says, moreover by them, your servant is warned and in keeping them there is great reward.

We don't merit these rewards, but they're what happens as we obey God, there is a reward. There are benefits, there's blessings to walking in the pathway of obedience. And so the psalmist starts in creation. He goes to the word, but now here's where we really need to pay some attention because it's like he almost rips open his chest before God. And I want us to think about that this morning. He says, who can discern his errors? The why does he say that?

You see, he saw aware of who God is and he doesn't want anything in between. Doesn't want anything in between him and the Lord. Nothing hindering that relationship. Like I don't want anything between me and John Andrew in our relationship. Right? Okay. Nothing in between. Obviously with my wife Ellen, I don't want anything hindering that relationship.

And so he immediately thinks, is there anything, is there something in my life that is getting in the way of God doing his work in me and then me serving him? And sometimes we get so busy that we're not aware of what's going on inside of us and this is the heartbeat of somebody who wants to be right with God. He wants everything to be right. He doesn't want anything in between. This relationship is the important thing in his life, not aside issue.

He's preoccupied with being in good terms, so to speak with God. And so he says, declare me innocent from hidden faults. God, I may not even know if I've done something that's wrong. I want to , I want you to forgive me. I want you to cleanse me. I want to be free of that. I don't want to be someone who is hindering my relationship with you because of something hidden in my life, something I'm not even aware of or other people don't know. Declare me innocent from hidden faults .

Then keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. This is somebody who takes his relationship with God. Seriously. You say, God, I don't want to blow it. I don't want to do something terrible that's going to hurt you. Ruin your reputation, a sin, a trespass against your law.

God, I do not want to live that way, and so he opens his life after he's exposed himself to the glory and majesty of God and the instruction of God in his word, he opens up his heart and he says, God, I don't want anything in between. Is that US today? Honestly, we're here to worship God. We're here to love on him that so to speak.

We're here to rejoice in him and praise him, but are we willing to open up our hearts to say, God, if there's anything, anything that is hindering my relationship with you, forgive me and Lord, Oh , protect me and give me the strength Lord to move on in my life. Folks, we need to have that concern. That goes right alongside of our love for God and our appreciation of him and the fact that he is for us and he loves us and he is the great God who has done such wonderful things for us.

But Oh, that we would take that seriously in our lives. You know, marriages can grow cold when there's lack of communication and all of a sudden there's something that builds up and there's something between and you just go on. You just go on like it's normal, but you know, deep down underneath it's not right and you've got to make it right. Sometimes we need those times with the Lord.

Well , we've just been moving on in life and all of a sudden we realize , you know, I need to get right on this and I would put it this way. We need to keep very short accounts with God when we know something's wrong, deal with it. God is a gracious, merciful, forgiving God and he will not only cleanse and we have the blood of Jesus that is forever available, but he will strengthen. Well , you say, well, what's my response to Sporting ?

But that's up to you of course, but I want us to go to verse 14 because this is where this psalm ends and you may have heard these words quoted before in a church service or as a preacher preached or in some situation. I'm going to encourage you to make verse 14 a prayer. You pray every day this week , bring it into your quiet time, bring it into some other situation, but look at these words. It's so simple and yet it's so complete in many ways.

It says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Couple of comments about this prayer, it's a personal prayer. You notice he says my mouth, my thoughts. He's not at this time worrying about anybody else. He's just bringing his whole life before the Lord and honesty and he saying, Lord, it's you and me. It's you and me. It's a personal prayer. It's also sincere.

You notice he says my mouth, my Facebook posts, my tweets, my communications, my conversations. Lord, I want them to be acceptable to you first. You're the one that I live before. Other people, yes, are important, but you're important. Everything that comes out, boy, wouldn't that be great when you feel anger coming up within you? Maybe you never have every anger in your life, but if you ever have anger in your life and you're about to say something, it's a great prayer right at that moment.

Oh Lord, let the words of my mouth, but you know, he goes even further the meditation of my heart. Lord, I want that to be pleasing to you. I don't want my mind to grow to go wild. I don't want to have wrong thoughts. I want to think things that are pleasing to you.

I wonder if you've ever said this boy, if I said what I was really thinking and you sort of felt proud about it, well, you know God knows what you're thinking and so we want to bring even our thoughts before him because we want our minds to be renewed. Yeah, this is, this is serious business. This is, this is real life. This is devotion to the Lord and we , we live before him. We want him to be pleased. We know his love will never change, but there are things we can do that displeased the Lord.

There are things that bring him great joy and I think one of them is praying this kind of prayer regularly to bring our lives back to center, to live before him. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing, acceptable to you. Like a sacrifice. That's the word of sacrifice. Just as we present, our bodies are living sacrifices. Roman says in light of the grace of God, in light of all that Jesus has done for us, that includes our mouths and our thoughts.

We need renewed minds. It's a worshipful prayer. But I want you to notice lastly that it's a dependent prayer. And uh , I love the last phrase here. God isn't aloof trying to test us. This isn't that kind of situation. This is the heart of someone who loves the Lord, who the Lord is, is his passion. And so he wants everything that he does to, to be done in the presence of the Lord and to be faithful to him. And so he calls him my rock and my redeemer. Let's take those in reverse order.

Aren't you thrilled this morning that God is our redeemer? The Jesus was sent and Jesus has redeemed us. We've been brought into his family, through his shed blood and through faith in him and we have a redeemer who is sufficient to see us through not only now, but into eternity. He is our redeemer. So we come to him as the one who knows all about us and has redeemed us. And so we know we can be certain of that love and of that sacrifice for us. And yet we need to walk with him.

He's our redeemer, but he is also our rock. I love that we realize as we come to him, oh Lord, you're my strength. You're the one that needs to strengthen me. You're the one I need. You're the one I need to to walk with you and to stay close to you. And so I depend upon your strength, urinate , bling , grace, what you give. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. What a fitting conclusion to this song for someone who wants their heart to be shaped by God.

And after God, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Will you make that your prayer this week just to have a greater sense day by day that I'm living with the Lord. I'm living before the Lord. He's walking with me and, and, and it's it . His relationship is primary in my life, not secondary. It's my passion.

But if someone here today doesn't know the Lord, oh, he's wonderful and he can be your redeemer and your rock, the one who saves and the one who strengthens. And by coming to him and recognizing who he is and placing faith in him, you can move into this wonderful relationship that can give you stability and strength in life. Even in the midst of storms. Would you bow your head? Let's close our eyes. And just for a moment, be honest with God today.

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Lord, it's so easy to just move on when something may need to be dealt with in our own hearts. Oh God. Reach into our hearts. You know us. Cleanse us, strengthen us. Give us United hearts, Lord, to live for you, to walk with you, to serve you, to rejoice in you. We praise you. We pray that your Holy Spirit will do this work and Lord, that you will cause us to be peoples whose hearts are fixed on you day by day. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.