So please turn with me to Psalm 119 verses 145 to 152. So we are coming towards the end of this great Psalm in this stanza. With my whole heart I cry, answer me, O Lord. I will keep your statutes. I call to you, save me, that I may observe your testimonies. I rise before dawn and cry for help. I hope in your words. My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise. Hear my voice according to your steadfast love. O Lord, according to your justice, give me life. They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose. They are far from your law, but you are near, O Lord. And all your commandments are true. Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. Do you long for a closer walk with God? Do you desire a deeper relationship with God? I think any genuine believer will answer that in the affirmative. They'll say, yes, we desire a closer walk with God. Desire that deeper relationship with God. None of us is truly satisfied with our walk, with our relationship with God. Because, as we considered this morning in the children's catechism, we are not yet in a perfect relationship with God. That process of sanctification is lifelong. Perfection in our relationship with God is something that comes in the life to come and is not achieved in the life today. There will always be, if you were to write that report card, the summing up would be, could do better, I think. Every day of this life, we could do better. While in this world, while in this life, while in this body, we have those two natures at work within us, don't we? The flesh and the spirit. The flesh is that which is carnal, that which is temporary, that which follows base human desire and passion and self. Paul testifies to that conflict and the war that is within in Romans 17. What wretched man that I am, he says. The good that I would do that I don't do, that which I wouldn't do, this I end up doing. Who will deliver me from this body of death, he says. Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ. We have then, brothers and sisters, an ongoing battle and conflict with the old nature, with the old self. We are exhorted in Ephesians 4 to put off the old. Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and be renewed rather in the spirit of your minds. Put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Putting off the old self then is a lifelong process of sanctification. It's not a once and for all act. We need to go on putting off the old by going on deliberately putting on the new day by day by day. Intentionally living a life committed to Jesus Christ. And which of us here is satisfied with the progress that we're making in putting off the old and putting on the new? Which of us here can truly say that we're living up to this high calling of Christ's likeness? Who among us is truly imitating God in our life as we ought? You see, it's very easy to slip into cruise control, isn't it? It's easy to have our spiritual routines and think that we are doing our duty. But that's not living the Christian life. That's not Christ likeness. Love so amazing as demonstrated at the cross of Christ. Love so divine that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This love demands my soul. It demands my life. It demands my all. The Christian life is all of life. It's not an hour here, it's not an hour there. It is all of life. Living the Christian life is not opening a God compartment on Sundays. It's not opening a God compartment perhaps at the beginning of the day or the end of the day or both. It's not opening that compartment when we feel like it. Living the Christian life is being Christ-centered, Christ-honoring, Christ-exalting in everything. Which of us is satisfied with where we are in our walk with Jesus? Friends, we need to cultivate a reliance on Christ then in everything. for everything, in every situation, in every conversation, in every action, in every activity, in every decision making, and every task that we are given to do. We need to be reliant on Christ 100%. And the question then is how? How can we better rely on Christ? How can we do better in our relationship with God? The answer is found in this section of Psalm 119. Because in these verses the Psalmist is drawing near to God. So what does it look like to draw near to God? That is the question we are answering then this evening. What does it look like to draw near to God? We all recognise that desire in our hearts and our need to draw near to God. What does that look like? Well, you can't be double-minded. You can't be half-hearted in drawing near to God. This is an exercise of the whole heart. This is where the psalm, this section begins. With my whole heart, I cry. The first thing then that we need to see is that drawing near to God must be whole-hearted. If we would serve Christ more faithfully, if we would serve Christ more consistently, if we would serve Christ in the whole of life, which is what we're called to do, we must be wholehearted about it. We need to mortify then the flesh with its desires, we need to do battle with sin that remains, we need to seek God's deliverance in Christ with all of our hearts. You cannot draw near to God while at the same time keeping one foot in the world. Christian, you are in the world but not of the world. And your desire and objective must be to live for Christ in the world as his ambassadors. Paul could say, for me to live is Christ. Paul's life wasn't a perfect life. He didn't live perfectly for Christ. He still battled sin and the flesh, as we've just considered in Romans 7. He knew his wretchedness and his condition, and yet he knew his savior. He recognized that the deliverance was in Christ. You see, my friends, the Lord Jesus knows the frailty of our flesh, as we considered briefly this morning. He took on flesh. He is able to sympathize with us in our weakness and frailty. He knows the temptations that we endure. He humbled himself becoming a man and was made like us to represent us and intercede for us at the throne of God, having made that once and for all sacrifice for our sin. And so we have confidence as we draw near to God that he understands where we are. He understands the difficulties, the frailties of our flesh, but there is nevertheless this wholeness of our heart, heartfelt desire then to draw near to him. So don't cling then to anything in this world or in this life. Don't put a fence around some pet sin or a preference that you can't or won't let go of. It doesn't have to be a pet sin, does it, to keep you from the Lord. It can be something quite legitimate that gets warped out of perspective. You get so caught up in your work that you must spend that time that little bit more time to to complete the job to your satisfaction time with the lord or time with the family that must wait or it gets eroded work is good it's given to us by god to glorify god and it's the means by which god provides for us but it can become a distraction it can become a hindrance an idol It can hinder our devotion to Christ if it becomes something which is all-consuming. Instead of being done as to the Lord, it's done as to your satisfaction. The sporting interest you have, that's a great way of keeping healthy. Great way of staying fit. A little exercise is good. Paul said that to Timothy. But then it starts sucking a little bit more time, and then a bit more time, more time, more energy, more commitments. And instead of rising early to pray, you rise early to train. And again, to your satisfaction, to get that performance, to meet that craving for success and progress. Good, legitimate things can get out of hand, is what I'm saying. And when they do so, we stop crying to God with our whole heart. We stop calling to God with that level of wholehearted devotion. Whatever it is, when something else, whether it be work or sport or exercise, leisure, family, politics, whatever it might be, fill in the blanks. Whatever it is that takes our time and energy to such a degree that it stops us or begins to hinder us from drawing near to God with our whole heart, because our heart is set on something else other than Christ, that's when we start to have a problem. because it is with our whole heart that we must cry to the Lord. We must not allow these other things to intrude and erode at our time and devotion to the Lord. Christ must be uppermost in all of our activities, in all of our thoughts, in all of our exercises, all of our commitments must be Christ focused. Claw near to God with all of your heart. Put all of your energy on crying to him. This takes deliberate time, it takes effort. And that's what the psalmist says in verse 147. He rises before dawn and he cries for help. His eyes are awake before the watches of the night, meditating on God's promise. Verse 148. His whole waking day is lived with reference to God and grounded in God's word. And what is he doing with his whole heart? He's crying to God. He's calling to God. Verse 146. I call to you. Save me that I may observe your testimonies. He's praying, crying to God as he is drawing near to God with a whole heart. If our minds and affections and thoughts are elsewhere, we're not going to be crying out to God as we ought with a whole heart. And one of our problems, I think, with the busyness and with the overload of commitments that seems to afflict modern life is the level of distraction this poses to us when it comes to cry to God and call upon him. What I mean is we want to devote the day's activities and commitments to him. We want to be more measured, we want to be more balanced, we want to be more consistent today than we were yesterday. But if you're like me you'll find that your prayers are intruded upon by thoughts of those commitments of that day. How are you going to meet those commitments of that day? You've got that meeting coming up. You've got that deadline here. You've got that other thing to organise over there. How are you going to do this? When am I going to fit this in? I've got this person to see, that person to deal with. And suddenly you find that you're planning your diary and making mental notes of what needs to be done rather than crying to God to help you do what needs to be done. If your heart is like my heart, it is very easily distracted. We want to serve Christ in everything, don't we? I don't think we're being double-minded here. I don't think there's duplicity here. I don't think we're trying to serve God and money. We're not trying to serve two masters. I think the problem is that we are easily overtaken by the cares, by the burdens, by the responsibilities of busy lives because we are not being wholehearted in drawing near to God. So these distractions come in and intrude upon us because we allow them. Paul said in a different context that we are to take every thought captive to obey Christ in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5. This is what we must do if we're to draw near to God with wholeheartedness. We need to take those thoughts captive. We need to have the blinkers on. We need to shut out all the extraneous detail and we need to have that diligence and self-control not to allow our mind to get swept away with the day's duties and what may or may not happen and how am I going to do this and how am I going to meet that deadline here and this deadline there? to take our thoughts captive and set our minds and set our thoughts and set our affections to set them on Jesus Christ with a whole heart. The motivation then for drawing near to God is not serving ourself. So we've seen what it looks like to draw near to God, we've seen that it must be wholehearted in devotion to the Lord. And we're motivated to draw near to God, not out of some sense of duty or self-service, but in order to keep his statutes, the second part of verse 145. And to observe his testimonies, the second part of 146. And to hope in his words, the second part of 147. And meditate on his promise, the second part of 148. You can see where the psalmist is going with his reasoning. With his whole heart, he's seeking to keep God's word. As he's calling to God, as he's crying out to God, it's so that he would observe and keep God's word. He's rising before dawn in order to keep God's Word and exercise his trust in God's Word. He's keeping himself before the Lord through the watches of the night in order to meditate on God's Word, to be Word-focused, to be Word-centered, to keep his mind and affection focused upon God wholeheartedly. In other words, you see, we are to draw near or we draw near to God, we call out to God, we approach him in prayer through our waking day so that our lives would be lived in the light of his word. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 17 reminds us that we're to pray without ceasing. And that doesn't mean to say that we do nothing but pray, but rather that prayer is a natural constant part of our lives. Our life is to be marked by an attitude of prayer, a conscious dependence upon God, a conscious reliance upon God. We want to be obedient people to God. Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. We need then to live a life of obedience, out of gratitude to Christ for his work of humble submission on the cross in our place. To keep God's statutes, to observe his testimonies, draw near to God with your whole heart in prayer. and use God's word as you draw near then in that way. Apply God's word to your circumstance as you face struggles and difficulties that the day brings up. Cry for help. Cry to God to help you to keep your focus upon things that are important, upon Christ. Those things of eternal significance, not to get swept away when all others around you are perhaps losing their heads. Cry for help to keep that hope and focus upon God's promises. Meditate upon God's promises. You face a trial, a difficult situation. God has promised never to leave you nor forsake you. And so you're comforted as you remind yourself of that promise in his word. In fact, he's promised not just never to leave you nor to forsake you, but he was promised to use that trial to refine you and to purify you and to fit you for heaven, as we again considered briefly this morning. And so you focus on Christ in that trial, in that difficulty, in that challenging situation. that arises, you focus on Christ. You bring your mind, you bring your thinking back to Christ. You don't know how you're going to get through what's coming up in that day. You don't know how you're going to get through that day and its events, or what appears to be emerging perhaps in your life at the moment. You feel so weak, you feel at a loss, you feel so helpless. that God has promised, my grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in weakness. You see, in Christ you can do all things because he strengthens you by his spirit. You focus again on Christ. How am I going to get through this without distraction? How am I going to get through this in a way which honors Christ, which honors my Lord, which honors my Savior? Well, not in your own strength. You ask God for grace, you ask God for help and for strength in that hour. You see there's a conscious dependence then upon God and calling out to God and pleading his promises as you draw near to him. this wholehearted way and you focusing on Christ. So as you draw near to God, as you cry to God, as you meditate and read his word, your heart then is being taken up with things above and ultimately you're being taken up with Christ. And this meditation on God's promise is more than a mere perfunctory reading of the Bible and praying afterwards. It's more than memorizing passages of Scripture. This is internalizing the Bible's teaching to such an extent that the truths of Scripture become part of how we think and part of how we respond to those situations and circumstances in our lives so that we begin to think differently and we begin to function differently as a result. In other words we're seeking to serve God wholeheartedly and we draw near to him with our whole heart because as you read and as you meditate and as you internalize his word you are drawing near to him. And you're being pointed again to Jesus Christ. You're pointed away, as you're pointed to Christ, you're pointed away from those things that would be self-serving, and fleshly, and distracting, and a hindrance, and seek to overwhelm you. Because you're looking to Jesus Christ. This is what Paul says in Colossians. If then you have been raised with Christ, which you have, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, you have been raised with Christ, or since you've been raised with Christ, seek then the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. You see, it's ultimately in Christ and through Christ that we draw near to God. Because our life is hidden with Christ. And Christ is your life. Your sin has been atoned for by his substitutionary death on the cross. And God's wrath against that sin has been satisfied by his son's death. And his righteousness is ours. Forever. Righteous forever. as we saw in the previous stanza. And we then can have confidence as we draw near to God in this wholehearted attitude, in this Christ-centered, Christ-focused way. And the psalmist says, it goes on to say in verse 149, hear my voice according to your steadfast love. Oh Lord, according to your justice, give me life. It's ultimately both the justice and the love of God that met at the cross and being met at Calvary that gives us life. God has promised. God has promised he will not drive away any who come to him. That's what Jesus promised at the end of Matthew 11. Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest. James 4, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. We have the promises of God to assure us, to help us as we call to him, to draw near to him. The psalmist needs to know that God will give life and that God will draw near to him because his persecutors are drawing near. Verse 150, they draw near who persecute me with evil purpose. They are far from your law. They have evil intent. If we take the psalmist to be Josiah, we've seen that his reforms in Jerusalem will have been opposed and He faced opposition to doing the Lord's will, to rule Israel by the word of God. And you and I face the same opposition, the same opponents, not the same people, but the same enemy of our souls, who will seek to destroy the work of God, who will sow seeds of doubt, who will tempt us to compromise and to yield and to question, what did God really say? Is this really what God's having me do? We're in a spiritual battle, you see. The warfare that we engage in is with hostile evil forces in the heavenly realms. God has given us his armor. It's in his armor that we stand firm as we put on that armory with prayer. And as we've seen in Ephesians 6, the Christian armor is all about living the Christian life. in a word-grounded, Christ-honouring way. And in doing so, we stand firm against the schemes of the devil, his evil purposes manifested through overt or covert spiritual attacks, sometimes using others, sometimes infiltrating our own thoughts. We will seek to draw us away from God, which is the very opposite of the intent that we're considering here. Not only would those evil purposes then seek to draw you away from God and draw your confidence away from Christ, they will seek to keep you away. Keep you locked up in Doubting Castle or overtaken in Vanity Fair to use a couple of Bunyan's allegories. One commentator has noted that the word translated evil purpose here was almost always associated with idolatry or immorality. So the plan of the Psalmist persecutors was connected with the covenant law of God, which forbade both idolatry and immorality. What these persecutors were doing was accusing the Psalmist of covenant breaking while they themselves did exactly that. So these persecutors claimed to be in the covenant community of God, but their behavior indicated that they were not at all committed to obeying God. But there's nothing new under the sun. Because then we think forwards and we think about the way Jesus was treated. While there was no sin in his mouth, he was condemned as a blasphemer. Those who brought the word of God and did God's work were invariably hated without cause and continue to be hated in the same way today. And so you may be facing hostility. You may be facing a real hatred, not only from the spiritual forces of darkness, but also from those around you. who hate you without cause because they hate the light that you shine in dark places as you are being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. As your light is shining in darkness, there will be people who will take offense at that. And there will be people who will seek to shut that light down and turn it off. But we take heart. because even though there are those who are with evil purpose, who may be drawing near to us, he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. God is near you, Christian. And that's what the psalmist says in 151. So even though there are these persecutors, with evil purpose, drawing near, threatening the psalmist, threatening you and threatening me. But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true. Here's an expression of faith. Here's an expression of joy. And here's an answer to that wholehearted drawing near in the pleas of verses 145 to 149 that you've considered. The response is, you are near, O Lord. And there's a testimony here to this reality that God is near. The psalmist has sought to draw near to God and he's finding that God is indeed near to him. He's finding that God's word is true. God is true to what he has promised. And what a wonderful comfort that is to us. God keeps his promise. If you draw near to him, he will draw near to you. He's not going to cast you away. He hears the cries of his people. You can be absolutely assured of that. We have then this intimate, personal relationship with God. And This intimate relationship God has then with us brings with it something that can be experienced, something that can be known. We can be assured of God's comfort, God's help, God's strength, God's grace, and God's power, God's equipping. And that brings us relief, doesn't it? It brings us assurance. So that when that difficulty arises in the day, we don't need to resort to our own resources. We turn to God and we call to him and we plead his promise once again. We draw near to him. We don't let those things distract us. We don't let those things hinder us. So the psalmist can testify that all God's commandments are true. And that's his personal experience over a long period of time as this stanza concludes. Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. Again, the Christian life is about the long haul. It's not a sprint. It's not even a marathon. It's an endurance event. It's about reaching the finishing line one step at a time. We need to endure to the end. And over the course of our pilgrimage, however long it lasts, the Psalmist's testimony in verse 152 should be our testimony. Long have I known from your testimonies, from your word, that you have founded them forever. Because God's word has been proven to be reliable, supporting, comforting, helping, sustaining, time and time and time again. And that's what we need. That's what we need. It's a fundamental part of wholehearted living for God in which we draw near to God. The validity, the proof then that God's word is true. They're founded from eternity past and will remain to the end. We draw near then to God. encouraged, comforted, helped, strengthened by his testimonies. We plead his promises and we come to him in Christ. And so my exhortation to you tonight will be to draw near to God, draw near to God with all of your heart, and he will draw near to you. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, we do ask that you would help each of us here to forget what is distracting us in this world, to forget those things that are hindering us and would intrude upon us, upon our thoughts and upon our affections, upon our mind, oh God, as we seek to live for you. that we would forget those things, to be focused and dedicated with all of our heart and soul and mind upon things that are of eternal significance. Lift our eyes, lift our gaze to see more of Christ seated at your right hand. Help us, we pray, to fix our gaze there and to have it fixed, not just in these hours on a Sunday, but tomorrow morning and the next day and as many days as you should give us. Lord, we pray that you would keep us fixed, keep us focused, keep us devoted with a whole heart to draw near to you, O God, and to think of nothing else as it were, to think of all of our responsibilities and all of these things that are going on in the busyness of our lives, to think of them from the perspective of serving you and living for you and doing all for you and for your glory. And so we pray that you would help us. We pray that you would send us your spirit, for we need him to turn our thoughts and turn our affections away from temporary things onto those solid eternal things, to fix them upon Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the praise and the honor we ask in his name. Amen.