our topic, how a Christian should use God's law to live. And what we're going to do is I've taken, gone through the whole psalm and we're going to look at the main things taught that are repeated throughout the psalm. I'll read the first five verses. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his testimonies. and that seek him with a whole heart. They also do no iniquity, they walk in his ways. Thou has commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently, or that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. We've seen that the moral laws, the Christians rule for sanctified living. That when habitually obeyed, leads to covenant blessings. And we've also looked at the importance of walking according to all of God's statues. As we consider Psalm 119, we'd also benefit from examining all the various things that we are required to do to be a mature, wise, obedient Christian. And there are a number of things required that are so important they are repeated a number of times for emphasis. The psalm is very repetitory, using slightly different Words that mean slightly different things, but it's basically saying the same thing over and over again. Let us examine each thing in its logical order for edification. First, if we are to benefit at all from God's commandments, we must learn what they teach. Psalm 119, 7, 71, 73. Learning the moral law leads to the worship of Yahweh because the law reflects God's nature and character. Psalm 119, verse 7. The Christian who comes under some sort of affliction will greatly benefit under these circumstances by studying and learning the Lord's statutes, verse 71. And we are to pray for understanding so that we would better learn God's commandments, verse 73. We learn the law in order to praise, and we praise all the more when we have learned. And my last point today, which I just have one page on, I don't want to go too long, is on we're making covenant renewal. We're promising to keep the commandments and learn them. And I have three quick quotes here. Here's Leupold. In practice, you praise God by esteeming his word so precious that you make it your business to learn it. Such learning is an act of faith and praise. Dixon, David Dixon. Sound praises of God are the fruit of soundness and piety and righteousness. And the holiest of God's servants are but scholars and students in the knowledge and obedience of both. And then Matthew Henry. Though Christ keep a free school and teaches without money and without price, yet he expects his scholars should give him thanks, both for his word and for his spirit. To learn means to receive God's instruction. Torah. Torah. The purpose of learning the law is so that we would know how to keep it. Deuteronomy 5.1. Hear, O Israel. The statutes and judgments which I speak in yours this day, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. So we have to learn, obviously, what it teaches before we can follow what it teaches. When Moses gave the law to Israel, he said this, Deuteronomy 4.14, this is the covenant renewal. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments in order that you might observe them in the land which you come over to possess. And here's Thomas Manton. It is a learning as the effect will necessarily follow. Such a light and illumination as doth convert the soul and frame our hearts and ways according to the will of God. For otherwise, if we get an understanding of the word, nay, if we get it imprinted in our memories, it will do us no good without practice. The best of God's servants are but scholars and students in the knowledge and obedience of his word." End of quote. Christians who are serious about sanctification, wisdom, and justice should read God's law and study it carefully for it forms the core of Christian ethics. The Proverbs are an application. The prophets are preaching against people breaking the law and what to do to repent. The New Testament simply reflects the law of God and makes applications. It does not give us any new ethics at all. If one refuses, it defines social justice and it sets the ethical parameter of church discipline for ethical infractions. In fact, Yahweh gives us an excellent reason for studying and learning God's laws when he calls them his righteous judgments, verse 7. The word righteous, zedek, refers to perfect, absolutely correct, just judicial decisions or perfectly correct moral actions. Jehovah's laws are perfect, totally just, absolutely righteous, because God is infinitely holy and righteous. John 1, 1, 5, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. The word righteous or righteousness embodies the thinking and behavior that God expects of all of his people. We must judge our thoughts, Hebrews 4.12, Jeremiah 6.19, words, Matthew 12.36, actions, Ecclesiastes 12.14, by the Lord's perfect law word, for the judicial sentences of God are always right and are never wrong, Hebrews 2.2. And I'll just say, When the Bible talks about sanctification, when the Bible talks about justice, when the Bible talks about church discipline, when the Bible talks about civil penalties, when the Bible talks about how to apply law to society, it never, ever refers to natural law. Ever. God's revealed moral laws are the standard not simply for temporal judgments, Proverbs 1131, but also for the great white throne judgment at the final day, John 12, 48. When professing Christians malign God's Old Testament moral laws as defective, too harsh, culturally conditioned, only for Israel, too particular, or not flexible enough, and thus seek to replace the revealed moral law with some vague, undefined natural law theory, they not only reveal a lack of faith in the Word of God, but implicitly malign the Lord's character who gave us the law. The law is the greatest gift other than Jesus Christ. It's the greatest gift of mankind, for we are a fallen people who need direction. Apart from the law, we will follow our own ways as we read the Bible, and we know that that leads to disaster every single time. Psalm 119, 137, 138, 142. Righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. Your testimonies which you have commanded are righteous and very faithful. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth. Psalm 19, 7, 8, and 9b. The law of the Lord is perfect and sure. The statutes of the Lord are right. The commandment of the Lord is pure. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And then Paul, after he slams the law as not being able to justify anyone, it convicts of sin. We're not to look to it for justification, but he doesn't want people to get the dispensational impression that God has an unfavorable view of the law. The law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. The moral law revealed in scripture is based on God's character and thus is totally righteous, good, holy, moral, true. Consequently, it must be believed and obeyed. It is the only true, totally true, and solid foundation for personal and social ethics. Once again, God never tells us to look to natural law for anything other than to show that those who do not have written revelation are going to go to hell. That's all it's used for. In Romans, that's all it's used for. Psalm 19. Yeah. The universe reveals that there is a true God who created everything. Yes, that's true. And it shows that you're worshiping idols. You better repent, follow Christ, and then submit to the written law. It is faithful for those who believe and obey it. And those who believe and obey it are blessed by God, not only with progress and sanctification and spiritual blessings, but also with a productive, happy life. We must acknowledge this important fact and reject the unbelief and negativity regarding the Old Testament moral laws common among evangelicals." Evangelicalism was stained and permanently damaged, seriously, by dispensationalism that arose in the 19th century. What's his name? John Nelson Darby or something like that. Anyway, Darbyism. And that permeated the Schofield Bible, that permeated fundamentalism, that permeated evangelicalism, and now everybody has a negative view of the law, pretty much. It used to be that Methodists and Episcopalians and everybody used to be required to memorize the Ten Commandments and study the law of God. After dispensationalism, that went away. And sadly, reformed churches have been influenced by evangelicalism, modern reformed, even conservative ones. The faculty of Westminster Seminary East put out a whole book against theonomy, not the crazy bad things that came out of the theonomy movement, not the corruptions in worship and all kinds of the crazy things. They criticized it for the good things, that a society should follow the moral law of God for its judicial code. They criticized it for that. Well, if you don't follow the laws of God, whose laws are you going to follow? Hillary Clinton? Obama? Trump? I don't trust Trump. Why should Christians accept as their long-term earthly goal the establishment of any system of civil law other than the one set forth in the Bible? In other words, why should Christians affirm in principle the acceptability of any law order other than biblical law? every area of life. Why should they enthusiastically choose the second best or third best or even a totalitarian civil order in preference to biblical law, if we follow biblical law? When professing Christians reject God's revealed perfectly righteous and just law order, they must choose some form of fallen man's law order. In America, which at one time was predominantly Christian, this first involved syncretism with a very strong remaining Christian influence. They were influenced by John Locke and the right wing of the Enlightenment. These were apostate Christians who were influenced by Christianity, but they weren't Christians. But as secular humanism has become the predominant worldview, the law order has become much more unbiblical and in our day, demonic. They just had a vote. We're not going to allow men pretending to be women to play in women's sports. All the Republicans voted for it. All the Democrats voted against it except for one. These people are demonic. They're satanic. The word righteous or righteousness embodies the thinking and behavior that God expects of all his people. We must judge our thoughts. Hebrews 4.12, Jeremiah, oh, I already read that, sorry. In addition, natural law, biblically defined, comes from the same God as the written and scripturated law. There's one God, there's one law. There's not two laws. Nature does not reveal something different. If we could read it, it's fallen, and we're fallen. The noetic effects of sin, it's not a reliable standard for us, but even if you could read it perfectly, which we can't, even if you could, it would be the same law revealed in scripture. So why do you reject the written law, which is perspicuous, for some vague, undefined law? Because you want human autonomy in ethics. Because you want flexibility. Because you don't like the penalties. Because you don't want to say homosexuals ought to be put to death, etc., etc., etc. That's the issue. Only God's revealed law converts the soul and moves our hearts and lives according to the will of God. To become skillful in righteousness and wisdom, we need to read the word, study it, and consider it carefully so the Holy Spirit can bring it to remembrance when we are tempted or fall into sin. If one refuses to read his Bible and study it carefully, he will remain immature and easily manipulated by the devil and his followers. And any of you, you can go on YouTube and you can see these sophisticated intellectual atheists who will meet with evangelicals and they make mincemeat out of them because they don't know what they're talking about. All these sophisticated atheists, when they talk about the Bible, virtually everything they say about the Bible is a complete lie. And if you know your Bible, you could refute them in five seconds. This truth is one reason why God has instituted the reading of the Word of God as an element of public worship every Lord's Day. Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no revelation, or if you have the old King James vision, the people cast off restraint, but happiest you keeps the law. Jesus says, Matthew 5, 20, For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. As we read and study the law, we are to pray for God to teach us the truth. 119, 12, 26, 33, 64, 66, 68, 108, 124, 125. He prays repeatedly, teach me, teach me, teach me. We need the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds so that we know and understand the truth. Therefore, John speaks of true Christians saying, 1 John 2.20, you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things in contrast to those who apostatized. And Paul concurs saying, he who is spiritual judges all things, 1 Corinthians 2.15. Man's autonomous use of reason puffs up and justifies sinful thinking and behavior. while God's teaching leads us into all truth. It humbles us. It makes us dependent on him and shines a bright light of spiritual illumination on the path that we are required to walk. The truth supplied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit draws our hearts to the truth, inclines our hearts to love and obey it, keeps our feet in the path of obeisances as our God. We must cherish and greatly value the amazing blessings of God's revealed moral law. by which the infinitely holy and righteous God tells us how to live. To this instructor, we must submit ourselves if we would practically keep the statutes of righteousness. The king who ordained the statutes knows best their meaning. And as they are the outcome of his own nature, he can best teach us by his spirit. Our study, as noted, must be accompanied by prayer. for a deep understanding and application of the moral law cannot be accomplished by fallen men or human strength. We are completely dependent on God for a correct knowledge of the truth. Listen to what Paul says about the regenerate man. So people are saying, oh, well, we can be neutral. We can have natural laws, our order. We can have pluralism. Christianity, we'll treat it the same as witchcraft and Satanism. It's all the same. It's no big deal. Now, here's what Paul says. The Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. Therefore, we praise Yahweh and pray that the Holy Spirit would cause us to prize his statutes and walk in them to be more and more conformed to the nature of our Lord. Psalm 119, 64, 68, the earth, the Lord is full of your mercy. Teach me your statutes. You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. Beside all external teaching, we have a need of an inward and effectual teaching from God, the Holy Spirit, to make the knowledge lively and fruitful. And another important way to learn God's law is to memorize it or lay it up in our hearts. This is another emphasis. Psalm 119, 11, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Here's Proverbs 7, 1 to 3. My son, keep my words, lay up my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live and my law as the apple of your eye and bind them upon your fingers and write them upon the tablet of your heart. It is wise to memorize laws and sections of scripture, especially in areas in which we are weak and more easily tempted. That the truth revealed is on our minds, ready to be applied by the Holy Spirit instantly. And what you can do while you're memorizing passages, take three by five cards, write the passage down, keep it in your pocket. When you're tempted, whip the card out and just start reading it over and over again. Memorize it. Put it on your heart. When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, he had appropriate scripture passages ready in his heart, memorized, that he quoted against every specific temptation. Boom, boom, boom, Satan, boom. Here's an uppercut. Here's a slam to the face. Every temptation is answered immediately, perfectly, using the word of God. A gun without ammunition is useless in battle. We must have our God-given ammunition to get sin ready and loaded so that temptations are destroyed the moment they appear. It is the only way that we can have a noble and good heart that keeps the word and bears fruit with patience. Luke 8, 15. As Solomon says, Proverbs 3, 21 to 24, my son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion so they will be life to your soul and grace to your neck. Then you will walk safely in your way, and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. And here's Psalm 2, 10 to 12. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things. We are to lay up God's word in our heart as our cherished daily rule, as the way to shape our daily character, as a bulwark against the fiery darts of the enemy. We are to put it firmly in our minds to meditate on it so that God's view of what is good and what is evil becomes our view. We must strive to bring our world and life view in conformity to the Holy Spirit's view. If we do not want to offend God, it is necessary to know exactly what he says and requires of us. There is no real cure for sin in the life other than placing God's word in the heart to know, understand, and obey it. Oh, you say you have faith? You read your Bible. You say you love the law? Do you read the law? We need to learn it. We need to meditate on it. We need to understand it. And yes, we need to memorize it. The moment he doubted God's word was the moment that Satan's lies and temptations became effective. When the word is hidden in the heart, the life shall be hidden from sin. In the Old Testament, having a law in the heart was a characteristic of the holy believing remnant, Isaiah 51 7. Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law. Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults. All who desire to be godly will suffer persecution. Second, we must not only learn God's law, but we must pray and seek to understand it. And this is emphasized a lot. Give me understanding and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Psalm 119, 34. And this is repeated in different ways in 73, 99, 100, 104, 125, 130, 140, 169. Here's 99. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation. Proverbs 4, 4b and 5 and 7. Let your heart retain my words. Keep my commands and live. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. And in all you're getting, get understanding. The word understanding, bayin, and understanding, bayina, refers to discernment, making proper conclusions and applications, or having a proper comprehension that leads to proper actions. You've got to know it. You've got to learn it. You've got to understand it. You've got to learn how to apply it to life, to everyday situations. That's wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, Proverbs 1.7. Through knowledge, meditation, and the repeated experience of applying various laws to temptations, conflicts, complex or difficult situations, etc., one develops biblical discretion and wisdom. The ethical principles of God's law must not only saturate our hearts, but we must learn how to think, speak, and act during trials, temptations, and regular everyday life that are consistent with the Christian world and life view. Proverbs 1-2, treasure my commands within you so that you incline your heart to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. All direction rests and must rest upon God's fundamental Torah, law, discretion. A parent's law, a teacher's law, an employer's law must be an application of God's law. God's law, when so applied, becomes the fabric of life and the direction of society. God's law, of course, is given to all men. We have it in a special way as covenant law. The godly society and godly men will mediate that law to each new generation, and thus will ensure their health and welfare. Forsaking the law means forsaking direction in life. A society and men which forsake God's law lose wisdom, thereby all discretion, all direction. Relativism commands a society, and with it comes a moral paralysis, a demonic worldview, and chaos. Look at California, these DEI hires, these imbeciles, these evil, wicked socialists, spending $150 billion given to bureaucrats that are supposed to go to the homeless, which is just money paid off, and letting their state burn to the ground. Solomon's warning applies to modern America. Proverbs 13, 13 to 14. He who despises the word will be destroyed, but he who fears the commandment will be rewarded. The law of the wise is a fountain of life. To turn one away from the snares of death. Go look at our cities. They're empty. Excrement, needles, drug addiction, insanity. That's what happens when you forsake the law of God. Therefore, the moral law can only be truly learned, understood, and properly applied in the context of the covenant of grace. True wisdom and knowledge belongs to genuine Christians who possess the Holy Spirit. One must revere the true and living God before one can revere the Lord's law word and walk in a manner that glorifies Christ. The man of faith rejects human autonomy and thinks God's thoughts after him. True wisdom and understanding only comes from God. The Lord tells us how to live and how to prosper. Therefore, Solomon says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil, Proverbs 3, 5 to 7. If you ever see something in scripture that you don't think is reasonable, Do you want to try to water down with some kind of natural law theory? Well, I'm telling you, you're wrong. God is always right, and if your thoughts differ from what God says, you're always wrong. Some of the crucial things to keep in mind as we learn how to apply God's moral law to life are as follows. Number one, the Ten Commandments are only summaries of the moral law. Therefore, it is necessary to study all the moral commandments and case laws related to each commandment. For example, the first commandment requires not only believing and knowing and acknowledging that Yahweh is the only true and living God, but also that we must love, honor, reverence, trust, thank, obey, and serve him as the only true God. It excludes idolatry, all false religions, atheism, agnosticism, complacency, heresy, apostasy, et cetera. The second commandment not only forbids bowing down or serving a false god, but also all the false, unauthorized worship invented by man. And by the way, the best way to look at this is just go to the larger catechism and look at the proof text they use. The sixth commandment forbids not only murder, but also unlawful hatred, violence, and name-calling. The commandment not to commit adultery forbids all sexual immorality, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality, uncleanness, incest, unlawful divorce and remarriage, et cetera. to restrict the moral law to only the Ten Commandments greatly limits one's ability to learn wisdom and apply the moral law to all areas of life. The scripture reading today from Exodus 22 is absolute brilliance. You catch a guy with an animal, one for one. He gets away with it and you lose the prosperity of owning that animal and it having babies or giving you milk or whatever, then he's got to replace fivefold for this, threefold for that. It's all perfect wisdom. It's all perfect justice. To say, oh, we don't believe in it, that's for the Jews only. That's just unbelief. Interestingly, if one reads the whole New Testament and lists every ethical exhortation found therein, he will soon discover that all the requirements can be organized or grouped together under each one of the Ten Commandments. The original Reformers, Puritans, and Presbyterians understood this, and thus we see this truth applied brilliantly in the Westminster Larger Catechism's exposition of the Ten Commandments, which, by the way, proves that they were all theonomous in the biblical sense of the term. Every commandment has things about witchcraft, things about this, things about that, outside the Ten Commandments explaining the fullness of the commandment. I know these strict Presbyterians from Scotland, some from Australia. And they say, oh no, the Ten Commandments are moral law. Everything outside the Ten Commandments is positive law. It doesn't apply to us. It's for the Jews. And then they want to go to natural law. Totally unbiblical. Totally robbing us of this wonderful law, this gift of God. Number two, God's moral commandments, whether in positive, do this, or negative form, do not do that. form always logically requires opposites responding duties. For example, the requirement to love your neighbor, Leviticus 19.18, means that we are not allowed to hate, bear grudges against, or gossip about our neighbor behind his back. Read Leviticus 19.16-18. Read the context. Paul tells that thievery must be replaced by lawful work, Ephesians 4.28. Anger by loving reconciliation, Ephesians 4.26. Unlawful sexual lust and fornication with Christian heterosexual marriage, 1 Corinthians 7.9. Coarse jesting or corrupt speech with edifying words, Ephesians 4.29. Lying is to replace with speaking the truth in love, Ephesians 4.25. The empty vein philosophy of this world must be replaced with a Christian world and life view. Therefore, a crucial aspect of applying the moral law to our own lives involves not only forsaking sin, but also replacing that sinful behavior with a godly counterpart. And I'm very pleased he got a lot of Jay Adams out in the front. He's an expert in this field. And he came in when everybody was teaching secular psychology in conservative seminaries. And he said, this is a bunch of nonsense. We've got the Bible. We've got the law of God. Let's apply it. If this procedure is applied diligently and consistently, we will progressively be dehabituated to our own sinful lifestyle and become habituated followers of righteousness. Number three, God's moral commandments are spiritual and must be applied to the heart before one can walk according to the law. This point means that we must apply the commandments not just to outward acts but also to inward thoughts as well as words. This important truth separated Christ's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount with a rank externalism and legalism of the scribes and Pharisees. This teaching means that we must not coddle or tolerate sin in our hearts, and we must never purposely enter into temptation. Proverbs 4.23, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life. Proverbs 3.1, my son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands. Number four. The moral law contains many case laws so that we can learn how to apply the moral law to all situations in life that are not specifically mentioned in Scripture. And we saw that again with the reading of Exodus 22. Here's another law. If a man, ox, has a violent tendency to attack human beings and the owner of the ox is made aware of it and he refuses to fence on the ox or restrain it with ropes, He is held liable criminally if that ox gores a person, Exodus 21, 28 to 32. He must make the appropriate restitution, can't even be put to death if someone is killed, Exodus 21, 29. This case law can be applied to all dangerous animals, including pit bulls and rottweilers. If a man has a dangerous a dangerous pit on his property, like an unfinished well, and does not properly cover it so that another person's animals may fall and suffer death or injury, he must make full restitution. Exodus 21, 33-34. This law could easily be applied to all sorts of situations, such as fencing for a swimming pool. The point of such case laws is that the cases cited can be applied by logical deduction and close analogy to all sorts of situations within society. The situations in life that may require civil involvement and restitution are in the many thousands. Yet God's law cannot deal with every possible situation specifically. It would be over 100 volumes, 200 volumes. For A, the Bible would be hundreds of volumes and thus impractical for everyday people. And B, societies come up with all sorts of inventions that did not exist in the days of Moses. They didn't have cars. The various case laws, however, can be applied to every conceivable human situation. One can even infer drunk driving and speeding laws from biblical requirements about safety, preserving or protecting human life, and the responsibility of restitution for damages. We have guidelines by which Christian men with wisdom can apply principles of justice. The common objection that the law given to Moses was only for an ancient culture and is totally inadequate for modern society is simply untrue. It's false. Get godly men of wisdom to apply the law to society, and you'll have a way better just law system than we have today, where a guy can get drunk and mow down five people and kill them, and he's out in five years or whatever, 10 years. or rapists and murderers get out, they're not put to death. We are limited to the ethical requirements given by scripture. In other words, the Bible alone is our ethical standard. Man does not have the authority to create ethical rules out of thin air. But the ethical standard is scripture must be applied to every area of life, and this requires biblical knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. True wisdom is learned from God. Pride and rebellion seek wisdom in autonomous human reason and self-law. James 3.13-17, who is wise in understanding among you, let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Third. And this is my last thing, and I just have a paragraph here. I'm going to add to this later. I wanted to keep it short. Psalm 119 teaches us to fully commit our whole lives to God by promising to keep the law. For example, I will keep your statutes, verse 8. I will not forget your word, verse 16. I have kept your testimonies, verse 22. I will cling to your testimonies, verse 31. I shall keep it to the end, verse 33. I shall observe it with a whole heart, verse 34. I shall keep your law continually, verse 44. I do not turn aside from your law, verse 51. I keep your law, verse 55. I have said that I will keep your words, verse 57. I do not delay to keep your commandments, verse 60, et cetera, et cetera. I stop there. In public and private worship, we are to note our covenant responsibility to faithfully follow Christ by loving him and keeping his commandments. Many have spoken of the Lord's Supper as a covenant renewal ceremony. The bread broken and the wine poured out together with our eating and drinking thereof points us to the sacrificial death of Christ and our union with him. By singing and praying the Psalms, we reaffirm our commitment to the covenant. You don't get that with hymnody. We have covenant renewal in the Lord's Supper, and we have covenant renewal in our worship. Psalm 119, yes, it's about sanctification. It's all about sanctification, but it's also about covenant renewal. Our commitment to the covenant, our commitment to obey Christ, our commitment to love the Lord. If you love me, keep my commandments. Read 1 John, read the gospels. How do you know if you're a faithful disciple of Christ? Do you habitually keep the commandments? That's covenant faithfulness. And that's what our lives are all about. Let us pray. Father, we give you thanks for your law. Help us to understand it, cause us to love it. Give us an understanding of it and help us apply it. Cause us to love your Lord with our whole heart and obey his law with our whole heart, the whole law for the rest of our lives every day. And when we fall and we all sin, forgive us our sins and cause us to learn from it and not do it again, to get up and learn. and give us understanding to obey your holy law. In Jesus' name, amen.