Well, we finished the Gospel of Matthew last week, and so that puts us in the position of figuring out where it is that we'll go from here. We will be going to the epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians soon enough. But before we go there, we are going to take some time and work our way through a little bit more of Psalm 119. So from today through the end of the summer, we will walk our way through as much of Psalm 119 as we are able to. so that we can sort of keep the trajectory of the psalm as it builds upon itself and get a sense of what it's teaching us about the word of God. And then we will move our way into first Corinthians after that. So be prepared to sit here in the psalm for a little while. And also we'll still do the psalm of the month, which it's a new year, so I need more suggestions. Hint, hint. But for now, let's turn in our copies of God's Word to Psalm 119. And our text this morning will begin in verse 33 and we'll read through verse 40. Psalm 119 beginning in verse 33 and reading through verse 40 this morning. People of God, this is the word of the living God, so give heed and hear the word of the Lord. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things, and revive me in your way. Establish your word to your servant, who is devoted to fearing you. Turn away my reproach, which I dread, for your judgments are good. Behold, I long for your precepts. Revive me in your righteousness. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word this morning. The grass does indeed wither, and the flower certainly fades, but the word of the Lord is forever. Well, as we've been walking our way through Psalm 119, though it's been a while since we've been here, we've been learning the truth of what Psalm 119 is trying to communicate to us. That indeed is a psalm that extols to us the virtue and the delight of God's law, how wonderful it is, how sweet it is. But it's been showing us far more than that. That the reason why God's law is wonderful and sweet is because it's God's law. Because it's his word. Because he is found in it. Because his nature and his character is portrayed in it. It's how we learn who our father is. It's how he speaks to us. It's the means that he uses to draw us deeper into relationship with him. Which is something that's perhaps unusual for us because often when we think of law we don't think of grace and we don't certainly think of God's gracious favorable presence. But that's what at the heart the law of God is. The only reason it became something other than that was because of our refusal to see it for what it is. To see God's nature and character in it, to see him choose for us that which was good and that which is evil, and to lay that before us. And having fallen in Adam so long ago because we would not keep the word of God, and continuing now in our sin, failing to keep the word of God, the law became a curse. The law showed us what it is to bear the image of God and how it is we fall so far short now of bearing that image. And how because we fail to bear the image of God and because we fail to trust him as we are, then we reside as rebels against our king under that curse of death and of separation from him in terms of his favorable presence. But that was not always the case and should, for us as believers, no longer be the case. Because now to us, the law becomes something far different from a curse, but rather a manifestation of the favor and goodness of God. That in God's law, we find grace. That law and grace and law and gospel are not opposed to one another. but rather the law allows us to see the nature of grace and grace allows us to then follow the law. And in our text this morning, these short few verses, we will learn that in our pursuit of bearing God's image through obedience and conformity to his word, his law, we will find grace for life. And not only that, we must depend upon grace absolutely in order that we might find life in our God and in his word. And we'll do that along one simple line this morning. And that is that we as Christians are to embrace God's necessary grace for Christian living. That's what this portion of the psalm puts before us. God's necessary grace for Christian living. So let's turn then to our text and see how it is that God's necessary grace for Christian living is put before us here in these few verses. What we find in our text this morning are a number of petitions. The psalm is one petition after another, and each petition is asking that God would enable the psalmist to do something. that the Lord would do something for the psalmist and as a result, then the psalmist will respond to the grace of God. The first one that we find is there in verse 33. As the psalmist says, Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes. That's his petition. That's his request of God. He would have his Lord, his covenant God, teach him the way of his statutes, the way of his law. and then necessarily throwing from it, and I shall keep it to the end. And that's a fairly simple statement. But oftentimes, the thing about simple statements is that they're so simple that we miss exactly what they're saying. We think we understand what they mean. We think we see the words before us and say to ourselves, well, I get that. Let me move on to the next. But often we don't look at what is portrayed behind the simplicity of the statement. Notice what comes first. It's not, I will keep your law to the end, teach me your law. Rather, teach me your law, and if you teach me your law, then I will keep it to the end. In other words, his ability to keep the law doesn't come from within himself. Rather, it comes from the enabling power of God, and a gracious God who loves his children when they call out to him, teach me your statutes. Teach me how I am to live. Show me you in your word. and He does just that, it is then and only then that we are enabled to keep those statutes to the end, to make them the guide to our life, to show us the life of faith and follow in the path laid out within them. And so we need God's necessary grace to teach us his law in order that we might then keep it as we ought to keep it. Verse 34 gives us another petition that's closely related to that first one. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Again, you're seeing the causal relationship there. Give me understanding. I shall keep your law beginning with God and his grace and enabling the psalmist to not only to see and to read the word or to hear the word, but to actually understand what it is that the statutes of God show, demonstrate and teach. Teach me and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding and I shall keep your law. Oftentimes when we think of understanding, we think of understanding in the sense that we intellectually get what's being said. I understand the words on the page. But understanding is something much more holistic than that. Understanding is not just seeing an intellectual truth before you, but also embracing the truth as it's related. If I understand something, especially in biblical terms, it means I have comprehended the whole of what's been put before me, not just the raw intellect of the thing, but the heart of the thing and the hands of the thing, all of The thing means something to me. And so in order for the psalmist to understand God's law for everything that it is, not merely do's and don'ts, but rather the heart of his God for his life. the goodness of God expressed as he leads his child forward through his revealed will. That's something that he must understand if he is going to keep the law. And it is something that only God can work within him to understand. as we move into the New Testament, and it reveals to us why that is. It's because of our own sinful nature. It's because we don't want to understand in our nature. It's why God must transform the nature. He must transform the understanding. Give us new hearts, give us new minds, so that we can see what God's law is. as something that is for our good, that has our blessedness wrapped up in it, that demonstrates that our God loves us and would have us go this way. Heed his precepts and his statutes in order that we might, one, know who he is and taste and see that he is good, but also that we might apprehend and possess and experience the blessedness that it is to be the children of a good Father. That's why we follow the law of God. Not because we're afraid what He'll do to us if we don't follow every jot and tittle, but because we understand that we have a good Father who has shown us the way to go because He loves us and desires our blessedness. And so the psalmist calls out his God to teach him in order that he might keep, to give him understanding in order that he might walk within the law of God and beyond that, not just walk in it, but observe it with his whole heart. We should understand, we should have learned a long time ago as we walk through Matthew, that wrote observation of the external details of God's law without the heart behind it is no observation of God's law at all. It is a grudging obedience that hopes to earn something or get something from God. That is superficial in its understanding of who God is. There's ways that we can see that, parents, for ourselves as we give our children instructions and the way that we respond to them at times. And sometimes they do that grudging obedience. You tell them, hey, go do this thing. They don't want to do it. And while externally they go do the thing, you hear them muttering to themselves as they're on their way or up in their rooms carrying on and talking about how horrible and unjust you are and what a terrible parent you are because they have to clean their room. Most of you parents have heard that. I know I've heard it. Perhaps all of you have done that when you were children. But all of those wicked, awful, terrible things that our parents make us do, but because they're our parents, and if we don't do them, we'll get disciplined, or we won't get the good thing that we want. We'll go do the thing externally, but internally, our hearts are filled with anger and annoyance. Is that real obedience? Is that something that grows and thrives, the relationship between parent and child? The answer, of course, is no. And it's no less true when it comes to our relationship with our Father, that we are striving not for a mere external obedience, but a heart that is geared towards loving obedience, because we know our Father is good, and desires are good, and we respond in love to that. It's a child when they hear what their parent tells them to do. They know that their parent loves them. They know that their parent desires their good. They love their parent and so they obey without grumbling, without complaining, out of a love for their parent. That's the idea here. The psalmist is calling out to God to give Him an understanding of who God is. And that He would then enable Him through that understanding of who God is to respond with love itself. With His whole heart in keeping that demonstration of love that His Father has given Him through the path that He has laid out in His Word. In His revealed will. Verse 36 tells us, or the psalmist cries out to God, I should say. Sorry, I'm in verse 35. I skipped a verse. Make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. And I won't really pull that out much more because it's sort of a continuation of what we've just seen. Make me walk in your paths. Make me walk according to your commandments. I will delight in these things. Verse 36, incline my heart to your testimonies. He wants God to make His law deep inside his heart so that with all of his being, trusting his good God, he would walk according to the good path laid before him. But there are also a couple of negative things here that the psalmist asks. The psalmist asks not only for these good things, for the grace of God to give him understanding, to give him wholehearted obedience, to help him to walk according to the way that he ought to walk. But he also calls upon the grace and promise of God in order to keep from walking in the ways in which he ought not to walk. We find that in verse 37. Or at verse 36 incline my heart to your testimonies and then we have and not to covetousness. Incline my heart to your testimonies, your judgments, your statutes, your declaration of what is good, of what is right, of what is true, of what is blessed. Incline me to those things and turn me away from covetousness. And at this point in time, we probably should take a little moment to explain covetousness to get the idea of what the psalmist is saying here. He has put the attention on all of the good things that the follower of Christ and the child of God ought to desire and ought to follow. has asked his father to give him these things. And now he's going to turn his attention on the things that we ought not to desire, that we ought not to follow. That's the idea behind covetousness here. Those things that we ought to desire, we have right to desire, are good for us to desire and to want and to crave. There's nothing wrong with a child of God calling out to him for a wholehearted obedience to his father's law. Covetousness is those things that we desire that aren't ours to desire. That aren't right for us to desire. That are outside the goodness of the law of God. The things that we want that don't conform to what God would have for us. That don't conform to what God has said is good and evil. What is blessed and what is not. Most of the time we do think in terms of the Ten Commandments, and that is that to be covetous means that you want other people's stuff. And there's definitely an element to that. We're not supposed to look upon our neighbor, whoever they may be, not just the person living next door, but anyone in the world that comes across our vision and our sight. We're not supposed to be envious and jealous of what God has given them, because they have it because God has given it to them. Whether for their blessing or their curse, depending upon their response to the gospel to the side. Nonetheless, God hasn't given it to us. He's given it to someone else. He has said, they are the ones who will possess this thing. You will not possess this thing, at least not in this moment. And for us to look at the things that God has not given us and to desire them and to grow envious of not having them is covetousness. It is both an affront to God's wisdom and his distribution of the things that he has given, but it's also an affront to God's goodness in saying that I cannot have peace without what you haven't given me. What you've given me isn't enough. I must have more. That's the idea behind covetousness. And not just in terms of material possession, though it's expressed that way in the commandment, but in anything that a neighbor or a brother and sister in Christ would possess. When it comes to their spiritual giftedness, when it comes to their personality, introverts might want to be extroverts and extroverts introverts, right? when it comes to how God has gifted and made someone to be. And we're not that. And we're not content with what God has given us to be and to do. And we want what He's given someone else to be and to do. That's just as covetous as wanting their material substance. Turn us away from desiring things that are not ours to desire, even good things, because God in His good providence has not given them to us. Instead, may we be content with a gracious God who transforms our heart to wholehearted obedience to his law and an experience of his goodness and blessedness in just the way he's intended for us in this moment. But there's a secondary element to that covetousness. It's not just that greedy self-interest that is discontent with what one has in God's position in which they have placed them and desiring where he hasn't and what he hasn't. It's also wrong motives and ends. It is covetousness to desire good things for selfish purposes. To desire the things that we want in order that we might expend them upon ourselves in selfish ways. James talks about that. You ask and you do not receive. Why don't you receive? Because you ask in order that you might consume it upon your lusts, in order that what God gives you might use for your own selfish interests. Not in a desire to spread the Kingdom of God. Not in a desire to see Jesus Christ, our resurrected King, honored and glorified. His gospel of peace carried out through the world. Our brothers and sisters encouraged and uplifted and provided for. But rather to expend them upon ourselves. It's not to say there's no such thing as a legitimate enjoyment of the good things God gives us. It is to say that if that's the only thing you seek and what God gives you, you're missing a big picture. God gives us what he gives us for our rightful use, not so that we might just consume them upon ourselves with no thought for his kingdom and glory, with no thought for our brother and sisters and how we might minister to them, with no thought for the broader world and how we might use what God has given us, our money, our resources, our time, our gifts, all of these things. to extend that invitation of the King of Peace through the Gospel of Peace. So, the psalmist asks, basically, that the Lord would stop him from being what we all are in our fundamental nature, selfish and covetous. And really, wrapped up in and parallel to that, in verse 37, turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, at vain things, at empty things, things that can give nothing and provide nothing, not of any lasting value, of any real value and worth. which is what covetousness is. Covetousness is looking upon things, looking upon this world in such a way as to rob them of any eternal value whatsoever, is to want them in their temporal, temporary use, and to expend them in the moment to cater to our selfish desires, as opposed to see them in something more than just this vain expenditure upon our pleasure. but rather something that can be used for a much greater purpose. Turn my eyes from finding pleasure and joy and blessedness, fulfillment and life in vain, empty things that can never in and of themselves provide any real purpose, any lasting joy. We understand this, Paul being, when he says the idea of those things that, that perish with the use of them. How it is that we spend our lives as human beings clamoring for all of these things, whatever it may happen to be, clamoring for the material possession of life, clamoring for the recreational pleasures of life, clamoring for position and status and class. and power, clamoring for people to think well of us. All of these things perish with the use of them. The good food that is downstairs that we'll be eating shortly is good, something to be enjoyed, but as soon as it goes into the mouth and into the belly, the pleasure is gone. It's all well and good for someone to desire high office in the land, but in our nation, as soon as the eight years are done, so is the office, so is the pleasure, so is the power. and so on and so forth, that when there is no eternal value placed upon these things, they become empty and vain and worthless. And the psalmist doesn't want his mind, his energy, his focus, his life to be expended upon vain, worthless things that have no eternal value, that will not last any longer than the use of them. The car will rust. Our youthful bodies will fade into age. The money will be depleted from the account. Our names, even if left on the tombstone for a couple of hundred years, will indeed be forgotten. Apart from Christ, apart from God, apart from the use of these things for eternal purposes, Turn my eyes away from empty things and put them upon your word that I might see the real things of value here, that I might see you here. Which brings us to that petition in verse 38. Rather than my eyes looking upon worthless things, I would rather you revive me, give me real life in your way, and that you, in verse 38, establish your word to your servant. And here is where that relational emphasis in all of Psalm 119 is seen once again. What's the psalmist asking here? Establish your word. In other words, God Be faithful to keep your promises. His desire for God's law is rooted and grounded upon the nature and character of God Himself. Be faithful to your promises. As I call out to teach you, you have promised that you will. As I call out for understanding, you've promised that you've given it to me. That as I call out to have my heart grow in its obedience and love for you, you will grant that to me. Be God, God. Be faithful. God, my Lord, establish your promises. Make them a reality. Be God to me, is what the psalmist is saying. Be everything that you have promised me, my Lord. Be faithful and bring to pass your promises to this one who is devoted to fearing you. It's a good thing, probably, just as we took time with covetousness, to take a little time with that concept of fear, especially since it's something that really doesn't exist in our language the way that it did then. For us, fear is wholly negative, right? But in a biblical concept, fear is something else. It's a wonder and amazement. It's an awe. And so the psalmist is saying here that I am in awe of you, of all that you are, that I stand here in wonder and amazement because of who you are, because of what you have done. And as I stand here in wonder and amazement, in reverent awe of who you are and what you have done, I'm asking you then to be faithful to who you are and to what you have done. I don't know how many of you here are sports fans or movie buffs or whatever you may happen to be, but we can understand a little bit of this concept of fear in this way. All of you, even you children, have people that when you look at them, there's an idea of wonder at what they can do. For me, historically growing up, it was wonder at a guy who on the New Jersey Devils could lay out these massive hits on people coming down the ice. I was in wonder and awe of just the absolute devastation of this forward in hockey destroying his opponents. There was an awe in that as I'm a little one. For some, it may be the way in which an actor or actress acts. For some of you, it may be your parents and the way that they're constantly kind to you, even though you're a jerk all the time. But we have that idea. There's someone in our lives that we look at who they are. We look at their character. We look at the abilities that they have, the things that they can do or have done. And there's a wonder there. There's an awe there. That's the idea. How wonderful this person is to me is basically what the psalmist is saying. I find you wonderful, God, worthy of amazement, worthy of reverence and respect. But the different thing with us and with God is that though people can certainly look upon us with amazement, it shouldn't necessarily lead them into a blind devotional following of us. But this wonder and amazement at God should lead us to a real reverence and trust, fear of God, entails a trust of God. It's not just the looking at God and wonder and awe and all of the marvelous things that He is. He's the Creator. Look at His power. He spoke all of this universe into existence with just the word of His mouth. Look at the beauty that He has created as we look at the sun shining and things coming into bloom. Look at His goodness as He gives even to the wicked and to the good, the rain that causes the crops to grow. Look at His love to us as He's sent His Son in order that He might save His people from their sins. Look at His goodness and His grace. Look at all these wonderful things. It's not meant so that we can just sort of distantly step back and look at what's before us, but not actually interact and engage with it. Rather, it should drive us then to a reverence and a trust that leans into this God and does what the psalmist does and says, establish me by your word. Make your promise real and true to me. Make this relationship that I am to have with you a reality in my life by your grace. That's why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. Because the fear of the Lord means to be in awe and wonder of who he is. And because of that awe and wonder, be led into trust and faith and resting in the amazing God. Verse 39. Turn away my reproach, which I dread, for your judgments are good. Turn away my reproach. There will be times, there will be those that as I follow hard after you, as you have called me to do, that there will reproach upon my name. Turn that away from me. Because your judgments are good. They're not worthy of reproach. And I shouldn't be reproached from them as you work my obedience to them in my life. And should such a thing occur, God, take that away and let the goodness of your judgments stand in its stead. In v. 40, he sums all of it up. Behold, I long for your precepts. Revive me, bring me to life in your righteousness. Psalmist finds his life in his God. He's just shown us exactly how. So he calls out to his Lord, I long for this. I'm calling out to you because I long for this. And I need your grace, your favor, and your goodness to give me what I long for. Because I can't grasp it for myself. And so bring me to life in your righteousness, not my own that I don't possess, but in your righteousness, in your character, in your faithfulness, in your goodness, in you, Father. Saint, would you live the life that God has called you to live. Then take the model of the psalmist here as he tells you that it's not in shame and despair that you are to pursue that life because of all the ways in which you will inevitably fall short, but rather in humble reliance upon God's grace that he gives for life. To teach you. To give you understanding. To cause you to walk in his commandments. To incline your heart to his testimonies. To turn you away from selfishness and self-interest and the pursuit of the vain things. To establish you in His promises. To turn away reproach. To give you life itself. fall upon the grace of your God, and in it, calling out to Him, find grace for life. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, thank You for Your law. Father, because of the curse associated with Your law, so often we fear it. We want to run from it. We want to see it as a negative thing that is somehow opposed to your grace. Father, your law is an extension of your grace and goodness. Father, that is no longer a curse to us, showing us why it is that it is right for us to spend eternity outside of your gracious presence. but rather because your son fulfilled it on our behalf, it stands before us now as that example of your grace and favor. As in it, you show us the path of blessedness that we are to walk and how it is that we can taste and see that you are good. So thank you for your grace in your law. Father, beyond that, we ask for ever more grace, for ever more of your favor, to teach us, to help us understand your goodness in it, to see the blessedness in it. Give us the heart that out of love for you desires to walk in it, that trusts that you know what is good, that you know what is evil, and you have laid it out before us. in order that we might do the good and resist the evil and find blessedness in that as well. Grant us strength to walk according to your nature and character. Cause us to fear you as we ought to fear you. And revive us in your righteousness that we might live as your sons and daughters. and bear your image as those to whom you give grace for life. From now until all eternity, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.