Friends, as we continue our worship of God, and as we seek to grow in our knowledge of Him, our love for Him, our joy in obeying and serving Him, let me direct you now to Psalm 119. Psalm 119. We will be looking this evening at Psalm 119, verse 129 to 136. Psalm 119, verse 129, down to the end of verse 136, under the heading Peh. And the title of this evening's sermon is the word of our wonderful God. The word of our wonderful God. Psalm 119 verse 129 to 136. Dear friends, let us read God's word together. The word of God says, Peh, your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name. Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me. Redeem me from man's oppression that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your law, your statutes. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Dear ones, this is the word of God. Thanks be to God. Shall we pray? Our Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for your word. We do praise you, Lord, that you are full of wonder, glory, and majesty. Oh, Father, send your spirit to come and open our eyes to see your glory, to see the beauty, the splendor, the radiance of Christ. Father, we know that as we see his face, we see your glory radiating in all of its fullness. Oh, Lord Jesus, we pray, teach us to treasure you as we treasure your word. We pray unfold for us your beauty. that, O Lord, we might be stirred up by this truth to love, to serve, and worship you. Father, bless your people. Let us see your glory, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Friends, this evening, I want to urge us to eagerly come to the scriptures, resting in the spirit to unfold for us the wonder of God in the glory of his holiness. Dear friends, I grew up in the city. I did not grow up in the country. So for me, a night was pretty and you could see some stars, but it wasn't until I started going to campouts and going out to my grandmothers at night and actually looking up at the stars that you begin to see how many there are. And many of you can relate to that, the beauty of the night sky, especially when you're way, way out with no city lights, no Artificial lighting is just the beauty of the heavens and you're struck by that. But friends, even as you grow up and you go to school, you learn that those little stars contain galaxies and nebulas and all kinds of stars and the universe just grows more and more vast and then you begin to learn that as you go deep, The world, there's so much to see even beyond the naked eye. So as far as we can look with the telescope and as deep as we can go with the microscope, looking at the biggest of things and the smallest of things, we discover that our world is truly wondrous. wonderful in all that it unfolds. But friends, remember that the creation with all of its beauty, with all of its glory, with all of its wonder, is merely echoing and affirming the infinite, unfathomable beauty and glory and worthiness of God. That is, friends, it's as though God is saying in the wonder of creation, if you cannot get your arms around this world that I've made, how in the world can you exhaust all of the glory and wonder of who I am. So friends, we will spend all of eternity as Christians delving deeper and deeper into the glory of God. So what the psalmist is saying for us today is that our God is wondrous, glorious, awe-inspiring, and that this is the beginning of what it means to know God. to trust in His dear Son and to follow Him in joyful obedience, this reverence and awe, what the Bible describes as the fear of the Lord. So friends, let me ask you, do you wonder at God? Are you in awe of who He is and what He's done? The psalmist truly is, and he helps us to see that today in verses 129 to 136. Notice again that the Hebrew word is peh. Each line of this stanza from verse 129 to verse 136, Verse begins with this Hebrew word peh. Remember the psalmist is constraining himself to this poetic pattern of the acrostic. He is working with this structure. He's taking each word of the Hebrew alphabet And it's like the starting point for his meditation, for his spirit-filled utterance as he's writing. It's as though his pen is always beginning with pay or with the particular letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And from there, he launches off in an exposition of the supremacy and the sufficiency of the word of God for the saints. How the word of God ought to be and what its role ought to be in the life of the believer. That is, it is sufficient for us. So in verse 129, he meditates on the word of God and he says, your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them. The first word is wonderful. Wonderful, full of awe, full of glory are the testimonies of God. And friends, remember, in Psalm 129, I'm sorry, 119, and in the Psalter, there are many words that the psalmist uses to describe the word of God or the scriptures. He's talked about precepts, statutes, commandments. Here, he describes the word of God as testimonies, which means, friends, when you come to the Bible, you are hearing the faithful witness, God Almighty, tell you what is true. You know, friends, there are many things that we have not experienced. And there are many things that even that we have experienced, we do not fully understand, but God is the faithful witness who has no gap in his knowledge, nor is there any deceit or darkness or evil within him. When he testifies to the truth, we know that it is the truth full and pure. And when he testifies to us of his dear son, Jesus, as the savior of sinners and our redeemer, whom he's appointed for us It is truly worthy of hearing and heeding. But more than this, friends, not only is the Word of God trustworthy because of who sends it, the Word of God reveals the wonder of God. This is what the psalmist is trying to help us see. God's Word reveals God's character. God's Word reveals to us who God is, what he does, what he's like. And so when he says that the testimonies of God are full of wonder, what he's saying is, God, when I come to your word, I see how wonderful you are. Because the things you testify about, the things that you bear witness to are so true, so good, so right, so excellent, so noble. Now by hearing your testimonies, I see how wonderful you are. And out of this awe of beholding God and the glory of His holiness in His word, the psalmist says, therefore, I am resolved. My soul keeps them. Friends, the word of God is so precious to us, not just because we have a list of rules to obey or precepts to hold to, because these rules and precepts, these testimonies are always bringing us to the person, to the character, to who God is and to see Jesus Christ in all of his life and death and resurrection, his glory. So friends, these testimonies are meant to help us know and love our God more. And so they fuel us, therefore my soul keeps them. The word of God reminds us and shows us God's holy character. And this ought to stir up the loving heart. Verse 130, the unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. The psalmist meditates on the sufficiency of scripture to impart knowledge. That is, God gives understanding by his word. The unfolding, like a blanket being unfolded or a letter being opened, the word of God gives light. The psalmist could be indicating the initial revelation. That is, when God gives his word, the canon of scripture itself is light and revelation. Or he could be speaking of the illumination of God, the Holy Spirit, who takes the truth and teaches his people. The Spirit of God comes and teaches us what is true. But even more than this, he's speaking also of the application of the truth. The word of God imparts understanding to the simple. The word of God, as it has unfolded, as it is faithfully proclaimed and understood, God the Holy Spirit takes these truths that he has delivered to us in his word, these gospel promises, and he comes and brings them to bear upon our mind and upon our heart. So that we who are by nature ignorant, foolish, Rebellions are transformed by the word of truth because the spirit is giving light and understanding. Friends, how do you study the Bible? Do you study the Word of God dependent on the Spirit, resting in the grace of God the Father to enlighten you and not only take the truth of the Word, but to bring it to bear on your soul so that you not only understand the truth objectively, but subjectively are able to apply that truth to your own life and obedience? Friends, the psalmist is saying, The Word of God does this. You know, sometimes we think, well, I can go to the Word of God and I can get the principle, and then maybe I need a good Christian book for the application of it, right? We have all kinds of books about parenting, right? And we have these things, and they're good, they're good tools, but friends, What the psalmist is saying here is that as your word, O God, is unfolded, faithfully taught and understood and applied, you give light, you give understanding, you mature us in wisdom. Friends, there's no substitute for a steady diet of the word of God and a steady diet upon the truth. That's why we here at Ginny Lind, we put such a prime premium on God's word, being preached, being sung, being prayed, being taught, The word of God is front and center because we know by it God gives light and imparts understanding. So friends, seek to know God more by his word. Seek to know him more and pray for insight and reformation. Pray that God will not only give to you and I understanding, but that he would reform and recreate us by this truth so that we who were and are by nature simple may become wise. I've told you this many times, but the difference between wisdom and knowledge is knowledge is the apprehension of the truth, wisdom is the application of the truth. You can have knowledge and not wisdom, but you cannot have wisdom without knowledge. But knowledge in and of itself, Paul says, puffs up, but love builds up because love is the understanding of the truth and the practice of what God commands in love for Christ and in love for one's neighbor. So the psalmist has a, he has great joy in coming to the word of God. And that joy is seen in verse 131. I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments. This is reminiscent of what the psalmist said. You remember the psalmist and how he talks about, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. The sons of Korah writing, that dear psalm there is a holy longing within the heart of every believer. Now friends, this holy desire is not natural to us. It is super natural. It is the fruit of the new birth that we pant for the word of God. The idea of the panting here in verse 131 is not just a need to be thirst, for a thirst to be quenched, but an earnest desire, a craving to enjoy and have God. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments, like the deer pants for flowing streams. Friends, the psalmist finds God wondrous and desirable, and he wants to be satisfied in Him. by knowing and observing His commandments, because I long for your commandments." Again, why does the psalmist want to know the commandments of God? Why are they so precious to him? Because the commandments of God reveal the character of God, the glory of God, the ways of God. And again, all of this is culminating in the Gospel. Right? If God is holy and we are sinners, all that we deserve from a holy God is judgment and condemnation. Yet if a holy God promises mercy, this mercy, this must be consistent with his own justice. And therefore, God the just justifies the ungodly in the Lord Jesus Christ by his life, perfect and personal obedience by his vicarious death upon the cross and his glorious resurrection, God imputes to sinners the righteousness that he requires as they come by faith to trust in him. Friends, the gospel can only be understood if we know the character of God. We know the character of God by knowing the commands of God, the precepts of God, the testimonies of God. So do you see how the psalmist keeps coming back to this theology proper, this understanding of God himself as foundational and paramount? Friends, that is the governing doctrine when it comes to all the other doctrines of scriptures. I've talked to you about how theology proper is the foundation. but it can also be understood as that which directs and regulates and governs, because, friends, all of these other truths flow from who God is and what he does, because God is always consistent within himself. So, friends, the new birth brings holy desires. These desires must be cultivated. They must be stirred up. We stir them up. by coming to the word of God and God satisfies us by causing us to drink of Christ, drink of who he is and what he's done. So 132, turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name. Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let not iniquity get dominion over me. The psalmist now in verse 132 and 133 pleads for mercy. Notice that he asked God to be gracious Friends, the saint petitions God, not on the basis of our merit or performance, but on the basis of who God is and who he's revealed himself to be, a gracious God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. If we forget or if we doubt the gracious character of God, let us only but look to the cross. Let us see Jesus crucified for us. Let us see how The father appointed him to be our high priest and mediator because we know that God is gracious and compassionate. And that is his way toward those who love your name. This is picked up and reflected also with Paul. Paul reflects on the same theme in Romans 8, 28. But we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Again, friends, a holy desire. Natural man in his sin does not desire to know God. He does not desire to serve God. He has no true love for God in his heart. Natural man has nothing but hostility to God and hatred of God and will not repent and come to God unless God first comes and regenerates, gives new life, gives a new heart. The new birth precedes and produces repentance and faith. Remember Jesus told us, Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot enter the kingdom of God. The new birth produces repentance and faith. It produces this new love, this love for God's name. What does it mean to love God's name? Well, remember, friends, the name of God is His glory proclaimed, His righteous reputation revealed, glorious identity disclosed, his heritage hallowed. His name is the distillation and the bringing to a head all that God is. So when we talk about the name of God, and let us not take God's name in vain, we're invoking his glory. We're invoking the wonder and beauty and majesty of what he is, and this is crystallized in his name. You know, friends, sometimes folks will ask us, you know, about our spouse. Why do you love Hannah? Why do you love Dan? Frank, why do you love Lisa? What makes? this love, what is it about them that you love? And sometimes, for me, it's hard to pinpoint, right? You might describe various things that you love about your wife or your spouse. I may say, well, I love the way that she's, I love how she's so kind and gentle. I love how she can sometimes be so bold in her assertions. I love her strength, I love her tenacity. I can describe some things that I love about her, but at the end of the day, I love her for who she is. And what distills for me who she is? Well, it's her name. She is Hannah. And that's the same for the psalmist. Why does he love God? Because he's God. Because of who he is and what he's done. All of his glory and grace. He is altogether lovely and wonderful. But this comes from the new birth. This comes by God's sovereign grace as he gives life and he births new love. So friends, if you have come to Christ, if you have fled to him for refuge, if you are loving the name of the Lord, seeking to honor him, you also can and should plead for God to be gracious, to continue to turn, to cause his face to shine upon you. We make these petitions not on the basis of our merit, but on his grace, and upon the grace and mercy that Christ has fulfilled. Verse 133, keep steady my steps according to your promise. Friends, we need to pray for enabling grace, grace by which we may continue to obey God's commands. You know, friends, sometimes we think of our obedience as God filled the tank, he handed us the keys, and he says, all right. Now it's your turn to drive. And while there is responsibility, we do have a responsibility as Christians to pursue righteousness, to put to death sin, to strive for holiness. The Bible even warns us that if we don't discipline our bodies, if we don't pursue Christ to the end, We were never in Christ to begin with. We were never His. There is a responsibility and a calling we have to obey God. But never forget that we can only fulfill this calling by God's grace. Friends, God is as gracious in your sanctification as he was in your regeneration. He is the God of all grace who is able to keep you to the end. So friends, God is able to sustain you and to keep you steady, to keep you in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. He is able to uphold and preserve you according to His saving promise. And therefore, like the psalmist, we can pray, let no iniquity get dominion over me. Friends, the Christian is set free from the domination of sin. Sin no longer reigns in us, but it does remain. It has been defeated, but it has not yet been destroyed. The victory has been won, though the battle continues, and we are called to fight, but we do so dependent, resting, trusting in the sovereign, sufficient grace of God, who has promised to be with us, and has promised to give us the victory. So friends, We need to pray for God's grace. We need to pray that God would come, that the Holy Spirit would come and enable us to identify sin, to repent of it, to grant us fresh joy and love for Christ and a zeal to serve him because we know he has promised to preserve us. So remember, the call to holiness is both a promise to hold and a precept to heed. It is a command. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This is not optional. The Christian must pursue Christ. He must die to sin. He must seek to follow Jesus. Striving for perfection. Knowing he will never attain it. Knowing he will always fall short. Knowing that even the best of our good works are tinged and speckled with sin. and knowing that there is nothing good in us but what God is producing in and through us. It is all of Him. Friends, even our good works are the result of God's sovereign will. in work, right? Work out your own salvation with fear and troubling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good purpose. So God works in and transforms by the Word of Truth. He stirs our affection, He changes our thinking, He deepens our love, and it is out of this sovereign, sanctifying grace that we do indeed begin to do what God commands, not perfectly, but truly. Guys, do you see how good God is to you? He doesn't leave you on your own. He is the God of all grace, able to sustain and keep you to the end. Let no iniquity get dominion over me. Oh Lord, please preserve me. Because we know, friends, left to ourselves, Sin would have its field day. Sin would run roughshod over each one of us. Left to our own devices, left to our own wisdom and power, friends, we could fall into all manner of iniquity. It's been said that in the heart of every person are the seeds of every known sin, and that belongs true even to the Christian. The Christian is capable of great sin. Friends, we can look at the Scriptures. We can see Abraham and his lying. We can see Moses and his murdering. We can see David and his adultery. We can see all manner of sin committed by the saints. But yet God never let them be completely and utterly destroyed by it. He brought them to repentance. He brought them back to himself. He did not let that iniquity have dominion over them. because in Christ there is victory, the Spirit gives freedom. And so with that confidence, trusting the sovereign mercies of God, resting on his sanctifying grace, holding to Christ, verse 134, we may plead, redeem me from man's oppression, that I may keep your precepts. Confident in God's sovereign grace, we look to the word of God, and remember that God is he who will set us free from the power and oppression of men, to the end that we may walk in obedience. Verse 135, make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. Again, we trust, we come to the word of God and we see that God unveils more of his truth to us. And so we can plead that he would cause his face to continue to shine. Remember, the idea of God's face is his presence set upon us in mercy. The face of God is communion with him and fellowship with him. That's why the Aaronic blessing that I read to you so often, may God cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace, the enjoyment of God. and of his beauty and of his love and goodness. Make your face shine upon your servant. Dear friends, sometimes for a season, God will hide his face. For a time, God may withdraw. We may not feel the warmth, the nearness of God. God has purposed that. to strengthen us. It may be that it is for rebukes for sin, or it may be that God is causing us to trust that even if we don't feel his presence, he is with us. Dear friends, our feelings are a fickle thing. God gave to us emotions and emotions in themselves are not evil. They can be and are used by God to fuel our worship, to fuel our obedience. They are good and they have their place. But friends, if we have a Christian life that is dependent on our emotional state, then friends, when God does hide his face, we will be lost. But if we remember that God will cause his face to shine upon his servant and he will draw near to us, If we have these truths, friends, then we can be confident even if we don't feel his nearness. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. We may plead for God to make his face to shine upon us again and to instruct us from his word. And finally, verse 136, my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Again, the psalmist expresses how as he comes to the word of God and beholds all the wonder of God, all the beauty of God, his eyes shed tears, streams of tears because his affections are stirred. He has a greater love for the truth and he has a true hatred of evil. This is what happens as we grow in our love for God and our knowledge of him. we begin to have a new sensitivity toward sin. You know, friends, before we came to Christ, we were very callous to sin. And even as we have come to Christ, we become acclimated, so to speak, to our culture. We become adjusted to the sin we see around us. And friends, we need to come to the word of God Again, and pray that the Lord would soften our heart, remove the calluses from our conscience. Give us fresh eyes to see ourselves and the world that we live as He sees it. Because, dear friends, sin in our own lives and sin in the world around us ought to cause us to mourn. You know, friends, we do have a sort of righteous indignation when we see sin. Now there is a time for us to stand and speak, but there's also a time for us to weep, to weep over the sin in our lives and the sin around us. Like Jeremiah weeped for the destruction of Jerusalem. He weeped for the city that he loved and for the people that were so dear to him, who in their obstinate defiance rejected the word of God and the mercies of God and for whom God had promised there would be judgment. Jeremiah wept. for the destruction. Jesus himself wept over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that stones the prophets and kills those who are sent to it. How often I would have gathered you like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not listen. Jesus mourned. as he saw men, women, boys, and girls living their lives in obstinate defiance of God and rejection of his mercy. Let us pray that God would give us the same tender heart, that Lord Jesus would cause our hearts to break for what breaks his, and the Spirit would cause us to mourn for the sin in our own lives and the sin around us, and all the while be confident that God is able to wipe away those tears, to satisfy that longing heart. Because friends, one day we will, there will be the renovation of creation. There will be the new creation, a new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. It will be a day coming very soon when Christ will return and make all things new. There will be a day where there will be no more sin in us. No sin in the world, a eternal glorious fellowship we will enjoy with God and with his people in the new holy creation of God. Friends, we mourn now, but as Christ said, those who mourn, He will comfort. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. What does Jesus mean by that? Talking about the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are those who mourn. It's the same concept, 136. Mourning for sin, weeping over iniquity, being overwhelmed with the gravity of sin and its destruction, but fleeing to God and His mercy. So, dear friends, the Word of God reveals how wonderful God is, who He is and what He's done. The Word of God is sufficient for us to show us not only all the wonders of God, but to bring us to see the beauty of His dear Son, to see Jesus, our Redeemer, to see Him as our King. And by this Word, He equips us to love and to serve him in the world. So I pray, friends, that you are treasuring the word of God. Let's pray. Father, we do pray that you cause us to treasure your word more, to rest in your mercy, to depend upon your grace. Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for being our savior. Thank you for being our king, Lord Jesus. Please lead us as a church to mourn for sin in our own lives and in the world, and thus to more earnestly seek your face. Father, cause us to desire and do all that you command. Lord, we want to serve you. We want to be a holy people called by your name. We know this is our identity, Father, and our position in Christ. But we want this to also be our practice that Lord Jesus, we would be a people who are filled with love for you and love for one another. A people who, in their love for sinners, go into a lost, dying world and Proclaim your mercy, O God, in Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, have mercy on us. Father, we ask all this in his name. Amen.