I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 119, starting verse 169. That's page 603 in the Pew Bible in front of you. Psalm 119, starting verse 169. hear God's word for you this morning. Let my cry come before you, O Lord. Give me understanding according to your word. Let my supplication come before you. Deliver me according to your word. My lips shall utter praise, for you teach me your statutes. My tongue shall speak of your word, for all your commandments are righteousness. Let your hand become my help, for I have chosen your precepts. I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise you, and let your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep, Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. It's God's holy inspired word for you this morning, and it is good. As I look at you this morning, I can say that you look good. And I can also say that you look very needy this morning. You look needy. You look very needy, actually. You put on your Sunday best clothes this morning and came on this beautiful sunny day in the city of Philadelphia to church looking very good, but also looking very needy. How do I know that you look very needy? I don't know what's going on in your life this week. I barely know most of you, but I know that you're a human being. And if you're a human being, then you are a needy, needy creature. Sometimes we know very well in and of ourselves that we are needy. Sometimes we don't. If you're anything like me, this week I had a few moments. Very stressful week at my full-time job. Very stressful week outside of my full-time job. I'm getting audited by New York State this week, so that's no good news. It's turning out well, but I had a few moments this week. where I needed to retreat and pray before the Lord God of heaven and ask for his help for various things going on personally, professionally, pastorally. So I had a week where I was reminded of my great need before a holy triumph of God. But I confess before you that there are lots of weeks, lots of days, lots of hours that go by where I am not mindful of my need to God. things might be going very well for you this morning. And you've come to church feeling like you have everything that you need, that everything is sufficient, because obviously God has blessed you in so many ways. But even so, in his blessing toward you, you are a needy, needy people. And the tail end of Psalm 119, that great Psalm that praises God for His covenantal Word, giving thanks to Him for it. The last section, the Tao section here, comes to us this morning. The Word of God proclaiming to you that you are a needy, needy people. But God has provision for your need. That's the good news this morning. your need. So what needs do you have this morning? What needs do you carry into the house of God this morning? If you're like a psalmist, then you come carrying these needs that he proclaims, he confesses, he sings in this psalm. The psalmist needs to be heard by God. You need to be heard by God. The psalmist needs to understand God, to understand His words, understand what God communicates through His word and His law. You, my friends, need to understand God's word. The psalmist cries out, asking, for God to fulfill his need to be delivered from enemies, to be delivered from sin. You, friend, have a great need to be delivered. The psalmist cries out to be helped. The psalmist cries out to be saved. The psalmist cries out to live. And the psalmist cries out to be sought by God. Friends, you have all of these needs. Even if you didn't realize it coming in this morning, even if you knew it before and you forgot, you come into God's house in the presence of a covenantal God, needing to be heard, to understand, to be delivered, to be helped, to be saved, to live, and to be sought. But here's one of the problems of the human condition. We take our needs, our honest needs, just like there's some of us that need to be heard, understood, to understand, to be sought, these things, and we apply the wrong medicine to these needs. So we take our need to be heard, and we become proud and arrogant and start yelling loudly at the people that are closest to us. Hear me, hear me, hear me. We take our need to understand the world around us, and we apply vain, empty philosophies, and bring them in and make them our own. We do the same thing with different relationships that we have. Even if we put too much stock in our workplace and our ability to provide for ourselves, Some of us grab for aspects of false religions. We apply the wrong medicine to the needs that we have. This is the root of alcoholism, addiction. We reach for substances and computer screens and phones to heal our great need. Obviously, this is a problem. Because these things, politics, relationships, alcohol, false religion, they will take us, they will promise to fulfill our need, they will abuse us and leave us worse off. We are a people who are greatly needy. Psalm 119 comes to us this morning and declares confidently to us, to you, that the covenantal God fulfills your need, fulfills your longing with his covenantal word. God fulfills your need with his covenantal word. That's what Psalm 19, 169 through 176 teaches. The covenantal God fulfills the need and the longing of his people through his covenantal word. Presbyterians love covenants. There are people who are covenantal in our theology, which means we read the scripture through the paradigm of covenant that God has given to us, that he's taught us through his word. Just a crash course for younger children, those who might be new in the house of God this morning, what a covenant is. In its very most basic form, a covenant is a binding commitment, a promise between two parties. In ancient biblical times, a covenant would look something like this. A more powerful king, empire, would come into another lesser powerful kingdom or empire and make an agreement with that lesser powerful one, I promise to protect you and to be a good ruler as long as you promise to be subservient and obedient as a citizen, provide for the needs and share. It was a covenantal promise between two parties that was in binding. It was written down most of the time. It's a reference in the future. What would happen, the paradigm of this time, was if I violate that covenantal commitment between us, then I'm as sure as dead. A covenantal promise is that powerful. that if the citizen disobeys the more powerful kingdom, it could result in death. If the greater king disobeys his binding agreement to the lesser powerful kingdom, it could result in death. A written promise, a written agreement. And so we Christians, people of the book, people of the Bible who treasure and love God's word as his fulfillment of our need, we look at the scripture through this covenant, through God's agreement with his creation, with mankind. And so we see that God created Adam, made a covenant with him. Work and you will live. Obey and you will live. Adam violates that covenant and God makes a new covenant. I will save my people. That covenant is consistent throughout all of the rest of the covenants in the Old Covenant and in the New Covenant, the Old Testament and the New Testament. God creates a covenant with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, with David, Fulfilled in Jesus Christ and here's the core foundation of that covenant that core agreement. I Will be your God and you will be my people I Will be your God you will be my people. I Now that is a good promise. That is a good covenant. That is a good God. And praise the Lord. He's not a God who lies. He delivers on His word. Surely, even up through this day until forevermore, He will be a God to His people. And He gives this covenantal promise in His Word. That covenant is His Word. That is His promise. The psalmist recognizes that God's fulfillment of His covenantal promises is in His covenantal Word. And so, one of the amazing things about this section of Scripture is it's conversational. The psalmist presents a need before God, and then God gives fulfillment of that need. And how does He do it? Through His Word. Look at this. The psalmist needs to be heard. So what does God do? He gives him His Word. He gives him understanding in His Word. The psalmist needs to understand. God fulfills that covenantal commitment through His Word. The psalmist needs to be delivered. God does so through His Word. The psalmist needs to be helped. God gives fulfillment of that need through His precepts. The psalmist needs to be saved, so God gives the law. The psalmist needs to live, so God gives His rules. The psalmist needs to be sought so God gives his commandments. The covenantal God fulfills our need through his covenantal word. How can God's word be helpful for you this morning? Sometimes we take this book for granted, don't we? And again, like I said before, we look for help in other areas, in other ways, in other people. But I want you to know this morning that there is life in the Word of God. There is help for your need in the Word of God, and it starts here. It starts with the word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us. See, God's people had this great deed, but God fulfilled his promise, I will be your God and you will be my people. That promise took on flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity. And he came and he taught the Word of God. He lived the Word of God in perfect obedience. He loved in perfect obedience. He suffered perfectly as a perfect man. He took on the wrath of God on the cross for the sin of his people perfectly. He died. He was buried. He rose again. He lives now. And he still offers himself to you. Come to me. I will be your God. You will be my people. That word of God that took on flesh to come and deliver, to deliver, to save that which was lost. Christ fulfilled the promise of God to us. And he also fulfilled the other half of the covenantal agreement that we have with God. See, the other side of the covenant is to make a commitment back. And the commitment back that God requires is holiness. living up to the standard that God gave to his people of righteousness, to look like our Father in heaven. Christ as the perfect man, the perfect Word become flesh, fulfilled those covenantal obligations that are upon us. to now come before this Holy Covenantal God in the righteousness of Christ, just as if we had been righteous in and of ourselves through Christ. And so the words of this psalm take on new meaning through Jesus Christ, so that we make commitments through Christ to know the Word Remember the Word, to choose the Word, to sing the Word, to submit to the Word. I invite you this morning to receive in faith the benefits that are given, offered to you in Christ of eternal salvation in Him, eternal life in Him, and also to make a commitment to know His Word. to receive it, to seek to understand it, to remember it, to sing it. And so, therefore, your need be met through the Word of God. Well, Ryan, that sounds very good. Sounds like a good deal that we can do this laundry list of things. Know the Word, delight in the Word, remember the Word, choose the Word. But we forget a lot, don't we? We forget about our promises to people. Have you ever been to a vow renewal ceremony, a marriage vow renewal ceremony? I've only ever been to a couple of them in my lifetime, but I like the idea of them. Usually, I mean, the couple that I've been to have been the result But the vow renewal ceremony is the man and the woman coming again before God and witnesses to recommit, to remember the vows that they had taken before, to come before God and re-promise, to essentially to remember the covenantal commitment that they made. It's a confirmation of their original vows. So this morning I am here to tell you that you are a needy people and you are a forgetful people. You forget the promises of God. You forget to treasure His Word. You forget that your great need is fulfilled in His Word. But just like God does, He makes provision for our unfaithful memories as well. When we look at Psalm 191, one of the things that strikes me with this passage is it's liturgical in nature. There's a certain procession that happens here through this passage. that we reflect in our weekly, weekly, weekly, weekly coming together to remember God's goodness toward us. So look at this psalm. Very early on, we see a call to worship. Let my cry come before you, O Lord. And God responds and invites the psalmist in. We see a time of deliverance from sin. Deliver me according to your word, verse 170. So we normally have times in our liturgies of confession of sin and assurance of pardon. We see in 171 and 172, my lips shall utter praise. My tongue shall speak of your word. In the Hebrew, that word speak can also mean sing. In the ESV that we use back home, that word is sing. My tongue will sing your praise. And so we sing the Psalms with joy in our church services. We see instruction in the Word. You teach me your statutes. And so we hear preaching of the word in our worship services. We see response to the gospel and with prayer. I long for your salvation. I have chosen your precepts. We see a good word, a benediction. Let my soul live and it shall praise you. Life pronounced on God's people. So here's the point. You're a forgetful people and God builds in a covenantal vow renewal ceremony for you week after week after week after week. When you come into this place to worship God, he recommits, he reconfirms his promise to you You're God. You will be my people. And so when you look at this piece of paper, every Lord's Day, there's a lot more going on here than we realize sometimes. The procession that happens here is very well, carefully thought out by your elders here in this church. It's done so on purpose. It's not at random. It is to reflect the nature of a recommitment vow renewal ceremony for you to enjoy, to experience, to come before the trying God and receive that promise once again. You are a forgetful people. So this psalmist, Psalm 119, writes the longest psalm, the longest chapter, proclaiming the goodness how amazing God's word is, and it's worth waking up in the middle of the night to praise God for. It's worth setting reminders throughout the day. It's worth so much. This great triumphant word, and this is the final verse of Psalm 119. It goes like this. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. Is that the kind of ending that you would expect on this great triumphant psalm? I'm thankful that I'm not the one who wrote it, but if I was, it would have looked differently. The psalmist puts the period on Psalm 119 and says, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Augustine says this verse is the cry of the whole church. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. God's people, we are needy and we are forgetful. We are like Israel. Delivered from the bondage of the evil empire by the Prophet Moses And then we turn our back on him as he's receiving the Word of God literally in the same moments And we craft a golden cap and bow down and worship that instead We're delivered by judges like Gideon from our enemies And we turn around and start worshiping false gods We're called back by kings like Josiah. Back into recognizing, realizing that God and his word is sufficient for our needs. And we turn again to false gods. Called back again by Ezra. Reestablish the worship of Israel. We get all excited and then we turn and we worship false gods. Christ Jesus comes in himself to fulfill the promise. I will be your God, you will be my people. And we say, give us Barabbas. People of God, now thousands of years later, have been delivered from our sin, made new creations, united to Christ by faith. And yet, we sin. I have gone astray like a lost sheep, says the psalmist in his great ending. Somebody put these words, made a poem that became a hymn later that expresses this well. Oh to grace, how great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. You see, friends, we have gone astray like lost sheep. We are prone to wander, but God still comes to you this morning through his holy word, proclaiming that word which is the fulfillment of your needs, saying, I will be your God, you will be my people. that great shepherd that came to seek and save that which was lost is here among you this morning, recommitting, reconfirming his oath to you that you are a sinner, but I have come to rescue you. Come and participate. Come freely. Come into the house of God. Come and receive His covenantal commitment. Make a covenantal commitment back to Him in Christ. Reconfirm your oath as He does to you in this weekly worship. We'll be reminded of this in our time this morning, partaking the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. looking at the blood and the body of Christ, confessing to Him that we are a needy people and that He is our fulfillment of our great need. We look forward to that this morning. God's people, you are needy. God provides for your needs through His Word. You forget God reminds you through this weekly worship. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to come into your house and to worship you. We ask you, God, to continue to empower your people by your spirit, to confirm your promise in their hearts and their minds, and to help us through Christ to act accordingly, to love and treasure your word, to seek it first. We praise you in Christ's name, amen.