The Main Message of Psalm 119: Delight in Gods Word - Psalm 119:92-93 (Psalms 119)

1:14I bet you didn't know that. I bet you didn't go and buy duct tape for your special lady today, did you? This is hot off the press, especially the duct tape with Skittles on it. That's the one. So, with this new list that I learned yesterday, I got up early this morning. We snuck out of the house. We went down and bought some duct tape. Seriously, bought some duct tape and brought it home. Of course, on my way out, I said, Are you sure this is enough? Maybe we should get flowers too. So, we bought some flowers and some donuts and some kolachis and brought it back.

2:00But that's the idea, right? So, get some gift ideas. Duct tape. There it is. Well, I want to spend one more day in Psalm 119, maybe even spend a little more. But we have climbed this mountain, we've come down the mountain, we went up one day, surveyed the whole mountain, we came down the other way, and now we're back at base camp. And I would hate for us to leave this psalm without making sure you get the main message. We can talk about it and look at it and talk now about the journey that we've gone through from a little different perspective, a little different perspective. And so, I want to make sure you get the main idea. What is the main purpose of all this? We left today. Someone asked you, what Is the main purpose of Psalm 119? I hope you would have an answer.

3:06In fact, what is the main purpose? If you don't get it, you end up missing the whole forest for the trees. What is it? What is it? So I want to first tell you how the Psalms are arranged. I don't want to get into a great big lecture on Hebrew poetry, but I do want to see something. Hebrew poetry often puts its emphasis right in the middle. So, and I won't go into a lot of details, Aleph, the first stanza. Remember, this is the Hebrew alphabet. Aleph, the very first one, treat that as a preamble or an overview, a heading, and it starts out the same way as Psalm 1. How blessed are those whose way is blameless. And you remember how in Psalm 1, the blessed one is the one who does what? Who delights in the law of the Lord. And this theme is picked up right off the bat in Psalm 119. So the way the Psalm goes then, Aleph, Bet, Gemo, Daleth, Hay.

4:30Vav, Zion, Heth, Peth, Eod, Kaf, Lamed. That puts Lamed right at the middle. Okay? And Mim, Noon, Samic, Ayan, Pei, Saadi, Kof, Rais, Sheen, and Tav. Okay? And right in the middle is where the emphasis is. It's in the Lamud section. So, just to give you a brief picture of how this works. In Bet, you have in verse 10 this psalmist starting out saying, Oh, your word I've treasure. With all my heart I have sought you. Do not let me wander from your commandments. And then there's a completion to that thought down in verse 176, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant. So this emphasis upon wandering and going astray.

5:27In Gimel, you get the emphasis, or the only time the word princes is used is there in these two stanzas, where it says in verse 23, even though princes sit and talk about me, your servant meditates on your statutes. And then in verse 161, princes persecute me without cause. The princes who spoke about him, speaking against him, are persecuting him. So you get this complementary ideas throughout scattering. Throughout. In Daloth, the emphasis is upon revive, revive. In verse 25, revive me according to your word. And a compliment stanza is the Raish stanza, which is all about revival. Revive me according to your word. We just sung about it. Revive me according to your ordinances. Revive me according to your loving kindness. And there is this pattern throughout. And I'm not going to go through all of them, but all the way down, you get to cough, the cough stanza. And you get, this is that stanza where he opens up in verse 81, my soul languishes for your salvation. I have become, in verse 83, like a wineskin in the smoke. So his life has become brittle, like smoke dries out a wineskin, leather. I'm about to break. I'm at the very point. And he says in verse 84, when will you execute judgment on those who persecute me? So he's in the low point in the cough stanza. But then you read the mem stanza in verse 97. A whole change has taken place. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day long. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. And he goes on, How sweet your words are to my taste. Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. He Something has changed between the kaf and the mem. And what has changed? What has changed takes place in the Lamud stanza, the Lamud, and the very two center verses of the Lamud stanza are verses 92 and 93. And so that is where I want you to read.

7:57This is the center point, the emphasis. If our psalmist was standing here today saying, This is what I want you to take home. This is it right here. After all that's been said, now let me read these words. Verse 92, if your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have revived me. Notice the if-then statement, verse 92. If your law had not been my life, if your law, your inscripturated directions for my life, if they had not been my delight, that is my extreme or supreme pleasure, then I would have perished in my affliction. I would have ceased to have any internal force to go on.

8:55So if your law had not been my supreme pleasure, then And when the affliction came, when my humbling circumstances, my painful and humbling circumstances came, it would have completely wiped me out to where I had no internal spiritual fortitude to go forward. That's what would have happened if your law had not been my delight. You see, delight in God's Word is what helped or upheld the psalmist in his time of trial. His joy in God's Word was greater than the despair of his circumstances. It was the delight in God's Word that gave him something eternal, something solid to stand upon, that would give him life, that would enable him to have the internal disposition to stand in his trying circumstances.

9:55There's a natural progression in this Lamid stanza. Delight in God's Word brings about a certainty of God's sovereignty and God's goodness. A certainty. That's what delighting in God, you spend time in God's Word and you delight in God's Word and you hear and meditate and study and learn and grow, it'll lead you to a certainty of God's sovereignty and a certainty of God's goodness, which in turn gives you the stability to face any kind of trials that come.

10:31You see, one of our basic problems is that we don't delight in God's fixed word. We don't delight in it. In fact, it's kind of become routine for a lot of us. Go through life. Some of you are here this morning because your parents make you be here, right? You have your part of the family, so you just come. But you're not here because you really delight in God's Word. Many of you are here for a lot of different reasons, but perhaps not because the Word of God is your supreme pleasure.

11:04Maybe you delight in some other things. But the idea, some of you may delight to some degree in the Word of God, but is it your supreme delight? That's what the psalmist is saying. He wants to encourage and strengthen and impel you to delight in God's word. You know, we're far more like the children of Israel coming out of Egypt than we realize. You know, as you come to Christ and you start reading the Bible and you start reading the Old Testament, or maybe you read it as a child, you come across this Exodus 14 and this incredible, amazing deliverance that God takes these children of Israel out and he drowns the superpower of the day in the restoration. Sea, and then in chapter 15, you hear this song of Miriam, and then right afterwards, you hear this complaining. We're really thirsty, we're really hungry, and goes on, verse 16, and you're kind of like, oh, that we had died in Egypt. And you're kind of like, what's wrong with these people? This is shocking. How could they be so short-sighted after God did all that for them? How could they be so short-sighted, hard-hearted to believe that God had brought them out in the wilderness to let them die? And you look at it, and it should shock your senses. I think that's what Moses intends to, when he puts it there. It should shock you that a people could experience so much and yet be still complaining. And then as you grow and you start understanding your own heart, you start realizing what that's a lot more like me than I first realized. That's a picture of us, isn't it?

13:04You see, we, and the problem, the basic problem that God lays out early on for success in the land is going to be that you must delight in God's law. You're going to go into the land and you're going to fail in the land because you don't delight in God's law. I mean, we delight in all kinds of things, right? We delight in something. We all delight. And if you just thought about it for a little bit and did Some internal self-evaluation, honest.

13:34What do you really delight in? What are some of the supreme pleasures in your life? I mean, for some, it's maybe security. For some, it may be money, which kind of relates in the same. So when things are going well financially, you're up, right? But when things are going poorly financially, things are down, right? For some of you, it may be you take a lot of delight in something like sports, right? I mean, you can drive down the street and not even know if the Aggies, or not even know what the score was, but you can tell the next day if they won or lost, right?

14:19Or maybe it's prestige, or maybe it's maybe your issue is a relationship. Maybe it's you get a supreme pleasure. Your supreme delight is in a certain relationship. And when that relationship is going well, wow, things are up. But when that relationship is not going well, you're down. Or maybe it's your peers. You love the recognition of your peers, and you love to fit in, be cool, be one of the group, right? And then any kind of faint hint that you are less than cool, right, you're down.

15:00Because your supreme delight is in something that is totally vacillating. It's up and down. I mean, maybe you didn't get any duct tape, right? Maybe that couldn't get any duct tape for. And on that note, on a little more serious note, maybe that really is the problem. Maybe you don't have somebody to give you duct tape today. And maybe, listen, the reality is, friends, Mother's Day is far more painful than you might imagine. There are some people, when they hear happy Mother's Day, it drives a knife through their soul because it brings to mind things that have gone wrong, or things that are not the way they would like for it to be, or maybe their personal failures, or negligence, or worse.

16:04You see, we are a people that are hopelessly driven by our circumstances, and our emotions follow that. So, how do we change this? How do we change this to where we are not driven by circumstances? And we are far more connected to our circumstances. We get far more joy and pleasure, or sorrow and depression. Out of our circumstances, then I think we realize. Well, look back at our text in verse 93. I will never forget your precepts. That's what the psalmist says. I will never forget them. Forever. I will never forget them. Forever. Forever it is settled. Your precepts, that is, your fixed expectations of me, I will never forget them. That's a remarkable statement, right? I will never, ever, ever forget them. Forever.

17:09I will remember them. How does he make that statement? Look back at the second part of 93. Here's the reason. For by them you have revived me. That is, because of them, because of your precepts, you have revived me, that you have given me that internal fortitude to stand in the midst of my circumstances, whatever they may be, good or bad, and have a stabilizing element in my life that gives me the ability to stand. You notice that it was not his changed circumstances that revived him, but it was God's precepts. You see that? It was God's precepts that revived him.

18:00And what's beautiful about God's precepts, that even if we have intense past failures, intense sin, do you know what? God's precepts made a provision for sin. It's what the whole sacrificial system is about, isn't it? God knows that you are going to sin, and God has made a provision for that, but you must listen to his precepts to understand it. And if you delight in his precepts, you'll understand his plan for your past failures. And it comes through the person of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for you, and your putting off the old pattern and clinging to him.

18:48You see, we don't really know how our circumstances are going to go. I have no idea how they are going to go. And sometimes I listen to some of the things that, or I'm aware of some of the things that you all are going through, and I just thank God that I'm not walking in your shoes because I would never be able to make it through what some of the trials. I'm thankful for the trials that He gives me because I could never endure some of the trials that I hear some of you all going through.

19:16But I can say, I don't know how your circumstances are going to go. But I can tell you that we need to be a people who see beyond our circumstances and delight in something more. Something greater than just positive circumstances, because circumstances are going to change. But God's fixed and permanent, good, sufficient word is never going to change. And if your delight is in that, there will be a stability in your life that will glorify God and shake the nations.

19:55So the question is: where does delight in God's word come from? Where does it come from? So I think John Calvin has one of the best statements on this. Of course, it comes from God. Where does delight in God's Word come from? It comes from God. Calvin says this, illuminated by Him, the soul receives new eyes for the contemplation of heavenly mysteries, by the splendor of which it was never before dazzled. And thus the human intellect, irradiated by the light of the Holy Spirit, then begins to relish those things which pertain to the kingdom of God, for which before it had not the smallest taste. And the Spirit of God comes in, regenerates, renews, it gives us a thirst and a taste and a desire for that which we never had before. So it comes from God.

20:55But it comes from God through his word. It is through the Instrument of his word that delight in God's word comes. You see, thinking God's thoughts and obeying God's word does something wonderful. It gives life, it revives. When you think, when you understand, when you meditate upon God's words, it gives life. This is why the psalmist says, I'll never forget your precepts, for by them you have revived me. So, here's the way it goes: hearing the word leads to a delight.

21:41There's no other way. Hearing the word leads to a delight in the word, which in turn leads to more hearing, which in turn leads to more delight, which in turn leads to more hearing, which in turn leads to more delight. And as you're delighting and hearing, you are growing, and the word of God is having its sanctifying effect in your life. And the cycle goes on and on and on. So, delight. It's the message of the psalmist. He's standing here. Delight yourself. Delight in God's Word.

22:24You know, delight in anything expresses itself in many ways. If you delight in. Something, it expresses itself. It surely expresses itself. I don't care what you delight in, whether it's a boy, or whether it's a girl or whether it's circumstances, whether it's the Aggies, whatever it is, it shows up on your face. And I never will forget this one individual. I think I've shared this with you before. He delighted in his wife. Let me tell you a little bit about this guy. This guy was the construction manager for the projects, some of the large projects that I worked on. And some of these were $100 million investments. And this was the individual that was put there by the corporation to make sure things were run accordingly. He was a big guy, always dressed in black. He had long black hair. He was about as mean and cantankerous of an individual on the job site that if I've ever met one.

23:38And he had a doctorate in cussing. I mean, he was good at it. I mean, and he did not delight in engineers. He did not delight in change orders. People would see him coming. oh boy but when he got on the phone with his wife this guy changed he would start talking like a baby how's her doing him miss her I kid you not does her miss him him love her I kid you not and then he'd get off the phone and he's like I knew him didn't love me but I mean it's this marriage of decades but when you delight in something it comes out and the psalmist here expresses his delight in God's word numerous times throughout this psalm and I want to I want to I want you to see eight of those and they're going to go quick but I want you to see eight such expressions so that you will practice delighting in God's word yourself so that God's word will be a delight to you and we could probably come up with a hundred out of here but I focused on where he used the word delight and I wanted to lay out for you eight expressions eight expressions of delight first one is meditating meditating you know this is really the emphasis Of the first two stanzas after the introduction, there, the Beth and Gimel. You look in verse 11. He says, Your word I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. So he uses the word meditation a lot through these two stanzas. But meditation involves memorizing. That is a direct expression of delighting in God. And there's really two categories. These first couple are about direct expressions. That is, expressions of delighting in God's Word that comes from a direct encounter with God's Word. And this would be memorizing God's Word. That's one element. Reading God's Word. Look at verse 15. I meditate on your precepts and regard your ways. I shall delight in your statutes. So reading, simply reading God's Word is an expression, discussing God's Word. Really, the same word in verse 23: even though princes sit and talk against me, your servant meditates on your statutes. Your testimonies also are my delight. So meditating, the word for meditation also involves not just quiet mental exercise, but also the movement of the lips. Sometimes it's talking, meditating. When we can sit around and talk in our home about scriptures, we're really sometimes just meditating, talking through.

27:00Sometimes you can talk with others about it, but the idea of discussing, meditating, a speak, like these princes were speaking against him. Well, he was speaking the things of God. And then, of course, verse 24, hearing the word of God is a form of meditating. Look at verse 24. Your testimonies are also my delight. They are my counselors. You get this picture of the princes that are taking counsel together against the psalmist. But the psalmist is hearing. He is listening to the word of God, and the word of God is his counselor. The testaments, the testimonies of God are like his team of counselors, and they're far superior than the counselors that are against him. So meditating, that's a direct expression. And really, this is what the church is all about, by the way, is meditating upon the word of God. That's what we do. This association is gathered and for the purpose of keeping the words of God circulating in society, circulating with delight. We delight in God's word, so we talk about God's Word. We study God's Word. We meditate. Our fellowship is centered around God's Word. And so the whole function of the church really is at its core about delighting in God's Word. And what you see this morning is. Is just an expression of these people here who have gathered here at Emmanuel Baptist Church who delight in God's Word, and this is just an expression of it. The second expression, obeying, obeying God's Word. It wasn't just to be an intellectual assent or an intellectual activity. If you look at verse 33, he says, teach me. The verse 34, give me understanding. And verse 35, make me walk in the path of your commandments because I delight in it. In other words, I delight and I want to walk in your ways. So direct expressions. Do you delight in God's Word?

29:16Do you meditate? Do you meditate for the purpose of obeying? That's a delighting in. There's others. I'm going to keep going, but these are more indirect expressions of delighting in God's Word. Indirect expressions. And what I mean by that, this would not be like sitting down with the Bible, but these will be secondary to that, outside of that, but it's still an expression of delighting in God's Word. And that's not being ashamed of God's Word. And verse 47, the psalmist says, well, it's in the context of verse 46, I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be ashamed.

30:01I shall delight in your commandments, which I love. If you love God's Word and it is your supreme delight, guess what? You will never be ashamed of it. Because those who speak against it or challenge you because of it are not your supreme delight. If your supreme delight is God's word, nothing can make you feel ashamed. I'm embarrassed for you because you don't believe. I'm embarrassed for you because the reality of God's goodness is all around and you willfully suppress that. I'm embarrassed for you. I'm not shamed by you because I see the goodness of God displayed in creation and I see the goodness of God in his word and I see the goodness of God displayed in his Son, Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of the Christ because that is the most emphatic statement that has ever been made by God that says, I love you.

31:09I'm not ashamed of that. I'm embarrassed for you who trampled the Son of God underfoot and who do not, who refused to recognize God's love for you. Fourth, An expression of delight in God's word is the ability to bear affliction, to ability to bear trials and affliction. And this comes loud in the middle of the Psalm. And he says that it was good for me in verse 67, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good to me, and you do good. I know that because of your statutes, because of your word.

32:04Their heart is covered with fat, speaking of those who have spoken against him, want to bring him down. I observe your precepts, but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was afflicted. Wow, he can take his affliction and not only bear it, but rejoice and say, The affliction that you put in my life is the reason it pushed me to you. And because of the affliction that you brought, even though they meant it for evil, you meant it for good.

32:42But it's an ability. And this goes on in verse 77. And may you compassion come to me. May I live, for your law is my delight. And then in verse 92, which is our text this morning that we looked at, if you're not law, Had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. So, a delight in God's law gives you an ability to bear affliction. And as I'm talking through all this, I realize that this is what the psalmist is telling his generation and the generations beyond. This is the way of the blessed life. And so, he expresses these delight in God's meditating, obeying, not being ashamed, an ability to bear affliction. Number five, there's also an indirect expression of delighting in God's law, and it comes when God's word is dismissed. Look at verse 136.

33:50My eyes shed streams of water because they do not keep your law. That's an expression of his delight in God's law. His sorrow over those who dismiss God's law breaks his heart when he sees ungodliness running a nation and ruling and running rampant. What does it do? Does it get them all up in arms? Well, in this expression, it breaks his heart. It breaks his heart because they don't keep your law. Listen, lost people are going to be lost people. Blind people are going to, people who are blind to the things of God and who suppress the truth and unrighteousness are going to do what people who suppress the truth and unrighteousness do.

34:45And it should cause us grief. There should be a grief. If there is no grief, I can tell you, you do not delight in God's Word as your supreme delight. There may be other things that are going on in your heart, but it's not delighting in God's Word. When a lost world fails to break your heart, your delight is in something else than God's Word. Sixth, delighting in God's Word gives you an ability to overcome the distress and grief and sorrow that inevitably comes in life.

35:31In verse 143, Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever. You see, there's an anchor for the soul, there's a foundation, there's a stability, there's firm ground, and those who have God's law as their supreme pleasure. Supreme delight. The distresses, the trials, the grief, and the sorrows of life are understood in their proper context. Understood that God is good, that He is sovereign. That all the heartaches and heartbreaks, if you, we will suffer loss. We will feel pain. We are to grieve, yes, but we do not grieve as people who have no hope or no solid foundation. Those who delight in God's word have an innate sense to overcome distress. And I watch some people who are anchored in God's Word, and you are a challenge to me. You are an encouragement to me, because I watch you standing firm through very difficult situations, keeping the faith. And though you may grieve, may you have some sorrow, the underlying principle driving your life is a delight in God's Word. And so, even in the moments of the darkest night, I see expressions of rejoicing and faith in some of you who delight in God's law.

37:25Well, number seven, expressions of delight that are in this psalm. Rejoicing in God's words. Look at verse 162. I rejoice at your word as one who finds great spoils. And that's one who finds great treasure. I rejoice in your word because of that. That's an expression of delight. And why? I mean, if you summarize why or some of the things that he rejoiced in, what was it about the word that caused him to rejoice? Well, number one, God's Word is true, God's Word is permanent, God's Word is wise, God's Word is good, God's Word is right, always right. You see, we love the promises of God, those are easy to access. I'll be with you forever till the end of the age. We love those promises, but what about the promises like do not coven it? I mean, do we really delight in that? And how do we delight in that? You know, more like we just submit to it, even though it's not really what we consider a delight.

38:37But we do delight in them. We do delight that there is a moral code of the universe that is right, that is always just, that is always good to all people at all times. Even God Himself, you know, it's like you look at the command: do not steal, do not covet. Now, we don't necessarily get all worked up and excited. About that command, but when you start putting it, it is something to delight in. It's an order for humanity.

39:12You don't want someone else coveting what you have, right? God is big about personal property, and he wants you to keep that. But what's really exciting about this is that God is subject to his own law. So think about this for a minute. God is subject to his own law. His law is an extension of himself. It's an expression of himself. And he elevates his word up there with his name. It is an expression. God doesn't tell you, do not covet, and then he becomes a coveter. He doesn't say, do not steal, and then he steals. I mean, wouldn't it be awful if the universe was run by a tyrant? No, but as you can look into these laws, the way God himself has subjected himself to the law. Not because he's lower than his law, because his law is a reflection of himself.

40:09And to break one of his laws is to deny himself. He's not going to do it. So we have an understanding of God to us through his law. There's so many more to say on that, but we'll keep moving. Another delight this psalmist expresses in this. Psalm is a longing for God's salvation. Those of us who delight in God's law long for his salvation. Verse 174, I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. The law points us to God's salvation. It takes us there. Those who have been trained and who delight in God's law know that there is no salvation except in God alone. There is no alliance with man. There is no alliance with yourself. There is nothing other than God's salvation, God's ultimate deliverance, first for the soul, for the individual, and then for a people, then for the world, and for the nations. God, we are longing for God's salvation.

41:22And that salvation, of course, is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. And so we can, those who delight in God's word will meditate upon it, obey it, are not ashamed of it, able to bear affliction, able to overcome distress and grief and sorrows of life, able to rejoice in God's words and long for God's salvation. We circled back around because I do not want you to merely have an intellectual relationship with Psalm 119. After months of study, I want you to take with you the heart of God. Of this psalm. I want you to get the big picture. I want you to make it a heart-level reality to delight in God's word. As you guys all go off for the summer and go your ways, and some of you are leaving us for good. My exhortation to you is delight in God's words. Let that be the disposition of your life. Every good thing comes from that.

42:30This is the blessed path through life. This is what the psalmist started out. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers. Such is the life.

43:04Those who delight in God's word. As a question to follow up, this, what does God delight in? We see what we are to delight in. What does God delight in? Deuteronomy 4 makes it very clear: God delights, he requires obedience. Deuteronomy 6. God calls Israel to love him through obedience. And in Deuteronomy 28, God promises to bless obedience. You see, what God delights in is those who delight in his law. That's what God delights in. He made it very clear, very clear to Saul. Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrificed, and to heed better than the fat of rams. So, my exhortation this morning, and if this was the last sermon I ever preached to you all, this is what I would like for it to be: Delight yourself in the law of the Lord. Delight yourself, delight yourself. This is what the psalmist passed on. This is the one way to ensure a blessed future for your kids. Delight yourself in God's law. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I give you thanks, Lord, for your many, many blessings. The blessings that come to us, Father, by and through your word. Father, we thank you that your word is an expression of your shepherding ministry that pulls us back to you when we go astray. Father, we thank you for the reminder, Father, that. To delight. You call us to delight. That love of you is connected to delighting in the things you say. And Father, we're honest with ourselves. There are so many things that we put before you that we delight in, Father, above you. And Father, we ask for forgiveness and we ask for your continued sanctifying work in us. We ask you to do it through the ministry of your word and through those people that you have ordained and put in our lives, Father, to communicate the word from whatever level. Father, I thank you for the mothers in this room who have committed themselves to speaking your words to their children day in and day out. And Father, I just pray a special blessing upon them this day. It's in Jesus' name we pray.