The Word of God in the Heart of Man: The Blessed Journey - Psalm 119:1-8 (Psalms 119:1-8)

1:07Such is true with many things that happen in our walk with the Lord. The most profound things are those things that happen in the quietness of the heart and in those quiet moments of the soul before the Creator. Last time, if you remember, I started talking about Psalm 119. And I remarked that this Psalm is really the soul's journey through life, the soul's journey through life of one who is married to his word. You want to know what the ups and downs, the struggles, and pains and joys and exaltations in life are when one walks with the word of God. You can see it in this psalmist as he goes through life, married to God's Word, and the implications of that upon his life and upon his world.

2:13The word of God, we see this often in the biblical analogy repeated throughout. And certainly Jesus picked this up: this idea that the word of God is like a seed. The word of God is like truth, and the soil that it's planted in is like the heart of man. There's the parable of the soils, the parable of the growing seed, and others, but all of them are about what happens when truth meets the heart. And like a seed in the soil, there's a relationship, there is an interaction, an engagement, a relationship. As the seed sprouts and Interacts with the soil. There's something very profound. We can get our minds around that in the physical realm, but it's also true in the spiritual realm. The Word of God, as truth, as it lands upon the soil of the heart, there's an interaction, a dance, a symphony, and at times a struggle, a wrestling match. But it's a dynamic interaction that takes place when truth meets the heart of man.

3:33One thing is for sure: that when the Word of God meets a receptive heart, a new person emerges. It brings about a dramatic change within man. 1 Peter 1:23 says that we are born again because of the word of truth. And Psalm 119 takes us into that inner sanctuary of the human heart, and it gives us that up-close and inside look at what happens when the word of God meets a responsive heart. It lets us see that intimate relationship, that living and dynamic relationship between God's Word and the heart of man. And over the course of this study, I want us to look at what the word is and what the word does and what happens. When it takes root in the heart of man, that's what Psalm 119 lays out for us. Shows us the struggles, the inward workings, the relationship, the dynamic.

4:43And today I want to walk through this first stanza, the aleph stanza. And I want you to see three milestones, three milestones of the blessed journey. Three milestones of the blessed journey through life. Let me read to you the first eight verses. This is equivalent to the letter A. Every verse begins with the letter A, at least in the Hebrew. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart. They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all your commandments. I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I shall keep your statutes. Do not forsake me utterly. You know, it's in vogue these days to be on a journey. Just be careful that you're. Journey doesn't lead to truth because then you're out of vogue.

6:06It's hip to be on a journey, to be searching for truth. But there are many today who are here, perhaps, that are on a journey, but it's not the blessed journey. There is a blessed journey through life, and there is a cursed journey through life, a lost journey through life. And sadly, many who are on a journey are often on the wrong journey. Well, this first eight verses of Psalm 119 give us a look into that blessed journey. I want to ask you today: are you on that blessed journey? Because the psalmist here spells it out for us. And I want us to step through this psalm in three steps. I want you to see three milestones. If you are on this blessed journey through life, these are almost like milestones or markers that you will cross, that you will come encounter with, almost as signposts. As you are on this blessed journey, it takes us through these three milestones. And I want you to see that this morning as we walk through. But this psalmist, from the beginning of these eight verses, he starts with a quiet. Reflection upon God's word, and then it develops and grows into a sincere prayer of help, and then it culminates in a holy resolution to keep his word. It's a beautiful development. So, I want you to see three milestones this morning. Three milestones of the blessed journey. The first, I'll call it the blessed way. The blessed way. Look back at the first verse. How blessed, how blessed. And the word is that state of being that means a highly favored one. How highly favored, how joyful, how happy, literally happy. This word blessing speaks of a highly favored status from God, and as a result, it turns and responds into a transcendent joy, a happiness, an internal happiness, a rewarding life, a satisfying life, true happiness. How blessed, how blessed is the idea. Literally, look back. The word is, how blessed are those whose way is blameless. It's speaking about people, the blessed people of the earth. And they are described literally as the blameless of way. How blessed, the blameless of way.

8:59Word for Blameless means free of blemish. As in the sacrificial system, you had to bring unblemished animals. How blessed are those whose way is unblemished before the eyes of an all-seeing God? How blessed. The first thing you're going to have to do is start understanding in your spiritual journey. If you're on the blessed way, the first thing you're going to do is need to come to an understanding of the blessed way, who God blesses. And it's spelled out here. Notice, it's important to notice what it does not say. It does not say, Blessed are those who have never sinned. And we'll come back to that a little bit later. But the blessed way is the blameless of way.

9:51And then the psalmist goes on to describe five characteristics of these who walk in the way of the blameless. First of all, the first three characteristics describe the blessed by their current lifestyle. Look back. And they're not difficult to spot in life, but they are described by their current lifestyle. First of all, they walk in the law of the Lord. Notice verse 1. How blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk in the law of the Lord. Literally, they are currently walking. They are currently walking in the law of the Lord. And Psalm 119 is very rich in its synonyms for the Word of God. In fact, I've heard people talk about, just make relations to over 20 references to the Word of God. Synonyms are used to describe the Word of God. As I've gone through this, I'm going to look at eight, and I'm going to highlight eight as we walk through. But it's a beautiful, this psalm beautifully lays out the different descriptions of what the Word of God is. And there's about, there's eight. I'll settle on eight. Six of them are in this first stanza that we'll be working through this morning. But the first one is the law of God. The law of God. It's the first word for the word that we come to. The word is Torah. And it occurs 25 times in this psalm, and it's usually described as, or translated as, direction or instruction or law. And what it does is it communicates the idea of pointing something out, like directing somebody who needs directions. That's the idea in its general sense. It's instructing a person who needs guidance. Law.

11:47You can think of that like a traffic police. I'm sure many of you who went to the game yesterday, probably after you came out and got in your car and tried to go anywhere, you came to intersections and there were traffic police. Traffic police, right? Telling you where to go, how to get through. Well, in a sense, that's what God's law is. It points out, it gives instructions in the way you should go. It sets forth that course of guidance, if you will, that course of guidance from above. It's God's will to man, it's God's underlying principles of life. And the psalmist here, he's not using it in that restrictive sense, like to reference specifically only the first five books of the Bible, but he's using it in a general sense to reference the whole of Scripture, which is guidance from above for man.

12:43Certainly, you remember the psalmist here does not see the law as a burden at all. Remember in Acts 15, when there were some men who came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And this resulted in this first church council, Jerusalem council. And you remember, Peter stood up and said, Now, therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear? See, the psalmist here does not see the law of God at all as a burden or a yoke of slavery, but a gift, a gift of providing that overall. Direction for life. Man needs direction.

13:34We need to hear from God. And the blessed of the earth are the ones who have received God's directions for life and are currently living in a manner consistent with it. It's what the psalmist is saying. They walk. They walk in the law of the Lord. There's a second thing characteristic of these blessed of the earth. They observe his testimonies. Look back at verse 2. It says it again. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart?

14:14They are the ones who are observing his testimonies, keeping his testimonies. Another word. And then we come to the word testimonies, which is the second word for the word in this psalm. And it occurs 23 times, and it is often translated as testimonies. And that's it. I mean, it communicates the idea of bearing witness to the truth of something. Think of a court of law, a courtroom hearing, where someone takes the stand and testifies to the truth. And when you take such a stand in a courtroom setting, and I don't know how many of you have had to give a witness under oath, under deposition, or Or in a deposition or before a court, you know, it's a heightened importance, right? When you take that stand and you make these words, it's a very, very heightened form of communication, right? Truthful, accurate, careful. Well, we can think of the Word of God as His sworn testimony. The Word of God is His highest form of revelation to man. It warns, it exhorts, and it sets forth God's standards for man. And it implies God's authority, and it implies the accountability of man.

15:43The blessed are of the earth, are the ones currently observing or keeping God's testimonies. God has witnessed to the truth of who He is and who you are and the relationship you need to have with Him and what will take place if you disregard His words. He says, Let it be written, let this be a permanent record as a witness. You remember in Deuteronomy 31, 26, God says, These words, take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you.

16:27It's the idea, His testimonies are His. Witness, his truthful witness. It's a third characteristic of the blessed of the earth. They seek God with all of their heart. Look back at verse 2. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all of their heart. Again, that present continual action, they are currently seeking. And notice something interesting about this third characteristic. The ones who are walking and observing are the ones who are truly seeking God. The ones who are walking, you see that? Who are walking in the law of the Lord? The ones who are observing his testimonies are the ones who truly seek God. Many people are on this journey of finding God, right? I can tell you who the true seekers are. The ones who are observing his testimonies and walking according to his law. You see, God's word is like a mirror. It's like a mirror. We can hold it up. And if you position it right, just like any mirror, you know, I can sit up here, I can be looking at my wife and she not even know it if I'm looking through a mirror, right? But we can think of the Word of God as a mirror where we see the God of the Word and we come in contact with Him. And it is a mirror. His law and his testimony. Are a reflection of who he is.

18:04And so those who observe, those who have his law, those who observe his testimonies are the ones who truly seek him. Those who don't are just blowing smoke. They're not truly seeking. Well, the first three characteristics describe the blessed by their current lifestyle. The last two characteristics, and I said there's five of them, describe the blessed by their settled disposition towards life. Look back at verse 3. They do no unrighteousness. Wow, now there's a statement. They do no injustice. They do no malice. This is the characteristic of those who are blessed, those who are blameless before God.

18:56There's a fifth characteristic. They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. His ways are their ways. They are characteristically walking in his ways. It settles who they are. Notice that verse 3 ends. They walk in his ways. It ends with a tie back to verse 1. Blessed are those who walk in the law of the Lord. So the blessed of the earth are those who walk. In his ways, these five characteristics. So, we've looked at who the blessed are. Now, I want to tell you why they are blessed, why the blameless are blessed. Look back at verse 4. The psalmist tells us why this is the blessed way. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently. And the word for ordained is literally commanded. You have commanded your precepts that we would keep them diligently. That's why this is the blessed of way. This is the blessed way in life.

20:12That brings us to the third word for the word, the precepts. Precepts. This word shows up 24 times in the entire Bible. 21 times it shows up in this Psalm. So if you go to precepts, you might want to pay attention because it's built upon this term right here, this idea that's found largely and primarily in Psalm 119. The precepts, the word refers to something that has been fixed or designated, but it deals with specifics, kind of the minutiae detail of a. We can think of them as very particular instructions or very particular orders or assignments.

20:58You can think of it, okay, y'all. College back to school, right? One of the first days of class, what do you get from your professor? A syllabus, right? And it has some very detailed instructions about what you are to do, what you are to turn in when, what assignments are due, how they are to be submitted, and when your tests are, when your quizzes are, and how they're going to be, and the material that's going to be covered. You get that, right? Well, to a large degree, that's what precepts means. It's the specifics. It's not just the general course statement, it's the specifics of how to get through that course. We can think of it as an employer, and you have an employee agreement with an employer, but then when you get there, they give you this employee manual with all these specifics, right? Of how when you can take your vacation, when you can do it, and how you can do it, all that kind of stuff. We can think of precepts in the same way. God's words are His declarations to man, very specifically of what He expects man to be and what He expects man to do. And He gives them so that man can know how to skillfully live life. That's why He gives them. That's why He gives them.

22:23What's interesting is they are commanded. His precepts are commanded. They are ordained. Senses commanded. What's interesting is, and pay attention to this, the blessed state is the commanded state. God's precepts are given to be kept. That's why he gave them. And he commands them to be diligently kept. The commanded state, the blessed state, is the commanded state. He commands compliance. And notice at the beginning of verse 4, it's you. Notice the emphasis. You have ordained your precepts. You have ordained them. God has commanded man to be in a state, and get this, where he can bless him.

23:14God has commanded man to be in a state that he can bless him. God does not have a sort of blessed state in mind for humanity. The Bible reveals that there is a cursed state and there is a blessed state, and God doesn't have anything in the middle. We may be mediocre in many things, but God is not. And his designs for mankind is not a pseudo-blessed state, but a profoundly significant, deep, blessed state. That's the God of the Bible.

23:55And the good news is that God has committed himself to bringing about this. Blessed state in all of those who will follow his instructions. By now, you're probably getting a little heavy, right? Here's the psalmist: This is the blessed way in life, and of course, it's blessed. God has set it up. And if God can find no fault in your life, then of course it's blessed. If you are blameless of way, of course, it is the blessed way. If your maker is at odds with you, guess what? You're under his frown.

24:31Well, does this describe you? Are you characterized by walking in the law of the Lord as one who constantly observes his testimony? Are you one who seeks God Himself in truth? Do you do no unrighteousness? Do you walk in all His ways? How many of you would answer yes? I don't want to see any hands because you're probably a liar. You see what the Word of God raises the true standard. And when we look upon it, we cannot help but sense our own inadequacies. Because this doesn't describe us, right? This isn't me.

25:15When I truthfully look into this and I see God's righteous and holy standards in His law and I see the blessed way, I can say there I'm not in it because I know my heart and I know there's vacillation. Well, the psalmist was aware of his shortcomings, and that's why he cries out to God in the next verse. So, we have looked at the blessed way of the earth. Next, I want you to see the blessed prayer. Look at verse 5. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your ways. See that? Oh, that my ways, see, that first milestone in the blessed journey is understanding God's righteous requirements.

26:04God's the life that God can bless, it's understanding that. But then there is this sense, this desperation of cry, the cry of the humble. My life isn't there. And Jesus, the beginning words of the Sermon on the Mount, what does he say? Blessed are the humble, those who recognize this. And God's word takes us to His standards, and it does something in our hearts to see our non-conformity, and it cries out, God, I see the blessed way, I want the blessed way, so I cry out to you, oh God, that you would establish my ways in your ways.

26:50You see, the word creates this holy dissatisfaction with anything less than a life of complete conformity to God's ways. That's what the Word of God does. It creates a holy dissatisfaction with anything that's out of line. And it creates this inward yearning for conformity to the statutes of God, which brings us to the fourth word for word, the word statutes. It happens 22 times, and it refers to something that has been prescribed or inscribed. You know, of course, my mind's still in Africa to some, so if I bring a lot of thoughts in from Africa, you'll know I'm still fresh on my mind. But you know what I missed in Texas? What I missed probably the most while I was in Africa? I missed the mosquitoes in Texas.

27:47The mosquitoes in Malawi are wicked. They carry malaria. And I mean, I've never seen any, when you see a, you're on heightened alert for a mosquito all the time. You sleep under these nets. In fact, that my host, he, missionary host, he had malaria himself a couple of times. A couple of his kids had gotten malaria. I mean, you sleep 365 days out of the year under this, under a net. And I learned the trick. You don't, those nets are great, but just make sure you, when you go to bed, make sure there's not any mosquitoes in there with you. Because the next morning, I mean, you get chewed up pretty good. They can't go anywhere. You're right there, and they eat you up, and you get all kinds of bites. So I missed the Texas mosquitoes. You don't freak out when you see a mosquito like you do down there. But I had my malaria pills. And on the my malaria pills, it said, you know, how to take them and the prescribed in order to fight off malaria. And so they were prescribed. And so, as long as I followed those prescriptions, guess what? I did okay. That malaria wasn't going to take me out.

29:02But that's the idea here: prescribed, but really inscribed. Statutes, the root word means to hew or to cut out or to engrave as upon stone, like the Ten Commandments. And it speaks to the unchangeableness. God's words have been inscribed. They are indelible statutes for us to obey. Written, inscribed. So it's what the psalmist is saying. If you look back, oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. The psalmist is saying, I see the blessed way. I see that it is conformity to your statutes. And then he cries out, May this be me.

29:49May this be me. I see my non-conformity. So please establish my ways in your ways. See what the psalmist is doing? And this is the blessed prayer. This is the prayer that God is going to bless. This is the prayer that God never says no to. That cry of the humble, in light of what your word says, God, navigate my life to wholehearted obedience. That's the cry of the humble. That is the blessed prayer. Is that your cry?

30:36Are you on the blessed journey? Well, step one of the blessed journey is to understand the blessed way. Step two is to utter that blessed prayer. And to step three is to make that blessed resolution. To make that blessed resolution. See, the psalmist knows, if you look back, he knows that God is going to intervene in his life. Look at verse 6. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statute. He knows that God is going to answer in the affirmative. Then, then, I shall not be ashamed. Then I shall give thanks. Then I shall keep. Do you see a progression here? Do you see a progression here? Then, then, as a result of God's intervention, three things come about. And there is a progression in them. First of all, let's look at, let's take them one at a time. First of all, the result of God's intervention is holy study. Holy study. Look at verse 6. Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all your commandments.

31:57I shall not be ashamed. I can study your word in holiness, in truth, and sincerity, and I don't have to go and hide or suppress the truth or gloss over. And that brings us to the fifth word for word in our passage this morning, the word for commandments. And this word occurs 21 times in this psalm, and it refers to that which has been appointed, or that which has been set, or that, I can put it like this, an insistent will. An insistent will. God's commands are his insistent will upon man. This is what God insists. When I was in Africa, teaching these men at this seminary, we would break for lunch, and I would usually linger back, and there would be this big, long line to lunch. And so on one occasion, I went over there with one of the professors, and we were standing at the back of the line. And this guy who was, they liked to elect a president, and they elected him the president in the class. He was a bishop over several churches or many churches. And he comes up to me and he says, in our country here, we like to honor our professors by moving them to the front of the line. I said, oh, that's nice. You know, I appreciate that. I'm honored just by you saying that. But, you know, there's no need. I'm really happy being here at the back. And these men let them go through and get their food first. And we're completely happy being at the back of the line. I carried on for a moment. And then when I got done, he said, So you will now go with me to the front of the line.

33:44I'm like, oh, okay. I guess I'm going to the front of the line. And then, same guy, a little bit later, after I'd finished my classes on Wednesday, I was done for the mall, for the couple of weeks. I was done, and I wasn't going to come back Thursday. And he said, I tell you, in my country, you don't just get on an airplane and leave. We have to say goodbye in the right manner. So you will come back here tomorrow, right? I said, well, he said, you will come here. You don't just leave without us giving us the opportunity to say goodbye properly. Well, if you insist. So I showed up, okay? But the point of this, this is, if we think about God's commandments, they are His insistence. Will upon man.

34:34He speaks. But notice that there's a problem sometimes when we read them. We can fall into shame, as the psalmist who says, as I continue to read, as I grow in knowledge of your word, and if you do this work in me and you cry out, and you establish my ways in your ways, then I shall not be ashamed when I come across the truth that points out my personal failure. You see, personal failure comes about, or feelings of guilt and shame come about because of personal failure. I think we understand that. Have you ever let someone down and then had to face them again? It's a sense of shame, right? Not wanting to, I didn't measure up to your expectations, I failed you.

35:22And this is a picture, a beautiful picture of a heart that is soft before God. And this will happen to you on the journey, on the blessed journey, if you're truly on it. At some point, the work of the Spirit of God, it does this in us, and it continues to do it. It grows us in this. The psalmist, you know what he dreaded? He dreaded the most in life, this internal pain of being exposed to his scriptural nonconformity.

35:56Before the holy God, what pained him is. Being exposed to his own shortcomings before a holy God. And notice the privateness of his pain. This is not, I'm really upset because I don't look like I follow you. He's upset because the word of God exposes something. And he does not want to live under shame. So do you feel guilty when you come before or come into contact with God's Word? You see, the problem with us is that we are not steadfast, that we vacillate. And so our feelings of guilty, our feelings of guilt are connected to our vacillation of adherence to God's commands.

36:48So not only is the word a mirror that we see God, but we also see ourselves. And it looks like a mirror. But as we look, as we grow into the words, there's this progression. No longer, if God will establish my ways and navigate my ways to become, or his ways to become my ways, then there's this progression. I shall no longer be ashamed. I shall engage in holy study. But there's a second thing there. Look back. And that is holy worship. Holy worship. God. Intervention brings about holy study, but it also brings about holy worship. Look at verse 7. I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart when I learn, or as I continue to learn, of your righteous judgments. I shall give thanks. Literally, I shall show appreciation. I shall praise. I shall worship you with honesty of heart, uprightness of heart.

37:56Not with a mask on. I shall give thanks. How many of us may be guilty here, even this morning, of giving thanks or even singing songs with a mask on? But those who have been established in his ways and continue to grow and learn in his righteous judgments, they are not righteous judgments that make you feel ashamed, but they are cause for celebration and thanks. You begin to see the wisdom and the beauty and the perfection of God and the God of the Word.

38:30And it gives you an occasion to be thankful. So instead of feeling ashamed, the psalmist can worship God for the rightness of his ways. Sometimes we get ashamed of God's ways, right? We're afraid to talk about him in some places. Third thing, it's a progression. It goes to the third thing. Not only shall God's intervention result in holy study and holy worship, but also in a holy word. Holy resolution, I shall keep. Look at that. Verse 8. I shall keep your statutes. I shall keep your statutes.

39:13Literally, the emphasis is upon the statutes. Your statutes I shall keep. This is the resolution of the blessed. The blessed resolution. And this ties it all back. If you look back at verse 1, how blessed are those whose way is blameless? And who are they? Verse 2, they are the ones who observe or keep his testimonies. These are the ones who are blameless of way. And then here's the prayer. Oh, that or you have ordained these. This is the reason they are blessed. It's because they are.

39:49Verse 4, that we should keep them. Verse 5, oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. You see this? He sees that the blessed way is those who keep his statutes, because God has commanded those statutes. And then here's the cry, oh, establish my ways that I may keep your statutes. And then here at verse 8, I shall keep your statutes. You see the work of God? A holy resolution. And this is what God does. When God intervenes, there shall be a Holy study, a holy worship, and a holy resolution. But I want to add a fourth based upon that last phrase in verse 8. Look at this. Do not forsake me utterly. Interesting how the psalmist now has gone back to this. I shall keep.

40:51Do not forsake me. Keep me, so that I may keep your ways. You see his cry of dependence? Yeah, there's a holy study, holy worship, and a holy resolution, but there's also a holy dependence when God truly does a work in your heart. Literally, the phrase is, do not let go of me. I am holding on. I am keeping your statutes. Therefore, keep me. There's no telling what's going on in this psalmist's life. Or we can say something very painful, very dramatic was going on in his life, and he had to choose between, and am I going to hold on to God's ways, or am I going to let them go and trust in another way, man's ways?

41:43We can think of Daniel and how he would have felt being in captivity when all the world was torn away and he was carried off. And the only thing he had left was God's word, and that he held to. I will keep your ways, God. Please keep me. Do not forsake me utterly. If you abandon me, I am left utterly without power. I have taken my stand. I shall keep. Lord, have mercy. Be with me and keep me keeping.

42:18See that cry of dependence? So these are the three milestones of the blessed journey. It's coming to an understanding of the blessed way. This is the way it is. And then uttering that blessed prayer, and then making that blessed resolution in utter dependence upon God. You see that interaction of the Word of God and the soul of man working. I want to take you back and some of our closing thoughts here as I close out and go back to this thought. How blessed are those whose way is blameless. Deuteronomy 18, 13 says, You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. You shall be free from blemish to an all-knowing, all-seeing God. There is to be no room for accusation against you from his perspective.

43:19And as I said earlier, notice that it does not say, how blessed are those who have never sinned. God's law, his testimonies, his precepts, his statutes, his commandments, And his judgment all point to the way to be free of blame. But it's not in us, it's not in our sinless perfection, but it's in Christ. I can be blameless because of the offering I bring before him. That's what all of Scripture, even the Torah, made provisions early on for man's failure. There are instructions you need to follow to deal with your failure.

44:05God has provided that perfect sacrifice. I am blameless before Him because of the offering I bring before Him, Jesus Christ and Him alone for salvation. He alone is the guilt offering. And this offering is a gift. And the Word of God instructs you to run and take that gift, to receive that gift. Ask God to forgive you through that precious sacrifice of His Son. Make His offering your offering. This is the Lamb that God provided so that you can be blameless. And how blessed are those who are blameless of way.

45:00Well, this is the blessed journey. And even after we're saved and we come in initial salvation, we need this offering of Christ for our growth and our sanctification. And it will be the basis for our ultimate glorification when we are brought forth and clothed in a new humanity, in resurrection glory. It'll still be the basis, that same basis of Christ and His offering that has become ours by faith. So, this is the blessed journey. Are you on it? You can be.

45:45Heavenly Father, we see, even though in a mirror, maybe even dimly, Father, we see, we understand the blessings of your ways, the blessed. We understand that we need your ways to be our ways. And Father, we cry to you to bring this about in an individual level and in a corporate level. Father, and we, as the revelation that you've given us, have purposed to be obedient to it. And Father, yet we are utterly dependent upon you to see that we. Stay in your way. So, Father, we just ask for your grace and your mercy, for your provision to be present here this morning. May we interact with these words of truth, Father, in a way that pleases you in Christ's name.