The Word of God in The Heart of Man: Comfort and Delight in God's Sovereignty - Psalm 119:73-80 (Psalms 119:73-80)

1:30Well, two pillars of truth of the Christian faith, something that has stayed with me and has probably most impacted me more than any other two truths about God is: number one, that God is good. The Bible reveals Him to be good. In fact, the psalmist said in our last stanza that you do good and you always do good, you are by nature good, and so that everything you do all the time, completely, is always good. And that is an important foundation on which to build your life. God is good. The second goes with it, and that God is sovereign, that God is sovereign, that He is all-powerful, that He is omniscient, He knows the beginning from the end, and He knows all the little details in between. He knows everything, He knows everything that there is to know.

2:33He is sovereign, He is good, and He is sovereign. And these two pillars are the foundation on which you can build a life of stability and comfort and delight. One without the other does not comfort. If He's sovereign but not good, that's not very comforting. If He has all Power and all control, and he's not good. That's not comforting. But if he is good, but not sovereign, that's not all that comforting either. Because then he is not the one in control of bringing about the good he desires.

3:18There may be some other force out there that would hinder his good effect from taking place. No, he is sovereign, and he is good. And last time, in the last stanza, the teth stanza, the psalmist learned to rejoice in God's goodness. Those eight verses were all about God's goodness, even in affliction. If you look back at verse 67, before I was afflicted, that is, before I was brought low, humiliated, and humbled. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. Psalmist saw the goodness, even in affliction. And then in verse 71, it is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. He learned God's goodness, even in very difficult and afflicting times. And in our stanza today, he learns to delight and take comfort in God's sovereignty. So the last eight, it was about God's goodness.

4:31And in these eight verses that we'll look at today, it's about God's sovereignty and how this psalmist came to find comfort and even delight in God's sovereignty. So, this morning, the title of the message is Comfort and Delight in God's Sovereignty. And I want you to know how to comfort and delight yourself in God's sovereignty so that you will live life to its fullest. This is a how-to sermon. Three very basic how-tos. I want you to know how to comfort yourself in God's sovereignty. Second, I want you to know how to pray in light of God's sovereignty. And third, I want you to know how to delight in God's sovereignty. I want you to move from just taking comfort in God's sovereignty to delighting in God's sovereignty.

5:26Well, first of all, I want to talk to you about how to comfort yourself in God's sovereignty. And there is comfort in knowing that God is sovereign over three things. Sovereign over three things. First, He's sovereign over your being. He's sovereign over your being. Look at verse 73. He knows you intimately, He is sovereign over your being. 73, Your hands made me and fashioned me. The psalmist knew that God knew him intimately. The word for made me caused me. Me to be.

6:02He thought through and then he worked hard. That's the idea. Through thought and labor, he made me. He made you. And there's comfort in knowing that God made you. But not only that, he fashioned you. Look at back. He fashioned me. Your hands made me and fashioned me. That is, you caused me to be formed. You established me. You established my personality. You established my constitution. You know me, every detail, because you made me, you fashioned me. Psalm 24, 1 says, the earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world and all those who dwell in it, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. That's the idea. He established the world and all that's in it, and he established you.

7:01And in Proverbs 3, 19 says, the Lord did this by wisdom and by understanding. He is very wise. He knew what he was doing when he made you. He made you and he fashioned you. There's a certain comfort in knowing this. He knows you better than you know yourself. And when you put this together, he made and fashioned you, implies much thought and careful consideration. He knows you. Every detail about you better than you know yourself. And Jesus made it very clear in Matthew 6 that you are worth a lot more than birds and any other aspect of his creation. He has full knowledge of you and he has complete power and influence over your being. He knows what makes you tick. He knows how you will react in certain circumstances. He knows you. And there is comfort. He knows you intimately. Therefore, he knows how to teach you his ways. Look back at verse 73. Your hands made and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. See, the psalmist knew that God had made him, and because God had made him, he knew him intimately. So if God knew him so intimately, he also knew how to teach him.

8:24He knew that God knew how to teach him, how to bring about the things that he needed to learn. You see, God knows how we'll react in every circumstances. He knows how to teach us. That's what the psalmist is saying here. Give me understanding. That's the imperative plea. Cause me to understand. Put as much thought into me learning as you put into making and fashioning me. That's his prayer. God knows you intimately. He's put thought into your being, but you're not just about breathing air and how. Having a beating heart. There's much more to the picture. God is completing something.

9:07And what the psalmist is saying, so that I may learn. You know how to shape me. You know me. You know what makes me tick. You know how to make me learn, how to learn your commandments, how to learn your authoritative directions for my life. You know how to make me learn how to be skillful in living out your commandments. You see, God made you. We all have that in common. He fashioned you. He fashioned us. We all have that in common. And he knows how to give you understanding into who He is.

9:47So trust, obey. That's what the psalmist is saying, that I may learn more, deepen my understanding of your word, and I will trust you even through all of life's situations that I don't fully grasp. So there is comfort in knowing that God is sovereign. He's sovereign over your being. There is also comfort in knowing that God is sovereign over your testimony. Not only is He sovereign over your being, but He's also sovereign over your testimony. Listen, people are watching you.

10:22People are watching you. No matter who you are, you have people in your life who are watching you and how you live and how you respond to the God, you profess and the situations that come in your life. Look at verse 74. May those who fear you see me and be glad. Notice how the psalmist refers to the community of the faithful. He understands that there's a community of faithful who are watching him, and he describes them as those who fear you, those who hold you in high regard, and those who tremble before you. It's interesting to note that his prime interest in verse 74 is the community of the believers and how his situation would impact them. He wants them to see him live through the circumstances that he is going through, and as a result of seeing him go through the trial, going through the affliction, that others would be gladdened, that their hearts would be cheered, that they would rejoice. And that's really his prayer. May my situation be an occasion to gladden the hearts of others. Because I wait. Look back. Because I wait, in verse 74, that is, I hope in, I hope in your word. And may my situation be that visual testimony of what happens when people put their faith and trust in your word and let them see how faithful you are to your people. That's what he's saying.

12:00It's touching to see that his concern is for the community of the believers through his ordeal. He isn't preoccupied with himself, but for the faith of others. Now, have you ever approached your trials from that way, from that vantage point? I mean, this concern is a mark of great maturity. When you stop thinking about yourself in your trials and in your circumstances, and you start thinking about those around you and how your trial can encourage and gladden others as they see you holding the testimony of faith and trusting and hoping in God and watching God interact and come through in your circumstances. That's what he's saying. He wants people to rejoice in his example of how God rewards those who trust in his word. I encourage you to approach your trials as an avenue of unique blessing for others. It's kind of like a photo album. You know, you guys know what a photo album is?

13:15Let me tell you guys, everybody 25 and under, there's a way we used to keep up with pictures. We used to put them in little books, albums, and we would put them in there and we would look at them. You can open them up. They weren't all on a small little device, but a photo album. You can get a picture of what God is doing. He is creating this photo album of faith. And your trial, your affliction is a picture, a living, breathing, visual testimony of what God does with those who trust in his word. It's comforting to know that God is sovereign over our testimonies.

14:06He's also sovereign of how people perceive our testimonies. So, what should we do? Well, we should do as the psalmist does and hope in God's word. Continue to wait, continue to hope, even if you don't understand, and know that God is sovereign in the midst of that, and he's going to bring forth righteousness and encouraging others. So, there is comfort in knowing that God is sovereign over your being. It's comfort in knowing that God is sovereign over your testimony, but also that God is sovereign over your humbling circumstances. God is also sovereign over your humbling circumstances. Look back at verse 75, and this is the psalmist's shocking statement. In fact, it is one of the most shocking statements he makes in the whole psalm. Look at verse 75. Look at it carefully. I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. You, Yahweh, the faithful God, the covenant-keeping God, your name is synonymous with loyal love and covenant faithfulness. You, Yahweh, you have afflicted me.

15:29You're the one who made me feel my need. You're the one who authored my humbling circumstances. That's the realization he has come to. You're the one behind all this. You're the one that has afflicted. And the word for afflicted means humbled. You're the one who has brought me low. You have reduced my rank. That's the idea. You have made me feel my need for you. You're the one behind all this. You're the author. But if you remember, what's shocking about this is as we've been going through this, there has been the enemy that has been revealed. That's his persecutors. We've been seeing this throughout and this development, and it's going to reach a high point just in time for Thanksgiving. That's next week and cough. And it's going to get to a high point. But it started out with princes and the arrogant in verse 23 sitting and talking. Against me. So they're conspiring against him. These are the enemies that come onto the scene. And they're the ones in verse 51 that are utterly deriding him. They will reproach him to his face. And in verse 69, they are the ones who have forged a lie against him. So this psalmist is dealing with the affliction that is being caused by these persecutors.

16:54But now, as we come into this section, we get a better picture of what's going on. The arrogant and these enemies are merely the instrument of the psalmist's affliction, but not the author of his affliction. Not only did God allow the psalmist's enemies to afflict him, God purposed it. God designed it. And as I said last week, this is a truth that gets hard for some people. Remember, Jesus had some disciples that came with him for a while and then they turned and went another way. But this is what this psalmist is revealing for us: that essential truth that will lay the most solid foundation of faith and stability in your life. And that is that God is good and that God is sovereign, and he is even sovereign over your humbling circumstances, and he has a good and sufficient purpose for bringing them about.

18:00That's what the psalmist came to learn. And it's a bit shocking. The Lord is his afflictor. The one he is crying out to, he's the one afflicting him. The one he loves is the one afflicting him. The one whose word he desperately wants to obey. You remember, looking back at verse 5, the whole, at the head of this psalm, he makes this prayer, oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. That's what he wants. And then he begins to realize.

18:38He begins to realize that in verse 67, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. He's got his mind around the fact that there's some good that comes out of his affliction. That it was his affliction, knowing his need for God that taught him how to keep God's ways. Verse 71, it was good for me that I was afflicted. So he's learned the positive benefits of God's affliction. The question is, how is this? Is God the author of sin? No.

19:20Is God responsible for the choices of the arrogant? No. They, out of their own volition, they know. Enough about God that they should give thanks to God and glorify Him as God, but they don't. They suppress the truth, and the arrogance is found in them. Yet it is clear that God does raise up the wicked to accomplish His good purposes for His people. God is sovereign even over your humbling circumstances. See, the arrogant are not going to get the credit for the good that comes out of it. No, God's going to get the credit for the good that came out of it. They're going to get credit for their ruthless hatred. They will be judged. They will be responsible for their own ruthless hatred. But above all that, God is using this to bring about a good purpose in His people.

20:31We all face humbling situations in life. This happened to be a case of enemies coming against Him, reducing this psalmist. But the issue really isn't so much what your humbling circumstances are, because there's many ways to be humbled, isn't there? And we all, if you walk with God at any time, you will be humbled, for sure. In fact, that's the entrance. You have to be humbled before you even come in. You must acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you have offended a holy God and that there is no righteousness on your own, and that you would look up for his mercy and his grace. That's where the whole walk begins. It doesn't end there, it begins there. And it grows as we lay down more and more, understanding more and more our need for him.

21:27But still, humbling situations can be very difficult. But it is comforting to know that God is the author of them. But there are two things that you need to know. Look back at verse 75. Two things that you need to know as you go through your periods of affliction or your humbling circumstances. Number one, you need to know that God's judgments are righteous. Look back. I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous. I understand. I get it. I understand. Your ways are right. They are straight. They are correct. They are on target with justice and on target with faith, with fairness. Your judgments are righteous. The ways that you govern my life are righteous. I know that. And it's not just a, he's not just tipping the hat and saying, oh, God, yeah, no, I know this is a thing to say. You're righteous. No, he's saying, I know you are righteous. And I know the rightness of your ways. And I know that you have a good purpose in mind. You must know that God is not unfair.

22:39He cannot deal with you except for in love. He is perfectly good all the time in every situation. He'll never deal with you unjustly or unfairly because God is perfect. He is righteous. Second truth you need to know is that God always deals with you in faithfulness. Look back at verse 75. Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. I love the word faithfulness. It's the picture of steadiness. You remember in Exodus chapter 17 when Israel got into a battle with the Amalekites? And as long as Moses had his hands up, the battle went well for Israel. But as they began to drop, then Israel would start losing the battle. So, in verse 12, because Moses' hands were heavy, then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and her supported his hands, one on one side and the other on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set. That's a word picture for faithfulness. God's loving devotion and loyalty. Love for you is steady. It never changes.

24:06And that's what the psalmist is saying. Your ways are faithful. You are perpetually faithful to your people. You remember in Genesis, the whole episode with Joseph and his brothers, they put them in a hole and then sold him into Egypt. Yet, in Genesis 45:8, Joseph makes this remarkable statement. It was not you who sent me to Egypt, but God. And then again, in chapter 50 and verse 20, he says to them, What you meant for evil, God meant for good. This is the picture of God that the psalmist has come to understand. And it's the picture of God that you need to understand if you're going to have any remote hope of having a stability of faith in your life. He is sovereign and he is good, and his loving kindness is faithful to you. His faithfulness, he is faithful. In many ways, I think these two verses reveal the hope of Israel as a nation and as a hope for all believers that God will accomplish his purposes, his good purposes.

25:34Through affliction. So there is comfort in knowing that God not only allows your humbling circumstances, but he is sovereign over them. And there's comfort in that. I want to move on. So we talked about how to comfort yourself in the light of God's sovereignty. Now I want to talk to you about how to pray in light of God's sovereignty. Look back at verse 76. First of all, you need to ask for God's loving kindness to be made known to you. Look at verse 76. Oh, may your loving kindness comfort me according to your word to your servant. Oh, may, may it surely come to pass. May this become a reality. May your loving kindness, that is your steadfast love, your covenant loyalty, your loyal love to me, may it comfort me. May it comfort me. May it alleviate my distress. May knowledge of your loving kindness console me according to your word, your promise, your promise to your subordinate dependent, your slave. I am desperately dependent upon you, and I need to know your loving touch.

27:00Second thing, in light, God is sovereign. He is ruler and controller. He's good of all things. So pray, God, show me your loving kindness. Let it be made known. Let me get it. Second thing to pray for in light of God's sovereignty is ask for God's compassion to be made known to you. Look at verse 77. May your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight. Word for compassion is different than loving kindness here. It's translated like tender mercies, your tender affection.

27:37And it speaks of a deep awareness of your sympathy. Lord, let me know that you are concerned, that you are deeply moved by my suffering. The picture is a very deep feeling. You remember in 1 Kings chapter 3, you remember the two women who were arguing over whose child this child was? And Solomon says, okay, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll cut the baby in half. You can take one half, and you can take the other half. The one mother, the pretend mother, said, oh, yeah, cut the baby in half. And what does the other one do? Well, she is deeply stirred, the Bible says, and says, oh, my Lord, give her the living child.

28:23Don't cut him in half. Don't kill him. Solomon wisely said, yes, you're the real mother. But that's the idea, deeply stirred. It's an emotional connection. It's an emotional connection. Loving kindness speaks more, nuances more of that rational element of God's favor, that God is duty-bound, that God is loyal, he is deeply loyal, and he makes cognitive, volitional decisions based upon his loyalty to you. Compassion nuances that emotional element of God's favor. That is, his sympathy. He feels the pain, it moves him.

29:06He's a faithful high priest. Isn't it interesting that even the son had to be perfected through suffering? Not perfected in his being, he was perfectly holy, but perfected in his ability to be a sympathetic high priest. And that's why he had to go through the suffering. So even the perfect Son of God was perfected through suffering. Eric read the passage just a little while ago. I think it's important to understand that at this point, the psalmist probably knows by faith that God's loving kindness and compassion are upon him, but he wants evidences of such to become more real to him. And the evidence is certainly a deeper understanding of the word, and that's what this psalmist is about. This psalm is about God's answers to our prayers, our deeper understanding of who He is.

30:11And that through that knowledge and through that understanding, you're made aware of His loving kindness and compassion, because the God who was, is, and will be doesn't change. But the second way He prays for world tangible evidences is for some relief. Relief. Back in verse 77, may your compassion come to me that I may live, that I may live, that I may truly live. It's the word, not just that I can breathe and have a beating heart. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about, may I enjoy life to its fullest.

30:53For I delight, for your law is my delight. For your law is my delight. You know what the word delight means? My kids have a lot of friends that work at Chick-fil-A, and many of you know who you are, right? And my kids love to go over there. They love to find their friend who works for Chick-fil-A, and they like to go up to them and be waited on by them and then say, thank you. And what are they looking to hear back in response?

31:25My pleasure, right? My pleasure, because that's what they teach them to say. Pleasure saying that, no, no, I am very thankful. The pleasure is all mine that I get to serve you. So, the fact that I have served you is my pleasure. Well, that's what this word delight means, except I would ratchet it up a little bit and say it like this: my extreme pleasure. My extreme pleasure. So, if you work at Chick-fil-A, start that. Try that on. See if you can keep your job. Someone says, Thank you, say, it's my extreme pleasure. Well, that's the idea of delight here. And this is what the psalmist is saying: Your law is my extreme pleasure. Carrying out your instructions is my delight.

32:18It's my privilege. And this is what living is all about. So the psalmist is saying, I love carrying out your instructions. This is what exhilarates me. I want to live and I want to continue living so I can do what I love doing the most, and that is obeying your law. You see, the psalmist has turned a corner from just being comforted by God's sovereign goodness, but to delighting in God's sovereign goodness. What about you? Do you love to carry out God's instructions?

32:53Is this what exhilarates you? This is what true living is about. I want to live so that I can continue doing what I love to do, and that is obeying your instructions. That is what life is about. And that's what the psalmist came to understand. His instructions are wise. They are brilliant. They are beautiful. And this is what real living is about. So we've looked at how to comfort yourself in God's sovereignty. We've looked at how to pray in light of God's sovereignty. Now, third, I want you to see how to delight in God's sovereignty, how to delight in God's sovereignty. And there is delight in knowing three things: that God will humble the proud. First of all, that God will humble the proud. There is delight in knowing that he will humble the proud. Look at verse 78. May the arrogant be ashamed, for they subvert me with a lie, but I shall meditate on your precepts. May the arrogant, those puffed up, those with an inflated view of themselves, those presumptuous ones, may they be ashamed. That is, may they be embarrassed for what they have done to me, for their smear campaign.

34:20May they be humiliated. Word for ashamed. A good picture of this happens in Jeremiah 14:1. They're experiencing a great. Drought and Judah mourns and her gates languish in verse 2. And they sit on the ground in mourning, and the city in Jerusalem has ascended. And the cry of Jerusalem has ascended. And here's their cry: the nobles have sent their servants for water. So they've probably got some dignitaries holding something going on. They send their servants to go get some water. They have come to the cisterns and found no water. They have returned with their vessels empty. They have been put to shame and humiliated. That's the idea. They have gone down to get, I mean, water is very important. And if you're going to have any kind of power, any kind of influence, if you've got it all together, guess what? You're probably going to have water. Well, the drought was so severe that it's like the picture of sending a servant down, coming back, we have no water. How embarrassing. We don't even have the very basics for life. Well, that's the idea. The arrogant, may they come up empty. They have wronged. The word for subvert is to distort, to bend, to twist.

35:47But he's saying, I meditate. That is, I will continue to meditate and speak enthusiastically. It's the idea of meditation about your precepts. See, you are free to continue. To meditate and to speak enthusiastically about God's precepts, His specifics for life. He is going to bring the proud down. He's going to have them come up empty. There's coming a day when it's all going to be made known. But there's something else in this that I think is very important. Not only are you free to meditate and obey God's precepts, you are free to love your enemies. You are free to love your enemies. Listen, when all is said and done, they're going to be like people going, servants going down into an empty cistern and bringing out no water.

36:43Have compassion upon them. Their lifestyle and even their aggression and hostility against you is not going to satisfy them. They're going to come up empty. And this should give you a compassion, because such were some of you. Your enemies are not your enemies, but your mission field. And they need to see you trusting in God, even if they're the authors, or let me say they're the instruments of your affliction. So there's delight in knowing that God will humble the proud, but there's also delight in knowing that God will exonerate his people. Look at verse 79. May those who fear you turn to me, even those who know your testimonies. The idea of return is even return, as Naomi returned in the book of Ruth to the land of Israel. Perhaps something was taking place where this psalmist, that the community of the faithful, had been turned away from the psalmist, maybe because of the lies or because of his situation, or not quite sure. But he's praying, May they return to me, may they turn to me, those who fear you, and those who are knowing your testimonies. It's a good description of the community of the faithful, those who fear God and those who are knowing his testimonies.

38:12You see, we live in a fallen world. We're often misrepresented, we're often distorted. But there's delight in knowing that God will bring all things to light, and he is going to exonerate his people. He will. And you are free to respect God above all and grow in your adherence to his testimony. He'll take care of that. He'll take care of exonerating you at the right time, at the right place. Meanwhile, you live adhering to his testimonies.

38:52So there's delight in knowing that God will humble the proud, exonerate his people, and number three, that he will finish what he began. In you. Look at verse 80. And this is the golden truth of this psalm or of this stanza. May my heart be blameless in your statutes so that I will not be ashamed. So, what he started, remember in verse 73, your hands made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn is a hopeful expectation that God's going to complete it. May my heart be blameless in your statutes so that I will not be ashamed. Finish, God, what you began. You're not complete until you have this mark of blamelessness.

39:44The word for blameless involves being intact, sound, complete, whole, unscathed, unmarked, without blemish. It's the picture of a lamb without blemish. God wanted to make it very clear early on what he expects. He expects perfection. Of course, we don't have it, so he has to give it. And that's what the Bible is about. The psalmist knows that God's creative work is not finished until his heart completely belongs to God in all its soundness. God's work is not done in your life until your heart belongs to him in all soundness.

40:25And that's what he is doing in your life. He is sovereign. He knows you. He knows how to bring it about. It's a promise that God is going to sanctify his people. And he does this by putting us in union with his son, the perfect one. We're in union with his death. We're in union with his burial. We're in union with his resurrection. And through that union with his perfect son, he is going to make you blameless in heart and in character. Judicially, he's dealt with it, but also in practice, he is sanctifying you. So God has not abandoned you in your affliction. He is teaching you so that you will not be ashamed, so that you will not come up empty before your enemies in verse 77 or 78, or before your friends in verse 79, or before God himself, so that I will not be ashamed. That's what God's doing.

41:31As we close today, I just want to tell you a little story about a bad father. Bad father in 1 Samuel 2 and 3, you can read about him. His name was Eli. Verse 2, 29 says that Eli honored his sons above God. And then in verse chapter 3, in verse 13, speaking of Eli, God said these words, I am about to judge his house forever. For the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves, and he did not rebuke him. That's what a bad father is. Watching your son or your daughter set themselves at enmity with God and call a curse upon themselves and do nothing to rebuke them. A good father does not stand by and watch his children progress in evil and bring down God's curse upon them. That's just not what a good father does. But what does a good father do? He disciplines us. Let me read to you a portion of Hebrews and we'll be done. Hebrews chapter 12, let me just read to you verse 5. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. Verse 10. For they disciplined us, speaking of fathers, for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

43:27Once you understand that all the evil And all the difficulties that you face in life are under the sovereign hand of God, who is good, and is using those to perfect you. And there is nothing that's going to shake your faith or separate you from daily walking in the love and full knowledge of His care and grace upon you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the truth that, Father, you are sovereign and that you are good and that you bring good even out of difficult circumstances, even if we don't see it or don't know it. Father, we can look at your word and know by faith that this is indeed what's happening. And, Father, that that gives us a hope, it gives us a comfort, it gives us a stability in facing our trials and our humbling circumstances to the end that you would be glorified, to the end that your people would be strengthened, and to the end that your Son would be exalted. Father, thank you for this. In Jesus' name, amen.