Psalm 19 - The Word of God and the Sun

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. It's gonna be a great day today because we are in God's Word together. Psalm 19 is a wonderful passage of scripture, and we're gonna dive right into it today.

The inscription for this psalm says this, for the choir director, a Davidic psalm or a psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour out speech.

Night after night, they communicate knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words, where their voice is not heard. Their message has gone out to all the earth, in their words, to the ends of the world.

Here, David writes that, God, you are so incredible, and there is nowhere on earth that you can go where the stars aren't. There's nowhere on earth where you can go where there is no sun or where there is no moon.

And so any place a person can go, they will see how incredible these heavenly bodies that you have made, they can see them. And they testify to the fact that you are incredible. Whatever is made, whatever we see had its beginning somewhere.

If you see me, you know that I am not eternal. I have not always existed. I came from somewhere.

This microphone did not exist at one point in time. This particular Bible did not exist at one point in time. And so whatever we see, we know is not eternal.

Everything changes. The rain comes. We've had quite a bit of rain today here in Essex.

Whenever the rain comes, it shapes the ground. It can take things away. There can be earthquakes and the ground itself can be moved and mountains can come up or go down.

There's just total uncertainty with everything in life. None of it is eternal or set. And even the stars, they have their patterns.

Their courses, their constellations, their kind of daily habits. If you look at the sun or the moon and all of it comes and goes. And David says, it's clear someone made this and Lord, your heavens declare your existence to everyone.

He then goes on to describe how the sun itself declares God's glory. He says, in the heavens, he has pitched a tent for the sun. He's put his dwelling place.

It's like a groom coming from the bridal chamber. It rejoices like an athlete running a course. It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to their other end.

Nothing is hidden from its heat. He says, God, even the largest thing that we can see in our world, something that especially during this time, some of the peoples and nations and religious groups around Israel would revere the sun as a God.

The Egyptians did that among other nations and people groups, where they said, man, the sun is God. And David goes, no, no, no, the sun is not God.

The sun is just something that God has set up, that it goes on its rotations and it does the bidding of Yahweh. Then in verse 7, he talks about something that declares God even more and even more clearly than the sun, moon and stars.

You might say, what is a bigger testimony of God than the largest things in the universe? Well, it's this. Verse number 7, the instruction of Yahweh is perfect, renewing one's life.

The testimony of Yahweh is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of Yahweh are right, making the heart glad. The command of Yahweh is radiant, making the eyes light up.

The fear of Yahweh is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of Yahweh are reliable and altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, and sweeter than honey, which comes from the honeycomb.

In addition, your servant is warned by them. There is great reward in keeping them. Who perceives his unintentional sins?

Cleanse me from my hidden faults. Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins. Do not let them rule over me.

Then I will be innocent and cleansed from blatant rebellion. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Yahweh, my Rock, and my Redeemer.

Here, David says, the sun, moon, and stars declare with such a loud voice who God is, and they are incredible. He says, but what's even better? What is perfect?

What's trustworthy? What's right? What is pure?

What's reliable? What's righteous? What's more desirable than gold?

What's sweeter than honey? Where is there great reward? It's in the Word of God.

Man, what a wonderful set of words that are penned here to talk about the greatness of God's Word. Obviously, you have some reliance, some love for God's Word. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here listening in on minute five and a half of Tabernacle Talk.

You know that God's Word is important, but I want us to look here at what God's Word does in our life and the words that David uses to describe it. He says the instruction of Yahweh is perfect. So all of these are synonyms for God's Word.

His commands, yes, but specifically his communicated revelation in Scripture. He says the instruction of Yahweh is perfect, renewing one's life.

For the person that is down and out, for the person that has been strung out on drugs, for the person that has blown up their family, for the person that they have done wrong, they're in prison, God is there for them and he wants to renew their life

so that the person that they once were is no longer who they are anymore. So the instruction of the Lord is perfect, it renews one's life. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.

Many of us are going through situations in life that we've never been in before. Right now, I'm in all of my third month being a lead pastor at Tabernacle and there have been so many times where I've gone, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next.

So I've gone back again and again and again to God's Word and looking at scripture to go, okay God, how do I interact with this? What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to do?

Because I don't have the answers. But thankfully, God's Word can make the inexperienced wise in spiritual matters. It says the precepts of Yahweh are right, making the heart glad.

When we have sorrow, when we are despairing about what is happening in our world, what's happening in our life, what's happening to our loved ones, we can go to God's Word and see that He has all victory, that He has good plans even in times of

difficulty and trouble and hurt, that even our suffering only succeeds in drawing us closer to God. Our hurt and pain releases more grace into our life from our God. Even death itself only succeeds in reuniting us with Jesus Himself.

As we look at Scripture, we can have our hearts gladden.

We can find joy in who God is and what He's done and the promises that He has for us, in the realignment of how we look at the world, no longer from just a materialistic, naturalistic viewpoint, but in a way that sees life from God's perspective.

And in God, there is fullness of joy. There is abundant joy like we read about a couple days ago in Psalm 16. And when we are in God's word, we begin to receive some of that abundant joy from seeing the world in His way.

The command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up for our sadnesses, for our depression, for our just being completely bummed out.

God is there and His Word is there so that we would be able to have opened eyes, that we would have hope once again, that we would have purpose, all things that come from His Word.

He says, the fear of the Lord, the fear of Yahweh is pure, enduring forever. Thankful for that.

That those that revere the Lord, that view Him with a holy trembling and reverence, that our fear doesn't result in us being punished, or it's not because we perhaps will be punished. Instead, our fear is met with love.

It's our, hey God, I'll just be your servant, resulting in God running out and hugging us and kissing our neck, like the story of the prodigal son. It endures forever. And those that fear him will endure forever.

It says the ordinances of Yahweh are reliable and altogether righteous. I'm thankful that God's word is reliable. I don't have to question, was God right when he said that?

Was that correct? I know God says it's more blessed to give than to receive, but I really like receiving and I really don't like giving. Was he really right on that?

I know he's reliable. When he talks about Jesus rising from the dead, when he talks about the miracles that he's performed, when he talks about him coming again, I know that he is reliable, that he can only speak truth.

And so, I'm thankful for that, that it's reliable and all together righteous. If I follow God's word, I will do right by people and I will do right by God.

There is no other book in the world that you could ever read, that you could say, if I follow what this says, I will be doing right by God and by people. But God's word is that. And what a joy to have that.

He says they are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold. God's word is more valuable than the greatest riches you could ever get.

Many of us know right now, there's many situations in which people that are rich, that have a lot of money, it didn't buy them any favor with people. It was sometimes ill-gotten gain. Other times, all of the money didn't make them a good person.

And when we are in God's word, we are changed. We're changed into the image of Christ, if we allow God to form us, if we allow God to take what we're reading and use it to actually affect and change our lives.

All the riches in the world can't buy you heaven. All the riches in the world can't buy you a relationship with Jesus. All the riches in the world can't give your conscience peace.

But God's word can. Here, they are sweeter than honey, which comes from the honeycomb. It's pleasant.

It's pleasant to read God's word. I hope as we have gone through this episode, I think we're well into the 60s, if not into the early 70s by now. Yeah, I think this is either episode 64 or 74.

I hope as we've been going through this time in God's word that you too have recognized, man, it is sweet to be in God's word. God has so much to say about my life, about hope, about resurrection, about the justice that he will bring in the world.

It's sweet. It's pleasant to hear. It's great to focus on.

That's what God's word is for us. Verse number 11, in addition, your servant is warned by them. I'm thankful for God's word being that warning light that it can tell me, hey, you're having this attitude.

There is this character trait that's becoming a part of your life. That's a red flag. Like, there is a problem here.

You should not be a perpetually angry person. You should not be a perpetually anxious and depressed person in the sense of voluntarily choosing it.

There shouldn't be this action in your life, that you are living in open rebellion against God in this area. God's word warns me because there are natural consequences to sin, even over and above.

Maybe if God specifically was like, okay, here's a punishment for that sin, there are natural causes for sin. A natural cause for my anger or my bitterness will be that my relationships are damaged.

And if I know from God's word, hey, you gotta watch out for these things. I am warning you that these character traits will result in bad things happening in your life.

Well, then I can know, okay, if I follow God's word, I'm warned against these dangers. And he says there is great reward in keeping them.

And it's just one of those incredible truths in Scripture that God actually wants to reward us for the good that we do. In and of ourselves, we would think, oh no, like I should just do right because it's right to do.

But God says you don't really have to choose a motivation. I'm going to give you every motivation in order to do what you do. So yes, you fear the Lord.

You fear the fact that he is a consuming fire, that he is a holy and a just God who will judge sin. So I want to do what's right because I don't want to go through that punishment or that judgment.

You might say, okay, well, God has promised great reward. He has promised crowns. He has promised to reign with Christ.

He has promised to judge angels, promised so many things, dwelling places in God's house when he comes back. All of those things are there for us. So I can serve out of fear.

I can serve out of reward. I can serve out of duty because it's the right thing to do. I think of Paul's words in Second Corinthians where he says that the love of Christ constrains.

It compels me to do this. That out of a sense of duty, out of a sense of what's right, I can do things that way. And I can do it out of love too.

That out of love for the Lord, I can choose to do things. And so God doesn't say, hey, pick a motivation of why you want to do it. Some days it might be, you know, end of the line where I'm like, okay, I have no love to want to do this.

I have, you know, I feel no duty or obligation to do this. I don't really care about the reward since it's not physical, tangible right here, right now. But I do, I do fear God and I don't want to maybe make him angry.

Well, God gives us all of the motivations that we would choose to serve him. You don't have to pick. They are all there for us.

Verse number 12, who perceives his unintentional sins, cleanse me from my hidden faults. We sin in ways in which we don't even know. None of us are perfect.

None of us have achieved all of Christ's righteousness yet. So as a result, there are going to be blind spots in our life. I'd encourage you, be open with someone else.

Ask them, hey, what are some of my faults? What are some of my flaws? Your natural bet will be to buck against that and go, oh, no, but I don't want to ask someone that.

But it's healthy for our soul if we know what our sins are. We can be in the Word so we know if something's actually a sin versus if someone's just like, oh, yeah, here's this thing that you do that has nothing to do with God's Word. That's a flaw.

No, no, no. We're looking for those unintentional sins, those ways in which we break God's law and we don't even realize that we're doing so.

And then verse 13, moreover, keep your servant from willful sins, that we don't want to adopt those traits and actions into our life that are against God. And there I love verse 14, one of my favorite verses in scripture.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Yahweh, my rock and my Redeemer. What a great Psalm for today.

And as we head towards, as we head towards Easter, I'd encourage you, read the story of Jesus, read about his last week on earth, read about his crucifixion, read about his resurrection, and let the Word of God be that light, be that ever, ever

flowing fountain of goodness into your life. May it bring all of those things that God said that it will bring into your life. May it do so.

And if I can pray for you in any way, if you've got a prayer request, something that you need, please let me know. Drop a comment, email pastor at tbcsx.com. I would love to care for you spiritually.

And thank you for tuning in today. Tomorrow we are in Psalm 20. And then it's, I believe that episode drops on Good Friday.

And so it'll be good. Thanks for tuning in.