4-12-26 - O How I Love Your Law!

Good morning. It's good to have you all here with us. Good morning.

It's good to have It's good to have you all here with us. And the question, do you love God's law? Closely related. And as we read through our section today of Psalm 190, Now, I just want to make one quick aside as I talk about the law of God. And there are slight nuances, but it's not just we're not just thinking about the 10 comms, but the word of God as a whole.

And the verses show how this deep love of God's word plays out in a believers. And this is one of the reasons that I actually have wanted to preach through Psalm 190.

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what he thrived. Our daily God's word is life to us. Without God's word, we would shrivel

up and die spiritually. We would have no life.

We would have no life. We would have no life. And so my hope this morning is to challenge you and to encourage you to grow in a love for God's law. And that we would see its effect. In our lives.

And that we would see it work its way into every aspect of our lives. And a and a and a

and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a

and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a for they are I have more insight than all my teachers. For your testimonies are my More than the age, because I have observed your striking to me that the psalmist declares with such passion that he loves the law of God. I think we do not love laws. Because a law to us is viewed as restrictive. And restrictions are negative.

We don't necessarily mind the laws that affect people out there and people that are not and, specially if the law restricts behavior. We don't lie. Or if it's restricting things we don't care about. We think that what we want is what will make us happy. What will bring us But not so the Psalmist.

The Psalmist loves God's law, and he rejoices in it. The Solima's attitude towards God's law is one that can only be true of a twist. Or rejoice in it is because the law of God is judgment and death to the unbeliever. The reason the Christian loves the law of God is because to the Christian, it's It's

a joy.

For the unbeliever, the law requires perfect obedience. And they're uncapable of doing that. Judged. And they cannot understand up underneath it. For the You look into it and reflects the truth back to you.

The undeniable fact that you are a sinner and cannot save yourself and are in need of a The only man who was perfect and has ever kept the law perfect. Use is that it's a map. Not only is the law a mirror for us to reveal our need, but it's a the revelation of that sin in our lives is on and and and and and and and and and and and and and beauty is. Yeah. The as Christians, as we become conformed to the law of God, the word of were actually conformed to The man that and it can't be different because it actually flows from God himself.

And so, the law of God is and so, the law of God is and not love God and it is and so,

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do you love to do you Now, some of us may hear that question, and our honest answer would be something like, I want to. I wish I loved God's word. To become fire. Yeah. Yeah.

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your and your and your and your and your and your and your and your and your and your and your and your and

your and your and your and your and your and and it is what has given us. The holy spirit, work, and in God's word to us is what sparks life. Maybe better ask. How can we grow in our love for God's law? So there are three things, and this so there are three things, and this so there are three things, and this so there are three things,

and this so there are three things, and this so there are three things, and this so there are three things, and this so that I want us to walk through. And that

help us to grow in our love for God's law. The first what we're gonna talk about is that love for God's word leads us to meditation. Love for. And you will grow and understand. Obedience.

And you will be God. You will learn to love God and his word. And so, stripper. And so these things, as you practice them, will build and build. It's, it's incredibly powerful in the life of a stripper.

And so, when we try to begin to read the and to meditate on. Part of the reason that is, is because if we were actually to practice, what the psalmist declares in this, our lives would be incredibly. And we would have the power of a holy life given over to the service of who have said that they didn't believe it was necessary for them to be reading God's word. Many Christians struggle to be in God's word. It's consistent, but they always feel and think that it's a failure to not be a feeling to come before you begin to read his word and stories.

Even weak, distracted, and imperfect imperfect time in the world is often and it won't happen by neglecting it. It's rather by beginning the process of reading and studying his word that he will begin to warm our Yeah. Yeah time to communicate to you. A lot more so you. And to to to to to to to to to to to to spend time and meditate and think about the word of God.

One of the other reasons that we ought to be doing this and loving God is to think about is that his word is filled with. Amador, California without any direction, would you try driving there without directions? How many of you have ever heard of Amador, California? I didn't. No worries.

I just said, what is the smallest city in California? It's over 2,000 miles away. How many of you would try to drive there if your life depended on it without any directions? Well, the Bible is God's instruction to us. How to navigate through this life.

And you would be and you would be to say, So if we love God, we're going to be in his word. But how do we understand God's word. How do we understand what we read in scripture? How does it penetrate into our hearts and minds? Well, the first thing I want to say, as I've said it, is that the love of God does not start with Yeah.

It's a It's a It's a It's a It's a It's a It's a and and verse so that we begin to do the work of It's worth saying that meditating is not what are what the Bible means by meditation is not what you will get from social media. This eastern mystic where you have these mantras and you empty your mind and all this stuff. That is not Christian meditation. In the Bible, you're never commanded to empty your minds. Rather you're to fill them and renew them with God's word.

And so the picture to think about when we think about meditating is a stomach with four compartments, and it's to help them digest their food. And so they chew up their food and they swallow it, and they cough it back up, and they chew it some more, and they swallow it, and this this process, of swallowing it, but then it's not quite digestible, so they have to cough it up and chew it in more. That's meditation. We take a or two versus or a section, a story of We And we a 3 x 5 card in your pocket with versus a and then just pull that out and read it. We're seeking to understand God's law and what it is teaching.

How can I apply these verses to my life? So whenever you read scripture, ask those two. What does this teach me about? And what does it require? A.

Family worship, the Yeah. Your family worship, the Yeah. How fruitful will those discussions be with your Yeah. When you have digested God's

word so that you are able to just Yeah. See. And you have digested God's word so that you are able

to just Yeah. Feed it. Feed it. And then And then and then when you lack for a beneficial, fruitful, useful topic of conversation, How transformed would our conversations be after this is what was running through our minds constantly. The word of God.

What he's teaching us. And how rich would our fellowship be, and would it grow if this is how we spent and to reading through God's word and seeing what it has to When I was writing this, I was sitting upstairs in my bonus room, and we have these big windows. And you can see the chickens outside. And they were all out playing, and all of a sudden they all, like, ran in. It was weird.

They were it's very nice out, middle of the day. In a way because they were scared of this hawk, right? They're protected. They have a roof, whatever. And I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about, you know, there's scripture talks about sin and Satan running around like a roaring lion and fleeing temptation.

There's sin, there's the devil, there's the danger, and all the chitens, and for safety. Right? Just as in, and and making applications to it, to our lives. If you do this, if you give yourself over to the meditation of gods, First, he says, your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. Wiser than his enemies.

Oh, the idea that we have here is one of action. God's commandments will teach you what to do and how to do it. They will teach you what is good and what is bad. What to do, what to avoid, what is harmful. God's word will teach you how to act in life.

Crooked path. The wicked are consistently described throughout Proverbs in the Psalms as stevia, following crooked paths, setting up pits, and for the righteous man. But the righteous man avoids their pits and their snare because he walks according to God's command. And what happens is the wicked end up falling into their own. So that's earlier in Psalm 119, where he says the arrogant have dug pits for me.

Men who are not in a court with your law. If you are in a court with God's law, it helps you to avoid all of those pits and The enemies of a Christian are worldly people, and they may be very clever, very strategic, very persuasive, and whatever they're trying to sell you, and whatever they're trying to pull you in. They are focused on and and to the eternal consequences of their actions. Now, but the believer, who is shaped by scripture, he has eyes that are focused above. So you can see beyond the moment.

Verse is that they are with him. His his laws that God gives him are always with him. But it's there. It helps you. It guides you.

Helps you to navigate through all the pitfalls and the treacherousness of this. And to be careful that we don't become envious. Their line or their a Christian doesn't measure who wins in the moment. In the moment. We measure things by what leads to right justness.

What leads to what leads to greater holiness. And this is one of the verses that makes me think that maybe Daniel wrote Psalm 190. By all the wisest, magicians, and thinkers, and wise men, and the world at this time.

And

his

friends?

Why does God's commandments give him more

world?

We're trying to solve with awful solutions They don't understand where the wickedness in man's heart. That sin is not out there, but it's in here. It's our fallen nature. Right from our father Adam, not just external, stimuli. You cannot truly understand the world if you do not understand And it's Calvin starts his commentary by saying Do you need to know God or do you need to go man?

And he says, do you need you need to go man. And he says, you need to go man. And if you get God wrong, you'll get man. And the only way to truly understand that is to understand the truths which are and gods. Because true wisdom comes from God.

Proverbs says many times that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wrong, if you want to know what true justice is, then you have to know what God says. Just And I was thinking about this too with you guys who are in school or who are heading off to professors who do not know They will be very smart. They'll probably teach you a lot. They may be friendly and they may be good teachers, but beware that if they do not know God and his word their ideas, their solutions will be distorted.

And you will have a wisdom that they do not have. If your thinking in life is rooted and and so, Daniel, and so, the soma says, I am wiser than all my Right down the thoughts that you have when you read it. Call someone. Work through. Talk through what you're thinking.

See if how you're approaching subjects and issues in this world are actually Your approach and your reaction to them line up with what The psalmist goes on and he says, I understand more than the aged because I have observed your precepts. There is a correlation often, between age and wisdom. So often simply because of experience. When you've ridden a roller coaster a few times, you tend to know where the hills and the bomb all these different things. Right?

More. They've lived longer. They've experienced. But age and experience doesn't mean that you have a correct interpretation on what's going on. And we have this old saying, practice makes perfect, right?

Except Except it doesn't if you're practicing. And if you spend a longer time and error, you're just more proficient at the error.

Says.

Obedience actually produces a true And And yet you give yourself to the sin.

And yet, you give

yourself to the sin. Simple understanding does not just keep us from sin. It may help. But it doesn't just keep us from doing what we ought. However, obedience, even when we do not have a full understanding, will actually lead us to greater understanding.

Why? Because practice, obedience clarifies the truth. Think about this. So when I I took a welding class in in high school, and the first two weeks were just reading books about welding. Necessary because you're using explosive gas and very hot metal.

Like, you could really seriously hurt yourself if you don't know how to use an acetylene torch correctly. So you have to have all this teaching, right? And you have a for the first time or in a settling torch for the first time and try and use it. All of a sudden you see the disconnect between, theoretical understanding and actually putting into practice the things that you've been actually put it into practice. You'll actually begin to have a depth of understanding that you can never gain before actually acting and And then, yeah.

Obedience will align you with reality because God made the world and then he told us how best to operate with.

And then he told us how best to operate with. And then he told us how best to operate with. And then

he told us how best to operate with. And then he told us how best to operate with. And judged. So we think, oh, we understand. Understand.

The more sinful you are and the closer you are to your sin, the harder it is for you to even see Yeah. So you pursue holiness and righteousness and obdience. And then you actually may gain an Beats beats experience every time. Experience is the most costly teacher. There is the most costly teacher there.

To

and experiencing why God commands you not to do. That he's speaking to be more insightful and more understanding than his teachers and wiser than his enemies. This doesn't happen overnight. This won't happen tomorrow. You probably won't feel any wiser.

Well, the third point is that true wisdom produces a transformative life. You, remember back to when you were learning to drive, you're driving down the road, and then you see a, fire truck doing something, and you look at it, which way does it Wherever the driver looks. Right? Right that I might keep your word, it's the the meditating on God's word helps you to understand how to keep God's word. And then it helps you to actually walk down the right path because that's what's before your eyes.

That's what you're thinking. Do. Advertisers know this, right? They come up with And you all know exactly what I'm referring to, right? It's like they put these things so that it will get into your mind, so you'll desire things.

You'll be hungry when you're Yeah. You're consumed by the reading of God's word. What if that was what was always pouring out

of you? How would

that reshape your reshape your actions? Right? Because because what you're fixated on is what will shape how you act and interact with the world around you. One of my favorite parts of this psalm is, you yourself taught me. God and the person of the Holy Spirit is who teaches us.

Meditating on God's word by ourselves would be fruitless.

Understanding. And as obedience,

as we meditate and obey, obedience will take root in our lives. And something surprising will begin to happen. You give yourself over to obedience. This is so true. You'll love it.

Yeah. So it's what he says. Mouth. Like, as you begin to obey God, he will reshape and reform your desires. He will reshape what you love into the image of himself.

And the holiness that you thought was boring and stifled will become your delight. And you'll and this is tied to how it ends because he says, I hate every false way. I hate wickedness. You can't love goodness and wickedness. This is you say it's a weird psalm because he begins with, Oh, how I love your word.

And then he ends with hatred. Change your heart to where you love obedience. And as you begin to love God's word and love him, and you begin to love holiness, it will actually build in

you a hatred. Yeah. Yeah.

And they'll start out as What sins are you struggling with? What are your sins are you struggling to hate? The answer to killing it, in part at least, is to love God and obey him. Stop doing the sin. It's not to just conjure up a disgust for the sin.

Our culture is constantly trying to teach us to not be disgusted with sins. What should be normal and not normal, and what we should hate, and what we should love. Go to the word of God. Meditate on it. Learn to love God.

And that will reshape your and then anything else to help you obey and to hate. And then and then innocence. And If you are feeling like what the psalmist is saying does not describe your life, don't be discouraged. God grows us through the idea of growth implies ask God to grow in you a love for his word in your life. And then to love him in his ways.

And this will lead to a hatred of sin and of sinful ways and a greater love for God than we can imagine. That's right.