Pastor Fredo Ramos: Today, as we continue praying the Psalms, we come finally now to Psalm 119, the longest Psalm in the entire book. And we'll read a few, portions of this passage together. Starting up there in verse one, joyful are people of integrity who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. They do not compromise with evil and they walk only in his paths.
You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully. Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees. Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands. As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should. Verse nine.
How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. I have tried hard to find you. Don't let me wander from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Verse 33. Teach me your decrees, o lord. I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions. I will put them into practice with all my heart.
Make me walk along the path of your commands for that is where my happiness is found. I love verse 35. They locate their joy and happiness in their obedience to the word of God. What a what a statement for us to reflect on today. Verse 40, I long to obey your commandments.
Renew my life with your goodness. Verse 49, remember your promise to me. It is my only hope for your promise revives me. It comforts me in all my troubles. The proud hold me in utter contempt, but I do not turn away from your instructions.
I meditate on your age old regulations. Oh, Lord, they comfort me. I've become furious with the wicked because they reject your instructions. Your decrees have been the theme of my songs wherever I have lived. Verse 57, Lord, you are mine.
I promise to obey your words. Down in verse 81, I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word. My eyes are straining to see your promises come true. When will you comfort me? I am shriveled up like the wine skin in the smoke, but I have not forgotten to obey your decrees.
Down at verse 89, your eternal word, o o lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness your faithfulness extends to every generation as enduring as the earth you created. Down in verse 97. Oh, how I love your instructions. I think about them all day long.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies for you are my constant guide. Yes, I have more insight than my teachers. Why? For I am always thinking about your laws. Later on in verse 45, I pray with all my heart, answer me Lord.
I will obey your decrees. I will cry out to you, rescue me that I may obey your laws. I rise early before the sun is up. I cry out for help and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night thinking about your promise.
In your faithful love, oh, Lord, hear my cry. Let me be revived by following your regulations. Psalm one nineteen, as many of you know, it's the longest Psalm, in the book itself, a 76 verses. It's structured around the Hebrew alphabet so that every new main line in the Psalm begins with the next letter of the Hebrew the Hebrew alphabet. And when you come to just sit with this Psalm, you realize that this is a poem that's really like a love letter to God's word.
The Psalmist is infatuated with the words of God, with his laws, with his decrees, with his regulations. And what I wanna draw out for us today is just this unique relationship between how you might be feeling today and what you've been thinking about today. You see the Bible as it describes the human as both mind, body, and soul, a whole person. Right? So much of how we're feeling is very much informed and shaped by what we've been thinking about.
In other words, as you read through Psalm one nineteen, you come to discover that they are in love with the word of God and their feelings towards it, you know, they describe it as rich like honey. It opens their eyes. It revives their heart. They wake up early. They stay up late to read it.
Right? Like, they they are in love with God's word. Why? Because they have spent time meditating on it. In our current age, we live in moments where we, skim the surface of articles.
We swipe quickly through statements. We have such a low tolerance for meditation, for slow long form meditation. So Psalm one nineteen comes to us today as this ancient old word that says slow down and think. Slow down and take in the word of God so that your thinking will then begin to revive your feeling around God's word. One of the great challenges of the Christian life and even in my own life as I follow Jesus for years now is having a difficult relationship to the word of God and realizing that, man, I want to get to a place where the psalmist is, where they are in love with the word of God and they love to see it shape their thinking, change their feeling, keep them up at night, wake them up early to dive in and hear the very voice of God speak to them and renew them.
And so Jesus, we hear you now inviting us to respond with that prayer. And we pray God that your word would be a lamp into our feet and that it would keep our paths straight, that it would keep our hearts pure, and that it would renew our very souls. That our happiness would be rooted in obeying your word. And so Jesus, we confess today that we are not always people of your word, that oftentimes we miss you. And even though we might search the scriptures, we don't go slow enough to allow the scriptures to search us.
And so would you now begin to change the way we relate to your word so that we might fall again, fall in love again, not just with scripture, but with the God of scripture. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.