Would you turn with me to Psalm 119? Tonight we'll be in the first eight verses of this Psalm. While you're turning there, let me say a few words of introduction. When I was a boy, my father offered my brothers and me $176 if we memorized the entire 119th Psalm, a dollar for every verse. I'm not going to read every verse to you tonight. I didn't memorize those verses and earn that $176. I gave up somewhere around verse 12. But I do, not all was lost as it did leave an impression upon me as a boy and even as a young man. I often came back to this psalm, thought about it and considered it, but it also left me a little bit disturbed because it presents a picture of a man who is resolved to live his life in accordance with the word of God. And as I'd read it so many times throughout the years, I thought often about how far I fell short. And yet the psalmist, the man who wrote this psalm, was not unaware of these challenges. In fact, they were his own challenges, as we will see tonight. What he teaches us is what it looks like to live a life conformed to the Word of God. and how we might do that. So if you've found your place, would you follow along with me in Psalm 119, beginning in verse one, we'll read to verse eight. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently, Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me. Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we come to your word this evening and look to the 119th Psalm, we're reminded of your word and your law that you've given to us to show us how we might live rightly before you, how we might glorify you, how we might seek you and know you. We pray that you would teach us tonight. As the psalmist says, teach me, O Lord, your ways. We pray that you might open our hearts and open our eyes so that we might see and respond to the wondrous things in your word. We pray that you might illumine our minds to hear your word and become doers of your word, not mere hearers. I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, many Psalms begin with or include the phrase blessed is, and then some type of person. For example, the very first Psalm, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. The second psalm also tells us that those who take refuge in the Lord's anointed Son are blessed. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Psalm 32, one. Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven. We could go on and on. There are many similar verses throughout the psalms and throughout the scriptures, in fact, that pronounce a blessing. upon a certain type of person. As we come to Psalm 119, we see the same beginning. Here, God, through the psalmist, pronounces a blessing upon the person whose way is blameless. We're left with the question, though, what does it mean to live a blameless life? We look back at examples, particularly in the Old Testament, of men who were called blameless. Noah, for example, was blameless in his generation. And Job also was blameless in his generation. We think of examples like Joseph or Daniel, people who lived godly lives. And we know that, looking at their lives, we have specific examples of sin in many cases. And even where we lack the specific examples, we know that these men were all born as sons of Adam, born sinful. And yet they were called blameless in a certain respect. So, we ought not to conclude that to be blameless in the context of Psalm 119 means sinless perfection. If we think that, we'll misunderstand this passage. It won't encourage us, it'll discourage us. But rather, the psalmist explains for us what it means. The one who is blessed because he's blameless, because his ways blame us, is one who walks in the law of the Lord. Further, he's one who keeps the Lord's testimonies and who seeks God with all his heart. So what we see is not a picture of sinless perfection, but one who's conformed his life to God's word so that he seeks to live righteously, and when he sins, he deals with sin in accordance with God's word, in accordance with his law. More than this, he doesn't simply seek God out of duty. as though it were merely a responsibility because God told him to. He seeks him with his whole heart. There's a true heartfelt desire to know God and to be known by him. So what we see is the blameless man is one who has conformed his way to the word of the Lord so that he might know the Lord, that he might seek him, that he might imitate God. As we see, he says, This man does no wrong, but walks in all his ways." Now, commenting on this passage, John Calvin observed that all men naturally aspire after happiness. But instead of searching for it in the right path, they designedly prefer wandering up and down through endless bypaths to their ruin and destruction. What Calvin says there is that we want happiness. We want blessing. We want to be blessed. And yet, it is our natural tendency to search for it in all the wrong places. We want to find happiness in the things of this world, in the created things. Some of those things are good. Some of those things are neutral. Some of those things are sinful. But time and time again, we look back in our lives and we find ourselves seeking happiness apart from God and apart from his revealed word. And so we have to be reminded with these words, blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. The psalmist calls us back to a life lived in conformity to the scriptures. He doesn't call us to simply live some of the time according to the word of the Lord, but to walk in the law of the Lord. That is, it's to be the regular pattern of our life, that the scriptures govern the way we live, that we look to the scriptures for guidance and for wisdom, that we look to them as our rule for how we live, as we look to its laws and the commandments that we have to know what is right and what is wrong. that we look to its proclamations of God's promises, and the record of his mighty works, and how he brought salvation to his people time and time again throughout history, to know where we ought to place our trust, not putting our faith and our trust and our hope in the things of this world, but putting our faith and our trust in God as he's revealed himself in the scriptures. That person is blessed, the Lord says. It is a blessing to live a godly life. And yet, it doesn't always seem like a blessing, does it? You see, so often, we think that happiness is going to come through obedience, but that happiness that we put our hope in is still some kind of material thing, some thing in this world. We think that maybe by obeying God's word, we might earn his favor, and then he'll give us a better house, a better job, success in whatever ambition it is that we pursue. We wouldn't say that. We know that that's not right, but so often we live that way. And there are many in our culture who preach that, who proclaim that as though it were the word of God. Just trust him a little harder, and he'll give you the sports car that you so desire. Sounds crazy, but many preach it. Well, that's not unique to our situation. Turn over a little ways in the book of Psalms to Psalm chapter four. Here, David sees the same kind of situation in his own day. In Psalm chapter four, verse six and seven, he says, there are many who say who will show us some good. Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. It sounds okay, sounds like a good thing to say, until we read on and see exactly what they're asking for. He goes on writing, you have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and their wine abound. The picture that we see in Psalm 4 then is of people who, they hope in the Lord only as a means to satisfy their earthly desires, to satisfy their wants and their bellies, but they don't look to the Lord himself as the source of their joy. David says, I have more joy than they will ever have, as long as they hope in the things of this world. But we are indeed tempted to think that that is what blessing is. What I want you to see tonight is that a godly life in itself is a blessing. We'll see that for three reasons. We'll see that because a godly life is a gracious gift of God. Second, a godly life of faith and obedience is worthy of eternal honor. Thirdly, godly faith and obedience produces true and heartfelt worship. As we look then to the passage to see our three points, I want to say a few words about the law of the Lord and the ways in which the psalmist speaks about God's word. In fact, throughout Psalm 119, he uses many different synonyms to speak of God's word and God's law. He uses eight regularly. In every stanza, there are 22 stanza, every stanza includes at least six of these synonyms. And we see several of them here in this first stanza. He speaks of the law of the Lord, and also he speaks of keeping his testimonies. He says, you have commanded your precepts And he prays that God would enable him to keep his statutes. He speaks of having his eyes fixed on the Lord's commandments and desires to learn his righteous rules. The psalmist uses these terms interchangeably, but they don't have exactly the same meaning. They communicate different nuances about the word of the Lord. For example, when we think of the word testimonies, we're reminded of the testimony, the tablet of the testimonies that the people of Israel would put with the ark, that was a kind of testimony for or against them, and a testimony of God's character and his goodness and his justice and his holiness. Those who walked in God's way loved those testimonies, but those who rebelled against him Those testimonies testified against them, you see. Similarly, the law, the word here used for the law of the Lord, sometimes it refers to a specific commandment, sometimes it refers to a larger portion of Scripture, even Genesis through Deuteronomy. At times in Scripture, it's used simply to refer to all of Scripture. but it speaks to the fact that through scripture, God has shown us his character and his will for our lives. Whether it's in specific commandments or it's examples, or through some other means, we learn how we ought to live before him. Again, the word precepts. is often used in the context of a manager, an overseer, someone who would specifically guide his subordinates in a task and give them specific directions, pointing to the fact that God governs our lives in their specific details, according to his providence, and is interested in the intricate details of our lives. He's not some distant executive-level-like person who's not really involved in it. little details of the day-to-day of our lives. But he commands his precepts in the same way that a manager would manage the day-to-day details of his subordinates. And so in all of these examples and those that we don't have time to go into, they communicate some different aspect of God's word and some unique detail about the law of the Lord. But what I want you to take from that is I want you to see that when we think about the word, that God has given to us. We ought not to think of it as merely a list of rules. What I mean by that is this. Let me use a illustration. Think about our own constitution as a country. Is our constitution merely a bill of rights? Is it just 10 statements about what the government can never do to you? No. It's a much larger document, and legal scholars spend their lives studying it and considering how to apply it in the government of our country. It's an extraordinary document. What I'm doing is taking you from a lesser imperfect document to the greater perfect document, the Word of God that He's given to us. You could spend your entire life reading it, studying it, and you will never plumb its depths. You will never know all that God has revealed. You'll never perfectly apply it. It's incredible, it's beautiful, it's wondrous. We ought not to think of it as simply a list of rules, or some mundane thing that, as one person said to me once, I learned all that stuff in Sunday school, as though we could learn God's word as a child and never have anything left to learn. We ought to rather think of it the way that the author of Psalm 119 thinks of it. In verse 96, when he writes these words, I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad. Think of a thing that you might call perfect, yet there is a limit to how perfect it can be. And yet, though he says, I've seen the limit of all perfection, yet the Lord's commandments, he sees no limit to its perfection. We ought to regard the word this way and ought to regard the scripture this way. And I say that, Because as we look to this passage and think about how we ought to conform our lives to the word of God, we need to understand that it's more than simply a list of rules or something that you could master as a child. It's something that is beautiful and should cause us to wonder and marvel at the God who inspired it. So let's look then and see, before we look at the three reasons, I want to bring up two possible objections. As we look at three reasons why it's a blessing to live a godly life, there are two possible objections we need to deal with. The first is, we look at these statements, these lines in Psalm 119, and we say, it's impractical. Is it really possible to live a life like this? Maybe if you withdrew from society and you lived out maybe in a monkish enclave, didn't engage with the world, but for regular people, it seems impossible. The second objection is that it's simply untrue. Look around and we see people who seem to be godly and their lives aren't great. by our estimation, but then we look around and we see people who live however they want. The rich, the powerful, the famous. They seem to have everything. Even the people of God are persecuted in many places. And the thought lingers in our minds and we want to ask, is this blessing? Is it really blessed to walk in the law of the Lord? Well, let's answer these objections then as we look at our three reasons. First, it is a blessing to live a godly life of faith and obedience because it's a gift from God. Look at verse four and five. You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. Notice how the psalmist thinks of God's command. He gives him a command that you look at and you say, how could I ever do this? You said, keep your precepts diligently, and yet day after day, I fail. What is his response? Despair? No. His response is to go to the Lord who commanded obedience and pray that God would enable him to do it. Oh, that my way may be steadfast. in keeping your statutes. We see this again, for example, in verses 33 and following. Teach me, O Lord, the psalmist writes, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways. Do you see the idea, do you see the theme that recurs? The psalmist depends on the Lord to enable him to live this kind of life because he knows that the only way that he can do it is if God graciously allows him and enables him and gives him this sanctifying gift of obedience. And it's true for us too. We don't sanctify ourselves. As Paul taught the Galatians, we began in the spirit. He asked them, do you continue in your own power? No. We continue in faith and obedience by the spirit of God. We can't do these things unless God is working in us to do them. We can't walk according to his law. We can't even understand his word unless he opens our eyes to see the wondrous things that are in it. So that's the first reason why it is a blessing to live a godly life, because it's a gift that God himself gives us. And that goes to our first objection. Is it practical? In your own power, no. But in the power of the Lord who promises to sanctify us from one degree of glory to another, all things are possible. Second reason. why it is a blessing to live a godly life is because it's worthy of eternal honor. This goes to our second objection. I said, if you look at the world, we see people who don't live godly lives, and we see that they seem to have it all. And it's easy to say, we want to reject it, we know it's wrong, but in the back of our minds, isn't that a better way of life? Maybe that's the way I should go. Maybe that's the abundant life. But we must understand that all of the Psalms are written from an eternal perspective. Turn over to Psalm chapter one. It's very similar to Psalm 119. I cited the first two verses earlier. But look as, let me read it again and you'll see this eternal perspective. Trust. Psalmist writes, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree, planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff, that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Do you see the eternal perspective that David applies to that passage? The righteous, the one who meditates on the law, the Lord is like a tree, a fruitful tree. He's steady. He's by streams of water, he's well nourished. And the wicked are like what? Chaff, driven away by the wind. What you see then is as he looks forward to the day when God will judge the earth, he says they will not stand among the people of God. They will not be able to stand in the judgment. for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. That perspective is applied in Psalm after Psalm. As we see David, for example, in the midst of suffering, he then looks toward the day when God will judge all sin, when God will redeem his people, and he puts his trust in him, knowing that that day will come. And so too here in Psalm 119, He says, then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. In Psalm 4, which we won't go back to again, but before the verses we read, David asks this question, oh men, how long will my honor be turned into shame? See, in his context, he lived in the time when the things that were honorable, the things that, the fact that he lived a godly life, that he was faithful, people considered that to be shameful. They considered it to be stupid. They wanted to kill him for it. And he says, how long will my honor be turned into shame? But know, he says, but know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. See that internal perspective. So too here, the psalmist looks forward to a day, then I will not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. Because he knows that the one who walks faithfully, trusting in the Lord, walking according to his word, when the Lord returns, that person will be redeemed. that person will stand, not in his own righteousness, but in a righteousness given to him through the Son, Jesus Christ. And so to live a godly life is a blessing because though it may be considered shameful in our world, it's worthy of eternal honor. Thirdly, it's a blessing to live a godly life because it produces heartfelt worship. Look at verse seven. He says, I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules. Earlier, we saw that the one who seeks the Lord with his whole heart is one who is blessed. Notice how the psalmist is concerned for true worship that comes from the heart. Notice how he seeks the Lord, not out of duty, Not because someone said, just do it. No, because he wants to, because he loves the Lord, because his commandments are a joy to him. I suspect we all know what it feels like to engage in dutiful worship. You know what it feels like to come to church on Sunday, go through the motions, sing the hymns, take some notes during the sermon, Our mind is elsewhere. Our heart's not really in it. And it drains you. You don't go away feeling joyful. You don't go away feeling like God has rejuvenated you. You just go away feeling, kind of, what did I do that for? We also know what it feels like to join in a fellowship of believers and worship God from our whole heart. What a joy that is. We wish it could go on forever. That's the kind of joy that we're after. And that's the kind of joy that flows from a godly life. The kind of heartfelt worship that rejoices the soul. The kind of heartfelt worship that makes us glad in the Lord, that makes us rejoice in our Redeemer. It's a blessing to live that kind of life. Well, in closing, I want to speak to the fact that we ought not to regard this as though the psalmist is telling us we somehow earn our favor or come into relationship with God by obeying his rules. Trepper Longman writes these words, neither in the Old Testament nor the New Testament is the law the key to establishing a relationship with God, for that is an act of God's grace in our lives. However, the law is an expression of the character and will of God, and we maintain our relationship with him by keeping it. What we see there is that even in the Old Testament, The people of God were in relationship with God by His grace and by His grace alone. Because He chose to make a covenant with them and to draw them out from in the midst of the earth. Just as in the New Covenant, God has graciously chosen to draw us out and make us His people through His Son, Jesus Christ. And nothing in Psalm 119 contradicts that. But it's also true that when we turn and we rebel against the Lord, we refuse to follow his word. We don't feel the joy. We don't sense the nearness that we once enjoyed with him. Apostle John in his first epistle writes about this when he speaks about a condemning heart. He says that if we're walking according to the Lord's commandments, then we don't have a condemning heart. We have confidence. But if our heart does condemn us, we have someone who we can turn to. We have a perfect savior who is our mediator, our intercessor, the one who atones for our sin before the Lord. And so he gives Christ to us. He puts him forward as the one to look to when we don't feel this blessedness, when we wander. If we want to walk according to the law of the Lord, we can't simply rely on obeying all his commandments all the time because we will fail. But bear in mind that the law provided the remedy for sin. just as the Old Testament law pointed forward to Christ with the sacrificial system and commanded the people of Israel to deal with their sin in a particular way. So now in the fullness of Revelation, we know that the way in which we deal with sin is through repentance and turning and returning to the Lord through Jesus Christ, trusting that his death for our sin was sufficient to pay our penalty and to reconcile us to our creator. If we do that when we sin, if we deal with our sin in that way, then we're walking in accordance with the law of the Lord, you see. And so we need to understand this rightly, because if we understand it wrongly, it will discourage us. It'll cause us to rest in our own strength and our own power, which is a remedy for disaster. But if we understand it rightly, And we understand that God has provided all we need to live a godly life. And He knows our frame, He knows our weakness, and He's provided the remedy for our sin. So look to Him. Finally, let me say this in closing. As we reflect on the sermon this morning and the sermons that we've heard in the last few weeks from the Gospel of Luke, One of the things that strikes me as I observe Jesus' life is how he internalized the word of God and lived it. When we say he's blameless, we mean it in the perfect sense. Every time I read the Psalms and I think about the gospels and their testimony to the life of Jesus, I'm struck by how here is one who lived in accordance with the law of the Lord. perfectly. What did he do when he was tempted? He returned to the word of the Lord. He relied upon the word of his father. He relied upon the goodness, mercy, and justice of God. When he was attacked, what did he do? He entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. Do you see how Jesus lives the perfect life that we cannot live? When we look to passages like this in the Psalm and we see this picture of a godly person and we see how far we fall short, look to Christ who did not fall short, whose righteousness is for you. And the Lord says in this passage, blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk in the law of the Lord. But the one who perfectly walked in the law of the Lord was cursed, not blessed for us. He became a curse for us so that this could be true of us, you see. So as we go forth from here then, we remember the one who was blameless for us, who paid for our sin, promises us life forever, and promises us the spirit that we might be sanctified in Him, so that when we read passages like Psalm 119, we may be encouraged. We may be encouraged as we walk according to the word of the Lord. We know that it's from God, and where we fail, we know that like the psalmist, we can cry out to the Lord and say, do not utterly forsake me. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we rest upon your son who paid our debt. We know that we fall far short in so many ways when we consider your law, your commandments, your precepts. When we look at passages like Psalm 119 and we see the resolve exemplified by the psalmist here, to keep your statutes and to praise you with an upright heart. We're struck by our lack of resolve to honor you and to follow your will. But we know that we have a great savior, your son, who you sent for us. In those moments of failure, Lord, turn us back toward him in repentance and faith. that we might find our trust always and forever, the one who was blameless for us. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.